The life of Midhat Pasha 6

The life of Midhat Pasha 6

It was not till 28th September that war was formally declared between

Russia and Turkey, and that Omar Pasha received orders to summon the

Russian Commander to evacuate the principalities. The interval between

this period and the date of Prince Mentchikoff’s mission had been

employed by a lively diplomatic correspondence between Lord Clarendon

and Mr Drouyn de Lluys, on one side, and Prince Gortchakoff on the

other, relative to the interpretation of the seventh clause of the

Treaty of Kainardje, on which Russia based her claims to interfere with

the Christian subjects of the Ottoman Empire. The destruction of a

Turkish squadron by a superior Russian fleet in the harbour of Sinope

at last terminated this diplomatic interlude, and brought the armed

forces of England and France into the field. On the 27th December the

allied fleets entered the Black Sea, and an expeditionary force was

sent to Varna and the Dobrutcha.

 

Here is the place to note the influence exercised on the course of

events by the action of Austria.

 

It was one of the principal aims of English and French diplomacy at

this period to secure the co‐operation of the Middle Empire. By her

geographical position and the revived force of her empire, as well

as by the magnitude of her interests in the Eastern Question, she

seemed called upon to exercise a preponderant influence on the issue

of the coming struggle. It was even generally taken for granted that,

could her active co‐operation be secured, such powerful pressure

could be brought to bear on Russia as would secure the objects of the

Western nations without actual recourse to arms; and, at any rate,

that if Russia were still to persist in her policy of encroachment,

the military forces at the command of the coalition would be so

overwhelming as to compel her rapidly to retreat from the position she

had taken up. Austria was generally considered to hold the key of the

situation.

 

There was no lack of political motive on the part of Austria to bring

her into line with Western Powers. The free navigation of the Danube,

the arrest of the dangerous Panslavic propaganda of Russia, the curbing

of limitless ambition of her colossal neighbour, were undoubtedly

objects of State policy of the first magnitude. On the other hand,

strong dynastic sympathies, and the obligations of gratitude for

important services recently rendered, weighed heavily in the opposite

scales. The result of these conflicting motives was a line of conduct

which, whilst diplomatically supporting the contentions of the allied

Cabinets, seriously hampered their military resolutions.

 

Had Austria not placed her veto on the march of the allied armies

into Poland, that country would have become the battle‐field between

the forces of the East and West, and as far as human forecast can

determine, the whole face of Europe would have been changed, the

Eastern Question would have been settled for ever, and the nightmare of

Cossack preponderance lifted once for all from the shoulders of Western

civilisation.

 

Instead of prosecuting the war on the continent of Europe, an

expedition to the Crimea was resolved upon, and a French and English

army landed at Eupatoria, and after a victorious advance across the

Alma, and making a flank march to the south side of Sevastopol, they

invested that portion of the great arsenal of Sevastopol which after

two years’ siege and the taking of the fortress of Malakoff, at last

surrendered to the allied army.

 

On the 25th February 1856, a congress was assembled at Paris, and on

the 30th March the Treaty of Paris was signed by the plenipotentiaries

of Russia, Turkey, England, France, Prussia and Italy, by which Turkey

was admitted into the full benefits of international law, and into

the Concert of Europe, and all right of interference in her internal

affairs was expressly disclaimed and repudiated by all the Signatories.

Russia and Turkey were expressly debarred from maintaining any armed

forces in the Black Sea, and a small strip of Bessarabia was ceded by

Russia to the Danubian principalities.

 

This was followed by the proclamation of a new Hatti Cherif on the part

of the Sultan, which closed this particular chapter of the history of

Europe.

 

Before concluding this short epitome of the history of the Ottoman

Empire, and proceeding with the narrative of the life of Midhat Pasha,

the incidents of whose career begin at this point to be interwoven with

the general history of his country, it will be useful to cast a glance

at the state of Europe and the general trend of events and alliances

that succeeded the settlement of 1856.

 

The death of the Sultan, Abdul Medjid (1861), and the character

of his successor were the chief factors, as will shortly be seen,

that influenced the direct destinies of Turkey. Unfortunately, in a

country where absolutism had gradually become the established form of

government, this was, and could only be, the determining element in the

problem of government

 

Russia, defeated but not humiliated, or even seriously crippled in a

war which had, however, strained her resources, and absorbed by the

great measure of the emancipation of her serfs, which inaugurated and

rendered illustrious the reign of the successor of Nicholas, was,

to employ the now classic phrase of Prince Gortchakoff, “collecting

herself” (_La Russie se recueille_). This did not, however, prevent

her giving a free hand, and even officious support, to the Panslavic

Committees of Moscow and of Kieff, that now, through the promptings and

under the direction of Katkoff and his school, entered upon a militant

career, and the crafty Ignatieff was sent to Constantinople to defend

and support the machinations of these committees, and to play with

consummate astuteness on the weaknesses and vices of a sovereign who

possessed none of the qualities of his three predecessors, but was

remarkable only for an inordinate passion for expenditure and a morbid

jealousy of his autocratic power. His perfect sanity, moreover, became

more and more questionable.

 

With respect to France, from the first meeting of the plenipotentiaries

at Paris, in May 1856, it became evident that a change had come over

the spirit of the Court of the Tuileries. The representatives of France

no longer showed themselves as irreconcilable to the views of Russia as

was the case when Mr Drouyn de Lluys penned his famous despatches two

years before, and in the discussions that took place at the Congress,

and still more in the various Commissions appointed to settle the

details of the articles of peace, the envoys of France were found to

be constantly ranged on the side of Russia, whereas the views and

contentions of England and Turkey were invariably supported by the

representatives of Austria.

 

This new orientation of French politics, which continued to the time

of the Polish insurrection in 1862, was further emphasised by the

exceptional pomp and circumstances attending the French mission to St

Petersburg, on the occasion of the coronation of the new Czar. The

matrimonial and political _rapprochement_, too, between the House of

Savoy and the Napoleons, culminating in the war of 1859, was a further

cause of estrangement between France and Austria.

 

In compensation, however, for the gradual parting of the ways of French

and English diplomacy in the East, the Cabinet of Vienna seemed to have

reverted frankly to what may be called the normal policy of Austria

with reference to Turkey, and the policy of Metternich and Castlereagh

was for a time steadily and consistently followed by Buol and

Palmerston. This state of things continued until the double election

of Prince Couza in the Danubian principalities caused a rift in the

alliance.

 

To Austria everything connected with the free navigation of the Danube

and the political status of the provinces bordering on that great

artery is, and must ever be, State interests of the first magnitude.

 

To England, apart from their indirect bearing on the integrity

and independence of Turkey, these questions were only matters of

sentimental interest founded on academic sympathy with the general

principle of nationalities. This sentiment, however, called into

activity by the events unrolling themselves in Italy, was particularly

strong in England at the time when the question of the principalities

presented itself as a practical problem to the statesmen of Europe,

and found in the Prime Minister of the day, Mr Gladstone, one of its

keenest and most enthusiastic partisans. England completely severed her

policy on this occasion from that of Austria. Whether such conduct,

with reference to a branch of a much larger problem, was quite

consistent with an Eastern policy considered as a whole, and whether

such a deviation from the obligation of loyalty to an indispensable

ally was or was not responsible for much of what subsequently occurred,

is perhaps too delicate a question to be discussed here. Certain,

however, is it that the desertion of Austria on this occasion by

the ally she counted on in Eastern matters to maintain intact the

provisions of the Treaty of Paris, and the instability of English

foreign policy that it revealed, made a profound impression on the

minds of the Austrian Emperor and his counsellors, and justified in

their view the revolution that subsequently took place in the Eastern

policy of Austria. Placed as the Middle Empire is—between jealous

rivals and powerful neighbours, and with enormous and vital interests

to safeguard—it is obliged to lean on one system of alliance or

another, and what has been called “la politique du Cascole” is,

as it were, a necessity of her position, and even a condition of

her existence. When the events connected with the Herzegovinian

insurrection come to be narrated in these pages, the part taken in

them by Austria, and the _rôle_ played by her statesmen throughout

the long negotiations preceding the Russo‐Turkish War and during its

continuance, until the final act of the comedy enacted at Berlin, will

have to be clearly set forth in detail, for it was Austria that played

the chief part in all of them, and that finally secured the chief part

in the spoil.

 

This chapter, which only seeks to point out the particular

circumstances that determined a change of policy on Eastern matters on

the part of this empire, must be considered rather as an apology for,

than an indictment of Austria with respect to Turkey. Moreover, it is

the author’s aim throughout this work to narrate and explain events

according to the lights vouchsafed to him, rather than to accuse any

nation of bad faith or unjustifiable aggression with respect to his

country. A nation worthy to exist at all must exist by its own strength

and vigour, and not by the sufferance of its neighbours; and indeed

the only indictment which will be proclaimed in this book will be

against the descendants of the Othmans, Orkhans, Solimans, Bayazids and

Mahmouds who have turned their backs on the traditions of their faith,

and have allowed the muscles of the nation to be relaxed, and its

heritage to become the prey of the spoiler.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER II

 

MIDHAT’S EARLY YEARS

 

 

MIDHAT was born at Constantinople in 1822. His father, Hadji Ali

Effendi, was a native of Rustchuk, and gave his son the usual education

provided by the local schools, until he was of an age to follow him in

his different displacements, first to Widdin and Lofdja, and afterwards

to Constantinople in 1836. A few years after this he obtained a

position in the Secretariat of the Grand Vizier’s office, whence he was

promoted to superior employment in the provinces. He remained two years

at Damascus, and then, after a short interval spent in Constantinople,

he proceeded, in 1844, to Konia, as secretary to Sami Bekir Pasha’s

Council. In 1849 he was nominated to the Presidency of the

_Medjlissi‐Vala_ (Grand Council of State) and promoted to the rank of

Sanie, which is the first rank in the Ottoman hierarchy, and in 1851

to that of Mutemaiz, with the functions of First Secretary to the Grand Council.