Political Position of the Turks—Religion of the
Osmanlis—Absence of Vice among the Lower Orders—Defect of
Turkish Character—European Supineness—Policy of
Russia—England and France—A Turkish Comment on England—The
Government and the People—Common Virtue—Great Men—Turks of
the Provinces—European Misconceptions.
The more I see of the Turks, the more I am led to regret their
melancholy political position. Enabled, by the introductions which I had
secured, to look more closely into their actual condition from the
commencement of my sojourn among them, than falls to the lot of most
travellers, I have been compelled from day to day to admit the justice
of their indignation against those European powers, which, after
deluding them with promises that they have failed to fulfil, and pledges
that they have falsified, have reduced them to anchor their hopes, and
to fasten their trust, upon a government whose interests can be served
only by the ruin of the Ottoman Empire, and the subjugation of its
liberties. Take them for all in all, there probably exist no people
upon earth more worthy of national prosperity than the great mass of the
Turkish population; nor better qualified, alike by nature and by social
feeling, to earn it for themselves.
The Osmanli is unostentatiously religious. He makes the great principles
of his belief the rule of his conduct, and refers every thing to a
higher power than that of man. I am aware that it is the fashion to
decry the creed of the Turk, and to place it almost on a level with
paganism: but surely this is an error unworthy of the nineteenth
century, and of the liberality of Englishmen. The practice of a religion
which enforces the necessity of prayer and charity—which is tolerant of
all opposing modes of worship—and which enjoins universal brotherhood,
can scarcely be contemptible. And while the Christian, enlightened on
the great truths that are hidden from the Mahomeddan, is compelled to
pity the darkness of a faith which admits not the light of the Gospel,
he must nevertheless admire the votary who, acting according to his
ideas of duty, follows up the injunctions of his religion with a devout
zeal, and an unwearied observance that influence all his social
relations; and this is a merit which even their enemies have never, I
believe, denied to the Turks.
From this great first principle emanates the philosophy both of feeling
and action that distinguishes the Osmanli from the native of all other
countries; and this philosophy renders him comparatively inaccessible to
those petty, but myriad excitements of selfishness and political bigotry
which keep the more active and ambitious spirit of European society for
ever on the _qui vive_. I am by no means prepared to deny, that from
this very quality arises the extreme intellectual and moral inertness
which induces the Turks to rely more on extraneous assistance than on
their own efforts, in all cases of emergency: I am merely endeavouring
to prove that they possess within themselves the necessary elements of
social order, and national prosperity.
The absence of all glaring vices, even among the lowest ranks of the
community; save indeed such as they have inherited from their more
civilized allies, and appropriated with the same awkwardness as they
have done their costume, speaks volumes for the Turkish people. A Turk
never games, never fights, never blasphemes; is guiltless of murder; is
innocent of theft; and has yet to learn that poverty is a crime, or even
a reproach; or that the rich man can shut his doors against the
mendicant who asks to share his meal.
Were I desired to point out the most glaring defect of the Turkish
character, I should unhesitatingly specify the want of sincerity and
good faith. I am obliged to concede that the Turk is habitually
false—that he sacrifices his truth to fine phrases, and to set
terms—that he is profuse of promises, and magnificent in words. But it
is nevertheless certain that he himself looks upon all these splendid
pledges as mere compliment; and scarcely appears to reflect that a Frank
may be induced to lend to them a more weighty meaning. I had not been
long in the country ere I learnt to estimate all this hyperbole at its
just value; and once having done so, I found reason to feel grateful for
many unexpected and unsought courtesies. Profit by the first kindly
impulses of a Turk, and you will be his debtor; but trust nothing to his
memory, for he will fail you.
Let not individual bad faith, however, be too harshly blamed in a people
who have suffered so severely as the Turks from the same vice, in their
best and dearest interests; on the part, not only of individuals, but of
nations—of those civilized and enlightened nations, to which they
looked alike for precept and example; and which they have found wanting.
Naturally haughty and self-centered, the Osmanli placed his honour and
his liberty in the hands of his European allies. They were pledged to
preserve both—and it was not until the Banner of the Crescent was
trailing in the dust; and a half-barbarous power bearding the Sultan in
his very halls of state, that the unwelcome truth burst upon him that
his trust had been misplaced. The discovery was made too late—made when
he had no alternative—the supineness of the Turk was no match for the
subtlety of the Russian; it was a combat unequal in all its bearings;
and dangerous to the Osmanli in all its relations. The natural result
followed: Turkey was bowed beneath a force too mighty for her to resist;
the partial civilization of the North produced its effect on the
comparative barbarism of the East; and the Turk, dazzled and deluded,
bewildered by the speciousness of a policy that he could not fathom, and
consequently did not suspect; abandoned by the European powers on whose
assistance he had relied; and unable singly either to resist the covert
threats, or to reject the proffered friendship of this voluntary ally,
fell into the snare which had been laid for him, and betrayed his want
of internal strength to his most dangerous enemy.
The policy of Russia has been as steady and consistent as it is
ambitious. What a prophet was the Empress Catherine! How perfectly she
foretold the fate of Turkey. While all the other nations have suffered
their interest in the Ottoman Empire to evaporate in words, and have
flaunted their oratory in the eye of day, Russia has never betrayed
herself by studied phrases to the crowd; but like the giant in the
fable, she has drawn on her seven-league boots, and strode silently
over land and sea to her object. She has set all her engines to work;
and they have wrought well. She has spared neither gold nor flattery.
She has enlisted in her favour all the social feelings of the Turks. And
the little presents of the Empress to the children of certain popular
Pashas; and the embroidery said to have been wrought by her own Imperial
hand, and sent to the ladies of their harems, are as efficacious in
their way as the diamonds, the horses, and the carriages presented to
the Sultan; or the pensions paid to half a dozen influential individuals
of the court.
Alas for Turkey! Her relative position with her specious ally resembles
that of a huge animal in the coil of a Boa Constrictor, which must be
smoothed down gently and gradually, ere it can be safely gorged. Its
fate is but protracted; the moment of ingurgitation will come at last;
and when the serpent-folds are uncoiled, and the sated monster lies
luxuriously down to digest its prey, those who have looked on, and
pledged themselves to the impossibility of the feat, will find too late
that it is not only perfectly practicable, but actually accomplished.
And yet France has her countless soldiery—and England her unrivalled
navy—both eager to earn new glory. England and France, on whom the
Osmanlis leaned with a perfect faith, and by both of whom they have
been abandoned—Where is the chivalry of the one, and the philanthropy
of the other?
A Turk of high rank and considerable abilities; who had an understanding
to observe, and a heart to feel the position of his country, was one day
conversing with me on her foreign political relations, when he exclaimed
with a sudden burst of unaffected energy:—“France has failed us, it is
true; but France has been at least comparatively honest in her
supineness. She has never affected a wish to become the foster-mother of
the world—But England—England, Madam, which has boasted of her
universal philanthropy—which has knocked away the fetters of millions
of the blacks—England, not contented while among her Nobles, in her
House of Commons, and even at the very meetings of her lower classes,
she was making a vaunt of her all-embracing love, and of her sympathy
with the oppressed—not contented with seeing Poland weep tears of
blood, and only cease to exist when the last nerves of her heart had
been wrung asunder—Your own happy England; secure in her prosperity and
in her power, is now standing tamely by, while the vast Ottoman
Empire—the gorgeous East, which seems to have been made for glory and
for greatness—is trampled by a power like Russia! She might have saved
us—She might save us yet—Where is her gallant navy? Where are her
floating fortresses? But, above all, where is the heart which has so
many hands to work its will?—Is it the expence of a war from which she
shrinks? Surely her policy is not so shallow; for she cannot require to
be told how deeply her commercial interests must be compromised by the
success of Russia.—But I will not pursue so painful a subject.—As
individuals we respect the English; but their political character is
lost in the East—we have no longer faith in England.”
These were not, at all events, the arguments of a “barbarian:” and the
more closely and unprejudicedly that Europeans permit themselves to
examine the Turkish character, the more they will find that justice has
never yet been done to it; and that Turkey merits their support as fully
by her moral attributes, as by her geographical position.
It is not by her Nobles, by her Ministers, nor by her Government, that
she should be judged—Her court and her people are as distinct as though
they were of two different nations. They have, however, one common
virtue, which is carried to an extent that must be witnessed by the
natives of the West, ere it can be understood. Every one who has visited
Turkey will perceive at once that I allude to their unbounded
hospitality. The table of the greatest man in Constantinople is open to
the poorest, whenever he chooses to avail himself of it. As he salutes
the master of the house on entering, he is received with the simple word
_Bouroum_—You are welcome,—and he takes his place without further
ceremony. In the villages the same beautiful principle remains
unaltered; and it signifies not how little an individual may have to
give, he always gives it cheerfully, and as a matter of course; without
appearing conscious that he is exercising a virtue, practised scantily
and reservedly in more civilized countries.
If a Turk wishes to shew a courtesy to his guest, or to a stranger with
whom he may have accidentally come in contact, he does so in a manner
which revolts the more refined ideas of a Frank; but which is
nevertheless induced by this same feeling of brotherhood and fellowship.
His chibouk is his greatest luxury; and when he is not engaged in an
employment that renders the indulgence difficult or impossible, it is
for ever between his lips: and his first act of friendliness is to
withdraw it thence, and offer it to his companion.—He estimates its
enjoyment, and he immediately wishes to communicate it. These are
perhaps slight traits—details that appear unimportant—but human
character is composed of details—fine shades, which however faint in
themselves, are nevertheless necessary to the perfect effect of the
whole. It is easy to seize a prominent object. Glaring vices and
striking virtues force themselves upon the notice; and are consequently
ever the ready subject of comment. And it is from this fact that the
Turks have suffered in European estimation. They are singularly
unobtrusive in their social relations: they do not seek to exhibit their
moral attributes; and they practice daily those domestic virtues which
grow out of the tolerance and kindliness of their nature without
troubling themselves to consider whether they do so at moments when they
may become subject of comment. Thus it is that they have never been
supposed to feel, or feeling to encourage, those minute but
multitudinous social courtesies, which, if each amount not in itself to
a positive virtue, at least is part and parcel of one, and lends itself
to the completion of an aggregate that well deserves the name.
Those who have only made an acquaintance with the Turkish character in
the persons of the great men of the Capital, have not possessed the
means of witnessing the daily practice of these endearing qualities. It
is not among the haughty, the selfish, and the ambitious of any nation,
that the bland and beautiful features of human nature can be
contemplated. Nothing atrophises the heart like luxury—nothing deadens
the feelings like the strife and struggle for power:—and in the East,
where a man’s fortune is ever built up upon the ruin of his neighbour,
and where he springs into his seat with his foot upon the neck of a
worsted rival, it were worse than folly to expect that the social
virtues can be encouraged and exhibited among the great. But the Turk of
the provinces is a being of a different order: a creature of calm
temperament, and philosophic content; who labours in his vocation with a
placid brow and a quiet heart; who honours his mother, protects his
wife, and idolizes his children; is just in his dealings, sober in his
habits, and unpretendingly pious; and whose board and hearth are alike
free to those who desire to share them.
Such, if I have read them aright, (and, above all, if I may rely on the
judgment of unbiassed and impartial individuals, more competent than
myself to form a correct estimate of their general character) are the
great mass of the Turkish people. Their defective government is the
incubus that weighs them down; while the luxurious habits of their
nobles induce extortion which withers their exertions, and in a great
degree negatives the benefit of their industry. But these are evils
which are not beyond remedy; “the schoolmaster” who has been so long
abroad in Europe, has already given hints of travelling to the far East;
and there are now several individuals connected with the Ottoman
Government who comprehend the vice of the system, and are anxious to
eradicate the mischief. The outcry of corruption and venality has been
raised, and the correctness of the implication has been admitted; while
few have discovered that attempts are already making to overcome the
long-standing reproach; and all must acknowledge that this Sisyphus-like
task will require time and patience, and moreover opportunity and
encouragement, to secure its completion.
It is not, I repeat, by the members of a government, driven to unworthy
acts on the one hand, and deceived by smiling sophistries on the other,
that the people of Turkey should be estimated; and it is comparatively
unfortunate for them as a nation, that it is precisely upon these
persons that the attention is first fixed. The natural consequence
ensues, that, where Europeans, rather glancing at the country than
seeing it, possess neither time, opportunity, nor it may be even
inclination, to look deeper; they carry away with them an erroneous
impression of the mass, as unjust as it is unfortunate; an impression
which they propagate at home, and in which they become strengthened by
the very repetition of their own assertions; nor is it difficult to
account in this way for the very erroneous, contradictory, and absurd
notions, entertained in Europe on the subject of the Turks. Individuals
have been cited as examples of a body, with which they probably
possessed not one common feature, save that of country; and the vices
that were seared into the spirit of one degenerate Osmanli have, by the
heedless chroniclers who may have suffered from his delinquencies, been
branded on the brow of a whole nation; as though the stream which had
polluted itself for an instant by its passage over some impure
substance, had power to taint the source from whence it flowed.