CHAPTER VI.POSTSCRIPT.—RECENT EVENTS.
As recent events in the East are at the present time attracting the attention of the world toward the Turkish Empire, I may be permitted, while the preceding chapters are passing through the press, to contribute my mite to the general discussion as to the condition of that Government, especially in its relation to the East.
Nominally, Turkey is one of the Great Powers, but in reality she is one of the weakest. With a gross total population of forty-two millions there are sixteen millions in Europe, but of these nearly six millions are inhabitants of protectorate States—viz., Roumania, Servia,and Montenegro. Turkey in Asia is reckoned at sixteen millions, and in Africa at ten millions, but these last are all merely protectorate, and even that almost nominally (Egypt, Tripoli, and Tunis), paying some tribute, but otherwise acting very much as independent Governments. For aggressive purposes, therefore, Turkey is of little account. Her Government is essentially a religious one, and however despotic the Sultan may be, the real power lies with the heads of the Mahomedan clergy. This, while a source of strength by binding all its Mahomedan subjects together although of different races, is otherwise its greatest weakness, because such strength is only that of inertia and obstruction. No improvement or reform is therefore possible unless under pressure of the very strongest kind, no matter what the Sultan may wish or even promise to accomplish. Thus it is that complaints of bad faith are made so frequently against the Porte by other Powers.
The religion of Mahomet (whether in pretence or reality is disputed) was one ostensibly founded on Charity, and the wonderful success it achieved on all hands in the early centuries of its history evinces great diplomatic talent as well as military skill, even in a period of general anarchy and the decrepitude of opposing forces. The present Turkish dynasty (Osmanlis), whose fatherland was the country bordering south and east of the Caspian Sea, reached the zenith of its greatness betweenA.D.1453, when the Turks stormed Constantinople, and the close of the sixteenth century. During that period they asserted themselves as one of the greatest military Powers, and their navy commanded the Mediterranean. Since then their power has been one of continuous decay, and especially of late, since their defeat at Navarino.
The earlier Arab dynasty (the Omaiades) was much superior to the Turks. In the eighth century the Arabs overran southern Europeand conquered Spain, and have left many monuments of their enlightened policy and the advanced culture of their caliphs in literature, science, and art, and were distinguished in those days even for liberality and religious toleration. I was told, when visiting the Grand Mosque in Damascus, that when the Mahomedans acquired the command of the city they liberally shared the use of that building with the Christians. How different the feeling now!
It is conspicuously evident that instead of being progressive, the Turks have long been retrograding in every direction. Their prestige is gone; but instead of realizing this, they omit no opportunity of evincing their contempt for and superiority over the Christians, even in a manner the most offensive. I cannot better illustrate this than by quoting a paragraph I have just seen in a morning paper:—
Mr. Evans, a recent traveller in European Turkey, “had received a safe conduct from ahigh Mahomedan functionary to penetrate into Bosnia. He and his brother were given in charge to a tax-collector. On the arrival of the party at a tributary of the river Save, the English travellers waded across, when, to their astonishment, the Zaptieh, or tax-collector, instead of following their example, stood shivering on the brink. Looking about him, this valiant and gallant Mahomedan saw a Christian woman walking on the other bank of the stream, to whom he shouted to cross and carry him to the other side. Necessarily there was but one course for the Englishmen to adopt, and that was to forbid such a gross exhibition of unmanliness. Checkmated so far, the Mussulman beheld an agricultural Christian coming along, whom he hailed and ‘requisitioned.’ The simple countryman apparently never thought of resistance, and taking his Mahomedan oppressor on his back, carried him to the other side of the stream. So well had the poor manbecome accustomed to that sort of thing, that he seemed perfectly contented when he received for his services a handful of tobacco.”
The cool effrontery of the Turk, as all Eastern travellers know, is here well illustrated, and if such a thing was possible in the presence of two English travellers we can quite believe the stories now current of atrocities a hundredfold greater when no restraining eye was looking on. Perhaps the “requisitioning” may have been in imitation of the English sailor, of whom a story was told during the Crimean war. Jack, seeing that donkeys were scarce, thought it was only reasonable that the Turk should provide other means of transport to the English who were fighting their battle gratis, and accordingly deemed it perfectly fair that any “lazy lubber” he met should relieve him of his burden, or even on occasion carry Jack himself on his back over unsavoury swamps! But then the British tar never “requisitioned” women, norshowed harshness or cruelty to the defenceless, while such—even the aged and children—ever are the principal victims of Turkish cruelties.
In their administration, from the highest official to the lowest tax-collector, corruption prevails to an extent hopelessly incurable, for its offices, from almost the apex to the base of the Government, aresold. Extortion and oppression at every point are the consequences, and even the course of justice is corrupted. Hitherto Egypt has generally been considered free of this charge, but circumstances have just arisen which render this questionable in connexion with some Government mercantile transactions. There the chief judge is appointed by the Sultan, and I think the chief priest also, but they are both recommended or “nominated” by the Khedive. Throughout Turkey the result is apparent in the uncultivated soil and consequent barrenness—the finest climate in the world notwithstanding.Against the Saracens the same accusations of destroying trees and vegetation were long ago made, but they had the excuse of a barbarous age and a war of conquest as some apology, whereas Turkey has had a long period of peace almost guaranteed to her. Other evils are following fast; the national expenditure has for years been enormously in excess of the revenue. No works of any productive nature can be shown, and now the nation is at length hopelessly bankrupt and trade paralysed by extortionate taxes.
In such circumstances the “sick man” ought to collapse politically as well as financially. Surrounded by powerful neighbours long watching for their opportunity he has been maintained all along by their mutual jealousy, and by the forbearance and friendly support and advice of England, an advice which, even when apparently accepted, has not, it would appear, beenhonestly acted upon. “The times have been that when the brains were out the man would die, and there an end, but now they rise”—these Turks arise and awe the world by deeds, not of military prowess as of old, but by “thousand murders” and atrocities which make the ears of modern hearers to tingle, and which must be buried out of sight—they are the evidence of conscious weakness, of fear, or despair.
And enlightened England by almost unanimous opinion bears the blame! It is vain to accuse this or that English Ministry; since the battle of Navarino and Palmerston’s days, his Turkish policy has been tacitly confirmed and continued by all political parties, and it was once an apparently wise one in the interests of thestatu quoand the peace of Europe. But the event has now proved the very reverse. We have been unintentionally defending, encouraging, and morally bolstering up an iniquitous system and a semi-barbarous people,who, instead of improving thereby, seem to be the more rapidly retrograding.
And now comes the perplexing question, How is this policy to be altered? A question easily asked, but very difficult, perhaps impossible, to answer. Undoubtedly the dread of Russian ascendancy in Europe has been thebête noireof the other Powers, and her aggressions in Central Asia have all along been adding to the anxieties of England. These jealousies led to the Crimean war, which, with an immense loss of brave men and wasted treasures, resulted in little else than putting off for a few years more the settlement of the inevitable Eastern question. The time seems come at last, or is very near at hand.
Perhaps Great Britain should do nothing except show to the Turks—Sultan and people—in some clear and public manner that she can no longer, even in appearance, accord to Turkey her moral support. And may it not be that if let alone the Easternquestion will solve itself? But in any case it is to be hoped that those at the helm of affairs, who know the situation best, will carry along with them in their policy the national feeling of the country, for this will generally be found to be on the right, provided the people have the question correctly and fairly put before them.
For Britain, however, perhaps the most practically important part of the Eastern question is that relating to Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, because with that is connected the question of maintaining and opening up new communications with India and the far East. To do this in the interest of commerce would evidently be the best, cheapest, and least offensive way of checking the stealthy approaches of Russia towards the border land of our Indian possessions, and of opening up Central Asia generally to the already halting commerce of this great producing country.[15]
The Turks personally are warlike and greedy of power, but almost universally are early enervated by luxurious indulgence. They rule their Arab subjects oppressively, and with a high hand. Those of Syria and Palestine are ignorant and downtrodden, and, as before shown, naturally submissive to their master, whoever he may be; but are greatly instigated and controlled by the Moslem priests, who are bigoted, treacherous, and cruel in all matters of their religion.
The same may be said of Egypt, but there the priesthood seem less intolerant, and the Arabs more submissive still than those of Asia. Under such circumstances it is evident that insurrections are not to be expected from them. If a revolution come it will be by one of the courtiers, the military leader, or the chief priest, and from such revolutions any real or permanent improvement of the country is not to be expected. This extreme submissiveness of the population really renders thepower of an Eastern ruler extremely unstable, no matter how powerful and absolute he may be for the time.
In judging of the Turkish Government, therefore, we should bear this state of things in mind. It may be that the great massacre of the Christians in Damascus and the Lebanons in 1860 was planned and carried out with neither the knowledge nor approval of the Sultan, and the same may be said of the recent massacre at Salonica and those in Bulgaria, many of the victims of which yet lie unburied; but all of them prove the uncontrollable fierceness of Moslem fanaticism. England should not permit the Government or its representatives in Constantinople either to conceal or deny the facts, but to actively search out and expose them, which they certainly have not done. To conceal or ignore them will undoubtedly encourage their repetition, and perhaps convince the Turkish subjects that England, after all, has some reason for beingsecretly not over-much displeased at their occurrence!
But while England may abstain from helping Turkey either with material aid or encouragement in Europe, might she not render valuable service to Turkey as well as to humanity and progress by lending her powerful aid in promoting great improvement works in Asia? I have already[16]pointed out one of primary importance, both politically and commercially, which seems to lie very much to her hand.
P.S.—22nd September, 1876.—Since the above was in print I have read Earl Derby’s defence of the Government policy towards Turkey. It will be a serious misfortune if this question be made a party one, for which there are certainly no good grounds. The present Government seems merely to have been carryingout the old Palmerstonian policy of maintaining Turkey, not from any approval of that effete Power, but simply as a bulwark against Russia’s aggression, for in this policy all political parties have long acquiesced, and it seems unfair to blame the Government for the recent deplorable events in the European provinces.
But they have evidently erred in not being the first to see what recent events have clearly proved, that the Turks are not only bankrupt and effete, but, as proved by the Bulgarian atrocities, incurably barbarous, beastly, and cruel. An opportunity has occurred, and that by the fault of the Turks themselves, for England to free herself from the support of a people who have broken all promises and whose hands are reeking with rapine and blood. Surely the Government of Queen Victoria, confessedly the most benign sovereign the world has ever seen, will not fail to avail themselves of it. In their anxiety to maintain the “peace of Europe” they may miss it; but can the peace of Europebe maintained by England in the face of the world, even if desirable to do so, which it surely is not? For were England, either alone or with the Great Powers, to insist upon maintaining thestatu quoit would simply be to prevent (of course by war if necessary) all or any reformation in these States and provinces, and render any revolution by their wretchedly downtrodden people impossible. Let us think what that means. How would Scotchmen have liked such interference in the patriotic uprisings of Wallace and Bruce, and how would Englishmen have tolerated the interference of the European Powers with our great revolution of 1688?
The Turks are the same as ever they were, but their military prowess is gone. They can no longer wage war with their enemies, but can, as of old, use their scimitars against women and children—their own subjects! Without going back beyond the present century, Châteaubriand, in his travels in EasternEurope (1806), relates several instances of Turkish government. A Greek girl in the village of St. Paul’s, having lost her father and mother, and having been left a small fortune, received an education superior to her neighbours. For this, or other cause, the villagers became violently prejudiced against her, and resolved to get rid of her. They first raised a sum fixed by the Turkish law for the murder of a Christian woman; then they broke by night into the house of their devoted victim, whom they butchered. Thereon one of them hastened to the Pasha with the price of blood! Not content with the usual sum, he the same day despatched two janissaries to “demand an additional contribution, which caused an extraordinary sensation, not because of the atrocity of the deed, but of the greediness of the Pasha!” Greece, although now free, has as a people not much to boast of; perhaps a long series of years of Turkish oppression may have demoralized them, but certainly she has obtained a bettergovernment, thanks to English sympathy and aid. Here are other specimens of Turkish government in Europe in those days. I again use the words of the eloquent Frenchman: “The Peloponnese is a desert; the Turkish yoke has borne with increased weight on the Morea, and part of its population has been slaughtered by the Albanians. Nothing meets the eye but villages destroyed by fire and sword. Grinding oppression, outrages of every kind, complete the destruction of agriculture and human life. To drive a peasant from his cabin, to carry off his wife and children, to put him to death on the slightest pretext, is mere sport with the Aga of the meanest village.” “Reduced to misery, the Morean abandons his native land, and repairs to Asia in quest of a less severe Aga. Vain hope! He cannot escape his destiny; there he finds other Cadis and other Pashas.” “What had become of that altar consecrated to Pity which once stood in the midst of the public place atAthens, and to which her [heathen] votaries suspended locks of their hair?” This as to the governed; let us see what is the character and refinement of the governors. “This Disdar, or governor, of Athens resides in the citadel, filled with the masterpieces of Phidias, without inquiring what nation left these remains, without deigning to step beyond the threshold of the paltry habitation he has built for himself under the ruins of the monuments of Pericles, except very rarely, when this automaton shuffles to the door of his den, squats cross-legged on a dirty carpet, and while the smoke from his pipe ascends between the columns of the temple of Minerva, eyes with vacant stare the shores of Salamis and the sea of Epidaurus!” Again a heathen “proconsul might be a monster of lust, of avarice, and of cruelty, but all the proconsuls did not delight systematically and from a spirit of religion in overthrowing the monuments of civilization and the arts, incutting down trees, in destroying harvests—and this is done by the Turks every day. Is it conceivable that tyrants should exist so absurd as to oppose every improvement in things of the first necessity?” “A bridge falls—it is not built up again. A man repairs his house—he becomes a victim of extortion.”
This refers to 1806; have the Turks changed since? Look at the massacre of the Christians in Damascus and the Lebanons in 1860, when fifteen thousand defenceless men, women, and children were treacherously murdered in cold blood. The European Powers were then roused to indignation, and a French army was despatched to investigate the case. It was never fully explained, the Government at Constantinople denied all guilt, even knowledge of it, and threw the whole blame upon the Druses, a warlike sect at variance with the Maronites, but it was proved that the signal for the slaughter was given by the Turkish Governor of Damascus. The French would not be altogethercajoled, so the Governor was sacrificed, justly, no doubt, but what reparation can be made for such a hecatomb of human lives? That the same scene has not occurred again we have perhaps to thank the visit of the French army and the precautions then enforced upon Turkey. Then look at the sad loss of human life in Asia Minor last year from famine. What did the governors do to mitigate it? Nay, would the sufferings of these wretched people have been known at all could they have concealed them?
Who shall tell how many perished with hunger? American and English residents sounded the first alarm and distributed alms—alas, in many cases too late. The Constantinople Government were shamed into action at last, but it was said that their tax-gatherers were at the same time seizing the seed corn of the famishing people, as well as the half-starved animals they had for tilling their fields! This year we had the treacherous assassinationsat Salonica, remarkable chiefly as showing the blind and uncontrollable fury of the Moslems, and then even when engaged in making abject apologies for the crime, and punishing (under dread of the French and Prussian war-ships) the perpetrators, their generals were busy committing new atrocities in the Christian provinces absolutely diabolical—unheard-of for wickedness.
Was ever such an indictment made up against any other Power? The insolence of Theodore of Abyssinia, the despot of Coomassie, or even this new mighty highness of Dahomey cannot approach the effrontery of the Turks, and this too in return for unprecedented kindness and indulgence on the part of Great Britain, and in the face of solemn promises of reformation and reform made again and again—only to be shamelessly broken. History affords no parallel to it, nor is it easy to find even an illustration of this audacity of the Turks on the one hand, or of the simplicity andwilling blindness of the English Government, their money lenders, and people on the other. The lying fat knight and the silly dame of Eastcheap somewhat approach it, but dramatic story is not sufficiently serious for such a subject. Long suffering is a Christian virtue, and charity is beautiful—covering a multitude of sins—but when its repetition again and again only fosters offences into ranker and unspeakable grossness, even forbearance becomes a crime—in this case against the world at large.
Disguise it as they may, the Turks are slaveholders. They hold all women, under whatever name they may call them, slaves. For politic reasons they are not to be detected selling them, but their traffic in the buying of them can scarcely be concealed. The slavery formerly existing in the Southern States of America, against which Englishmen so loudly and properly declaimed, was less debasing in practice, because the Turkish women are not only enslaved, but imprisoned in cages ofstone. This fact lies, I believe, at the root of the visible declension of the Turkish power and the effeminacy of the race, and not only so, but is, I have no doubt, the producing cause of that abyss of utter worthlessness and shamelessness of character into which they have sank. The unacknowledged but most potent influence for good of the gentler sex is lost to them as a community. They lock up the greatest civilizers of the world, without whom we must all eventually return to a state worse than that of the savage. They as it were shut out the light and genial influence of the sun of their social life, cast away the one earthly sweetener of the bitter waters of Marah—and so, besides debasing the family affections, destroy those feelings of compassion and friendship, and consideration which they owe to their fellow men. It is obvious such an unfeeling state of mind will qualify them for the committal of almost any crime, and explains somewhat their surprise that the world should complain of them.
The imprisonment of the women not only occasions the deterioration of the moral feeling of the community at large but that of the sex as well. The injury is mutual, and gradually becomes permanent, so that the mere opening of the prison doors would not at once restore the natural influence of the gentle sex. This indefinable grace and influence of women for good and its restraining effects upon the most hardened sinner is exquisitely portrayed by Milton in his well-known passage on the first meeting between Satan and Eve—of course here in its highest possible instance:—
“Her every airOf gesture or least action, overaw’dHis malice, and with rapine sweet bereav’dHis fierceness of the fierce intent it brought:That space the Evil One abstracted stoodFrom his own evil, and for the time remain’dStupidly good; of enmity disarm’dOf guile, of hate, of envy, of revenge;—Thoughts, whither have ye led me! with what sweetCompulsion thus transported to forgetWhat hither brought us! hate, not love.”
“Her every airOf gesture or least action, overaw’dHis malice, and with rapine sweet bereav’dHis fierceness of the fierce intent it brought:That space the Evil One abstracted stoodFrom his own evil, and for the time remain’dStupidly good; of enmity disarm’dOf guile, of hate, of envy, of revenge;—Thoughts, whither have ye led me! with what sweetCompulsion thus transported to forgetWhat hither brought us! hate, not love.”
“Her every airOf gesture or least action, overaw’dHis malice, and with rapine sweet bereav’dHis fierceness of the fierce intent it brought:That space the Evil One abstracted stoodFrom his own evil, and for the time remain’dStupidly good; of enmity disarm’dOf guile, of hate, of envy, of revenge;—Thoughts, whither have ye led me! with what sweetCompulsion thus transported to forgetWhat hither brought us! hate, not love.”
“Her every air
Of gesture or least action, overaw’d
His malice, and with rapine sweet bereav’d
His fierceness of the fierce intent it brought:
That space the Evil One abstracted stood
From his own evil, and for the time remain’d
Stupidly good; of enmity disarm’d
Of guile, of hate, of envy, of revenge;—
Thoughts, whither have ye led me! with what sweet
Compulsion thus transported to forget
What hither brought us! hate, not love.”
Of such sweet compulsion the Turks are andmust remain ignorant. Their whole system of religion and domestic life renders them hopelessly incurable, and they would evidently sink if let alone under the weight of their own crimes.
The domestic life of Turkey is still best illustrated by “Bluebeard and his Wives;” the great curved scimitar, somewhat stained, is nowadays hung overhead, suspended by a thread. Sister Ann is silent, for she sees nobody coming, and the whilom gallant knight St. George is amissing.
It is well England is rousing herself at last, and avoiding party recrimination, seems resolved that this Christian nation shall no longer act, not merely as the guide, philosopher, and friend, but the patron of this monstrous system of evil. Omitting political leaders, our best and wisest have spoken out nobly and well on this subject. Who have a better right to be heard on such a subject than Earl Russell, Earl of Shaftesbury, and the BaronessBurdett Coutts? The Bishops of the Church, the Nonconformist ministers, and the men best known of all parties for their good deeds have taken the lead, and surely no Government will refuse to give ear to opinions so publicly expressed. The difficulty of getting out of a wrong course is sometimes very great, and may in this case involve us in serious consequences; but we may be assured that if we proceed in a wrong course our punishment will be still more serious. Let us have the wisest counsel—let us have clean hands in the matter—and remember that “to the upright light will arise in the darkness.” The death of Prince Albert we mourn over yet, and perhaps never till now has the country fully felt the magnitude of that loss. Just now her Majesty must miss from her side more than ever the counsels of that great and wise Prince!