Page:Russian Realities and Problems - ed. James Duff (1917).djvu/26

 Ottoman Empire begins with the real growth of the Balkan nationalities, and fantastic schemes and combinations are soon eliminated by substituting for them real solutions. The only trouble, which is a new one, is to find just where the ethnographic frontiers go. Populations are mixed, claims are uncertain,—and a new and internal struggle begins between the Balkan nationalities themselves. Their original and lofty aim—that of national unification—gradually assumes the shape of new aspirations towards an "equilibrium of power," while ethnographic frontiers begin to, serve only as a pretext covering hidden tendencies towards hegemony and domination.

Let us now, for a time, put aside the far-reaching designs of European conquerors and diplomatists in the Balkans. Let us even forget dynastic intrigues, favoured or hampered by the reigning families of Europe. Let us review the double and elementary process of Turkish decay and of national awakening in the Balkans. What exactly was the principal cause of the destruction of Turkey? The answer may be partly found in what has been said already. But I want to impress it on you by the aid of an English book which, according to my view, is undeservedly forgotten, and which I wish particularly to recall to your minds at the present time: I mean Prof. Edward Freeman's book on The Ottoman Power in Europe, which was written on the eve of the Berlin congress of 1878,—and met at the time with a rather unfriendly reception. It might have been written to-day. This is what Freeman says: "The presence of the Turk in Europe is incidental. They remain at the end of 500 years as