Pavel Nikolaevich Milyukov

“ The utmost that the best Mahommedan ruler can do is to save his subjects of other religions from actual persecution; he cannot save them from degradation; he cannot, without forsaking the principles of his own religion, put them on the same level as Mussulmans. That is why in Turkey there can be no 'subject' and no 'national government.' When we call an Englishman a British subject, we mean that he is a member of the British state. ”

“ The great struggle we are now carrying on as allies can be looked at and its meaning explained from two points of view which are sometimes considered to be entirely different and even opposite to one another. On the one hand, it is a world-struggle, originating in a clash, foreseen but unavoidable, between the growing imperialism of a newcomer and the existing state of things. On the other hand, it is a local struggle in the south-east of Europe, originating in Balkan relations. ”

“ The real dislocation of the Ottoman Empire begins with the real growth of the Balkan nationalities, and fantastic schemes and combinations are soon eliminated by substituting for them real solutions. The only trouble, which is a new one, is to find just where the ethnographic frontiers go. Populations are mixed, claims are uncertain,—and a new and internal struggle begins between the Balkan nationalities themselves. ”

“ Is it not to show that the two views on the war which I have just set out are one, or rather, that they are two different sides of the same view? There is something in common between the German world-policy directed against Great Britain, and the Austrian Balkan pohcy directed against Russia; and that something is German aggression. I do not think that the first part of this assertion, i.e. that the German conflict with England is based on German aggression, needs any further proof on my part to-day, as the opposite view is defended in this country only by a small misguided minority. ”

“ There is no vacuum, no emptiness, not only in the world of physical things but also in the world of morals. As long as there were no moral entities—by which I mean no nations conscious of themselves—as long as there were no moral entities in the world of the enslaved rayáh in Turkey, there was also no vacuum. ”

“ Why should you, chiefly a Continental and Asiatic power, whose principal interest lies, according to us Germans, in the Far East, why should you fight for British predominance on the seas?"
Well, ladies and gentlemen, what is the best means to parry and to refute such arguments, based chiefly on the idea of the incongruity of interest between the allies? ”

“ Serbia and Greece, having become masters of Macedonia, began by very summary means to assimilate the local population. Bulgaria grew impatient to conclude peace with Turkey in order to turn against the allies herself. Serbia and Greece answered by concluding a treaty of alliance on May 29, 1913, against Bulgaria, in order to defend their booty. As the treaty of March 13, 1912, provided, in case of conflict between the allies, for arbitration by the Tsar, Russia made an attempt to convoke the quarrelling allies before her tribunal in Petrograd. ”

“ The east is the only region in the world which is not yet appropriated by any one of the expanding nations. If Germany does not let slip her chance, but puts it into her pocket before the Cossacks can dip their hands into it, she will soon have the best share in the partition of the world. As soon as some thousand armed German colonists begin to till the splendid soil, the fate of near Asia will be in the hands of the Emperor. ”

“ Nothing short of extermination can change the state of national feeling, and the task of diplomatic wisdom is quite plain and simple if it does not permit itself to be guided by feelings of hatred or revenge. ”

“ On October 13, the allied Balkan states formally demanded Turkey's consent to the autonomy of the European vilayets, redivided according to nationality, and on October 17 Turkey replied by declaring war on Bulgaria, Serbia, and Greece, Montenegro having been at war since October 9.
Nobody expected at the time a decisive victory for the allies, and thus it was easy for Russia, England, and France to persuade Austria-Hungary to let the Balkan states fight it out by themselves. Austria confidently expected that the Balkan states would be beaten by the Turks. ”

“ He wishes to become a member of a political community of his own nation, which shall have nothing to do with the Turk. That power could not redress their grievances, because the existence of that power in itself is the greatest of their grievances, the root and cause of all lesser grievances. ”

“ If the partition of Christian populations in the European provinces of Turkey had been made according to the treaty of March 13, 1912, and in accordance with the actual ethnographic frontiers, the Balkan League would have been kept in existence and Austria-Hungary would not have dared, would not even have thought of sending her ultimatum to Serbia. ”

“ In February, 1897, the Emperor Francis Joseph visited St Petersburg, and an agreement on Balkan affairs was concluded between Russia and Austria-Hungary on the basis of a partition of the Balkan peninsula into two spheres of influence—the western, including control over Servia, Macedonia, and Albania, and the eastern, where Russia was to control Bulgaria and European Turkey. ”

“ But if we call a Bulgarian an Ottoman subject, it means that he is the member of a body which is held in bondage by the body of which the Ottoman Sultan is the head, and he is also subject to all the lesser Turks as his daily oppressors. As far as the Turks themselves are concerned, the Turkish Government is a 'government,' i.e. ”