One hesitates, on general principles, to attempt to advise, or to admonish, as to its best interests, a nation at war. In a life and death struggle such as this war has become, it would be naturally supposed that a nation and its rulers are the best judges of what it is to their interest to do. Advice from outside sources is open to the suspicion of being not disinterested. And does not admonition, if not sheer impertinence, betray impotence on the part of the admonisher? But in the Ottoman Empire, the situation is different from that of any other country in Europe. There is not a sufficient number of educated men among the non-Christian elements of the Ottoman Empire to form, let alone to guide, public opinion. Consequently, there is no public opinion. The governing power has always been in the hands of a small and corrupt circle, and the Ottoman nation has not developed in self-government, in popular institutions, as have the other nations of Europe. The new régime was hailed with joy by the outside world, and by the non-Moslem elements inside the empire as well, because the Constitution of 1908 was regarded as the starting point in a struggle of the people of the empire, irrespective of religion and race, against an absolutism that had in practice proved equally injurious, if not equally oppressive, to all the races subjected to the tyranny of Yildiz Kiosk. It was very soon seen, however, that Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity had no part whatever in the Young Turk conception of a constitutional state. It was simply the replacing of one clique by another. The honest, sincere Young Turks, with motives above suspicion, who actually meant what they said, were so few in number that they could not prevail against the type in the Committee of Union and Progress, personified by such men as Talaat, Enver, Djavid, Djemal, Hairi, Ahmed Riza, Dr. Nazim, Hadji Adil, Bedri, and Hussein Djahid. The Moslem population of the empire, being intensely ignorant, could not be looked to by the few enthusiasts to support constitutional principles. The Christian population, much better educated and having much more reason to appreciate the newly-proclaimed liberty, were the only elements upon which a politically regenerated Turkey could stand. _For this reason alone did the Armenian element become immediately a source of danger to the new clique that had replaced Abdul Hamid._ These so-called Young Turks turned upon the Armenians just as Abdul Hamid had turned upon them--to prevent their becoming the leaven in the regeneration of Turkey. The Constitution, hailed by the Armenians as the beginning of their political emancipation, became almost immediately--and _inevitably_--their death-warrant.