MY INTERCOURSE WITH SULTAN ABDUL HAMID
Speaking of royal appreciation, I cannot leave unmentioned the reception
I had from the Sultan of Turkey, a curious contrast indeed to my former
life in Constantinople.
My personal acquaintance with Sultan Abdul Hamid dates from the time
that I lived in the house of Rifaat Pasha, who was related to Reshid
Pasha. The son of the latter, Ghalib Pasha, who had married a daughter
of Abdul Medjid, wanted his wife to take French lessons, and I was
selected to teach her because it was understood that, being familiar
with Turkish customs, I should not infringe upon the strict rules of the
harem. Three times a week I had to present myself at the Pasha's palace,
situated on the Bay of Bebek, and each time I was conducted by a eunuch
into the Mabein, _i.e._, a room between the harem and the selamlik,
where I sat down before a curtain behind which my pupil the princess had
placed herself. I never set eyes upon the princess. The method of
instruction I had chosen was the so-called Ahn-system, consisting of
learning by heart small sentences, gradually introducing various words
and forms. I called through the curtain, "Père--baba; mère--ana; le père
est bon--baba eji dir; la mère est bonne--ana eji dir," etc., and the
princess on the other side repeated after me, and always took trouble to
imitate my pronunciation most carefully. Fatma Sultan, as the princess
was called, had a soft, melodious voice, from which I concluded that she
had a sweet character, and she was also considerate and kind-hearted,
for after the lesson had been going on for some time she told the eunuch
by my side, or more correctly, stationed in the room to keep watch over
me, to bring me some refreshments, and afterwards she inquired after my
condition and private circumstances. It was during these lessons in the
Mabein that amongst the visitors who entered from time to time I was
particularly struck by a slender, pale-looking boy; he often sat down
beside me, fixed his eyes upon me, and seemed interested in my
discourse. I asked what his name was, and learned that it was Prince
Hamid Effendi, a brother of my pupil, and that he distinguished himself
among his brothers and sisters by a particularly lively spirit. In
course of time this little episode, like many others, faded from my
memory.
After my return from Central Asia, when I found other spheres of work,
I kept aloof from Turkey, and I only remained in touch with the Ottoman
people in so far as my philological and ethnographical studies had
reference to the linguistic and ethnical part of this most Westerly
branch of the great Turkish family. In my political writings, chiefly
taken up with the affairs of inner Asia, the unfortunate fate of the
Porte has always continued to touch me very deeply. The land of my
youthful dreams, to which I am for ever indebted for its noble
hospitality, and where I have felt as much at home as in my own country,
could never be indifferent to me. Its troubles and misfortunes were
mine, and whenever opportunity offered I have broken a lance for Turkey;
without keeping up personal relations with the Porte, I have always
considered it a sacred duty with my pen to stand up for the interests of
this often unjustly calumniated nation. My Turkophile sympathies could,
of course, not remain unknown on the banks of the Bosphorus, and when,
after the opening of railway communication with Turkey, I went to
Stambul, I received from the Turks and their ruler a quiet,
unostentatious, but all the warmer and heartier reception. Our mutual
relationship only gradually manifested itself. On my first journey I
remained almost unnoticed, for after a space of thirty years only a few
of my old acquaintances were left, and the _ci-devant_ Reshid Effendi,
under which name I was known at the Porte, was only remembered by a
few. My second visit was already more of a success, and my reappearance
in public revived the old memory, for my fluency of speech had lent "the
foreigner" a new attraction in Turkish society. Wherever I appeared in
public I was looked at somewhat doubtfully, for many who had not known
me before imagined from my real Turkish Effendi conversation that I was
a Turkish renegade. Thanks to my old connections, the problem was soon
solved. The Turkish newspapers gave long columns about my humble person,
and extolled the services which, in spite of many years' absence, I had
rendered to the country.
Sultan Abdul Hamid, a watchful and enlightened ruler, full of national
pride, although perhaps a little too anxious and severely absolute, was
certainly not the one to lag behind his people in acknowledging merit;
and as an unpleasant incident prevented him from showing me his
sympathies on my first visit, I was invited a few months later to pay
another visit to the Turkish capital as his special guest. To make up
for former neglect I received an almost regal reception. The slope up to
Pera which in 1857 I had climbed a destitute young adventurer, I now
drove up in a royal equipage accompanied by the court officials who had
received me at the station; and when I had been installed in the
apartments prepared for me by the Sultan's command, and was soon after
welcomed by the Grandmaster of Ceremonies on behalf of the sovereign,
that old fairy-tale-feeling came over me again. My first quarters at
Püspöki's, swarming with rats; my _rôle_ of house-dog in the isolated
dwelling of Major A., my _début_ as singer and reciter in the
coffee-houses, and many other reminiscences from the struggling
beginning of my career in the East, flitted before my eyes in a cloudy
vision of the past.
On the morning after my arrival I could have stood for hours gazing out
of the window on the Bosphorus, recalling a hundred different episodes
enacted on this spot, but I was wakened out of these sweet dreams by an
adjutant of the Sultan who called to conduct me to an audience at the
Yildiz Palace. As I passed through the great entrance hall of the
Chit-Kiosk, where the Sultan was wont to receive in the morning,
marshals, generals, and high court officials rose from their seats to
greet me, and on many faces I detected an expression of astonishment,
why, how, and for what their imperial master was doing so much honour to
this insignificant, limping European, who was not even an ambassador.
When I appeared before the Sultan he came a few steps towards me, shook
hands, and made me sit down in an easy chair by his side. At the first
words I uttered--of course I made my speech as elegant as I
could--surprise was depicted on the face of the Ruler of all True
Believers, and when I told him that I remembered him as a
twelve-year-old boy in the palace of his sister, Fatma Sultan, the wife
of Ali Ghalib Pasha, attending the French lesson which I was giving the
princess, the ice was broken at once, and the otherwise timid and
suspicious monarch treated me as an old acquaintance. At a sign the
chamberlain on duty left the hall, and I remained quite alone with
Sultan Abdul Hamid--a distinction thus far not vouchsafed to many
Europeans, and not likely to be, as the Sultan is not acquainted with
European languages, and therefore, according to the rules of court
etiquette, cannot hold a face-to-face interview with foreigners. The
conversation turned for the greater part upon persons and events of
thirty years past, upon his father, Sultan Abdul Medjid, to whom I had
once been presented, Reshid Pasha, Lord Stratford Canning, whom the
Sultan remembered distinctly, and many other persons, questions, and
details of that time. As the conversation progressed the splendour and
the nimbus of majesty disappeared before my eyes. I saw merely a Turkish
Pasha or Effendi such as I had known many in high Stambul society, only
with this difference, that Sultan Abdul Hamid, by his many endowments, a
wonderful memory, and a remarkable knowledge of European affairs, far
surpasses many of his highly gifted subjects. Of course I became
gradually freer in my conversation, and when the Sultan offered me a
cigarette and with his own hand struck a match for me to light it, I was
quite overcome by the affability of the absolute Ruler, Padishah, and
Representative of Mohammed on earth, or "Shadow of God," as he is also
called.
The first audience lasted over half an hour, and when, after being
escorted to the door by the Sultan, I again passed through the entrance
hall crowded with high dignitaries, the surprise of these men was even
greater than before, and for days together the topic of conversation in
the circles of the Porte at Stambul, and in the diplomatic circles of
Pera, was the extraordinary familiarity existing between the generally
timid and reserved Sultan and my humble self. As this intimacy has also
been commented upon and explained in various ways in Europe, I will
shortly state what was the real motive of the Sultan's attentions to me,
and why I have been so anxious to retain his favour.
First of all I must point out that I was the first European known to the
Sultan who was equally at home in the East as in the West, familiar with
the languages, customs, and political affairs of both parts of the
world, and who, in his presence, was not stiff like the Europeans, but
pliant, like the Asiatics of the purest water. I always appeared before
him with my fez on; I greeted him as an Oriental greets his sovereign; I
used the usual bombastic forms of speech in addressing him; I sat,
stood, went about, as it becomes an Oriental--in a word I submitted to
all the conventionalities which the Westerner never observes in the
presence of the Sultan. Moreover, he was impressed by all my
experiences, and in his desire for knowledge he was pleased to be
instructed on many points. All these things put together were in
themselves enough to attract his attention towards me. The second reason
for the friendship and amiability shown me by Sultan Abdul Hamid was my
Hungarian nationality, and the Turcophile character of my public
activity, of which, however, he did not hear more fully till later. The
friendly feelings exhibited by Hungary during the late Russo-Turkish war
had touched the Sultan deeply, and his sympathies for the Christian
sister-nation of the Magyars were undoubtedly warm and true. Now as to
the possible merits of my writings, the Sultan, like the Turks in
general, was well aware of my Turcophile journalistic activity, but none
of them had the slightest conception of my philological and ethnological
studies in connection with Turkey. They had never even heard of them,
and when I handed the Sultan a copy of my monograph on the Uiguric
linguistic monuments, he said, somewhat perplexed, "We have never heard
of the existence of such ancient Turkish philological monuments, and it
is really very interesting that our ancestors even before the adoption
of Islam were many of them able to write, as would appear from these
curious characters." With regard to the skill and tact of Sultan Abdul
Hamid I will just mention in connection with the subject of the old
Turkish language, that he, recognising at once my keen interest in
everything of an old Turkish nature, drew my attention to some pictures
in his reception-room, the one of Söyjüt in Asia Minor (the cradle of
the Ottoman dynasty), and the other of the Mausoleum of Osman; and he
told me with some pride that these pictures were the work of a Turkish
artist. He also told me that in the Imperial household, which lives in
strict seclusion from the other Osmanli, a considerable number of
Turkish words and expressions are used quite unknown to the other
Osmanli more accessible to outside influences. The Sultan quoted some
specimens, and, as I recognised in them Azerbaidjan, _i.e._, Turkoman
linguistic remains, the Sultan smiled, quite pleased, thinking that with
these monuments he could prove the unadulterated Turkish national
character of the Osmanli dynasty. This vanity surprised me greatly, as a
while ago the Turks were rather ashamed of their Turkish antecedents,
and now their monarch actually boasted of them!
The third, and perhaps the most valid, reason for the Sultan's
attentions to me lay in the international character of my pen, and more
especially in the notice which England had taken of my writings. Sultan
Abdul Hamid, a skilful diplomatist and discerner of men, one of the most
cunning Orientals I have ever known, attached great importance to the
manner in which he was thought and talked of in Europe. Public opinion
in the West, scorned by our would-be important highest circles of
society--although they cannot hide their chagrin in case of unfavourable
criticism--has always seemed of very great moment to the Sultan; and in
his endeavours to incline public opinion in his favour this clever
Oriental has given the best proof that he has a keener insight into the
political and social conditions than many of his Christian
fellow-sovereigns. Fully conscious that his ultimate fate depends on
Europe, he has always endeavoured to make himself beloved, not at one
single court, but by the various people of Europe, and is anxious to
avoid all cause of blame and severe criticism. England's opinion he
seemed to think a great deal of; for although he simulated indifference
and even assumed an air of hostility, in his innermost mind he was
firmly convinced that England from motives of self-interest would be
compelled to uphold the Ottoman State, and at the critical moment would
come to the rescue and lend a helping hand. To hide this last anchor of
hope he has often coquetted with France, even with Russia, in order to
annoy the English and to make them jealous; but how very different his
real inmost feelings and expectations were I have often gathered from
his conversations. Sultan Abdul Hamid has always been of a peculiarly
nervous, excitable nature; against his will he often flew into a
passion, trembled in every limb, and his voice refused speech. On one
occasion he told me how he had been brought up with the warmest
sympathies for England, how his father had spoken of England as Turkey's
best friend, and how now in his reign, through the politics of Gladstone
and the occupation of Egypt, he had had to undergo the most painful
experiences. Then every appearance of dissimulation vanished, and I
could look right down into the heart of this extraordinary man.
It was during a conversation about the advisability of an English
alliance in the interests of the Ottoman State, that the Sultan in the
fire of his conversation told me the following: "I was six or seven
years old when my blessed father commanded my presence, as he was going
to send me to one of my aunts. I found him in one of his apartments,
sitting on a sofa in intimate conversation with an elderly Christian
gentleman. When my father noticed me, he called to me to come nearer and
kiss the hand of the stranger seated by his side. At this behest I burst
out in tears, for the idea of kissing the hand of a Giaour was to me in
my inexperience absolutely revolting. My father, generally so
sweet-tempered, became angry and said: 'Do you know who this gentleman
is? It is the English Ambassador, the best friend of my house and my
country, and the English, although not belonging to our faith, are our
most faithful allies.' Upon this I reverently kissed the old gentleman's
hand. It was the Böyük Eltchi, Lord Stratford Canning. My father's words
were deeply engraved upon my mind, and so I grew up with the idea that
the English are our best friends. How bitterly I was disillusioned when
I came to the throne! England left me in the lurch, for the
demonstration of the fleet in the Sea of Marmora, as was said in
Constantinople, was instigated more by the interests of England than of
Turkey, which is not right. Her ambassadors--_i.e._, Elliot and
Layard--have betrayed me, and when I was in want of money and asked for
a small loan of £150,000, I received a negative reply. So that is what
you in the West call friendship, and thus the beautiful dreams of my
youth have come to naught," cried the Sultan with a deep sigh. My
explanation that in England, without the consent of Parliament, no large
sums of money can be lent or given away did not in the least enlighten
the Sultan. Oriental sovereigns do not believe it even now, for to them
constitution and Parliament are mere names, invented to mislead the
public. To born Asiatics, moreover, the liberal methods of Governments
of the West are altogether unreasonable, and Feth Ali Shah said to the
English Ambassador, Malcolm, these well-known words: "And you call your
sovereign a mighty ruler, who allows himself to be dictated to by six
hundred of his subjects (the members of Parliament), whose orders he is
bound to follow? A crown like that I would refuse," said this king of
all Iran kings; and my friend Max Nordau is much of the same opinion,
for in his _Conventional Lies_ he suggests that all genuine
constitutional sovereigns of Europe should be sent to the lunatic
asylum, because they imagine themselves to be rulers and are ruled over
by others.
Like Feth Ali Shah, and even more than he, Sultan Abdul Hamid hated all
liberal forms of government. He never made a secret of this opinion, and
during the many years of our acquaintance the Sultan repeatedly
expressed his views on this matter frankly and without palliation. In
one way, as already mentioned, it was my thorough Turkishness in
language and behaviour--he always addressed me as Reshid Effendi and
also treated me as such--which led him to make these confidences and to
overcome his innate timidity and suspicion. Then, again, my relations
with the successor to the English throne carried weight with him, and
the invitation I had received from Queen Victoria induced him to see in
me something more than an ordinary scholar and traveller; in fact, he
looked upon me as a confidant of the English court and Government--two
ideas which to him were inseparable--to whom he might freely and safely
open his heart.
"I am always surrounded by hypocrites and parasites," he said to me one
day; "I am weary of these everlasting laudations and this endless
sneaking. They all want to take advantage of me, all seek to gratify
their private interests; and all that come to my ears are base lies and
mean dissimulations. Believe me, the truth, be it ever so bitter, would
please me better than all these empty compliments to which they feel
bound to treat me. I want you to speak frankly and openly to me; you are
my superior in years and experience; you are at home both in the East
and in the West, and there is much I can learn from you." This candid
speech, of a sort not very usual with Oriental potentates, naturally
encouraged me still more, and during the hours spent in confidential
_tête-à-tête_ with Sultan Abdul Hamid I could touch upon the tenderest
and most delicate points of the home and foreign politics of his court
and the characteristics of his dignitaries. The Sultan always surprised
me with his sound remarks. He bitterly complained of the
untrustworthiness of his first ministers, called them not very
complimentary names, and from the confidences of this apparently mighty
autocrat I caught a faint glimmer of his impotence and utter loneliness.
Once when I called his attention to the ignoble conduct of his chief
courtiers, he appeared to be specially excited, and cried, "Do you think
I do not know every one of them, and am not aware of it all? Alas! I
know but too well. But whence can I procure other and better people in a
society which for centuries has wallowed in this pool of slander? Only
time and culture can do salutary work here; nothing else can do it."
And, indeed, contrary to all previously conceived notions, the Sultan
had admitted into his immediate surroundings such young people as had
distinguished themselves in the schools, and were in no way connected
with the leading families. His object was to create a circle of his own
round him, and like these confidants at home, he wanted me, abroad, to
show him my friendship by sending him at least twice a month a report
written in Turkish about public opinion in Europe; about the position of
the political questions of the day; about the condition of Islam outside
Turkey, and to answer the questions he would put to me.
I readily promised my services, but soon realised that with all his
apparent frankness, these confessions of a monarch brought up in
strictly Oriental principles were not to be taken in real earnest, for
when one day, in the heat of conversation, I made some slightly critical
remarks, and ventured to question the expediency or the advisability of
certain measures and plans of his Majesty, I noticed at once signs of
displeasure and surprise on his countenance, and from that time little
clouds have darkened the horizon of our mutual intercourse. And how
could it be otherwise? Potentates, and above all Orientals, are far too
much accustomed to incense; the coarse food of naked truth cannot be to
their taste; and when an absolute ruler is superior to his surroundings,
not only in actual power but also in intellectual endowments, an adverse
opinion, no matter how thickly sugared the pill may be, is not easily
swallowed. From the very beginning of his reign Sultan Abdul Hamid has
never tolerated any contradiction; apparently he listened patiently to
any proffered advice, but without allowing himself to be shaken in his
preconceived opinion; and when some Grand-Vizier or other distinguished
himself by steadfastness to his own individual views, as was the case,
for instance, with Khaired-din Pasha, Kiamil Pasha, Ahmed Vefik Pasha,
and others, they soon have had to retire. True, through his
extraordinary acuteness the Sultan has mitigated many mistakes resulting
from his defective education. In conversation he hardly ever betrayed
his absolute lack of schooling, although he was not even well versed in
his own mother-tongue. He said to me frequently, "Please talk ordinary
Turkish!" His excellent memory enabled him to turn to good account a
thing years after he had heard it, and his flowery language deceived
many of his European visitors. But, taking him altogether, he was a
great ignoramus and sadly needed to be taught, though in his sovereign
dignity and exalted position of "God's Shadow on Earth," he had to fancy
himself omniscient. Thoroughly convinced of this, I have, in my
subsequent intercourse with the Sultan, exercised a certain amount of
reserve; I learned to be ever more careful in my expressions, and when
the Sultan noticed this I replied in the words of the Persian poem--
"The nearness of princes is as a burning fire,"
which he took with a gratified smile. In a word, I was a dumb
counsellor, and I much regret that the European diplomats on the
Bosphorus did not look upon my position in this light, but laid all
sorts of political intrigues to my charge; and that my relations to the
Sultan, who had me for hours together in his room--and when I was there
kept even his most intimate chamberlain at a distance--necessarily gave
rise to a good deal of speculation. The long faces, the frowns, the
despairing looks which the court officials in the Sultan's immediate
vicinity showed me, and the way they measured me when after a long
audience I crossed the hall or the park, often startled me and made me
feel uncomfortable. These simple folks took me for the devil or some
magic spectre personified who had ensnared their sovereign, and was
leading him, God only knows whither. There were but few who had a good
word for me, and many were quite convinced that at every visit I carried
away with me into the land of unbelievers quantities of treasures and
gold. When later on through my intercourse with the Moslem scholars and
Mollas at court I had made a name as a practical scholar of Islam, and
became conspicuous on account of my Persian and Tartar conversational
powers, they were still more astonished, and the head-shaking over my
enigmatic personality became even more significant. They took me for a
deposed Indian prince, a Turkestan scholar exiled by the Russians, but
most often for a dangerous person whom it had been better for the
Sultan never to have known. To the European circles of Pera I was
likewise a riddle. Sometimes alone, sometimes in company with Hungarian
academicians, I used to search in the Imperial treasure-house for
remains of the library of King Mathias Corvinus, captured by the Turks
in Ofen and brought over to Constantinople. I discovered many things,
but I was branded as a political secret agent of England. A well-known
diplomatist said, "Ce savant est un homme dangereux, il faut se défaire
de lui." But the good man was mistaken. I was neither _dangereux_ nor
secret agent of any State; for, in the first place, my self-esteem
revolted against the assigned _rôle_ of dealer in diplomatic secrets;
and, moreover, what Cabinet would think of employing a secret agent
outside their Legation, maintained at such great expense? I do not for a
moment wish to hide the fact that in my conversations with the Sultan
about political questions I always took the side of Austro-Hungary and
England; that I was always up in arms against Russia, and launched out
against the perfidy, the barbarism, and the insatiable greed for land of
the Northern power. More anti-Russian than all Turks and the Sultan
himself, I could not well be, and the more I could blacken Russia
politically the better service did I fancy I rendered to our European
culture. To obviate any suspicion, the Sultan once wanted to invite me
to a court dinner together with the Russian Ambassador Nelidoff;
however, I begged to be excused. Of the various ambassadors I have only
attended a public court dinner with the Persian Ambassador (Prince
Maurocordato), the plenipotentiary of Greece, and with Baron Marshal von
Bieberstein, and these diplomatists were not a little surprised to
notice the attention with which the Sultan treated me.
For several years I thus enjoyed the Sultan's favour and occupied this
exceptional position at his court. As long as the Grand Seigneur saw in
me a staunch Turcophile and defender of Islam, who, led by fanaticism,
palliated all the mistakes and wrong-doings with which Europe charged
all Oriental systems of government; as long as I regarded Turkey as an
unwarrantably abused State, and European intervention as unjustifiable
at all times, he gave me his undivided confidence and astonished me by
his unfeigned candour.
Many years of experience in Turkish society had taught me that the
Sultan is regarded as an almost Divine being, and consequently this
extraordinary affability was all the more surprising. He treated me, so
to speak, as a confidential friend, talked with me about State concerns,
and the interests of his dynasty, as if I had been an Osmanli and
co-regent of the empire. He conferred with me about the most delicate
political questions, with a candour, which he never displayed even
before his Grand-Vizier and his Ministers; and consequently my letters
to him from Budapest were free and unrestrained, and such as this
sovereign had probably never received before.
Now, if there had only been questions of purely Turkish interests,
internal reforms and improvements, there would have been no occasion to
shake the Sultan's confidence in me, but Sultan Abdul Hamid's mind was
always busy with foreign politics, and because in regard to these I
could not always unconditionally agree with him, this was bound to lead
in process of time, if not to an absolute rupture, at any rate to a
cooling of our former warm friendship. For some time the Egyptian
Question was the chief point of discussion. The Sultan often complained
to me about the unlucky star which ruled over his foreign politics; that
he had lost so many of the inherited provinces, that the loss of the
Nile-land, that precious jewel of his crown, was particularly grievous
to him, and that the faithlessness of the English troubled him above all
things. As a matter of course he vented his wrath especially upon the
English Government; and although he was not particularly enamoured of
any of the European Cabinets, nay, I might say, hated and feared them
all alike, it was the St. James's Cabinet which, whether Liberal or
Conservative, had always to bear the brunt of his ire. He was on very
bad terms with the two English Ambassadors who shortly before and
shortly after his accession to the throne represented the Cabinet of St.
James's in Constantinople. Once, Lady Layard sent me for presentation
to the Sultan, a picture of herself in a very valuable frame, and when I
delivered it on the occasion of an evening audience the Grand Seigneur,
generally so completely master of himself, became quite excited, and
pointing to the portrait he said to me, "For this lady, whom you see
there, I have the greatest respect; for during the war she has tended my
wounded soldiers with great self-sacrifice, and I shall always feel
grateful to her; but as for her husband," he continued, "I have torn him
out of my heart, for he has shamefully abused my confidence." Thereupon
he tore at his breast as if he would pull something out, and slinging
his empty hand to the ground, he tramped excitedly on the floor, as if
he were demolishing the heart of the absent delinquent. This act of
passionate emotion I have noticed more particularly among Turkish women,
and there are many traits in the Sultan's character which speak of the
harem life. I tried to pacify the angry monarch by reminding him that
Layard, as ambassador, had but done his duty in delivering the message,
and that those gentlemen alone were to blame who had allowed such
confidential communications to become public property. I quoted,
moreover, the Koran passage which says, "La zewal fi'l sefirun" ("The
envoy is not to be blamed"); but it was all in vain, the name of this
deserving English diplomat had quite upset the Sultan; he was unwilling
and unable to distinguish between the actions of the statesman and of
the private gentleman.
One cannot altogether blame the Sultan either, when we think of the
bitter experiences he so often has had to undergo; but in politics,
justice and fairness have quite a different meaning from what they have
in ordinary life, and Sultan Abdul Hamid most decidedly acted
imprudently when, without taking into consideration England's most vital
interests, he demanded of this State a policy which, on account of the
altered general aspect of affairs, and on account of the growing insular
antipathy against Turkey, had become impossible. That the Conservatives,
in spite of all Mr. Gladstone's Atrocity-meetings, dared to appear with
a fleet in the Sea of Marmora, to prevent Russia from taking
Constantinople, has never been appreciated by the Sultan. He had always
before his eyes the comedy of Dulcigno and Smyrna, instigated by the
Liberal Government of England, and the occupation of Egypt appeared to
him more perfidious than the challenge of Russia, and all the injury he
had sustained from the Western Power.
In course of time the relations between the Porte and the Cabinet of St.
James were bound to become cooler. _Inter duos litigantes_, Russia was
the _tertius gaudens_; and when in addition to the previous coldness the
Armenian difficulties arose, the two great European Powers completely
changed places in Asia, for the Russian arch-enemy became the bosom
friend and confidant of the Turkish court (not of the Turkish nation),
and England was looked upon as the _diabolus rotæ_ of the Ottoman
Empire. With regard to the Armenian troubles Sultan Abdul Hamid's anger
against England was not altogether unfounded; for although in London
good care was taken to keep aloof publicly from the disturbances in the
Armenian mountains, the agitation of English agents in the North of Asia
Minor is beyond all doubt. The Sultan was carefully informed of this
both foolish and unreasonable movement. Whatever the Hintchakists and
other revolutionary committees of the Armenian malcontents brewed in
London, Paris, New York, Marseilles, &c., full knowledge of it was
received in Yildiz; the Armenians themselves had provided the secret
service. As early as the autumn of 1890 the Sultan complained to me
about these intrigues, and twelve months later he made use of the
expression, "I tell you, I will soon settle those Armenians. I will give
them a box on the ear which will make them smart and relinquish their
revolutionary ambitions." With this "box on the ear" he meant the
massacres which soon after were instituted. The Sultan kept his word.
The frightful slaughter in Constantinople and many other places of Asia
Minor has not unjustly stirred up the indignation of the Christian
world, but on the other hand the fact should not have been lost sight of
that Christian Russia and Austria in suppressing revolutions in their
own dominions have acted, perhaps, not quite so severely, but with no
less blood-thirstiness. That his drastic measures roused the public
opinion of all Europe against the Sultan was no secret to him. He was
aware of the beautiful titles given to him, "Great Assassin," "Sultan
Rouge," "Abdul the Damned," &c., and once touching upon the Western
infatuation against his person, he seemed in the following remark to
find a kind of apology for the cruelties perpetrated in his name. "In
the face of the everlasting persecutions and hostilities of the
Christian world," the Sultan said, "I have been, so to speak, compelled
to take these drastic measures. By taking away Rumenia and Greece,
Europe has cut off the feet of the Turkish State body. The loss of
Bulgaria, Servia, and Egypt has deprived us of our hands, and now by
means of this Armenian agitation they want to get at our most vital
parts, tear out our very entrails--this would be the beginning of total
annihilation, and this we must fight against with all the strength we
possess." In truth, notwithstanding all the evident signs of a total
downfall the Sultan still nursed high-flown ideas of regeneration and
security for his Empire. He often spoke of the cancelling of
capitulations and of the certain advantages to be derived from his
Alliance schemes. He has always placed great confidence in the
Panislamic movement which he inaugurated, and which he certainly
directed very skilfully. His agents traverse India, South Russia,
Central Asia, China, Java, and Africa; they proclaim everywhere the
religious zeal, the power and the greatness of the Khaliph; up to the
present, however, they have succeeded only in making the birthday of the
Sultan a day of public rejoicing throughout Islamic lands, and in
preparing the threads wherewith to weave the bond of unity. One day, as
we were talking about these plans, he denied them altogether, and
pretended to be very much surprised. These schemes for the future were
his particular hobby; he spoke of them only to his most intimate
servants and court officials, and to no one besides, not even to his
ministers. The latter he called fortune-hunters, who deserve no
confidence. "How can I believe my ministers?" he said at one time. "When
a while ago I sent for my police minister, he came into my presence
quite intoxicated. I drove the swine out of the room and dismissed him
next day." That he encouraged the evil, that with his strictly
autocratic and absolutist ideas he prevented the growth of capable
statesmen, that no clever politicians could possibly thrive under
him--all this he would never realise, although I often hinted at it and
reminded him of the Prophet's warning, "Ye shall consult one another."
He was and always will be an incorrigible Arch-Turk, who in the shadow
of his Divine reputation would have free disposal of all things; and
when his First Secretary told him that I had been a _protégé_ of the
late Grand-Vizier Mahmud Nedim Pasha, the friend of Ignatieff, he said,
turning to me, "Yes, Mahmud Nedim Pasha was a singularly clever man, a
true Turk and Moslem, and a faithful servant to his master."
I soon came to the conclusion that with a sovereign of this kind, there
was not much good to be done, and without flatly contradicting him, I
quietly adhered to my own political views. As I look at things now, it
seems quite natural that I excited his displeasure, and that he looked
askance at my English predilections. The Sultan expected of me
unconditional approval of his political views; he wanted to have in me a
friend, absolutely Turkish in my views, as opposed to the Christian
world, and willing, like many a prominent man in Europe, to hold up the
East as noble, sublime, humane, and just, and to put down the West as
reprobate, crude, and rapacious. No, that was expecting a little too
much of my Turkish sympathies! I have always been too much imbued with
the high advantages of our Western culture, too fully convinced of the
beneficial influences of nineteenth-century ideas, to lend myself to
sing the unqualified praises of Asia--rotten, despotic, ready to
die--and to exalt the Old World over the New! No, neither imperial
favour nor any power on earth could have induced me to do this, and when
the Sultan realised that, he began to treat me with indifference; he
even told me once that he did not like children who could cling to two
mothers, and without actually showing me any hostility or dislike, as
my international penmanship was not quite a matter of indifference to
him, he dismissed me, to all appearance, graciously. He was undeceived,
but I remained what I always have been, a friend of Turkey.
How it came about that, in spite of his ill-will, the Sultan for many
years after still showed me favour, and even invited me more than once
to visit Constantinople, I can only explain by the fact that, although
distrusting everybody, even himself, he did not lose sight of the use my
pen could be to him. Sultan Abdul Hamid, as I said before, had an
indescribable dread of the public opinion of Europe, which he took into
account in all his transactions; he always wanted to act the
enlightened, liberal, patriotic, order-loving, and conscientious ruler.
He always wanted to show off the very thin and light varnish of culture
which a very defective education and a flying visit through Europe
(1868) had given him. Without knowing French he would often interlard
his Turkish conversation with French words and sayings, to impress the
ambassadors and other exalted guests, just as in company with Moslem
scholars he made a special point of introducing theological and
technical terms, without ever rising above the level of a half-cultured
Moslem. Thanks to his remarkable memory, he was never at a loss for such
terms, but his actual familiarity with either European or Asiatic
culture was very slight, since his kind-hearted but far too lenient
father had never kept his children to their books. Kemal Effendi, the
tutor of the imperial prince, told me in the fifties quite incredible
things about the indolence of his imperial pupil. Reshad Effendi, the
heir presumptive, had a taste for Persian and Arabic, and had at an
early age made some attempts at Persian poetry, but Hamid Effendi, the
present Sultan, was not so easily induced to sit on the school bench.
Harem intrigues and harem scandal were more to his liking, and if one
wanted to know anything about the secrets of individual members of the
imperial _gynécée_, one had but to go to Hamid Effendi for information.
It is a great pity that this lively and really talented prince had not
received a better education in his youth. Who knows but what he might
have made a better sovereign on the throne of the Osmanlis?
My intercourse with this man was to me of exceptional interest, not so
much in his capacity of prince, but rather as man and Oriental. When in
the evening I was with him alone in the Chalet Kiosk we used to sit
still, trying to read each other's thoughts, for the imperial rogue knew
his man well enough; and after we had thus contemplated one another for
some time, the Sultan would break the silence by some irrelevant remark,
or occasionally he would ask me something about my Asiatic or European
experiences. As it is not seemly for a Khaliph, _i.e._, a lawful
descendant of Mohammed, to hold intimate conversation with an
unbeliever, or, what is worse, to ask his advice, the Sultan used to
treat me as an old, experienced, true believer, called me always by my
Turkish name, Reshid Effendi, and particularly emphasised the same when
at an audience pious or learned Moslems happened to be present. Sultan
Abdul Hamid, one of the greatest _charmeurs_ that ever was, knew always
in some way or other how to fascinate his guests. He delighted in paying
compliments, lighting the cigarette for his guest, with a civility
vainly looked for amongst ordinary civilians.
Of course, his one aim and object was to captivate and charm his
visitors with this extreme affability. Sometimes also he was quite
theatrical in his demeanour; he could feign anger, joy, surprise,
everything at his pleasure, and I shall never forget one scene provoked
by a somewhat animated discussion of the Egyptian Question. In order to
pacify his anger against England, I ventured to remark that after the
settling of the Egyptian State debt the yearly tribute would be paid
again. The Sultan misunderstood me, and concluding that I was speaking
of redemption money, he jumped up from his seat and cried in a very
excited voice, "What! do you think I shall give up for a price the land
which my forefathers conquered with the sword?" His thin legs shook in
his wide trousers, his fez fell back on his neck, his hands trembled,
and almost ready to faint he leaned back in his seat. And yet all this
excitement was pretence, just as when another time in his zeal to
persuade me to enter his service and to remain permanently in Stambul,
he grasped both my hands, and with assurances of his unalterable favour,
promised me a high position and wealth. What induced the sly, suspicious
man to this extraordinary display of tenderness was undoubtedly my
practical knowledge of Islamic lands and of Turkey in particular. More
than once he said to me, "You know our land and our nation better than
we do ourselves." My personal acquaintance with all circles of the Porte
of former days was not much to his liking, neither did he like my
popularity with the Turkish people, the result of many years of friendly
intercourse with them; yet he had to take this into account, and _nolens
volens_ must keep on good terms with me. Curiously enough, devoted as he
was to his severely despotic principles, this monarch sometimes had fits
of singular mildness and gentleness. Once I was sitting with him till
far into the night in the great hall of the Chalet Kiosk. It was the
height of summer, and in the heat of the conversation his Majesty had
become thirsty, and called to the attendant in the ante-room, "Su
ghetirin" ("Bring water"). The attendant, who had probably fallen
asleep, did not hear. The Sultan called twice, three times, clapped his
hands, but all in vain, and when I jumped up and called the man, the
Sultan said to him, almost beseechingly, "Three times I have asked for
water, and you have not given it me; I am thirsty, very thirsty." With
any other Oriental despot the servant would have forfeited his head, but
Abdul Hamid's character was the most curious mixture imaginable of good
and bad qualities, which he exhibited according to the mood in which he
happened to be.
Honestly speaking, these _tête-à-têtes_ with the Sultan were anything
but unmixed pleasure. Notwithstanding his pleasing manners and outward
amiability, his sinister and scrutinising look had often a very
unpleasant effect upon me. One evening, seated as usual alone with the
Sultan in the Chit Kiosk, sipping our tea, I fancied my tea was not
quite sweet enough, and while talking I stretched out my hand towards
the sugar basin, which stood near the Sultan. He gave a sudden start and
drew back on the sofa. The movement suggested that he thought I had
intended an attack upon his person. Another time, it was after dinner, I
was taking coffee in his company. I noticed that in the ardour of his
conversation he was suddenly seized with an attack of shortness of
breath. He actually gasped for air. The sight of his oppression was
painful, and I could not help thinking what would be my fate if in one
of these attacks the Sultan were to choke. One may say it is foolish,
and call me weak, but any one knowing something of life in an Oriental
palace will agree with me that the situation was anything but a joke.
Apart from this I got my full share of the moodiness of Oriental
despotism; sometimes it was almost too much for my much-tried patience.
In spite of politely worded invitations I often had to wait for days
before I was received in audience. Four, six, eight days together did I
wait in an antechamber, until at last I was told, "His Majesty extremely
regrets, on account of pressing business, or on account of sudden
indisposition, to have to delay the reception till the next day." The
next day came, and again the same story, "the next day." I remember
once, during a visit to Constantinople, to have packed and unpacked my
effects five times, awaiting permission to return home. Complaints,
entreaties, expostulations, all were of no avail, for the Muneddjim
Bashi (Court Astrologer) regulates his Majesty's actions, and these
ordinances are most strictly adhered to. My intercourse with the Sultan
was certainly not perfectly harmonious. I did my utmost to preserve my
influence over him, but at last I had to realise that all my trouble was
in vain, and that my efforts would never bear any fruit.
And it could not well have been otherwise. His policy was partly of a
purely personal nature, as with all Oriental despots; such policy,
strictly conservative in tendency, was concerned with the maintenance
of an absolutely despotic _régime_. Partly, also, it was of necessity
influenced by the temporary political constellations of the West. The
indecision which characterises his least action is a result of the
spirit which prevails in the imperial harem, where no one trusts
another, where every one slanders his neighbour, and tries to deceive
and annihilate him, where everything turns round the sun of imperial
favour. Our diplomatists on the Bosphorus have often had to pay dearly
for this characteristic of Abdul Hamid. At the time of the negotiations
about the Egyptian Question Lord Dufferin once had to wait with his
secretary in the Yildiz Palace for the Sultan's decision from ten
o'clock in the morning till after midnight. Six times the draft of the
treaty was put before him to sign, and each time it was returned in
somewhat altered form until the English Ambassador, wearied to death at
last, lost his patience, and at two o'clock in the morning returned with
his suite to Therapia. Lord Dufferin had already retired to bed, and was
fast asleep when he was roused by the arrival of a special messenger
from the Sultan to negotiate about another proposal, but the English
patience was exhausted and the fate of Egypt sealed. On other occasions
there were similar and often more dramatic scenes, and even with simple
dinner invitations it has often occurred that the ambassadors in
question received a countermand only after they had already started _en
grande tenue_ on the way to Yildiz.
As regards the distrust displayed by the ruler of Turkey, worried as he
was on all sides, some excuse may be found for him, for true and
unselfish friendships are unknown quantities in diplomatic intercourse.
But Sultan Abdul Hamid behaved in the same manner towards his Asiatic
subjects. He has always been a pessimist of the most pronounced type; he
scented danger and treason wherever he went, and everything had to give
way before his personal interests. "The future of Turkey and the
well-being of the Ottoman nation are always being discussed, but of me
and my dynasty nobody speaks," he said to me one day. To all intents and
purposes he always behaved as if he were master and owner of all Turkey,
and as nothing in the world could make him see differently, I very soon
saw the fruitlessness of my endeavours, and in future I acted only the
_rôle_ of onlooker and observer.
A sovereign who for well-nigh thirty years has ruled and governed with
absolute power, who has succeeded in carrying autocracy and absolutism
to their limits, while the greatest as well as the very smallest
concerns of the State and of society pass through his hands, such a
sovereign runs great danger of becoming conceited and proud, since his
servile surroundings continually extol and deify him beyond all measure.
Sultan Abdul Hamid imagines it is owing to his statesmanship that
Turkey, after the unfortunate campaign of 1877, has not been completely
annihilated, and that at present it not only exists, but is sought after
by the Powers as their ally. Laughing roguishly, he said with reference
to this, "There is no lack of suitors; I am courted by all, but I am
still a virgin, and I shall not give my heart and hand to any of them;"
but all the while he was in secret alliance with Russia. What Sultan
Abdul Hamid is particularly proud of is his relation to the German
Emperor, which is, as a matter of fact, his own work, and not at all
approved of by the more cautious portion of his people. The confidential
_tête-à-tête_ between the Osmanli and the gifted Hohenzollern is unique
in its kind and abounds in interesting incidents. The Emperor William
II. admires the talent of the ruler in his friend, which in its
autocratic bearing he would like to imitate if it were possible; but he
is clever enough to discount the reward for this admiration in various
concessional privileges, &c. Well-paid appointments for German officers,
consignments of arms, concessions for railway lines, manufactures, &c.,
the German Emperor has obtained playfully, as it were, and he will get
more still, for in the Imperial German the Sultan sees his only
disinterested, faithful, and mighty protector, and he is firmly
convinced that as long as this friendship continues no one will dare to
touch him, although Turkey, _stante amicitia_, lost Crete after the
victorious termination of the war with Greece. The patriotic and
progressive Turk, however, thinks otherwise. He has not a good word to
say for the German Emperor, for he looks upon him as one of those
friends who encourage the Padishah in his arrant absolutism, whose
visits diminish the treasures of State, and who has checked the national
development of free commercial life, taking all for Germany and leaving
Turkey nothing but some high-sounding compliments which flatter the
Sultan's pride.
And so this political accomplishment of Abdul Hamid is most severely
censured in Turkey itself, and the much extolled alliance with Germany
may, in the event of a change on the throne, meet with quite unexpected
surprises. With me the Sultan never discussed this relationship, only
his favourite son, Burhaneddin, told me of his sympathies for the
Kaiser, whose language he was learning. No true friend of Turkey, I
think, can have much against an alliance with Germany; it would work
very well, only Germany should advise the Sultan to introduce certain
reforms in his country to raise the spirit of the nation, and instead of
this wild absolutist _régime_, to work at the cultivation of capable
officials. I have often told the Sultan so in writing, but lately my
memoranda have remained without effect, for we have been deceived in one
another. I have come to the conclusion that, with all my science and all
my ambition, I can never be of much use to Turkey; and the Sultan has
realised that he could not make a willing tool of me, and that therefore
I am of no use to him. I must not omit to mention, however, that the
greatest obstacle to a mutual understanding between the Sultan and
myself lies in the political views we hold as to the most beneficial
alliance for Turkey. While the Sultan, by his personal relations with
the Emperor William II., thinks to screen himself securely against all
possible danger, and as far as appearances go, likes to be exclusively
Germanophile, he has not forgotten that the Russian sword of Damocles
hangs over his head. He knows but too well that Russia has her thumb on
his throat, that Asia Minor from the side of Erzerum is open to the
troops of the Czar, that the Russian fleet could sack Constantinople
within two or three days, and that this imminent danger, if not entirely
warded off, would at any rate be considerably mitigated by submissive
humility and feigned friendliness. Hence his peculiar complaisance and
amenableness towards the court of St. Petersburg, and his behaviour
altogether as if he were a vassal already of the "White Padishah on the
Neva." Considering this state of affairs, it is not very astonishing
that the rumour spread in Europe of a secret treaty between Turkey and
Russia--a treaty according to which the Sultan had engaged himself not
to fortify the Bosphorus at the entrance of the Black Sea, and not to
erect new fortifications in the north of Asia Minor, and other similar
concessions. This treaty is said to bear the date 1893, and when the
matter was discussed by the European Press, and I asked for information
from the First Secretary of the Sultan, Sureja Pasha, the latter wrote
me in a letter dated September 3, 1893, as follows:--
"VERY HONOURED FRIEND!--His Imperial Majesty, my sublime Master,
has always held in high esteem your feelings of friendship in the
interests of Turkey, and your attacks on Russia, which has done so
much harm to Turkey, have not remained unnoticed. But you know full
well that nothing in this world happens without cause, and that the
war Russia waged against us was also founded on certain causes. All
this belongs to the past. To-day the Sublime Porte is on the best
of terms with _all_ the Powers; there is no necessity for any
private treaties, and when the newspapers speak of a private treaty
between Turkey and Russia, this is nothing more or less than a
groundless and idle invention. In case such a treaty had been
necessary, Turkey, being in no way restricted in its movements,
would have notified and published the facts."
Later on I also touched upon this subject in conversation with the
Sultan. We were speaking about the comments made in Europe regarding
the negligence in the fortifications at the entrance to the Black Sea,
when the Sultan interrupted me and said, "Why should Europe criticise
this? I have a house with two doors; what does it matter to anybody if I
choose to close the one and open the other?" In a word, the Sultan has
given me several irrefutable proofs that the persistent anti-Russian
tendency of my publications was inconvenient to him, and that he would
be better pleased if I attacked England or kept quiet altogether. Of
course he would like best of all to banish pen and ink altogether from
the world, and as it was impossible for me to support him in his
absolute autocratic principles, a cooling of our mutual relationship was
unavoidable.
The breach between us was made still wider by the publication of my
pamphlet _La Turquie d'aujourd'hui et d'avant quarante ans_, Paris,
1898, in which I tried to refute the thesis--so constantly and
erroneously advanced in Europe--that the Turks as a nation are incapable
of being civilised, by comparing the state of their culture as it is now
and as it was forty years ago. Naturally in a study of this kind I had
to draw the connection between the progress of culture and the political
decline of the land, and the question why, if the Turks are really
advancing in culture, they should politically be overtaken by Rumania,
Servia, Bulgaria, and Greece, I could only answer by pointing to the
autocratic and absolutist tendencies of the Sultan. Only the court and
the unconscionable clique reigning there are to blame for the present
decline of Turkey. With this article I increased my popularity in
Turkey, but at court they were, of course, anything but pleased.
Nevertheless the Sultan invited me to pay him a visit; I did so, and the
reception I had was highly characteristic. While the Padishah thanked me
for the service I had rendered to the Turkish nation, the offended
autocrat took my measure with angry looks, without, however, betraying
his anger. It was interesting to watch the internal struggle of the
offended tyrant, and I consider it only reasonable that henceforth he
would have no more to do with me.
Thus ended my intimate intercourse with Sultan Abdul Hamid. The only
benefit it has been to me was a rubbing up of my impressions of life in
the Near East, a renewal of old relationships, and the editing of a few
valuable old Slav manuscripts which I found in the treasure-house of the
Sultan, and which were lent me for a considerable length of time. But
the renewal of my acquaintance with the Orient was void of that charm
which it had for me on my first visit. The East and myself are both
thirty years older; the East has lost much of the glory of its former
splendour, and I have lost the vigour of my youth. I fancied myself an
elderly man who, after thirty years meeting again the adored beauty of
his youthful days, misses the wealth of her locks, the fire in her eyes,
the brightness of her rosy cheeks. Old Stambul, the Bosphorus, and
Pera--everything was changed. The Sultan's mad love of extravagance, the
unfortunate war of 1878, and above all the loss of Bulgaria--in fact
nearly the whole of Rumania--had reduced the dominating class almost to
beggary. Gone were the rich Konaks in Stambul, empty the once glorious
yalis (villas) on the Bosphorus, and of the Effendi world, flourishing
and well-to-do in my time, only a few miserable vestiges remained.
The Christian element, as compared with the Moslem, has increased
enormously; the European quarter of the city is full of life and
animation, and the Turk, always wont to walk with bowed head, now bends
it quite low on his breast as he loiters among the noisy, busy crowds of
the Christian populace. He is buried in thought; but whether he will be
able to pull himself together and recover himself is as yet an open
question.
When speaking of my renewed visits to Turkey and my personal intercourse
with the Sultan, I made mention of my English sympathies; and I feel
bound to say a word about the rumours then prevalent, which made me out
to be a secret political agent of England, the more so since a member of
Parliament, Mr. Summers, has questioned the Conservative Government
regarding this matter. I have never at any time stood in any official
relation to the English Government. My intercourse with the Conservative
and Liberal statesmen on the Thames and on the Hugli (Calcutta) has
always been of a strictly private nature, and, just as my utterances in
the daily papers were taken notice of by the public, so my occasional
memoranda to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have been accepted as the
private information of an expert, friendly to the cause of
England--information for which nobody asked me, and for which labour
therefore I could claim no compensation from anybody. This anomalous
position of mine was touched upon by the Central Asiatic writer, Mr.
Charles Marvin, in his _Merv, the Queen of the World_[2] issued, in
1881. He there blames the English Government for having neglected me,
and for leaving me in poverty, in spite of all my services. As regards
this, I must say that I had at one time a modest yearly income, while
working with all my might for the defence of India, a possession from
which England derived in commercial profits alone many million pounds
sterling; but I never suffered actual poverty, and it never entered my
mind to take steps to obtain material acknowledgment of my services.
English statesmen least of all thought of making any such
acknowledgment. They looked upon me merely as a writer in pursuit of a
purely platonic object, and this English cynicism went so far that when
I published, in 1885, my Osbeg Epic, the "Scheibaniade," entirely at my
own cost, and asked for a subscription for twenty copies, the India
Office declined the offer, although this work furnished so many data for
the history of Baber, the founder of the Mongol dominion in India. The
supposition, therefore, that my journalistic labours, although
appreciated in England, ever met with any material recognition on the
part of the Government, is altogether false. In after years I had an
offer to enter the English service, but this I never entertained for a
moment; and when on the Bosphorus I furthered English interests, I did
so from the standpoint of European peace, as an opponent of the
overbearing power of despotic Russia, and as a Hungarian whose native
land has common interests with England in the Near East. Of course such
motives bore no weight with the Sultan. He judges everybody by his own
standard; and when I tried to defend myself against such accusations,
and even one day quoted to him the saying of Mohammed, "_El fakru
fakhri_" ("Poverty is my pride"), he took the remark with a diabolical
smile, and turned the conversation into another channel.
I must confess the character of Sultan Abdul Hamid has always been a
riddle to me. I strained every nerve to penetrate him, but all in vain.
Brilliant qualities and incredible weaknesses were always at strife in
him. The man and the ruler were constantly at war with one another, and
in the same manner his Oriental views always came into collision with
the ever more pressing demands of modern civilisation. Fear and
suspicion were naturally at the bottom of this moral condition, and if
from time to time he would have recovered himself, and listened to the
dictates of his heart--for I did not find him heartless, as he is
generally supposed to be--the instruments of his despotic arbitrariness
kept him back, and made him commit deeds which in the eyes of the world
were rightly condemned. In keeping with his own character was also the
quality of the officials around him, who after the decline of the Porte
acted as ministers of State. Divided into various cliques according to
their personal interests, the secretaries, adjutants, chamberlains,
court-marshals, body-servants, &c., have created quite a chaos of
intrigues, plots, and calumnies round the person of their ruler, which
he was quite able to cope with when in the full vigour of his manhood,
and with his marvellous perspicacity could fathom at a glance. But even
Sultan Abdul Hamid could not be expected to do superhuman things;
physically never very strong, his nervous system at last grew
perceptibly weaker, and in the thirtieth year of his reign he became
very infirm. The reins of government fell from his hands, and gradually
he sank from a ruler to being ruled over, and he fancied himself secure
against all danger only in the mutual envy, malice, and hatred which he
had provoked among those immediately surrounding him. In this terrible
position the Sultan himself was most to be pitied, and this doleful
picture of the so-called autocrat I have often had occasion to
contemplate at close quarters. Great State cares, pressing financial
troubles, the threatening grouping of the European Powers, and the
fearful phantom of an internal revolution, all of which tormented the
Sultan, left him neither rest nor peace. The Sultan's fear of Young
Turkey was exaggerated, for in Turkey revolutions are not instigated by
the masses, but by the upper classes, and since these were quite
impoverished and dependent on their official position, a revolt against
the Crown is not very probable nowadays, especially as the old party of
the time of the forcible dethronement of Abdul-aziz exists no more, and
the Osmanlis darkly brooding about the future of their land cannot so
easily be roused from their sleep. If Sultan Abdul Hamid had been a
little less despotic, and had taken account a little more of the liberal
ideas of the more enlightened Osmanlis, he would have saved himself much
trouble and many a sleepless night. But he is stubborn and firmly
resolved to persevere with the _régime_ of terrorism he has instituted.
Hence his misfortune, hence his suffering. Indeed, the man had deserved
a better fate. He is not nearly such a profligate as he is represented
to be. He is more fit than many of his predecessors; he wants to benefit
his land, but the means he has used were bound to have a contrary
effect. I have received from Sultan Abdul Hamid many tokens of his
favour and kindness, and I owe him an everlasting debt of gratitude. It
grieves me, here, where I am speaking of my personal relations with him,
to have to express opinions which may be displeasing to him, but writers
may not and cannot become courtiers, and even in regard to crowned
heads, the old saying still holds true, "_Amicus Plato, sed magis amica
veritas._"
FOOTNOTE:
[2] Pp. 19-21.
My Intercourse with Nasreddin Shah and his Successor
[Illustration: PROF. VAMBÉRY AND HIS TARTAR, 1864.
_To face Page 393._]