The life of Midhat Pasha 2

The life of Midhat Pasha 2

Return of Bekir—Midhat and Bekir—Tampering with

Food—Attempts to Poison—Preparations for the Murder—The

Murder 242–256

 

 

APPENDIX A

 

THE NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN THE BERLIN NOTE AND THE

CONFERENCE OF CONSTANTINOPLE

 

Negotiations following the Berlin Note—The Conference at

Reichstadt—Servian Diplomacy and Defeat—England Proposes

Terms—An Ultimatum to the Porte—Disagreement among the

Powers 257–270

 

 

APPENDIX B

 

THE INSURRECTION OF HERZEGOVINA AND BOSNIA AND THE

BERLIN NOTE

 

Herzegovina and Bosnia—Lord Derby and Austria—Intentional

Bad Faith—Austrian Diplomacy—The Berlin Note—Austria and

Russia—Mr Monson’s Despatch 271–284

 

 

APPENDIX C

 

BULGARIAN ATROCITIES

 

A Bulgarian Insurrection—Revolutionary Agents at

Work—Fictions and Ingenious Credulity 285–292

 

 

 

 

MIDHAT PASHA

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER I

 

EARLY HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

 

 

It would be inconsistent with the general plan of this book to give

more than a very summary and cursory view of the early history of the

Ottoman Empire before the time of Midhat Pasha; but it will not be

inappropriate, and may possibly aid in elucidating the history of his

times, and throw light on his work of reform, if the main features of

that history be here drawn in outline, and some of the phases traced

through which the Turkish Empire passed during the four centuries that

elapsed between the taking of Constantinople by Mehemet II. and the

Crimean War.

 

It has sometimes been objected to Midhat Pasha and the Constitution

of 1876, by those who have given a very superficial study to the

subject, or who have a political object in depreciating all reforms

in Turkey, that, however admirable the Constitution may have been

in itself, it was prematurely and precipitately introduced, and ill

adapted to the peculiar conditions of the Ottoman people. One of the

aims of this book is to show that, so far from this being the case,

the reforms associated with the name of Midhat Pasha were conceived in

the very spirit of the early Ottoman Constitution, and were expressly

suggested by the wants and requirements of that country as revealed

in the course of its administration to a succession of statesmen, who

found themselves in practice hampered at every turn, and their best

efforts continually thwarted by the absence of the very checks and

safeguards which Midhat’s Constitution endeavoured to impose. Within

half a century of the taking of Constantinople (1454) by Mehemet II.,

Bulgaria, Servia, Moldavia, Wallachia and large portions of Hungary and

Poland were added to the Ottoman dominions. It was (as all impartial

writers now admit) as much by virtue of the simplicity and purity

of its creed, and the force of propagandism that it in consequence

possessed, as by the force of arms, that Islam made such astounding

progress in those days. If extensive provinces and important kingdoms

yielded with slight resistance before the advance of the Ottoman

armies, and if large masses of the conquered populations adopted the

religion of the conquerors, it was because their moral conquest was

effected before their political subjection was attempted.

 

The reputation, too, for justice and moderation enjoyed by the early

Ottoman sovereigns was no insignificant factor in conciliating the

goodwill and blunting the opposition of nations, who might under

different conditions have opposed a more serious resistance to the

advance of the Ottoman armies. Sixty years before the appearance of

the Turks before Constantinople, the people of the ancient kingdoms

of Roumania were called upon to choose between the Magyars—who,

in conformity with their traditional policy, desired to Magyarise

Wallachia—and the Ottoman sovereign, who offered the inhabitants the

enjoyment of their religious and civil liberty. They did not hesitate

between the two, and Mircea signed, with the Sultan Bayazid, the first

capitulation of Roumania (1393). Twenty‐six years later, in 1419, the

Servian ruler Brankovich, pressed by John Hunyadi, ruler of Hungary,

to join him in an alliance against the Turks, invited him to state the

policy in respect to religion that he proposed to adopt, in the event

of victory attending their joint military efforts. Hunyadi answered

without periphrasis, that the Servians would have to adopt the Catholic

worship. Brankovich then addressed a similar question to Mehemet I. “I

propose,” replied the latter, “to build a church next to every mosque,

and proclaim that every one shall be at liberty to follow his own

worship and religion.” Brankovich rejected the Hungarian alliance, and

declared himself the vassal of the Turkish Sultan.

 

But, it has been contended, the condition of the Christian populations

(_Raias_) of the countries actually conquered by Islam was very

different; and there is even a widespread popular belief that these

populations were forced to “opt” (to use a modern phrase) between the

religion of the conquerors and death, the poll‐tax (_kharadj_) being

the money composition imposed in commutation of the death sentence.

Nothing can be more erroneous. The _kharadj_ was the tax imposed on the

Christian population in lieu of the military service and other similar

duties from which they were exempted, disabilities generally regarded

by them as privileges, and in consequence of which they have increased

and multiplied and become rich and prosperous in the land. An entirely

false interpretation has been given to a passage in the Koran, which

was even quoted by the Austrian plenipotentiaries at the Conference

of Niemirow, in 1737, in support of the “Death or Koran” theory here

referred to. The true answer, which indeed is obvious from the context,

was given by the Ottoman negotiators on this occasion, viz., that the

text quoted applied only to idolaters and not to the “people of the

Book.” Anyone who knows anything of the religion of Mahomet is aware

of the important distinction recognised therein between the “people of

the Book” (_kitabi_) and idolaters (_medjous_), and knows that whereas

little mercy, it is true, was shown to the latter, the former were

included in the Dar‐ul‐Islam (the house of Islam), where they formed an

integral portion of the empire, and that the true Mahomedan was taught,

with respect to the latter, that “their substance is as our substance,

their eyes as our eyes, and their souls as our souls.” The fable, too,

that the murder of a Christian by a Mahomedan was considered by the

Cheri (sacred law) as a trivial offence, and was visited by a lighter

punishment than the same crime committed on the person of a Mussulman,

is disposed of by the _Fetva_ delivered by the Mufti (Supreme Judge

of the Sacred Law), and quoted by Cantimer[1] in answer to the

question, “What should be the penalty if eleven Mussulmans murdered one

Christian?” “If the Mussulmans were one thousand and one in number,

instead of only eleven, they should all be put to death.”

 

So far indeed is it from being historically true that the conquered

Christian populations were forced by the sword to adopt the religion of

Mahomet, that when Selim I. desired, for reasons of what he considered

long‐sighted policy, so to convert the Christians of the Balkans, he

was stopped short in the attempt by a _Fetva_ of the Sheik‐ul‐Islam,

Zenbilli Ali Effendi, who pronounced such a proceeding to be contrary

to the Koran and the Cheri (sacred law), and the attempt was

accordingly abandoned.

 

It may be remarked, in passing, that history does not relate that

Cromwell was ever diverted from a policy similar to that from which

Selim was deflected, or hampered in his enactment of the penal laws

in Ireland by any such scruples or protests on the part of the

ecclesiastical authorities of his day. However that may be, the policy

of the Ottoman sovereigns with reference to the conquered Raias was

the exact opposite to that popularly supposed. Nor was the policy

actually adopted the result of any idiosyncracy or peculiar generosity

on their part. It was in strict obedience to the injunctions of the

Prophet, and in conformity with the policy pursued by himself in the

“letters patent,” accorded to the Christians (_nassara_) on the 4th day

of Moharem of the year 11 of the Hegira. It was in fact the fixed and

settled policy of the Mussulman political system.

 

In proof of this position some European authorities, by no means

particularly inclined to the Ottoman cause, Montesquieu for example,

may be quoted. This author bears testimony to the happy change effected

in the condition of the Greek population of the empire after the

occupation of their capital by the Turks: “The people,” he says, “in

place of that continued series of vexations which the subtle avarice

of the Byzantine Emperors had devised, were now subjected to a simple

tribute, easily paid and lightly borne, happy in having to submit to

even a barbarous nation (_sic_) rather than to a corrupt government

under which they suffered all the inconveniences of a fictitious

liberty with all the horrors of a real servitude.”

 

The reports of the Venetian ambassadors, and the narratives of

travellers in the sixteenth century, like La Motraye, offer concurrent

testimony to the tolerance and moderation of this “barbarous nation.”

“The other (_i.e._ the Christian) subjects of the Empire,” says La

Motraye, “enjoy all the liberty of conscience that they can desire.

They go to the churches and pilgrimages and practise all the rights of

their religion, without fear or molestation. The same thing applies

to their commerce and temporal affairs. They have no dread of being

deprived of the fruits of their labours, which they enjoy without let

or hindrance.”[2]

 

Compare with this condition of the Greek Raias of the Ottoman Empire

that, for instance, of the Greek population of Chio under Genoese

domination, as described by Genoese writers themselves, and quoted by

Mr Fustel de Coulanges, where the unfortunate population, in addition

to daily exactions and injustices, were compelled four times a year, at

Christmas, Easter, Whitsunday, and the Feast of the Circumcision, to

attend a ceremony, best described as “a feast of humiliation,” at which

their clergy and chief citizens were summoned to the palace of the

Podesta, where a herald, mounted on a stand, with a wand in his hand,

read four prayers for the Pope, the Emperor, the Republic of Genoa, and

the family of the Justiniani, and obliged the assembled Chiotes, at

the end of each prayer, to answer in responsive and quasi‐enthusiastic

acclamations; these poor Chiotes being thus compelled to acclaim and

pray for the Pope—their greatest enemy—the Emperor they knew nothing

about, the Republic that had subjected them, and the family of the

Justiniani whom they detested, representing as it did the “Maona” (a

financial company) that ruthlessly pillaged them.