Young Turk party as set forth in their Congress of 1911. 'Turkey must
become a really Mohammedan country, and Moslem ideas and Moslem
influence must be preponderant.... Sooner or later the complete
Ottomanisation of all Turkish subjects must be effected: it is clear,
however, that this can never be attained by persuasion, but that we must
resort to armed force.'

There is the text that was expanded into the discourse of murder; it is
the definition of a policy. Within a few years there followed the
European War, and that probably was the immediate cause of its being put
into effect. No more admirable opportunity for Ottomanisation could
present itself, for the entry of Turkey into the war was most unpopular
with the bulk of the Turkish population, and it was advisable to bribe
them into acceptance of it. The bribe was the houses, the property, the
money and the trade that throughout the length and breadth of Turkey was
in Armenian hands. For the Armenians were by far the wealthiest of the
alien populations, and some 90 per cent. of Turkish trade passed through
their shops and offices. Here, then, was the psychological moment:
Turkey for the Turk was the aim of the Committee of Union and Progress,
and with a discontented population, unwilling to fight, the moment had
come for restoring to the Turk this mass of property which at present
belonged to an alien race. War might have its drawbacks and its clouds,
but war would be seen to have its advantages and its silver linings, if
out of it there came this legacy of Armenian wealth. And by the same
stroke Turkey could get rid of those thousands of meddlesome
missionaries, American and French, who spread religion and learning and
other undesirable things among the cursed race. Once remove the cursed
race, and there would be an end of their instructors also, for there
would be none to instruct. 'Thanks to their schools,' so we read in the
_Hilal_, an organ of the Young Turks, 'foreigners were able to exercise