The Author of Eureka died March 5th 1871, and so did not live to see the fulfilment of many of his prognostications based on Bible prophecy. The continued “drying” of the political Euphrates has been even more dramatic and significant since his days. At the height of its power, the Turkish Empire extended deep into Europe, occupied part of southern Russia, dominated the Middle East, ruled over Egypt and extended into North Africa. But gradually the Empire receded. In 1820 Greece rebelled, and in 1827 obtained its independence. In 1828, war with Russia was followed by granting autonomy to Moldavia, Wallachia and Serbia. In 1829 France occupied Algiers in North Africa. In 1832 Egypt revolted under Mehemet Ali, and would have obtained its independence but for the intervention of Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia as outlined above. In 1842 Algiers was annexed by France. In 1853 the Crimean war between Turkey and Russia seriously weakened the former. A peace was patched up, but war again broke out between these two powers in 1871. In 1881 France annexed Tunis. In 1882 Britain was reluctantly compelled to occupy Egypt having purchased a controlling interest in the Suez Canal (opened in 1869). In 1897 Turkey was further weakened by the Greco-Turkish war. In 1908, Austria-Hungary annexed Boznia and Herzegovina, and Bulgaria claimed her independence. In 1911, Italy occupied Tripoli. In 191213, the Balkan War reduced Turkish territorial interests in Europe to a limited zone around Constantinople and Adrianople. In the Great War of 1914-18 Turkey unexpectedly declared war on Britain. The Allied forces attacked Turkey through Gallipoli, but on the eve of success were compelled to withdraw. They regrouped in Egypt, and under General Allenby attacked Turkey through the Middle East. Jerusalem was taken without a shot being fired, and as a consequence of its defeat, Turkey lost Arabia, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon etc., and had her European territory further reduced to Constantinople. The proclamation of the Balfour Declaration by Britain opened the doors of Israel’s ancient territory to Jewish exiles, and so “the way” began to be prepared for the “Kings out of a Sun’s rising” to move against Babylon the Great when the time is ripe. The anticipations of the Author of Eureka as outlined therein, and in Elpis Israel were remarkably being fulfilled and Bible prophecy leading to the return of Christ, and the establishment of the Kingdom of God was vindicated in the events taking place. Particularly in the return of Jews to the land and the revival of the nation of Israel (see Psa. 102:13,16,18; Ezek. 37:21-22).
Following World War I, Mustapha Kemal Pasha, known better as Kemal Ataturk, instituted a military reform in Turkey. Constantinople was renamed Istanbul; and the capital transferred to Ankara. In 1923 the Empire was terminated, and Turkey became a Republic. In 1924 the Caliphate was abolished, and in a series of laws over the next few years, the nation was Westernised. Today, the might of Soviet Russia rests heavily upon the borders of Turkey, and its demise, according to Bible prophecy, is only a matter of time — Publishers.
The Drying Euphrates
(Turkey)
One of the most significant signs of the times heralding the return of Christ is the receding power of the Turkish Empire, symbolically represented as the “River Euphrates” whose waters “dry up” that the way of the Kings of the East might be prepared. When Russia
“makes its grand move for the building up of its image empire” (Preface to Elpis Israel) even that independence will go — Publishers.
tie raged for four hours, and the scene of wreck and devastation was such as has been rarely witnessed. Sixty-two of the seventy Turkish vessels were burnt, sunk, or driven on shore complete wrecks. On board of the two line of battle ships, each with a crew of 850 men, there were killed, in one ship, 650, and in the other 400. The loss of the English and French was 118 killed and 341 wounded. Thus, in 1827, Greece was saved, and erected into a kingdom under the protection of the Allies; and by the destruction of the Turkish fleet, the way was prepared for other disasters, which quickly followed upon the devoted empire.
But, the Greek insurrection and foreign intervention simply would have still left the Ottoman empire a great and strong current of water. Its evaporation was to be expedited by the fatuous and suicidal policy of its Sultan, Mahmoud. This imperial reformer of the state perceiving that his haughty, tumultuous Janizaries, once the terror of the nations, were incapable any longer of contending with the order, discipline, and weapons of modern tactics, determined to subject them to a new military system. But to such an innovation they resolved not to submit. Finding, therefore, the hope of reforming, and thereby rescuscitating the Turkish military power, vain, the Sultan determined to destroy those troops whose ancestors had been to the Porte its chief arm of victory. While the Greek insurrection was in progress, he assembled 30,000 of them in Constantinople; and, on July 15, 1826, caused them to be surrounded in the square of the Etmeidan, and massacred by discharges of grapeshot; and on their retreating to their barracks, the barracks were set on fire, and the cannonading was continued against them the whole night following, until there remained no more victims or fuel for the one and the other. “The morning,” says Mr. Walsh, “presented a frightful scene of burning ruins slaked in blood; — a huge mass of mangled flesh and smoking ashes”.
To this destruction of its own power was added a most disastrous foreign war excited by its own infatuation; so true is it, Quern Deus vult perdere prius dementat — “whom the Deity wills to perish he first infatuates”. The Sultan appealed to the fanaticism of the Mohammedan population against Russia; and, in April, 1828, Russian “orthodoxy” being thus insulted, appealed to arms in vindication of its honor. Prince Paskewitch pressed on from the Caucasian frontier to Erzeroum; while Count Diebitch, with varied success, in the campaign of 1829 took the entrenched camp of Schumla on the Danube; crossed the Balkan; entered Adrianople; and, in spite of the unfurling of the Prophet’s Banner against him, threatened the immediate investment of Constantinople. But, the time, if ever, had not come for the transfer of the Little Horn of the Goat’s capital, to the Autocrat of all the Russias. The diplomatic “Daemons” therefore of the other powers interposed their “good”, but really jealous, offices, and peace was made. It was a peace, however, by the articles of which “the drying up of the Great River Euphrates” was greatly advanced. The treaty secured emancipation from the Ottoman yoke to the Catholic principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia under the guardianship mishmar, of the Russian Gog (Ezek. 38:7). The independence of Servia was also assured, and no Turk permitted to reside north of the Danube. But, this was not all the drying up of Turkish power at this period. In this same year, 1829, the French government landed an army of 40,000 on the African coast, and having defeated an equal force of Turks and Arabs, captured Algiers; and converted the Turkish province into a colony of France; thus, another of the sources of “the water of the Great River Euphrates” was “dried up”.
Again, very soon after the termination of the war against Russia, Mehemet Ali, the Pasha of the Egyptian province of the Little Horn of the Goat, asserted his independence of the Sultan. He attacked and conquered the Turks in Syria and the Holy Land, in the three great battles of Hems, of Nezib, and of Iconium, in 1832 and 1833. He now aspired to the throne of the Sultan, and in 1838 advanced as far as Smyrna on his march to Constantinople. “Man proposes, but God disposes”. The wrath of the sixth vial was to dry up, not to invigorate and renovate, “the water” or power, of “the Great River Euphrates”. Had Mehemet Ali been allowed to depose the Sultan, and to set himself upon his throne, the Ottoman empire would have been vastly strengthened: Providence, therefore, caused the diplomatic “Daemons” of the Great City Babylon to interfere, that they might unconsciously “establish the vision”. Russia, Austria, Prussia and England, weary of the war between the Pasha and the Sultan, interfered, and ordered Mehemet Ali to return to Egypt. They then proceeded to regulate the affairs of the East in accordance with their own policy. They ordered the Pasha to surrender Syria and the Holy Land to the Sultan, and to restore to him the Turkish fleet which had revolted during the war. Mehemet Ali refused to do either, contending that these countries were his by right of conquest for ever, and the fleet as the spoils of war. The four powers, however, (France was not consulted in this affair), were not to be trifled with. They were willing that the Egyptian Pashalic should be hereditary in his family; but resolved that he should only be Pasha of Syria for life. But even this was contrary to the Divine arrangement; his heart was therefore hardened against such an accommodation, and he refused to yield. The result was that the Allied Fleet bombarded the cities of the Syrian sea-board, and took possesion of St. Jean d’Acre. They again offered him “all that part of Syria, extending from the Gulf of Suez to the Lake of Tiberias, together with the province of Acre for life,” if he would restore the Turkish fleet. But this offer did not suit the Deity; he was therefore still hardened to refuse, and to maintain what he considered his rights. Seeing that negotiation availed nothing, they proceeded in the autumn of 1840, to compel the Egyptians to evacuate the Promised Land, and determined that he should not have it at all; and threatened furthermore, that if he did not restore the fleet in ten days, they would make Alexandria too hot for his continuance there. Such a conclusion being in harmony with the Divine purpose, he was led to comply. He evacuated the country, and surrendered the ships within the time; thus he was forced back within the limits of his Turco-Egyptian Pashalic, which he was allowed to retain as the hereditary inheritance of his family under the suzerainty of the Porte; while Syria and the Holy Land to the shores of the Red Sea, were restored to the Constantinopolitan jurisdiction, which is more nominal than real in all the land.
To the operation of political and military causes in the drying up of the Great River, may be noted in addition, the depopulating judgments of the Deity himself. In the great Syrian earthquake of 1822, the walls of Aleppo, the capital, were thrown down, and 14,000 buried in the ruins; and at Antioch, and other towns and villages in the province, the sufferings and loss of life were in proportion. In 1821 the cholera broke out at Bussora, and carried off some 16,000 persons — near a fourth of its population: then ascending the Tigris to Bagdad, swept away a third of its inhabitants: and then, in 1822, advanced into Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, with a like fearful mortality everywhere attending it. At the same time, the plague was in its usual way wasting the Turkish population; and besides it, other extraordinary and mysterious epidemics. The cities of Mecca and Bagdad, more especially, were fearfully desolated. In the Bombay Gazette, of August, 1831, the report is given that Mecca and Medina had been completely depopulated by a dreadful disease, the nature of which was unknown. It broke out among the Mohammedan pilgrims, 50,000 of whom it carried off, including the governor of the Holy City of the Mussulmans. In Bagdad also, the ancient capital of the Caliphs, 50,000 of the inhabitants perished by the plague. To the horrors of disease were here added the desolation of the flood and of the sword. The missionaries stationed there thus narrate the terrible story: “The plague prevailing to a fearful extent among the inhabitants, part of them attempted to escape into the country: but they were arrested by a sudden inundation of the Tigris, by which numbers perished; and the rest were driven back into the city. When at length it pleased God to stay the hand of the destroying angel, it was found that out of 80,000 human beings not more than 25,000 survived”. The judgment of the sword then followed. “The plague had scarce ceased, and the waters subsided, when troops arrived in the name of the Sultan to depose the Pasha; and fierce and bloody contests succeeded”. In another letter bearing date, Bagdad, April 23,1831, they say, “Surely every principle of desolation is operating in the midst of the Ottoman empire; plagues, earthquakes, and civil wars. The Pasha’s palace is left open, without a soul to take care of anything. His stud of beautiful Arab horses are running about the streets. Enquire what you will, the answer is, The City is desolate”. With regard even to Constantinople, the chaplain of the British Embassy resident there from 1821 to 1831, thus writes, “Within the last twenty years Constantinople has lost more than half its population. Two conflagrations happened while I was there, and destroyed 15,000 houses. The Russian and Greek wars were a constant drain upon the Janizaries of the capital. The silent operation of the plague is continually active, though not always alarming. It will be no exaggeration to say that, within the period mentioned, from 300,000 to 400,000 have been prematurely swept away in this one city in Europe, by causes which were not operating in any other — conflagration, pestilence, and civil commotion”.
Admitting, then, that “the Great River Euphrates” is the symbol of the Ottoman Power to whose empire it belongs, who can doubt that its water has been drying up during all the past forty-eight years; and that therefore we are assuredly contemporary with the outpouring of the sixth vial, in the course of which Christ reappears upon the earth? It is evident, that nothing supports the feeble remains of the once mighty power of Turkey, figuratively and proverbially styled “the Sick Man,” •but the Policy of the Antichristian Powers, founded upon their mutual jealousies and ambitions. The declared intention of France and England to maintain the integrity and independence of the Ottoman empire is evidence of its inability to defend itself against the strong.t Its recent conflict in the little island of Candia illustrates its feebleness, and the shrivelled condition of its power. The judgments of the sixth vial have made it the weakest of all the powers, except, perhaps, the other Sick Man of Rome. These two sick men, the representatives of the Two Little Horns, have both fallen upon evil times together; and both bid fair to “give up the ghost” in the same epoch. They have both in times past made the world to tremble; and now, in the righteous retributions of the Deity, they are made to tremble before the world. They have both been made sick, and made to lie at the gates of death, in the interest of the t The policy of Britain and France was maintained until the Great War of 1914-18. Turkey then turned on her previous allies and declared war against them. This resulted in a further “drying up” process. — Publishers.
Saints, who are to supersede them in all the earth. The power of the Sick Man of Constantinople is to the power of the Sick Man§ of Rome, and his family of kings, as the Great River Euphrates to the Great City of Babylon. Christ and his Brethren, the Cyrus and Sanctified Ones of the 19th century, are the Divinely predetermined captors of this city. They are to enter it “as a thief”, and to seize upon its thrones; but to enable them to do this with all the facility the situation may require, the Great River Euphrates has been dried up, and the way of the kings of the Resurrection-Sun duly prepared in all the region of “the South”.