PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS IN TURKEY SINCE THE ...

vi INTRODUCTION
that they might forestall the intervention of the Great
Powers, and might thus be able to accomplish their program,
in accordance with which Turkey was to be
changed from an Empire of several nations into a single
National Empire, unified and compact. It is in this
scheme of the Young Turks, by which a Turkey politically
and economically independent and nationally united
was to be created, that we must seek to account for the
dangers to which, from the establishment of the constitution,
the nationalities living under Turkey were subjected.
In order to bring about the realization of the schemes
of the Young Turks it was necessary that free institutions
should be adopted so that the sympathy of the
Christian nationalities and of the Great Powers might
be secured for the new government, and this in spite
of the fact that the great majority of the Turkish people
was not ripe for the reception of such institutions.
Naturally, therefore, and without any difficulty those
young Turks who were directing affairs almost immediately
returned to the Turkish custom of managing things
through the use of force, the only available means by
which they could maintain their supremacy over the
subject peoples.
This tendency, which showed itself at once in active
operation, is clearly set forth by Mr. Rene Pinon in his
treatise " Europe and the Young Turks."
" The theories with regard to equality," he says (p.
123), "serve now only as a veil for European eyes and
as a fair pretext for depriving the Christians of those
old ' privileges ' which heretofore had compensated them
for their position of inequality with the Turks; as a
pretext, that is, for doing away with their courts of
special jurisdiction, for destroying their national organizations,
for closing their schools and for hindering the
cultural development of the non-Turkish populations."
This active policy of the Young Turks of the Mussulman