THE EASTERN QUESTION.--THE EXODUS OF THE TURKS.
It is impossible to be in Constantinople without having forced upon us
the Eastern Question, which is just now occupying so much of the
attention of Europe. A child can ask questions which a philosopher
cannot answer, and a traveller can see dangers and difficulties which
all the wisdom of statesmen cannot resolve.
Twenty years ago France and England went to war with Russia for the
maintenance of Turkey, and they are now beginning to ask, whether in
this they did not make a great mistake; whether Turkey was worth
saving? If the same circumstances were to arise again, it is doubtful
whether they would be so ready to rush into the field. All over Europe
there has been a great revulsion of feeling caused by the recent
financial breakdown of Turkey. Within a few weeks she has virtually
repudiated half the interest on her national debt; that is, she pays
one-half, and _funds_ the other half, promising to pay it five years
hence. But few believe it will then be paid. This has excited great
indignation in France and England and Italy,[10] where millions of
Turkish bonds are held, and they ask, have we spent our treasure and
shed our blood to bolster up a rotten state, a state that is utterly
faithless to its engagements, and thus turns upon its benefactors?
To tell the whole truth, these powers have themselves partly to blame
for having led the Turkish government into the easy and slippery ways
of borrowing money. _Before the Crimean war Turkey had no national
debt._ Whatever she spent she wrung out of the sweat and blood of her
wretched people, and left no burden of hopeless indebtedness to curse
its successors.
But the war brought great expenses, and having rich allies, what so
natural as to borrow a few of their superfluous millions? Once begun,
the operation had to be repeated year after year. Nothing is so
seductive as the habit of borrowing money. It is such an easy way to
pay one's debts and to gratify one's love of spending; and as long as
one's credit lasts, he may indulge his dreams to the very limit of
Oriental magnificence. So the Sultan found it. He had but to contract
a loan in London or Paris, and he had millions of pounds sterling to
build palaces, and to carry out every Imperial desire.
But borrowing money is like taking opium, the dose must be constantly
increased, till finally the system gives way, and death ends the
scene. Every year the Sultan had to borrow more money to pay the
interest on his debts, and to borrow at ever increasing rates; and so
at last came, what always comes as the result of a long course of
extravagance, a complete collapse of money and credit together.
The indignation felt at this would not have been so great, if the
money borrowed had been spent for legitimate objects--to construct
public works; to build railroads (which are greatly needed to open
communications with the interior of the empire); and to create new
branches of industry and new sources of wealth. Turkey is a very rich
country in its natural resources, rich in a fertile soil, rich in
mines, with an immense line of sea-coast, and great harbors, offering
every facility for commerce; and it needs only a very little political
economy to turn all these resources to account. If the money borrowed
in England and France had been spent in building railroads all over
European Turkey, in opening mines, and in promoting agriculture and
commerce, the country to-day, instead of being bankrupt, would be rich
and independent, and not compelled to ask the help or the compassion
of Europe.
But instead of applying his borrowed money to developing the resources
of his empire, there has not been a freak of folly that the Sultan did
not gratify. He has literally thrown his money into the Bosphorus,
spending it chiefly for ships on the water, or palaces on the shore. I
have already spoken of his passion for building new palaces. Next to
this, his caprice has been the buying of ironclads. A few years since,
when Russia, taking advantage of the Franco-German war, which rendered
France powerless to resist, nullified the clause in the treaty made
after the Crimean war, which forbade her keeping a navy in the Black
Sea, and began to show her armed ships again in those waters, the
Sultan seems to have taken it into his wise head that she was about to
attack Constantinople, and immediately began preparations for defence
on land and sea. He bought a million or so of the best rifles that
could be found in Europe or America; and cannon enough to furnish the
Grand Army of Napoleon; and some fifteen tremendous ships of war,
which have cost nearly two millions of dollars apiece. The enormous
folly of this expense appears in this, that, in case of war, these
ships would be almost useless. The safety of Turkey is not in such
defences, but in the fact that it is for the interest of Europe to
hold her up awhile longer. If once France and England were to leave
her to her fate, all these ships would not save her against Russia
coming from the Black Sea--or marching an army overland and attacking
Constantinople in the rear. But the Sultan would have these ships, and
here they are. They have been lying idle in the Bosphorus all summer,
their only use being to fire salutes every Friday when the Sultan goes
to mosque. They never go to sea; if they did they would probably not
return, for they are very unwieldy, and the Turks are no sailors, and
do not know how to manage them; and they would be likely to sink in
the first gale. The only voyage they make is twice in the year: once
in the spring, when they are taken out of the Golden Horn to be
anchored in the Bosphorus, a mile or two distant--about as far as from
the Battery to the Navy Yard in Brooklyn--and again in the autumn,
when they are taken back again to be laid up for the winter. They have
just made their annual voyage back to their winter quarters, and are
now lying quietly in the Golden Horn--not doing any harm, _nor any
good_ to anybody.
Then not only must the Sultan have a great navy, but a great army.
Poor as Turkey is, she has one of the largest armies in Europe. I have
found it difficult to obtain exact statistics. A gentleman who has
lived long in Constantinople tells me that they claim to be able, in
case of war, to put seven hundred thousand men under arms, but this
includes the reserves--there are perhaps half that number now in
barracks or in camp. A hundred thousand men have been sent to
Herzegovina to suppress the insurrection there. So much does it cost
to extinguish a rising among a few mountaineers in a distant province,
a mere strip of territory lying far off on the borders of the
Adriatic. What a fearful drain must the support of all these troops be
upon the resources of an exhausted empire!
While thus bleeding at every pore, Turkey takes no course to keep up a
supply of fresh life-blood. England spends freely, but, she _makes_
freely also, and so has always an abundant revenue for her vast
empire. So might Turkey, if she had but a grain of financial or
political wisdom. But her policy is suicidal in the management of all
the great industries of the country. For example, the first great
interest is _agriculture_, and this the government, so far from
encouraging, seems to set itself to _ruin_. Of course the people must
till the ground to get food to live. Of all the produce of the earth
the government takes _one-tenth_. Even this might be borne, if it
would only take it and have done with it, and let the poor peasants
gather in the rest. But no; after a farmer has reaped his grain, he
cannot store it in his barn until the tax-gatherer has surveyed it and
taken out his share. Perhaps the official is busy elsewhere, or he is
waiting for a bribe; and so it may lie on the ground for days or
weeks, exposed to the rains till the whole crop is spoiled. Such is
the beautiful system of political economy practised in administering
the internal affairs of this country, which nature has made so rich,
and man has made so poor.
So as to the _fisheries_ by which the people on the sea-coast live.
All along the Bosphorus we saw them drawing their nets. But we were
told that not a single fish could be sold until the whole were taken
down to Constantinople, a distance of some miles, and the government
had taken its share, and then the rest could be brought back again.
Another great source of wealth to Turkey--or which might prove so--is
its _mines_. The country is very rich in mineral resources. If it were
only farmed out to English or Welsh miners, they would bring treasures
out of the earth. The hills would be found to be of brass, and the
mountains of iron. But the Turkish government does nothing. It keeps a
few men at work, just enough to scratch the surface here and there,
but leaving the vast wealth that is in the bowels of the earth
untouched.
And not only will it do nothing itself, but it will not allow anybody
else to do anything. Never did a great government play more completely
the part of the dog in the manger. For years English capitalists have
been trying to get permission to work certain mines, offering to pay
millions of pounds for the concession. If once opportunity were given,
and they were sure of protection, that their property would not be
confiscated, English wealth would flow into Turkey in a constant
stream. But on the contrary the government puts every obstacle in
their way. With the bigotry and stupidity of its race, it is intensely
jealous of foreigners, even while it exists only by foreign
protection--and its policy is, not only _not_ one of progress--it is
absolutely one of obstruction. If it would only get out of the way and
let foreign enterprise and capital come in, it might reap the benefit.
But it opposes everything. Only a few days since a meeting was held
here of foreign capitalists, who were ready and anxious to put their
money into Turkish mines to an almost unlimited extent, but they all
declared that the restrictions were so many, and the requirements so
complicated and vexatious, and so evidently intended to prevent
anything being done, that it was quite hopeless to attempt it.
But, although this is very bad political economy, yet it is not in
itself alone a reason why a nation should be given up as beyond
saving, if it were capable of learning wisdom by experience. Merely
getting in debt, though it is always a bad business, is not in itself
a sign of hopeless decay. Many a young and vigorous state has at the
beginning spent all its substance, like the prodigal son, in riotous
living, but after "sowing its wild oats," has learned wisdom by
experience, and settled down to a course of hard labor, and so come up
again. But Turkey is the prodigal son without his repentance. It is
continually wasting its substance, and, although it may have now and
then fitful spasms of repentance as it feels the pangs of hunger, it
gives not one sign of a change of heart, a real internal reform, and a
return to a clean, pure, healthy and wholesome life.
Is there any hope of anything better? Not the least. Just now there is
some feeling in official circles of the degradation and weakness shown
in the late bankruptcy, and there are loud professions that they are
going to "reform." But everybody who has lived in Turkey knows what
these professions mean. It is a little spasm of virtue, which will
soon be forgotten. The Sultan may not indeed throw away money quite
so recklessly as before, but only because he cannot get it. He is at
the end of his rope. His credit is gone in all the markets of Europe,
and nobody will lend him a dollar. Yet he is at this very moment
building a mosque that is to cost two millions sterling, and if there
were the least let-up in the pressure on him, he would resume the same
course of folly and extravagance as ever. No one is so lavish with
money as the man who does not pretend to pay his debts. He cannot
change his nature. "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard
his spots?" The Turk, like the Pope, _never changes_. It is
constitutionally impossible for him to reform, or to "go ahead" in
anything. His ideas are against it; his very physical habits are
against it. A man who is always squatting on his legs, and smoking a
long pipe, cannot run very fast; and the only thing for him to do,
when the pressure of modern civilization becomes too great for him, is
to "bundle up" and get out of the way.
Thus there is in Turkey not a single element of hope; there is no
internal force which may be a cause of political regeneration. It is
as impossible to infuse life into this moribund state as it would be
to raise the dead. I have met a great many Europeans in
Constantinople--some of whom have lived here ten, twenty, thirty, or
even forty years--and have not found _one_ who did not consider the
condition of Turkey absolutely hopeless, and its disappearance from
the map of Europe only a question of time.
But if for purely economical reasons Turkey has to be given up as
utterly rotten and going to decay, how much darker does the picture
appear when we consider the tyranny and corruption, the impossibility
of obtaining justice, and the oppression of the Christian populations.
A horde of officials is quartered on the country, that eat out the
substance of the land, and set no bounds to their rapacity; who
plunder the people so that they are reduced to the extreme point of
misery. The taxation is so heavy that it drains the very life-blood
out of a poor and wretched people--and this is often aggravated by the
most wanton oppression and cruelty. Such stories have moved, as they
justly may, the indignation of Europe.
Such is the present state of Turkey--universal corruption and
oppression, and things going all the time from bad to worse.
And yet this wretched Government rules over the fairest portion of the
globe. The Turkish Empire is territorially the finest in the world.
Half in Europe and half in Asia, it extends over many degrees of
latitude and longitude, including many countries and many climates,
"spanning the vast arch from Bagdad to Belgrade."
Can such things continue, and such a power be allowed to hold the
fairest portion of the earth's surface, for all time to come?
It seems impossible. The position of Turkey is certainly an anomaly.
It is an Asiatic power planted in Europe. It is a Mohammedan power
ruling over millions of Christians. It is a government of Turks--that
is of Tartars--over men of a better race as well as a purer religion.
It is a government of a minority over a majority. The Mohammedans, the
ruling caste, are only about one-quarter of the population of European
Turkey--some estimates make it much less, but where there is no
accurate census, it must be a matter of conjecture. It is a power
occupying the finest situation in the world, where two continents
touch, and two great seas mingle their waters, yet sitting there on
the Bosphorus only to hold the gates of Europe and Asia, and oppose a
fixed and immovable barrier to the progress of the nations.
What then shall be done with the Grand Turk? The feeling is becoming
universal that he must be driven out of Europe, back into Asia from
which he came. This would solve the Eastern Question _in part_, but
only in part, for _after_ he is gone what power is to take his place?
The solution would be comparatively easy, if there were any
independent State near at hand to succeed to the vacant sceptre. When
a rich man dies, there are always plenty of heirs ready to step in and
take possession of the property. The Greeks would willingly transfer
their capital from Athena to Constantinople. The Armenians think
themselves numerous enough to form a State, but the Greeks and the
Armenians hate each other more even than their common oppressor.
Russia has not a doubt on the subject, that _she_ is the proper and
rightful heir to the throne of the Sultan. The possession of European
Turkey would just "round out" her territory, so that her Empire should
be bounded only by the seas--the Baltic and the White Sea on the
North, and the Black Sea and the Mediterranean on the South. But that
is just the solution of the question which all the rest of Europe is
determined to prevent. Austria, driven out of Germany, thinks it would
be highly proper that she should be indemnified by an addition to her
territory on the south; while the Danubian principalities, Moldavia
and Wallachia (now united under the title of Roumania) and Servia,
which are taking their first lessons in independence, think that they
will soon be sufficiently educated in the difficult art of government
to take possession of the whole Ottoman Empire. Among so many rival
claimants who shall decide? Perhaps if it were put to vote, they would
all prefer to remain under the Turk, rather than that the coveted
prize should go to a rival.
Herein lies the difficulty of the Eastern Question, which no European
statesman is wise enough to resolve. There is still another solution
possible: that Turkey should be divided as Poland was, giving a
province or two on the Danube to Austria; and another on the Black Sea
to Russia; and Syria to Egypt; while the Sultan took up his residence
in Asia Minor; and making Constantinople a free city (as Hamburg
was), under the protection of all Europe, which should hold the
position simply to protect the passage of the Bosphorus and the
Dardanelles, and thus keep open the Black Sea to the commerce of the
world.
But however these remoter questions may perplex the minds of
statesmen, they cannot prevent, nor long delay, the first necessity,
viz., that the Turk should retire from Europe. It cannot be permitted
in the interests of civilization, that a half-barbarous power should
keep forever the finest position in the world, the point of contact
between Europe and Asia, only to be a barrier between them--an
obstacle to commerce and to civilization. This obstruction must be
removed. The Turks themselves may remain, but they will no longer be
the governing race, but subject, like other races, to whatever power
may succeed; the Sultan may transfer his capital to Brousa, the
ancient capital of the Ottoman Empire; but _Turkey will thenceforth be
wholly an Asiatic, and no longer an European power_.
And this will be the end of a dominion that for centuries was the
terror of Europe. It is four hundred and twenty years since the Turks
crossed the Bosphorus and took Constantinople. Since then they have
risen to such power that at one time they threatened to overrun
Europe. It is not two hundred years since they laid siege to Vienna.
But within two centuries Turkey has greatly declined. The rise of a
colossal power in the North has completely overshadowed her, till now
she is kept from becoming the easy prey of Russia only by the
protection of those Christian powers to which the Turk was once, like
Attila, the Scourge of God.
From the moment that the Turks ceased to conquer, they began to
decline. They came into Europe as a race of warriors, and have never
made any progress except by the sword. And so they have really never
taken root as one of the family of civilized nations, but have always
lived as in a camp, a vast Asiatic horde, that, while conquering
civilized countries, retained the habits and instincts of nomadic
tribes, that were only living in tents, and might at any time recross
the Bosphorus and return to their native deserts.
That their exodus is approaching, is felt by the more sagacious Turks
themselves. The government is taking every precaution against its
overthrow. Dreading the least popular movement, it does not dare to
trust its Christian populations. It will not permit them to bear arms,
lest the weapons might be turned against itself. _No one but a
Mohammedan is allowed to enter the army._ There may be some European
officers left from the time of the Crimean war, whose services are too
valuable to be spared, but in the ranks not a man is received who is
not a "true believer." This conscription weighs very heavily on the
Mussulmans, who are but a small minority in European Turkey, and who
are thus decimated from year to year. It is a terrible blood-tax which
they have to pay as the price of continued dominion. But even this the
government is willing to pay rather than that arms should be in the
hands of those who, as the subject races, are their traditional
enemies, and who, in the event of what might become a religious war,
would turn upon them, and seek a bloody revenge for ages of oppression
and cruelty.
Seeing these things, many even of the Turks themselves anticipate
their speedy departure from the Promised Land which they have so long
occupied, and are beginning to set their houses in order for it. Aged
Turks in dying often leave this last request, that they may be buried
at Scutari, on the other side of the Bosphorus, so that if their
people are driven across into Asia, their bodies at least may rest in
peace under the cypress groves which darken the Asiatic shore.
With such fears and forebodings on one side, and such hopes and
expectations on the other, we leave this Eastern Question just where
we found it. Anybody can state it; nobody can resolve it. It is the
great political problem in Europe at this hour, which no statesman,
however sagacious--not Bismarck, nor Thiers, nor Andrassy, nor
Gortchakoff--has yet been able to resolve. But man proposes and God
disposes. This is one of those mysteries of the future which Divine
intelligence alone can penetrate, and Divine Providence alone can
reveal. We must not assume to be over-wise--although there are some
signs which we see clearly written on the face of the sky--but "watch
and wait," which we do in the full confidence that we shall not have
to wait long, but that the curtain will rise on great events in the
East before the close of the present century.
FOOTNOTE:
[10] Italy, it will be remembered, joined the Allies against Russia in
the latter part of the Crimean war.