If a new Rip Van Winkle had gone to sleep at any time in the nineteenth century and awoke to-day, one column in the morning newspaper would afford him no sensation and surprise. Were his eye to fall first upon a despatch from Constantinople, he would read it without discovering his long sleep. Metternich and Castlereagh and Talleyrand, Palmerston and Napoleon III, Bismarck and Disraeli and Waddington would find history repeating itself with a vengeance on the Bosphorus. Throughout the World War and during the period of equal duration that followed the collapse of Turkey, European diplomacy ran true to form in the Near East. None can study the history of the great powers in relation to the Balkans and Turkey and maintain that the crisis of 1914–23 shows a difference of spirit and methods from the crises of 1801–15, 1821–30, 1833–40, 1851–56, 1875–78, 1885–86, 1893–1903, and 1908–13. This is a peculiarly distressing and hopeless statement to make more than four years after the creation of the League of Nations. But the truth does not set us free unless we know the truth. Some who believe that the world was regenerated by reason of our victory over the Germans, and that the high principles of President Wilson are triumphing in international affairs because “after all we have the League of Nations,” declare that the Near Eastern situation is simply one failure which should not discredit the peace settlement as a whole. One hears them argue on the platform and one sees their articles--especially “letters to the editor”--flooding the press. We cannot expect perfection, they say, and the United States should be ashamed to have failed joining our comrades-in-arms to inaugurate a new era in world affairs. Differences of opinion among the Entente Powers? Friction in the Near East? Inability to agree upon a common policy to adopt toward Turkey? These are minor matters. The great fact is that the League of Nations is functioning! The Near Eastern situation, however, is not a minor matter, and insisting upon having a hand in it would have been the first move of the League of Nations, had that organization been capable of tackling the problems to meet and provide a solution for which it was ostensibly created. The bloody wars of the nineteenth century had their origin in international rivalry in the Near East. The inability of Turkey to retain her European provinces made inevitable the recent World War. The war began in the Balkans, and there was no hope of its ending until a decisive victory had been won in the Balkans. Nor is there any hope of world peace until peace is made in the Balkans. The future of Constantinople has been the dominating factor in setting the great powers against one another since the World War precisely as before the World War. The elimination of Germany from the group of contestants does not seem to make any difference. When there is a bone, one dog less does not mean the end of the fight.