Page:The Rebirth Of Turkey 1923.pdf/252

 *Hungary immediately annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bulgaria proclaimed its independence. Insurrections began in Albania in which Austria-Hungary was not disinterested and in Kurdistan in which Czarist Russia was not disinterested. The Italians landed in Tripoli and the First Balkan War brought the Bulgarians to the Chatalja lines behind Constantinople, putting an end not only to any attempt at Young Turkish reform but almost to the existence of the Empire. In the Western view, this sort of thing constituted Ottoman reform, and in 1914 the Anglo-Russian combination closed on the Empire and reformed it out of existence. The Sevres Treaty in 1920 finally wrote the last chapter in the story of Western reform by proposing to hand over the richest provinces of the Turkish country to Greeks and Armenians while denying the Turks any right whatever to an independent existence. The Sevres Treaty was and still is a full and complete definition of the word "reform" when applied by Allied diplomacy to Turkish lands.

In the meantime, the Young Turks abrogated the Capitulations in 1914 and with their hands untied for the first time in their modern history, a number of other reforms followed in rapid succession despite the fact that they were engaged in a world war. When Rauf Bey met Admiral Calthorpe at Mudros to apply for an armistice in 1918, he stipulated that the abrogation of the Capitulations would have to be recognized, but the first act of the Allies upon occupying Constantinople was to re-impose the Capitulations and to undo every reform which the Young Turks had succeeded in making. Within a few months, the Greek oc