CHAPTER VI
THE TIME OF THE END.-EASTERN, OR MOHAMMEDAN ASPECT.
From the date of the fall of Constantinople before the advance of Mohammedan
hordes, AD. 1453, up to the great naval battle of Lepanto, AD. 1571, the
Turkish power had been continually advancing in Europe. The Euphratean
flood rose higher and higher, till it reached its highest point under
Solomon the Magnificent, in the middle of the sixteenth century. It remained
stationary at high-water mark for half a century, and even as late as
1669 Candia was added to the dominions of the Porte. But the last quarter
of the seventeenth century was a time of fierce struggle, and of alternate
victory and defeat. Wars with Russia and Austria severely shook the Ottoman
power, and the war which was closed by the Peace of Carlowitz, signed
in 1699, broke for ever the aggressive power of the Turkish empire. It
closed a twenty years’ struggle, in which the Porte had been engaged
with Russia and Austria. The conflict had been attended with varying fortunes;
but, exhausted at last by the sanguinary defeats inflicted on her by Prince
Eugène, the Porte was compelled, in 1699, to lay down her arms, and make
peace on most disastrous terms. Louis XIV., urging the sultan not to accept
the terms imposed by its foes, said, "The Turks in all their wars
have never yet receded; should they do so now, their prestige is gone,
and their very existence imperilled." And so it proved. For a time
Turkey remained however a mighty and formidable empire, holding under
its cruel and debasing sway numbers of Christian nations.
A long peace with Christendom followed; but when next the shock of war
brought the Mussulman forces into the field against Russia and Austria,
victory was again and more decidedly with the Christians. Crushing defeats
were inflicted on the Turkish armies in 1774; the Russians surrounded
the vizier and his troops near Shumla, in Bulgaria, and were able to dictate
the terms of the humiliating Peace of Kainardje, by which Russia obtained
the free navigation of the Black Sea, besides large cessions of territory.
Thus commenced that dismemberment of the Turkish empire which has been
going on ever since, and a fresh stage of which we seem now to have reached.
Never since that date has the Porte been able to take the aggressive against
the nations of Europe, or even to stand successfully on the defensive.
Its history, as is well known, has consisted of one monotonous series
of disastrous wars, humiliating treaties, military and provincial revolutions,
insurrections, massacres, cessions of territory, failures of revenue,
diminution of population, plagues, bankruptcies, armies destroyed and
fleets annihilated; ever- contracting dominions, and ever-increasing debts,
and gradual loss of independence; till at the present moment, protracted
decay verges on total extinction. Europe is driven to recognise that nothing
can much longer avert the long predicted and richly deserved doom of Mohammedan
rule in Europe- political death. [Published 1888]
Ever since the year 1821 the progress of Turkish decay has been so rapid
and alarming as to keep Europe in perpetual anxiety. In that year began
the insurrection in Greece, the finest province of the Turkish empire,
an insurrection which quickly spread to the Ægean Isles and to Wallachia
and Moldavia. In 1826 Turkey was obliged to surrender to Russia all its
fortresses in Asia, and frightful civil commotions distracted Constantinople,
ending in the slaughter of the Janissaries, when 4,000 veteran but mutinous
and unmanageable soldiers were shot or burned to death by order of the
sultan himself in their own barracks in the city, and many thousands more
all over the country. The empire had for centuries groaned under their
tyranny, and Mahmoud II. was resolved to organize a fresh army on the
military system of western Europe, and saw no other way of delivering
himself from the tyrannical Janissaries than this awful massacre, which,
while it liberated Turkey from an intolerable incubus, at the same time
materially weakened her strength. Before a fresh army had been matured,
Russia again attacked the Turkish empire, and, backed up by England and
France, secured the independence of Greece, after the great naval battle
of Navarino, in which the Ottoman fleet was totally destroyed. In 1828
and 1829 Russia again invaded Turkey; her armies crossed the Balkans,
and penetrated as far as Adrianople, where a treaty, more disastrous to
the Porte than any previous one, was concluded. The freedom of Servia
was secured, and no Turk was permitted to reside in future north of the
Danube, while Russia obtained one of the mouths of that river, and territory
to the south of it. The large Turkish province of Algeria in North Africa
was lost to the Sublime Porte, and became a French colony in the following
year. In 1832 Turkey was brought to the verge of dissolution in consequence
of the successful rebellion of the powerful pasha of Egypt, Mehemet Ali.
He attacked and conquered Syria, and defeated the Turkish armies in three
great battles, and he would have taken Constantinople had not the western
nations intervened. A second rebellion on the part of Egypt took place
in 1840, when Ibrahim Pasha defeated the Turks at Nezib. The Turkish fleet
was betrayed into the power of Mehemet Ali, and taken to Alexandria; and
Europe was obliged again to interfere to protect the sultan from the rebellion
of his vassal, who could at that time have easily overthrown the Turkish
empire. In the following year the British admiral took Sidon, Beyrout,
and St. Jean d’Acre; and, in order to restore the Turkish rule, which
had been completely lost, drove Mehemet Ali out of Syria. Egypt has been
however virtually independent ever since, and her present rulers bear
the title of khedive, or king, in recognition of the fact. They are now
far more under the power of England than under that of Turkey.
In 1844 the Porte was compelled by the Christian nations of Europe to
issue an edict of religious toleration, abolishing for ever its characteristic
and sanguinary practice of execution for apostasy, that is, for the adoption
of the Christian faith. As this was entirely against its will, because
against the precepts of the Koran, and contrary to the practice of all
the ages during which Mohammedanism had been in existence, it was a most
patent proof that Ottoman independence was gone, as a matter of fact,
though often mentioned still as a plausible fiction of diplomacy, and
that henceforth it had to shape its conduct in accordance with the views
of its neighbours, the Christian nations of Europe. It was a compulsory
sheathing of the sword of persecution, which had been relentlessly wielded
for over twelve centuries, a most marked era in the overthrow of Mohammedan
power.
The next great stage in the fall of the Moslem power in Europe was the
Crimean War, and the Treaty of Paris, which followed it in 1856. This
date is one of paramount importance in the process of the decadence of
the Ottoman empire. The Crimean War was ostensibly undertaken in defence
of Turkey against Russian aggression; and as it was a successful war on
the part of the allies, England, France, and Italy, it would seem at first
sight that it should he reckoned as a postponement of the fall of Turkey,
rather than as a stage of it.
Such however is not the case; it was in reality a very decided stage in
its loss of independence. The Russian czar was not alone in seeing that
the decay of the Ottoman power had, even at that date, already gone so
far, that the question as to what should be done with its dominions on
its final dissolution pressed for decision. As is well known, he was anxious
to be recognised as heir apparent, at any rate to Constantinople; and
he was anxious also to secure the position of protector to the Christian
races in the Balkan Peninsula and Syria, in order that he might have the
power to interfere with Turkish administration in its own dominions, and
thus of hastening the long-desired catastrophe. Now the Crimean War was
waged, not so much to protect Turkey, as to maintain the principle that
the political destiny of these regions should be a matter of European
concert, and not be settled according to Russian views alone. As the Duke
of Argyle says: "The one great question which was really at issue
was, not whether Turkey was or was not a sick man, or even a dying man;
but whether the czar had the right to solve that problem by anticipation
in his own favour, and to take steps constituting himself sole heir of
the sick man’s possessions and effects. It was because Turkey, as
a power and as a government, was decaying, and because sooner or later
its place would have to be supplied by some other government, and by the
rule of some other people, that it was necessary to take steps in time,
to prevent this great change from being made prematurely, in the exclusive
and selfish interests of a single power." ["The Eastern Question,"
pp. 2, 8. By the Duke of Argyle. Strahan & Co., 34, Paternoster Bow,
London, E.C.]
In result, the Turkish empire was placed under the common care of Europe,
and the claim of any single power to settle the destinies of that empire
without the concurrence of the rest has since been repeatedly negatived.
In a recently published "Collection of Treaties and other Public
Acts, illustrating the European Concert in the Eastern Question,"
the editor says: "The assumption of the collective authority on the
part of the European powers to supervise the solution of the eastern question,
in other words, to regulate the disintegration of Turkey, has been gradual.
Such an authority has been exercised tentatively since 1826, systematically
since 1856. It has been applied successfully to Greece, to Syria, to Egypt,
to the Danubian Principalities and the Balkan Peninsula generally, to
certain other of the European provinces of Turkey, to the Asiatic boundaries
of Turkey and Russia, and to the treatment of the Armenians. The present
work will contain the text in full of the treaties and other diplomatic
acts which are the title deeds of the states which have thus been wholly
or partially freed by the European concert from the sovereignty of the
Porte."
Hence 1856 is a critical date in the fall of the Mohammedan power, marking
the point of its entire loss of independence; the point when it practically
passed into the hands of Europe, with a view to its safe and gradual dismemberment.
The tottering structure was condemned to come down, and the scaffolding
was erected by which it was to be safely demolished.
In 1860 took place the horrible Druze massacre of the Christians in the
Lebanon and at Damascus, a massacre connived at, if not planned by the
Turkish Government. The remonstrances of the European consuls in the country
were treated with neglect and contempt. The Christians were disarmed by
the authorities, and left, like defenceless sheep, to be butchered by
their bloodthirsty enemies. Thousands of innocent lives and millions of
property were sacrificed, and the total apathy and incompetence of the
Turkish Government to maintain order was such that the great powers of
Europe intervened. Syria was occupied hy French troops, and an English
fleet anchored at Beyrout. The result was the conclusion of the treaty
by which northern Syria was placed under a Christian governor, and the
welfare of its inhabitants secured by a restriction of the Turkish power,
submitted to under European compulsion. The year, in short, witnessed
a marked though partial deliverance of the Holy Land from Mohammedan oppression;
it witnessed the turn of the tide. The condition of Palestine and Syria
has ever since been improving, and the contrast of what they are today
[ ie., 1888] and what they were twenty-five years ago is remarkable.
The last great crisis in the decay of Turkey, the last phase previously
to what we may term the present one, was the Russo-Turkish war of 1877,
an event so recent that we need only allude to it. The horrible atrocities
committed by the Turkish soldiery in suppressing an unimportant insurrection
in Bulgaria were, as is well known, the immediate cause of this outbreak.
Fifteen thousand men, women, and children had been slaughtered in cold
blood, with every conceivable circumstance of cruelty and horror, people
against whom no crime could be alleged. Their property was destroyed,
their villages were burned, and large districts desolated. Christian Europe
was horrified. The great powers would have interfered in concert, but
that England, whose supposed interests required the maintenance of the
Ottoman tyranny over the subject Christian races, would not join in any
effective common action. The immoral and Jesuitical maxim, that, when
self- interest demanded it, the Christian races of the Balkan Peninsula
might lawfully be sacrificed, was acted upon by the English Government
of the day. Russia, whose policy was a far nobler and more unselfish one,
went to war alone consequently to deliver her co-religionists, and she
secured her object by a succession of victories, which broke the Turkish
power to pieces, and laid it helpless at her feet. England did interfere
then to prevent her seizing Constantinople, and at the Berlin Conference
obliged the victorious czar to modify the treaty of San Stephano, and
to agree to that of Berlin, by which a large proportion of Armenia was
ceded to Russia. The Dobrudeha was lost to Turkey, the complete independence
of Roumania was recognised, the limits of Servia and Montenegro were extended,
and Bulgaria was erected into an autonomous Christian principality. Cyprus
was at that time ceded to England by the Anglo- Turkish Convention, while
this country undertook to defend the Turkish possessions in Asia, the
Porte promising necessary reforms, subject to British approval. [This
treaty cannot stand; it is in opposition to the revealed counsels of God.
Lord Beaconsfield pledged England to uphold the Turkish power in Asia,
including of course Syria and Palestine. God has decreed, on the other
hand, that Palestine and Jerusalem shall be freed, and freed speedily,
from Moslem domination. It is hard to kick against the pricks; the treaty
is already broken, and no effort to maintain Turkish power in Europe or
in Syria will be of any use.] In 1876 Turkey had become nationally bankrupt;
her debt, having been mostly contracted abroad, had reached the amount
of one hundred and ninety-five millions, on which sum she was unable even
to pay interest. This is as serious a feature in the condition of the
country, as any of its military reverses or territorial losses.
In 1882 a fresh and very singular stage in the downfall of Ottoman power
and independence was reached. It arose, as will be remembered by all,
in a military insurrection in Egypt, which was headed by Arabi Pasha;
this man and the army obtained a monopoly of power, and the khedive was
forced to accept a national ministry in defiance of the protests of the
European controllers of the debt, thus subverting the authority of England
and France in connexion with the finances of Egypt. The sultan encouraged
Arabi to defy Christian intervention in the financial and other affairs
of Egypt, and tried to seize the crisis as an occasion for enforcing his
own authority as suzerain. It was understood throughout Europe that if
the western powers were defeated in this struggle, it would mean a surrender
of Egypt to absolute anarchy, and the total ruin of civilization and European
interests in the country. British and French squadrons anchored in the
harbour of Alexandria in May. Panic began to prevail among Europeans in
Egypt; the military party soon became totally unmanageable, and the khedive
was a mere tool in their hands. The Europeans in Cairo and Alexandria
were obliged to flee the country, and all attempts at pacification, whether
on the part of the western powers, or of the sultan himself, failed. A
Mussulman rising having taken place in Alexandria, in which a large number
of Europeans were killed, and their houses pillaged, Arabi also continuing
extensive preparations for resistance in defiance of the English admiral’s
expostulations, Sir Beauchamp Seymour finally bombarded Alexandria in
the summer of 1882. The rebels were defeated, and under cover of a flag
of truce evacuated Alexandria, not, however, without first setting fire
to the European quarters, and letting loose upon it gangs of reckless
plunderers. A plan had been laid for the murder of the khedive, but it
was unsuccessful. A brief but brilliant military campaign succeeded, in
which the English troops defeated the rebels at Tel-el-Kebir, and. victoriously
entered Cairo. An army of occupation of 12,000 men was left to keep order
in the country, which has been since practically, though not nominally,
an English protectorate.
This campaign was remarkable as an illustration of the diminished fanaticism
of Mussulman nations. The Mohammedans of India were in no way affected
by the struggle between their rulers and the Egyptians. An Indian contingent
was sent to Egypt, with, the full approval of the co-religionists of Arabi.
As we send these pages to press, a fresh dismemberment of the Ottoman
empire is in progress, and the union of the two Bulgarias is so serious
an inroad on the provisions of the Treaty of Berlin, that, as might from
its very nature have been foreseen, it is not likely long to hold good
as regards other and more important points.
The following are the dates in this time of the end to which we have alluded,
as those of the principal stages in the downfall of the Papal and Mohammedan
powers:
WESTERN, OR PAPAL DATES.
A.D.
1697. End of the English Revolution.
1750. Voltaire. Outbreak of infidelity.
1774. Accession of Louis XVI.
1793. Regicide and Reign of Terror.
1798. Napoleon First Consul of the Republic.
1830. Anti-Papal revolution, and abdication of Charles X.
1848. Anti-Papal and democratic revolutions in all the Papal countries
of Europe. Republic declared at Rome.
1870. FINAL FALL OF THE TEMPORAL POWER OF THE PAPACY AND OVERTHROW OF
SECOND FRENCH EMPIRE. UNIFICATION OF ITALY, WITH ROME AS CAPITAL.
EASTERN, OR MOHAMMEDAN DATES. A.D.
1699. Treaty of Carlowitz.
1774. Treaty of Kainardje.
1821. Greek Insurrection.
1840. Successful rebellion of Mehemet Ali against the Porte. British intervention
in Syria.
1856. Treaty of Paris.
1860. Druze massacre in Syria. The Lebanon placed under a Christian governor.
1878. Conference of Berlin, and Anglo-Turkish Convention.
1882. English occupation of Egypt.
1885. Revolution in Eastern Roumelia.
Index Preface 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Appendix A Appendix B
