CHAPTER I

EARLY HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

It would be inconsistent with the general plan of this book to give more than a very summary and cursory view of the early history of the Ottoman Empire before the time of Midhat Pasha; but it will not be inappropriate, and may possibly aid in elucidating the history of his times, and throw light on his work of reform, if the main features of that history be here drawn in outline, and some of the phases traced through which the Turkish Empire passed during the four centuries that elapsed between the taking of Constantinople by Mehemet II. and the Crimean War.

It has sometimes been objected to Midhat Pasha and the Constitution of 1876, by those who have given a very superficial study to the subject, or who have a political object in depreciating all reforms in Turkey, that, however admirable the Constitution may have been in itself, it was prematurely and precipitately introduced, and ill adapted to the peculiar conditions of the Ottoman people. One of the aims of this book is to show that, so far from this being the case, the reforms associated with the name of Midhat Pasha were conceived in the very spirit of the early Ottoman Constitution, and were expressly suggested by the wants and requirements of that country as revealed in the course of its administration to a succession of statesmen, who found themselves in practice hampered at every turn, and their best efforts continually thwarted by the absence of the very checks and safeguards which Midhat’s Constitution endeavoured to impose. Within half a century of the taking of Constantinople (1454) by Mehemet II., Bulgaria, Servia, Moldavia, Wallachia and large portions of Hungary and Poland were added to the Ottoman dominions. It was (as all impartial writers now admit) as much by virtue of the simplicity and purity of its creed, and the force of propagandism that it in consequence possessed, as by the force of arms, that Islam made such astounding progress in those days. If extensive provinces and important kingdoms yielded with slight resistance before the advance of the Ottoman armies, and if large masses of the conquered populations adopted the religion of the conquerors, it was because their moral conquest was effected before their political subjection was attempted.

The reputation, too, for justice and moderation enjoyed by the early Ottoman sovereigns was no insignificant factor in conciliating the goodwill and blunting the opposition of nations, who might under different conditions have opposed a more serious resistance to the advance of the Ottoman armies. Sixty years before the appearance of the Turks before Constantinople, the people of the ancient kingdoms of Roumania were called upon to choose between the Magyars—who, in conformity with their traditional policy, desired to Magyarise Wallachia—and the Ottoman sovereign, who offered the inhabitants the enjoyment of their religious and civil liberty. They did not hesitate between the two, and Mircea signed, with the Sultan Bayazid, the first capitulation of Roumania (1393). Twenty‐six years later, in 1419, the Servian ruler Brankovich, pressed by John Hunyadi, ruler of Hungary, to join him in an alliance against the Turks, invited him to state the policy in respect to religion that he proposed to adopt, in the event of victory attending their joint military efforts. Hunyadi answered without periphrasis, that the Servians would have to adopt the Catholic worship. Brankovich then addressed a similar question to Mehemet I. “I propose,” replied the latter, “to build a church next to every mosque, and proclaim that every one shall be at liberty to follow his own worship and religion.” Brankovich rejected the Hungarian alliance, and declared himself the vassal of the Turkish Sultan.

But, it has been contended, the condition of the Christian populations (_Raias_) of the countries actually conquered by Islam was very different; and there is even a widespread popular belief that these populations were forced to “opt” (to use a modern phrase) between the religion of the conquerors and death, the poll‐tax (_kharadj_) being the money composition imposed in commutation of the death sentence. Nothing can be more erroneous. The _kharadj_ was the tax imposed on the Christian population in lieu of the military service and other similar duties from which they were exempted, disabilities generally regarded by them as privileges, and in consequence of which they have increased and multiplied and become rich and prosperous in the land. An entirely false interpretation has been given to a passage in the Koran, which was even quoted by the Austrian plenipotentiaries at the Conference of Niemirow, in 1737, in support of the “Death or Koran” theory here referred to. The true answer, which indeed is obvious from the context, was given by the Ottoman negotiators on this occasion, viz., that the text quoted applied only to idolaters and not to the “people of the Book.” Anyone who knows anything of the religion of Mahomet is aware of the important distinction recognised therein between the “people of the Book” (_kitabi_) and idolaters (_medjous_), and knows that whereas little mercy, it is true, was shown to the latter, the former were included in the Dar‐ul‐Islam (the house of Islam), where they formed an integral portion of the empire, and that the true Mahomedan was taught, with respect to the latter, that “their substance is as our substance, their eyes as our eyes, and their souls as our souls.” The fable, too, that the murder of a Christian by a Mahomedan was considered by the Cheri (sacred law) as a trivial offence, and was visited by a lighter punishment than the same crime committed on the person of a Mussulman, is disposed of by the _Fetva_ delivered by the Mufti (Supreme Judge of the Sacred Law), and quoted by Cantimer[1] in answer to the question, “What should be the penalty if eleven Mussulmans murdered one Christian?” “If the Mussulmans were one thousand and one in number, instead of only eleven, they should all be put to death.”

So far indeed is it from being historically true that the conquered Christian populations were forced by the sword to adopt the religion of Mahomet, that when Selim I. desired, for reasons of what he considered long‐sighted policy, so to convert the Christians of the Balkans, he was stopped short in the attempt by a _Fetva_ of the Sheik‐ul‐Islam, Zenbilli Ali Effendi, who pronounced such a proceeding to be contrary to the Koran and the Cheri (sacred law), and the attempt was accordingly abandoned.

It may be remarked, in passing, that history does not relate that Cromwell was ever diverted from a policy similar to that from which Selim was deflected, or hampered in his enactment of the penal laws in Ireland by any such scruples or protests on the part of the ecclesiastical authorities of his day. However that may be, the policy of the Ottoman sovereigns with reference to the conquered Raias was the exact opposite to that popularly supposed. Nor was the policy actually adopted the result of any idiosyncracy or peculiar generosity on their part. It was in strict obedience to the injunctions of the Prophet, and in conformity with the policy pursued by himself in the “letters patent,” accorded to the Christians (_nassara_) on the 4th day of Moharem of the year 11 of the Hegira. It was in fact the fixed and settled policy of the Mussulman political system.

In proof of this position some European authorities, by no means particularly inclined to the Ottoman cause, Montesquieu for example, may be quoted. This author bears testimony to the happy change effected in the condition of the Greek population of the empire after the occupation of their capital by the Turks: “The people,” he says, “in place of that continued series of vexations which the subtle avarice of the Byzantine Emperors had devised, were now subjected to a simple tribute, easily paid and lightly borne, happy in having to submit to even a barbarous nation (_sic_) rather than to a corrupt government under which they suffered all the inconveniences of a fictitious liberty with all the horrors of a real servitude.”

The reports of the Venetian ambassadors, and the narratives of travellers in the sixteenth century, like La Motraye, offer concurrent testimony to the tolerance and moderation of this “barbarous nation.” “The other (_i.e._ the Christian) subjects of the Empire,” says La Motraye, “enjoy all the liberty of conscience that they can desire. They go to the churches and pilgrimages and practise all the rights of their religion, without fear or molestation. The same thing applies to their commerce and temporal affairs. They have no dread of being deprived of the fruits of their labours, which they enjoy without let or hindrance.”[2]

Compare with this condition of the Greek Raias of the Ottoman Empire that, for instance, of the Greek population of Chio under Genoese domination, as described by Genoese writers themselves, and quoted by Mr Fustel de Coulanges, where the unfortunate population, in addition to daily exactions and injustices, were compelled four times a year, at Christmas, Easter, Whitsunday, and the Feast of the Circumcision, to attend a ceremony, best described as “a feast of humiliation,” at which their clergy and chief citizens were summoned to the palace of the Podesta, where a herald, mounted on a stand, with a wand in his hand, read four prayers for the Pope, the Emperor, the Republic of Genoa, and the family of the Justiniani, and obliged the assembled Chiotes, at the end of each prayer, to answer in responsive and quasi‐enthusiastic acclamations; these poor Chiotes being thus compelled to acclaim and pray for the Pope—their greatest enemy—the Emperor they knew nothing about, the Republic that had subjected them, and the family of the Justiniani whom they detested, representing as it did the “Maona” (a financial company) that ruthlessly pillaged them.

Take again the case of the Candiotes under the domination of the Venetians, in which the Greek population of the island did not hesitate to conspire with the Turkish besiegers in order to deliver their capital into their hands, and thus free themselves from the oppression of the Italian Republic.[3]

Even the Greeks of the Morea complained bitterly of the religious persecution of the Venetians, whereas, said they, “the Turks allowed us all the liberty we required.”[4]

These quotations, which could be multiplied _ad infinitum_, will probably suffice. It was indeed the universal cry of all the Christian population in the East, from the middle of the fifteenth century to the beginning of the eighteenth—“A thousand times rather the Turks than the Latins.”

That corruptions gradually grew up in the land of the Osmanli; that perversions of the law crept into its practice, and that prejudices, engendered by ignorance, created abuses which in earlier days were sternly repressed, it is not intended here to deny. Indeed it is the contention of this book that such perversions, the causes of which it will be its purpose to trace, did spring up, as rank weeds, in the Ottoman system; but what is strenuously asserted, and what will, it is hoped, be proved, is that they formed no part or parcel of the original Ottoman Constitution, but were, on the contrary, excrescences in that system, violations of its spirit and essence; and further, that the efforts of the reforming party in the nation, from the days of Selim III. to the accession of Abdul Hamid II., through an apostolic succession of patriots and statesmen—including the Keuprulu Mehemets, the Reshids, the Aalis, the Fuads and the Midhats—were directed to the end of restoring the spirit of that Constitution, with such adaptation of it to the requirements of the day as the experience, science and political conditions of the world required.

Mehemet II., from the moment he sheathed his sword on victory being assured, manifested his determination that the lives and properties of the conquered populations should be respected, and, in order to give weight to his orders to that effect, took immediate measures to offer a conspicuous example of respect for the religion of his new subjects by his conduct as its hierarchical chief. He summoned the Greek Patriarch (_Roum milleti patriki_) to a solemn Divan, stepped down from his throne, and breaking through all established usage, advanced ten steps to meet him, took him by the hand, and seated him next to himself in the place of honour, delivering into his hands, as a symbol of power, a golden sceptre, which to this day is carried in processions on occasions of great ceremonies, investing him with unlimited authority over all Orthodox schools, monasteries and churches, and with judicial and administrative functions over all his co‐religionists.

Such a delegation of power was the nearest approach to the establishment of an _imperium in imperio_ as is afforded in history, with, let it be added, all the weakness that attaches to such a _régime_, as was subsequently too clearly proved by the pernicious use made of these privileges by a foreign Power, in founding on them a claim to interfere in the internal affairs of the empire, and in using them as a lever to overthrow it.

But wise or unwise, such at any rate was the policy adopted by the Sultans of Turkey towards their Christian subjects, and the legend of conversion by the sword must be relegated, with so many similar fables with respect to Turkey, to the mythology of history.

From the foundation of the empire, and under the ægis of its government, the Hellenisation of the Raias, under the authority of the Patriarch of the Phanar, proceeded apace throughout the country. So effectually indeed was this taking place, that the very name of Slav, or Bulgarian, implying as it did an inferior social status, was gradually falling into disuse, and the prouder appellation of “Roum,” or Greek, substituted for it.

It is probable that another half‐century of this process would have blotted out the very name of Slav, had not a new Power appeared on the world’s stage, introducing a new factor in the Eastern problem, and profoundly modifying its conditions. This was the rise of Russia as a world Power, under the rule of that extraordinary man of genius, Peter I. After finally breaking the power of Sweden at the great battle of Pultava, and after adding Livonia, Esthonia, Ingria, Finland, and Lithuania to his already vast dominions, and founding a capital with a maritime outlet on the Northern Seas, he turned his ambition to the sunny lands of the South, which the legend of the marriage of a Byzantine princess with a Russian _Kneze_ had already annexed in imagination to the Empire of Moscovy.

This is the place to refer to an historical event which has more than a passing interest, as it may be said to be the source and origin of the undeviating policy of Russia in her dealings with Turkey. At the historical interview between Peter the Great and Cantimir, Voivode of Moldavia, the latter initiated the Russian Czar into the secret of the Eastern problem, and explained to him the profit that might be derived from taking adroit advantage of the privileges of self‐government enjoyed by the Christians in the East, and from the steady pursuit of a policy exploiting this autonomy to the best advantage.

The lesson here learnt was never forgotten, and the political strategy here determined on became henceforth the very keystone of Russia’s policy in regard to Turkey.

Whether the famous will of Peter the Great be apocryphal or not, as historically speaking it probably is, there is no doubt that it expresses, with prophetic instinct at any rate, the great lines of policy that have ever since been pursued with reference to Turkey by all Peter’s successors.

Two distinct phases have marked the manner of Russia’s dealings with the Christians of the East, although those dealings have been undeviating in their aims and in general plan of attack on the Ottoman Empire.

The first phase was marked by a close alliance with a Greek Patriarch and his Metropolitans, and a general identification of views between the Russian and Greek propaganda.

The Greek liturgy and the Greek priesthood were accepted without a question, whilst portraits of the Czar, with the superscription “Emperor of the Greco‐Russians,” were freely circulated by the Greek clergy among their flocks. Colonel Repnin’s plot, in 1837, took place in connivance with the Greek Patriarch, and a few years later Marshal Munich was received by the peasants of Moldavia with the Greek archbishop and his clergy marching at their head. The convents and monasteries in Moldavia, Wallachia, Servia, and Montenegro were used as _dépôts_ for arms, and monks were not the least audacious of the leaders of the revolutionists. Piccolo Stefano in Servia and Montenegro, Papazoglou in Greece, and Gamana in Wallachia, put themselves at the head of armed bands, that were joined by others from across the frontier. This alliance continued until Russia, having by her victories and prestige acquired the position of the recognised leader of the anti‐Turkish movement, was strong enough to dispense with the Greek alliance and to champion the cause of pure Slavism undiluted with Hellenism.

The second phase of Russian policy in the Slav provinces was marked by the feverish activity of the Panslavic Committees of Bucharest, Kischnoff, Moscow and Kieff, the cynical intrigues of the Russian ambassadors at Constantinople, and the fanatical articles of Katkoff in the _Moscow Gazette_, the aim of all which was to give a national direction to the Slavic movement in the Turkish provinces. The nationalisation of the religion of the people, the substitution of the authority of national Exarchs as heads of their churches, in the place of the Greek Patriarch, and of a native clergy educated in Russia in the place of that nominated at the Phanar, were the measures called for, and successively adopted, to stimulate a movement that now embraced all Slav dependencies of Turkey in its action. The pretext of protecting and securing the privileges of the Christian communities in the Turkish Empire was finally dropped, and the liberation of the oppressed nationalities of the South‐West of Europe became the watchword of the new propaganda.

All the machinery of the heavily subsidised Panslavic Committee was set in motion; band after band was raised and sent across the frontier; rebellion was openly preached, and the ignorant peasantry were deluded, by arguments which they did not understand, to complain of grievances which they did not feel.

The answer to the question of how such an encroaching and cynically pursued policy, violating as it did every principle of international law and comity in its dealings with a neighbouring nation, was possible—in a century, too, that was roused to indignation against a not dissimilar but entirely unofficial raid in South Africa—must be sought in the unfortunate condition and weakness of the Ottoman Empire that exposed it, almost defenceless, to the attacks of its powerful neighbour, and dispensed the latter from even the decencies of international intercourse as practised among civilised nations.

This weakness in its turn was the result, as this work is specially intended to show, of corruptions and perversions that had crept into an originally admirable Constitution, and had produced a paralysis of all its important functions, placing its nation almost as much at the mercy of its enemies as had the _Liberum Veto_ the fair land of Poland.

The successive steps of these innovations must now be rapidly traced. When the conquering energies of the new empire were exhausted, and its victorious armies checked under the walls of Vienna by Sobieski and his Poles, and the maritime power of its fleet broken by Don John of Austria’s victory at Lepanto, a new phase was entered upon in which internal re‐organisation took the place of external conquest.

The latter half of the sixteenth century was devoted to attempts to organise the empire on quasi‐feudal principles. It was divided into _timars_ and _zeamets_ (fiefs), represented by the great feudatories, the Derebeys. This was the first serious innovation, involving a perversion of the cardinal principle of the Ottoman Constitution, which was in spirit and essence purely democratic; and when the counter‐revolution took place, and the Sultans determined to get rid of the Derebeys, so as to establish their own exclusive power, the mischief was already done, for the old principle of democracy, as understood by the companions of Othman, was by this time seriously impaired by the long disuse of its ancient rights and functions; so that this counter‐revolution, instead of restoring the old order of things, only redounded to the exclusive profit of autocracy. Nothing but the Porte (that is the Government), and the traditional authority it exercised, now stood in the way of the complete absolutism of the Sultan, and, owing to the veneration of the Ottoman people for their sovereigns—a veneration founded partly on religious, partly on secular, sentiments, and due in no small measure to the exceptional merits of their early rulers—the Sultans entered on the struggle for absolutism equipped with superior advantages. Having no fear of popular encroachments before their eyes, or of popular passion directed against their persons, they could devote their entire thoughts and energies to the task of dominating the Porte and monopolising power in the State.

The struggle of these two contending forces, the Palace and the Porte, continued for a long time, with alternate preponderance on either side, a strong Sultan and a weak vizier inclining the scales towards autocracy, whilst a strong vizier with a weak or luxurious Sultan, redressed the balance to the other side. The Keuprulu Mehemets, Reshids, Aalis and Fuads left the impress of their minds on the Ottoman policy and administration, whilst a host of so‐called Grand Viziers—whom it would be superfluous to name singly, inasmuch as their collective name is legion—were the mere registers of the will, and instruments of the caprices, of their masters. The Sultan Abdul Medjid counted with Reshid Pasha, and Abdul Aziz with Aali and Fuad, as long as they were alive; but it was reserved for his successor, after he had suppressed a Constitution that he had sworn to observe as the very condition of his mounting to the throne, to brush all checks and counterpoises of every kind aside, and to set up a pure, unmixed despotism, based on caprice and corruption alone. Such a system of government had been hitherto unknown to the Ottoman Constitution, was emphatically denounced by the prophets, was contrary to the express provisions of the Sacred Law, was repudiated by Mehemet II. and all the early Sultans as well as Caliphs of Islam, and ran counter to all the traditions of the Ottoman people.

Simultaneously with the beginning of this fatal perversion and this gradual absorption by the Sultans of all power in the State, another change was taking place, closely connected with it, and aggravating all its worst effects.

The high character of the early Sultans of Turkey—to which all contemporary authorities, Christian and Mahomedan alike, bear testimony—had, as has been said, profoundly affected the Ottoman character. Their fervid loyalty to their rulers sprang in no small measure from the lessons inculcated by their early history and their most cherished traditions. Now, up to the reign of Selim II., the Sultan of Turkey received a very superior education. They were not merely patrons of learning, but often themselves men of letters of no mean order. Mehemet II., the conqueror of Constantinople, was a distinguished poet; Selim I., a poet and a litterateur, prided himself, above all his prerogatives, on being the patron of men of letters and of science. This pursuit of science and learning was, moreover, in strict conformity with the spirit and letter of the Koran. “Seek science, even if it be in China”; “The wise and learned are the heirs of the Prophet,” are not isolated texts in a book teeming with passages of a similar kind. The early Caliphs, too, of Bagdad and Cordova, the Abdur Rahmans, Solimans, and Haroun el Reshid, were living proofs and typical examples of enlightened Mahomedan teaching.

But from the middle of the seventeenth century a change came over the spirit of the Sultanate in Turkey. Instead of identifying themselves with the life of their people and priding themselves on being the light that guided them, the Sultans now retired into the harems and gave themselves up to a life of ease and indulgence utterly foreign to the habits and principles of their great predecessors. They surrendered the reins of government into the hands of their Kizlar‐Agassi (chiefs of eunuchs), or Bostandji Bashi, and as one favourite succeeded another, or one palace clique displaced another, so vizier followed vizier in rapid and bewildering succession. All the corrupt and turbulent elements in the State were now unchained, justice was sacrificed to private interests, the muscles of the State were relaxed, and its most vital interests neglected and ignored. To such a pass had things come in this “State of Denmark,” that when at last a reforming Sultan arose in the person of Selim III., he had to pay with his life his reforming ardour, and leave to his successor, Mahmoud II., a task almost beyond human strength to accomplish. The reigns of the next three Sultans after Selim are the history of honest, though intermittent, struggles against the fatal legacies of the past two centuries, and of many abortive attempts to grapple with the evils that a departure from the primitive Constitution of the Empire had entailed on it, aggravated as these evils were by revolutions organised across its borders, and the systematic intrigues and almost uninterrupted hostility of its nearest neighbours.

But in following the evolution of the struggle between autocracy and the Ottoman people, and endeavouring to trace its origin, we have been anticipating the chronological order of events. We must now return to the narrative of the military movement of the eighteenth century, from the time that Peter the Great turned the energies of his diplomacy and his armies in the direction of the Ottoman provinces.

The first collision between the armed forces of Turkey and Russia ended unfavourably for the latter. By the treaty of Falksen (1711), Russia was compelled to restore Azov, that she had seized, and to undertake to abstain from meddling in the affairs of Poland. But for the treachery of Baltadji Mehemet Pasha, it is probable that this first campaign would have ended still more disastrously for Russian arms, and possibly the final partition of Poland would have been averted. That unhappy country found, at this crisis of her history, in the Sultan of Turkey her sole champion and defender among the sovereigns of Europe, and her name figured for the last time in history in a public instrument in which her rights were safeguarded by a Mahomedan sovereign against the deadly machinations of her Christian neighbour.

It was certainly unfortunate for the Ottoman Empire—and it may possibly not have been altogether fortunate for the rest of Europe—that the rise of the power of Russia should have been synchronous with the period of the greatest weakness of Turkey. Russia’s principal attacks on the integrity and independence of Turkey were skilfully timed so as to coincide with the moment when that empire was in the throes of internal revolution, and could offer the least resistance to an external foe. At the time of Mahmoud II.’s accession to the throne, after the murder of Selim III., the accumulation of difficulties and dangers that beset the empire were such that it seemed as if nothing short of a miracle could prevent its complete destruction. It required at any rate some very potent principles of internal strength and cohesion to resist the centrifugal forces in full activity at that crisis. Servia was in open revolt under Michel Obrenowitz, Egypt was in the hands of the able and ambitious Mehemet Ali, Arabia was in the effervescence of a Wahabee rising, the Pasha of Janina had raised the standard of revolt, and the Governor of Widdin, the famous Pasvan Oglou, had proclaimed his independence, and—most serious danger of all—the insurrection of Greece, supported by a consensus of enthusiasm in Europe, threatened the integrity of the empire; all this, too, at the very moment when the military forces of the empire were undergoing the complete re‐organisation which Selim had begun, and Mahmoud was resolved to carry out. This revolution, for it was nothing less, consisted in the abolition of the ancient corps of Janissaries and the substitution for it of a regular force (the _Nizam_) drilled and organised on the European model.

The Janissaries from being a redoubtable _corps d’élite_ recruited from Christian youths, who embraced the military as a life‐long profession, and were imbued with a military spirit which proved its worth on the hard‐fought fields of Mohacs, Nicopolis and Cossovo, had become through successive relaxings of the bonds of discipline and the ruin of its military _esprit de corps_, nothing but an unruly Pretorian Guard, a greater terror to the sovereign and to peaceful citizens than to the enemies of the empire. The gratuities that they were accustomed to receive on the accession of a new Sultan, and the licensed pillagings that invariably ensued on these occasions, were irresistible temptations to them to render this event as frequent as possible, and they consequently deposed sovereigns and proclaimed new ones almost at their will. The privileges, moreover, that they wrested from the terrified sovereigns, especially after the death of Soliman I.—such as the right to marry, to desert barrack life (their _odjaks_), and to pursue trades and industries—completely changed and deteriorated their martial character, and from the victorious soldiery that they were in the days of Ilderim Bayazid they became nothing but a turbulent militia. At last the scandal caused by their depredations and violence became intolerable, and their disbandment was loudly demanded by public opinion in all classes of the population. Selim III. determined to suppress them, and, as a necessary preliminary, commenced the re‐organisation of the naval and military forces of the empire by inviting French engineers to build ships of war, and French officers to drill and discipline a new army on European principles. Unfortunately Bonaparte’s expedition to Egypt, and the declaration of war that ensued between France and Turkey, recalled these military instructors before the work of instruction and re‐organisation was half completed. It was these threatened Janissaries who, on their return to Constantinople from an expedition to Syria, willingly lent themselves as instruments of the ambition of the Sultan’s brother, Mustafa, and who deposed and finally murdered Selim. But the deposed sovereign, in his retirement and before his death, found time and opportunity thoroughly to imbue with his reforming enthusiasm his cousin Mahmoud, and he, on ascending the throne, determined, as the only means of saving the empire from ruin, and in spite of the menacing attitude of the new Czar Nicholas of Russia—who inaugurated his accession by sending an Ultimatum to Constantinople—to carry out unflinchingly the whole programme of reforms conceived by Selim. At a Grand Council (_Divan_) assembled in 1826, a unanimous vote was passed in favour of the total suppression of the Janissaries, and shortly afterwards, the decree being resisted by the mutinous soldiery, they were surrounded and overpowered, and in the massacre that ensued this famous Pretorian Guard finally disappeared.

The organisation, however, of the regular forces (_Nizam_), which were to take their place, being only half complete, it was just at the moment when the military organisation of the empire was undergoing a radical transformation that the new Sultan was called upon to face all the complications of internal revolution and foreign wars that confronted him on his accession. Mahmoud, however, set resolutely about the task, and a certain measure of success attended his first efforts. The Pashas of Widdin and Janina were successively reduced to subjection, and by the help of the Pasha of Egypt who had not yet thrown off his allegiance, the Morea was reconquered by the troops of Ibrahim Pasha, and Greece would undoubtedly have been restored to her position as the Western horn of the Ottoman Crescent but for the forcible interference of Europe and the military expedition of Marshal Maison.

By a protocol, signed at St Petersburg, on 4th April 1826, Greece was declared an autonomous and vassal State; but after the rejection by the Sultan of the collective mediation of the four Great Powers (5th February 1827), Austria, France, Great Britain and Russia (Protocol of London), and the destruction by the allied forces, without the formality of a declaration of war, of the Turkish fleet at Navarino (1827), immediately followed by a declaration of war on the part of Russia, and the campaigns of Diebitch in Europe, and Paskiewitz in Asia Minor, terminating in the disastrous Treaty of Adrianople (14th September 1829), Mahmoud had no choice but to consent in the following year (1830) to the creation of Greece into an independent kingdom, an arrangement confirmed by the Treaty of London on the 13th July 1841.

The still more serious revolt of Mehemet Ali—imperilling as it did not only the integrity of the empire, but the solidarity of Islam—immediately followed. On the Ottoman sovereign refusing to concede the government of Syria to Mehemet Ali, in return for his services in the campaign against Greece, the latter, picking a quarrel with the governor of the coveted province, quickly invaded Syria, and, defeating the Ottoman troops in a great battle at Konia, compelled the Sultan to agree to a truce (credited with the name of peace), whilst both sides prepared for an early resumption of hostilities. When this took place the Egyptian troops were again successful in a decisive battle at Nezib (24th June 1839), which placed the whole of Syria, up to the walls of Acre, in the possession of the victorious Pasha of Egypt.

Russia was, of course, too alert in following the traditional policy in regard to Turkey not to profit by these distractions, and it was at this mortal crisis of the Ottoman Empire that she stepped in and secured the secret clauses of the Treaty of Unkiar Iskelessi (8th July 1833), by which she bound Turkey to an offensive and defensive alliance that was to last for eight years, and to exclude all flags but her own from passing through the Bosphorus.

These events, however, at last brought England and Austria into the field, and an English fleet under Napier appeared before Alexandria, and an English force under Sydney Smith before Acre (Saint Jean d’Acre). Mehemet Ali, who was now deserted by France, was thus obliged to sign the Convention of Alexandria, by which Egypt was restored to the suzerainty of the Sultan, with, however, the viceroyalty of the country made hereditary in his family. By the Treaty of London (13th July 1841), this arrangement became part of the public law of Europe, and at the same time the clauses of the Treaty of Unkiar Iskelessi were revised, and the neutrality of the Straits was solemnly reaffirmed.

Six days after the disastrous battle of Nezib (June 25, 1839), the Sultan Mahmoud died, and was succeeded by his son, Abdul Medjid. The youthful sovereign, who was only seventeen years old, in spite of the misfortunes that had befallen his country, or, perhaps, rather on account of them, resolved to persevere steadily in the course of reform initiated by his two predecessors. Fortunately he possessed in Reshid Pasha a great Minister, who shared and seconded, and perhaps prompted, the reforming ardour of his master; and on the 3rd November 1839 an Imperial Rescript, the famous Hatti Humayoun of Gulhané, proclaimed the following reforms for the whole empire:—

I. A guarantee of life and honour to all Ottoman subjects, without distinction.

II. A regulation of taxation so as to put an end to arbitrary exactions.

III. The equality of all before the law.

IV. Public instruction to be secularised.

V. The slave trade to be abolished.

VI. The decentralisation of the provincial governments, and a separation of civil, military, and fiscal functions.

This great charter was certainly not intended by its author to be a dead letter. It was, on the contrary, an earnest attempt to grapple with the new conditions of the empire, and to restore the spirit of its ancient Constitution, whilst reconciling it to the new requirements of the day.

This double purpose was clearly manifested in every line of the new decree, the preamble of which ran as follows:—

“Every one knows that when the Empire was first founded, its laws and precepts, which were of a high standard, were scrupulously obeyed. Therefore the Empire grew in strength and grandeur, and all its subjects, without distinction, attained to a high degree of ease and prosperity. For the last five hundred years a succession of accidents and divers causes have brought it about that men have ceased to conform to the sacred code of laws and regulations that flow from it, and therefore the force and prosperity of former days have been converted into weakness and poverty—for a nation always loses all stability when it ceases to observe its laws. These considerations have been ceaselessly present to our mind, and since the day of our accession to the throne the thoughts of the common weal, the amelioration of the condition of the provinces, and the lessening of the burdens of the people, have been the subjects of our constant preoccupation. Moreover, if the geographical position of the Empire; the fertility of its soil; the aptitude and intelligence of its inhabitants; be considered, they will lead to the conviction that if a ruler applies himself diligently to discover the efficacious means to effect necessary reforms, the results that we hope to attain, with the help of the Almighty, may be achieved in the course of a few short years. Therefore, full of trust in the help of the Almighty, and leaning on the intercession of our Prophet, we consider it right and proper to set about, by the help of new institutions, procuring for the provinces of our Empire the blessings of a sound administration.”

Reshid Pasha, by order of the Sultan, set himself earnestly to the task of translating the general principles enunciated in the Hatti Humayoun, with special laws and regulations that should reduce them to practice, and four years after its promulgation at Gulhané, the _Tanzimat_, or regulations for the organisation of all the branches of administration, was published throughout the empire. Under the four general heads:—

I. The Government proper (_Mejalice devleti aliie_);

II. The Administration (_Zaptié ve mulkie memourlari_);

III. Justice and Public Instruction (_Ylmie_);

IV. The Army and Navy (_Seifiie_),

it gave the most elaborate directions for the organisation of each branch of the public service. Considering the condition of confusion into which the administration of the country had fallen in the course of ages, and the absence of any guiding principle in it, the _Tanzimat_ must be considered one of the most remarkable efforts of administrative organisation ever displayed in any country, and a monument of the genius of Reshid Pasha. It is not altogether without reason that he has been called the “Richelieu of Turkey.”

But it does not suffice to decree great changes; it is in the endeavour to reduce them to practice that the chief difficulty arises. And no great wonder if in a country like Turkey, where vested interests had grown around the old order of things; where conservative prejudices, as in every country in the world, obstruct the path of reform; where trained civil servants did not exist but had to be created, that the execution of these important and all‐embracing reforms should not have taken place by decree as by a magician’s wand, but required time and patience for their realisation. Events, too, were taking place in Europe which were destined to change the aspect of things and divert the minds of statesmen from internal organisation to the necessities of defending the existence of the national independence. The revolutionary movement of 1848–1849 in Europe afforded a little respite to a country outside the sphere of this movement, and it was just at this disturbed period of the rest of Europe that Turkey enjoyed the greatest peace and made the greatest progress in the work of re‐organisation. But scarcely had the revolutionary effervescence calmed down in Europe, and the fears connected with it been laid to rest, when the Emperor Nicholas—who had finally suppressed the Magyar insurrection and restored Hungary to the House of Hapsburg—turned his attention once more to Turkey, and resolved on decisive action. To suppose that the progress in organisation that was being effected in that country was not entirely unconnected with this determination would be only to deny that the arguments and reasons of State put forward by Pozzo di Borgo, in 1828, were operative in the mind of the Emperor Nicholas twenty years later:

“When the Imperial Cabinet examines the question as to whether the moment had not arrived to take up arms against the Porte, some doubt might possibly have existed as to the urgency of such a measure in the minds of those who had not sufficiently meditated on the effects of the sanguinary reform (destruction of Janissaries) that the Ottoman ruler had just executed with such terrible force. Now, however, the experience that we have just had ought to enlist the sympathy of all in favour of the course that we have adopted. The Emperor has put the new Turkish system to the proof, and His Majesty has discovered in it a commencement of moral and physical organisation which it never possessed before. If the Sultan has been enabled to oppose to us a more spirited and regular resistance than before, whilst scarcely able to put together the elements of his new plan of reform and amelioration, how much the more formidable should we have found him if he had had the time to give it more solidity.”[5]

However that may be, hardly had the Russian troops withdrawn from Hungary than the Emperor Nicholas, addressing Sir Hamilton Seymour, the English Ambassador at St Petersburg, dwelt on the moribund condition of the Turkish Empire, and proposed to him its partition. Crete and Egypt were to be the spoils of England, whereas Servia, Montenegro, Wallachia, Moldavia, and Bulgaria were to fall to the share of Russia. This offer was duly reported to the Cabinet of St James, and categorically declined by it. The state of Europe at the time was not unfavourable to the Czar’s designs. Austria was bound to Russia by gratitude for important services rendered, and only Metternich suspected her to be then capable of “stupendous ingratitude.” Prussia was united to the Czar by ties of near kindred, and by her traditional indifference to the affairs of the East. France having fallen into the hands of a sovereign capable of reviving Napoleonic traditions, was as much an object of suspicion to all the crowned heads of Europe as by his _coup d’état_ he was to liberal opinion throughout the world. The last thing that seemed likely, or even possible, was a coalition between Napoleonic France and the England of Lord Aberdeen. The omens seemed favourable for striking a decisive blow.

A quarrel in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, between Greek and Latin monks, afforded the desired pretext. After some diplomatic haggling between the Porte and France, in which the latter first put forward and then withdrew claims which would have afforded a precedent and pretext for Russian pretensions, Prince Mentchikoff suddenly appeared, with much bluster, at Constantinople, as the bearer of an Ultimatum demanding the assent of the Porte, within the space of five days, to a Russian protectorate over all the Orthodox subjects of the Sultan in his dominions. Europe, startled by the brusqueness of this action, as well as the serious import of the demand, endeavoured immediately to interpose her mediation to avert a crisis. Sir Strafford de Redcliffe and Mr de la Cour, who happened to be absent from Constantinople on the arrival of Prince Mentchikoff, returned precipitately to their posts, and, seconded by the Austrian Ambassador, Prince Leiningen, spared no effort that ingenuity could devise to give effect to their conciliatory instructions. But as no compromise could possibly be found between the pretensions put forward in the Ultimatum and what the Porte was willing to concede, Prince Mentchikoff had the escutcheon removed from the Russian Embassy at Pera, and with his whole suite quitted Constantinople.

Three weeks after this (31st May 1853), Count Nesselrode despatched another Ultimatum reiterating the same demands, and giving the Porte eight days within which to execute them. The only answer vouchsafed to this document was the proclamation by the Sultan, on the 6th June, of a new Hatti Cherif confirming the rights and privileges of all the Christian subjects of the empire. The combined French and English fleets, at the same time, received orders to sail to Besika Bay, and although war was not formally declared, the Emperor Nicholas gave orders for his armies to cross the Pruth and to seize the Danubian principalities as a “material guarantee” for compliance with his demands.

It was not till 28th September that war was formally declared between Russia and Turkey, and that Omar Pasha received orders to summon the Russian Commander to evacuate the principalities. The interval between this period and the date of Prince Mentchikoff’s mission had been employed by a lively diplomatic correspondence between Lord Clarendon and Mr Drouyn de Lluys, on one side, and Prince Gortchakoff on the other, relative to the interpretation of the seventh clause of the Treaty of Kainardje, on which Russia based her claims to interfere with the Christian subjects of the Ottoman Empire. The destruction of a Turkish squadron by a superior Russian fleet in the harbour of Sinope at last terminated this diplomatic interlude, and brought the armed forces of England and France into the field. On the 27th December the allied fleets entered the Black Sea, and an expeditionary force was sent to Varna and the Dobrutcha.

Here is the place to note the influence exercised on the course of events by the action of Austria.

It was one of the principal aims of English and French diplomacy at this period to secure the co‐operation of the Middle Empire. By her geographical position and the revived force of her empire, as well as by the magnitude of her interests in the Eastern Question, she seemed called upon to exercise a preponderant influence on the issue of the coming struggle. It was even generally taken for granted that, could her active co‐operation be secured, such powerful pressure could be brought to bear on Russia as would secure the objects of the Western nations without actual recourse to arms; and, at any rate, that if Russia were still to persist in her policy of encroachment, the military forces at the command of the coalition would be so overwhelming as to compel her rapidly to retreat from the position she had taken up. Austria was generally considered to hold the key of the situation.

There was no lack of political motive on the part of Austria to bring her into line with Western Powers. The free navigation of the Danube, the arrest of the dangerous Panslavic propaganda of Russia, the curbing of limitless ambition of her colossal neighbour, were undoubtedly objects of State policy of the first magnitude. On the other hand, strong dynastic sympathies, and the obligations of gratitude for important services recently rendered, weighed heavily in the opposite scales. The result of these conflicting motives was a line of conduct which, whilst diplomatically supporting the contentions of the allied Cabinets, seriously hampered their military resolutions.

Had Austria not placed her veto on the march of the allied armies into Poland, that country would have become the battle‐field between the forces of the East and West, and as far as human forecast can determine, the whole face of Europe would have been changed, the Eastern Question would have been settled for ever, and the nightmare of Cossack preponderance lifted once for all from the shoulders of Western civilisation.

Instead of prosecuting the war on the continent of Europe, an expedition to the Crimea was resolved upon, and a French and English army landed at Eupatoria, and after a victorious advance across the Alma, and making a flank march to the south side of Sevastopol, they invested that portion of the great arsenal of Sevastopol which after two years’ siege and the taking of the fortress of Malakoff, at last surrendered to the allied army.

On the 25th February 1856, a congress was assembled at Paris, and on the 30th March the Treaty of Paris was signed by the plenipotentiaries of Russia, Turkey, England, France, Prussia and Italy, by which Turkey was admitted into the full benefits of international law, and into the Concert of Europe, and all right of interference in her internal affairs was expressly disclaimed and repudiated by all the Signatories. Russia and Turkey were expressly debarred from maintaining any armed forces in the Black Sea, and a small strip of Bessarabia was ceded by Russia to the Danubian principalities.

This was followed by the proclamation of a new Hatti Cherif on the part of the Sultan, which closed this particular chapter of the history of Europe.

Before concluding this short epitome of the history of the Ottoman Empire, and proceeding with the narrative of the life of Midhat Pasha, the incidents of whose career begin at this point to be interwoven with the general history of his country, it will be useful to cast a glance at the state of Europe and the general trend of events and alliances that succeeded the settlement of 1856.

The death of the Sultan, Abdul Medjid (1861), and the character of his successor were the chief factors, as will shortly be seen, that influenced the direct destinies of Turkey. Unfortunately, in a country where absolutism had gradually become the established form of government, this was, and could only be, the determining element in the problem of government

Russia, defeated but not humiliated, or even seriously crippled in a war which had, however, strained her resources, and absorbed by the great measure of the emancipation of her serfs, which inaugurated and rendered illustrious the reign of the successor of Nicholas, was, to employ the now classic phrase of Prince Gortchakoff, “collecting herself” (_La Russie se recueille_). This did not, however, prevent her giving a free hand, and even officious support, to the Panslavic Committees of Moscow and of Kieff, that now, through the promptings and under the direction of Katkoff and his school, entered upon a militant career, and the crafty Ignatieff was sent to Constantinople to defend and support the machinations of these committees, and to play with consummate astuteness on the weaknesses and vices of a sovereign who possessed none of the qualities of his three predecessors, but was remarkable only for an inordinate passion for expenditure and a morbid jealousy of his autocratic power. His perfect sanity, moreover, became more and more questionable.

With respect to France, from the first meeting of the plenipotentiaries at Paris, in May 1856, it became evident that a change had come over the spirit of the Court of the Tuileries. The representatives of France no longer showed themselves as irreconcilable to the views of Russia as was the case when Mr Drouyn de Lluys penned his famous despatches two years before, and in the discussions that took place at the Congress, and still more in the various Commissions appointed to settle the details of the articles of peace, the envoys of France were found to be constantly ranged on the side of Russia, whereas the views and contentions of England and Turkey were invariably supported by the representatives of Austria.

This new orientation of French politics, which continued to the time of the Polish insurrection in 1862, was further emphasised by the exceptional pomp and circumstances attending the French mission to St Petersburg, on the occasion of the coronation of the new Czar. The matrimonial and political _rapprochement_, too, between the House of Savoy and the Napoleons, culminating in the war of 1859, was a further cause of estrangement between France and Austria.

In compensation, however, for the gradual parting of the ways of French and English diplomacy in the East, the Cabinet of Vienna seemed to have reverted frankly to what may be called the normal policy of Austria with reference to Turkey, and the policy of Metternich and Castlereagh was for a time steadily and consistently followed by Buol and Palmerston. This state of things continued until the double election of Prince Couza in the Danubian principalities caused a rift in the alliance.

To Austria everything connected with the free navigation of the Danube and the political status of the provinces bordering on that great artery is, and must ever be, State interests of the first magnitude.

To England, apart from their indirect bearing on the integrity and independence of Turkey, these questions were only matters of sentimental interest founded on academic sympathy with the general principle of nationalities. This sentiment, however, called into activity by the events unrolling themselves in Italy, was particularly strong in England at the time when the question of the principalities presented itself as a practical problem to the statesmen of Europe, and found in the Prime Minister of the day, Mr Gladstone, one of its keenest and most enthusiastic partisans. England completely severed her policy on this occasion from that of Austria. Whether such conduct, with reference to a branch of a much larger problem, was quite consistent with an Eastern policy considered as a whole, and whether such a deviation from the obligation of loyalty to an indispensable ally was or was not responsible for much of what subsequently occurred, is perhaps too delicate a question to be discussed here. Certain, however, is it that the desertion of Austria on this occasion by the ally she counted on in Eastern matters to maintain intact the provisions of the Treaty of Paris, and the instability of English foreign policy that it revealed, made a profound impression on the minds of the Austrian Emperor and his counsellors, and justified in their view the revolution that subsequently took place in the Eastern policy of Austria. Placed as the Middle Empire is—between jealous rivals and powerful neighbours, and with enormous and vital interests to safeguard—it is obliged to lean on one system of alliance or another, and what has been called “la politique du Cascole” is, as it were, a necessity of her position, and even a condition of her existence. When the events connected with the Herzegovinian insurrection come to be narrated in these pages, the part taken in them by Austria, and the _rôle_ played by her statesmen throughout the long negotiations preceding the Russo‐Turkish War and during its continuance, until the final act of the comedy enacted at Berlin, will have to be clearly set forth in detail, for it was Austria that played the chief part in all of them, and that finally secured the chief part in the spoil.

This chapter, which only seeks to point out the particular circumstances that determined a change of policy on Eastern matters on the part of this empire, must be considered rather as an apology for, than an indictment of Austria with respect to Turkey. Moreover, it is the author’s aim throughout this work to narrate and explain events according to the lights vouchsafed to him, rather than to accuse any nation of bad faith or unjustifiable aggression with respect to his country. A nation worthy to exist at all must exist by its own strength and vigour, and not by the sufferance of its neighbours; and indeed the only indictment which will be proclaimed in this book will be against the descendants of the Othmans, Orkhans, Solimans, Bayazids and Mahmouds who have turned their backs on the traditions of their faith, and have allowed the muscles of the nation to be relaxed, and its heritage to become the prey of the spoiler.