_MUTINOUS PALACE GUARDS_
It is not within the scope of this work to deal with the foreign
complications which followed the Turkish revolution. Suffice it to
say that the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the beginning of
October had the effect of striking what might well have proved to be
a deadly blow at the party of reform in Turkey. It was the old story
of an ambitious Christian Power, fearing lest a reformed Turkey might
become a strong Turkey, treacherously obstructing her path of progress.
Austria’s action gave the reactionaries their last chance of bringing
back the old order of things, and they fully availed themselves of it.
“These Young Turks,” they were able to say to the people, “used the
preservation of the integrity of the Empire as their watchword when
they rebelled against the Padisha; and lo! the first thing that happens
after they get the power is the complete separation from Turkey of
Bosnia and Herzegovina, a declaration of independence on the part of
the Bulgarians and a separatist movement in Crete!” These arguments
produced a considerable effect upon the ignorant, who blamed the
reformers for what had happened and clamoured for rulers strong enough
to protect Turkey against her foreign foes.
The reactionaries were wholly unscrupulous in their methods and were
prepared to plunge their country into a disastrous war if by so doing
they could restore the Despotism. Ex-spies and other reactionaries made
demonstrations in favour of war with Austria in some of the mosques of
the capital; they posted placards on the walls of the city by night,
calling upon Mussulmans to massacre the Christians; and everywhere they
attempted to foment disorder so as to discredit the Young Turk rule
as leading to a state of anarchy. But the Young Turks knew that the
preservation of peace abroad and order at home was of vital importance,
and they displayed a firmness that soon made their position stronger
than it had ever been.
In the first place, so as to overawe the reactionary party and the
untrustworthy Yildiz soldiery, they garrisoned the capital with a large
force of Macedonian troops loyal to the Constitution, who could be
relied upon to suppress a rising in the firmest manner. Loyal troops
were also employed to police the city; all reactionary assemblies were
stopped and the agitators were cast into prison.
The machinations of the reactionaries, however, produced some effect.
For a considerable time Constantinople was in an overwrought and
nervous condition, and various incidents inspired the Christian
inhabitants with a great dread of impending peril. These Greeks,
Armenians, Levantines, and others, timid of nature after their ages
of oppression, suffered from an epidemic of panic, acute fits of which
were daily brought about by very small causes. Thus, one day at about
this time, as I was walking through the Grand Bazaar in Stamboul I
witnessed the following incident which showed the jumpy condition of
the population. A man, revolver in hand, chased by soldiers and others,
suddenly appeared, running at full speed through the crowded lanes
of the Bazaar. This was quite enough to start a panic. Like wildfire
spread the report that the Moslem mob, stirred up by the Softas, had
at last commenced the massacre of the Christians. The scene was indeed
an extraordinary one. Men and women turned pallid, wrung their hands,
wept and howled, and there was a general stampede for the shelter
of the houses. People ran into their own or other shops, doors were
bolted, bars were drawn, shutters were closed, and in a trice what had
been a busy mart had become empty and silent as a city of the dead,
and remained so until Sami Pasha, the Minister of Police, came down to
reassure the frightened Greek and Armenian traders. It turned out that
the origin of this widespread panic was merely the endeavouring of a
vender of contraband tobacco to escape from the soldiers who had been
sent to arrest him.
On another morning the terrifying rumour spread from end to end of the
city that the Second Division of the Imperial Guard, stationed at the
Tashkishla Barracks, outside the Yildiz Palace, had mutinied under
the leadership of the reactionaries, and were engaged in a sanguinary
struggle with the Constitutional troops from Salonica. The facts had
been grossly exaggerated but the incident was significant enough.
This Second Division of the Imperial Guard, about seven thousand
strong, including the Sultan’s faithful Albanian Body-guard, had
for its post the neighbourhood of the Yildiz Palace. These troops,
officered by men risen from their own ranks, who protected the person
of the Sultan, had been ever pampered and spoilt; their discipline
was very slack, and their loyalty to the Constitution was doubtful.
Consequently the Minister of War, who by virtue of a recent _Iradé_
was empowered for the first time to despatch the regiments of this
favoured Division to any part of the Empire, decided to remove by
degrees from Constantinople some of the battalions of the Division and
to replace them with loyal, well-disciplined troops from Salonica. So
in the first place two battalions of the Yildiz Guards, to the great
disgust of the men, were ordered to those disagreeable stations, the
Hedjaz and Yemen, in distant Arabia, where they could work no mischief.
Eighty-eight of the men, who had but three months more to serve with
the colours, claimed their immediate discharge and clamoured to be sent
to their homes. As this request was not granted they mutinied and,
coming out of their barracks, fired upon the Salonica troops who had
come to replace them. The fire was returned, three sergeants among the
mutineers were shot dead, others were wounded, and the remainder were
captured. The Commandant of the Guards Corps then called out several
regiments of the Guards, formed them in a hollow square, and addressed
them briefly, explaining to them that the Government, while determined
to improve the lot of all Turkish soldiers, would punish severely any
act of indiscipline. The prisoners, many of whom begged for mercy,
crying out that they had been led astray by others, were brought within
the square, and the Commandant told them that they would be tried by
court-martial. The ringleaders were afterwards shot. The troops of the
Imperial Guard on numerous previous occasions had displayed a similar
mutinous spirit, but the timid authorities had always overlooked the
most flagrant breaches of discipline and yielded to the clamour of the
men. The prompt and firm action taken by the Minister of War on this
occasion cut short what might have developed into a serious revolt, and
reassured the timid civilian population. It was recognised that this
was no time for those in power to display weakness.
The Palace troops had thus been taught a useful lesson, and the
Committee of Union and Progress still further secured its position
by seeing to it that the bulk of the Imperial Guards battalions were
scattered in sections over different parts of the Empire. Moreover,
the General commanding the Second Division, a friend of the Sultan’s,
was forced to retire from the army, and the command was given to
an officer known to be loyal to the Constitution. Steps were also
taken to introduce a better class of officers into the remaining
Yildiz regiments. The Committee showed that it was determined to be
the master. The General commanding the Cavalry Division of Guards
and several other officers were imprisoned for agitating against the
proposed supersession of officers who had been promoted from the ranks
by those who had passed through the military academies; and other
officers of the Yildiz garrison were severely punished for attempting
to cause disaffection among the rank and file in the interests of the
reactionary party. The Committee won the admiration and confidence of
all right-thinking men by the way in which it exercised its great power
for the country’s good.
It was very interesting to be in Constantinople during that critical
time and to watch the replacement of the old order of things by
the new, to see constitutional government developing itself before
one’s eyes within the space of days instead of centuries. Everywhere
one could contemplate the old and new facing each other in strong
contrast, and to attend, as I did on the Friday following the military
mutiny, the Selamlik in the morning and visit the head-quarters of
the Committee of Union and Progress in the afternoon, was to rush, as
it were, on Mr. Wells’ “time machine,” from the Middle Ages to the
twentieth century.
Every tourist who visits Constantinople has witnessed the Selamlik,
the Sultan’s procession from the Yildiz Palace on each Friday to
worship at the Hamidieh Mosque, and the ceremony has been described
many times. This particular Friday’s ceremony had a special interest,
and the spectacle was one to make one think. I joined the throng of
foreigners at the gates of the Yildiz, and awaited the passing of the
procession. Here, from the steep hill, there is a beautiful view which
forms a wonderful setting to the solemn function. In the immediate
foreground, but a couple of hundred yards or so distant, is the white
mosque itself; to the right stretch the heights on which Pera stands;
below is the gleaming Bosphorus; and beyond it are the misty mountains
of Asia, forming a noble background to the scene. There was much of
interest to look upon as one awaited the coming out of the Sultan—among
other things the gathering of the picturesque Moslem crowd; the
arrival of successive detachments of troops with bands playing and
colours flying in the breeze; and the massing of the troops along the
short line of route and on the open space beyond. A greater number of
troops than usual, about eight thousand men, were brought out on this
occasion, and after the ceremony they were paraded and marched to the
Palace, at a window of which the Sultan stood and acknowledged their
salute. I watched the troops of all arms march up to the Palace, the
tough-looking, red-fezzed, blue-coated Infantry of the Line, Artillery,
Cavalry, Marines, and Engineers. There were troops, too, from every
part of the Ottoman Empire, including the fierce and faithful Albanians
of the Prætorian Guard, in white uniforms fashioned after their
national dress, with wicked-looking yataghans slung across their
waists; and Arabian troops in queer uniforms and green turbans; and
they looked like what they indeed are, as formidable as any soldiery
in the world when properly trained and led. It was a sign of the times
that the first regimental band to arrive on the scene began to play,
not the National Anthem, but the “March of Liberty,” which had been
composed specially for the troops of the new _régime_, and the sound
of it must have been scarcely pleasing to some ears within the Palace
walls.
At last the _muezzin_ from the minaret of the mosque chanted the call
of the faithful to prayer, and the procession, passing through the
Palace gates, slowly proceeded down the steep road, between the troops,
to the entrance of the mosque, the Sultan’s approach being announced by
the blowing of a trumpet and the shouting by the soldiers “_Padishahim
chok yasha!_” (“long live the Emperor!”). I need not describe the
well-known scene; there were, as usual, the officers in gorgeous
uniforms; high officials of the Palace and the Government, among whom
one recognised some few of the old _régime_, but none of the notorious
instruments of oppression and cruelty, or the corrupt advisers who
had ruined their country (for, happily, all these had gone, some
having fled from the people’s wrath to England, others living under
close watch on the island of Prinkipo, and others prisoners in the
Seraskeriat); the led saddle horses; the white-veiled Mohammedan ladies
of the Palace in close carriages; the ungainly black eunuchs walking
with folded arms, not so insolent as of old, and no doubt fearful as
to what might happen to them under the new _régime_ which had done
away with their mischievous influence; and lastly, escorted by mounted
troops, in an open carriage, with the Grand Vizier facing him, came he
who is the head of the Moslem world, the nominal ruler of the Ottoman
Empire, the Sultan Abdul Hamid himself, his face imperturbable as he
acknowledged the salute and trained acclamation of his legionaries. But
it was a procession in which one seemed to be looking at the shadow of
that from which Turkey has now delivered herself; one felt that all
this pomp was but the empty shell of that which is now a dead thing.
Then, in the afternoon, I visited the head-quarters of the Young
Turk party in Stamboul. Having crossed the Golden Horn by the Galata
Bridge, and traversed the intricate lanes of the Grand Bazaar, I came
to a quiet street of somewhat mean appearance, and in an unpretentious
house, almost bare of furniture, I found the temporary meeting-place
of the Committee of Union and Progress, the virtual Government of
the Ottoman Empire. Here there was no pomp or ceremony; one might
have been in the offices of some struggling architect in a third-rate
London suburb. There was a room in which members of the organisation
met in an informal manner to discuss their plans, and to put forth
those suggestions which had to be obeyed by the ministers. There were
other rooms in which men awaited their turn to have interviews with
members of the Committee, and chambers in which one might carry on long
conversations, as I did on several occasions, with courteous Young
Turks ready to impart all such information regarding this wonderful
movement as it was not deemed inexpedient to divulge.
I found these young Mussulmans who had freed Turkey quite unlike the
conventional conspirators and revolutionaries. These were well-educated
and thoughtful men, keen and energetic, with the light of resolve and
great hope in their eyes betraying the enthusiasm which lay under their
Turkish reserve and phlegm. The more I saw of the Young Turks the
more I was impressed by their patriotism, their manliness, and their
sincerity. There are naturally some over-confident Chauvinists in the
party, but the bulk are men of shrewd common sense, as has been made
manifest to the world by their moderation after victory, and their
tactful methods of conducting the government of a disorganised country,
and maintaining order throughout the Empire in the face of tremendous
difficulties of every description.
All the members of the Committee of Union and Progress with whom I came
into contact, whether in the capital or in Salonica, whether soldiers
or civilians, were enlightened men, most of whom had travelled and
studied in Western Europe, and had assimilated what is best of Western
culture. Thus among the civilian members of the Committee are men
who would gain distinction in any country, such as Ahmed Riza, for
many years the chief organiser of the Young Turk movement in Paris,
the President of the Chamber; Djavid Bey, the professor; Aassim Bey,
the strenuous editor of the _Shura-i-Ummet_, the official organ of
the Committee, who took a leading part in preparing the revolution
in Salonica; Rahmi Bey, a wealthy Salonican who was long in exile, a
descendant of the Saracen warrior who conquered Thessalonica from the
Latins five hundred years ago. The military members of the Committee,
officers of the _état-major_, have passed through the military schools,
or have been educated in France or Germany, and most of them, like the
civilian members, speak foreign languages. Among them are distinguished
men like Colonel Faik Bey, and Enver Bey, now the popular hero of the
Turks. Another member of the Committee is Turkey’s ablest artillery
officer, General Hassan Riza Pasha, an old friend of mine in a way,
for I discovered, on talking to him, that he was with the Epirus army
during the Greek war, and that it was under the uncomfortable fire of
his guns that I remained with the eccentric, but harmless, Greek army
on the heights of Arta, and on one occasion narrowly escaped being
killed by one of his shells.