Sultanahmet

“ The fact that they have Ottoman blood in their veins, and the right they have to the Turkish Empire on the extinction of the race of the Sultan, make their family respected and their persons formidable even to the Sultan himself: that is why the Sultan dare not destroy the race of the Kans of Tartary; but he hardly ever allows them to continue on the throne to an advanced age. The neighbouring pashas spy on their conduct, their territories are surrounded by janissaries, their wishes thwarted by the Grand Vizir, and their designs always suspected. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He forces them to sign a voluntary deed of exchange, or they go off to Fazogloo, a hot Siberia whence none return. The Sultan also left a large sum of money for religious institutions and charities—Muslim, Jew, and Christian. None have received a foddah. It is true the Sultan and his suite plundered the Pasha and the people here; but from all I hear the Sultan really wishes to do good. What is wanted here is hands to till the ground, and wages are very high; food, of course, gets dearer, and the forced labour inflicts more suffering than before, and the population will decrease yet faster. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A weak or vicious Sultan may be deposed and strangled, but his inheritance devolves to an infant or an idiot; nor has the most daring rebel presumed to ascend the throne of his lawful sovereign. While the transient dynasties of Asia have been continually subverted by a crafty visir in the palace, or a victorious general in the camp, the Ottoman succession has been confirmed by the practice of five centuries, and is now incorporated with the vital principle of the Turkish nation. ”

“ The civil mandarins are placed in rank above the beys.3 “Honor always keeps company with knowledge.” “Mark well, there are two kinds of noble persons; the one is the bey, the other the scholar, in this world below ... the former with his glove or his fist commands the people, the latter with his knowledge shows the path.”
Despite the development of the Turkish people from barbarous tribes into a civilized state, the Ottoman Empire of the sixteenth century was built on the lines indicated, and Sultan Suleiman showed similar qualities and ideals to those possessed by Kul Khan and his brother. ”

“ Political reforms can be made only by those in high places of authority; and to be sanctioned by the prejudiced and infatuated Ottoman they must assume the garb of religion. The sultan himself, wielding the sceptre over millions of subjects, uniting in [Pg 260] his own person all the powers of the state, claiming to reign by divine commission, and profanely styling himself the shadow of God—even he dares not venture to vary one iota from the teachings of the Koran and the Sunnah. ”

“ If the Sultan asks a millionaire in Constantinople to send him half his wealth, the millionaire must not refuse; he himself is simply a steward; if the Sultan wants it all it must go to him, and the millionaire must beg bread for a living. At the same time he must praise the Sultan, because the Sultan is God on earth. If he refuses to send his wife or daughter to the Sultan’s bed, or his son or money for whatever uses they are wanted to supply, the Sultan has a right to kill him, and take all his possessions by force, because the man was not a faithful slave. ”

“ We are acting with a Power, let me remind the House, which is an independent Power—the Sultan—and we can decide nothing but with his consent and sanction. We have been in communication with that prince—who, I may be allowed to remind the House, has other things to think about, even than Asia Minor; for no man was ever tried, from his accession to the throne till this moment, so severely as the Sultan has been; but he has invariably during his reign expressed his desire to act with England and to act with Europe, and especially in the better administration and management of his affairs. ”

“ They represent the caprice of sultan after sultan, and of their ladies. First we see the Arz Odassi, the throne room, built by Suleiman I., where on a large couch, like a great bed, the Sultans reposing on cushions received their ministers and the foreign envoys. Here the first French ambassadors were received by Suleiman, and here in 1568 Elizabeth's envoy sought assistance against Spain. Here again is a lattice behind which the Sultan could sit, if he would assume the state of the unapproachable Oriental. ”

“ The Resident arrived at nine, wearing a very fine dress sword, and gold epaulettes on his linen coat; and under a broiling sun we all walked through a cleared part of the jungle, through palms and bananas, to the reception at the Sultan's, which was the "motive" of our visit. The Sultan, Abdulsamat, has three houses in a beautiful situation, at the end of a beautiful valley. They are in the purest style of Malay architecture, and not a Western idea appears anywhere. The wood of which they are built is a rich brown red. The roofs are very high and steep, but somewhat curved. ”

“ The new Sultan, who is the seventeenth of the dynasty of the Alides and the thirty-seventh lineal descendant of Ali, uncle and son-in-law of the Prophet, is known to his subjects as Emir-el-Mumenin, or Prince of True Believers, and as such he exercises a spiritual influence over his subjects which the French are far too shrewd to disregard. The position of the Sultan of Morocco has, indeed, become strikingly similar to that of his fellow-ruler in the other corner of Africa, the Khedive of Egypt, for, like him, he must needs content himself henceforth with the shadow of power. ”

“ The high character of the early Sultans of Turkey—to which all contemporary authorities, Christian and Mahomedan alike, bear testimony—had, as has been said, profoundly affected the Ottoman character. Their fervid loyalty to their rulers sprang in no small measure from the lessons inculcated by their early history and their most cherished traditions. Now, up to the reign of Selim II., the Sultan of Turkey received a very superior education. They were not merely patrons of learning, but often themselves men of letters of no mean order. ”

“ This is the thirty-fourth Sultan in the Ottoman line, and probably the worst, the least, and the last. It is not likely the Turks will ever have another Sultan, for this one is pretty sure to bring the Sultanate to an end. His days are numbered, he knows it well, and the Turks know it well too. Before his life and his kingdom are finished, he has resolved to end the Armenian nation; that, however, will not be ended, the people will not be exterminated; when the Turkish Empire is abolished the remaining Armenians will have freedom. ”

“ It is this that the diplomatists of Europe lose sight of when they, Penelope-like, elaborate one plan of reform after another for the Turkish Empire over a green baize table in some kiosk on the Bosphorus. A little incident will illustrate this. The Sultan sends a 81capable official to some distant province as kaimakan, or prefect. He has been educated at Constantinople, at the École Civile. He is scrupulously honest, in touch with modern ideas, enthusiastically devoted to his work, and anxious to benefit the people under his care. ”

“ The Osmanlis are not behind Tartar or Russ in pretending to a divine mission; the Sultan, in his treaties with Christian Powers, calls himself "Refuge of Sovereigns, Distributor of Crowns to the Kings of the earth, Master of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and shadow of God upon earth."
We might smile at such titles, were they not claimed in good earnest, and professed in order to be used. It is said to be the popular belief among the Turks, that the monarchs of Europe are, as this imperial style declares, the feudatories of the Sultan. ”

“ Just as beside some stagnant pool among the recesses of the rocks the returning tide awakens the folded life of plant and shell, so our Western civilisation, recoiling upon Asia, arouses the hopes which have slept for centuries in the breasts of the Christians of the East. It is not that they are denied religious freedom, as some of their partisans are bold enough to assert. The tolerance of the reigning Sultan is active throughout his empire. The traveller marvels at the liberty, almost amounting to license, which is allowed to the votaries of the several creeds. ”

“ Sultan Solyman, who understood men well, soon took him into favor. He formed extensive plans for beginning a war with Spain and aiding the Mahometans on the coast of Africa against those who fed the stake. Joseph Nassi, through his riches, and through the attachment of his fellow-believers in Christian countries, was kept well informed as to what was going on in Christian courts, and could tell the sultan the state of political and military affairs, relieving the latter of the necessity of employing spies, or of permitting himself to be deceived by the Christian ambassadors at his court. ”

“ He originated the material changes that have since been made in the life of seraglio inmates, and also endeavored to better the condition of his Christian subjects. Whatever progress has been made by the Turkish Mohammedans in the road of civilization must also be attributed to his efforts. Amid wars without and revolts within, the discontent of the Moslems at the attempted innovations, the clamoring of the Christians for the amelioration of their condition, the Sultan struggled on for thirty years with a perseverance worthy of the cause, till death put an end to his work. ”

“ In spite of all efforts, the Ottoman Power is rapidly wasting away. The life of the Orient is nerveless and effete; the native strength of the race has died out, and all attempts to resuscitate it by the adoption of European institutions produce mere galvanic spasms, which leave it more exhausted than before. The rosy-colored accounts we have had of Turkish Progress are for the most part mere delusions. The Sultan is a well-meaning but weak man, and tyrannical through his very weakness. ”

“ Gaëta has fallen. Italy is by one step—but what a step !—nearer to independence, and in her case independence means freedom.
Turkey is not free, but independent—because of her very weakness. The mutual jealousies of the nations which are covetous of the Sultan's inheritance, for all practical purposes, act as well as though he were at the head of numerous and well-appointed fleets and armies. At the present moment the French are in military occupation of Syria. They are there to do the Sultan's work—to maintain his authority, to prevent his subjects from tearing each other to pieces. ”

“ The Sultan remembered what he seemed to have forgotten, that he was heir to the Arabian caliphate, and his Ministers of the day based on this fact a claim to all Arabia. The garrisons of Mecca and the Hejaz were increased, an expedition was despatched against Yemen, and Midhat Pasha, a man of a restless, unquiet temper, was appointed Governor of Bagdad, with orders to watch his time for extending the Sultan’s influence in any direction that might seem to him advisable. ”

“ The well-known voice aroused Sultan Akhmet from his last sleep: he raised his head with difficulty to look at the present, and a shudder ran like a wave over his body when he beheld the lifeless head. "May he eat his own heart who treats a dying man with such dreadful food!" he murmured, scarce intelligibly. "I must make my peace with my enemies, and not——Ah, I burn, I burn! Give me water, water! Why have you made me drink scalding naphtha? Ammalát, I curse you!" This effort exhausted the last drops of life in the Khan; he fell a senseless corpse on the pillow. ”

“ The reign of Suleiman the Magnificent marked the zenith of the Ottoman power. At the time of his death the Turkish Empire extended from near the frontiers of Germany to the frontiers of Persia. The Black Sea was practically a Turkish lake, only the Circassians on the east coast retaining their independence; and as a result of the wars with Persia the whole Euphrates valley, with Bagdad, had fallen into the sultan’s power, now established on the Persian Gulf. The Venetians had been driven from the Morea and the islands of the Archipelago ”

“ 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. ”