Austria, in person or by deputy,
may be expected by the end of the present century to have inherited the
European, and Russia the Asiatic, provinces of Turkey proper, while the
fate of Syria and Egypt will only have been averted, if averted it be,
by the intervention of England. That a dissolution of the Empire may
and will be easily accomplished I have myself little doubt. The military
power of Constantinople, though still considerable for the purposes of
internal control, will hardly again venture to cope single-handed with
any European State, nor is it in the least probable that the Sultan will
receive further Christian support from without. The fall of Kars has
laid Asia Minor open to the Russian arms, and the territorial cessions
of San Stefano and Berlin have laid Roumelia open to the Austrian. On
the first occasion of a quarrel with the Porte a simultaneous advance
from both quarters would preclude the chance of even a serious struggle,
and the subjugation of the Turkish-speaking races would be effected
without more difficulty.
The weakness of the Empire from a military point of view is, that it is
dependent wholly on its command of the sea, a position which enables it
to mass what troops it has rapidly on the points required, but which
even a second-rate Mediterranean power could wrest from it.
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