Page:Syria and Palestine WDL11774.pdf/55

 having been made since. This took place in 1887, when an access of nerves about Jewish colonisation and the imminence of railway construction (the Jaffa—Jerusalem line, first mooted as long ago as 1864, was definitely sanctioned in 1888), caused Abdul Hamid to detach the Jerusalem sanjak from the vilayet of Syria and make it depend directly on the Porte. Even the irreconcilable Druses of the Hauran were forced by Midhat to accept a kaimakam depending directly on Damascus, and to send representatives to his mejliss. But this dose of law and order was sweetened by the choice of the officer from the native house of Atrash, and by the renunciation of taxes and military service for the time being.

Relapse owing to Franco-German and Russo-Turkish Wars.—Further efforts to knit Syria to Constantinople and further steps in its internal development would, doubtless, have taken place but for two great wars and the intervening bankruptcy of Turkey. The catastrophe of France in 1870 relieved the Porte of its chief apprehension about the Arab-speaking part of its Empire; the financial crisis of 1874 cut short all reform; and the Russian war of 1877 produced on the outlying provinces much the same effect as had been coincident with the war in the Crimea. The Hauran Druses once more threw off the shadow of dependence. Eastern and central Syria became a happy hunting ground of nomads and other highwaymen. The Kurds again did as they liked in the north, and so did the Ansarie in their mountains. Only the Lebanon remained undisturbed. Then came the Treaty of Berlin, the consolidation of Abdul Hamid's position, after storms of constitutional revolution and war had subsided, and the inauguration of that Asiatic policy by which he looked to redress the balance of Europe.

Abdul Hamid's Policy.—In this policy Syria was the most vital province, as it has always been in the policy of Asiatic Empires which have tried to hold under one yoke Irak, Arabia, and Egypt. It is true