Ali Haydar Mithat

“ And no great wonder if in a country like Turkey, where vested interests had grown around the old order of things; where conservative prejudices, as in every country in the world, obstruct the path of reform; where trained civil servants did not exist but had to be created, that the execution of these important and all‐embracing reforms should not have taken place by decree as by a magician’s wand, but required time and patience for their realisation. ”

“ Servia was reserving herself for Bulgaria, which was within the sphere of her action, as she herself was within the orbit of Russia’s influence, and she had no intention of playing Austria’s game for Austria’s sole benefit.
Unless strongly backed by Russia, Servia knew well enough that Austria, posted in the conterminous province of Bosnia, would be a most awkward neighbour, and render any hope of future independence on her part purely illusory. Turkey’s yoke would be light indeed in comparison to that of Austria, if she were surrounded on three sides by the Kaiserlich. ”

“ Midhat Pasha had recovered completely from his indisposition. One evening, a little while before his assassination, after a lengthy meditation, he had said to his friends: “I am thinking of death. The pain thereof only endures for five minutes. But I do not know what kind of death may be the least painful. Perhaps poison, or a bullet, or death at the end of some illness. My body, sixty year old, is worn out. Why live beyond this age if it be only to suffer! ”

“ I was obliged, first of all, in order to guard the rights of the Empire, to augment the effective force of our armies at various points, and to call under arms 700,000 combatants. Next I considered it a duty to try, by means of essential reforms, to put an end, with God’s help, to the disorder of the situation, and thus to insure our future in a permanent fashion. It is evident that, thanks to the resources with which Providence has endowed our country, and the aptitudes of our subjects, a good administration would enable us in a short time to make considerable progress. ”

“ The Governor of Bulgaria—who now became for the second time the Grand Vizier of the empire—desired to make this cherished scheme general in all the provinces of the empire, and in the inaugural speech he had placed in the Sultan’s mouth words that signified the adoption of this measure and its inauguration in the empire, “in order that the progress of the country may produce the happiness of all its subjects alike; and in order to inculcate these ideas, We decree the foundation of these schools, in which instruction and education shall be common to all.” ”

“ It is high time to realise that to place the truth before a Sovereign is an act of fidelity, and to hide it is a felony. Recent events have successively shown us the faults of those who are opposed to the wise measures which had been recognised by our Sovereign as necessary to save the Nation and the Government, and, putting aside all personal enmity, I am tempted to believe that they will profit by the goodwill of our august Sovereign and devote all their efforts to the good of the country. ”

“ If Midhat had forced the Sultan Hamid—as he might have done, if he had been less trustful and more strenuous—to observe strictly the terms of the treaty of Muslou‐Oglou that Prince Hamid had agreed to as a condition of his mounting on the throne at all, Midhat would never have been banished, and the Constitution would never have been strangled. Good men are rarely as determined and strenuous as bad men. It is a pity, for half the political ills of the world come from this weakness on their part. ”

“ There is no doubt that she had been working up to an occupation by her own troops of Bosnia and Herzegovina as the mandate of Europe—up to the time of the Bulgarian insurrection; but now that such an occupation would be accompanied by a Russian occupation of Bulgaria, she entirely changed her mind. If a joint occupation took place, the last state of those provinces would be worse than the first. At present she had the strategical advantage of position over Russia, but Russia in Bulgaria would have it over her. She was firmly opposed to joint occupation. Neither would autonomy suit her. ”

“ It is a difficult task, frequently interrupted by contrary currents, but for all that one need never despair of reaching the goal, for with time, patience and perseverance success is attainable. It is not in the person of the Sultan, nor yet through his present Ministers, that I see danger for the Constitution, but rather in the want of character and of courage so often to be found in those who are the Sovereign’s Councillors, and who, instead of acting according to their convictions, seek their own advantage in hiding the truth. ”

“ My readers will learn how the Sovereign of the Ottoman Empire, in order to carry out his own system of Government, has suppressed every effort for reform, and has removed those men, who by their force of character, by their uprightness, and by their popularity, seemed capable of thwarting his designs, and amending the condition of the country and of the people. ”

“ There is very little doubt that this revolution in Constantinople—which had the avowed object of checking absolutism and giving the Turkish people guarantees for good government—was in the eyes of Russia an aggravation of the crisis, and justified, and even necessitated, in her opinion, hostile action against Turkey. That Russia, who had undertaken the championship of liberty and progress among the inhabitants of a neighbouring empire, should be confronted by the establishment of institutions far more liberal and advanced than anything her own people were allowed to dream of ”

“ Many a misfortune might have been avoided in this world of ours if there had not been a great lack of men, capable of placing the whole truth before their Sovereign.
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“The danger to the Constitution lies, not in the lack of goodwill, but in the ignorance as to how to manage the mechanism. The Governmental form of despotism reminds me somewhat of a primitive mill, which may be turned by the force of water, or may equally be turned by its wheel. Constitutional Government also resembles a mill—but one that is put in movement by a complicated and artistically constructed mechanism. ”

“ But suddenly a cloud, not bigger than a man’s hand, lowered over the destinies of the country, and from this time the stars in their courses fought against Turkey, and violently set back the date of the promised era of prosperity. ”

“ My Illustrious Grand Vizier, Midhat Pasha,—The power of Our Empire was lately declining. Foreign affairs were not the cause of this, but men had strayed from the right path in the administration of home affairs, and the bonds that attached Our subjects to the Government had been relaxed. My august Father, the late Sultan, Abdul Medjid, granted a Charter of Reform, the Tanzimat, which guaranteed, in accordance with the sacred law of the Cheri, life, property, and honour to all. ”

“ The very fact that, with an opposing Sultan clinging to his “sovereign rights,” and a bitterly hostile and determined Palace clique, and in spite of all the means at the disposal of Turkey’s nearest and most powerful neighbour unscrupulously put into action, the Constitution ever saw the daylight, and actually lived for a twelvemonth in such an environment, is the very strongest evidence that can possibly be adduced of its inherent vitality, and an undeniable proof that it was something more than a “one‐man’s” Constitution. ”

“ If this were a single and exceptional example of the working of autocracy, it might be passed over in comparative silence, however regrettable it was in this particular instance; but the whole modern history of Turkey shows that such intervention was nothing less than a system of statecraft whereby autocracy was cunningly worked for the ruin of the country in as certain and deadly a way as was the Liberum Veto of the Polish constitution. The spontaneous caprices and whims of an autocrat are the least part of the baneful effects of autocracy ”

“ But the deposed sovereign, in his retirement and before his death, found time and opportunity thoroughly to imbue with his reforming enthusiasm his cousin Mahmoud, and he, on ascending the throne, determined, as the only means of saving the empire from ruin, and in spite of the menacing attitude of the new Czar Nicholas of Russia—who inaugurated his accession by sending an Ultimatum to Constantinople—to carry out unflinchingly the whole programme of reforms conceived by Selim. ”

“ It was certainly unfortunate for the Ottoman Empire—and it may possibly not have been altogether fortunate for the rest of Europe—that the rise of the power of Russia should have been synchronous with the period of the greatest weakness of Turkey. Russia’s principal attacks on the integrity and independence of Turkey were skilfully timed so as to coincide with the moment when that empire was in the throes of internal revolution, and could offer the least resistance to an external foe. ”

“ It pointed out that the efforts of the Powers were exclusively directed to what they considered the well‐being of one portion only of the Sultan’s subjects, whereas the reforms which the new Constitution aimed at introducing did not bear a special or exclusive character in regard to province, race, creed or language. That the small account which the Powers seemed to have taken both of the great principles of equality and justice which the Turkish Government sought to introduce into the internal administration, and of its rights of independence and sovereignty, was deeply to be regretted. ”

“ Therefore the Empire grew in strength and grandeur, and all its subjects, without distinction, attained to a high degree of ease and prosperity. For the last five hundred years a succession of accidents and divers causes have brought it about that men have ceased to conform to the sacred code of laws and regulations that flow from it, and therefore the force and prosperity of former days have been converted into weakness and poverty—for a nation always loses all stability when it ceases to observe its laws. ”

“ But the experience of people living on the spot could not stem the torrent of hostile prejudice fortified by such dramatic examples as the murder of the Consuls at Salonica. General Ignatieff, whose plans were being admirably served by events, was not slow in lending the weight of his authority to the propagation of these imaginary terrors. He embodied 300 Montenegrin workmen at Constantinople to serve as a body‐guard of his Embassy, to the amusement of his more sensible colleagues, who were quite aware of the baselessness of the fears that were the pretext of these ostentatious precautions. ”

“ The object and purpose of these barbarities was obvious: it was to excite reprisals on the part of the Mussulman population, which would afford a pretext to the enemies of the empire to fill Europe with an outcry against Turkish barbarity and fanaticism. The same policy, heralded by the same acts, ruthlessly pursued later on, did produce the desired effect, and Bulgarian atrocities became a proverb and byword in the world; but on this occasion the energy of Midhat, and the patience and forbearance of the Mussulman population, defeated the purpose of the conspirators. ”

“ Unhappily, there are certain personages who, instead of trying by every means to save their country in the present dangerous situation, think only of their own private interest, and desiring to preserve their prestige, have committed serious faults, which are incompatible with humane feeling and quite impossible to correct. And by these acts not only have they created a bad name for themselves, but they have been the principal cause of the destruction of the empire. ”

“ If the disorganisation that has for some time reigned in the affairs of State has latterly greatly increased; if our financial operations no longer inspire confidence; if our Courts of Justice no longer command respect, if Our Empire, with its vast capacities for commerce, industries and agriculture, and of every kind of progress, has profited by none of these things—if, in fine, all the efforts that have been made to insure liberty and peace for Our subjects have remained fruitless, this comes from the non‐observance of the laws and regulations ”