The difference between the Young Turks and the Old Turks is that the régime since 1908 purports to represent a people conscious of its nationhood and power, while the Hamidian régime was a system that had existed for centuries upon the threefold foundation: a theocratic absolutist Government, centralized at Constantinople, for the Turkish element and other Mohammedan elements near the sea or in lowlands; virtual autonomy, on the principle of non-intervention or _laisser-faire_, for non-Turkish Mohammedan peoples of the mountains or hinterland; and separate communities under their hierarchies for the Christian peoples of the empire. Old Turkey could be the enemy of no country except one that invaded her, and during the nineteenth century intervention of other powers was always invoked against an aggressor power. Abdul Hamid’s pan-Islamic movement was a political one, with a limited appeal. The autocrat did not allow it to get out of hand through the awakening of a national consciousness. Until 1908 it never occurred to the British that Turkey was a country that might at any time, without provocation upon the part of Great Britain, join the enemies of the British Empire in time of war, close the Straits, and proclaim a Holy War against the greatest Mohammedan power in the world (for the British Empire is that). But since 1908 Great Britain has had to reckon with Turkey as a potential enemy, and, since 1914, as an actual enemy. As a military menace the Turks are negligible to the British. But the Turks handing the key to the Straits to an enemy of Great Britain in time of war--that has happened once, and the British know that if it is allowed to happen again the death-knell of the British Empire may sound. The freedom of the Straits, from the British point of view, means the insertion of guarantees in the peace settlement in the Near East of such a nature that a repetition of 1914 will be impossible. The Straits must be open to British warships in time of war as in time of peace, open in such a way that nothing can close them. It is unnecessary to make any provisions concerning merchant ships. The British undertake to have a fleet large enough to look out for their merchant marine in war and peace!