rks. He played, in
fact, on whichever side he thought to gain something for himself. He
managed to be one of the three who took the fatal message to the
terrified Sultan, and spoke the words: "Abdul, the nation hath
pronounced thee deposed!" Thus dramatically avenging the murder of
his brother Gani fifteen years before, very completely. Abdul went,
and with him went the Empire. He had lived a life of terror, and
played a long game of "bluff." But those who knew him intimately
declare that his success with the Powers depended more on the way
they outwitted each other than on his skill as a diplomatist. Recent
revelations have shown us that the much talked of intrigues of the
East are child's play compared to the plans built by the West.

Hitherto all that went wrong in Turkey was ascribed to Abdul Hamid.
The Young Turks had now no scapegoat, and were in a perilous
position with foes within and without. They resolved, therefore,
that the only way to consolidate the Empire was to forcibly
Ottomanize the population as fast as possible. But it was too late
by many years for this. The Balkan States had expended huge sums on
propaganda in Turkish territory, and knew that if their oft-repeated
demands for reform were carried out, all their plans for territorial
aggrandizement would be ruined. They fitted out bands and hurried on
propaganda. The Serbs had started the Narodna Odbrana society, and
opened a school in which officers trained komitadji bands, taught
bomb throwing, train wrecking, mining, and shooting, to volunteers.
These were designed primarily for attack on Austria to avenge the
annexation of Bosnia. They acted also with ferocity in Macedonia
against the Bulgars. Serbia, whose propaganda in Macedonia was very
recent, tried to make up now, by planting schools and sending forth
komitadjis.

Austria early in 1909 dropped her North and South railway scheme.
But the Slavs clamoured still for an East and West line, and Russia
backed them, and Prince Nikola still cried out about his ancestors,
who, for the time, remained buried in the Herzegovina. Russia
demanded that the Dardanelles should now be opened to her warships.
It came out that when Baron von Aehrenthal met Izvolsky--Russian
Minister for Foreign Affairs--at Buchlau in September 1908, Izvolsky
had agreed to the Austrian annexation of Bosnia in exchange for the
opening of the Dardanelles. He may have believed this would
automatically follow any violation of the