Page:Turkey, the great powers, and the Bagdad Railway.djvu/196

 *[Footnote: tendency which characterized Italian politics from the days of Cavour to the outbreak of the Great War. Undoubtedly, also, there was an economic side to the question. It will be recalled that Italian trade with the Ottoman Empire grew more rapidly than that of any other power after the opening of the twentieth century. (Supra, pp. 105-106.) This growth was due, in no small degree, to the earlier rise of Italian missionary activity in Turkey. This growth of missions and schools, as well as of commercial establishments, was irritating to patriotic Frenchmen. Cf. two articles by René Pinon, "Les écoles d'Orient," in ''Questions diplomatiques et coloniales'', Volume 24 (1907), pp. 415-435, 487-517. Italian missionaries, charged M. Pinon, were encouraged in every way to ignore the French protectorate, appealing only to Italian diplomatic and consular representatives. "Official Italy, Catholic and papal Italy, free-mason Italy and clerical Italy, all are working together in a common great patriotic effort for the spread of the Italian language and the rise of the national power" (p. 500). Annoying as this is, says M. Pinon, it should be "a singular lesson for certain Frenchmen!" That there was no love lost on the Italian side of the controversy may be gathered from an analysis of the Italian press comments which appeared in Questions diplomatiques et coloniales, Volume 37 (1914), p. 495.]