Page:The Rebirth Of Turkey 1923.pdf/75

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equal suffrage for all the races of the Empire, was proclaimed from the Throne. Abdul's exiles came trooping home to find Moslem hojas and Orthodox clergy embracing each other and shouting for the Padishah. The magic of that Western word "Constitution" blended all the Empire in a transport of joy. The Young Turks were swept into the Government on a wave of rejoicing.

But the Caliph and the Emperor of India had parted company. Attempts to interest the British Government in the possibilities of Young Turkish achievement definitely failed. The fate of the Ottoman Empire had been settled far outside its own frontiers. Before an Anglo-Russian entente, its end was only a matter of time. Already the name of Constantine had been introduced into the Russian Imperial Family. With the Defender of the Faith and the Caliph now posed in opposition, the way was opened at last for the Church of England to open theological disquisitions at the Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow, which looked toward the setting up of the joint capital of the two communions in Constantinople.

The Young Turks had won over the Army with ease, but they had not won over the silent mass of conservative Old Turkish opinion in which lay the real strength of Abdul Hamid. Four months after their new Parliament had assembled under the revived Constitution, the Old Turks suppressed it and Constantinople troops scattered the deputies with shouts of "Sheriat!" (Moslem law). Mahmoud Shevket Pasha, with the young Kemal as his Chief of Staff, immediately marched on Constantinople with the Third Army from Salonica, and in less