OMER PACHA.
Anecdote--His Birth--Reforms--Sultan Mahmud--Enlistment in the
Turkish army--His application--Expeditions among the wild tribes
--Appointed Generalissimo--Present high position--Domestic life
--Marriage--Personal habits--Kossuth and Hungarian refugees--War
on the Danube--Battle of Oltenitza.
The life of Omer Pacha is connected with perhaps the most important
period in the history of Turkey--an epoch of transition from the old
state of things to the new.
About twenty-five years ago a young man arrived at Widdin, and asked
to see Hussein Pasha, the commander of the place. His personal
appearance was unusually prepossessing, being at once handsome and
majestic. His complexion was fair and clear, his eyes soft and
penetrating, and his limbs pliant and athletic. The Turks, who have
a superstitious veneration for a fine physiognomy, and to whom,
therefore, good looks are pre-eminently, as Queen Elizabeth said,
an excellent letter of recommendation, received him with great
cordiality and respect. Hussein was at this time encamped before
Widdin, and living in a superb tent, to which the young stranger was
directed. He happened unfortunately to get there just as Hussein was
waking up in no very good humor.
[Illustration: OMER PACHA.]
“What do you want?” said he, impatiently, to the intruder.
“To enter your excellency’s service,” was the reply.
“I have too many attendants already. Go away.”
In Turkey it is allowable for people in the humblest condition to
offer presents to a distinguished personage without any offence.
Accordingly, the young man pulled a small parcel, carefully done up,
out of his pocket, and presented it to the pasha, begging him to
accept it.
“What is this?” said the pasha, when he had opened the parcel.
“Gloves, your excellency.”
“And what use are they?”
“When you go out in the sun, they will preserve the color of your
hands (the pasha’s were very white), and when you are riding, they
will prevent them from being blistered by the bridle.”
“But how do you put them on?”
The young man answered by putting one on the pasha’s hand.
“Now the other.”
This also was put on. Hussein then clapped his hands three times,
and raised them above his head, just as the officers of his suite
were entering the tent. Thanks to this pair of gloves, which were the
admiration of the pasha and his staff the stranger was admitted into
Hussein’s service. Now this stranger was no other than Latkes, now
Omer Pasha.
Of his early life but little is known. His origin is Croatian; his
native place Vlaski, a village in the district of Ogulini, thirteen
leagues from Fiume, on the Adriatic Sea. He was born in 1801; the
religion of his forefathers, and of his youthful years, was the
Greek united faith, namely, that branch of the Greek worship subject
to the Roman Pontiff. He received a liberal education. His father
enjoyed the important charge of Lieutenant-Administrator of the
district, and his uncle was invested with ecclesiastical functions.
His instruction in mathematics and military engineering he received
at the military school of Thurm, near Carlstadt, in Transylvania; and
in 1822, when 21 years of age, after having distinguished himself
in his studies, he entered the corps of _Ponts et Chaussées_ in the
Austrian service, with the rank of lieutenant, that body having just
been organized by the government.
At twenty-nine he left the Austrian service; but the true cause of
his taking this step has always remained a mystery. Many attributed
it to a family misfortune; some to a quarrel he had with his
superiors, followed by acts that would have subjected him to a
court-martial.
Having made his escape, he passed into Bosnia in 1830, where he
arrived wholly unknown, and it was only with difficulty he was able
to engage himself as a servant in Kosrew Pacha’s house, who was then
at Bosna-Serai.
The _second reforming Sultan_ had of late organized his troops on
a principle of reform, not only as to discipline, but also as to
the mode of equipment. Only a year, the wide and overflowing dress,
the majestic turbans, the silken shawls and rich furs had given
way to the more simple _fez_ and to the European _pantaloon_. He
began himself to assume that costume. The Khatti Sherif ordering
this change was only promulgated on the 3d of March, 1829, and the
sensation which the new dress occasioned among the people did not
fail, according to eye-witnesses, to draw forth tears and public
mourning.
All the regular troops of the army he had formed abandoned, whether
they liked it or not, the picturesque and rich costume, adopted
the new uniform, and accepted the command of foreign officers. An
indispensable condition to the advancement of a foreigner in the
Turkish service was conversion to Islamism, and Latkes became a
Mussulman, under the cognomen of Omer.
Meanwhile Old Turkey was clamorous in its protests against the
progress of reform; nor was it long before its indignation broke out
into acts of violence and bloodshed. Popular fury was often directed
against Europeans, who were regarded as abetters of reform; and in
August, 1831, ten thousand houses belonging to Europeans were a prey
to the flames.
It was full time that these seditious demonstrations, and the
sanguinary scenes enacted under former Sultans, should teach prudence
to the fortunate, but daring and impetuous Mahmud. He felt the
necessity of surrounding himself with faithful and vigorous-minded
friends. He chose men qualified both as intelligent advisers and
men of action. He invited to a great banquet in his palace his
great state functionaries, the teachers of the law, the professors,
the officers, the seven generals of the empire, the magnates of
the nation, and the warmest partisans of his reforms. With glowing
confidence and enthusiasm he spoke in the name of the national
interest and the public cause, and called upon all to sacrifice
personal feelings, party spirit, and internal divisions, to the
fortune and the destinies of the empire. Mahmud’s unusual familiarity
astonished the greater number of the bystanders. It was an innovation
at variance with the dignity of the “_Shade of Allah on earth_,” but
all felt themselves individually flattered by it. When the _salams_
that Oriental courtesy prescribes had been multiplied to a countless
number, at a hint given to the Great Master of the Ceremonies, a
large piece of tapestry was raised, a gate was thrown open, and
the Sultan invited all to enter. It was a vast hall, magnificently
lighted. A large number of splendid ensigns covered a table inlaid
with amber, and upon it lay the Prophet’s mantle. All prostrated
themselves before the holy ensign; and by order of Mahmud, the Grand
Seraskier pronounced a formula, and the sovereign, with his own
hands, put on his minister’s breast the great decoration of the civil
and military order. The ceremony was a kind of Masonic inauguration;
the ribbons of the several degrees were distributed to all present,
who were invited to pledge themselves to the Sultan and to each
other. The mystery attending the meeting had given it a more solemn
character. All repeated the Grand Seraskier’s formula; and the work
of the regeneration of the empire had commenced.
This happened in October, 1831.
That Grand Seraskier was Kosrew Pacha, in whose service the Croat
fugitive Latkes, now Mussulman Omer, had lived for the last year.
Eight years afterwards, on the 3d of November, 1839, the same
hall was opened in broad day, and there, with all the solemnity
of a national ceremony, the warmest supporters of Old Turkey,
Sheik-ul-Islam, (the chief of the faith,) and the members of the body
of Ulemas, who before the same holy shrine were sworn on the hands of
the Mufti (ecclesiastical president) to observe the Tanzimat, were
assembled. The ashes of Mahmud were still warm: it was the first
act of the reign of Abdul Medjid. The victory had been rapid: Young
Turkey had, on that day, triumphed over Old Turkey.
In the gardens called Gul-hane, near the kiosks of the palace,
Reschid Pacha proclaimed the new organization of the empire, granting
concessions “to all subjects, of whatever sect or religion.” That act
so celebrated, virtually abolished capital punishment, by reserving
the right of pronouncing it to the Sultan alone, who has never had
recourse to it. The political, civil, and moral character of the
Turks was raised by this memorable charter to a high standard.
Well aware of obstacles which they would have to encounter, Mahmud’s
friends determined to select the proper moment for action. Kosrew
Pacha, who was more earnest than any other in the cause, did not miss
the opportunity of availing himself of Omer-Aga, whose ardent and
restless character appeared to have no ambition but to have a field
open to his energetic activity. In Turkey, nobility is not the result
of birth, but mostly the gift of favor, sometimes of riches, seldom
of merit. One of the most remarkable examples of ennobled Turks was
Kosrew Pacha himself, who had been bought in the slave-bazaar. The
manners of the highest personages do not differ from those of the
lowest, and their family life is distinguished by great simplicity
and benevolence, even towards the slaves. Moreover, the curiosity
which a foreigner awakens everywhere, and more than anywhere else in
Turkey, made the Pacha desirous of having frequent interviews with
the Frank convert, who by his wit, the originality of his manners,
and the singularity of his position, had become the subject of daily
talk. The interviews with the Pacha succeeded each other; Omer’s
military knowledge made itself manifest; his independent character,
his talent, his boldness of conception, and power of carrying out his
plans, forcibly attracted the attention of the Pacha. Omer made his
former position and misfortune known; he interested, he pleased; the
Pacha’s protection was insured to him, and he enlisted in the army of
Turkish Regeneration.
Favored by the protection of Sultan Mahmud, to whom Kosrew Pacha
had introduced him, after having been aide-de-camp to the Pacha,
then aide-de-camp and interpreter to General Chzarnowsky, lastly
an officer of the Imperial Guard; dissatisfied with the slow
progress of his party, which was continually thwarted by provincial
insurrections, he asked to be permitted to try his fortune in some
of the expeditions which were continually being made, and began
his military career in 1836. Bosnia, Servia, and Bulgaria were
successively the theatres of his exploits.
From that day he applied himself to improving the efficiency of his
army, paying attention not only to the discipline, but also to the
education, of the soldier. The Mussulman, good and meek-hearted by
nature, never ferocious but in individual cases, was raised by him to
the self-consciousness of human dignity, by regulations, ordinances,
and laws, calculated to make him cognisant of the rights, and
conversant with the duties that belong to every one, in every state
of life. Self-esteem--a feeling that, being once awakened from a long
lethargy, soon endears itself to every man--discipline, and Omer’s
benevolent disposition even towards the lowest of his soldiers,
caused him to be loved by them more as a father than as a general.
After Mahmud’s decease, his expeditions continued under the
new Sultan. In Albania, in Bosnia once more, in Syria, in the
Kurdistan, among the wild tribes of the Ravendus, Romelia, in
the Moldo-Wallachian Principalities, and in Montenegro, he was
distinguished in both a military and civil capacity. Having adopted
Turkey as a second country, he loved and loves her, not as a warrior
merely, but as the member of a family which powerful enemies are
attempting to disorganize and destroy. Before fighting, he always
tried to conciliate; compelled to employ force, he never abused
victory, to assuage either the resentment or the cupidity of his
troops.
In a work so difficult as the regeneration of an entire nation, he
had many fellow-laborers. Amongst them the first undoubtedly was an
eminent man, whose talents as a diplomatist London and Paris have had
occasion to notice, and whom they have since been able to appreciate
as a statesman: we mean Reschid Pacha. We call him a companion, and
not the chief of the enterprise; for Reschid Pacha, indeed, tried to
transplant European civilization to the empire, though by measures
which would have had no immediate utility without the activity of
Omer Pacha.
In the midst of many labors, he ran through all the degrees of
the army, till he obtained the rank of the highest in the Ottoman
service. Invested with the great decoration of the Nichani-Iftikhar
by Sultan Mahmud; with that of the Mejidiè[4] by Sultan Abdul
Medjid; and, lastly, presented at Shumla with a sword of honor, he
could not avoid making bitter enemies. Old Turkey was continually
watching him with envious rancor; but he shrewdly flattered its
apostles when he thought it proper for his purpose; overpowered them
with generosity, when an exchange of hostilities would have injured
his cause; and openly set them at defiance when dissembling would
have been weakness, and silence an act of cowardice.
At this hour he is the first general of the Ottoman army, and
millions of eyes are anxiously turned towards him. If the past may
afford a clue to judge of the future, the fortune of Omer Pacha has
been constant for so many years as to leave no doubt of his ability.
So brilliant, so important and high a position is not reached from
the lowest condition, without one’s being possessed of merit, and
that in an eminent degree.
His domestic life is very far from being tainted with the debauchery
that is generally attributed, and often falsely, to the private
conduct of the Moslems. He has had no more than two wives; and
although he was allowed to have them contemporaneously, he did not
marry the second until after his divorce from the former. This was
a Turkish woman, daughter of an Aga of the Janissaries, who died in
1828, and was a pupil of his protector, Kosrew Pacha. Emancipated
from the severe restraint of the harem to the liberty of European
customs, she abused it, and forced her husband to a separation.
The second is a European, and was a very young maid, of a mild
and virtuous character, when he saw her first, and married her at
Bucharest, where she was exercising, at fourteen years of age, the
profession of a teacher of the pianoforte. She is from Cronstadt in
Transylvania, and her name is Anna Simonich. He has no offspring but
a natural daughter, born of an Arabian slave in Syria. A male child,
the fruit of his new marriage, died at four months of age, crushed
under a carriage upset in the passage from Travnich to Saraievo. He
has, therefore, as yet, no probability of being remembered in his
adopted country but by his deeds.
In Omer Pacha may be traced many of the essentials of a great
general. He takes a warm interest in the welfare of his men, and
knows how to earn their goodwill; at the same time that he treats
them with a degree of severity bordering upon harshness. Like
Bonaparte, he is fond of those short, quick, terse addresses, which,
in a moment, electrify an entire army, and is consequently regarded
with veneration by his troops, who yield him the most implicit
obedience.
His habits are simple and frugal; he is active and indefatigable
in business; of an upright, benevolent, and gentle character, with
a somewhat nervous and excitable temperament; often generous,
sometimes prodigal, always absolute, and little accustomed to being
contradicted in his opinions. He is fifty-three years of age; he
is tall and thin, has a martial bearing, an expressive and marked
physiognomy, a quick and penetrating eye, a nose a little compressed,
a thick and grey beard, a large head--a perfectly Croatian type.
Engaged in all the struggles of the two parties during the most
important period of their existence, the principal instrument of
progress and of Young Turkey, he always regretted the necessity of
drawing the sword against his fellow-subjects. It was farthest from
his wish to tinge it with blood, even to impose what was, if not
the common desire, the common advantage, namely, the improvement of
society in all its developments. 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; but his protection had for its object to neutralize the effect
of foreign threats, lest, by the Sultan’s yielding to them, the
cause of progress should be deprived of the most valuable accession
of material and intellectual forces which the new-comers might
confer on it. His wishes, owing especially to the intervention of
the English fleet, were crowned with success, and he succeeded in
taking many of them under his command. The immigration, indeed, of
Italians, Hungarians, and Poles, has been no inconsiderable help to
the progress of Turkey in late years. The popular sentiment hailed
them, because they were the enemies of its enemies; and the accession
of elements so free, so ardent, and enthusiastic for the cause
that drew them to exile, added an immense and rapid impetus to the
reform party. They caused no little uneasiness to Russia and Austria,
who, in every negotiation with Turkey, even in the last question,
always insisted on the banishment of the political refugees to Asia.
Russia fears only civilized men, and therefore she must be met by
civilization dressed up in its full armor. Turkish civilization would
give her the greatest annoyance: not to thwart it by every possible
means would be an eternal remorse; and not to succeed in crushing it
in the bud would be followed by the bitterest regrets.
The internal contest has now disappeared before the external, and
Omer Pacha beholds united under his banner both old and young Turkey.
Long and difficult was the line of country he had to defend along the
Danube, but his preparations were well taken, and the Russians could
scarcely have crossed at any point without encountering a well-served
battery, and, had they even succeeded in penetrating to the Balkan,
they would have found every height bristling with fortifications,
every defile in the possession of an intrepid foe. The successes of
the Russians in 1828-29 depended mainly upon causes which no longer
exist. They had then the undisputed mastery of the Black Sea; the
Turkish navy had just been annihilated; and the Mussulman army was
wholly without organization. The reverse of this was now the case,
and the battle of Oltenitza was an earnest of many reverses they were
doomed subsequently to sustain.
The Ottoman general, alive to the impolicy of allowing Russian and
Austrian intrigue free scope for action during the winter, and aware
that his own men could not but become, to a great extent, demoralized
by remaining for five months in sight of an arrogant foe, boldly
determined to take the initiative, and to attempt, by force of arms,
that which diplomacy had been unable to achieve.
Observing at a glance the immense importance of assuming a strong
position before Kalafat (in Lesser Wallachia, opposite Widdin),
whence he could effectually exclude the Russians from Servia, he
adopted a plan for dividing simultaneously the attention and the
forces of his adversary. While, therefore, a hostile division
advanced, in Lesser Wallachia, upon Crajowa and Slatina, Omer Pacha
prepared to land a large body of troops at Giurgevo, and a still
larger detachment at Oltenitza. The attempt on Giurgevo, possibly
intended only as a feint, was unsuccessful, but at Oltenitza the
manœuvre was brilliantly accomplished.
Early on the morning of the 2d November, 1853, the Turks, to the
number of 9000, crossed the Danube, between Turtukai and Oltenitza,
a small village occupied by the Russians, who, as soon as they
perceived the design of the Mussulmans, made a vigorous but futile
resistance. Omer Pacha’s troops, eager for the fray, leaped from the
boats, long before they touched the bank, fought hand to hand with
their antagonists in the water, soon carried the quarantine building,
and fortified it with fascines.
The precision with which these various movements were effected,
sufficiently attested the presence of the Turkish commander-in-chief.
The Russian General Danenberg, having been informed of this movement
by the Turks, arrived, to direct in person measures for driving them
back into the Danube. Eleven thousand Russians, under the command of
Pauloff, were accordingly hastily collected, and, early on the 4th
November, they commenced their attack. A brisk cannonade took place
for some time on both sides. The Turks, quitting their entrenchments,
threw out swarms of sharpshooters, and compelled a hussar regiment
to take shelter in the rear of the infantry. The sharpshooters then
formed into battalions, made several smart bayonet charges, and
reëntered their entrenchments.
General Danenberg, astonished to find that an enemy he had held in
such utter contempt should display so much courage and such knowledge
of tactics, was desirous of bringing matters to a crisis; but, by an
unlucky manœuvre, he got entangled in difficult ground between two
fires, which occasioned considerable slaughter among his ranks. After
four hours’ hard fighting he was compelled to retreat, with the loss
of a colonel, lieutenant-colonel, and twenty-four other officers,
besides 370 rank and file killed, and 857 wounded.
Omer Pacha held the position thus acquired till the 11th of November,
when, without any further molestation from the enemy, he voluntarily
retired to the right bank of the Danube; the Turks having meanwhile
strengthened and fortified their camp at Kalafat.
The affair at Oltenitza produced a surprising effect at
Constantinople, and indeed throughout the whole Turkish empire. After
a century of reverses, the Turks had achieved a victory over a nation
which had long treated them with disdain, and had always ridiculed
their achievements in the field. The printing-office of the official
Gazette, and all the streets leading to it, were crowded with eager
thousands, anxious to obtain copies of the supplement containing the
details of the fight.
By a curious coincidence, on the same day and at the very hour
that the battle of Oltenitza was being fought, the Sultan, who had
announced his intention of heading the army in the spring, was
being invested, at the mosque of the Sultan Mohamed, according to
the Turkish ritual, with the title of Ghazi, or warrior, a dignity
conferred on those Sultans who go forth for the first time to battle.
At Petersburg the dismay occasioned by the action of Oltenitza was so
great, that the Czar gave immediate orders for those measures which
resulted in the foul massacre of Sinope, as though he were desirous,
by a deeper stain, to efface the dishonor his arms had already
incurred.
Some days before the period fixed upon for the commencement of
hostilities between Turkey and Russia, the Circassians had already
matured their plans, and were prepared to take up arms vigorously
against the troops of the Czar. But in Asia the enemies of Russia
have scarcely been as successful as might have been anticipated, when
their natural prowess, continued exercise in arms, and indomitable
character, is taken into account. No deficiency of military ardor
can, however, be imputed to men, who for upwards of fifty years have
successfully resisted all attempts at subjugation, and have baffled
the strategy of Russia’s ablest generals. The chief reason why, in
the present instance, they have not achieved any very signal success,
has been the difficulty they have encountered in communicating with
the sea-board, and in obtaining an adequate supply of ammunition and
arms.