Meeting of the Foreign Ministers in London—Protocol of the 5th
March—Note of Chekib Effendi—Note of the 13th of March—Lord
Palmerston’s explanation of the Views of the Allies regarding the
Hereditary Tenure—Conference of the 16th March—Protocol—Endeavour to
include France in a Convention for closing the Straits of the
Dardanelles and Bosphorus—False Position of the Porte—Views of Lord
Ponsonby and of the other Ambassadors—Instructions of the Austrian
and British Governments—Opinions of M. Guizot—Turkish Plan of
Settlement—Note of the 10th May.
When Lord Palmerston heard from Sir Robert Stopford that the Turkish
fleet had arrived at Marmorice Bay, and that Ibrahim Pacha had reached
Gaza, he immediately assembled the Foreign Ministers, and, on the 5th of
March, they agreed to a Protocol to the following effect[106]:—
1. That Mehemet Ali had submitted, and asked for pardon.
2. That he had delivered the Ottoman fleet to the Commissioners.
3, 4. That he had evacuated Syria; and that the Turkish authority was
established there and in Candia.
5. That the Sultan had accepted the submission, and pardoned Mehemet
Ali, his children, and adherents.
6. That the Sultan had announced his intention of reinstating Mehemet
Ali with hereditary succession.
The conditions settled on the 15th of October and 14th November[107],
being thus fulfilled, the assembled Ministers determined that the
Consuls of the Four Powers should now return to Alexandria.
On the 11th of March, Chekib Effendi, the Ottoman Minister, communicated
to Lord Palmerston[108] that the Porte had restored Mehemet Ali, and
forwarded him the firmans I have already mentioned, and requested his
Lordship to communicate them to the other Ambassadors in London, and he
desired an answer to the official communication; whereupon Lord
Palmerston again assembled the Foreign Ministers on the 13th of
March[109], and they drew up a Collective Note, expressing their lively
satisfaction at the event, and communicating to the Ottoman Minister
that they had heard from Alexandria, under date of the 24th of February,
that Mehemet Ali had admitted, without reserve, that the treaties and
laws of the empire should apply to Egypt in the same way as to the other
provinces of the empire. That he had acceded to the regulation of the
monetary system, the service and uniform of the troops, and the building
of the ships. That he had replaced under the orders of the Sultan, the
land and sea forces, and, in fact, that at the present moment he had put
himself in the situation of a subject, and that it appertains to the
Sultan alone to settle the internal administration, and take into
consideration the wishes which Mehemet Ali has submitted to the Sultan.
The Ministers finish the Note by stating, “The Undersigned are fully
assured that these explanations, conceived in a sincere spirit of
conciliation, would be received by the Sultan in the same manner in
which he has constantly received the advice already given by his
Allies,—advice disinterested and sincere, which His Highness has justly
appreciated, when he accomplished, by an act of clemency, a work of
pacification which his Allies had frankly aided him in effecting.”
Lord Palmerston wrote at the same time to Lord Ponsonby[110],
transmitting the Note of the Plenipotentiaries, and remarking that
doubts might arise out of the wording of the first Article of the
Hatti-Sheriff, which specifies the conditions to be imposed upon Mehemet
Ali. “The wording of that Article might lead to the supposition, that
the Sultan intended to reserve to himself to choose upon each vacancy in
the pachalic of Egypt, any one of the descendants of Mehemet Ali,
without regard to any fixed rule whatever; and that thus the principle
of hereditary tenure would be rendered illusory.
“Her Majesty’s Government conceive, that this was by no means the
intention of the Porte, and that what was meant to be established by the
condition above-mentioned is, that while, on the one hand, the Sultan
grants to the descendants of Mehemet Ali in the direct male line
hereditary succession in the pachalic of Egypt, the Sultan reserves his
own sovereign rights intact, by declaring, that those descendants shall
not succeed as a matter of course and of inherent right, as would be the
case with the rulers of an independent state, but shall each in turn
receive his appointment from the Sultan, and by a separate act of the
Sultan’s sovereign power.
“If this is a correct view of the meaning of the Article in question,
there can be no difficulty on the part of the Porte in giving such an
explanation thereof as will remove all misunderstandings; and the Porte
might say, that is the intention of the Sultan that this right of
selection shall in all cases he exercised in favour of the next male
heir to the deceased Pacha, unless, by infancy or by physical
incapacity, such male heir should be incapable of taking charge of the
administration of the province, in which case the person next in
relationship to the deceased Pacha would be appointed in his stead. The
Sultan might, at the same time, make it to be clearly understood, that
it is his intention that Ibrahim shall succeed to Mehemet.”
Lord Palmerston was also of opinion that it would not be difficult to
settle the affair of the tribute, and that the Allies had purposely
abstained from entering into the question; and that relative to the
appointment of the officers, could be easily arranged.
On the 16th of March the Allied Ministers in another conference[111]
conceiving the Eastern Question settled, engaged the French Government
to rejoin the European family, and they initialed a Convention
recognising the right of the Porte to shut the passage of the
Dardanelles and Bosphorus against ships of war of all nations. The
Protocol was as follows:—
“The difficulties in which His Highness the Sultan was placed, and which
decided him to apply for the support and the assistance of the Courts of
Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia, being now removed, and
Mehemet Ali having made towards His Highness the Sultan the act of
submission which the Convention of the 15th of July was designed to
bring about, the Representatives of the Courts, parties to the said
Convention, have considered that, independently of the execution of the
temporary measures resulting from that Convention, it is of essential
importance to record in the most formal manner, the respect which is due
to the ancient rule of the Ottoman empire, in virtue of which it has at
all times been prohibited for ships of war of Foreign Powers to enter
the Straits of the Dardanelles and of the Bosphorus.
“This principle being from its nature one of general and permanent
application, the respective Plenipotentiaries, provided with the orders
of their Courts to this effect, have been of opinion that, in order to
manifest the agreement and union which regulate the intentions of all
the Courts in what concerns the maintenance of the peace of Europe, it
would be proper to record the respect which is due to the
above-mentioned principle, by means of an arrangement in which France
should be invited to concur, at the invitation, and agreeably to the
wish, of the Sultan.
“This arrangement being calculated to afford to Europe a pledge of the
union of the Five Powers, Her Britannic Majesty’s Principal Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs, agreeably to an understanding with the
Plenipotentiaries of the Four Powers, undertook to bring this matter to
the knowledge of the French Government, requesting it to take part in an
arrangement by which, on the one hand, the Sultan should declare his
firm resolution to maintain for the future the above-mentioned
principle; the Five Powers, on the other hand, should announce their
unanimous determination to respect that principle and to conform
themselves thereto.
“(Initialed) E. N.
P.
B.
B.
C.
On the 6th of March Mehemet Ali’s and Said Muhib Effendi’s letters to
the Vizier arrived at Constantinople[112]. Mehemet Ali’s, in respectful
terms, and with great clearness, pointed out the impossibility of his
consenting to the first, third, and part of the sixth articles of the
Firman; the other articles he cheerfully acceded to. The Commissioner
makes a long report of the arguments he used to induce Mehemet Ali to
consent, and the very clever way he evaded them; and it must be admitted
the old Pacha had the best of the argument.
The Porte, as might have been expected, was now in a false position;
France had so far joined the Allies as to initial the Treaty for
shutting the Dardanelles, but it was not likely she would now attempt to
coerce Mehemet Ali or even advise him to yield; and under this
embarrassment Rechid Pacha, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, wrote to
the Ministers for advice. Lord Ponsonby did not hesitate to entirely
agree with Rechid Pacha that the application of Mehemet Ali to change
some of the articles of the Firman was no proof of submission[113]. The
Firman, says the Ambassador, is an order, and no subject can refuse to
obey an order and be considered submissive; he does not admit that he
petitioned for a change, but he asserts that he disobeys. I cannot read
Mehemet Ali’s letter in that sense. After giving his reasons why the
hereditary succession should go by right of primogeniture, which appear
to me convincing, he states, “It is evident, moreover, that his
Highness, moved by sentiments of clemency, desires the maintenance of
repose and tranquillity, and it is for that reason that I request that
the question of the hereditary succession may be settled as has been
stated above.” Surely this may be considered petitioning, and in a
moderate way too, when we recollect that Mehemet Ali knew full well that
the Porte had no means of enforcing these orders.
What the Ambassador says of the preparations Mehemet Ali was making for
resistance is incorrect. I was at Alexandria at the time, and I saw no
new preparations; there were a few men completing his unfinished works,
which were so ill constructed that if not attended to they would have
crumbled to pieces. He was certainly reorganizing his army, after the
retreat, which was absolutely necessary; but even had he been preparing
for resistance could he be blamed? The Firman that was sent to him was
so perfectly absurd that no man in his senses, with an army of 50,000 or
60,000 man, and upwards of 10,000 cavalry, would have accepted such
terms from a weak master; and no set of men, possessed of common
understanding, and knowing the relative position of the Porte and
Mehemet Ali, would have counselled such a Firman. The Ambassador
finishes by recommending the Porte to do nothing till they have heard
from Great Britain.
Baron Stürmer was a wiser man, and he recommended the Porte to seek some
means of acceding to the entreaties of Mehemet Ali without compromising
the dignity of the Sultan[114]. Baron Königsmark and M. Titow declined
giving an opinion till they received further instructions[115].
On the 29th of March Rechid Pacha and Ahmed Fethi Pachi were displaced,
and succeeded by Rifat Bey, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Tahir
Pacha, as Capudan Pacha.
On the 31st March Prince Metternich, seeing no end to this question,
instructed Baron Stürmer to inform the Divan, that if they did not adopt
the modifications to the Firman recommended by the Conference of London,
the Emperor of Austria would withdraw altogether from the alliance.
Prince Metternich writes most strongly; he observes, “The contents of
your despatch of the 17th of March attract our most serious attention,
because they prove the existence of a position without precedent in the
annals of diplomacy. What, for example, has been the result of the very
precise instructions of the 30th of January? What attention have the
Divan, and the agents of the Four Courts, paid to the opinion expressed
in that document? On the one hand we see the Porte undecided as to the
course which it will have to take on the subject of the representations
of Mehemet Ali against certain articles of the Firman; and on the other,
the Representatives of the Four Powers ignorant how to counsel from the
very clear words of the Collective Note above mentioned; in truth, M. le
Baron, it is impossible to make it out.” This is pretty strong language,
which he follows up by saying, “The instructions I sent you on the 26th
of March have replied, by anticipation, to your scruples, and I flatter
myself you will have considered those instructions as anticipating the
orders which each of you have applied for, and not have hesitated to
offer the advice they contain.
“Nevertheless, as in the course of this affair we have already been
exposed to see ourselves deceived in our expectations, I now direct you
to invite your colleagues to a conference, and acquaint them that the
Emperor enjoins you to insist on the Divan admitting the modifications
which the other Courts desire, for the interest even of the Porte, to
see introduced into certain articles of the Firman. And should your
colleagues decline doing so, you are to take the step prescribed, either
alone or with those who will join you; and should the Porte refuse to
listen, the Emperor will consider himself as restored to entire liberty
of position and action[116].”
Lord Palmerston writes under date of the 10th of April[117]; that he
conceives his former despatches and the Collective Notes are sufficient
to guide Lord Ponsonby in the advice he shall give, and that it is
important the dispute between the Porte and Mehemet Ali should be
settled as soon as possible, and that the Government do not think the
objection stated by the Ambassador, “that it would not be proper for the
Sultan to negotiate with Mehemet Ali,” ought to weigh against the
extreme urgency of coming to a final settlement, and that no settlement
can be made without a direct communication. “On some points,” his
Lordship adds, “Mehemet Ali has reason on his side, in others he is
clearly and decidedly wrong.” The Sultan ought, therefore, without
delay, to modify the Firman in the objectionable parts, and explain that
other parts cannot be altered without a departure from the terms of the
Treaty of the 15th of July.
Lord Palmerston wrote to Lord Ponsonby more peremptorily on the 21st of
April, inclosing a copy of Prince Metternich’s letter to Baron Stürmer,
and acquainting his Lordship that Her Majesty’s Government concur in the
view taken of the matter by the Austrian Government, and are prepared to
take the same course[118].
M. Guizot in a conversation with Mr. Bulwer at Paris, took the same view
of the 1st, 3rd, and 6th articles of the Firman I had done, and admitted
he disapproved of some of Mehemet Ali’s pretensions, and had taken care
to tell him so; and that the only way to settle the dispute was by the
Allies pressing the Porte on one side, and France pressing Mehemet Ali
on the other[119].
On the 27th of April, Chekib Effendi, the Ottoman Minister in London,
submitted to Lord Palmerston a new plan[121], which was little better
than the first: the Porte offered to confer the Government of Egypt,
after the death of Mehemet Ali, either on Ibrahim Pacha or any other son
that Mehemet Ali might select, on condition that afterwards, the right
of selection should devolve on the Porte; if that was not approved of,
it was proposed that one of his descendants should be chosen by the
members of his family and by the chief people of the country, and
proposed to the Sublime Porte, which choice should be confirmed, and the
person nominated by the Sultan; the other articles remained the same.
Who could have put this wild scheme into the heads of the Divan, it is
not easy to conceive; this plan would certainly have settled the
succession on Ibrahim Pacha, but on failure it would have given rise to
intrigues without measure, and also have put the dignity of the Porte in
a worse position than at once fixing the hereditary succession in the
family of Mehemet Ali as he wished. The Plenipotentiaries met in London
on the 10th of May, and very adroitly passed over the new proposition of
Chekib, and repeated their opinion that the succession should go in the
right line, from father to son. As to the tribute, they recommended that
it should be fixed at a stated sum, subject to revision at certain
periods, and they conceived that the difficulty which had arisen
relative to promotion, could only be considered as of secondary
importance. They finish by saying that they persist in their views
communicated to the Porte in the Collective Notes of the 30th of
January, 13th of March, and by the Protocol of the 5th of March[120],
and that they look upon the submission formally made by Mehemet Ali as
absolute, and in consequence the Turco-Egyptian question
terminated[122].
Footnote 106:
See _Levant Papers_, Part III., p. 235.
Footnote 107:
See Vol. I., p. 249; Vol. II., p. 15.
Footnote 108:
See _Levant Papers_, Part III., p. 241.
Footnote 109:
Ibid., p. 263.
Footnote 110:
See _Levant Papers_, Part III., p. 326.
Footnote 111:
See _Levant Papers_, Part III., p. 321.
Footnote 112:
See these documents in the _Levant Papers_, Part III., pp. 341, 353.
Footnote 113:
See _Levant Papers_, Part III., p. 371.
Footnote 114:
See _Levant Papers_, Part III., p. 372.
Footnote 115:
Ibid., p. 374.
Footnote 116:
See _Levant Papers_, Part III., p. 378.
Footnote 117:
Ibid., p. 364.
Footnote 118:
See _Levant Papers_, Part III., p. 385.
Footnote 119:
Ibid., p. 382.
Footnote 120:
See _Levant Papers_, Part III., p. 389.
Footnote 121:
See pages 171, 244, 245.
Footnote 122:
See _Levant Papers_, Part III., p. 404.