THE SICK MAN OF EUROPE 1371,500,000 had been deported, and of them 1,175,000 were dead and only
325,000 still living.
Debate continues about what started what and the numbers involved,
but the truth of the Armenian Diaspora and massacres by the Turks is
indisputable. In late August 1939, a week before he launched his army
into Poland, Adolph Hitler issued orders to “kill without pity or mercy all
men, women, and children of the Polish race or language. ...”Hecon-
cluded his statements by saying, “Who still talks nowadays of the exter-
mination of the Armenians?” His point was simple and direct. The
Armenian Question is tied up with many other Middle Eastern problems
and remains a question to this day.
Ottoman Turkey had survived two centuries of precipitous decline, and
her past glories are largely forgotten. And yet survive she did, and by
doing so, raised a point of study.
In 1529, a scant few decades after they had finally extinguished the
vestigial remains of the Byzantine Empire, the Turks reached for Vienna.
At that instant, the Ottoman Empire was by far the wealthiest and most
powerful civilized nation in existence. Her artists, writers, scientists, and
engineers led the world. Certainly her army was not only the largest, but
it also had the most advanced infantry and artillery in the world. This twin
colossus of state and army would propel the Ottomans into Europe time
and again. The last really massive attack, and probably the most formi-
dable of all, occurred in 1683. The sultan’s guns shook not just Vienna,
but all of the rapidly modernizing nations of Western Europe. But that
was the end of the great Ottoman days. By 1800 Turkey was incapable of
defending her crumbling frontiers. By 1900 she could barely hold her
heartland against a ramshackle coalition of Balkan “powers.”
Why did the Turks crumble so quickly? That is one of the great ques-
tions of history. Perhaps a better one is, Why did they crumble at all? As
many answers to these questions exist as there are askers. We address a
few of these here.
An attractive explanation for Turkish decline is that other nations rose
more quickly. In 1529 Turkey was a great empire, while Germany, Austria,
France, and Russia remained mired in feudalism. By 1700 the European
nations had swept aside their feudal roots, and kings were consolidating
national power under unified royal authority. By 1800, the sense of nation-
alism was strongly entrenched in the west. This must be contrasted with
the Ottoman Empire, where the vast distances involved prevented much
chance for central authority to prevail, failing a major imperial effort to
impose obedience on a distant satrap or governor. Likewise, nationalism—
that sense of citizen identity so useful to governments—had little chance