Page:The Rebirth Of Turkey 1923.pdf/103

 they conferred a diplomatic status on all Westerners in the Empire, attaching them to their own Consulates instead of to the Ottoman Government in whose country they lived. They were abrogated by the Enver Government on Sept. 28, 1914, in a unilateral declaration which the Central Powers were not in a position to prevent and against which the Allied Powers could only register their protests.

But the Capitulations were more than merely a legal process. They constituted a mental attitude toward the Ottoman Government. They made it the Western habit to disregard that Government and to establish Western contacts with its subjects quite independently of the fixed and existing relationships of the country. Under the Capitulations, the West long ago established contact with the Ottoman Government's Christian subjects and a code of governmental conduct was unwittingly built up which the West has applied to that Government alone. Under this code, any Ottoman Christian was given the right to rebel against the Government but the Government, although it was the only body charged with the maintenance of peace in the country, was denied the right to put down Christian rebellion. This code the West has applied to no other Government. Orthodox Russia has repeatedly stamped out Moslem rebellion in Central Asia with as great brutality as the Ottoman Government has ever used against its Christians, but the code which the West has applied to the Ottoman Government it has never applied to Russia. The West has never acquired the habit of disregarding the Russian Government in the country in which it was charged with the duty of administration. Russia is a mod