character and style of his writing. Mommsen, in his address mentioned
above, characterizes him as "the man who knew how to describe, as well
as how to win, battles, the master of style in his rare speeches, the
clever and sympathetic investigator of and writer on manifold ethnic
life, the scientific explorer of the regions on the rivers Tigris and
Euphrates." It is obvious, though, that this mastery of style, this
superb union of form and content, was not attained miraculously and
from the start. Still, his first production, published in 1827, a tale
(_Novelle_) in the style of Tieck and his followers, shows distinctive
talent, and a tendency toward brevity as well as adequacy of
expression, not to mention a sustained sense of harmony and
proportion. The young lieutenant also published, anonymously, some
poetry, and showed a clever hand in translating from foreign poets. It
is a pity that most of these attempts are buried in inaccessible
periodicals and have never been republished. But he left the field of
poetry and fiction, so far as we know, forever with his next work, the
first published under his name and in pamphlet form, a work which,
though of genuine political interest and love, was at the same time
intended to increase his income to the level of a living wage:
_Holland and Belgium in their mutual relations; from their separation
under Philip II., till their re-union under William I_. He read more
than five thousand pages of sources for the preparation of this small
pamphlet. It was published in 1831, and followed within a year by
another one: _An account of the internal state of affairs and of the
social condition of Poland_. Both writings, as in fact everything else
from his pen since about 1830, had a more or less direct bearing on
his military vocation; since war, according to Clausewitz, is nothing
but the continuation of politics by other than diplomatic means.
But the height of his literary mastery is reached in 1841 by the
publication of the _Letters on the condition and events in Turkey from
the years_ 1835 _till_ 1839, the matured fruit of those eventful and
adventurous but, at the same time, constructive years in the Orient.
They have been likened to Goethe's _Italian Journey_. The comparison
is justified by striking resemblances. Both works have resulted from
diaries and letters actually kept, Moltke's work, however, more
faithfully retaining and professing its formal nature. But the
resemblance is much closer, arising, in the so-called inner form, from
a similarity of attitude, the same wide extent of interests which may
be briefly called "kulturgeschichtlich," and, above all, the
scientific concern in the country and its inhabitants, to which both
brought the most solid and methodical qualifications. It is true, the
wealth of Italy, both of antiquity and of the Renaissance, in matters
literary and artistic, so exuberantly mirrored in Goethe's book of
travel, is not to be found in Moltke's work. But this lack is
counterbalanced by those portions dealing with historical events which
Moltke actually experienced and even influenced; events, though then
unsuccessful, as far as his intentions were concerned, yet important
and significant for our own time, as the recent developments on the
Balkan peninsula bear ample evidence. Both, Goethe as well as Moltke,
are clever and artistic in handling pencil and brush as well as their
descriptive pen.
And now the style, in the narrower sense. It is natural, limpid, free
from all rhetorical flourishes and wordiness, placing the right word
in the right place. Xenophon, Caesar, Goethe, come to mind in reading
Moltke's descriptions, historical expositions, reflections. Bookish
terms and unvisual metaphors, which occur in the preceding pamphlets,
though rarely enough, are entirely absent. The tendency toward
military brevity and precision is everywhere obvious. The omission of
the cumbersome auxiliary, wherever permissible, already
characteristically employed in his tale, is conspicuous, as in all his
writings and letters. The words are arranged in rhythmical groups
without falling into a monotonous sing song. Participial
constructions, tending toward brevity, are more in evidence than in
ordinary German prose. Sparingly, but with good reason and excellent
handling, periodic structure is employed. Still another point is
significant, showing the writer to be of born artistic instinct. In a
letter to his brother Ludwig, who was to take from Moltke's
overburdened shoulders part of his laborious task of translating
Gibbon, he cleverly remarks on the exuberant use of adjectives by the
historian as being sometimes more obscuring than elucidating, and he
simply advises the omitting of some. It is a pity that the translation
seems to be lost, and with it an insight into Moltke's elaboration of
his style, which a translation would reveal better than original
composition. In one respect these letters about Turkey were never
equalled by Moltke. Henceforth, he turned absolutely matter-of-fact, a
military writer _par excellence_. Even in his letters those nice bits
of humor and incidental manifestations of a subtle and fine nature
sense grow scarcer and scarcer. There are two essays--_The Western
Boundary_, and _Considerations in the Choice of Railway Routes_--both
published in the _Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift_, in 1841, and 1843
respectively, that demonstrate this tendency toward specialization.
The bulk of his writings from then on falls into that technical series
reserved for, and interesting chiefly to, the military man. Even his
speeches in the Reichstag, few and far between, considering the extent
of years over which they are spread, with all their excellent
"Sachlichkeit," their directness and clearness, concern matters and
problems that affect, more or less directly, his comprehensive duties
as chief intellect of the military organization of his country. So,
quite naturally, we see him very reluctantly yield to a gentle but
persistent pressure to use his great literary talent for setting down
some reminiscences from his life. He declined to publish personal
memoirs, however, saying: "All that I have written about actual and
real things ('Sachliches') which is worth preserving is kept in the
archives of the General Staff. My personal reminiscences are better
buried with me." He had turned objective in the highest possible
degree, leaving behind all vanities and petty subjective points of
view. But after his retirement he wrote, in 1887, on the basis of the
great work on that subject by the General Staff and partly managed by
himself, that short _History of the Franco-German War of_ 1870-71,
which his nation cherishes as a precious inheritance. It is "sachlich"
throughout. Starting with a brief reflection on the origin of modern
wars he relates the events from the point of view of the directing
chief of staff of the army, closing the whole by one impressive
sentence: "Strassburg and Metz, estranged from our country in times of
weakness, had been regained, and the German Empire had come to a
renewed existence." The work is a consummation, in literary form, of
his motto "Erst waegen, dann wagen!" From the very threshold of his
death we possess as the sum total of his philosophy of life those
already mentioned _Consolatory Thoughts on the Earthly Life and a
Future Existence_. From the point of composition and style these are
highly interesting because of the fact that, beside the final version,
three extant parallel versions show the gradual working out of form
and thought.
Something remains to be said about Moltke the correspondent. The
letters preserved or published fully justify his being ranked among
the best letter writers in German literature. Here, more than
elsewhere, the subtle and finer characteristics of the man, the son,
the brother, the friend, the gentle and always kindly responsive
nature of a thoroughly human and Christian soul are revealed. Above
all, however, and side by side with Bismarck's noble letters to his
fiancée and wife, stand Moltke's charming and devoted letters to Mary
Burt von Moltke. I shall not venture to describe their wealth of
sentiment, of charm, of love, of interest in matters big and small.
One of the long series, however, stands conspicuous among them; it is
addressed to his fiancée, dated Berlin, February 13, 1842. Charming in
its combination of a protective, paternal, and instructive attitude
with that of the lover and prospective husband, it is unique also
because of the advice given about the gentle art of writing letters,
an art in which the great modern strategist excelled.
_LETTERS AND HISTORICAL WRITINGS OF MOLTKE_
* * * * *
THE POLITICAL AND MILITARY CONDITIONS OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE IN 1836
TRANSLATED BY EDMUND VON MACH, PH.D.
[Moltke spent four years, from 1836 to 1839, in Turkey, and, as was
his habit, sent detailed accounts of his experiences to his family.
After his return to Prussia, he collected his material, revised it,
omitted all intimate family references, and published it under the
title _Letters Concerning Conditions and Events in Turkey_. The book
contained sixty-seven letters. The following is the tenth letter,
dated from Pera, April 7, 1836.]
For a long time it was the task of the armies of western Europe to set
bounds to the Turkish sway. Today the powers of Europe seem anxious to
keep the Turkish state in existence. Not so very long ago serious
concern was felt lest Islam gain the upper hand in a great part of the
West, as it had done in the Orient. The adherents of the prophet had
conquered countries where Christianity had been rooted for centuries.
The classic soil of the apostles, Corinth and Ephesus, Nicea (the city
of synods and churches), also Antioch, Nicomedia, and Alexandria had
yielded to their strength. Even the cradle of Christianity and the
grave of the Saviour, Palestine and Jerusalem, did homage to the
Infidels, who held their possessions against the united armies of the
western knights.
It was left to the Infidels to put an end to the long existence of the
Roman Empire, and to dedicate St. Sophia, where Christ and the saints
had been worshipped for almost one thousand years, to Allah and
his prophet. At the very time when people were wrangling about
religious dogmas in Constance, when the reconciliation between the
Greek and the Catholic churches had failed, and the defection of forty
million people from the rule of the Pope was threatening, the Moslems
advanced victoriously to Steiermark and Salzburg. The noblest prince
of Europe at that time, the Roman King, fled from his capital before
them; and St. Stephen in Vienna came near being turned into a mosque,
like St. Sophia in Byzantium.
At that time the countries from the African desert to the Caspian Sea,
and from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic, obeyed the orders of the
Padisha. Venice and the German Emperors were registered among the
tributaries of the Porte. From it three quarters of the coastlands of
the Mediterranean took their orders. The Nile, the Euphrates, and
almost the Danube had become Turkish rivers, as the archipelago and
the Black Sea were Turkish inland waters. And after barely two hundred
years this same mighty empire reveals to us a picture of dissolution
which promises an early end.
In the two old capitals of the world, Rome and Constantinople, the
same means have been employed to the same ends, the unity of the dogma
to obtain unrestricted power. The vicar of St. Peter and the heir of
the calif have fallen thereby into identical impotency.
Since Greece has declared her independence, and the principalities of
Moldavia, Wallachia, and Servia are offering only a formal recognition
to the Porte, the Turks are as if banished from these, their own
provinces. Egypt is a hostile power rather than a subject country;
Syria with her wealth, Adana (the province of Cilicia), and Crete,
conquered at the cost of fifty-five attacks and the lives of seventy
thousand Mussulmans, have been lost without one sword-thrust, the
booty of a rebellious pasha. The control in Tripolis, hardly
recovered, is in danger of being lost again. The other African states
of the Mediterranean have today no real connection with the Porte;
and France in her hesitation whether she should keep the most
beautiful of them as her own is looking to the cabinet of St. James
rather than to the Divan at Constantinople. In Arabia finally, and in
the holy cities themselves, the Sultan has had no actual authority for
a long time.
Even in those countries which are left to the Porte the supreme power
of the Sultan is often restricted. The people on the banks of the
Euphrates and the Tigris show little fidelity; the _Agas_ on the Black
Sea and in Bosnia obey the dictates of their personal interests rather
than the orders of the Padisha; and the larger cities at a distance
from Constantinople are enjoying oligarchical municipal institutions,
which render them almost independent.
The Ottoman monarchy, therefore, consists today of an aggregation of
kingdoms, principalities, and republics which are kept together only
by habit and the communion of the Koran. And if a despot is a ruler
whose words are law, then the Sultan in Constantinople is very far
from being a despot.
The diplomacy of Europe has long engaged the Porte in wars which are
not in its interest, or has forced it to make treaties of peace in
which it has lost some of its provinces. During all this time,
however, the Ottoman Empire had to deal with an enemy at home who
seemed more terrible than all the foreign armies and navies. Selim
III. was not the first Sultan to lose his throne and his life in his
struggle against the Janizaries, and his successor preferred the
dangers of a reformation to the necessity of trusting himself to this
society. Through streams of blood he reached his end. The Turkish
Sultan gloried in the destruction of the Turkish army, but he had to
crave the help of an all-too-powerful vassal in order to suppress the
insurrection on the Greek peninsula. At this juncture three Christian
powers forgot their ancient feuds. France and England sacrificed their
ships and men to destroy the Sultan's fleet, and thus laid open to
Russia the way to the heart of Turkey, and brought about what they
had most wished to avoid.
The country had not yet recovered from these many wounds, when the
Pasha of Egypt advanced through Syria, threatening destruction to the
last descendant of Osman. A newly levied army was sent against the
insurgents, but the generals fresh from the harem led it to
destruction. The Porte applied to England and France, who were calling
themselves its oldest and most natural allies, but received from them
only promises. At this juncture Sultan Mahommed invoked the help of
Russia, and his enemy sent him ships, money, and an army.
Then the world saw the remarkable spectacle of fifteen thousand
Russians encamped on the Asiatic hills overlooking Constantinople,
ready to protect the Sultan in his seraglio against the Egyptians.
Among the Turks dissatisfaction was rampant. The Ulemas saw their
influence wane; the innovations had hurt countless interests, and the
new taxes incommoded all classes. Thousands of Janizaries, who were no
longer permitted to call themselves such, and the relatives and
friends of thousands of others who had been throttled, drowned, or
shot down, were scattered through the country and the capital. The
Armenians could not forget the persecution which they had recently
suffered, and the Greek Christians, who constituted half of the
populace of the original Turkish empire, looked upon their rulers as
their enemies, and upon the Russians as fellow-believers in the same
religion. Turkey at that time could not raise another army.
And just then France was laboring with her great event, England was
carrying a load in her public debts, while Prussia and Austria had
attached themselves more intimately than ever before to Russia,
compelled to do so by the conditions of Western Europe.
Foreign armies had brought the empire to the brink of destruction; a
foreign army had saved it. For this reason the Turks wished above
everything else to possess an army of their own of seventy thousand
regular troops. The inadequacy of this force for the protection of the
extensive possessions of the Porte is apparent after one glance at the
map. The very dimensions preclude the concentration of the troops,
scattered through so many places, when one particular spot is in
danger. The soldiers in Bagdad are 1,600 miles distant from those at
Ushkodra in Albania.
This shows the great importance of establishing in the Ottoman Empire
a well arranged system of militia. It presupposes, of course, that the
interests of those who rule and those who are ruled are not at
variance.
The present Turkish army is a new structure on an old and battered
foundation. At present the Porte would have to look for its safety to
its treaties rather than to its army; and the battles which will
decide the survival of this State may as well be fought in the
Ardennes or in the Waldai Mountains as in the Balkans.
The Ottoman monarchy needs above everything else a well ordered
administration, for under present conditions it will scarcely be able
to support even this weak army of seventy thousand men.
The impoverished condition of the country shows only too clearly in
the lessened income of the State. In vain a number of indirect taxes
have been introduced. A kind of tax on meat and meal is levied in a
very primitive way on the street corners of the capital. The fishermen
pay 20 per cent, of the catch in their nets. Weights and measures must
be stamped anew every year; and all products of industry, from
silverware and shawls to shoes and shirts, are stamped with the
imperial seal. But the proceeds from these taxes are enriching only
those who collect them. The riches melt before the avaricious eye of
the administration, and the ruler of the most beautiful lands in three
continents is drawing water with the leaky pots of the daughters of
Danaus.
For the payment of its necessities the government must rely on the
confiscation of property, as it passes to new heirs or outright, on
the sale of offices, and finally on presents and the miserable means
of adulterating the currency.
In regard to the confiscation of money inherited by State officials,
the present Sultan has declared that he will do without it. This
edict, however, instead of abolishing the practice, acknowledges the
correctness of the principle. Formerly the edicts of confiscation were
accompanied by the death warrants of those who were to be robbed.
Today there are gentler means in use for relieving people of the
surplus of their wealth.
The sale of offices continues to be the chief source of income of the
State. The candidates borrow the money at a high rate of interest from
some Armenian business house, while the government permits these
"lease-holders" to recoup themselves by the exploitation of their
provinces to whatever extent they wish. Withal, they must fear either
a higher bidder, who leaves them no time to get rich, or the State, if
they happen to have grown rich. The provinces know beforehand that the
new pasha has come to rob them. They, therefore, prepare themselves.
Interviews are held, and if no agreement is reached, war is waged, or
if an agreement is broken a revolution takes place. As soon as the
pasha has settled with the _Agas_, he stands in fear of the Porte. He,
therefore, combines with other pashas for mutual protection, and the
Sultan must negotiate with the future neighbors of a new pasha before
he can appoint him. In a very few _pashaliks_, to be sure, the
beginning of a better order of things has been made, the
administrative and military powers have been separated, and the
taxpayers themselves have agreed to higher taxes, provided they are
permitted to pay them directly into the State treasury.
Presents are as customary here as everywhere in the Orient. Without a
present the man of lower station is not permitted to approach his
superior. If you ask justice of a judge you must take him a gift.
Officials and officers in the army are given tips, but the man who
receives most presents is the Sultan himself. The expedient of
adulterating the currency has been used to the point of exhaustion.
Twelve years ago the Spanish dollar was worth seven piasters; today it
is bought for twenty-one. The man who then possessed one hundred
thousand dollars has discovered that today he has only thirty-three
thousand. This calamity has hit Turkey worse than it would have
affected any other country, because very little money is here invested
in land, and most fortunes consist of cash capital. In the civilized
countries of Europe a fortune is the result of having created
something of real worth. The man who wins his wealth in this way is
increasing at the same time the wealth of his State. His money merely
represents the abundance of goods at his disposal. In Turkey the coin
itself is the thing of value, and wealth is nothing but the accidental
accumulation of money within the possession of an individual. The very
high rate of interest, which is here legally 20 per cent, is far from
indicating any great activity of capital. It only indicates the great
danger of letting money out of one's immediate possession. The
criterion of wealth is the ease of its removal. The _Rajah_ will
probably buy jewelry for one hundred thousand piasters in preference
to investing his money in a factory, a mill, or a farm. Nowhere is
jewelry better liked than here, and the jewels which, in rich
families, even children of tender years are wearing are a glaring
proof of the poverty of the country.
If it is one of the first duties of every government to create
confidence, the Turkish administration leaves this task entirely
unperformed. Its treatment of the Greeks, its unjust and cruel
persecution of the Armenians, those faithful and rich subjects of the
Porte, and other violent measures, are so fresh in everyone's memory
that no one is willing to invest his money where it will pay interest
only after many years. In a country where industry is without the
element on which it thrives, commerce also must largely consist of the
exchange of foreign merchandise for raw home products. The Turk
actually gives ten _occas_ of his raw silk for one _occa_ of
fabricated silk, the material for which is produced on his own soil.
Agriculture is even in a worse state. One often hears the complaint
that the cost of all the necessities of life has increased in
Constantinople fourfold since the annihilation of the Janizaries, as
if heaven had decreed this punishment on those who exterminated the
"soldiers of Islam." The fact, while true, should probably be
explained differently, for, since the events referred to, the great
granaries of the capital, Moldavia, Wallachia, and Egypt, which
formerly had to send half of their harvests to the Bosphorus, have
been closed. In the interior nobody will undertake the growing of
grain on a large scale, because the government makes its purchases
according to prices of its own choosing. The forced purchases by the
government are a greater evil for Turkey than her losses by fire and
the plague combined. They not only undermine prosperity, but they also
cause its springs to dry up. As a result the government must buy its
grain in Odessa, while endless stretches of fertile land, under a most
benignant sky and at only an hour's distance from a city of eight
hundred thousand people, lie untilled.
The outer members of this once powerful political body have died, and
the heart alone has life. A riot in the streets of the capital may be
the funeral procession of the Ottoman Empire. The future will show
whether it is possible for a State to pause in the middle of its fall
and to reorganize itself, or whether fate has decreed that the
Mohammedan-Byzantine Empire shall die, like the Christian-Byzantine
Empire, of its fiscal administration. The peace of Europe, however, is
apparently less menaced by the danger of a foreign conquest of Turkey
than by the extreme weakness of this empire, and its threatened
collapse within itself.
A TRIP TO BRUSSA
TRANSLATED BY EDMUND VON MACH, PH.D.
[This is the fourteenth of the Letters Concerning Conditions and
Events in Turkey. It is dated from Pera, June 16, 1836.]
Yesterday I returned from a short excursion to Asia, which I really
should describe for you in poetry, because I ascended Mount Olympus.
But since I did not reach the summit, and did not climb farther than
the foot, or more properly speaking the toe, of the giant you will get
off with prose.
I embarked on the eleventh, in the afternoon, in a small Turkish
vessel, and a fresh north wind carried us in four hours to the rocky
promontory of Posidonium (today Bosburun, the point of ice), a
distance of eight miles. Here the sea was running very high, and our
_reis_, or helmsman, who was squatting on the high and delicately
carved stern of the ship, was beginning to chant his _Allah
ekber_--God is merciful--when the wind died down so completely toward
dusk that we did not reach Mudania before eight o'clock next morning.