the Turks in support of their Empire was a new departure in policy.
Its Government had been closely allied with that of Russia during
the greater part of the eighteenth century. Its policy had been
mainly determined by jealousy of France. It looked upon Russia as
a counterpoise to that State. It had never raised any objection to
the ambitious projects of Russia against Turkey. Lord Chatham, whose
foreign policy had prevailed till now, had always held that it was not
the interest of England to enter into a connection with the Turks.
England had looked on with indifference in 1784, when the Empress
Catherine had taken possession of the Crimea. Charles Fox was at that
time Minister of Foreign Affairs in England, and he showed himself as
much in favour of Russia as Chatham had been. “My system of foreign
politics,” he wrote, “is deeply rooted. Alliance with the northern
Powers (including Russia) ever has been and ever will be the system of
every enlightened Englishman.” It was an entirely new departure when
the younger Pitt, in 1790, entered the lists in alliance with Prussia
against Russia in order to restore and maintain the balance of power in
the south-east of Europe in favour of Turkey.
The British Government renewed its offer of mediation. Its Ambassador
at St. Petersburg was instructed to inform the Empress that if she
would accept a peace on the basis of the _status quo_, England would
use her influence to obtain from the Turks a formal renunciation of
their claims to the Crimea under the guarantee of the allies. The
Empress, in her reply through her minister, expressed her indignation
at the unparalleled conduct of the allies in attempting to dictate in
so arbitrary a manner to a sovereign perfectly independent, and in want
of no assistance to procure the conditions which seemed to her best
suited to satisfy her honour. Rather than diminish the glory of a long
and illustrious reign, the Empress was ready to encounter any risk, and
she would only accept the good offices of the King of England “inasmuch
as they may lead to preserve for her the indemnification she requires
of Oczakoff and its district.”[30]
The reply was important, for it showed that Russia was, at all
events, willing to bring the war to an end and to forgo its intention
of driving the Turks out of Europe. The fact was that, in spite of
repeated victories, the Russian losses in killed and wounded, and still
more by disease, were very serious. The Empress also had other troubles
on her hands. The Polish question, in which she was more interested
than in that of Turkey, was imminent. The Second Partition was decided
on. It was necessary for her to have a free hand. In spite of this, she
was determined not to yield possession of Oczakoff.
Meanwhile the British and Prussian Governments were in consultation.
They were agreed that they were bound to insist upon the surrender of
Oczakoff and its district, and upon a peace based on the _status quo_
before the war. It was contended that, as Austria and Sweden had both
made peace on such terms, the allies could not with honour demand less
for the Turks, and that Turkey would consider itself betrayed if the
allies were willing to give up those districts.
It was decided, therefore, by the allies to enforce by arms their
mediation on the basis of the _status quo_. The British Government
engaged to send a fleet of thirty-five vessels of the line into the
Baltic, and Prussia to march an army into Livonia. It was agreed that
neither Power would look for any territorial acquisition, but would
only insist on greater security for the Porte in the Black Sea.
In this view Mr. Pitt, on March 28, 1791, presented to the House of
Commons a message from the King asking for the supply of means to
augment the forces of the Crown. He based his justification, says
Mr. Lecky, who has given a summary of Pitt’s speech, mainly on the
interests of Prussia and the obligation of Great Britain to defend her.
Prussia [Pitt said], of all European Powers, is the one who would
be the most useful ally of England, and the events that were taking
place were very dangerous to her. The Turkish Empire is of great
weight in the general scale of European Powers, and if that Empire
is diminished or destroyed, or even rendered unstable or precarious,
the situation of Prussia would be seriously affected.... Could any
one imagine that the aggrandizement of Russia would not materially
affect the disposition of other Powers—that it might not produce an
alteration in Poland highly dangerous to Prussia?... If a powerful
and ambitious neighbour were suffered to establish herself upon the
very frontier of Prussia, what safety was there for Denmark, or
what for Sweden when Prussia shall no longer be in a position to
help them? The safety of all Europe might afterwards be endangered.
Whatever might be the result of the war in which the Turks were now
unhappily engaged, if its results were to increase the power of
Russia the effect would not be confined to the two Powers alone; it
would be felt by the rest of Europe.
He asked for the means to equip a great fleet to be sent to the Baltic
and a smaller one for the Black Sea.
The proposal of Pitt for giving effect to this policy was violently
opposed by Charles Fox in a speech which produced a very great effect
in the House of Commons and on the country.
The insistence [he said] on the surrender by Russia of Oczakoff
and its district was in the highest degree unjust and impolitic.
It was unjust because Russia had not been the aggressor in the war
and because, in spite of her great successes, she had consented to
concessions which displayed her signal moderation. It was impolitic,
for the only result of an expensive and dangerous war would be to
alienate, perhaps for ever, a most valuable ally, without obtaining
any object in which England had a real interest.... Russia was the
natural ally of England. What had England to gain by this policy?
In what way could English interests or English power be affected
by the acquisition by Russia of a fortress on the Dniester and a
strip of barren land along the northern shore of the Black Sea?...
The assertion that England was bound by the spirit of its defensive
alliance with Prussia was in the highest degree dangerous and
absurd. If defensive alliances were construed in such a way they
would have all the evils of offensive alliances, and they would
involve us in every quarrel in Europe. We bound ourselves only to
furnish assistance to Prussia if she were attacked. She had not been
attacked. She was at perfect peace. She was absolutely unmenaced. It
was doubtful whether the new acquisition of Russia would under any
circumstances be injurious to Prussia, and it was preposterous to
maintain that it was the duty of England to prevent any other nations
from acquiring any territory which might possibly in some future war
be made use of against Prussia.
Fox was supported by Burke in a powerful speech, in spite of their
growing differences on the subject of the Revolution in France.
Considering the Turkish Empire [he said] as any part of the balance
of power in Europe was new. The Turks were essentially Asiatic
people, who completely isolated themselves from European affairs. The
minister and the policy which should give them any weight in Europe
would deserve all the ban and curses of posterity. For his part,
he confessed that he had seen with horror the beautiful countries
that bordered on the Danube given back by the Emperor of Austria to
devastation. Are we now going to vote the blood and treasure of our
countrymen to enforce similar cruel and inhuman policy?... That so
wise a man as Pitt should endeavour, on such slight and frivolous
grounds, to commit this country to a policy of unlimited adventure,
sacrificing the friendship of one of our oldest allies and casting
to the winds the foreign policy of his own father, was the most
extraordinary event that had taken place in Parliament since he had
sat within its walls.
Pitt’s motion was carried, but by many votes short of his usual party
majority. Two other debates took place on the subject. Though Pitt
maintained his majority, it was evident that the opinion of the House
of Commons, and still more of the country, was opposed to going to war
with Russia on behalf of Turkey. Pitt very wisely decided to abandon
his policy of war. He withdrew his proposal in the House of Commons.
The Foreign Minister, the Duke of Leeds, who was personally committed
to it, resigned his office. Another messenger was sent to the British
Ambassador at St. Petersburg with instructions not to present the
menacing despatch to the Czar, and, fortunately, arrived in time to
prevent it.
Sir E. Creasy describes the action of Charles Fox in thus defeating
the policy of Pitt as due to violent and unscrupulous party motives,
and Mr. Lecky, while agreeing in substance with the arguments of Fox,
and condemning Pitt’s policy, does not acquit the former of political
partisanship. He never loses an opportunity of impeaching the conduct
of Charles Fox, on account of his action in the war with the American
colonies and in the revolutionary war with France. It may be permitted
to us to say, in spite of these high authorities, that seldom has a
greater service been done to the country than in the defeat of Pitt’s
proposal to go to war with Russia on this occasion. It was a unique
case in our constitutional history when the House of Commons by its
debates, and not by its votes, defeated a proposal for war made to
it by a Prime Minister, with all the authority of the Crown and the
Government. The merit of this was mainly due to Fox.
In the meantime the Turks were incurring further defeats on the Danube.
They made desperate efforts to replenish their armies, but the men
were ill-trained and were unable to meet the veteran troops of Russia.
Kutusoff, at the head of a Russian army, routed a great Ottoman army
at Babatagh in January 1791, and in July of the same year Prince
Repnin, with forty thousand Russians, defeated and dispersed seventy
thousand Turks at Maksyu, on the southern bank of the Danube. The Turks
were equally unfortunate on the east of the Black Sea. A Russian army
invaded the province of Kuban and defeated a Turkish army there, and
occupied the whole of the province.
As a result of all these reverses the Divan was dispirited. There was
no prospect of assistance to Turkey from any quarter. They were willing
to come to terms. The Empress, on her part, was equally willing. She
wanted her army to march into Poland to put down an outbreak of the
Poles, under Kosciuszko. In spite of her recent victories, which had
secured to her the occupation of Bessarabia, Moldavia, Wallachia, and
the Kuban, she was ready to give up all with the exception of the
fortress of Oczakoff and the country between the Rivers Dniester and
Bug. Terms on this basis, and without any mediation or interference of
other Powers, were agreed on between Russia and Turkey in August, 1791,
and were embodied in the treaty of Jassy in January of the following
year. Under this treaty the River Dniester was the new boundary of
the Russian Empire, and all conquests west of it were restored to the
Turks. Russia also gave back the province of Kuban, but the treaty
recognized the Empress as the protector of the petty independent
principalities in that region.
The project of carving for Potemkin a kingdom out of the Danubian
principalities was abandoned, and that of a Greek Empire at
Constantinople was indefinitely adjourned. Potemkin, who was a Pole
by birth and had been raised from the position of a sergeant in the
Russian army to princely rank with a fortune estimated at seven
millions of our money, died a few days after the treaty.
In the next four years the Empress achieved the final partition of
Poland, and obtained for Russia the lion’s share. Had she lived, she
would probably have used her acquisitions there as a vantage-ground for
new aggressions on the Ottoman Empire. Meanwhile Greece was abandoned
to the tender mercies of its oppressors.
XVIII
TO THE TREATY OF BUCHAREST
1792-1812
TWENTY years after the treaty of Jassy, another slice of the Ottoman
territory was ceded to Russia in 1812 by the treaty of Bucharest.
The history of Turkey during the interval is full of interest in its
relation to the Napoleonic wars, but much of it has little bearing on
the shrinkage of the Empire.
After the conclusion of the war with Russia in 1792, Sultan Selim was
most anxious to maintain peace and to keep out of the complications
arising from the French Revolution. He was fully conscious of the
necessity for reforms in every branch of the administration of his
country, and especially in the constitution and training of the
army. He regarded the Janissaries as a grave danger to the State. He
initiated many great schemes of reform. But in 1798 these were nipped
in the bud by a fresh outbreak of hostilities. War was forced upon
him most unexpectedly, and without just cause or even pretext, by the
Revolutionary Government of France, a country whose traditional policy
had been to support the Ottoman Empire against that of Austria. France
had recently become a near neighbour to Turkey. Under the treaty of
Campo-Formio in 1797, after the great victories of General Bonaparte in
Italy, the Republic of Venice ceased to exist. Venice itself, and much
of its Italian territories, were subjected to the rule of Austria, and
its possessions in the Adriatic, the Ionian Islands, and the cities on
the mainland, such as Prevesa and Parga, were ceded to France. This
change of masters was welcomed by the inhabitants of the islands, who
were weary of the tyranny of the Venetians.
The Directory, which then ruled in France, was filled with ambition
for further extensions in the East. It was under the impression that
the Ottoman Empire was on the point of complete dissolution. There
was much, at the time, to justify this view. The central power of the
State was almost paralysed. The pashas of many provinces, such as Ali
of Janina, Passhwan Oghlou of Widdin, and Djezzar of Acre, had made
themselves all but independent of the Sultan. Egypt was virtually ruled
by the Mamelukes. Its pasha, appointed by the Porte, was without any
authority. Serbia and Greece were seething with rebellion. Bonaparte,
while commanding the army in Italy, sent emissaries to several of these
provinces, and especially to Greece, holding out hopes of support in
the event of open rebellion. It seemed at first as though his ambition
was for extension of French dominion in Greece and other European
provinces of the Porte. An army of forty thousand men, including
the best of the veterans who had fought in Italy, was mobilized at
Toulon. Two hundred transports were prepared to convey them to some
unknown destination, and a powerful fleet of fifteen battleships and
fifteen frigates was ordered to act as convoy. At the last moment
the Directory, at the instance of Bonaparte, decided on the invasion
of Egypt. A blow was to be struck there, not against the Porte,
but against England, with whom France was at war. There were vague
intentions or dreams, after the conquest of Egypt, of invading India
and founding a great Eastern Empire for France on the ruins of the
British Empire. It was pretended that the attack on Egypt was not an
act of hostility to the Porte. Egypt, it was said, was to be delivered
from the cruel and corrupt government of the Mamelukes. There was no
declaration of war against the Sultan. It was expected that he would
acquiesce in the suppression of the Mamelukes.
The utmost secrecy was maintained as to the destination of the
expedition. It left Toulon on May 19, 1798, under the command of
Bonaparte. He took with him many of the ablest generals who had served
under him in Italy and a large party of ‘savants,’ who were to explore
the monuments of Egypt. The orders from the Directory to Bonaparte,
drawn up doubtless by himself, were
to clear the English from all their Oriental possessions which he
will be able to reach, and notably to destroy all their stations in
the Red Sea; to cut through the Isthmus of Suez and to take the
necessary measures to assure the free and exclusive possession of
that sea to the French Republic.
The destination of this great fleet and army was unknown to the British
Government. But there was a strong British fleet at the entrance of
the Mediterranean, under Lord St. Vincent, who detached a large part
of it, under command of Nelson, to watch the issue of the French fleet
from Toulon. It was composed of an equal number of battleships to that
of the French fleet, but of inferior size, and with fewer guns. It was
very deficient in frigates.
On June 10th, three weeks after escaping from Toulon, the French fleet
arrived at Malta. The Knights of St. John, who had made so valiant
and successful a defence of the island against the Ottomans in 1565,
now offered a very feeble resistance to the French. The knightly
monks had become licentious and corrupt. They very soon capitulated.
Bonaparte annexed the island to France, and the ancient Order came to
an ignominious end.
Leaving four thousand men at Malta, the fleet sailed for the island of
Crete, and hearing there that Nelson was in pursuit, Bonaparte at once
decided to sail to Alexandria. He then for the first time announced to
the army its destination.
Soldiers [he said in a proclamation], you go to undertake a conquest
of which the effects upon the civilization and the commerce of
the world will be incalculable. You will strike at England the
most certain and the most acute blow, while waiting to give her
the death-blow.... The Mamelukes, who favour exclusively English
commerce, some days after your arrival will exist no more.
Nelson meanwhile, when he discovered the departure of the French fleet
from Toulon, shrewdly guessed that it was bound to Egypt, and bent
his course there, hoping to find the enemy’s ships at Alexandria. He
arrived there on June 28th, before the French fleet, and, hearing
nothing of it, he doubled back to Sicily. The two fleets crossed one
another not far from Crete, and within sight of one another if the
weather had been bright; but a dense haze and the want of frigates to
act as scouts prevented Nelson discovering the proximity of his enemy.
But for this it is certain that the French fleet, encumbered as it
was with two hundred transports, would have been totally destroyed
and the whole armada would have met with unparalleled disaster. It is
interesting matter for speculation what effect this would have had on
the career of the Corsican general and on the history of Europe. As it
was, the French fleet and army, favoured by their extraordinary good
luck, arrived safely at Alexandria on July 1st. The army disembarked
there. The battleships, not being able to get into the harbour, were
anchored in Aboukir Bay. Alexandria was captured, after a slight
resistance by its small garrison—though Bonaparte himself was slightly
wounded in the attack. A week later the army commenced its march to
Cairo.
Bonaparte issued one of his bombastic and mendacious proclamations to
the Egyptian people, explaining that he was making war against the
Mamelukes, and not against them or the Sultan.
For a long time [it said] the crowd of slaves bought in Georgia and
the Caucasus have tyrannized the most beautiful place in the world;
but God, on whom all depends, has ordained that their empire is
finished. People of Egypt, they have told you that I have come to
destroy your religion. Do not believe them. Answer that I am come to
restore your rights, to punish the usurpers, and that I respect more
than the Mamelukes, God, his Prophet, and the Koran.... Thrice happy
are those who will be on our side. They will prosper in their fortune
and their rank.... But woe threefold to those who arm themselves for
the Mamelukes and fight against us.... Each man will thank God for
the destruction of the Mamelukes and will cry “Glory to the Sultan!
Glory to the French army, his friend! Malediction to the Mamelukes
and good luck to the people of Egypt.”
The army suffered greatly on its march to Cairo from the heat and
the sand. The soldiers murmured and asked for what purpose they were
brought to such a country, where they saw no evidence of wealth, and
where there was nothing to loot. But they fought two battles on the
way against the Mamelukes and easily defeated them. The armies against
them on both occasions consisted of no more than twelve thousand men,
of whom only five thousand were Mamelukes and the others ill-trained
fellaheen. These were of no avail against thirty thousand veterans
of the French. The city of Cairo, on the approach of Bonaparte, was
sacked by the retreating Egyptians. He presented himself rather as the
saviour of life and property. He had no difficulty in restoring order
there.
Meanwhile Nelson, on the arrival of his fleet at Naples, heard definite
accounts of the destination of the French armada. He retraced his
course to Egypt. On the memorable 1st of August, 1798, he came in
sight of the enemy’s fleet, anchored in Aboukir Bay. The oft-told
story of the decisive and glorious battle need not be repeated. The
French fleet, under Admiral Brueys, was annihilated by the British
fleet, much inferior in number of men and guns. The admiral was
killed. His flagship was blown up. Only two of his ships escaped for
a time, and later were captured before reaching France. As a result,
the communications of the French army with France were thenceforth
completely severed. It was hopelessly stranded in Egypt. Bonaparte
did not hear of the disaster till August 19th, on his return from an
expedition, in which he defeated and chased from the country a force of
Mamelukes, under Ibrahim Pasha. His sole remark was: “Eh bien! It will
be necessary to remain in these countries or to make a grand exit like
the ancients. The English will compel us to do greater things than we
intended.”
The signal victory of the British fleet had far-reaching results. The
Sultan of Turkey, who had hitherto been undecided as to his policy, now
felt that he might safely take up arms against the French and reassert
his sovereignty in Egypt. He well knew that Bonaparte could receive no
reinforcements from France and that the invading army must gradually
melt away. He declared war against France, and entered into alliances,
offensive and defensive, with Russia and England. His alliance with
the former led to strange results. A combined fleet of Russia and
Turkey, hitherto the most deadly foes to one another, issued from the
Dardanelles, and attacked and drove the French from the Ionian Islands,
so recently acquired by them, and from their fortresses on the mainland.
The Porte also collected two armies for the reconquest of Egypt, the
one in Syria, the other in the island of Rhodes. Bonaparte decided
to anticipate attack by the invasion of Syria. He spent at Cairo the
winter of 1798-9, the least reputable period of his amazing career. His
private life there was most scandalous, far more so than that, bad
enough, of his wife, Josephine, whom he had left at Paris. His public
life was little better. In the hopes of conciliating the Egyptian
people and facilitating the further conquests in the East, of which
he dreamt, he professed unbounded admiration for the Moslem religion.
He feigned to be a convert to that faith. His vaunting proclamations
were headed: “In the name of Allah. There is no God but God. He has
no son and reigns without a partner.” He did his best to induce his
soldiers to become Moslems, but in vain. No one was taken in by these
fooleries. He gained no respect from Egyptians of any creed. There were
many outbreaks in different parts of the country, and a most serious
one in Cairo. They were put down with ruthless severity. He followed
the Turkish practice of decapitating the prisoners and great numbers
of suspects, and exhibiting their bleeding heads in public places as a
warning to others.