The History of Babylon ¹

Abstract

PROF. L. W. KING'S “History of Babylon” appears at the moment when, owing to the folly, ambition, and half-religious, half-patriotic fanaticism of a small, intelligent, but absolutely immoral clique that has arrogated to itself the government of the Turkish Empire, England finds herself at war with her old allies of the Crimea and friends of 1878, and British soldiers are contending with the hosts of the Padishah on the ancient plains of Babylonia. It is a day which many Englishmen and many Turks had never thought to see; but if the most energetic men in Turkey happen to be thoroughly evil, and choose wilfully to make friends rather with the militarism of Prussia than with the liberalism of England, it is one that cannot be helped. Kismet! it was so written, say those Turks who would still be our friends: the issue is in the hands of Allah. As Babylon fell, so will Turkey. But the battle of Ctesi-phon, fought not so far away from 5l Babylon's ruins, shows us that it that it is no easy task that Turkey, sold to Prussia, has forced us to undertake.