Turkish rule

“ There has seldom been a conquest by a people whose religion was their political charter, over a people of a different faith, which bore fewer marks of cruelty. We are, indeed, pointed to the subsequent history of Turkish rule as a proof of its unparalleled wickedness. It is even argued that the Turk, having been during four hundred years put to the proof if he was fit to rule, or capable of conveying any blessing to the conquered, and having been found wanting, has thus forfeited his right. ”

“ There remains to consider what had been the relative and contemporaneous changes in the Balkan provinces still remaining under Turkish rule and in the (mainly Moslem) countries of Asia Minor, Syria, and Mesopotamia. To inquiries of the writer in all quarters, in 1890, there was but one answer, that since the treaty of Berlin the condition both of Christians and Moslems throughout the Turkish Empire had gone from bad to worse. In the Christian Balkan provinces still under Turkish rule misgovernment was more rampant. ”

“ The Christian populations of Turkey, or rather it may perhaps be said those who, by their knowledge and intelligence, are capable of representing them, are convinced that under the Turkish rule they have a far better chance of carrying out their national aspirations, of retaining their national faith, and developing their political freedom than under that of Russia. They believe 339 that the pressure recently brought to bear upon the Porte by the European Powers, and the lesson which the Turkish Government has received, will contribute to these objects. ”

“ Those who know, and there are many, though they keep their convictions secret, are aware that inefficiency has brought the East down before the organized, purposeful West, and that the days of Turkish rule in Europe are numbered, that the Ottoman Empire this side of the Bosphorus is as much doomed as was that of{323} ancient Byzant when Amurath made Adrianople his capital.
The great majority of Turks appear to be of the same mind as Ali, the master-weaver; they know little of what is happening, they seem to care less. ”

“ Amongst modern nations, the Turkish government is, in form, a monster, and its existence an enigma; yet it extended its sway over all that was most valuable or most splendid in the ancient world. Greece, Egypt, Phoenicia, Syria, the three Arabias, and countries then but little known, are subject to a brutish people, who do not even condescend to mix with the inhabitants of the country, but who rule over them in a manner the most humiliating and disgraceful. {65}
The Turkish government has never been powerful. ”

“ The combination was successful and drove the Turks out of Macedonia, Epirus, Albania, and the greater part of Thrace. But we have shown that it broke down on the division of the spoil, with the result that the Turks recovered a small part of their lost territory. The case illustrates our contention that want of union of the Christian States was a main cause of the servitude of all of them for nearly five hundred years under Turkish rule. ”

“ I thought I could probably better serve the cause of justice and humanity by devoting considerable space in setting forth in order the Turkish Government’s atrocities, both during the reign of Abdul Hamid and under the rule of the Young Turks, since that unhappy government became a tool in the hands of the intolerable German power. The rulers of Turkey, the Young Turks, have learned of late from their Prussian masters, both by precept and example, a barbaric tyranny which utterly surpasses that of their Mongol predecessors. ”

“ But the patriotic Turks, though they often entertained personal affection for the European officers who were thus thrust upon them, loathed this foreign interference, and nourished a bitter resentment against the Hamidian régime, whose inept rule had brought this indignity upon Turkey and made the world regard the Ottomans as a fallen people no longer capable of managing their own affairs. ”

“ The Turkish Sultan, in theory, is a despotic sovereign, while in practice he is a very paternal one. As the supreme head of the government, he may exercise unlimited power; few checks exist to preserve the lives and property of his subjects against an influence which he might exercise over them. His ancestors conquered the country, and subjugated its inhabitants to his rule with his troops ”

“ In my opinion, I have been a far better friend to the Ottoman Empire than have the Sultan and his advisers. I have always recommended the granting of reasonable powers of local self-government, which would have saved Turkey from terrible losses. This good advice has been spurned, and in consequence Turkey has lost 18,000,000 of people, and may lose more. Pray weigh these words.”—
The birthday of the Ex-Premier was made the occasion for an anti-Turkish demonstration. ”

“ The Young Turks were too wise to be over-confident. They realised the difficulties and dangers before them. They knew that the reactionaries were intriguing everywhere and would seize their chance when they got it. The Young Turks remained on their guard, determined that the liberty so hardly won should not be wrested from Turkey as it was in 1878, and that if the Turkish Parliament failed as the Russian Duma failed, it should not be to make way for the return of the Despotism. ”

“ We find, then, that the rank and file of the Turkish people is the same now as ever, so that it is not the nation but the rulers which have changed, and this change has been brought about through the corrupt influences which were handed over to them by the Byzantine Empire.
"As soon, therefore, as the head of the Turkish nation shall be purified, we shall find the whole constitution in a healthy state—there is no disease of the body. The combination in Turkish government of despotism with the freedom of the most democratic of republics is unique. In Turkey there is no aristocracy. ”

“ It consists in pushing forward, if need be with greater delicacy than before and on the round-about road of real modern reforms, towards the one immovable goal: the complete Turkification of Turkey. The reform of the [Pg 195] law, which we have treated more exhaustively as an example of the first rank, is typical of the Young Turkish national tendency. Naturally it has its use, too, as a means of further throwing off the foreign political yoke. Through the modernising of the whole Turkish legal system, Europe is to be shown that the Capitulations can be dispensed with. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Let us ask the question, Who and what are these Turks, whom Europe for her own sordid ends has petted and pampered and helped and supported? and the answer comes with striking force to-day over the lapse of a century, in the words of one of England’s greatest sons: “I have never before heard that the Turkish Empire has been considered any part of the balance of Powers in Europe. They despise and contemn all Christian princes as infidels, and only wish to subdue and exterminate them and their people. ”

“ It has long been a belief in the West that the East can only be ruled by Sultans. We Westerners may be right or we may be wrong in our views of the East, but Turkish Nationalism has thrown us a most direct challenge in the out-and-out republicanism of its Grand National Assembly. ”

“ The governors and other Ottoman officials were as corrupt, rapacious, and arbitrary as they had ever been. There was no security for life or property. The Turkish soldiers plundered the villages of Christians which they were sent to protect. Bands of brigands, sometimes wearing the uniforms of Greek, sometimes of Bulgarian soldiers, devastated the country. No attempt was made by the Young Turks to put in force any part of the reforms which had been proposed by the Commission appointed by the Great Powers after the Congress of Berlin. ”

“ So long as the political system now predominant in Europe shall last, the Turkish empire will have as great a right to exist, and more elements of vitality than the other two empires, her neighbours. It has a wide and magnificent territory of riches and beauty; it has one of the best geographical positions; it has excellent national frontiers; it has a population intelligent, laborious, and full of youth; and a government which, contrary to those of Russia and Austria, appears only to ask for full liberty of action to enter seriously on the path of reform. ”

“ Now in all these stipulations so intimately concerning Turkey, for whose independence we are fighting, Turkey is not allowed to have any voice whatever, nor has she ever been allowed to be made acquainted with what is going on except through the newspapers, where the Turkish Ministers may have read what is passing, like other people. ”

“ That a State so raised, so maintained, should act as an organization for protecting and furthering the interests of its subjects, of whatever race or creed, is not to be expected, neither did the great body of the Turkish nation ever wish it to assume such functions. For the Turks were the dominant race, the conquerors, and to them any idea of their non-Islamic, non-Turk fellow-subjects as equals was inconceivable ”

“ The Turkish Nationalists wanted to build up their country for efficiency, not for luxury. They had not sought and obtained power for selfish reasons of comfort and enjoyment. So what did they care if their capital was to be a small, uncomfortable village! They had left their homes, their property and their families in Constantinople and had come to Asia Minor to put into execution lofty ideals. Their purpose was to set up in Anatolia a new state, a new democracy, a new Government of the people and for the people, free and independent—and they were firmly determined to do this against any odds. ”

“ The Caliphate of the Sultan of Constantinople was, up to the time of the Young-Turkish revolution, the basis of Turkey's Islâm-policy. To be sure Young Turkey has not abandoned the claim to the Caliphate; but if she wishes at all to grow into a constitutional state, she will have to make as little use of it as possible. ... A strong Turkey, it goes without saying, will never claim political sovereignty over the Islamic subjects of other powers. ”

“ Long before the European War began, the Turkish democracy had disappeared. The power of the new Sultan had gone, and the hopes of regenerating Turkey on modern lines had gone also, leaving only a group of individuals, headed by Talaat and Enver, actually in possession of the state. Having lost their democratic aspirations these men now supplanted them with a new national conception. In place of a democratic constitutional state they resurrected the{284} idea of Pan-Turkism; in place of equal treatment of all Ottomans, they decided to establish a country exclusively for Turks. ”

“ They had submitted, not to the will of their rulers, but to their hard fate, because Turkish patriotism, which has not until recently received fitting attention, was too great to allow them to invite outside interference or help in the national struggle against native tyranny. Never despairing of gaining their end, the people of Turkey have waited for an opportune moment to strike a blow at the foundations of despotism, and this promptly and with the least possible risk of international complications. ”

“ To these problems of maintaining peace and order at home there was added the equally difficult problem of preventing the extension of foreign interference and control in Ottoman affairs. The integrity of Turkey already was seriously compromised by the hold which the Great Powers possessed on Turkish governmental functions. Under the Capitulations foreigners occupied a special and privileged position within the Ottoman Empire. Nationals of the European nations and the United States were practically exempt from taxation ”

“ These promises were made to be broken. "Qui est-ce qu'on trompe?" as Prince Gortschakoff said to Lord Augustus Loftus. These reforms were promised with the knowledge that they would not, could not, be put in operation. The Turkish Power is, in spite of Midhat's Constitution, a Mahommedan theocracy. No law is accepted as valid unless it has religious sanction. The statute book must run with the Koran. The neglect on the part of the Turkish Power to fulfil the pledges of 1839 and of 1856 does not vex the mind of a genuine Turk. ”

“ The “Young Turks” threw off the despotism that had all but destroyed their country and seized the reins of government, displaying a firmness, justice, wisdom, and moderation in their almost bloodless revolution that have4 won for them the admiration of all honest men throughout the civilised world. It looks very much as if these men are about to prove to the world that reform can come from within even in Turkey, provided that the Turks are now given the chance which they have never had before, and greedy foes are not permitted to frustrate the aspirations of a people freed at last. ”