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[Illustration: THE ENTRANCE TO THE BLACK SEA]
[Illustration: Oriental Series]
TURKEY
THE AWAKENING OF TURKEY
THE TURKISH REVOLUTION OF 1908
by
E. F. KNIGHT
Volume XXI
[Illustration: Crescent]
J. B. MILLET COMPANY
Boston and Tokyo
Copyright, 1910
By J. B. Millet Co.
The · Plimpton · Press
[W · D · O]
Norwood · Mass · U · S · A
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
EDITORIAL NOTE ix
I THE TURKISH PEOPLE 1
II ATROCITIES 15
III EARLY REFORMERS 25
IV THE SPREAD OF CORRUPTION 35
V THE SPREAD OF EDUCATION 54
VI THE RISE OF THE YOUNG TURKS 64
VII DISCONTENT IN THE ARMY 87
VIII THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE 101
IX HOW THE REVOLUTION BEGAN 118
X THE STANDARD OF REVOLT 133
XI THE INSURRECTION IN BULGARIA 152
XII THE PALACE AND THE GREEKS 169
XIII A BLOODLESS VICTORY 185
XIV THE COMMITTEE’S ULTIMATUM 198
XV AFTER THE REVOLUTION 207
XVI EUROPEAN ASSISTANCE 222
XVII MUTINOUS PALACE GUARDS 238
XVIII PREPARING FOR SELF-RULE 249
XIX A STRONG ARMY NEEDED 261
XX THE OPENING OF PARLIAMENT 281
XXI THE NEW SULTAN 297
INDEX 321
ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
The Entrance to the Black Sea _Frontispiece_
Imperial Palace of the Sweet Waters of Asia 64
Persian Market-woman in Street Dress 112
View of Constantinople 128
Chateau of Asia 224
View of Scutari 272
EDITORIAL NOTE
From the land of the Turks—Turkestan in Central Asia—there descended
beginning in A.D. 800 a series of hordes and armies which overran and
gradually took possession of that portion of South-Eastern Europe and
Western Asia once known as Turkey. After five hundred years Mohammed
II seized upon Constantinople, and that city became the capital of the
Turkish Empire;—for the next two hundred years the dominion spread
until it became an immense and important world-power. Then began a
period of decline; and vice and prodigality in harem and seraglio
brought about disruption and war. Russia saw her opportunity to extend
her borders towards the sea—and went on gaining Turkish territory
from early in the 18th until the middle of the 19th century when the
Crimean war crippled her power in that corner of Europe. But Turkey
could not hold the heterogeneous populations of her European provinces.
Insurrection after insurrection broke out and one by one she lost
many of the more important of them. She became bankrupt and a concert
of the European Powers proposed and partially carried out a scheme
for her reform. But she proved stubborn and went to war with Russia
in 1877-1878; this ended disastrously for her and more territory was
lost. In 1897, came the war with Greece in which she was successful. In
recent years after many vicissitudes the spread of the great awakening
of the people of Oriental lands has reached Turkey, and the story of
the newer political and social life in that country is related in this
volume in full and complete detail, from its inception until the famous
Revolution of 1908.
No one is better qualified to tell this story than Edward F. Knight,
who as a noted correspondent for one of the leading papers of London
has seen service in all the wars since 1895, his work having taken
him to South America, Africa, and Asia. In 1908, he was specially
commissioned to visit Turkey to study the conditions of the recent
revolution, and this book is the result of his exhaustive study.
The important position which Turkey occupies on the highway to the
Farther East from Europe has made it the subject of continuous
political intrigue by the nations of that continent. Its interesting
and romantic people and their despotic government; its natural
products, some of them unique; its picturesque and poetical language
and literature, are full of peculiar and absorbing interest, and no one
who wishes to keep abreast of the great world movements of our time can
afford to neglect this stirring work.
CHARLES WELSH.
TURKEY
CHAPTER I
_THE TURKISH PEOPLE_
Turkey, once so vast and powerful, has been undergoing a gradual
dismemberment for the last two centuries. Possession after possession
has been wrested from her in Europe, Asia, and Africa. On the mainland
of Europe, having lost Greece, Bulgaria, Roumania, Servia, Bosnia,
Croatia, and Herzegovina, as well as those regions on the northern
shores of the Black Sea (once a Turkish lake) which now form part of
Southern Russia, Turkey is left with but a narrow strip of territory
stretching across the centre of the Balkan Peninsula from the Black Sea
to the Adriatic.
The despotic system of government in Turkey worked well enough so long
as she was a conquering and expanding nation; but so soon as she ceased
to be this, and was hemmed in by Christian Powers strong enough to
check her advance, the system, being incompatible with progress, failed
to hold the Empire together and disintegration set in. The internal
disorders caused by the evils of her administration and the cupidity
and treachery of her powerful European neighbours threatened Turkey
with extinction. Russia and Austria waged successful wars against her
and possessed themselves of her frontier provinces, and at the same
time the disaffected Christian populations of European Turkey were
encouraged to rise and gain their independence. So it came about that
Greece, Bulgaria, and other kingdoms and principalities were carved out
of Turkey, and up to within a few months ago Christian peoples within
and without her frontiers were quarrelling over a further projected act
of spoliation that would indeed have been for Turkey the beginning of
the end—the partition of Macedonia.
For the oppression, corruption, and incompetence that characterised
their government the Turkish people themselves were held responsible
by a large section of public opinion in Western Europe. There is
a saying to the effect that a nation has the government which it
deserves, and this may be true if a nation is free to work out its
own salvation. But in the case of Turkey the people were allowed no
chance of obtaining the government which they deserved; for it was to
the interest of Turkey’s powerful enemies to conserve the evils of the
despotic rule, and whenever the Turks made an effort to put their house
in order some Christian Power, fearing lest a reformed Turkey might
prove a strong Turkey, fell upon her with armed force or stood in the
way of the projected changes. Moreover, the Powers that were bent upon
self-aggrandisement at Turkey’s expense saw to it that there should
be no peace within her borders and stirred up trouble, exciting the
Christian peasants to rise, and fomenting disturbances that might serve
as pretexts for a policy of intervention and annexation. No methods
were too unscrupulous for the Powers in question. For example, among
many other _agents provocateurs_ was a certain Dervish who, some years
ago, as the paid secret agent of Russia, acting under instructions,
preached a holy war against _giaours_ in Asia Minor and excited the
Mussulman population to attack the Christian inhabitants. One could
quote many other stories to illustrate the treachery of Turkey’s
enemies and the unfair treatment which has been accorded to her.
And so Turkey, by her own bad government and by the machinations of
those who lusted after the rich possessions that were still left to
her, was being steadily dragged down to her ruin. Even her best friends
despaired of her regeneration; for reform from _without_ administered
by the Powers would mean the loss of her independence, while reform
from _within_ seemed impossible of attainment. Turkey appeared to be
destined to early effacement from the map of Europe, when, lo! of a
sudden, the Turks themselves—all that was best and most patriotic of
the manhood of the Empire—came boldly forward to make a desperate last
stand in the defence of the integrity of their beloved fatherland. 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 have 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.
Those who know and therefore like and respect the Turkish people
rejoice that the ancient friendship between England and Turkey has
been restored, and that at last the English people are beginning to
realise the injustice that a large section of public opinion has
done to a noble race, for over thirty years. There was a time when
they understood the Turks better. During the Crimean war the British
officers had the opportunity of acquiring an intimate knowledge of
their allies; many firm friendships were then made which were kept up
through life, and so large and influential were the relations thus
brought about between the gentlemen of the two countries that they
directed English diplomacy in Turkish affairs for many years. It may
seem, and it ought to be, unnecessary to preface this little work
with an explanation of what manner of men these Turks are; but so
grossly have they been misrepresented, and so widespread has been the
misconception concerning them, that a few words on this subject may not
be out of place.
Five and a half centuries have passed since the Mussulman Turks—a
Central-Asian people akin to the Mongols—having seized the Asiatic
possessions of the decaying Byzantine Empire, crossed the Bosphorus
and, extending their conquests, established themselves firmly in
Europe. It is possible that in Asia Minor peasants of pure Turkish
blood may still be found, but in European Turkey—that “lumber room
of many races”—the strong and noble Turkish stock has been so
largely intermingled with a number of other races that the racial
characteristics of the Osmanli have practically disappeared. It is more
rare to find features of the Mongolian stamp among the modern Turks
than among the Christian peoples over whom they rule. The Bulgarians,
for example, though speaking a Slav tongue and generally considered as
a Slav people, often have the flat faces, the projecting cheek-bones,
the small oblique eyes, that betray their descent from the nomads of
the Asiatic steppes.
There are no handsomer people in Europe than the Turks, for here the
crossing of many virile breeds has resulted in the development of a
very fine race of men. The modern Turk is a Caucasian of the highest
type, and combines in himself some of the best qualities of the East
and West. It is true that some of his Eastern qualities stand in the
way of what the energetic Western world calls progress. The Turk
is improvident and often a spendthrift; he is a fatalist, enduring
patiently whatever ill fortune or suffering fate may bring him, but
displaying an indolent indisposition to struggle against destiny. _Dieu
aide qui s’aide_ expresses a motive for action which is opposed to his
Moslem fatalism. But difficult though he may be to rouse to effort,
once roused he displays great energy and stubbornness of purpose, as
has been recently proved to the world by the careful preparation and
determined carrying through of the Turkish revolution. At any rate,
the faults of the Turks are for the most part amiable ones, and most
people who have travelled in the Near East will agree with an authority
on the politics of that region, who replied as follows to a question
put to him by an interviewer: “The men that I liked best among all
that I met in the East were Turks. In some respects the Turk struck me
as more like an Englishman and more like a gentleman than any of the
other races except the Magyars. He is a quiet, manly fellow, with great
repose and charm of manner, and does not wear his heart on his sleeve.
Europeans who live in the country look on the Turk as an honest man and
a man of his word.”
It must be remembered that the corrupt officialdom created by the
Palace, which had a degrading influence on everything in touch with it,
is not representative of the Turkish people. The typical Turk possesses
the virtues and the failings of a conquering and dominant race. He
is courageous, truthful, and honest amid races not conspicuous for
truthfulness or honesty, some of which are likewise lacking in courage.
The Turk, moreover, is shrewd and gifted with common sense, and he is
not a visionary, as are the Arabs and some other peoples holding the
Moslem faith. He has not the quick wits of some European peoples, and
may perhaps be described as being somewhat stupid, in the same sense
that the Englishman is stupid in the eyes of a neighbouring, brighter
race; but this same stupidity, or whatever else we may call it, happily
has preserved the Turk from the seeing of visions, and consequently no
impossible ideals, no wild dreams for the reconstruction of society,
have led his practical and common-sense revolution into those dreadful
roads of bloodshed and anarchy which more imaginative nations,
shrieking liberty, have blindly followed to tyrannies more oppressive
than the worst of despotisms.
Those who know him best also claim that the Turk is hospitable,
temperate, devoid of meanness, sincere in his friendships—once he is
your friend he is always your friend—and, though his enemies have
represented him as very much the reverse, gentle and humane. Of the
steadfastness of his friendship I have had experience. When a Turk is
your friend you can implicitly trust him, even though he be, what the
conditions of his country have sometimes made him, a murderous outlaw.
I have had friends among Turkish brigands myself, and Sir William
Whittall, who knows the Turks as well as any Englishman can, writes in
the following sympathetic way of his robber friend Redjeb: “Peace be
to his ashes! He is dead now. Brigand or no brigand, I had a sincere
admiration for the man as a man. His faithfulness was like unto that of
a dog, and he saved my life at the risk of his own. I have had many
incidents with brigands in Asia Minor during my fifty years of sport,
and I must say that as long as they were Turks, and I had assisted some
friends or villages of theirs, which I always made it a point to do
when I frequented the wild regions, I never feared any accidents; and
though I might often have been taken, I never was. I would not like to
trust Christian brigands in the same fashion.”
Gentleness and humanity are among the most marked characteristics of
the Turk. With his ferocity in war when his passions are roused I
shall deal later, but of his kindliness and charity in his dealings
with his fellow-men there can be no doubt. In no European country
are animals treated so kindly as they are in Turkey. A Turk never
ill-uses his horse or his ox or his domestic pets, and the wonderful
tameness of these creatures in Turkey testifies to this good trait.
In Constantinople the pariah dogs lie about the streets in their tens
of thousands; they live partly on garbage and partly on the scraps of
food which even very poor Turks put out for them. These dogs, though
fighting among themselves, display nothing but friendship for, and
confidence in, man. They never move for one as they sprawl across the
narrow pavements, for they know that no Turk would have the heart to
kick them out of the way. A few years ago an American offered a very
large sum for the right to clear Constantinople of its pariah dogs,
his object being to sell their skins to the glove makers. The populace
raised a howl of indignation when they heard of this, and had not
the scheme been abandoned serious riots would have occurred. There is
no need for a society for the prevention of cruelty to animals in a
Turkish town.
It has often been maintained by the enemies of the Turk that his
Mohammedan fanaticism makes his continued occupation of any portion of
Christian Europe undesirable. But in justice to the votaries of the
Moslem creed one ought to bear in mind, in the first place, that early
Mohammedanism never persecuted the Christian religion in the ferocious
fashion that Christianity persecuted Mohammedanism, as for example in
Spain. The Moslems were taught that it was their duty to convert or
exterminate the idolatrous heathen, but to respect “the people of the
book.” Did not Mohammed himself spread his cloak upon the ground for
the Christian envoys who came to him, treating them with honour; and
do not the Mussulmans believe that on the day of judgment the Judge
will be Jesus Christ, while the Prophet Mohammed will stand at His
side as the Intercessor? When the Turks conquered the territories of
the Christians they did not massacre the Christians, neither as a rule
did they enslave them, and they did not interfere with their religion;
under the more equitable Moslem rule the conquered Greeks found
themselves less heavily taxed and generally better off than they had
been under the rule of the emperors of the decaying Byzantine Empire.
To Jews also, as being worshippers of the one God, they extended a like
tolerance; and it was to Turkey—where they are numerous and prosperous
and still speak an old Spanish dialect—that the Jews fled when they
were driven out of Spain by the persecutions of Ferdinand and Isabella.
That later on the Mohammedans developed a fierce anti-Christian
fanaticism is largely due to centuries of political conflict with
Christian peoples, and to the many wars that have been fought to
defend Islam against the never-ceasing aggressions of Europe. Within
the Turkish Empire itself, for example in Arabia and in Northern
Albania, dangerously fanatical Moslem populations are to be found, but
these are not people of Turkish blood. The majority of the Turks of
any education, though religious, are not fanatics, and on this very
account are regarded as indifferent Mussulmans and often frankly called
_kafirs_ by the bigoted Arabs. Of all the various peoples who inhabit
Turkey the Mussulman Turks are undoubtedly the least intolerant. The
Christians of different sects there hate each other as no Turk hates a
Christian and no Christian hates a Turk. The orthodox Greeks and the
Bulgarian schismatics in Macedonia employ all methods of barbarism
in their persecutions of each other. When Bulgaria formed part of
Turkey the Bulgarians had often to petition the Turks to protect them
against the fanatical Greeks. The Catholic Latins, too, in Turkey,
being in a minority, would doubtless have been exterminated by their
fellow-Christians had it not been for the protection extended to them
by the Turks, with the result that they are grateful and loyal to the
Ottoman rule. The recent revolution appears to have brushed away almost
completely what religious fanaticism there was still left among the
Mohammedan Turks, and the Young Turks themselves, the deliverers of the
nation and its real rulers, are entirely free from it. I have conversed
with hundreds of these Young Turks and have many friends among them,
and in no country have I come across more broad-minded and tolerant
men. There is no doubt that Islamism has of late years undergone a
modernising process, thereby gaining strength. The Sheikh-ul-Islam
himself, as head of the _Ulema_—the Doctors of Law whose duty it is to
interpret the judicial precepts of the Koran, and who have hitherto
composed the most fanatical and conservative element in Turkey—has been
at great pains to impress it upon the Mussulman people, upon whom from
his position he exercises such great influence that the Constitution
which has been granted to them, though introducing the principle of
complete equality between Mussulmans, Christians, and Jews, is quite in
accordance with the teachings of the Koran.
As I find myself embarked on this somewhat long defence of the Turkish
people I may as well deal with another popular misconception concerning
them. It is often urged that the Mohammedan institution of polygamy,
with its consequent degradation of women, is incompatible with the
progress or with the moral and mental well-being of a race, and that
this by itself makes the Turk unfit to rule in Europe. Now it must be
remembered that many distinct races profess the Mohammedan religion,
and that some of these are barbarian and others decadent, even as
are some of the races that profess Christianity; but it is not fair,
because the Turks happen to be Mussulmans, that they should be credited
with the faults and vices of some other Mussulman peoples. I have no
intention of discussing the effects of polygamy, but I may point out
that the Turk, unlike the Arab, appears to be not really polygamous by
nature, and that whatever may happen in some other Moslem lands there
is no degradation of the women in Turkey. The Turkish peasant women
are as far from being degraded as any other women of their class in
Europe. It may astonish some Englishmen to learn that the simple-living
Turk of the upper and middle classes, though his religion permits him
to marry four wives, rarely marries more than one. Of the Young Turks
whom I have met, not one, I believe, has more than one wife, and I
have heard several of them speak with disapproval of the custom of
polygamy. English ladies who have friends among the Turkish ladies have
told us how refined, charming, and—in these latter days—well educated
they are. As most Turkish gentlemen retain the old customs in their
family life, the Englishman visiting the house of a Turkish friend
has no opportunity of seeing his wife, but his little daughters up
to the age of about twelve years are usually brought in by the proud
father to see the visitor, just as they might be in England, when
the pretty manners, the intelligence, and the careful education which
they have evidently received (they nearly always speak French or some
other European language) tell their own tale. The constant and deep
veneration which a Turk entertains for his mother through life belies
the nonsense that is sometimes talked concerning the condition of the
women in Turkey. The Turkish woman, too, respected and trusted, is
much freer than most people in this country imagine, and, as I shall
explain later on, the revolution largely owed its success to her brave
co-operation.
One ought to be able to form some idea of the character of a people
from its literature. Turkish literature, the classical form of which
was borrowed from that of Persia, has, like many other things in
Turkey, been undergoing a process of modernisation; it has for some
years been under the influence of Western, more especially of French,
literature; and simplicity and lucidity in the expression of thought
has taken the place of the intentional obscurity and artificiality that
characterise Oriental writing. Mr. Stanley Lane Poole, in the Turkey
volume of the excellent “The Story of the Nations” series, concludes
his chapter on Turkish men of letters as follows: “The tone of the
imaginative literature of modern Turkey is very tender and very sad.
The Ottoman poets of to-day love chiefly to dwell upon such themes as
a fading flower, or a girl dying of decline; and though admiration of
a recent French school may have something to do with this, the fancy
forces itself upon us, when we read those sweet and plaintive verses,
that a brave but gentle-hearted people, looking forward to its future
without fear, but without hope, may be seeking, perhaps unconsciously,
to derive what sad comfort it may from the thought that all beautiful
life must end in dismal death.” I have met some of these modern Turkish
poets, very manly fellows, though their work has the melancholy tinge
described above, for which, in my opinion, a long political exile in a
foreign land and sorrows for the evil fortunes of their beloved country
are largely responsible. But now the days of Turkey’s mourning are
over, and the more recent poems of these men, who are sturdy patriots
and not decadents, are beginning to reflect the triumph, enthusiasm,
and hope which have characterised the Young Turks since their
successful revolt against the despotism.