Part 9

It is usual for historians to say, that the triumph of the South threw the Turks back again upon their northern solitudes; and this might easily be the case with some of the many hordes, which were ever passing the boundary and 20 flocking down; but it is no just account of the historical fact, viewed as a whole. Not often indeed do the Oriental nations present us with an example of versatility of character; the Turks, for instance, of this day are substantially what they 25 were four centuries ago. We cannot conceive, were Turkey overrun by the Russians at the present moment, that the fanatical tribes, which are pouring into Constantinople from Asia Minor, would submit to the foreign yoke, take service 30 under their conquerors, become soldiers, custom-officers, police, men of business, attaches, statesmen, working their way up from the ranks and from the masses into influence and power; but, whether from skill in the Saracens, or from 5 far-reaching sagacity in the Turks (and it is difficult to assign it to either cause), so it was, that a process of this nature followed close upon the Mahometan conquest of Sogdiana. It is to be traced in detail to a variety of accidents. Many 10 of the Turks probably were made slaves, and the service to which they were subjected was no matter of choice. Numbers had got attached to the soil; and inheriting the blood of Persians, White Huns, or aboriginal inhabitants for three 15 generations, had simply unlearned the wildness of the Tartar shepherd. Others fell victims to the religion of their conquerors, which ultimately, as we know, exercised a most remarkable influence upon them. Not all at once, but as 20 tribe descended after tribe, and generation followed generation, they succumbed to the creed of Mahomet; and they embraced it with the ardor and enthusiasm which Franks and Saxons so gloriously and meritoriously manifested in their 25 conversion to Christianity.

Here again was a very powerful instrument in modification of their national character. Let me illustrate it in one particular. If there is one peculiarity above another, proper to the savage 30 and to the Tartar, it is that of excitability and impetuosity on ordinary occasions; the Turks, on the other hand, are nationally remarkable for gravity and almost apathy of demeanor. Now there are evidently elements in the Mahometan creed, which would tend to change them from 5 the one temperament to the other. Its sternness, its coldness, its doctrine of fatalism; even the truths which it borrowed from Revelation, when separated from the truths it rejected, its monotheism untempered by mediation, its severe 10 view of the Divine attributes, of the law, and of a sure retribution to come, wrought both a gloom and also an improvement in the barbarian, not very unlike the effect which some forms of Protestantism produce among ourselves. But 15 whatever was the mode of operation, certainly it is to their religion that this peculiarity of the Turks is ascribed by competent judges. Lieutenant Wood in his journal gives us a lively account of a peculiarity of theirs, which he 20 unhesitatingly attributes to Islamism. "Nowhere," he says, "is the difference between European and Mahometan society more strongly marked than in the lower walks of life.... A Kasid, or messenger, for example, will come into a public 25 department, deliver his letters in full durbar, and demean himself throughout the interview with so much composure and self-possession, that an European can hardly believe that his grade in society is so low. After he has delivered his 30 letters, he takes his seat among the crowd, and answers, calmly and without hesitation, all the questions which may be addressed to him, or communicates the verbal instructions with which he has been intrusted by his employer, and which are often of more importance than the 5 letters themselves. Indeed, all the inferior classes possess an innate self-respect, and a natural gravity of deportment, which differs as far from the suppleness of a Hindustani as from the awkward rusticity of an English clown." ... "Even 10 children," he continues, "in Mahometan countries have an unusual degree of gravity in their deportment. The boy, who can but lisp his 'Peace be with you,' has imbibed this portion of the national character. In passing through a village, these 15 little men will place their hands upon their breasts, and give the usual greeting. Frequently have I seen the children of chiefs approach their father's durbar, and stopping short at the threshold of the door, utter the shout of 'Salam 20 Ali-Kum,' so as to draw all eyes upon them; but nothing daunted, they marched boldly into the room, and sliding down upon their knees, folded their arms and took their seat upon the musnad with all the gravity of grown-up persons." 25

As Islamism has changed the demeanor of the Turks, so doubtless it has in other ways materially innovated on their Tartar nature. It has given an aim to their military efforts, a political principle, and a social bond. It has laid them under 30 a sense of responsibility, has molded them into consistency, and taught them a course of policy and perseverance in it. But to treat this part of the subject adequately to its importance would require, Gentlemen, a research and a fullness of discussion unsuitable to the historical sketch 5 which I have undertaken. I have said enough for my purpose upon this topic; and indeed on the general question of the modification of national character to which the Turks were at this period subjected. 10

THE TURK AND THE SARACEN

Mere occupation of a rich country is not enough for civilization, as I have granted already. The Turks came into the pleasant plains and valleys of Sogdiana; the Turcomans into the well-wooded mountains and sunny slopes of Asia 15 Minor. The Turcomans were brought out of their dreary deserts, yet they retained their old habits, and they remain barbarians to this day. But why? it must be borne in mind, they neither subjugated the inhabitants of their new country 20 on the one hand, nor were subjugated by them on the other. They never had direct or intimate relations with it; they were brought into it by the Roman Government at Constantinople as its auxiliaries, but they never naturalized themselves 25 there. They were like gypsies in England, except that they were mounted freebooters instead of pilferers and fortune tellers. It was far otherwise with their brethren in Sogdiana; they were there first as conquerors, then as conquered. First they held it in possession as their prize for 90 or 100 years; they came into the usufruct and enjoyment of it. Next, their political ascendency 5 over it involved, as in the case of the White Huns, some sort of moral surrender of themselves to it. What was the first consequence of this? that, like the White Huns, they intermarried with the races they found there. We know the custom 10 of the Tartars and Turks; under such circumstances they would avail themselves of their national practice of polygamy to its full extent of license. In the course of twenty years a new generation would arise of a mixed race; and 15 these in turn would marry into the native population, and at the end of ninety or a hundred years we should find the great-grandsons or the great-great-grandsons of the wild marauders who first crossed the Jaxartes, so different from their 20 ancestors in features both of mind and body, that they hardly would be recognized as deserving the Tartar name. At the end of that period their power came to an end, the Saracens became masters of them and of their country, but the 25 process of emigration southward from the Scythian desert, which had never intermitted during the years of their domination, continued still, though that domination was no more.

Here it is necessary to have a clear idea of the 30 nature of that association of the Turkish tribes from the Volga to the Eastern Sea, to which I have given the name of Empire: it was not so much of a political as of a national character; it was the power, not of a system, but of a race. They were not one well-organized state, but a 5 number of independent tribes, acting generally together, acknowledging one leader or not, according to circumstances, combining and coöperating from the identity of object which acted on them, and often jealous of each other and 10 quarreling with each other on account of that very identity. Each tribe made its way down to the south as it could; one blocked up the way of the other for a time; there were stoppages and collisions, but there was a continual movement 15 and progress. Down they came one after another, like wolves after their prey; and as the tribes which came first became partially civilized, and as a mixed generation arose, these would naturally be desirous of keeping back their less polished 20 uncles or cousins, if they could; and would do so successfully for a while: but cupidity is stronger than conservatism; and so, in spite of delay and difficulty, down they would keep coming, and down they did come, even after and in spite of 25 the overthrow of their Empire; crowding down as to a new world, to get what they could, as adventurers, ready to turn to the right or the left, prepared to struggle on anyhow, willing to be forced forward into countries farther still, 30 careless what might turn up, so that they did but get down. And this was the process which went on (whatever were their fortunes when they actually got down, prosperous or adverse) for 400, nay, I will say for 700 years. The storehouse of the north was never exhausted; it 5 sustained the never ending run upon its resources.

I was just now referring to a change in the Turks, which I have mentioned before, and which had as important a bearing as any other of their changes upon their subsequent fortunes. 10 It was a change in their physiognomy and shape, so striking as to recommend them to their masters for the purposes of war or of display. Instead of bearing any longer the hideous exterior which in the Huns frightened the Romans and 15 Goths, they were remarkable, even as early as the ninth century, when they had been among the natives of Sogdiana only two hundred years, for the beauty of their persons. An important political event was the result: hence the 20 introduction of the Turks into the heart of the Saracenic empire. By this time the Caliphs had removed from Damascus to Bagdad; Persia was the imperial province, and into Persia they were introduced for the reason I have mentioned, 25 sometimes as slaves, sometimes as captives taken in war, sometimes as mercenaries for the Saracenic armies: at length they were enrolled as guards to the Caliph, and even appointed to offices in the palace, to the command of the forces, 30 and to governorships in the provinces. The son of the celebrated Harun al Raschid had as many as 50,000 of these troops in Bagdad itself. And thus slowly and silently they made their way to the south, not with the pomp and pretense of conquest, but by means of that ordinary 5 inter-communion which connected one portion of the empire of the Caliphs with another. In this manner they were introduced even into Egypt.

This was their history for a hundred and fifty years, and what do we suppose would be the 10 result of this importation of barbarians into the heart of a nourishing empire? Would they be absorbed as slaves or settlers in the mass of the population, or would they, like mercenaries elsewhere, be fatal to the power that introduced 15 them? The answer is not difficult, considering that their very introduction argued a want of energy and resource in the rulers whom they served. To employ them was a confession of weakness; the Saracenic power indeed was not 20 very aged, but the Turkish was much younger, and more vigorous; then too must be considered the difference of national character between the Turks and the Saracens. A writer of the beginning of the present century[35] compares 25 the Turks to the Romans; such parallels are generally fanciful and fallacious; but, if we must accept it in the present instance, we may complete the picture by likening the Saracens and Persians to the Greeks, and we know what was 30 the result of the collision between Greece and Rome. The Persians were poets, the Saracens were philosophers. The mathematics, astronomy, and botany were especial subjects of the studies of the latter. Their observatories were celebrated, 5 and they may be considered to have originated the science of chemistry. The Turks, on the other hand, though they are said to have a literature, and though certain of their princes have been patrons of letters, have never distinguished 10 themselves in exercises of pure intellect; but they have had an energy of character, a pertinacity, a perseverance, and a political talent, in a word, they then had the qualities of mind necessary for ruling, in far greater measure, than 15 the people they were serving. The Saracens, like the Greeks, carried their arms over the surface of the earth with an unrivaled brilliancy and an uncheckered success; but their dominion, like that of Greece, did not last for more than 20 200 or 300 years. Rome grew slowly through many centuries, and its influence lasts to this day; the Turkish race battled with difficulties and reverses, and made its way on amid tumult and complication, for a good 1000 years from 25 first to last, till at length it found itself in possession of Constantinople, and a terror to the whole of Europe. It has ended its career upon the throne of Constantine; it began it as the slave and hireling of the rulers of a great empire, 30 of Persia and Sogdiana.

[35] Thornton.

As to Sogdiana, we have already reviewed one season of power and then in turn of reverse which there befell the Turks; and next a more remarkable outbreak and its reaction mark their presence in Persia. I have spoken of the formidable force, 5 consisting of Turks, which formed the guard of the Caliphs immediately after the time of Harun al Raschid: suddenly they rebelled against their master, burst into his apartment at the hour of supper, murdered him, and cut his body 10 into seven pieces. They got possession of the symbols of imperial power, the garment and the staff of Mahomet, and proceeded to make and unmake Caliphs at their pleasure. In the course of four years they had elevated, deposed, and 15 murdered as many as three. At their wanton caprice, they made these successors of the false prophet the sport of their insults and their blows. They dragged them by the feet, stripped them, and exposed them to the burning sun, beat them 20 with iron clubs, and left them for days without food. At length, however, the people of Bagdad were roused in defense of the Caliphate, and the Turks for a time were brought under; but they remained in the country, or rather, by the 25 short-sighted policy of the moment, were dispersed throughout it, and thus became in the sequel ready-made elements of revolution for the purposes of other traitors of their own race, who, at a later period, as we shall presently see, descended 30 on Persia from Turkistan.

Indeed, events were opening the way slowly, but surely, to their ascendency. Throughout the whole of the tenth century, which followed, they seem to disappear from history; but a silent revolution was all along in progress, leading them 5 forward to their great destiny. The empire of the Caliphate was already dying in its extremities, and Sogdiana was one of the first countries to be detached from his power. The Turks were still there, and, as in Persia, filled the ranks of the 10 army and the offices of the government; but the political changes which took place were not at first to their visible advantage. What first occurred was the revolt of the Caliph's viceroy, who made himself a great kingdom or empire out 15 of the provinces around, extending it from the Jaxartes, which was the northern boundary of Sogdiana, almost to the Indian Ocean, and from the confines of Georgia to the mountains of Afghanistan. The dynasty thus established 20 lasted for four generations and for the space of ninety years. Then the successor happened to be a boy; and one of his servants, the governor of Khorasan, an able and experienced man, was forced by circumstances to rebellion against him. 25 He was successful, and the whole power of this great kingdom fell into his hands; now he was a Tartar or Turk; and thus at length the Turks suddenly appear in history, the acknowledged masters of a southern dominion. 30

This is the origin of the celebrated Turkish dynasty of the Gaznevides, so called after Gazneh, or Ghizni, or Ghuznee, the principal city, and it lasted for two hundred years. We are not particularly concerned in it, because it has no direct relations with Europe; but it falls into our 5 subject, as having been instrumental to the advance of the Turks towards the West. Its most distinguished monarch was Mahmood, and he conquered Hindostan, which became eventually the seat of the empire. In Mahmood the 10 Gaznevide we have a prince of true Oriental splendor. For him the title of Sultan or Soldan was invented, which henceforth became the special badge of the Turkish monarchs; as Khan is the title of the sovereign of the Tartars, and Caliph of the 15 sovereign of the Saracens. I have already described generally the extent of his dominions: he inherited Sogdiana, Carisme, Khorasan, and Cabul; but, being a zealous Mussulman, he obtained the title of Gazi, or champion, by his reduction of 20 Hindostan, and his destruction of its idol temples. There was no need, however, of religious enthusiasm to stimulate him to the war: the riches, which he amassed in the course of it, were a recompense amply sufficient. His Indian 25 expeditions in all amounted to twelve, and they abound in battles and sieges of a truly Oriental cast....

We have now arrived at what may literally be called the turning point of Turkish history. We have seen them gradually descend from the north, 30 and in a certain degree become acclimated in the countries where they settled. They first appear across the Jaxartes in the beginning of the seventh century; they have now come to the beginning of the eleventh. Four centuries or thereabout have they been out of their deserts, gaining 5 experience and educating themselves in such measure as was necessary for playing their part in the civilized world. First they came down into Sogdiana and Khorasan, and the country below it, as conquerors; they continued in it as 10 subjects and slaves. They offered their services to the race which had subdued them; they made their way by means of their new masters down to the west and the south; they laid the foundations for their future supremacy in Persia, and 15 gradually rose upwards through the social fabric to which they had been admitted, till they found themselves at length at the head of it. The sovereign power which they had acquired in the line of the Gaznevides, drifted off to Hindostan; 20 but still fresh tribes of their race poured down from the north, and filled up the gap; and while one dynasty of Turks was established in the peninsula, a second dynasty arose in the former seat of their power. 25

Now I call the era at which I have arrived the turning point of their fortunes, because, when they had descended down to Khorasan and the countries below it, they might have turned to the East or to the West, as they chose. They were 30 at liberty to turn their forces eastward against their kindred in Hindostan, whom they had driven out of Ghizni and Afghanistan, or to face towards the west, and make their way thither through the Saracens of Persia and its neighboring countries. It was an era which determined the history of the 5 world....