THE OUTCOME OF THE TREATY OF BERLIN.
It is quite needless to remark that Turkey, instead of doing anything to
improve the condition of the Armenians, has done much to make it worse
during the past fifteen years. The question now arises, what have the
Powers signatory to the Berlin Treaty done to compel the Sublime Porte
“to carry out the improvements and reforms” demanded in the Sixty-first
Article? And what steps has Great Britain taken in addition, to
discharge the additional obligation for the improvement of Armenia which
she assumed by the so-called Cyprus Convention?
We find that in November, 1879, the English Government, seeing that
matters throughout Asia Minor were really going from bad to worse, went
the length of ordering an English squadron to the Archipelago for the
purpose of a naval demonstration. The Turkish Government was greatly
excited, and with a view to getting the order countermanded, made the
fairest promises.
But England was not the only Power aroused. On June 11, 1880, an
Identical Note of the Great Powers demanded the execution of the clauses
of the Treaty of Berlin which had remained in suspense. In the
conclusion of the Identical Note a clear recognition is made of the fact
that _the interest of Europe, as well as that of the Ottoman Empire,
requires the execution of the Sixty-first Article of the Treaty of
Berlin, and that the joint and incessant action of the Powers can alone
bring about this result_.
On July 5th, the Turkish Foreign Minister sent a Note in reply to the
representatives of the Powers. “It is of great length and small real
value, except as combining in a remarkable degree the distinguishing
characteristics of modern Ottoman diplomacy, namely, first, great
facility in assimilating the administrative and constitutional jargon of
civilized countries; second, consummate cunning in concealing under
deceptive appearances the barbarous reality of deeds and intentions;
third, cool audacity in making promises which there is neither the power
nor desire to make good; and, finally, a paternal and oily tone,
intended to create the impression that the Turkish Government is the
victim of unjust prejudices and odious calumnies.”
As soon as the reply of the Porte was received, Earl Granville sent
copies to the British Consuls in Asia Minor, inviting observations
thereon. Eight detailed replies to this request are published in the
Blue-Book.[22] They concur in a crushing condemnation of the Ottoman
Government.
These conclusions, moderately and very diffusely expressed in diplomatic
phraseology, are reflected in the Collective Note which was sent on
Sept. 11, 1880, to the Sublime Porte by the Ambassadors of the Great
Powers. On October 3d, without making the slightest references to
censures which had been addressed to it, and even appearing completely
to ignore the Collective Note, the Porte, assuming a haughty tone,
merely notified the Powers of what it intended to do.
In a Circular of the 12th of January, 1881, Earl Granville tried again
to induce the other five Powers to join in further representations to
the Sublime Porte on the subject. But the other Powers seem to have
thought that the diplomatic comedy had gone far enough, and sent evasive
answers. Prince Bismarck expressed the opinion that there would be
“serious inconvenience” in raising the Armenian question, and France hid
behind Germany. Such action by the powers had been anticipated by the
British Ambassador at Constantinople, Mr. Goschen, who had already
written to Earl Granville: “If they [the Powers] refuse, or give only
lukewarm support, the responsibility will not lie with Her Majesty’s
Government.” The whole correspondence was simply a matter of form.[23] I
have condensed this outline of events since the Treaty of Berlin from
_Armenia, the Armenians, and the Treaties_,[24] following as far as
possible the words of the writer, M. G. Rolin-Jaequemyns, a high
authority on International Law.
From 1881 to the present time, almost without exception, England, on her
part, has allowed no mention in her Blue-Books of the manner in which
her _protégés_ and those of Europe have been treated. Her energies have
seemed to be devoted to stifling the ever-increasing cry of despair from
Armenia, instead of attempting her rescue or relief. The other Powers
are only less guilty, in proportion as they have done less to perpetuate
Ottoman misrule, and have made less pretence of sympathy and help for
the oppressed. Freeman says of England,
“By waging a war on behalf of the Turk, by signing a treaty which left
the nations of Southeastern Europe [and Asia Minor] at the mercy of the
Turk, by propping up the wicked power of the Turk in many ways, we have
done a great wrong to the nations which are under his yoke; and that
wrong which we have ourselves done it is our duty to undo.”[25]
It is thus clearly seen that both the Sixty-first Article of the Berlin
Treaty, and the Cyprus Convention as well, have been of positively no
value in securing for the Armenians any of the reforms which were
therein recognized as imperatively called for and guaranteed. It is also
clear that the condition of Armenia, and of Turkey as a whole, is even
vastly worse and more hopeless than it was twenty years ago.
[Illustration:
PROFESSOR MINAS TCHÉRAZ.
Present at the Berlin Congress.
]
This condition, I further maintain, is in large measure directly
attributable to those treaties themselves and to the attitude
subsequently assumed by the Powers which signed them. It is said that
the Armenians have brought trouble on themselves, by stirring up the
Turks. I ask what stirred the Armenians up? It was primarily the
Sixty-first Article of the Treaty of Berlin. Many a time has that
precious paragraph been quoted to me in the wilds of Kurdistan by common
Armenian artisans and ignorant villagers. They had welcomed it as a
second evangel, and believed the word of England as they did the
gospels. _It was that Article which roused them from the torpor of
centuries._ They saw Bulgaria rise from her blood and shame and enter on
a career of honor and prosperity under the ægis of European protection.
Is it surprising that hopes and aspirations have been born anew in the
heart of the Armenian race—a people not inferior to the Bulgarians and
in many respects more talented?
I have rarely found it difficult to persuade intelligent Armenians that
an autonomous Armenia is impracticable. But I have never been able to
convince one of them that the course of England and the other powers has
been anything but one of selfishness, jealousy, and dishonor as far as
fulfilment of their treaty obligations is concerned.
During a residence of four years in Eastern Turkey I noticed a marked
and rapid alienation of Armenian sentiment from England in favor of
Russia, who now seems to them the only source of succor. _They_ see in
England only a dog in the manger.
There is another sequel to the Berlin Treaty and to the attitude of the
powers, namely, its effect on the Turks themselves. The natural enmity
and contempt of the Moslem rulers and population generally for the
Christian subjects has been greatly increased by reason of the pressure
which foreign Powers have occasionally brought to bear on the Turks in
order to procure relief for the Christian. To be sure the only hope of
such relief is from without. But the pressure should not be of a petty,
nagging and galling nature. This is worse than nothing. _What is needed
is prompt, decisive, and final action._
And things have now arrived at such a pass that in such action lies the
only hope of preventing a terrible catastrophe, which will eclipse even
the massacres of Sassoun. The wheels of progress will not go backward
except as they are broken. The Christians of Armenia can be
exterminated, but it is too late for them to accept slavery or Islam.
They may be slaughtered like sheep, but they will not all die like dogs.
The revolutionary movement, as it is called, is thus far nothing but a
blind turning of the worm. It is ill considered, without resources,
reckless, and foreign to the real spirit, objects, and methods of the
Armenians on Turkish soil. It is not denied that there are a few
Armenians in Europe who, in despair and for lack of better teaching,
have imbibed Nihilistic views and are trying, in a very bungling way, to
apply them. They are hated by the vast majority of Armenians in Turkey.
They are related to the question at issue in the same way and degree as
train wreckers and box-car burners were to the industrial problem during
the riots of Chicago in July last, and deserve the same treatment. The
Turks take great pains to thrust them into public notice, as a cloak for
themselves, and with good success. The Turkish Government and its
partisans, in order to conceal the real character of the massacre in
Sassoun, has made persistent, extensive, and dishonorable use of a
letter by the first President of Robert College, Constantinople, Dr.
Cyrus Hamlin, written December 23, 1894. Dr. Hamlin’s vigorous and
indignant protest may be found in Appendix C.
[Illustration:
ZEIBEK, TURKISH SOLDIER, “IRREGULAR.”
]
The idea of Armenian revolution is a new thing in the history of that
peaceable race, which has quietly submitted for centuries to the yoke of
the Turk. But it is the natural outcome of the horrible situation in
Armenia since the Treaty of Berlin, and the disease is bound to grow
more virulent and contagious until the European doctors apply vigorous
and radical treatment to the “Sick Man.” It is difficult to see how
anything but a surgical operation can be helpful. The knife has
frequently been used in the case of this incurable patient during the
present century, and always with excellent results, as for instance in
the case of Greece, Lebanon, Bulgaria, Boznia-Herzegovina, and Egypt.
A situation in many respects parallel to that in Armenia existed until
lately in Bosnia and Herzegovina. How quickly and completely that
difficult problem has been solved, is narrated by M. de Blowitz in the
October, 1894, issue of _The Nineteenth Century_, from which I condense
in his own words.
“The orders, given after the taking over of the country, to surrender
all arms or to destroy them, was given a sweeping application. Yet,
before the victorious entry of the Austro-Hungarians, each Bosnian each
Herzegovinian, was a walking arsenal.
“To-day weapons and ambuscades are things of the romantic past. Twelve
years have sufficed, under M. de Kallay’s administration, not only to
remove all traces of the wild, inhospitable, inaccessible Bosnia of
which I have been speaking, but indeed and especially to banish even the
memory of those dark days of strenuous battle, and to wipe away from the
hearts of both invader and invaded all traces of the hate which then
animated them. In the year 1882, the superior administration of the two
provinces (Bosnia and Herzegovina) passed into the hands of the Minister
of Finance of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, who was then, and who is
still, M. de Kallay. From this moment all is changed. The powers given
to the new administration are almost unlimited. The civil element has
been substituted for the military element, and pacification has
succeeded conquest. The greatest effort is made to reassure all minds.
Not a single minaret has disappeared, not a _muezzin_ is deprived of his
resources.”
A recent writer wisely says that “the Armenian question, if it ever be
settled at all, must be taken out of the Turk’s hands, whether he like
it or not.... And we have an opportunity now, which may never come our
way again, of settling a difficulty which, if allowed to develop much
longer, will prove more fruitful of mischief than any with which we have
been confronted for a generation or more.”[26]
[Illustration:
TURKISH SOLDIER, “REGULAR.”
]
C. B. Norman, special correspondent of _The London Times_, in his
_Armenia and the Campaign of 1877_[27] wrote words which are even truer
to-day. I condense:
“Naturally, since I have been here I have had many, very many,
opportunities of conversing with Turkish officers and men on the
so-called Eastern Question; and the consequence is that, arriving in the
country a strong philo-Turk, deeply impressed with the necessity of
preserving the ‘integrity of the Empire’ in order to uphold ‘British
interests,’ I now fain would cry with Mr. Freeman: ‘Perish, British
interests, perish our dominion in India, rather than that we should
strike a blow on behalf of the wrong against the right!’[28]
“There is no finer race in the world than the Turk proper. Brave,
honest, industrious, truthful, frugal, kind-hearted, and hospitable, all
who _know_ the Osmanli speak well of him. He is as much oppressed by the
curse of misgovernment as his Christian fellow-subject; and had the
members of the Eastern Question Association as keen a sense of justice
as they have love of writing, they would long ago have obliterated the
word ‘Christian’ from their lengthy documents, and striven to ameliorate
the condition of the lower orders of the subjects of the Porte,
downtrodden as they are by an effete section of the Mohammedan race, who
have degenerated in mind, body, and estate, since coming in contact with
Western civilization.
“I do not for one moment mean to deny that there are honest, energetic
Turks, capable of exercising their talents for their country’s good; but
these men are powerless. The vital powers of the nation are so sapped by
centuries of misrule, the minds of the majority are so imbued with the
belief that all ideas not born of Moslem brains and sanctified by Moslem
usage are false, and to be scorned, that were any honest-minded
gentleman to rise to power, and endeavor to check the present system of
misgovernment, he would not remain in office one week. Captain Gambier’s
able article on the ‘Life of Midhat Pasha’[29] bears me out in this
idea.”