Obrázky na stránke
PDF
ePub
[ocr errors]

despatched a great fleet to the Baltic. Only in Armenia did the war run a favourable course for Russia. The French under St. Arnaud (cf. Vol. VIII) and the English under Lord Raglan, to the number of sixty thousand men, resolved upon the conquest of the Crimea. The gaze of Europe was soon concentrated for eleven months upon the siege of Sebastopol. Both the allies and the Russians received numerous reinforcements; in May, 1855, Sardinia sent her minister of war, La Marmora, to the Crimea with fifteen thousand men. It was not until September 11 that the victorious armies occupied the smoking ruins of the town, after the death of the emperor Nicholas, on March 11. The loss of troops, especially on the part of the British army, the organisation of which left much to be desired, was very considerable when compared with the superior organisation of the French.

In February, 1856, upon the proposal of Austria, a peace congress met in Paris, to which Prussia was admitted notwithstanding English objections. Russia was forced to cede the mouths of the Danube, and a part of Bessarabia and Kars, and to renounce her sole protectorate of the Danubian Principalities. The Danube was thrown open to trading vessels, the international Danube commission was organised for Galatz and Sulina, the Black Sea was made neutral, and Russia was forbidden to maintain more warships upon it than Turkey (this clause was annulled by Russia in 1871, at the London conference; Vol. VIII). For the moment Turkey was free from Russian greed for conquest, and the military reputation of Russia was broken. Napoleon III became the most powerful man in Europe, and received numerous applications for alliances. The company of the Messageries Maritimes," founded in Marseilles in 1851, secured the lion's share of the new commercial relations with the Levant.

Turkey, henceforward received into the concert of Europe, promised further reforms in the Hatti-humayun of February 18, 1856, and reaffirmed the civic equality of all her subjects. The "hat" was received with equal reluctance by both Osmans and Christians. Only since 1867 have foreigners been able to secure a footing in Turkey. If any advance has been made since these paper promises it is due not to the imperial firman but to the increase in international communication, which brought the light of civilization to the very interior of Asia. In 1851 the first railway was built from Alexandria to Suez, by way of Cairo; shortly afterwards the Suez Canal was begun. In Turkey itself new roads were built, harbours constructed, the postal service improved, and telegraph lines erected, especially after the events in Jidda and Lebanon (1858-1860).

(c) Close of the Reign of Abd ul-Mejid. The dark side of this onward movement was the shattered condition of the finances. The financial embarrassments of the Porte had been steadily increasing since 1848. At that date there was no foreign national debt; there were about two hundred millions of small coin in circulation, with an intrinsic value of twenty-three and a half per cent of their face value. There was a large amount of uncontrolled and uncontrollable paper money, covered by no reserve in bullion, and there were heavy arrears in the way of salaries and army payments. During the Crimean War, apart from an enormous debt at home, a loan of one hundred and forty million marks had been secured in England. Three further loans were effected in 1858, 1860, and 1861. Expenditure rose, in consequence of the high rate of interest, to two hundred and

eighty millions of marks annually, while the revenue amounted to one hundred and eighty millions only. In 1861 the financial strain brought about a commercial crisis; an attempt was made to meet the danger by the issue of twelve hundred and fifty millions of piastres in paper money, with forced circulation; while the upper officials, bank managers, and contractors, such as Langrand-Dumonceau, Eugene Bontoux, and Moritz Hirsch were growing rich, the provinces were impoverished by the weight of taxation, and the unnecessary severity with which the taxes were collected. The concert of Europe had guaranteed the first State loan. Hence in 1882 originated the international administration of the Turkish public debt; and this became the basis of the claim for a general supervision of Turkish affairs by Western Europe, which was afterwards advanced in the case of Armenia and Crete.

The Porte was thus unable to prevent the appointment of Colonel Alexander Johann Cusa, at the instance of France, as prince of Moldavia (January 29) and of Wallachia (February 17); the personal bond of union thus established between these vassal States resulted in their actual union as Roumania in 1861. Cusa's despotic

rule was overthrown on February 22, 1866, and under the new prince, Karl of Hohenzollern, the country enjoyed a rapid rise to prosperity, although the political incapacity of the people, the license granted by the constitution, and the immorality of the upper classes did not conduce to general order. In Servia the Sultan's creature, Alexander Karageorgevitch (p. 183), was forced to abdicate on December 21-22, 1858, the family of Obrenovitch was recalled, and after the death of Miloš at the age of eighty (September 26, 1860), Michael Obrenovitch II was elected and acknowledged by the Porte. Under the revolutionary and literary government of the "Omladina" ("youth") Servia became the scene of Panslavonic movements, hostile to Hungary, which spread to the soil of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and even endangered the absolute monarchy of Michael. On March 6, 1867, the last Turkish troops were withdrawn from Servian soil, in accordance with the agreements of September 4, 1862, and March 3, 1867. After the murder of the prince on June 10, 1868, the Skupshtina appointed the last surviving Obrenovitch Prince Milan, then fourteen years of age, and passed the new constitution on June 29, 1869.

An additional consequence was that Turkey became again involved in disputes with the Western powers; in 1858 the occasion was the murder of the English and French consuls at Jidda, in Arabia, and in 1860 the atrocities of the Druses against the Christians in Lebanon and Damascus (Vol. III, p. 392). To anticipate the interference of the powers the Grand Vizier Fuad Pasha, one of the greatest statesmen that Turkey has produced in the nineteenth century, was sent to the spot with unlimited powers; but it was not until a French army of occupation appeared that the leaders in high places were brought to punishment, and the province of Lebanon was placed under a Christian governor. The chief service performed by Fuad was that of introducing the Vilayet constitution, the division of the Osman Empire into Sanjaks and Kasas, by which means he had already produced great effects on the Danube provinces. Had it not been for the opposi tion of the whole company of the Old Turks, the Imams, Mollas, Mütevelis, Hojas, the Dervishes, and Softas, in the mosques, the schools, the monasteries, and also the coffee-houses, he would possibly have succeeded in cleansing the great Augean stable of Arabic slothfulness.

(d) Abd ul-Aziz (1861–1876). — Upon the death of Abd ul-Mejid, on June 26, 1861, his brother, the new ruler, Abd ul-Aziz (1861-1876; see the plate facing page 149) was confronted by difficult tasks, and the question arose as to his capacity for dealing with them. The good-natured Abd ul-Mejid had generally allowed his Grand Viziers to govern on his behalf, but after 1858, when the royal privy exchequer had been declared bankrupt, he relapsed into indolence and weak sensuality. Notwithstanding the shattered state of the empire, his brother and successor, Abd ul-Aziz, promised a government of peace, of retrenchment, and reform. To the remote observer he appeared a character of proved strength, in the prime of life, and inspired with a high enthusiasm for his lofty calling. All these advantages, however, were paralysed by the criminal manner in which his education had been neglected. The ruler of almost forty millions of subjects was, at that time, scarcely able to write a couple of lines in his own language. The result was the failure of his first attempts to bring some order into the administration and the finances, a failure which greatly discouraged him. Until 1871 he allowed himself to be guided by two very distinguished men, Fuad and A(a)li Pasha (see Fig. 4 of the plate facing this page, "Six Influential Dignitaries of Turkey in the Nineteenth Century "); at the same time his want of firmness and insight, his nervous excitability, which often made him unaccountable for his actions, and his senseless and continually increasing extravagance led him, not only to the arms of Ignatieff, "the father of lies," but also to his own destruction.

In the commercial treaties of 1861-1862 gunpowder, salt, and tobacco had been excepted from the general remission of duties. The salt tax, which was shortly afterwards revived, was a lamentable mistake. Sheep farmers suffered terribly under it, for the lack of salt produced fresh epidemics every year among the flocks and destroyed the woollen trade and the manufacture of carpets. The culture of the olive and tobacco also suffered under the new imposts, while internal trade was hindered by octroi duties of every kind.

To these difficulties military and political complications were added. Especially dangerous was the revolt in Crete (the spring of 1866); in 1863 Greece had expelled the Bavarian prince and chosen a new king, George I (formerly Prince Wilhelm of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg), and had received the seven Ionian Islands from England in 1864; she now supported her Cretan brothers and co-religionists with money, armies, troops, and ships, notwithstanding the deplorable condition of her own finances. Only when an ultimatum had been sent to Greece did the Porte succeed in crushing this costly revolt under pressure from a conference of the powers in 1869. Meanwhile Ismaïl Pasha of Egypt had received in 1866 and 1867 (Vol. III, p. 718) the title of "Khedive" and the right to the direct succession. Undisturbed by English jealousy, the "viceroy tinued the projects of his predecessor, especially the construction of the Suez Canal, which had been begun by Lesseps; he increased his army, built warships, appointed his own minister of foreign affairs in the person of the Armenian Nubar Pasha, travelled in Europe, and invited the courts of the several States to a brilliant opening of the canal in 1869; by means of a personal visit to Constantinople, by large presents and an increase of tribute, he further secured in 1873 the sovereignty which he had assumed.

con

In the summer of 1867 the Sultan appeared in Western Europe accompanied by Fuad; it was the first occasion in Osman history that a Sultan had passed the

[graphic][graphic][graphic][graphic][graphic][graphic][merged small][merged small]

EXPLANATION OF THE PORTRAITS OVERLEAF OF INFLUENTIAL

TURKS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

=

On the left, above: 1. Mustafa Bairakdar (or Alemdar bearer of the prophet's green standard), born 1755; Pasha of Rustshuk, 1806; attempted to restore in 1808 the Sultan Selim III, who had been deposed by the Janissaries; imprisoned the new Sultan Mustafa IV, the murderer of Selim; proclaimed Mustafa's brother Mahmud II as Sultan on July 28, 1808; became his Grand Vizier; met his death during a popular revolt of the Ulemas and Janissaries, by blowing himself up with his followers.

(From an old lithograph.)

On the right, above: 2. Ali, Pasha of Janina, born 1741 at Tepeleni, in Albania; a scion of the Hissa family, which was descended from the Toskas; was lord of Tepeleni in 1766, Pasha of Trikkala in Thessaly, 1787; secured possession of the town of Janina in 1788, and of a great part of Arta in 1789; became governor of Roumelia in 1803 after the subjection of the Suliots; ruler of Albania, Epirus, Thessalia, and South Macedonia from 1807; between 1815 and 1820 increased his army to the number of one hundred thousand men in numerous castles; was outlawed by the Sultan Mahmud in July, 1820; capitulated, besieged in Janina by Churshid Pasha, on January 10, 1822, and was treacherously murdered on February 5, 1822.

(From a portrait painted by L. Dupré in 1819.)

In the middle, on the left: 3. Omer Pasha, born (as Michael Latas) on November 24, 1806, at Plasky, of the Croatian military frontier; a cadet in the frontier regiment of Ogulin; deserted 1828, went to Widdin in the service of the vizier Hussein Pasha, was converted to Islam, and became tutor to Hussein's children; in 1834 he was a clerk in the war ministry at Constantinople as Omer Effendi, writing-master to the prince, afterwards Sultan Abd ul Medshid, Jüz Bashi (= captain) in the Turkish army. As colonel he defeated Ibrahim Pasha at Beksaya in Syria in 1839; in 1842 was military governor in Lebanon; in 1843 captured the rebel Dshuleka in Albania, and subdued the revolted Kurds in 1846; from 1848 to April, 1850, was military governor in Bucharest, defeated the Russians at Oltenitza in 1853, relieved Silistria in 1854, and led thirty thousand Turks before Sebastopol; afterwards governor in Bagdad; banished to Kursput in 1859, recalled 1861, suppressed the revolt in Herzegovina in 1862; was Mushir (= field-marshal) in 1864, and commander of the third army corps in Monastir; acted unsuccessfully in Crete, 1867; was minister of war, 1868–1869; and died as Sirdar Ekrem (= generalissimo) on April 18, 1871.

Below, on the right: 4. Mehemet Emin Aali Pasha, born 1815 in Constantinople; in 1833, second secretary to the embassy in Vienna; in 1838, ambassadorial councillor; ambassador in London, 1840-1844; minister of foreign affairs, 1846-1852, grand vizier, 1852; governor of Brussa in October, 1852; on diplomatic business at Vienna, March, 1855; grand vizier in July, 1855 (Hattihumajun from February 18, 1856); minister without portfolio, November 1, 1856; grand vizier for the third time, January, 1858, for the fourth time, from August to November, 1861; then again minister for foreign affairs; grand vizier a fifth time, in February, 1867; imperial administrator in the summer of 1867; he was the moving spirit in the work of reforming the Turkish government, so far as was practicable, and died at Evenkeni in Asia Minor on September 6, 1871.

In the centre, on the right: 5. Hussein Abni Pasha, born 1819 in the village of Dost-Köj at Isparta, in Asia Minor; in 1845 assistant teacher at the royal school (Harbije-Mekdeb); major, 1850; lieutenant-colonel, 1853; in 1855 chief of the staff under Omer Pasha in Armenia (Kars); in 1856 director of the military school and chief of the general staff; in 1864 Mushir (= commandantgeneral) of the body-guard; suppressed the Cretan revolt in 1869; then became Seraskier (= minister of war). In 1871 he was banished to Isparta; was general governor of Smyrna in 1872; grand vizier, February 13, 1874, dismissed April 25, 1875; again minister of war, August, 1875, dismissed again on October 2, 1875; in May, 1876, conspired against Abd ul Aziz with Midhat Pasha and other enemies of Mahmud Pasha; guided Murad to Dolma Baghtshe in the night of May 29-30, 1876; killed Abd ul Aziz, and was murdered while minister of war in the night of June 15-16, 1876, in the house of Midhat, by the officer Hassan Bey.

Below, on the left: 6. Midhat Pasha, born 1825 in Bulgaria, of Turkish parents belonging to the Mohammedan sect of the Betash; in 1840 was a writer (Kiatib) in Rustshuk, became Wali of the new Danube vilayet in 1865 by the favour of the grand vizier Fuad; was president of the state council in the ministry in 1867; Wali of Irak Arabi in Bagdad, 1869; grand vizier on August 1, 1872, after the fall of Mahmud Nedim Pasha; was dismissed on October 19, 1872; was minister of justice in August, 1875; again overthrew Mahmud Nedim on May 11, 1876; dethroned the Sultan Abdul Aziz on May 30, 1876, in conjunction with Hussein Avni; was grand vizier, December 22, 1876; announced a constitutional form of government in accordance with the programme of June 1, on December 23, 1876; declined the proposals of the conference of the powers on January 18, 1877 (resulting in war with Russia); was banished by Abd ul Hamid February 5, 1877; general governor of Syria, 1878; Wali of Smyrna, 1880; condemned to death, 1881, but banished for life to Taif in Arabia, where he died on May 8, 1884.

(3 to 6 after photographs from Pera.)

« PredošláPokračovať »