Turkey

“ Turkey is like a stately forest-tree which has been cankered at the core, but which has shot forth young and vigorous branches after it had been condemned as on the eve of perishing. A weighty pressure has fallen upon the fresh green shoots ”

“ The traveller in Turkey, who must eat most of his bread at noon and night amid the odours of villages and under the unflinching regard of scornful eyes, remembers with blessing his rare meals by wayside fountains. There he has no questions to answer and none to ask. The sunshine is his, and his the best of the shade. Lolling at his western ease, with no eastern punctilio to bear in mind, he forgets for a moment those twin spoilsports of the Levant, suspicion and bakshish. ”

“ Such is the present state of Turkey—universal corruption and oppression, and things going all the time from bad to worse.
And yet this wretched Government rules over the fairest portion of the globe. The Turkish Empire is territorially the finest in the world. Half in Europe and half in Asia, it extends over many degrees of latitude and longitude, including many countries and many climates, "spanning the vast arch from Bagdad to Belgrade." ”

“ Thus there is in Turkey not a single element of hope; there is no internal force which may be a cause of political regeneration. It is as impossible to infuse life into this moribund state as it would be to raise the dead. I have met a great many Europeans in Constantinople—some of whom have lived here ten, twenty, thirty, or even forty years—and have not found one who did not consider the condition of Turkey absolutely hopeless, and its disappearance from the map of Europe only a question of time. ”

“ I was of military age and Turkey was under blockade. When I had left Constantinople a few years after the Turkish revolution, the whole country was exhilarated, filled with joy, with ambition and with hope. Freedom and emancipation from an autocratic domination had been obtained. Nothing was to prevent the normal advance of Turkey and the Turks along the road to progress. We were at last to obtain full recognition as a civilized nation. We were at last to receive equal treatment from the other European nations. ”

“ No one can doubt that it will enormously intensify zeal in the fight for the existence of the Turkey of the future, freed from its jingoistic outgrowths, once more come to its senses and confined to its own proper sphere of activity, Anatolia, the core of the Empire. ”

“ From the middle of the eighteenth century Turkey had been a prey to the political gangrene of which she is vainly trying to cure herself to-day, and which, before long, will dismember her in the sight of all Europe. ”

“ The history of Turkey has been a sad and painful history. That race has not been without remarkable and even in some cases fine qualities, but from too many points of view it has been a scourge to the world, made use of, no doubt, by a wise Providence for the sins of the world. ”

“ Turkey is an empire consisting of many different parts. It is like a body, the head of which is in Europe, the other parts elsewhere.
Turkey is, perhaps, the worst governed country in the world, but the people now have some share in the government. The Emperor is called the Sultan. The land is fertile, but the farming is wretched. In fact, scarcely anything is well done in all the country. ”

“ There are few people so superstitious as the people of Turkey. All nations have their traditions and fancies, and we find educated Englishmen who dislike walking under a ladder on superstitious grounds; but in Turkey every action, every ceremony, every relation, is hedged round with fears and omens and forebodings. ”

“ As an Englishman, policy obliges me to wish success to the Turks; for I have already proved to you, that our lucrative trade to the Levant can never be carried on so much to our advantage as whilst Turkey remains in the hands of its present possessors; and, as a Philanthrope, I feel the utmost detestation of the ambitious combination entered into by the Emperor and the Empress, to extirpate the Turks, merely because Nature has been bountiful to their soil, and because their country promised an easy conquest. ”

“ The European mind has become so imbued with ideas of Oriental mysteriousness, mysticism, and magnificence, and it has been so long accustomed to pillow its faith on the marvels and metaphors of tourists, that it is to be doubted whether it will willingly cast off its old associations, and suffer itself to be undeceived.
To the eye, Turkey is, indeed, all that has been described, gorgeous, glowing, and magnificent ”

“ The coincidence between the economic motives of the investors and the political and strategical motives of the statesmen, made Turkey one of the world’s foremost areas of imperial friction. Its territories and its natural wealth were “stakes of diplomacy” for which cabinets maneuvered on the diplomatic checkerboard and for which the flower of the world’s manhood fought on the sands of Mesopotamia, the cliffs of Gallipoli, and the plains of Flanders. ”

“ Turkey has been a highway of commerce and civilization between Europe on the one hand and Asia and Africa on the other. The history of this country and of its inhabitants cannot be understood unless one is thoroughly impressed by this fundamental fact. On the east the Persian Gulf followed by the Mesopotamian valley, its natural prolongation, formed a convenient channel for the northwesterly spread of human intercourse. To the west, land travel between Europe and Africa drained into the Syrian furrow. ”

“ Although no Western Power has ever played a greater part in the problems of the Ottoman Empire than Great Britain, yet in no other country in Western Europe is Turkey more grossly misunderstood. I have been many times asked by my English acquaintances to write a book on Turkey from a Turkish point of view, and two ways of writing were suggested to me: the one was to compile a detailed work, the other to write a small and light book. ”

“ The position of Turkey is certainly an anomaly. It is an Asiatic power planted in Europe. It is a Mohammedan power ruling over millions of Christians. It is a government of Turks—that is of Tartars—over men of a better race as well as a purer religion. It is a government of a minority over a majority. The Mohammedans, the ruling caste, are only about one-quarter of the population of European Turkey—some estimates make it much less, but where there is no accurate census, it must be a matter of conjecture. ”

“ Our attention is peculiarly directed to the history of former ages, and the progress of different empires, by the events which mark the present course of time—for the great theme of the day is the Past and Future of Turkey, the very garden of the East, and the desired of all nations, upon whose shores has lately been poured the life-blood of thousands of valiant heroes, each and all members of the vast human family, whether known to us as Turks, Russians, English, or French. ”

“ Turkey holds sway over some of earth's fairest lands, the homes of its most ancient civilizations and lands familiar to us through Holy Writ and profane history, and the sources of Jewish, Christian, Moslem, and other beliefs.
The rulers of Turkey are the Turks, originally a nomadic tribe from Central Asia. Compelled to abandon their homes on account of the desiccation or drying up of large tracts of their country, which were converted into a desert, they swarmed into Armenia and Persia in quest of new pasture-lands for their flocks and cattle. ”

“ Turkey is aware that the Canal of the two Seas is destined to add to her power and prosperity, by bringing Constantinople nearer by 4300 leagues to the Indian Ocean, and by facilitating the communication with the Holy Places of Arabia, the source of the authority the Sultan possesses over his Mussulman population.
Turkey can rise from her present languor only by borrowing capital and intelligence from Europe. ”

“ As a consequence, everything in Turkey that has to be protected from the evil-eye is decorated either with the one or the other, and you seldom see a horse, a draught ox, or even a donkey, that has not a string of blue beads about its neck. Children wear these charms on their caps; and the prows of boats, the roofs of houses, cages of birds, and even hovels have a bunch of garlic suspended with strings. ”

“ TURKEY. The Turkish or Ottoman Empire comprises Turkey in Europe, Turkey in Asia, and the vilayets of Tripoli and Barca, or Bengazi, in North Africa; and in addition to those provinces under immediate Turkish rule, it embraces also certain tributary states and certain others under foreign administration. ”

“ Hence it is manifest that in Turkey, as well as with us, knaves cheat the people out of their money by idle tricks. In this open space, as long as peace lasted between our Emperor and the Sultan, every Friday, which the Turks hallow as a Sunday, provided it was fine weather, there met about 800 or 900 young men, Turks belonging to the court, each dressed as handsomely as possible, wearing a long velvet or scarlet dress, and long trousers, drawn together at the ancles, with handsome sabres, bridles, and saddles, and, above all, exceedingly beautiful horses. ”

“ Turkey possesses some of the finest portions of this quarter of the globe; countries in which man first emerged into civilization, literature, and knowledge; rich in climate and soil, but dreadfully degraded, oppressed, and impoverished by despotism. The exports from the European part of Turkey are carpets, fruit, saffron, silk, drugs, &c.: the principal port is Constantinople. ”

“ By sheer force of outside pressure, co-operating with the sinister sway of the Sacred Book, Turkey has been kept fanatical, barbarous, uncultured, utterly militarist, and therefore financially misgoverned. ”

“ Turkey, by virtue of position, has always stood closely related to every section of the European mainland. The country’s fate has affected the destiny of every European nation. The modern importance of Turkish affairs in European international problems is a measure of the extensive influence of the Near East over Europe. A study of European nationalities cannot therefore be complete without reference to the empire of Turkish Sultans. ”

“ In no European country are animals treated so kindly as they are in Turkey. A Turk never ill-uses his horse or his ox or his domestic pets, and the wonderful tameness of these creatures in Turkey testifies to this good trait. In Constantinople the pariah dogs lie about the streets in their tens of thousands; they live partly on garbage and partly on the scraps of food which even very poor Turks put out for them. ”

“ Over the borders of Turkey in Europe came hosts of armed men, ably led, well trained, and purposeful. They came down the Valley of the Maritza, the Struma, down from the Black Mountains, and out of Greece in the south, nations in arms, and determined to end oppression in Turkey’s European possessions. ”

“ But in a wider and deeper sense the Turks owed their misfortunes to themselves--to their customs and their creed. Success in war depends ultimately on the brain-power of the chief leaders and organisers; and that source of strength has long ago been dried up in Turkey by adhesion to a sterilising creed and cramping traditions. ”

“ In its present state, Turkey, as I have already hinted, may be compared to a rich mine, to which the industrious from every nation have free access. In the hands of the Empress it would be like the barred treasure of an ambitious Lord, never to be opened but to be increased.
In this I do not mean to reflect on her Imperial Majesty, since, I fancy, every European power, in a similar situation, would act the same part. ”

“ In Asia also large tracts of country have been wrenched from Turkey by Russia; and in Africa, Egypt and Tunis are Turkish only in name.
ROUMELI HISSAR.
The splendid conquests of the Turks were due to the hardihood of a race brought up in frugality and nomadic pursuits. Their strength and courage were amazing, and their religious zeal made them reckless of their lives. Their early Sultans, too, were men of extraordinary energy and sagacity, and were the first among the Turks to organize regular soldiers. ”

“ Turkey, one of the picturesque and ancient countries which is aligned with the Germans, is a Mohammedan state of the Ottoman Empire in southeastern Europe and western Asia, whose holdings in Europe have been steadily decreasing, especially during recent years. ”

“ At last, wonderful to say, the Young Turks in Paris, being honest patriots, succeeded in convincing the other groups of their sincerity when they put forward the full equality in the eyes of the law of all races and creeds in Turkey as an essential portion of their programme. ”

“ The Turks have no ambition to recover the territory which they have lost, but they are determined to hold on to what still remains to them. With a strong Turkey, in close alliance with a federation of the Slav states to the north of her, we may yet see a quiet and contented Balkan Peninsula. ”

“ It was deeply interesting to be in Turkey during the elections, to watch the Young Turks zealously conducting their campaign to serve what they considered to be their country’s interests, and the people themselves puzzling out the meaning of this new Western innovation, the Constitution, and balancing the arguments of rival canvassers. ”