The Turkish Empire, its Growth and Decay

The provinces of the Empire which had attained virtual independence under Moslem rulers, such as Egypt and Tunis, were little more fortunate in their experience. They were infected with the same radical defects and misgovernment as the suzerain Power. In Egypt the enlightened despotism of Mehemet Ali had degenerated into the corrupt administration of his grandson, Ismail Pasha. Egypt fell into the hands of French and English moneylenders, and millions of borrowed money were squandered by the Pasha with little or no benefit to his country. Bankruptcy ensued to the State, and the bondholders persuaded the French and English Governments to interfere on their behalf and to insist on a financial control through their Consuls. Later, in 1881, a popular movement arose in Egypt against this foreign control, and the army, under Arabi Bey, revolted. France refused to join with England in putting down the revolt and in maintaining the dual control. England alone undertook the task. It sent an army to Egypt, defeated Arabi and his native army, and restored the nominal rule of the Khedive. The dual financial control of Great Britain and France was maintained. But a virtual protectorate by the former was established, with the result that it became eventually the master of Egypt.

In no case was the action of Abdul Hamid more fatuous and more opposed to the real interests of his Empire than in dealing with this Egyptian question. It was the policy of Great Britain, at the time we are referring to, pursued by both political parties in the State, to maintain as far as possible the authority of the Sultan in Egypt and the integrity of the Turkish Empire. When, in 1881, Mr. Gladstone’s Government proposed to send an army for the temporary occupation of Egypt in order to put down the rebellion of the Egyptian army, it was most anxious to do so with the consent and support of the Porte. It invited Abdul Hamid to send troops there to act in concert with the British army and in support of his own sovereign rights. The Sultan refused to do so. He could not be brought to believe that, in the event of his refusal, the British Government would act without him. But this was precisely what it did. A British army was landed in Egypt and put down the rebellion without any support from the Sultan. When it was too late, Abdul Hamid discovered the supreme error of his policy.

Later again, between 1885 and 1887, when Lord Salisbury was Prime Minister, he was most anxious to come to an arrangement with the Porte for the ultimate withdrawal of the British army in occupation of Egypt. He sent a special envoy (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) to Constantinople, with the offer of a treaty to the Sultan, under which the British army was to be wholly withdrawn from Egypt within seven years, but with the condition that if, later, armed intervention should again become necessary, British troops should be employed for the purpose in preference to those of any other Power. This most friendly and advantageous proposal was agreed to by all the ministers of the Porte and was favoured at first by the Sultan, but, after long negotiation, he refused to sign the treaty. Later, when he perceived the mistake which he had made, he offered to reopen the negotiations, but met with a rebuff from Lord Salisbury. The two incidents are important as showing that Egypt became a dependency of Great Britain mainly through the perversity, folly, and stupidity of Abdul Hamid.

In Tunis analogous agencies had been at work in favour of France. The occupation of this province had been the subject of conversations between the Powers at the Congress of Berlin. Prince Bismarck himself suggested it to the representative of France, hoping perhaps that it would be the cause of ill-feeling between that country and Italy, and would widen the breach between them to the advantage of Germany. The British delegates expressed themselves as not unfavourable to this project. It followed that, between 1881 and 1883, the Government of France forcibly assumed a protectorate over Tunis and a control of its finance and administration, with the acquiescence, if not the full approval, of the British Government. In the case of Tunis, however, its connection with the Turkish Empire had been virtually severed three centuries earlier.

Both in Egypt and Tunis, European control effected great improvements in the condition of the native populations, especially the peasantry, and afforded illustration to the people of Turkey of the grave defects of their own Government and its corrupt administration. A party was gradually formed in the first decade of the present century among Moslems in Turkey in favour of constitutional reform. It was known as the Party of Union and Progress. Its members were called the Young Turks. It had its origin with Turks exiled abroad and chiefly living in Paris, and thence it began to permeate Turkey and find influential support in Constantinople. It obtained adherents in great numbers in the Turkish army. It established a Committee at Salonika, where it was in close touch with the officers of the Turkish army, which had its headquarters there. By the year 1908 this movement had enormously increased. Among its ablest members were many Jews and crypto-Jews of Salonika.

There was universal discontent. The system of espionage which the Sultan had set up, and which was his main engine of government, was odious to people of every rank, high and low. The army shared in the discontent. It was not till they were certain of the support of the army that the Committee of Union and Progress attempted any overt act. But when assured of this they boldly proceeded with their plans. On July 23, 1908, at Salonika, Enver Bey, on behalf of the Committee, proclaimed a revolution, and on the same day the 2nd and 3rd Army Corps, stationed there, declared their intention of marching to Constantinople and compelling the Sultan to reform the Constitution. It was decided by the Committee that Abdul Hamid should not be deposed, but that he should be allowed to remain on the throne, provided he accepted the Constitution in good faith. The Committee had further made certain of the support of the Albanian soldiers who formed the bodyguard of the Sultan, and who had been looked upon by him as his most reliable supporters. Abdul Hamid, when he found that the army was against him and that he had no friends on whom he could rely, even among his bodyguard, announced his willingness to concede the demands of the revolutionary party. Never was a revolution effected with so little bloodshed and with more complete success. The Sultan dismissed his corrupt and hated ministers and appointed others, dictated to him by the Committee. He agreed to summon again the Parliament which he had dismissed in 1877. He issued a firman abolishing the system of espionage. He publicly swore fidelity to the new Constitution. For a time the people of Constantinople were willing to believe in his sincerity. The Sheik ul Islam pronounced that there was nothing in the demands of the people which was opposed to the laws of Islam. A general election took place of members for a National Assembly under a process of double election. Men of all races and religions were equally admitted to the franchise.

There were everywhere great rejoicings over the new Constitution, though very few people beyond Constantinople and Salonika had any conception of what it meant. There was for a time great enthusiasm for England, and the new ambassador, Sir Gerard Lowther, on arriving at Constantinople to take up the post received a great ovation. On December 10th the new Parliament met, and was opened by the Sultan with a speech, in which he promised to safeguard the Constitution and to protect the sacred rights of the nation. The various Christian and other subject races were well represented in the Chamber of Deputies. Its members showed an unexpected ability in the conduct of its proceedings and in their speeches.

It was not long, however, before difficulties began to arise, and reaction reared its head again at the secret instigation of the Sultan. There was an outbreak in Albania against the Committee of Union and Progress. The bodyguard of Albanians was won back to the support of Abdul Hamid by profuse bribery. Disorder broke out in many parts of the Empire. It was at Constantinople, however, that the gravest dangers to the new order of things arose. The first act of the new Government was to dismiss the host of spies, who had been maintained at a cost of £1,200,000 a year. It was said at the time that if three persons were seen talking together in the streets one of them was certain to be a spy in the employment of the Sultan. These people found their occupation gone. The new ministers also cleared the public departments of a vast body of superfluous and useless employés, most of them hangers-on of the palace. These two classes of people made a formidable body of malcontents, who conceived that their fortunes depended on the restoration to the Sultan of his old powers of corruption. They were supported by a small body of fanatical mollahs, who believed, or pretended to believe, that the new Constitution was in opposition to the sacred law. But more important than these agencies of reaction were the personal efforts made by Abdul Hamid to tamper with the fidelity to the new Government of the troops at Constantinople by the profuse distribution of money from his private stores. The new ministers had also made the mistake of releasing from prison, not merely great numbers of persons imprisoned at the will of the Sultan for political reasons, but also all the prisoners convicted of serious crimes. These formed an element of disorder in the city and caused alarm and distrust among the well-disposed citizens.

On April 13, 1909, nine months after promulgation of the new Constitution, a revolt broke out among the troops at Constantinople, and a counter-revolution was proclaimed. It had no ostensible leader of any repute or influence. Abdul Hamid avoided committing himself openly to the movement. But for the moment, backed by elements of discontent, it was successful. The new ministers, the members of the Committee of Union and Progress, and the members of the new Assembly were compelled to seek safety by flight. If Abdul Hamid had boldly come forward as the champion of the reactionaries and fanatics, he might have crushed his enemies and have restored the old régime. But he lacked the courage for a desperate game. He contented himself with the secret supply of money in support of the movement.

Meanwhile the Committee of Young Turks met at Salonika, and determined to put down the counter-revolution by force. They called on Mahmoud Shefket Pasha, in command of the 3rd Army Corps, to support them. He said that he had sworn to maintain the Constitution, and agreed to march his army to Constantinople. At San Stefano he met the members of the Assembly and the ministers who had fled from the city. By the 24th of April the army had overcome the feeble opposition of the rebellious troops and were in occupation of the most important parts of the capital. The counter-revolution was suppressed at a very small cost of lives. The National Assembly met again, and the first question for their decision was what should be done with Abdul Hamid. They put the following question to the Sheik ul Islam: —

“What should be done with a Commander of the Faithful who has suppressed books and important dispositions of the Sharia law; who forbids the reading of, and burns, such books; who wastes public money for improper purposes; who, without legal authority, kills, imprisons, and tortures his subjects and commits tyrannical acts; who, after he has bound himself by oath to amend, violates such oath and persists in sowing discord so as to disturb the public peace, thus occasioning bloodshed?

“From various provinces the news comes that the population has deposed him; and it is known that to maintain him is manifestly dangerous and his deposition is advantageous.

“Under these conditions, is it permissible for the actual governing body to decide as seems best upon his abdication or deposition?”

The answer was the simple word ‘Yes.’

Never was a sovereign condemned by a more emphatic and laconic word. Upon this the National Assembly unanimously decided on the deposition of Abdul Hamid. They sent a deputation to the palace to inform him to this effect. He appears to have taken the sentence of deportation very quietly. “It is Kismet,” he said. “But will my life be spared?” He who had been so merciless to others was chiefly concerned now in claiming mercy for himself. He pleaded that he had not put to death his two brothers, Murad and Réchad. The question was reserved for the National Assembly.

Abdul Hamid found himself deserted and friendless. He was execrated by his subjects and despised and distrusted by all his fellow sovereigns in Europe, unless it were the German Emperor, who, of late years, had given a support to him in all his misdeeds at home and abroad. In his hour of peril the Emperor gave him no support, but the reverse. When he found how the wind was blowing, William II commenced an intrigue with the Committee of Union and Progress through Enver Bey, who had received a military training in Germany and was personally known to him. It is said that the Emperor insisted as a condition of recognition of the new order that the life of Abdul Hamid should be spared. There was another reason for doing so – namely the hope of the Young Turks to squeeze his hidden wealth from the deposed Sultan. However that may be, Abdul Hamid’s life was spared. He was deported with a few of the more favoured members of his harem to Salonika, where he was detained as a virtual prisoner, but not otherwise maltreated. After his departure money and diamonds to the value of over a million pounds sterling were found in his palace, a small part only of his ill-gotten wealth. Two millions sterling were deposited with German banks and very large sums were in the hands of the Emperor William. Thus ended a reign of thirty-three years, more disastrous in its immediate losses of territory and in the certainty of others to follow, and more conspicuous for the deterioration of the condition of his subjects, than that of any other of his twenty-three degenerate predecessors since the death of Solyman the Magnificent.

XXII

THE YOUNG TURKS

1909-14

Mehmet Réchad was proclaimed Sultan in place of his brother, under the title of Mahomet V, at the age of sixty-four. He had spent the whole period of his manhood as a virtual prisoner, the last thirty-four years of it under the close surveillance of his brother. He was never allowed to have friends or even to read newspapers. His servants were in the pay of Abdul Hamid and acted as spies on him. He devoted his life to his harem. It was not surprising that he lost what little intellect he was originally endowed with. A diplomatist who had many opportunities of seeing him since his elevation to the throne thus describes him: —

The very appearance of Mahomet V suggests nonentity. Small and bent, with sunken eyes and deeply lined face, an obesity savouring of disease, and a yellow, oily complexion, it certainly is not prepossessing. There is little or no intelligence in his countenance, and he never lost a haunted, frightened look, as if dreading to find an assassin lurking in some dark corner ready to strike and kill him… Abdul Hamid hated and despised him, but was afraid to have him killed – perhaps through fear that a stronger man might take his place.47

The new Sultan had not been a party to the conspiracy which dethroned his brother. No one in his senses would have entrusted him with so important a secret. It was said of him that he simulated the mannerisms of an idiot in order to allay suspicion in the mind of Abdul Hamid that he took any interest in politics. He lived in constant fear of being put to death. A portrait of this degenerate would explain better than words, if it were not too cruel, the depth to which the once proud race of Othman has fallen. It was probable, however, that the cunning men who engineered the revolution thought it would better serve their purpose to have a cipher as the figure-head of the Empire than a man with a will of his own.

After the defeat of the reactionaries and the deposition of Abdul Hamid, in 1909, the Young Turks had another spell of power, during which they had the opportunity of effecting reforms in the administration of the Empire. They made a bad use of it. It soon became evident that there were two sections in the Committee in violent antagonism to one another. That which succeeded in getting the upper hand was chauvinistic, vehemently national in its objects and methods, aiming at the enforcement of unity throughout the Empire by Turkifying everything, without regard to local customs or to difference of race. They endeavoured to impose the Turkish language on the many subject races who spoke only their own language. They forbade the teaching in schools of the Albanian language in Albania, and of Arabic, the sacred language of Islam, in Arabia. They introduced compulsory service for the army, and forced the Christians of the Balkan provinces to serve in its ranks, with the result that thousands of young Bulgarians, Greeks, and Serbians, inhabitants of Macedonia, fled the country and sought refuge in the neighbouring States. The Young Turks availed themselves of the opportunity which this afforded them of strengthening the Moslem population of Macedonia by inviting thousands of the lowest class of Moslem Bosnians to migrate there. These men were the cause of grave disturbance and disorder. No provision was made for their employment. Committees of Young Turks were formed there, who incited the Turkish local authorities to deeds of arbitrary tyranny rivalling, if not excelling, the infamies of Abdul Hamid’s rule. The autocracy of that tyrant was broken at Constantinople and his system of espionage, which had caused such indignation, was suppressed, but hundreds of local Abdul Hamids came into existence in the provinces.

The central Government at the capital followed the method of the late Sultan in minute interference with every detail of administration. There can be no doubt that the condition of the Christian provinces of the Empire became worse than ever. Meanwhile the enthusiasm for England and for the principles of the British Constitution cooled down at Constantinople. Whatever may have been the cause, the fact was certain that British influence at the Porte fell to a vanishing point, while that of Germany rapidly rose. The military alliance which has been so valuable to Germany in the existing great war was then formed. The period was also marked by repeated changes of the Grand Vizier, according as one or other section of the Young Turks got the upper hand.

It was not long before the process of dismemberment of the Empire was renewed and the wolves were gathered round it to share in the spoil. The Young Turks were less successful in resisting them than Abdul Hamid, who, at least, had kept them at bay by his cunning and shifty diplomacy during the many years which had elapsed since the Congress of Berlin, though it may well be said of him that the pent-up evils of his long misgovernment were in great part responsible for the dismemberments which followed in the régime of the Young Turks.

Very soon after the revolution of 1908, on October 7th, before there was experience of the new Constitution, the Austro-Hungarian Government took advantage of the crisis and proclaimed the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in defiance of the treaty obligations imposed by the Great Powers at Berlin. There was no attempt to justify this. The annexations made little or no difference to the people of the two provinces. They were already, for all practical purposes, under the rule of Austria-Hungary. The main difference was that the Bosnian soldiers discarded the fez which they wore as the symbol of Ottoman suzerainty. The annexation, however, caused great indignation among the Turks, who regarded it as an insult to their Empire. It was also the cause of ill-feeling in Russia, and did something to bring about the great war of 1914. The Austrian Government gave up its occupation of the Sandjak of Novi-Bazar and agreed to take over a share of the Ottoman debt, to the amount of about four millions sterling. As these concessions were accepted, the Porte must be held to have condoned the offence. Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria very soon followed the example of the Austro-Hungarian Government. He proclaimed himself an independent sovereign. This also made very little practical difference to his subjects. On October 12th the Cretan Assembly proclaimed the union of the island with Greece.

The next blow to the Ottoman Empire came from a very unexpected quarter, from Italy, which made a sudden and unprovoked attack on Tripoli. This province in Africa had never been autonomous. It was an integral part of the Ottoman Empire, governed directly from Constantinople. Its population was purely Moslem – Turks and Moors in the city of Tripoli and other places on the coast, and with semi-independent Arabs in the hinterland. There was no demand on the part of these natives for a change of government. Italy had no valid cause of complaint on behalf of its few subjects who resided in the province, though it trumped up something of the kind. It was a case of pure aggression, prompted by jealousy of France in respect of Tunis, to which, geographically and economically, Italy had a stronger claim. It may be confidently assumed that the French Republic gave its consent to the seizure of Tripoli by Italy, and that Great Britain acquiesced in it, if it did not formally approve.

Up to the end of 1910, the Italian Government had constantly professed the desire to maintain the integrity of the Turkish Empire. When rumours arose of an intention to grab Tripoli, its Foreign Minister, so late as December 2, 1910, emphatically denied them in the Italian Chamber. “We desire,” he said, “the integrity of the Ottoman Empire and we wish Tripoli always to remain Turkish.” Nothing had since occurred to disturb the relations between the two countries. But in September 1911 the Italian Government sprang a mine on the Porte by declaring its intention to occupy Tripoli. On October 26th it notified to the Powers of Europe its intention to annex that province. It sent an army of fifty thousand men for the purpose. Its fleet bombarded the Turkish town of Prevesa, in the Adriatic, and drove the Turkish fleet to seek refuge within the Dardanelles. It took possession of several of the islands in the Ægean Sea.

The Porte was caught at a disadvantage. Abdul Hamid had for many years completely neglected his navy. He owed it a grudge for having taken part in the deposition of his predecessor. He feared that its guns might be trained on his palace. He had allowed the Minister of Marine, the most corrupt and greedy of all his Pashas, to appropriate to his own use the money allotted by the budget for the repair of warships. For many years the battleships never left the Golden Horn. But for this the Ottoman navy, which in the time of Abdul Aziz had been the third most powerful in Europe, might have made the landing of an Italian army in Africa impossible. The garrison in Tripoli, which Abdul Hamid had always maintained in strength, had been greatly reduced by the Young Turks. The reinforcement of it after the declaration of war, when Italy had command of the sea, was a very difficult task, the more so as the British Government proclaimed the neutrality of Egypt, though it was still tributary to the Porte, and forbade the passage of Turkish troops into Tripoli.

In spite of these obstacles, the Porte made a gallant fight for its African province, with the aid of the Arabs of the hinterland. Both Turkish and Italian armies committed the most horrible atrocities in this war, and there was little to choose between them in this respect. The war lasted till October, 1912, and was only brought to an end when the Porte found itself confronted by danger from a quarter much nearer home.

There can be little doubt that the war with Italy, the consequent engagement of a large Turkish army in defence of Tripoli, and the blockade of Turkish ports by the Italian navy, making it difficult for the Porte to transfer its troops from Asia direct to the Balkan States, precipitated the intervention of Greece, Bulgaria, and Serbia on behalf of the Christian inhabitants of the remaining provinces of the Porte in Europe, which were now on the eve of revolt.