is scheme of reforms, the last of the negotiations was
not completed, nor the whole series ratified, until April 1907, though the
gendarmerie officers had arrived in Macedonia in February 1904.

At this point again it is necessary to recall the position in regard to
this question of the various nations concerned. Great Britain and France
had no territorial stake in Turkey proper, and did their utmost to secure
reform not only in the _vilayets_ of Macedonia, but also in the realm of
Ottoman finance. Italy's interest centred in Albania, whose eventual fate,
for geographical and strategic reasons, could not leave it indifferent.
Austria-Hungary's only care was by any means to prevent the aggrandizement
of the Serb nationality and of Serbia and Montenegro, so as to secure the
control, if not the possession, of the routes to Salonika, if necessary
over the prostrate bodies of those two countries which defiantly barred
Germanic progress towards the East. Russia was already fatally absorbed in
the Far Eastern adventure, and, moreover, had, ever since the war of 1878,
been losing influence at Constantinople, where before its word had been
law; the Treaty of Berlin had dealt a blow at Russian prestige, and Russia
had ever since that date been singularly badly served by its ambassadors
to the Porte, who were always either too old or too easy-going. Germany,
on the other hand, had been exceptionally fortunate or prudent in the
choice of its representatives. The general trend of German diplomacy in
Turkey was not grasped until very much later, a fact which redounds to the
credit of the German ambassadors at Constantinople. Ever since the
triumphal journey of William II to the Bosphorus in 1889, German
influence, under the able guidance of Baron von Radowitz, steadily
increased. This culminated in the regime of the late Baron Marschall von
Bieberstein, who was ambassador from 1897 to 1912. It was German policy to
flatter, support, and encourage Turkey in every possible way, to refrain
from taking part with the other powers in the invidious and perennial
occupation of pressing reforms on Abdul Hamid, and, above all, to give as
much pocket-money to Turkey and its extravagant ruler as they asked for.
Germany, for instance, refused to send officers or to have a district
assigned it in Macedonia in 1904, and declined to take part in the naval
demonstration off Mitylene in 1905. This attitude of Germany naturally
encouraged the Porte in its