CHAPTER X
TURKEY'S ABROGATION OF THE CAPITULATIONS—ENVER
LIVING IN A PALACE, WITH PLENTY OF
MONEY AND AN IMPERIAL BRIDE
NOTHER question, which had been under discussion for several months, now became involved in the Turkish international situation. That was the matter of the capitulations. These were the treaty rights which for centuries had regulated the position of foreigners in the Turkish Empire. Turkey had never been admitted to a complete equality with European nations, and in reality she had never been an independent sovereignty. The Sultan's laws and customs differed so radically from those of Europe and America that no non-Moslem country could think of submitting its citizens in Turkey to them. In many matters, therefore, the principle of ex-territoriality had always prevailed in favour of all citizens or subjects of countries enjoying capitulatory rights. Almost all European countries, as well as the United States, for centuries had had their own consular courts and prisons in which they tried and punished crimes which their nationals committed in Turkey. We all had our schools, which were subject, not to Turkish law and protection, but to that of the country which maintained them. Thus Robert College and the Constantinople College for Women, those wonderful institutions which American philanthropy has erected on the Bosphorus, as well as hun-
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