The Turkish Empire, its Growth and Decay

The three Powers, on their part, mainly at the instance of Lord Palmerston, declined to submit their policy to the threats of France, and persisted in their demonstration of force against Mehemet Ali. War was averted between England and France, and Louis Philippe (then King of the French) contented himself with the cynical observation that there was all the difference in the world between threatening war and actually going to war.

Meanwhile the British fleet, under Admirals Stopford and Napier, appeared before Beyrout and bombarded and destroyed its forts. Two thousand men were landed, under Napier, and defeated the Egyptian forces. The same operation was repeated a few days later at Acre. The powerful defences of this fortress were demolished by the guns of the British fleet, and six thousand men were landed, under Napier, and defeated Ibrahim’s army. It was in these attacks on Beyrout and Acre that steamships made their first appearance in maritime war. The allies were greatly assisted by the revolt of the people of Syria against Mehemet Ali’s oppressive government. Desertion also was very rife in the Egyptian force, and Ibrahim’s army, which had originally consisted of seventy-five thousand men, had dwindled down to twenty-five thousand.

After these operations on the coast of Syria, Napier and his squadron appeared before Alexandria and threatened bombardment. But Mehemet Ali, by this time, had realized that he could not hope to make war successfully against the three Great Powers as well as the Sultan. He entered into negotiations with Admiral Napier. He agreed to evacuate Syria and to give up the Turkish fleet to the Porte, provided that the Sultan would recognize him as hereditary Pasha of Egypt. In the meantime the Sultan of Turkey had issued a firman deposing Mehemet Ali from all his Pashalics. This did not necessarily mean much, for the Porte on four previous occasions had publicly deposed the rebellious pasha, but without any result. Eventually, on September 20, 1841, agreement was arrived at between Mehemet Ali and the three Powers. In spite of his deposition by the Sultan, Mehemet Ali was confirmed in the position of hereditary Pasha of Egypt, but was deprived of all his other governments. He was to pay tribute to the Porte equal to one-fourth of the revenue of Egypt – later fixed at an annual sum of £400,000. He was to withdraw his army from Syria and to maintain no larger force in Egypt than eighteen thousand men.

The intervention of the three Great Powers, taking the matter out of the hands of the Sultan, brought about an arrangement much more favourable to him than the Divan were willing to agree to. Syria was relieved of the government of Mehemet Ali and was placed again under the control of the Porte. Egypt, on the other hand, was made practically independent, subject only to a fixed tribute in recognition of the nominal suzerainty of the Sultan. This result was achieved not by the force of arms of the Sultan, but by the action of the three Great Powers, directed chiefly by the able diplomacy of Lord Palmerston, who steered this concert through all its difficulties and against the violent opposition of France. The final settlement thus imposed on Mehemet Ali, which extinguished his ambitious projects and reduced his rule to Egypt alone, is said to have broken the heart of the old man. He lived on for eight more years, but they were spent in gloom and depression, aggravated by the death of his able and distinguished son Ibrahim. It should be added here that in 1841, as a sequel to the arrangement about Egypt, a convention was agreed to between the Great Powers, including Russia, and Turkey by which the vessels of war of all countries except Turkey were forbidden to pass through the Straits to and from the Black Sea.

The settlement of these grave questions, in 1841, was followed by twelve years of comparative repose in Turkey, broken only by occasional revolts of pashas, or of subject races driven to desperation by chronic misgovernment. These were put down by the Seraskier, Omar Pasha, who proved to be a very competent general for this purpose. It was during this period that Sir Stratford Canning, as British Ambassador to the Porte, attained a personal influence over the Sultan, Abdul Mehzid, of an unprecedented character, such that he may be said to have virtually ruled the State.

Canning on three previous occasions had represented the British Government at Constantinople during the reign of Mahmoud. In 1812 as Minister Plenipotentiary, when quite a young man, he had gained immense credit by inducing the Sultan to come to terms with Russia, by the treaty of Bucharest. The effect of this was to free the hands of the Czar and to enable him to withdraw his army from the Danube and to use it on the flank of Napoleon’s army in the celebrated Moscow campaign. This largely contributed to the defeat of the invasion of Russia.

Later he had been engaged in the delimitation of Greece, after the recognition of its independence, and had shown himself a Philhellene. In 1842 Lord Aberdeen, then Foreign Minister of England, sent him again as ambassador to the Porte at the age of fifty-seven. He remained there, with two short intervals, till 1858. He acquired, during these sixteen years, the title of “The Great Elchi,” the ambassador par éminence. By the Christian rayas of the Ottoman Empire he was known as the Padishah of the Padishahs. He was the most distinguished envoy ever employed in the British Diplomatic Service. He belonged to an old school of diplomats, when communications with the Home Government were long in reaching their destination, and when ambassadors necessarily took much responsibility upon themselves, and dictated rather than followed the policy of their Governments. He held himself to represent his sovereign rather than the transient ministers of the day. His mien was such as greatly to impress the Turks. It was stately and dignified. His countenance was noble and spirituelle. His eyes seemed to penetrate the minds of those with whom he transacted business, and made it difficult for them to conceal their intentions. His own methods were always honourable and straightforward. Though he was well versed in the arts of diplomacy and could meet mine by countermine, he never resorted to trickery. The Turks learned that his word was implicitly to be trusted, and that he wished well to their country. He treated the Turkish ministers with the utmost hauteur. With some of them, whose hands were known to be stained with blood, he refused to have any communication. If his demands were refused at the Porte, he went direct to the Sultan and fairly bullied that weak, gentle, and well-intentioned sovereign into acquiescence. He entered on his work in this embassy with two main convictions, one might almost say obsessions – the one that it was the interest of England, and therefore his own duty, to oppose the schemes of Russia at every turn; the other that it was his duty to urge, and even to compel, the Porte to carry out internal reforms, and to come into line with other civilized countries in Europe, in default of which he fully recognized that the Ottoman Empire could not be maintained. He had a firm belief that this was possible, and that he was himself the appointed man to effect it. For this purpose he freely made use of threats of force from England if his behests were refused, and of promises of protection against Russia if they were agreed to. An envoy of this character, great as were his qualities and personal merits, was a cause of embarrassment to British policy, for the Government could not control him. One might say of him, in the words of Shakespeare: —

If great men could thunder as Jove himself does,Jove would ne’er be quiet.

Canning used the thunder of his country freely in pursuance of his own policy. He was undoubtedly the main cause of the war which soon ensued between Great Britain and Russia.

Meanwhile the reform of its administration and its laws had long been recognized by the very few honest and capable statesmen of Turkey as indispensable to the maintenance of its Empire. Mahmoud himself, in the latter part of his life, had appreciated this necessity, and had given his sanction to a scheme of reform. But death came to him before it was issued. He must have instructed his son as to this policy, for one of the first acts of Abdul Mehzid, by the advice of his Grand Vizier, Reschid Pasha, was to issue the important declaration of reform which had been prepared by Mahmoud, and was known as the Hatti-Scheriff of Ghulkané. It promised equally to all his subjects, without distinction of creed or race, security of life, of honour, and of property, the equitable distribution of taxes, the public trial of all prisoners, the right of all to hold and devise property, and the systematic recruiting of the army. It appointed a council to elaborate the details of administrative reform to give effect to these principles. But this great charter of reform lacked the will of a Mahmoud to enforce it. There ensued a dangerous reaction. Reschid Pasha was compelled to resign. Riza Pasha, who succeeded him, and his colleagues, were reactionary, fanatical, and anti-Christian. The Hatti-Scheriff, like almost every other promise of reform in Turkey, became a dead letter. Riza was also corrupt and venal, and robbed the treasury of untold sums. It became the principal object of Canning to obtain the dismissal of this man and of the gang of peculators who worked with him, and the reinstatement of Reschid. Proposals for reform in favour of the rayas were impossible with ministers who carried their hatred of Christianity to the length of excluding from the public service every Turk who could speak a Christian language.

By dint of long and patient efforts Canning obtained such a mastery over Abdul Mehzid that he was able to bring about a change of ministers, and to reinstate Reschid Pasha as the only statesman in Turkey who was capable of carrying out reforms, and who was willing to be guided by himself as to their main principles.

In 1852 a serious diplomatic dispute broke out at Constantinople, between the representatives of France and Russia, as to the guardianship of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem and many trumpery details connected with it. Early in 1853 there were strong indications that the Emperor Nicholas intended to take the opportunity of this dispute to raise a much more serious question against the Porte. He evidently desired to disarm the opposition of England to his schemes. In a private conversation at St. Petersburg with Sir Hamilton Seymour, the British Ambassador at his Court, he opened his mind: —

The affairs of Turkey are in a very disorganized condition. The country itself seems to be falling to pieces. The fall will be a great misfortune, and it is very important that England and Russia should come to a perfectly good understanding upon these affairs, and that neither should take any decisive step of which the other is not apprised… We have on our hands a sick man – a very sick man. It will, I tell you frankly, be a great misfortune if one of these days he should slip away from us before all necessary arrangements were made.

With this intimation the conversation appears to have dropped. A few days later it was renewed at a private entertainment.

You know [the Emperor said] the dreams and plans in which the Empress Catherine was in the habit of indulging; these were handed down to our time; but while I inherited immense territorial possessions, I did not inherit these visions – those intentions, if you like to call them so. On the contrary, my country is so vast, so happily circumstanced in everything, that it would be unreasonable in me to desire more territory or more power than I possess; on the contrary, I am the first to tell you that our great, perhaps our only, danger is that which arises from an extension given to an Empire already too large.

Close to us lies Turkey, and in our present condition nothing better for our interests can be desired. The time has gone by when we had anything to fear from the fanatical spirit or the military enterprise of the Turks, and yet the country is strong enough, or has hitherto been strong enough, to preserve its independence, and to insure respectful treatment from other countries.

In that Empire there are several millions of Christians whose interests I am called to watch over, while the right of doing so is secured to me by treaty. I may truly say that I make a moderate and sparing use of my right, and I will freely confess that it is one which is attended with obligations occasionally very inconvenient; but I cannot recede from the discharge of a distinct duty…

Now, Turkey has by degrees fallen into such a state of decrepitude that, eager as we all are for the prolonged existence of his life, he may suddenly die on our hands; we cannot resuscitate what is dead. If the Turkish Empire falls it falls to rise no more, and I put it to you, therefore, whether it is not better to be provided beforehand for a contingency than to incur the chaos, confusion, and the certainty of a European war, all of which must attend the catastrophe, if it should occur unexpectedly and before some ulterior system has been sketched. That is the part to which I am desiring you should call the attention of your Government.

Now, I desire to speak to you as a friend, and as a gentleman. If England and I arrive at an understanding in this matter, as regards the rest it little matters to me. It is indifferent to me what others do or think. Frankly, then, I tell you plainly that, if England thinks of establishing herself one of these days at Constantinople, I will not allow it. For my part, I am equally disposed to take the engagement not to establish myself there – as proprietor, that is to say – for as occupier I do not say; it might happen that circumstances, if no previous provisions were made, if everything should be left to chance, might place me in the position of occupying Constantinople.

On the 20th February, in a further conversation, the Emperor said: —

If your Government has been led to believe that Turkey retains any element of existence, your Government must have received incorrect information. I repeat to you, the sick man is dying, and we can never allow such an event to take us by surprise. We must come to some understanding.

The next day he added: —

The principalities are, in fact, an independent State under my protection. This might so continue. Serbia might receive the same form of government. So again with Bulgaria; there seems to be no reason why these provinces should not form one independent State. As to Egypt, I quite understand the importance to England of that territory. I can thus only say that if, in the event of a destruction of the Ottoman succession upon the fall of the Empire, you should take possession of Egypt, I shall have no objection to offer. I could say the same thing of Candia. That island might suit you, and I do not see why it should not become an English possession.

Sir Hamilton Seymour, in reply to the Emperor, said to his Government: —

I simply observed that I had always understood that the English views upon Egypt did not go beyond the part of securing a safe and ready communication between British India and the Mother Country.

“Well,” said the Emperor, “induce your Government to write again upon this subject – to write more fully and do so without hesitation. I have confidence in the British Government. It is not an engagement or convention which I ask of them; it is a free interchange of ideas in case of need – the word of a gentleman – that is enough between us.”

In reporting these conversations to the Foreign Secretary, Sir Hamilton Seymour expressed his own opinion as follows: —

It can hardly be otherwise but that the Sovereign who insists with such pertinacity upon the impending fall of a neighbouring State must have settled in his own mind that the hour, if not of the dissolution, at all events for the dissolution, must be at hand.

In answer to these overtures the British Government, through Lord John Russell, the Foreign Secretary, disclaimed all intention of aiming at the acquisition either of Constantinople or any other of the Sultan’s possessions, and accepted the assurances of the like effect which were given by the Czar. It combated the opinion that the extinction of the Ottoman Empire was near at hand and deprecated a discussion based on this supposition as leading directly to produce the very result against which it was hoped to provide. Finally, the British Government, with abundance of courtesy, but in terms very stringent and clear, peremptorily refused to enter into any kind of secret engagement with Russia for the settlement of the Eastern question.

Lord Clarendon, who succeeded Lord John Russell as Foreign Minister in the course of these proceedings, in a final despatch to Sir Hamilton Seymour (March 23, 1853), expressed the following opinion: —

Turkey only requires forbearance on the part of its allies, and a determination not to press their claims in a manner humiliating to the dignity and independence of the Sultan – that friendly support, in short, which among States as well as individuals the weak are entitled to expect from the strong – in order not only to prolong its existence but to remove all cause for alarm respecting its dissolution.

It will be seen that the British Government took much too sanguine a view of the prospects of reformed Government in Turkey, and that the Emperor of Russia was much nearer the mark.

We have quoted these conversations at length because of their extreme importance when read by the light of subsequent events. They produced a bad impression at the time on the British Government, and still more so on public opinion in England, when later they were made public.35 It was thought that they indicated a deliberate intention on the part of the Emperor of Russia to force the Eastern question to the front, and to dismember the Ottoman Empire by a partition of the same kind as that to which Poland had been treated, a few years back, and in which Russia would have the lion’s share.

A more reasonable view may now be taken of the policy of the Emperor Nicholas. Subsequent events have conclusively shown that he was fully justified in describing the Turkish Empire as sick, almost to death, for since then it has lost almost the whole of its dominions in Europe. Russia also has acquired but a very small share of the vast territories that have been taken from it. It is also subject to the reflection that, although the British Government in 1852 disclaimed any wish or intention to join in a scheme of partition of the Ottoman Empire, it has since acquired a considerable part of it, approximating to the offer of the Czar – namely Egypt, the Sudan, and the island of Cyprus.

Early in 1853 the Czar sent as a special envoy to the Porte Prince Menschikof, a rude and bluff soldier. He was instructed to insist on Russia’s claim to the guardianship of the Holy Sepulchre, in opposition to that of France, and with a further demand, of a more serious kind, for a protectorate in matters of religion over members of the Greek Church throughout the Ottoman Empire.

It was no doubt in consequence of the conversations of the Czar with Sir Hamilton Seymour and of this special mission of Prince Menschikof that Canning, who had, in 1852, resigned the embassy at Constantinople, and had been created a peer, with the title of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, was again sent as ambassador to the Porte by Lord Clarendon, who was now Foreign Minister in England. Lord Stratford himself appears to have drawn up the instructions of the Foreign Office. He was directed to neutralize, by England’s moral influence, the alarming position opened up by the demands, as regards the Holy Places and other matters, of Russia and France, and the dictatorial, if not hostile, attitude they had assumed. He was left unfettered for the settlement of the Holy Places. His own judgment and discretion might be trusted to guide him. The Porte was to be told that it had to thank its own maladministration and the accumulated grievances of foreign nations for the menacing tone now adopted towards it by certain Powers; that a general revolt of its Christian subjects might ensue; that the crisis was one which required the utmost prudence on the part of the Porte, and confidence in the sincerity and soundness of the advice it would receive from him, to resolve it favourably for its future peace and independence. He was to counsel reform in the administration of Turkey, by which alone the sympathy of the British nation could be preserved.

In the event of imminent danger to the existence of the Turkish Government, the ambassador was authorized to request the admiral in command of the British fleet at Malta to hold himself in readiness, but he was not to direct the approach of the fleet to the Dardanelles without positive instructions from her Majesty’s Government.

Lord Stratford, on arrival at Constantinople, found that his protégé, Reschid Pasha, had been dismissed from the post of Grand Vizier, at the instance of the new envoy of Russia, and replaced by a pasha favourable to that Power. Prince Menschikof, by the use of menaces, and probably with the aid of bribes, had obtained a commanding influence over the Sultan’s Government. He insisted that his demands on the Porte should be kept secret, and threatened to leave Constantinople if they were divulged to the British Ambassador. Lord Stratford, however, found no difficulty in obtaining full information as to the Russian demands. He showed very great diplomatic skill in separating the question of the Holy Places from the more serious one of the protectorate over the Greek Church. He contrived to settle between Russia, France, and the Porte the dispute as to the Holy Sepulchre. There remained, however, the more serious one of the protectorate. This was aggravated by personal rivalry and hate between the Czar Nicholas and Lord Stratford. The real question in dispute became largely whether Russian or British influence was to predominate in Turkey, and whether reforms, so essential for the security and well-being of its Christian population, were to be carried out under a protectorate by Russia or by England. It is impossible to read the able biography of Lord Stratford by Mr. Lane Poole, or Mr. Kinglake’s well-known chapters on the causes which led to the Crimean War, without concluding that the policy of England at this crisis was virtually directed, not by the British Cabinet in London, but by Lord Stratford at the Embassy at Constantinople. Prince Menschikof, in the struggle which ensued at the Porte, was little competent to contend against so practised and wary a diplomat as Stratford, and was completely worsted in the attempt.

Early in May, after the arrival of Stratford, a reconstruction of the Turkish ministry was effected at his instance. The nominee of Russia was dismissed. Ref’at Pasha took his place as Grand Vizier, and Reschid, Lord Stratford’s main ally, was reinstated in office as Minister of Foreign Affairs.

By Stratford’s advice the Porte determined to resist the Russian demands. The claim to protect the members of the Greek Church was pronounced to be inadmissible. Prince Menschikof was informed to this effect, and on May 21st he broke off diplomatic relations with the Porte, and left Constantinople in high dudgeon. This was followed, on May 31st, by an arrogant despatch to the Porte from the Russian Government, insisting on the acceptance of the Menschikof demands. At the instance of Stratford, the Porte again refused, and thereupon a Russian army crossed the Pruth, on July 3rd, and occupied Moldavia and Wallachia. In a manifesto, issued a few days later, the Czar disclaimed any intention of conquest, and justified his occupation of the provinces as a material guarantee for the fulfilment of his demands on behalf of the Christian population of Turkey.

That there was ample cause for the complaints of the Russian Government of the maltreatment of the Christian population in Turkey cannot be disputed. On July 22, 1853, Lord Stratford himself, in a formal communication to the Porte, forwarded reports from the British Consuls at Scutari, Monastir, and Prevesa, which detailed “acts of disorder, injustice, and corruption of a very atrocious kind, which he had frequently brought to the notice of the Ottoman Porte.” He complained that the assurances given by the late Grand Vizier of remedies for such evils had not been carried out, and he observed, with extreme disappointment and pain, the continuance of evils which affected so deeply the welfare of the Empire.