ABSTRACT
THE near eastern question Inay be defined as the problem of filling up the vacuum created by the gradual disappearance of the Turkish empire from Europe. Its history, therefore, may be said to begin at the moment when that empire, having attained its zenith, commenced to decline. The European dominions of Turkey reached their greatest extent in the latter half of the seventeenth century, when "the great Greek island " of Crete, as the modern Hellenes love to call it, at last surrendered to the Turkish forces, and the king of Poland ceded Podolia to the Sultan. But the close of that same century witnessed the shrinkage of the Turkish frontiers. The peace of Karlovitz in 1699 has been justly called "the first dismemberment of the Ottoman empire." It was the initial step in the historical process which has slowly but surely gone on ever since. The eighteenth century saw the continuation of the work begun at Karlovitz, though now and again the Turkish dominions gained sonle temporary advantage, and European statesmen anticipated the dismemberment of the Sultan's European possessions and formed schemes for the partition of the spoil.
