The Turkish Empire, its Growth and Decay

In view of the strong pressure brought to bear upon him, the Sultan, for once in his life, gave way, and agreed to send plenipotentiaries to Adrianople to discuss terms of peace. Diebitsch well knew the danger of his position, and was anxious to make peace, but he maintained an attitude of firmness and confidence. He was ready, he said, to discuss terms, but he was equally willing to advance with his army against the capital. Already a part of his army was pressed forward. It occupied a line from the Black Sea at Kilia to Enos in the archipelago – a distance of over one hundred miles, much too long for his weak force. It is recognized by Moltke and all military authorities that if the Porte had stood firm and had refused to agree to terms, Diebitsch could not have made good his threatened attack on the capital. In the history of war there has never been a more successful case of ‘bluff.’ The Porte gave in to unreasoning and ill-informed fear, and on September 19th peace was concluded between the two Powers and the treaty of Adrianople was signed.

It is certain [said Moltke] that this treaty released Diebitsch from a position as perilous as could well be conceived, and which, if prolonged for a few more days, might have caused him to be hurled down from the summit of victory to the lowest depth of ruin and destruction.33

The terms of peace agreed to were moderate, so far as Russia itself was concerned, though very serious in their effect on the Ottoman Empire. The Czar had proclaimed at the outset of the war that he had no desire for territorial aggrandizement. He fully adhered to this promise. With two comparatively small exceptions, Russia gave up all the territory which it had conquered in the war, both in Europe and Asia. It retained only a small part of Moldavia which gave access to the Sulina mouth of the Danube, a position of great importance to it in the future. In Asia, Kars and Erzerum were given back to Turkey. In Europe, the Pruth continued to be the boundary of the two States. But Moldavia and Wallachia, though nominally restored to the Ottoman Empire, were practically freed from it. They were to enjoy complete autonomy. The Hospodars, in future, were to be appointed for life. The two States were to be allowed to raise armies independent of the Porte. The tribute payable in future was to be fixed, and could not be increased. Religious and commercial freedom were to be secured to them. The Sultan was to be their suzerain and nothing more. This meant practical independence. The same privileges were secured for Serbia, with the exception that the Porte was to be permitted to garrison the fortresses of Belgrade and Orsova. The Turks were required to depart from all other parts of the country. Silistria was to be returned to Turkey, but other fortresses on the Danube were to be razed. That river, therefore, ceased to be the first defence of the Turkish Empire to the north. An indemnity of eleven and a half million ducats, equal to five millions sterling, was to be paid by Turkey for the expenses of Russia in the war. The payment was to be spread over ten years, and the territory occupied by Russia was not to be wholly surrendered till this was effected.

As regards Greece, the treaty embodied and made obligatory on the Sultan the provisions of the treaty of London of July, 1827, between the three Powers, and the further protocol between them of March 1829, which defined the future limits of Greece. Under the protocol, the boundary line was to run from the Gulf of Volo to the Gulf of Arta, so as to include the greater part of Thessaly. The country south of this was to be subject to a monarchical government, hereditary in a Christian prince to be chosen by the three Powers, with the consent of the Porte and under the suzerainty of the Sultan, and with an administration best calculated to ensure its religious and commercial liberty. This proposal had been submitted to the Sultan by the ambassadors of England and France on March 22, 1829. He had then obstinately refused to have anything to say to it. When the Russians had crossed the Balkans, the Sultan, in the hope of propitiating England and France, offered to the ambassadors to agree to an autonomous Greece under a Hospodar, limited, however, to the Morea. This the ambassadors refused. The Porte, under the treaty with Russia, now agreed to their full demand.

The Governments of England and France appear to have taken umbrage at the action of Russia in dealing with the subject of Greece in a separate treaty with the Porte. It was thought that the Czar wished to get all the credit of liberating Greece from Turkish rule. They therefore informed the Russian Government that the execution of the treaty of London of 1827 did not belong to the Czar alone, but was to be the work of the three Governments. In consequence of this a further conference took place in London, at which it was decided that the suzerainty of the Sultan over Greece was to be abolished, and complete independence was to be secured to the Greeks. They also came to the unfortunate decision that the line of boundary of the new kingdom was to be greatly restricted, and instead of running from the Gulf of Volo to the Gulf of Arta, was to be drawn from the mouth of the Archilous to the mouth of the Sperkius, thus excluding from the new kingdom the whole of Acarnania and the greater part of Thessaly, where the population was almost wholly Greek. They also decided that Crete was not to be included, but was to be restored to Turkish rule. Mr. Finlay says of this: “Diplomatic ignorance could not have traced a more unsuitable boundary.”34

The Sultan agreed to this new project. He probably preferred a smaller Greece with complete independence to a larger one with full autonomy, subject to his suzerainty. Greece was accordingly recalled into national existence with a greatly reduced area, leaving outside large districts with completely homogeneous Greek populations. This was fraught with grave difficulties in the future. One effect of it was that Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, who, later, as King of the Belgians, proved to be one of the most able rulers of his day, refused to accept the throne of Greece on the ground that its area was too restricted, and Otho, a son of the King of Bavaria, was selected by the Powers for the post, and proved to be a most incompetent and reactionary ruler. It would seem that Lord Aberdeen, who was Minister of Foreign Affairs in England at the time, and who was mainly responsible for these changes, was anxious to restrict the kingdom of Greece to the smallest possible area.

Reverting to the treaty of Adrianople, it is to be observed that while Russia acquired a very insignificant extension of territory, and was content with the prestige of having dictated its terms, and with having acquired a position such that it might insist on its behests to the Porte, as regards its Christian subjects, being obeyed in the future, Turkey lost very greatly. It was said that the Sultan, after signing the treaty, shut himself up in his palace at Therapia for weeks in gloomy despair. There was much cause for this. The treaty was a complete surrender of all that he had been contending for since his accession to the throne. It was humiliating to himself and his Turkish subjects. It was the inevitable precursor of much that was to occur to other parts of his Empire. His grief and indignation must have been greatly aggravated when he came to know the real condition of the Russian army at Adrianople and to appreciate that, if he had stood firm in resisting the advice of his ministers and of the ambassadors, the Russian army would have been quite unable to make an advance against Constantinople. This, however, should not lead us to forget the supreme error which Mahmoud committed in refusing to come to terms with the three Powers as regards Greece after the treaty of London. If in 1827, the Sultan had been willing to make concessions in the direction of autonomy to Greece, it is nearly certain that there would have been no declaration of war on the part of Russia, and in the event of war he would not have been wanting in allies. His fleet would not have been destroyed at Navarino, and time would have been afforded to him to reorganize his army and to make it effective against those of the Christian Powers. As it was, not only did he lose all real hold over Moldavia, Wallachia, and Serbia, not only did Greece gain its independence, but he was soon to lose all real authority in Egypt, a Moslem country, except the barren right of suzerainty of the Sultan and a fixed tribute in money.

It has already been stated that when, in 1824, the Sultan invited the aid of the Pasha of Egypt to crush rebellion in Greece, Mehemet Ali only consented to lend his army and fleet on the express promise that the Pashalics of Syria, Damascus, Tripoli (in Asia), and Crete would be given to him, in addition to that of Egypt. But when in 1827, after the destruction of the Turko-Egyptian fleet at Navarino and the expulsion of the Egyptian army from the Morea, Mehemet Ali pressed for the performance of this promise, he met with a blank refusal, except as regards the island of Crete, the Pashalic of which alone was conferred on him. Mehemet was very indignant at this breach of promise, and determined to seize by force the provinces which he coveted. He set to work with great resolution to build another fleet, in place of that which had been burnt or sunk, and to improve and strengthen his army.

By 1832 he completed these preparations for war. He then picked a quarrel with the Pasha of Syria and, pretending to make war against him and not against the Sultan, sent an army, under Ibrahim, across the desert into Syria. It captured Gaza and Jerusalem without difficulty, and then marched to Acre, where the Egyptian fleet met it and co-operated in a successful attack on that fortress. After this success Ibrahim marched with his army to Aleppo and Damascus, defeating two Turkish armies. He then crossed the mountains into Asia Minor, and fought another great battle at Konia on October 27, 1832, and defeated a large Turkish army. He then marched to Brusa.

These disasters caused the greatest alarm at Constantinople. There was no other Turkish army in the field capable of resisting the march of Ibrahim’s army to the Bosphorus. In his peril the Sultan appealed to the British Government for aid against the Egyptians, offering a close alliance for the future. He met with a refusal, at the instance of Lord Palmerston, who did not then appear to value a Turkish alliance, though the British Ambassador at Constantinople, Sir Stratford Canning, strongly advised it. Mahmoud then appealed for aid to the Emperor of Russia, who gladly availed himself of the opportunity of increasing his influence in Turkey and of effecting a virtual protectorate over it. For a second time, within recent years, a close alliance was formed between the Czar and the Sultan, and in February, 1833, a Russian fleet issuing from Sebastopol conveyed an army to the Bosphorus for the defence of Constantinople.

For a time the influence of Russia became predominant. None but Russians had access to the Sultan. Russian troops and sailors were seen everywhere, and Russian officers were employed to drill and command the Turkish battalions. This state of things caused great alarm to the British and French Governments. They were both concerned in preventing Russia obtaining possession or control of Constantinople. They felt it was necessary to stay the advance of Ibrahim’s victorious army, which was the excuse for the presence of the Russians at Constantinople. They offered, therefore, to the Sultan that if he would insist on the withdrawal of the Russian army from his capital, they would guarantee him against the further invasion of Mehemet Ali’s army. France, though always very friendly to Mehemet Ali, and in favour of his independence as against the Sultan, had no wish to see Constantinople in the hands of Russia.

By dint of great diplomatic pressure, in which Lord Palmerston took the leading part with the greatest ability, a double arrangement was effected. On the one hand, Mehemet Ali, perceiving that he would be powerless to attack Constantinople against the opposition of Russia, England, and France, was induced to come to terms with the Sultan. A convention was signed between them in 1833, and a firman was issued by the Porte under which Mehemet was confirmed as the Pasha, not only of Egypt, but of Syria, Damascus, Adana, Tripoli, and Crete, an immense accession of dignity and power to him. The Sultan was to be suzerain and the Pashalics were conferred on Mehemet Ali only for his life, and there was no promise that they would be continued to his son Ibrahim or other descendants. The concession, however, as it stood, was most humiliating to the Sultan. On the other hand, Russia agreed with the Porte to withdraw its troops from Constantinople and the Bosphorus, but only on the promise, embodied in the treaty of Hunkar Iskelesi, that Russian ships of war should have the privilege of passing through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, at any time, without obtaining the consent of the Porte, a privilege which was to be denied to the ships of other Powers, unless with the previous consent of Russia. It also secured to Russia the right to send an army to the Bosphorus and land it there whenever the exigencies of the Turkish Empire made it expedient to do so. The firman to Mehemet Ali was dated May 5, 1833, and the treaty of Hunkar Iskelesi was agreed to with Russia on July 8th of the same year. By these two measures, the result of a great diplomatic struggle, the menace of Mehemet Ali against Constantinople, which at one time seemed likely to involve all the Powers in Europe in war, was brought to an end. The Egyptian army was withdrawn into the provinces added to the Pashalic of Mehemet Ali, and the Russian troops were recalled by the Czar from Constantinople.

After this settlement, very favourable both to Russia and Egypt, but humiliating to Turkey, a period of a few years’ repose was accorded to the Sultan, so far as his relations with the Emperor Nicholas and Mehemet Ali were concerned. But there were frequent internal troubles and outbreaks, which were put down by Mahmoud, not without some difficulty. Both Mahmoud and Mehemet Ali spent the interval in making preparations for another encounter. Mahmoud could not acquiesce in the virtual independence of so large a part of his Empire under Mehemet Ali. The latter was determined to convert his Pashalic into an hereditary one and to attain virtual independence of the Porte. He had ambitions also to supplant Mahmoud as the head of the Ottoman Empire. The Sultan, during this time, employed a large number of Prussian officers, under Colonel von Moltke – later to become so famous in the Franco-German War of 1870 in command of the German army – to train his army, while Mehemet Ali again employed French officers for the same purpose. Five years elapsed before war again broke out between them.

In 1838 Mehemet Ali, having completed all his arrangements for war with his suzerain, announced his intention to pay no more tribute in the future to the Porte. This amounted to a declaration of independence and a renunciation of allegiance. Mahmoud, on his part, was determined to crush his rebellious vassal, and collected an army on the Euphrates for the invasion of Syria. The opportunity seemed to be a favourable one, as the population of Syria was in revolt against Mehemet Ali, whose government had proved to be almost as oppressive and tyrannical as that of the Sultan. Early in 1839 Mahmoud declared war and gave directions to his army to invade Syria. He also fitted out a fleet, consisting of nine ships of the line and twenty-four smaller vessels, and directed it to proceed to Syria and to co-operate with his army advancing from the Euphrates.

Both these expeditions of the Porte came to grief. The army which invaded Syria met the Egyptians, again under command of Ibrahim, at Nazeb on June 25, 1839. The two armies were about equal in number, each of them about forty thousand. The Turks were completely defeated. Many of their battalions deserted on the field of battle and went over to the enemy; the remainder were routed and dispersed. Six thousand of them were killed and wounded; ten thousand were taken prisoners. One hundred guns and great masses of stores fell into the hands of the Egyptians. The Turkish army in these parts ceased to exist.

The great Turkish fleet had sailed from the Bosphorus on July 6th amid many popular demonstrations. It was under the command of the Capitan Pasha, Achmet, who proved to be a traitor. After passing through the Dardanelles, instead of following his instructions by making his course to the coast of Syria, Achmet sailed direct to Egypt, and there entered the port of Alexandria with flying colours and handed over the fleet to the enemy of the Sultan, the rebellious Pasha Mehemet Ali, a proceeding without precedent in history. It was only accomplished, we may presume, by profuse bribery on the part of the crafty Pasha.

Mahmoud was spared the knowledge of these two signal disasters to his Empire. He died on July 1, 1839, some writers allege from the effect of alcohol, though this is doubtful. Creasy and many other historians are unstinting in praise of Mahmoud. They assign to him a very high position in the list of Sultans. They bear testimony to his high civic courage, and to the firm resolution with which he confronted the many crises of his reign. We must fully admit these qualities. Few sovereigns in history have had to deal with such a succession of grave difficulties. Almost alone he bore the weight of Empire. We must not, however, lose sight of the fact that his administration and diplomacy were fraught with failure, that his Empire incurred greater losses than under any previous Sultan, that his armies met with invariable defeat, not only on the part of numerically weaker armies of Russia, but also from insurgent Greeks and Serbians, and even from Egyptians, whose fighting qualities were much inferior to those of the Turks. His firmness and resolution were very great, but they failed him at the supreme crisis of his career, when the Russian army, with quite inadequate numbers, after serious losses in battle and by disease, threatened Constantinople from Adrianople, and when it is now quite certain that, if Mahmoud had stood firm and had refused to come to terms, overwhelming disaster must have befallen the Russians. At another crisis also his firmness amounted to most unwise obstinacy when he refused, in 1827, to concede autonomy to Greece at the instance of the Great Powers – a supreme error from which all his subsequent misfortunes logically followed. Mahmoud seems also to have been wanting in magnetism to inspire his generals and soldiers with his own courage and resolution. He does not compare in this respect with his contemporary and rival, Mehemet Ali. He had little of the martial vigour and of the craft of that great vassal. If the Great Powers had not intervened, it was highly probable, if not certain, that Ibrahim’s army would, either in 1833 or in 1839, have marched to Constantinople, have effected a revolution there, and have put an end to the Othman dynasty. It might have given new life to the decadent Turkish Empire. In any case, there was no reason why Mahmoud, if he had been endowed with Mehemet Ali’s genius and administrative capacity, should not have created an army superior in force and discipline to that of the Egyptian Pasha, and equal to the task of preventing the Russians from crossing the Balkans.

XX

THE RULE OF ELCHIS

1839-76

Mahmoud was succeeded by his son, Abdul Mehzid, a youth of sixteen years, who proved to be of very different stamp from his father. He was of mild and gentle nature, without physical or mental vigour, and wanting in force of character. He was enfeebled early in his reign by excessive indulgence in his harem. Later he was addicted to alcohol, like many of his predecessors. His father had monopolized power, and had frequently changed his ministers, with the result that he left no statesman behind him who could impose his will on the young Sultan and govern in his name. Nor was any lady of the harem ambitious and competent to guide or misguide the ship of State, as had not infrequently been the case in the past, when the reigning Sultan was unequal to the task. The main power during this reign as regards foreign affairs, and to some extent even as regards internal affairs, seems to have been vested in the ambassadors of the Great Powers. This power was exercised collectively by them on the rare occasions when they were unanimously agreed, but at other times by one or other of them, and chiefly, as will be seen, by the British Ambassador, Sir Stratford Canning, later Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, who, by his force of character and commanding presence, obtained immense personal influence over the feeble mind of Abdul Mehzid, and exercised an almost undisputed sway from 1842 to 1858, with the exception of brief intervals when he was in England on leave, and when the Russian Ambassador succeeded in obtaining exclusive influence.

The new Sultan was fortunate, as compared with his father, that in the thirty-one years of his reign his Empire experienced no serious loss of territory. It is necessary, however, to advert to the two main events of it – the one, the suppression of Mehemet Ali’s ambitious projects and the restriction of his hereditary Pashalic to Egypt; the other, the Crimean War, as it is known in history – the war with Russia, the effect of which was to stave off for nearly twenty years the dismemberment of the Turkish Empire in Europe.

As regards the first of these events, it has been shown that, in the last year of Mahmoud’s reign, Mehemet Ali was in a position of great strength, which might have enabled him to overthrow the Othman dynasty. He had destroyed the main Turkish army in Asia, at Nazeb, on the frontier of Syria, and by the infamous treachery of Achmet Pasha he had obtained possession of the Turkish fleet. He comported himself, however, with moderation at this stage. He informed the Porte that he was willing to come to terms if they would recognize the Pashalics of Egypt, Syria, Tripoli (in Asia Minor), Adana, and Crete as hereditary in his family. He had no intention, he said, to use the Turkish fleet against his suzerain, the Sultan. He would give it back to the Porte, if his terms were agreed to. If Sultan Mahmoud had been alive, it may be confidently assumed that he would have rejected these terms with contumely, and would have fought it out with his rebellious vassal. But Abdul Mehzid was wanting in courage to meet the crisis. The two disasters caused the greatest alarm at Constantinople. The majority of the Divan were ready to concede the demands of Mehemet Ali. They were prevented from doing so by an unprecedented occurrence. The ambassadors of the five Great Powers – England, France, Russia, Austria, and Prussia – met in conclave and came to the conclusion that it was contrary to the interests of their respective Governments that Mehemet Ali’s demands should be acceded to. They informed the Porte that their Governments desired to discuss the questions raised by Mehemet Ali, and invited the Sultan to suspend a definitive arrangement with him. This was agreed to by the Divan. The settlement of the relation of the rebellious pasha to the Sultan fell into the hands of the ambassadors, and a kind of tutelage was established over the Turkish Empire.

The conduct of the Emperor Nicholas on this occasion was most conciliatory to the other Powers. He intimated to them that, if they were united on a scheme to settle the Egyptian question, he would not insist on the special right which he had acquired under the treaties of Bucharest and of Akermann to exclude the ships of war of other Powers from the Dardanelles, and that he would withdraw his few remaining troops from Constantinople and the Bosphorus. Lord Palmerston, on behalf of Great Britain, expressed his admiration of this attitude of the Russian Emperor. As a result, a conference took place in London between the representatives of the Great Powers, at which Lord Palmerston, on behalf of England, and Baron Brunnow, on behalf of Russia, took the leading part. Grave difference soon arose at the conference on the part of France. Its Government, though strongly opposed to Russia obtaining possession of Constantinople, had always been favourable to the claim of Mehemet Ali to an hereditary Pashalic in Egypt and Syria, and had secretly encouraged him to make himself independent of the Porte. It now supported him against the veto of the other Powers. Eventually England, Russia, and Austria, finding that they could not come to agreement with France, decided to act without its concurrence, and to compel Mehemet Ali to evacuate Syria and to restore to the Porte the Turkish fleet. After long discussion between these three Powers, a convention was agreed to on July 15, 1840. They presented an ultimatum to Mehemet Ali, calling upon him to submit himself to the Porte. They promised that if, within ten days of the receipt of the ultimatum, he would give orders for the withdrawal of his army from Syria, and would give up the Turkish fleet to the Porte, he would be recognized as hereditary Pasha of Egypt and as Pasha of Syria for his own life; but, if not, the offer of the life Pashalic of Syria and the hereditary Pashalic of Egypt would be withdrawn, and he would have to content himself with the Pashalic for life of Egypt. It was also intimated to him that if there was refusal or delay the fleets of the three Powers would at once institute a blockade of Egypt and Syria. This ultimatum of the three Powers, when it became known in France, caused the most profound indignation; the more so when, on the refusal of Mehemet Ali to accede to the ultimatum, the British fleet, supported by war vessels of the two other Powers, made its appearance on the coast of Syria. This was thought to be an insult to France. War between that country and England was imminent. There were violent scenes in the French Chambers, and most bitterly hostile articles in the French papers. There were threats of war on the part of the Government of France. But prudent counsels ultimately prevailed, when it was discovered that France was not prepared for a naval war, and that its fleet could not hope to contend with the British fleet in the Mediterranean or to land an army in Syria.