No great political movement can be of sudden growth if it is going to meet with permanent success, and though the ultimate explosion may take by surprise those outside the movement, the revolution of a serious people is the result of long brooding and gradual development of opinion. From the time of the Sultan Mahmud II, who ascended the throne one hundred years ago, the better and more patriotic statesmen of Turkey have made efforts to bring the system of government into accord with the methods of advancing Europe. The influence of Western ideas made themselves felt throughout European Turkey, and began to modify the intellectual outlook, the ideals, and the social customs of the educated classes. The change, as I have pointed out in a previous chapter, was reflected in Turkish literature, which about forty years ago became Western in sentiment and style, and the literary language itself was modernised by a group of writers of whom Kemal Bey, historian, poet, philosopher, dramatist, and novelist, was pre-eminent, a genius whose works, published in Europe, were not allowed to enter Turkey during the Hamidian _régime_, but whose splendid war hymn, the “Silistria,” the penalty for singing which was formerly death, now has the same stirring effect upon the revolutionary Moslem crowds as had the “Marseillaise” upon the French. As the facilities for education, the schools and colleges, multiplied in Turkey, the thirst for scientific knowledge and the culture of Western Europe spread through the country, and with enlightenment and education naturally came the liberalism of the West and intellectual revolt against the paralysing influence of some time-honoured institutions and doctrines. It is scarcely accurate in these days to speak of the Turks—as one often hears them spoken of—as the finest of _Oriental_ races. The Turks have been five hundred years in Europe, during which they have intermarried largely with Europeans, and they are now to all intents and purposes Europeans, more so, indeed, than some of their neighbours on the continent of Europe itself, a fact which would be more generally recognised were it not for the barrier raised between them by the difference of religion. Thus it has come about that the modernist movement in Turkey is much more in touch with Western ideas than is that of the other awakening peoples of the East, who differ so much from Europeans in race and character, and whose awakening has to a large extent taken the form of antagonism to European influence and a desire to free themselves from the European hegemony. On the other hand, the Turkish reformers wish to attach the Turkish race to Europe and not to Asia; their sympathies and culture are now Western and not Eastern; they wish Turkey to be recognised as one of the civilised countries of Europe.