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TURKEY

1956

TURKEY

square miles, with a population of 17,683,-500, consisting of some 4,000,000 Arabs, besides Turks, Greeks, Kurds, Circassians, Armenians and Jews. It stretches from the Black Sea to Arabia and the Mediterranean and from the ^Egean to Persia. A part of Arabia, Samos, Tripoli (including Benghazi) and Egypt are Turkish dependencies.

Surface. Turkey proper has a great extent of coast, broken by bays, gulfs and islands, with many fine harbors. The Dead Sea in Palestine and Lake Van in Armenia are among its many large salt-lakes. The Taurus and Anti-Taurus ranges and the Syrian mountains are among its principal ranges, while a large part of what before the Balkan war was European Turkey is mountainous, and in Asiatic Turkey elevated plains abound.

Climate. The winters are cold in the mountainous districts, but warm in the sheltered valleys, and the summers very hot, especially in Syria and Asia Minor. Very little rain falls from April to September, and many plains need irrigation to be cultivated. The highest peaks reach the region of perpetual snow.

Resources. The minerals are copper, lead, alum, silver, emery, niter, iron and coal, though many of the mineral resources are still undeveloped. In European Turkey the rose is extensively cultivated, and the attar is an article of commerce. The trees of Asiatic Turkey — the cedar, Cyprus, sycamore, mulberry, olive, fig, citron, orange and pomegranate — differ from the fir, pine, almond, walnut, chestnut, peach and plum-trees most abundant in European Turkey. There are 250 species of birds and many wild animals. It is a rich country with great resources, but still undeveloped.

Government and Religion. The religion of Turkey is Islam, and the Koran is the law. The sultan or head of the government is looked upon as the successor of Mahomet; and his will is absolute, so far as it is not in opposition to the Koran or to the Mul-teka, the writings of Mahomet and his immediate successors. There are 2,120 mosques in the empire, of which 379 are in Constantinople alone. Four wives are allowed by the Koran, but most of the people are too poor to support more than one. The Christians of Turkey, found in the Greek, Armenian, Protestant and Roman churches, and the Jews are all tolerated as independent sects by the government, though often bitterly opposed to each other. Turkey is governed by the sultan, with two chief officers appointed by him, the grand vizier, the head of temporal affairs, and the Sheik-ul-Islam, the head of the church. There is a council, which corresponds to the British cabinet. The divisions of the country are called vilayets (governments), sanjaks (provinces) and kazas (districts). The present sultan is Mehmed V.

ninth of the house of Othman, the twenty-ninth sultan since the conquest of Constantinople (1453). All children born in the royal harem are considered heirs to the throne, whether the children of free women or of slaves, and the crown passes to th© male descendants of Othman according to age. The standing army numbers 350,000 men, and military service is requirea of all able-bodied Mohammedans, while all others pay an exemption-tax. The navy has about 50 vessels, including 18 iron-clad ships of inferior class.

Education. The Koran and the Multeka encourage public education, so that public schools have long been established in most of the prominent towns, while colleges with public libraries are attached to the principal mosques. At Constantinople are the Great National school (Greek), founded in 1870, a university founded in 1900, an imperial art-school, law, military and engineering schools and a naval school on an island in the Sea of Marmora. The Christian communities have good institutions, among them Robert College at Constantinople and the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut.

History. The Ottoman empire is the successor of the Byzantine empire (q. v.), and was founded by Othman or Osman who conquered Nicsea and other districts, and succeeded to the power of the Seljuk sultans. Adrianople was taken in 1361 by his grandson. Mohammed II (q. v.) after a siege of 53 days took Constantinople and ended the Byzantine kingdom on May 29, 1453. Solyman the Magnificent (q. v.) continued the conquests of his predecessors and brought Turkey to its highest military power. During his son's reign the Turks lost the battle of Lepanto. Under his successors the Turkish power was reduced by such generals as Montecuculi, Sobieski and Prince Eugene. (See JOHN II OF POLAND and EUGENE). The loss of the Crimea and the regions north of the Black Sea, the conquest of Egypt by Bonaparte and its resulting war with France increased the troubles of the country. The revolt of the janizaries ended with a terrible struggle and massacre in 1826. At Navarino, Oct. 20, 1827, the Turkish fleet was destroyed, and in 1820 Greece became independent. Between 1840 and 1867, exclusive, Egypt (q. v.) became practically independent. In 1840 Turkey was admitted into the political system of European states, and since that time her power has been strengthened by the alliance of other nations, as by England, France and Sardinia in 1854 in the Crimean War against Russia and. by the French and English in the conflicts between the Druses and Maronites at Damascus and in the Lebanon (q. v.). In 1875 Bosnia (q. v.) and Herzegovina revolted against Turkish misrule, and a year later there were uprisings in Bulgaria (q. v.),