the first Armenian massacres, made his request of the Sultan for the
establishment in Turkey of German colonists, but working underground,
sapping and mining like a mole. For Germany, her mind already fixed on
securing Turkey as an instrument of her Eastern policy, wanted a strong
Turkey, and without doubt desired to bring an end to the disorganisation
and decay of the Empire, and create and at the same time interpenetrate
an efficient state that should be useful to her. We may take it for
granted that she, like the rest of Europe, welcomed any sign of
regeneration in the Ottoman Empire, but there was an ulterior purpose
behind that. Turkey, already grasped by the Prussian hand, must be in
that hand a weapon fit for use, a blade on which she could rely. She
strengthened the Turkish army by the introduction of Prussian
discipline, and worked on good material. Already she has realised her
ambition in this respect, and now controls the material which she then
worked on.

The troubled years of the Balkan wars which followed this false dawn,
coupled with the loss of all the territory which remained to the Ottoman
Empire in Europe, with the exception of Thrace, caused an immediate
reaction from the open-minded policy of the Young Turks, if we decide to
credit them at the outset with a sincere purpose. Organisation by a
slightly different spelling became Ottomanisation, and the aims of the
Young Turks were identified with those of the Nationalist party which
followed out and developed into a finished and super-fiendish policy the
dreams of Abdul Hamid. He, as we have seen, had invented the idea of
securing Ottoman supremacy in the Empire, not as before by absorption of
the strength of its subject peoples, but by their extermination, and
this formed part of the new programme which was to be more efficiently
administered. Already, in 1909, the experimental massacre at Adana took
place, and the Young Turk party, with its possibly Liberal aims, had