Page:Turkey, the great powers, and the Bagdad Railway.djvu/289

 Smyrna-Aidin Railway met with vehement denunciation on the part of patriotic Italians who looked forward to the further development of Italian economic influence in the hinterland of the port of Adalia. The Italian press loudly demanded that energetic action be taken by the Government to secure from Turkey compensatory concessions or, in default of that, to announce to the Sublime Porte that Italy would not return to Turkey the Dodecanese Islands, of which Italy was in temporary occupation under the terms of the Treaty of Lausanne (1912). A formal demand of this character was made by King Victor Emmanuel's ambassador at Constantinople, but was met with a curt refusal on the part of the Turks to bargain for the return of their own property.[35]

The Young Turks were not unaware of the true character of the agreements they had entered into with the respective European Powers, but they considered them-*selves impotent to act otherwise at the time. They knew full well that there was grave danger in an extension of British influence in Mesopotamia, French interests in Syria, and Franco-Russian enterprise in northern Anatolia. They had not forgotten the spoliation of their empire by Austria-Hungary and Italy. They were not altogether unsuspicious about the intentions of Germany. But they believed they could never emancipate their country from foreign domination until they had modernized it. They needed foreign capital and foreign technical assistance, and they had to pay the price. In order to throw off the yoke of European imperialism they had to consent temporarily to be victimized by it.[36]

Nationalistic fervor added to the difficulties created by imperialist rivalry. M. André Tardieu, political editor at the time of Le Temps, did not let a single opportunity pass during February and March, 1914, to denounce the French Government for its pro-German policy in the Bag