Sultan of Turkey

“ Probably no building in all Europe has so many associations with tragical events as that of the palace of the Sultan of Turkey—the autocrat whose rule is absolute over more than thirty million subjects. From this palace go forth the edicts which involve the death of thousands and which control the governments of distant provinces. Fifty years ago the Sultans governed a huge territory in Europe, but one province after another [224] has been freed from their yoke, until Turkey in Europe has dwindled in size to less than half its former area. ”

“ Turkey shall henceforth be for the Turks: she shall no more be in 'danger' from the defenceless nations, who at present exist within her borders. The Sultan of Turkey, in some year of grace now not far distant, will find that his Ottomanisation has been done for him, and, though his realm is curtailed, he will have his rest broken no more by the thought of Arab risings, nor will he have to devise measures that will solve the Arab question. ”

“ But when the astute Sultan did submit in a very graceful manner, protesting that he was a believer in a constitutional form of government, and posing as if he and not the revolutionary party had brought the boon of liberty to his subjects, the Young Turks showed their statesmanship by as graciously accepting the situation, and became once more the loyal subjects of a constitutional monarch, whose cleverness and diplomatic experience, if he would now use them rightly, might be of great service to his country and his people. ”

“ In the troubles which agitated Western Europe in 1848 and 1849, the Sultan acted a noble part in refusing to deliver up, at the dictation of Russia, certain Hungarian and other refugees, who had fled to him for shelter. In this firm course he was supported, both by his own people, and also by France and England.
In Turkey, the Sultan is the supreme and absolute ruler; there exists no one but himself who can be said to possess any power. He issues his edicts, which have the force of laws. He commands the whole naval and military power of the country. ”

“ Old Turkey (vous êtes libre à traduire ‘le vieux dindon’) est plus fanatique et plus réfractaire que jamais à l’influence européenne. De plus, il n’y a plus de Gouvernement turc: le Sultan, ou pour mieux dire le Khalifa, comme il se plaît à se désigner lui-même dans les notes qu’il nous adresse, a tout confisqué et prétend tout faire pour lui-même, sûr moyen de ne rien faire. La Porte n’est plus qu’un décor de théâtre qui s’ouvre sur le vide. ”

“ During this period also the British took a prominent part in upholding the Sultan of Turkey against his revolted vassal, Mehemet Ali, the Pasha of Egypt. The latter, a very able prince, had overrun Syria; and there seemed every likelihood that he would shortly establish his independence, and add besides a considerable portion of Turkish territory to his dominions. Lord Palmerston, the British foreign minister, however, brought about an alliance with Austria and the eastern powers of Europe to maintain the integrity of the Turkish empire. ”

“ Rarely has the mouldering away of the Turkish Empire gone on so rapidly as at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Corruption and favouritism paralyzed the Government at Constantinople; masterful pachas, aping the tactics of Ali Pacha, the virtual ruler of Albania, were beginning to carve out satrapies in Syria, Asia Minor, Wallachia, and even in Roumelia itself. Such was the state of Turkey when the Sultan and his advisers heard with deep concern, in October, 1801, that the only Power on whose friendship they could firmly rely was about to relinquish Malta. ”

“ These are some of the reasons different countries would like to get control of Turkey and its great city. They all look toward it with longing eyes.
"Besides these things, the Sultan himself is not a good ruler for his people. He has many wives and hundreds of slaves. Many of his people follow his bad example and buy slaves, both black and white."
But little Osman knows nothing of what is said about the Sultan and the people of his land. It has never entered his head that it is wrong to buy and sell human beings. ”

“ The desired reforms deal entirely with the way the various provinces shall be governed.
Turkey is a very large empire, and the trouble with the present system of government is, that the Sultan does not have resident ministers for the various parts of it, as other countries do, but governs the whole himself, being guided entirely by the advice of the few people near him in his palace, who do not know the affairs of the empire any better than he does, but advise him according to their own whims, or prospects of making money out of the country. The result is great injustice to the people. ”

“ Had he been living now, Turkey would not be in the wretched condition in which she is to-day. What a contrast between this old lion of the desert, and the poor, weak man who now sits in his seat, and who sees the sceptre of empire dropping from his feeble hands!
The Sultan is a man of very small capacity. Though 325 occupying one of the most exalted positions in the world, he has no corresponding greatness of mind, no large ideas of things. He is not capable of forming any wise scheme of public policy, or any plan of government whatever, or of pursuing it with determination. ”

“ It is from no love for the Turks that Great Britain desires that the Sultan should continue to hold at least nominal sovereignty over Turkey in Europe, and the actual custody of the keys of the Black Sea. An able English writer says: [H]
The position of the Turk at Constantinople is no choice of ours, nor any creation of our policy. We do not maintain him for any love of himself, nor because we rely on his strength to guard the post—though that is absurdly underrated. His corruption and weakness are at least as great an embarrassment to us as an injury to the nations of his empire. ”

“ The sultan, therefore, could still count on general support from the population of his empire’s heart, and had at his disposal the resources of a country which no administration, however improvident or malign, has ever been able to exhaust.
In the second place the Osmanli ‘Turks’, however fallen away from the virtues of their ancestors, had not lost either ‘the will to power’ or their capacity for governing under military law. If they had never succeeded in learning to rule as civilians they had not forgotten how to rule as soldiers. ”

“ They are nominally free subjects of an enlightened government, but virtually the slaves of circumstances, groaning under the petty chiefs and subordinate understrappers of government, who have yet to learn submission to the will and mandates of the present excellent Sultan, Abdul Medjid Khan, whose reign has already been distinguished by many great improvements in the condition of the Christian population. Many of the firmans issued of late years have not as yet come into force in the interior of Turkey, and in those possessions of the Ottoman empire situated farthest from the sea-ports. ”

“ Several thousand people were gathered here, consisting of the members of the Sultan’s family, their separate establishments and their dependents, besides a horde of Palace officials of every imaginable type and denomination.
During thirty years the Sultan of Turkey directed, single-handed, the destinies of his Empire from this place, paralysing every other authority, the official 138channels of Government included; working as hard as any nigger, yet with chaos in the end. ”

“ Thus the entry of Turkey into the war affected Great Britain and her allies, but yet cannot be said to have called for an expedition on our part to the eastern end of the Turkish Empire. Distances are huge in the country governed in name by the Sultan of Turkey, and in actual fact by the Young Turk party, who, let us explain, are themselves swayed, if not actually governed, by the emissaries of the Kaiser in Constantinople. ”

“ The Sultan of Turkey has a similar disposition, but a different motive. He trusts nobody, although everybody succeeds finally in deceiving him. He endeavors to do everything himself and to attend to all the details, but never goes anywhere and is compelled to depend upon his ministers and other subordinates to see that his orders are carried out. Therefore most of his labor is wasted and the people suffer the consequences. ”

“ But of these ill-omened seditions, Turkish subjects were the arms, while the head was invisible, and kept itself in security from his blows, beyond the frontiers.
Often, even far from the noise of arms, he baffled the plots of the insidious enemies of Turkey. The most enviable of his bloodless victories was the cause of Kossuth and the Hungarian refugees, whom he met at Shumla, whither he had purposely repaired. He espoused their cause before the Sultan and the ministers of the Porte. The Sultan’s sentiments regarding them were not less noble than his own ”

“ If the ingenuity of man, working through long centuries of misrule, had set itself to the task of developing a form of government the most potent for evil and the least powerful for good, the system could not have been worse than that which exists in European Turkey; and the worst of it is that no one but the most hopeful optimist can perceive in it the slightest hope of reform or practical amendment. In theory the Sultan is the recognized organ of all executive power in the State. ”

“ Turkey only requires forbearance on the part of its allies, and a determination not to press their claims in a manner humiliating to the dignity and independence of the Sultan—that friendly support, in short, which among States as well as individuals the weak are entitled to expect from the strong—in order not only to prolong its existence but to remove all cause for alarm respecting its dissolution.
It will be seen that the British Government took much too sanguine a view of the prospects of reformed Government in Turkey, and that the Emperor of Russia was much nearer the mark. ”

“ In temporal matters the sultan is a constitutional monarch, advised by a cabinet formed of executive ministers who are the heads of the various departments of state, and who are responsible to the elected Turkish parliament. All Turkish subjects, of whatever race or religion, have equal juridical and political rights and obligations, and all discrimination as to military service has been abolished. The sultan remains the spiritual head of Islam, and Islam is the state religion, but it has no other distinctive or theocratic character. ”

“ The Turks themselves may remain, but they will no longer be the governing race, but subject, like other races, to whatever power may succeed; the Sultan may transfer his capital to Brousa, the ancient capital of the Ottoman Empire; but Turkey will thenceforth be wholly an Asiatic, and no longer an European power.
And this will be the end of a dominion that for centuries was the terror of Europe. It is four hundred and twenty years since the Turks crossed the Bosphorus and took Constantinople. Since then they have risen to such power that at one time they threatened to overrun Europe. ”

“ Hence the more zealous and intolerant a sultan the nearer the ideal of a Mohametan ruler, and more respected and obeyed by the bigoted people, officers and the army.
Another phase of the Turkish Government is its dualism. It is a government within a government. Two words, porte and palace, express these elements. The whole machinery of government exists at the porte, Council of Ministers and Council of State. All business is supposed to pass through their hands, and the whole administration subordinates to them; still all being subject to the supreme will of the Sultan. ”

“ All was well if a prince left only one successor. But if there were several, even if illegitimate children, claiming the right to rule, then each endeavoured to gain over the nobility with promises, sometimes, moreover, seeking the support of neighbouring countries. This system rendered easier and hastened the establishment of Turkish domination; and corruption and intrigues, in which the Sultan’s harem had a share, became capital factors in the choice and election of the ruler. ”

“ The decline of the Ottoman Empire was due to the corruption of the Turks that followed acquisition of wealth. They lost their hardihood, and their Sultans became profligate and luxurious. They filled their harems with wives and numberless slaves, and addicted themselves to pleasure instead of duty. They became tyrants, and their jealousies and fears of being supplanted made them so cruel that it became customary for a Sultan ascending the throne to kill all his brothers or near male relatives. ”

“ The safety of Turkey is not in such defences, but in the fact that it is for the interest of Europe to hold her up awhile longer. If once France and England were to leave her to her fate, all these ships would not save her against Russia coming from the Black Sea—or marching an army overland and attacking Constantinople in the rear. But the Sultan would have these ships, and here they are. They have been lying idle in the Bosphorus all summer, their only use being to fire salutes every Friday when the Sultan goes to mosque. They never go to sea ”

“ Their religion is Mohammedan, but they are by no means strict or fanatical. Their women do not cover their faces when among their own community, but when abroad are veiled like the Turkish women. They are very thrifty in their habits, and some are pretty and sweet-looking, but as a rule they are the dirtiest subjects in the Sultan’s dominions. Their uncleanliness with regard to dress, dwellings, and food is so great as to shock and horrify the Turks, who certainly have that virtue which is said to come next to godliness. ”