My earnest wish is that all the Turks' high intellectual abilities, brought to the front by this war, may be concentrated on this beautiful and repaying task. Intensive labour and the concentration of all forces on positive work in the direction of civilisation will have to take the place of corrupt rule, boundless neglect, waste, the strangulation of all progressive movements, political illusions, the unquenchable desire for conquest and oppression. This is what we pray for for Anatolia, the real New Turkey after the war. In other districts, also, now fully under European control, the pure Turkish element will flourish much more exceedingly than ever before under the beneficent protection of modern, civilised Governments. Frankly, the dream of Turkish Power has vanished. But new life springs out of ruin and decay; the history of mankind is a continual change. Russia, too, after war, will no longer be what she seemed to terrified Turkish eyes and jealous German eyes dazzled by "world-politics": a colossal creature, stretching forth enormous suckers to swallow up her smaller neighbours; a country ruled by a dull, unthinking despotism. From the standpoint of universal civilisation it is to be hoped that the solution of the problem of the Near East will be to transform the Straits between the Black Sea and Aegea, together with the city of Constantinople, uniquely situated as it is, into a completely international stretch with open harbours. Then we need no longer oppose Russian aspirations. If England, the stronghold of Free Trade and of all principles of freedom of intercourse, and France, the land of culture, interested in Turkey to the extent of millions, were content to leave Russia a free hand in the Straits; if Roumania, shut in in the Black Sea, did not fear for her trade, but was willing to become an ally of Russia in full knowledge of the Entente agreement about the Straits, it is of course sufficiently evident what guarantee with regard to international freedom modern Russia will have to give after the war, and even the Germans have nothing to fear. Of course the German anti-European "Antwerp-Baghdad" dream will be shattered. But once Germany is at peace, she will probably find that even the Russian solution of the Straits question benefits her not a little. The final realisation of Russia's efforts, justifiable both historically and geographically, to reach the Mediterranean at this one eminently suitable spot, will certainly contribute in an extraordinary degree to remove the unbearable political pressure from Europe and ensure peace for the world.