The life of Midhat Pasha 3

The life of Midhat Pasha 3

Take again the case of the Candiotes under the domination of the

Venetians, in which the Greek population of the island did not hesitate

to conspire with the Turkish besiegers in order to deliver their

capital into their hands, and thus free themselves from the oppression

of the Italian Republic.[3]

 

Even the Greeks of the Morea complained bitterly of the religious

persecution of the Venetians, whereas, said they, “the Turks allowed

us all the liberty we required.”[4]

 

These quotations, which could be multiplied _ad infinitum_, will

probably suffice. It was indeed the universal cry of all the Christian

population in the East, from the middle of the fifteenth century to the

beginning of the eighteenth—“A thousand times rather the Turks than

the Latins.”

 

That corruptions gradually grew up in the land of the Osmanli; that

perversions of the law crept into its practice, and that prejudices,

engendered by ignorance, created abuses which in earlier days were

sternly repressed, it is not intended here to deny. Indeed it is the

contention of this book that such perversions, the causes of which

it will be its purpose to trace, did spring up, as rank weeds, in

the Ottoman system; but what is strenuously asserted, and what will,

it is hoped, be proved, is that they formed no part or parcel of the

original Ottoman Constitution, but were, on the contrary, excrescences

in that system, violations of its spirit and essence; and further, that

the efforts of the reforming party in the nation, from the days of

Selim III. to the accession of Abdul Hamid II., through an apostolic

succession of patriots and statesmen—including the Keuprulu Mehemets,

the Reshids, the Aalis, the Fuads and the Midhats—were directed to the

end of restoring the spirit of that Constitution, with such adaptation

of it to the requirements of the day as the experience, science and

political conditions of the world required.

 

Mehemet II., from the moment he sheathed his sword on victory being

assured, manifested his determination that the lives and properties of

the conquered populations should be respected, and, in order to give

weight to his orders to that effect, took immediate measures to offer

a conspicuous example of respect for the religion of his new subjects

by his conduct as its hierarchical chief. He summoned the Greek

Patriarch (_Roum milleti patriki_) to a solemn Divan, stepped down from

his throne, and breaking through all established usage, advanced ten

steps to meet him, took him by the hand, and seated him next to himself

in the place of honour, delivering into his hands, as a symbol of

power, a golden sceptre, which to this day is carried in processions on

occasions of great ceremonies, investing him with unlimited authority

over all Orthodox schools, monasteries and churches, and with judicial

and administrative functions over all his co‐religionists.

 

Such a delegation of power was the nearest approach to the

establishment of an _imperium in imperio_ as is afforded in history,

with, let it be added, all the weakness that attaches to such a

_régime_, as was subsequently too clearly proved by the pernicious use

made of these privileges by a foreign Power, in founding on them a

claim to interfere in the internal affairs of the empire, and in using

them as a lever to overthrow it.

 

But wise or unwise, such at any rate was the policy adopted by the

Sultans of Turkey towards their Christian subjects, and the legend of

conversion by the sword must be relegated, with so many similar fables

with respect to Turkey, to the mythology of history.

 

From the foundation of the empire, and under the ægis of its

government, the Hellenisation of the Raias, under the authority of

the Patriarch of the Phanar, proceeded apace throughout the country.

So effectually indeed was this taking place, that the very name of

Slav, or Bulgarian, implying as it did an inferior social status, was

gradually falling into disuse, and the prouder appellation of “Roum,”

or Greek, substituted for it.

 

It is probable that another half‐century of this process would have

blotted out the very name of Slav, had not a new Power appeared on

the world’s stage, introducing a new factor in the Eastern problem,

and profoundly modifying its conditions. This was the rise of Russia

as a world Power, under the rule of that extraordinary man of genius,

Peter I. After finally breaking the power of Sweden at the great battle

of Pultava, and after adding Livonia, Esthonia, Ingria, Finland, and

Lithuania to his already vast dominions, and founding a capital with

a maritime outlet on the Northern Seas, he turned his ambition to

the sunny lands of the South, which the legend of the marriage of

a Byzantine princess with a Russian _Kneze_ had already annexed in

imagination to the Empire of Moscovy.

 

This is the place to refer to an historical event which has more than

a passing interest, as it may be said to be the source and origin of

the undeviating policy of Russia in her dealings with Turkey. At the

historical interview between Peter the Great and Cantimir, Voivode of

Moldavia, the latter initiated the Russian Czar into the secret of the

Eastern problem, and explained to him the profit that might be derived

from taking adroit advantage of the privileges of self‐government

enjoyed by the Christians in the East, and from the steady pursuit of a

policy exploiting this autonomy to the best advantage.

 

The lesson here learnt was never forgotten, and the political strategy

here determined on became henceforth the very keystone of Russia’s

policy in regard to Turkey.

 

Whether the famous will of Peter the Great be apocryphal or not,

as historically speaking it probably is, there is no doubt that it

expresses, with prophetic instinct at any rate, the great lines of

policy that have ever since been pursued with reference to Turkey by

all Peter’s successors.

 

Two distinct phases have marked the manner of Russia’s dealings

with the Christians of the East, although those dealings have been

undeviating in their aims and in general plan of attack on the Ottoman

Empire.

 

The first phase was marked by a close alliance with a Greek Patriarch

and his Metropolitans, and a general identification of views between

the Russian and Greek propaganda.

 

The Greek liturgy and the Greek priesthood were accepted without

a question, whilst portraits of the Czar, with the superscription

“Emperor of the Greco‐Russians,” were freely circulated by the Greek

clergy among their flocks. Colonel Repnin’s plot, in 1837, took

place in connivance with the Greek Patriarch, and a few years later

Marshal Munich was received by the peasants of Moldavia with the

Greek archbishop and his clergy marching at their head. The convents

and monasteries in Moldavia, Wallachia, Servia, and Montenegro were

used as _dépôts_ for arms, and monks were not the least audacious

of the leaders of the revolutionists. Piccolo Stefano in Servia

and Montenegro, Papazoglou in Greece, and Gamana in Wallachia, put

themselves at the head of armed bands, that were joined by others from

across the frontier. This alliance continued until Russia, having by

her victories and prestige acquired the position of the recognised

leader of the anti‐Turkish movement, was strong enough to dispense with

the Greek alliance and to champion the cause of pure Slavism undiluted

with Hellenism.

 

The second phase of Russian policy in the Slav provinces was marked

by the feverish activity of the Panslavic Committees of Bucharest,

Kischnoff, Moscow and Kieff, the cynical intrigues of the Russian

ambassadors at Constantinople, and the fanatical articles of Katkoff

in the _Moscow Gazette_, the aim of all which was to give a national

direction to the Slavic movement in the Turkish provinces. The

nationalisation of the religion of the people, the substitution of

the authority of national Exarchs as heads of their churches, in the

place of the Greek Patriarch, and of a native clergy educated in

Russia in the place of that nominated at the Phanar, were the measures

called for, and successively adopted, to stimulate a movement that now

embraced all Slav dependencies of Turkey in its action. The pretext of

protecting and securing the privileges of the Christian communities

in the Turkish Empire was finally dropped, and the liberation of

the oppressed nationalities of the South‐West of Europe became the

watchword of the new propaganda.

 

All the machinery of the heavily subsidised Panslavic Committee was

set in motion; band after band was raised and sent across the frontier;

rebellion was openly preached, and the ignorant peasantry were deluded,

by arguments which they did not understand, to complain of grievances

which they did not feel.

 

The answer to the question of how such an encroaching and cynically

pursued policy, violating as it did every principle of international

law and comity in its dealings with a neighbouring nation, was

possible—in a century, too, that was roused to indignation against

a not dissimilar but entirely unofficial raid in South Africa—must

be sought in the unfortunate condition and weakness of the Ottoman

Empire that exposed it, almost defenceless, to the attacks of its

powerful neighbour, and dispensed the latter from even the decencies of

international intercourse as practised among civilised nations.

 

This weakness in its turn was the result, as this work is specially

intended to show, of corruptions and perversions that had crept into

an originally admirable Constitution, and had produced a paralysis of

all its important functions, placing its nation almost as much at the

mercy of its enemies as had the _Liberum Veto_ the fair land of Poland.

 

The successive steps of these innovations must now be rapidly traced.

When the conquering energies of the new empire were exhausted, and its

victorious armies checked under the walls of Vienna by Sobieski and

his Poles, and the maritime power of its fleet broken by Don John of

Austria’s victory at Lepanto, a new phase was entered upon in which

internal re‐organisation took the place of external conquest.

 

The latter half of the sixteenth century was devoted to attempts to

organise the empire on quasi‐feudal principles. It was divided into

_timars_ and _zeamets_ (fiefs), represented by the great feudatories,

the Derebeys. This was the first serious innovation, involving a

perversion of the cardinal principle of the Ottoman Constitution,

which was in spirit and essence purely democratic; and when the

counter‐revolution took place, and the Sultans determined to get rid

of the Derebeys, so as to establish their own exclusive power, the

mischief was already done, for the old principle of democracy, as

understood by the companions of Othman, was by this time seriously

impaired by the long disuse of its ancient rights and functions; so

that this counter‐revolution, instead of restoring the old order of

things, only redounded to the exclusive profit of autocracy. Nothing

but the Porte (that is the Government), and the traditional authority

it exercised, now stood in the way of the complete absolutism of

the Sultan, and, owing to the veneration of the Ottoman people for

their sovereigns—a veneration founded partly on religious, partly on

secular, sentiments, and due in no small measure to the exceptional

merits of their early rulers—the Sultans entered on the struggle for

absolutism equipped with superior advantages. Having no fear of popular

encroachments before their eyes, or of popular passion directed

against their persons, they could devote their entire thoughts and

energies to the task of dominating the Porte and monopolising power in the State.