MY INTERCOURSE WITH NASREDDIN SHAH AND HIS SUCCESSOR
Following up my intercourse with the Sultan of Turkey, I must not omit
to relate the episode of my second meeting with the King of Persia. It
was on the occasion of the Shah's third visit to Europe that I met him
in Budapest.
Thirty years ago I had been presented to him as a Dervish who had
visited Central Asia and spent many years among the Turcomans, at that
time held in great fear by the Persians. I now appeared before him as
representative of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and was not
surprised that he did not at once recognise me. When at the head of the
Academicians I welcomed him in a Persian speech in the pillared hall of
the Academy palace, the good Persian monarch was quite amazed and
hastily turning to his courtiers, inquired, "_In kist?_" ("Who is
that?"). They told him my name and function, and made some comments in a
low voice, whereupon the cunning Persian exclaimed, "_Belli! belli!_"
("Of course"), "Vambéry!" He maintained (which I take the liberty to
doubt) that he remembered me; but he warmly shook hands with me, and
said to the Hungarian Minister standing at his side, "_Il parle bien,
très bien notre langue!_" I do not wonder that my speech, in the Shirazi
dialect and delivered in true Oriental style, took him by surprise, for
as he afterwards told me, on the whole Continent he had not met with any
scholar who could speak Persian idiomatically and without foreign
accent. What did seem to me somewhat odd was a remark in his Journal (p.
378) that there were, even in Persia, few orators who for elegance and
force of speech could compete with me, a compliment which struck me as
particularly strange from the mouth of the Persian king. I remained
three days in attendance on Nasreddin Shah, and had ample opportunity to
admire the marvellous progress made by this Oriental since the time when
I knew him at Teheran in 1864. Nasreddin Shah was the first sovereign of
the True Believers who had learned to speak French tolerably well, and
if he did make a little too much show of this accomplishment, seeing
that his knowledge was but very superficial, it must be admitted that
his judgment in matters of art, his knowledge of geography and
palæontology, and his acquaintance with the genealogical relationships
of the various kingdoms of Europe was most astonishing. In any case, he
surpassed in knowledge of our countries and towns, our manners and
customs, all magnates and princes of the Moslem East, not excepting even
the Khedive Ismail Pasha and the late Sir Salar Jung. As we saw more of
one another he did not hesitate to express his opinion about many of our
social and political views. So, for instance, being an Asiatic _pur
sang_ he detested Liberalism, and if it had not been for the dangerous
nearness which made him turn against Russia, he would have looked upon
the Czar as the model of sovereign greatness and the Russian _régime_ as
the ideal form of government. Naturally, the French republic was an
abomination to him, the most woeful absurdity, and he could not
understand how a society where, as he maintained, no one commands and no
one obeys, a land without a ruler, _i.e._, a sovereign, can possibly
exist.
In his political utterances he was a good deal more cautious; he always
made an evasive answer to my insinuations. Once, sailing on the Danube,
I remarked that the Karun is wider but not so long as the Danube, the
Kadjar prince looked gravely at me and said, "Thank God, no!" ("_If it
had been the English would before now have taken Teheran_," was my
mental comment.) But in spite of his great reserve and cautiousness in
political matters, I got a pretty clear insight into his political
views. He had not for the future of his land the same bold confidence as
his royal brother on the throne of the Osmanli, for while the latter's
plans reach far into the future, and to all appearances, at least, are
of a very exalted nature, especially those relating to Panislamism, the
Kadjar monarch devotes all his energies to the welfare of his dynasty,
or rather of his own person. "_L'État c'est moi_" is also Sultan Abdul
Hamid's motto, but the glorious past of his dynasty and his people
awakens in him great and exalted ideas, the accomplishment of which he
never doubts, while Nasreddin Shah, as the offspring of a Turcoman
family, only lately come into power, and, intimidated by the danger
which surrounded him on all sides, hardly dared to think of the distant
future. In their personalities they are also very different. Sultan
Abdul Hamid, although inferior in European culture to his _cher frère_
on the throne of Persia, is shy and timid by nature, more affable and
generous than Nasreddin Shah, who, in spite of all his European manners,
remained the Asiatic despot and comported himself with all the peculiar
pride and strictness of the Oriental ruler. His Grand-Vizier had
sometimes to stand for hours before him, and when he wanted some
information or other from me, I was often kept standing for a
considerable time, regardless of my great fatigue; and he used closely
to scrutinise my face if I dared to express an opinion different from
his. In his character he certainly was more Oriental than the Sultan,
and considered this severity as indispensable to his sovereign dignity.
I was very much amused with the airs the Persian king put on, as he
went about bedizened with diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and other jewels.
Although his dynasty had been founded by a condottiere of the lowest
rank, viz., Mehemmed Aga Khan, and as grandson of Feth Ali Shah, a
cousin of this Aga Khan's, he was only the fourth Kadjar on the throne
of Iran, he always wanted to parade the antiquity of his race. Before me
he especially prided himself on his descent from the Mongol chief,
Kadjar Noyan, and when I dared to question the correctness of this
genealogy, merely brought forward by Persian historians to flatter their
monarch, he looked at me quite angrily and ejaculated that "the
sovereigns of the West were nothing but parvenus compared to their
brother monarchs of the East." Persia, in fact, is the only land in
Moslem Asia which can boast of a hereditary nobility, in a miserable
condition, it is true, for not only Khans and Mirzas, but even royal
princes may be found as drivers, house servants, and artisans of various
kinds, but this does not prevent one from being proud of one's noble
blood, and when Nasreddin Shah was in a good temper he expressed his
astonishment that European counts, princes, and dukes attempted to be on
a familiar footing with him, who could find his equal only among crowned
heads. It is curious that the Turks even, who on account of their
nomadic antecedents have never had any hereditary nobility, always try
to make themselves out as aristocrats. Sultan Abdul Medjid was highly
pleased when the French poet Lamartine, whom he had invited to his court
and afterwards presented with a country seat near Brussa, called his
attention to the fact that after the Bourbons the Osmanli was the oldest
dynasty in Europe. The high dignitaries of the Porte, frequently tracing
their descent from simple peasants, labourers, or shepherds, had at one
time serious thoughts of setting up coats-of-arms, and much regretted
the religious restriction which forbids their taking some animal for
their device. Human weakness is after all the same in the East and in
the West, and in spite of the strongly democratic tendencies of the
Arabian prophet, we may yet live to see Islam adopting hereditary
nobility with many other evils of European culture. In the personality
of Nasreddin Shah I have always detected this curious mixture of East
and West, of the old and the new aspect of life which we find in so many
neophytes of European culture in the Moslemic East. The Iranian despot
held in particular favour Malcolm Khan and Jahya Khan, and the Europeans
who for a time were physicians in ordinary to his Majesty.
Doctors Cloquet, Polak, and Tholozan instructed him in many things, and
point for point the influence of one or the other could be detected in
his manners and behaviour. That he always wanted to act the Grand
Seigneur, and ostentatiously displayed his Frenchified airs, must
chiefly be attributed to his Iranian boastfulness; he always wished to
appear as the perfect European gentleman, and there was a time when at
the court no one but his Majesty was allowed to wear a starched European
shirt. Nasreddin Shah inherited many characteristics from his
grandfather, Feth Ali Shah--I refer here especially to his love of show
and tyrannical arbitrariness--but he lacked his grandfather's affability
and kindly generosity. Nasreddin Shah was sometimes even particularly
miserly, hence the story, circulated during his lifetime, of his
fabulous private wealth, of which, however, after his death very little
was to be found.
The European Press has delivered most unjustly severe criticisms upon
the personality of this Oriental prince, and made fun of his Oriental
manners. It is only natural that he should commit occasional mistakes of
etiquette, for what Western sovereign or prince when visiting at an
Eastern court would not be guilty of similar blunders? It is said that
in Berlin, after dining at the royal table, he turned to the Emperor
William and the Empress Augusta and loudly belched, which in Central
Asia is an expression of gratitude for the hospitality received and
always acknowledged with good grace. At dinner with the Prince of Wales
at Marlborough House he is said to have thrown the asparagus stumps over
his back on to the floor, and, in order not to shame his guest, the
Prince, now King of England, and all the other guests immediately did
the same, greatly to the disgust of the attendants. Quite a collection
of similar anecdotes were at the time in circulation about him, but I
think they must be grossly exaggerated, for Nasreddin Shah never
neglected to make strict inquiry into the customs of the lands he
visited, and more than once I have given him information upon minor
details. The Persian king felt much freer in Europe than in his own
land. In Teheran, when he went out for a drive, a long row of attendants
marched on either side of him, who, armed with long staves, cleared
every one out of the way. In Budapest it happened that a poor labourer's
wife pressed up quite close to him to admire the great diamonds on his
coat. I motioned to the woman to go out of the way, but the King said,
"Let her come; she wants to see my jewels close to." He even stopped a
minute or two to let the woman stare at him to her heart's content. In a
word, the man was better than his reputation, and when in May, 1896, a
day before the Jubilee of his fifty years' reign, he fell a victim to
the murderous bullet of Riza Khan, I thought to myself the man deserved
a better end, for as a matter of fact he had to pay with his life for
the tyranny of his officials. At first it was supposed that Riza Khan
belonged to the secret society of the Babis, but, as was proved later
on, he took this means to revenge himself for the unheard-of injustice
of the Governor of Kerman, against which he had vainly sought
protection.
Eleven years after my meeting with Nasreddin I met with his son,
Mozaffareddin Shah, who in 1900 on his return from Paris passed through
the capital of Hungary. From my _Wanderings and Experiences in Persia_
the reader will recall that I had made the acquaintance of the young
ruler in Tabris in 1862, where, a nine year old boy and the
heir-apparent to the throne, he occupied the position of Governor of
Azerbaidshan. Physically weak and insignificant as he was then, I found
him now sickly and quite broken down. Contrexéville and Marienbad were
resorted to in vain to relieve his intense suffering, and the undeniable
signs of disease impressed upon his features clearly revealed the
desperate struggle that he fought within himself. The poor prince was
really worthy of a better fate.
Being by nature timid and reticent, the very strict education which his
father had deemed it necessary to give him had robbed him of all energy.
He liked best to lose himself in quiet contemplation, and in his
childish simplicity was hardly a fit ruler for a land so miserably
desolate as Persia, nor was he likely to carry out his good intentions
of leading his people into the way of modern culture. He was very
pleasant with me, more so than his father had been. He hardly remembered
our meeting at Tabris, but he had carefully read the memoirs of his
father's travels, in which my small personality had received most
laudatory mention, and so he was prepared to meet me long before he
arrived at Budapest. On the journey from Vienna to Budapest he had asked
several times if I was still alive, and if he would be sure to see me at
Budapest. Arrived at the station, where he was received by the son of
the Archduke Joseph and the Hungarian State Ministers, he looked round
inquiringly and said, "_Vambéry kudjast?_" ("Where is Vambéry?"). I was
called; he pressed my hand in the friendliest manner, and straightway
invited me to come with him to the hotel. I did as he asked me, and
during his stay in the Hungarian capital was frequently with him. These
visits led to a more intimate intercourse, and I found out (1) that the
much-to-be-pitied-king was very ill, and that the throne of Iran was not
at all the right place for him; (2) that he had the best intentions in
the world, was quite alive to the superior advantages of modern culture,
and had a great desire to reform his country if only he had the
necessary energy, money, and men. But all three unfortunately failed
him, as well as all other means, and when I gave him a picture of
Persia's future in its regenerate condition, with railways, streets,
manufactories, and similar advantages of modern culture, he looked
straight before him and said, "_Belli, belli! leikin wakit mikhahed_"
("Very well, very well, but that will take time"). Also in discussing
political questions I found him less close than his father, who loved to
give himself the appearance of a Persian Bismarck. Mozaffareddin
expressed himself quite freely and frankly about the political condition
of his land, and when I remarked jokingly that in Europe he was looked
upon as a partisan of Russia, because in Tabris as heir to the throne he
had complied with all Russia's demands, he laughed out loud and said,
"Am I the only one who in default of counter-arms has feigned friendship
for this mighty, ambitious opponent?" He had not much to say in favour
of England, although he agreed with me that this country would never do
any harm to Persia. "But," said he, "Britain's friendship is cold as
ice, and has always expressed itself in empty words." And perhaps he was
not altogether wrong. He was very much down on the politics of Lord
Salisbury, who had declined his support to a contemplated Persian loan
in London, Persia thus being compelled to borrow money from Russia.
Referring to the riskiness of this step, the king remarked, "What were
we to do? When my father died it was said that he had left private means
to the amount of about four million pounds, and that these moneys were
packed away in chests in the cellar. There was not a word of truth in
all this. Instead of money my father left debts, and when I came to the
throne I was unable to pay not merely the State officials, but even the
court expenses and the servants. I was forced to get a loan from
somewhere, and England drove me into the arms of Russia."
Taking it altogether, Mozaffareddin Shah earnestly desired to reform
his land thoroughly, and in its internal arrangements to introduce many
of the modernisations which had particularly struck him in his European
travels. Unfortunately the good man did not know where to begin and what
means to use to attain his object. Discouraged and embittered by the
everlasting wrangling and quarrelling in his immediate _entourage_, he
seemed to stand in mortal dread of his Grand-Vizier, Ali Asghar Khan.
This man, the son of a Georgian renegade from the Caucasus, had
practically made the Shah the unwilling tool of his intriguing and rare
abilities. He comported himself as a servant, but was in reality the
master of his master and the ruler of Persia. I was often an eye-witness
when the two were together. The Shah, apathetically seated in his easy
chair, would speak with as much authority as the words of his first
minister were servile and submissive; but scarcely had he felt the
piercing glance of the latter than he would suddenly stop short and sink
back in his armchair. Behind the door listened his secretary and
faithful servant, who occasionally made his presence known by a low
cough, upon which the Vizier would angrily turn towards the door, and
strongly accentuating the submissive words continue his harangue. Master
of the situation and with an insatiable desire for power and gain, the
Grand-Vizier might possibly have been useful to the country if the
violent opposition of his many rivals had not occupied all his energy,
and the secret hostility of high dignitaries and the rivalry of European
ambassadors at court had not effectually frustrated all attempts at any
healthy reform. Even as Nasreddin's various journeys to Europe remained
fruitless for Persia, so it was with the efforts made by his son. After
his return from Europe the Shah hastened to change the cut and the
colour of the uniform of certain court officials. High-flown orders were
issued, but not followed up; the money borrowed from the Russians soon
came to an end; anarchy, misery, and confusion were bound to increase
apace.
To complete the above notes about my intercourse with the Oriental
princes and grandees, I will attempt to throw some light upon their
private life and mental condition, points which would not be open to a
foreigner in their intercourse with them, but which could not be hidden
from me, the supposed Asiatic. The personality of the Oriental ruler is
still more or less a curiosity in Europe; he is still gazed at and
admired as something out of the common; and naturally so, for the
attributes of Oriental Majesty are always extravagantly magnified, and,
candidly speaking, our minds are still somewhat under the spell of the
"Thousand and One Nights" stories, although current literature has here
and there somewhat ruthlessly torn away the magic veil which surrounds
these demigods of our imagination. Demigods they are no longer to their
own subjects even, for their crowns have lost too many of the jewels
whose brilliancy dazzled the eyes of the beholders, and the source is
dry which furnished the means wherewith the faithfulness and loyalty of
their subjects could be secured. I have been on intimate terms with two
Sultans, two Shahs, and several Khans; I have watched them closely, and
I must honestly say that I consider their position anything but an
enviable one; for with a few exceptions they are more ruled over than
ruling, and in spite of their apparent omnipotence, the fear with which
they inspire those nearest them is not nearly so great as the fear to
which they themselves are exposed in their constant anxiety about their
personal safety. When late in the evening I was sitting quite alone in
one of the apartments of the Yildiz Palace, and in the stillness of the
night was startled by the echo of the dull, heavy step of the patrol
passing close under the windows, I often thought to myself "What in all
the world can compensate for such a terrible existence?" I will admit
that Sultan Abdul Hamid is more anxious and timorous than many of his
Oriental brother sovereigns, for his exaggerated precautions are rightly
ridiculed, but from the fact that he never feels safe by day or by
night, never sleeps peacefully, that with all he eats and drinks he
thinks of poison, and that on all occasions and everywhere he scents
danger, for such an existence the greatest power and majesty, all the
glory in the world and all its submissive homage are but a poor exchange
and in nowise adequate compensation for all the quaking and trembling
that it involves. A quiet and peaceful life is practically impossible at
an Oriental court, considering the everlasting quarrelling, intriguing,
and jealousy prevailing among the servants and officials. All covet the
favour of the unfortunate autocrat, each one tries to outdo the other,
each one seeks the destruction of his neighbour, and when to this
pandemonium are added the intrigues of the womenfolk in the harem, it is
easy to see how little joy there is in the life of an Oriental despot,
nay, rather how deplorable is the fate of such a monarch.
In cases where conceit has a stronger hold upon the senses, where the
ruler in his diseased fancy behaves himself like a superhuman being, as,
for instance, Sultan Abdul Aziz, such an one knows but little fear and
in the shelter of his imaginary security manages to make his existence
fairly tolerable. The story is told of this latter Sultan that during
his European journey in 1867, when making a pleasure trip on the Rhine
to Coblentz, he asked of those with him whether this canal had been dug
for his special benefit, and when in Budapest on board one of the Danube
steamers the Turkish Consul, Commandant A., a cultured officer educated
in Europe, met him and saluted in European fashion, the Sultan in my
presence turned to Fuad Pasha and remarked: "Why did not this rude
fellow kiss my feet?" This Sultan, half mad as he was, who decorated
horses, dogs, and rams, who spent many millions on useless buildings,
was little troubled with anxiety and fear, up to the memorable night
when he was informed of his deposition; but other despots are in
constant dread of their lives. Nasreddin Shah, even in his hunting lodge
in Djadjerud, never neglected to have his couch surrounded by a company
of soldiers; and his son, Mozaffareddin Shah, now on the throne, keeps
awake for whole nights together for fear of being attacked and murdered.
Can anything be more awful?
Of late years Oriental despots have come to the conclusion that in
foreign lands, among the unbelievers, they are safer, freer, and
altogether happier than in their own country. Abdul Ahad, the Emir of
Bokhara, visits the Russian baths of Pyatigorsk in preference to any
other, and from the frequent visits of the Persian kings to Europe it is
very evident that the Shehinshahs of Iran, notwithstanding their Asiatic
despotism, find in the land of the Franks--whose very touch defileth, in
the eyes of the Shiites--more of pleasure and recreation than they can
ever enjoy at home. In Teheran when the Shah rides or drives out, two
long rows of Ferrashes (attendants) precede him as already mentioned,
armed with long staves, to keep the beloved subjects at a safe distance
and to clear the way. Windows and doors are tightly shuttered and
curtained to prevent any one from setting eyes on their lord and master;
the sanctity (otherwise security) of the ruler's sublime person demands
this. When the Shah comes to a European city crowds of curious
Westerners receive him; he is cheered and welcomed, and the homage of
the public pleases him, and makes him feel stronger and more confident
than before. And then there is the courtesy he meets with at our courts;
he fancies himself on equality with the powerful sovereigns of the West;
all this increases his self-respect, and therein lies the special charm
of his European travels.
If here in Europe we have been under the impression that the experiences
gained in these visits to Western lands would be used in the interests
of Western culture and for the civilising of his own land, we have been
far too sanguine in our expectations, for these pleasure trips of
Oriental sovereigns have never benefited their respective countries. On
the contrary, they drain the land's resources. With his three journeys
to Europe Nasreddin Shah has utterly ruined the finances of Persia,
already in a very unsound condition. They did not lead to any profitable
innovations, and it is a well-known fact that the travels of his son
Mozaffareddin Shah were paid for by a Russian loan, originally intended
for the economic and administrative amelioration of the land.
No, these Asiatic demigods do not lie on a bed of roses. Their life is
bare and lonely, their enjoyment full of anxiety and fear, the hundreds
of thousands who writhe before them in the dust and do them homage with
bombastic titulations are their greatest enemies, and the worst victims
of despotism are the despots themselves. Can one be surprised that I
brought no rosy reminiscences from the Oriental courts?
The Struggle's End, and yet no End