with the Porte. But the Russian army remained in occupation of
Wallachia and Moldavia, and showed no intention to evacuate them. War
was renewed in 1809. Prince Bagration, at the head of a Russian army,
crossed the Danube and captured several Turkish fortresses on its
right bank. In the following year, 1810, the Russians captured the
important stronghold Silistria, but failed with very heavy loss in an
assault on Rustchuck. Later in the year they inflicted a severe defeat
on the army of the Grand Vizier at Baltin. They then succeeded in a
second attack on Rustchuck, and captured Sistova. But they failed to
take the fortified camp at Schumla, and were unable therefore to cross
the Balkan range.
In 1811 war was again imminent between Russia and France, and the
Russian generals on the Danube received orders to stand on the
defensive. The Turks took advantage of this, and sent a large army
across the Danube. It was eventually defeated and compelled to
surrender. In spite of their successes, the Russians were willing to
come to terms. They had hitherto insisted on the retention of Wallachia
and Moldavia. They were now ready to make concessions. The invasion
of Russia by Napoleon was imminent. It was necessary for the Czar to
concentrate all his forces in defence of his own Empire. Negotiations
were commenced in 1811, and they resulted in the treaty of Bucharest
of May 28, 1812. It was agreed that the River Pruth was to be the new
boundary between the two Empires. The whole of Wallachia and a great
part of Moldavia were restored to Turkey. Bessarabia and a part of
Moldavia were ceded to Russia.
The treatment of Serbia in the treaty was ungenerous on the part of
Russia. An amnesty was to be granted to its people. They were to be
secured in future the regulation of their internal affairs. But the
supremacy of the Sultan was to be maintained, and Belgrade and other
fortresses which had been captured by the Serbians were again to be
garrisoned by Turkish troops. This last was the cause of great troubles
in the future. But for the impending invasion of Russia by Napoleon the
terms would undoubtedly have been far less favourable to the Porte.
XIX
MAHMOUD II
1808-39
THE first four years of Mahmoud’s long reign of thirty-one years were
fraught with bitter humiliation to him at the hands of the Janissaries.
There was no indication of his subsequent career, when he proved
himself to be the most able and resolute of Sultans since Solyman the
Magnificent. But he was also the most unfortunate, for he was unable
to prevent a greater reduction of the Turkish Empire than had been
incurred by any one of the long line of degenerate Sultans. It may
well be, however, that but for his action still greater losses would
have resulted, for on his advent to the throne the Empire seemed to
be on the brink of ruin. In every part of it turbulent and rebellious
pashas were asserting independence. In Epirus the celebrated Ali Pasha
of Janina had cast off allegiance, and was threatening to extend
his rule over Greece, Thessaly, and the Ionian Islands. At Widdin
on the Danube, at Bagdad on the Tigris, at Acre in Syria, the same
process was being pursued by other pashas. In Egypt, Mehemet Ali
had assumed the position of Governor and was creating an army and a
navy independent of the Porte. In Arabia, the sect of Wahabees had
attained a virtual independence, and had obtained possession of the
holy cities. Other provinces, such as Serbia, Wallachia, Moldavia,
and Greece, were seething with disaffection caused by long and
intolerable misgovernment. The difficulty of holding together the
distracted Empire was greatly increased by the want of an effective
army under the full control of the central Government, so as to enable
it to cope with the centrifugal forces which threatened disruption.
The Janissaries, who had contributed so largely to the growth of the
Empire, were now a standing danger to it. They were able to overawe
the Sultan, and to dictate to him the appointment and dismissal of
Viziers. But successive campaigns on the Danube, and conflicts with
rebellious pashas, had given abundant proof of their inefficiency as a
military force. Compared with the armies of European Powers they were
an ill-disciplined and badly armed mob. They arrogantly refused to be
armed, clothed, and drilled after the fashion of European armies. While
useless for war, they were formidable for other purposes. They were
under no control. They terrorized the capital, and in the provinces
they were at the disposal of any adventurous pasha who suborned
them to support his ambitious and rebellious projects. Mahmoud from
the earliest years of his reign fully recognized, as many of his
predecessors had done, how urgent the necessity was to put an end to
this turbulent force, and to create a new army which would obey and
support him as Sultan, and be of value against external enemies. It is
his principal claim in the history of Turkey that he was able to effect
this. Eighteen years, however, elapsed before he felt strong enough to
grapple with these foes of his dynasty and State.
Apart from this great achievement, he showed inflexible firmness
and courage in the great difficulties which confronted him, and
almost alone he bore the burden of the State for thirty-one years of
unparalleled peril, and often of most serious disaster. It will be seen
that, in spite of these high qualities, and in spite of the reform of
his army, the losses of territory to his Empire were very serious. In
Greece, the Morea, and the provinces north of the Gulf of Corinth up
to the frontier of Thessaly, acquired complete independence under the
guarantee of the three Great Powers of Europe. Egypt, Moldavia and
Wallachia, and Serbia attained almost similar independence, subject
only to the nominal suzerainty of the Sultan of Turkey and the payment
of fixed tributes. They no longer added to the real strength of the
Empire. On the other hand, he completely destroyed the power of the
rebellious Pashas of Janina, Widdin, Bagdad, and Acre, and through
Mehemet Ali, the Pasha of Egypt, he subdued the Wahabees and recovered
the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
It should be added that Mahmoud, unlike so many of his predecessors,
devoted his life to affairs of his State rather than to his harem. He
committed at times acts of great cruelty. He put to death his brother
Mustapha and Mustapha’s only son, and caused to be drowned in the
Bosphorus four ladies of Mustapha’s harem who were enceinte. He had no
scruple in directing the secret assassination of any persons whom he
suspected of harbouring schemes in opposition to his own. He authorized
the perpetration of ruthless massacres of Greeks in all parts of his
Empire at the inception of the revolution in Greece. But these were
acts of policy in accord with the traditions of his family, approved
by public opinion of the Turks, by whom terrorism and massacre were
recognized as justifiable methods of government. The murder of his
relatives left him the sole survivor of the Othman race, a position
which secured him from intrigues against his throne by the Janissaries.
The most serious of the losses to the Empire in Mahmoud’s reign was
that of Egypt, for it was a Moslem country, and though for many years
previously the hold on it by the Ottoman Porte had been slender, and
the Mamelukes had been able, as a rule, to impose their will and
to govern the province, yet the Porte could in the main rely on it
for support to the Empire in times of emergency. It will be well,
therefore, to explain the changes effected in Egypt, for it will be
seen that they had a great bearing on events in other parts of the
Ottoman Empire.
Mehemet Ali, who effected the virtual independence of Egypt, subject
to the nominal suzerainty of the Sultan, was the most remarkable man
that the Mahommedan world had produced in modern times. The son of
an Albanian Moslem fisherman and small landowner at Kavala, on the
borders of Thrace and Macedonia, he was left a penniless orphan, and
was brought up as a dependent in the household of the chief magistrate
of the district, who was a distant relative. He never learnt to read
or write. He said of himself in later years that the only books he
ever read were men’s faces, and that he seldom made a mistake in them.
When the French invaded Egypt under General Bonaparte, Mehemet Ali was
sent in defence of it with a band of three hundred Albanians, as one
of their junior officers, and before long, on the return home of the
commanding officer, contrived to step into his place. When the Turkish
army was driven into the sea at Aboukir in 1794 by Napoleon, he was
saved from drowning by a boat from the British admiral’s ship. Later
he was put in command of all the Albanians employed in Egypt, and was
attached for a time to the British army.
After the departure of the British from Egypt, conflict arose between
the Turks and the Mamelukes for the control of the government. Mehemet
at first sided with the Mamelukes, but later he threw them over in
favour of the Albanians in the service of the Turks. When the British
Government sent its futile expedition to Egypt in 1808, Mehemet was
chiefly concerned in opposing it. He was in command at Rosetta when
a great number of British soldiers were slain, and a few days later
he entered Cairo in triumph through an avenue of British heads stuck
on pikes. Thenceforth he rapidly rose in influence and position, and
at the age of thirty-five was the most powerful man in Egypt, and was
able to instal himself as Pasha. He was harassed and opposed by the
Mamelukes. He determined to get rid of them. He invited about five
hundred of their leading men to a friendly conference at the citadel of
Cairo. After entertaining them at a sumptuous repast, he ordered the
gates to be shut, and had them all shot down in the narrow street of
the citadel. A single man only of them survived by leaping his horse
from the wall of the citadel, a height of 30 feet. This was followed by
a slaughter of nearly all the Mamelukes in the country. Mehemet in this
set the example which was followed a few years later by Sultan Mahmoud
in suppressing the Janissaries.
Thenceforward Mehemet was undisputed ruler of Egypt. He had a genius
for organization and government. Though cruel and vindictive, and even
bloodthirsty, as regards his enemies and against evildoers of all
kinds, he had a keen sense of justice, and a determination to mete
it out equally, and without favour, to the people of all sects and
races. He brought about peace and order and prosperity such as Egypt
had never of late years enjoyed. He was ambitious to extend his rule.
He organized for this purpose, and for asserting himself against the
Porte, an army of a hundred thousand men raised by conscription and
armed and drilled on the model of European armies, with the aid of
French and Italian officers who had served under Napoleon. He also
built a powerful fleet with the help of French naval constructors.
He soon proved the value of his new army by putting down a revolt in
Arabia of the Wahabees. He did this, on behalf of, and in the name of
the Sultan. He also conquered the oasis of Senaar and extended the rule
of Egypt into the Sudan. It will be seen that later, in 1825 and 1826,
he sent his army and navy in support of the Sultan to the Morea for
the purpose of putting an end to the revolution in Greece, which the
Sultan had been unable to cope with. Before dealing with this, however,
it will be well to revert to Mahmoud and explain the course of events
which compelled him to call in aid Mehemet Ali’s army.
One of the earliest matters which Mahmoud had to deal with was that
of Serbia. The treaty of Bucharest had left that province in a very
unsettled and ambiguous position. The Turks, under its terms, were
permitted to garrison Belgrade and other fortresses, and were to
concede to the Serbians self-government, but there was no adequate
guarantee for this. The Serbians, who were in possession of the
fortresses, refused to give them up to the Turks until a scheme
of self-government was arranged. The Porte insisted on immediate
surrender. Subsequent proceedings showed that there was no intention to
give effective self-government to the Serbians. The Sultan in 1813 sent
an army to enforce his claims. Kara George, in most strange contrast
to his previous heroic action, lost courage on this occasion. After
burying the treasure which he had amassed as virtual ruler of Serbia,
he fled the country and sought refuge with the Austrians. In so doing
he passed out of the history of his country, save that when, some years
later, he thought he might safely return to Serbia, he was arrested and
shot as a traitor.
After this defection Serbia seemed to be at the mercy of the Turks, and
the greater part of it was occupied by them. But at the moment of its
great peril another national patriot and hero rose to the front in the
person of Milosch Obrenowitch, who, much as Kara George had done a few
years previously, took the lead in rousing the Christian population to
resistance, and in leading them to victory. He succeeded in driving
the Turks from all the country districts and shutting them up in the
fortresses. Mahmoud then sent another army with the object of relieving
the Turks in the Serbian fortresses and subduing the rebels. The army,
however, halted on the frontier, and negotiations ensued which lasted
for some years without any result. The Sultan, it seems, was unwilling,
in view of the numerous other difficulties pending in his Empire, to
risk the loss of an army in a guerrilla war in the mountains of Serbia.
The most serious of Mahmoud’s other difficulties at this period was the
insurrection of the Greeks in 1821. Never was rebellion of a subject
race more justifiable. Nowhere throughout the Ottoman Empire were the
results of its rule more degrading and intolerable than in Greece.
It served none of the purposes for which governments exist. Life and
property and honour were without security, and justice had degenerated
into the practice of selling injustice to the highest bidder.
The condition of the Greek population was infinitely worse than that of
their compatriots in most other parts of the Empire. In Constantinople
the Greeks were a wealthy community. They had a large share in the
administration of the Empire. The Porte, in fact, could not do without
them. Their religion was under the special protection accorded to
it by Mahomet the Conqueror. The trade of the Empire was largely in
their hands. At Smyrna, Salonika, and many other cities, there were
large numbers of Greeks who had enjoyed facilities of trade and had
accumulated wealth. Mahmoud, like many of his predecessors, recognized
that, by largely contributing to taxes, these people were a source of
wealth to his Government, and was not disposed to adopt any measure
proposed by the more fanatical of Moslems to extirpate them or to drive
them into rebellion. Not a few of the islands of the archipelago, such
as Scios and Psara, were practically allowed to govern themselves, and
life there was as well-ordered as in any part of Europe.
It was very different with Greece on the mainland. It seems to have
been the policy of the Porte to prevent its becoming a populous and
wealthy country, with a view to keeping it under close subjection.
Much of its land was in the ownership of Moslems, a majority of whom
were Greeks by race, who had adopted Islam in order to save their
property. They were a fanatical class who were quite as oppressive to
the rayas, the cultivators of the soil, as were those of pure Turkish
descent. The Ottoman Government presented itself to the Greeks only as
an engine to extract taxes, and the pashas who were sent to govern them
thought only how best and most quickly to fill their pockets, knowing
that their tenure of office would be very short. The people there
compared their condition with that of the self-governing communities
of Scio and other islands. Education had spread to some extent in
spite of the neglect of the Government. Wealthy Greeks from other
districts had endowed some schools and colleges. With education came
the study of the past history of Greece and the ambition to renew its
nationality and greatness. For some time past secret societies such as
the Hetairia, promoted in the first instance by the Greeks of Odessa,
had been spreading their influence in Greece, and had laid the seeds of
revolution.
The insurrection in Greece was not only based on political and racial
ideals, it was also an agrarian war, the revolt of cultivators of
the soil against their feudal oppressors. This gave to the outbreak
in rural districts its intensely persistent, passionate, and cruel
attributes.
The revolution broke out in the Morea at the beginning of April 1821,
and soon spread over the whole of its country districts. It was
estimated that at that time there were twenty thousand Moslems thinly
spread in the country districts, most of them of Greek race, feudal
lords of the soil and oppressors of the rayas. Nearly the whole of
these Moslems were now brutally murdered, without distinction of age
or sex. The survivors fled into the fortresses, which were garrisoned
by Turks. These fortresses were speedily invested by the Greeks, and
within three months nearly all of them were compelled to surrender. In
most cases capitulations were agreed to on the terms that lives would
be respected, but in no case were these terms adhered to. The garrisons
and the Turkish inhabitants and the refugees from the country districts
who had gathered there were brutally murdered.
The first encounter between the Turkish soldiers and the Greeks that
could be called a battle was at Valtetsi, in the neighbourhood of
Tripolitza, the capital of the Morea. Three thousand Greek peasants
there defeated five thousand Turks, with a loss of four hundred Turks
and a hundred and fifty Greeks. The battle destroyed the prestige of
the Turks. It showed that they were no match for the insurgent Greek
peasants.
As a result of this victory, Navarino and Tripolitza fell into the
hands of the Greek insurgents after short sieges. In both cases the
garrisons capitulated on favourable terms for themselves and the
inhabitants of the towns. In neither case were the terms observed.
All the Moslem troops and inhabitants were ruthlessly massacred. At
Tripolitza these numbered eight thousand, including women and children.
“Greek historians,” says Finlay in his _History of Greece_, “have
recoiled from telling of these barbarities, while they have been loud
in denouncing those of the Turks.”
When news of the massacres in the Morea arrived at Constantinople the
greatest alarm and indignation arose. Bloody and ruthless reprisals
ensued against the Greeks residing there. The Sultan set the example.
He directed that many of the leading Greeks were to be immediately
executed. The Greek Patriarch was hanged by his order at the gate
of the episcopal residence. The _fetva_ authorizing this was pinned
to his body. There was no reason to believe that the Patriarch was
implicated in the outbreak in Greece. Four other bishops met the same
fate. Thousands of Greeks of inferior position fell victims to the fury
of the people at the capital and at many other cities, such as Smyrna
and Salonika, and in Cyprus. The Sultan took no steps to restrain
these horrors. Women and children equally with men were murdered.
Their houses were burnt, their property was pillaged. It was estimated
that the number of Greeks thus massacred was not short of the number
of Moslems slaughtered in Greece at the outbreak of the revolution.
Thenceforth Greeks and Turks emulated one another in their acts of
barbarity. The Turks had always been bloodthirsty when their passions
and fears were roused, and they now had terrible wrongs to avenge. The
Greeks had been degraded by long oppression, and were little better
than Turks. Both people evidently thought that the results of their
cruelties were proof of the wisdom of inflicting them. The Greeks,
by extirpating the Moslems in the Morea, cleared the country, once
for all, of their oppressors and effected that separation of the two
races which, it will be seen later, the Great Powers of Europe thought
desirable, though they hoped to attain it by peaceful expropriation
and indemnity. The Turks claimed that their severities checked the
spread of the revolution, and compelled one half of the Greek people
living within their midst to submit to Ottoman rule.
It has been shown that the revolution broke out in the Morea. Within a
few months the whole of that country was cleared of Ottoman troops and
of Moslem inhabitants. The outbreak extended to most of the islands of
the archipelago, where the Greeks predominated, where there was less
admixture of Slav blood than on the mainland, and where the traditions
of a long-past national existence and of high civilization survived in
a stronger form. In spite of their greater prosperity, due to milder
treatment at the hands of the Turks, they were ardently in favour of
independence. It was in the islands that the majority of Greek merchant
vessels were owned. They numbered between four and five hundred, and
were manned by twelve thousand Greek sailors. An active war fleet
was formed out of these vessels and sailors. They frequently met and
defeated the Turkish fleet. They made special use of fire ships, and
blew up or burnt many of the Turkish vessels and caused the greatest
alarm to the Turkish sailors.
In the course of the four years 1821-4, the Turks were generally
worsted by the Greek insurgents on land and sea. Not only the Morea,
but the parts of Greece north of the Gulf of Corinth up to the frontier
of Thessaly, including Athens—then reduced to a squalid, third-rate
town—and the islands of the archipelago, achieved a practical
independence. A national government and a representative assembly were
constituted. The outbreak in Greece roused the sympathies of great
numbers of persons in Western Europe, especially in England and France.
In spite of this, the Governments of these countries for long held
aloof and discouraged the rebellion, not wishing to see Turkey weakened
as against Russia. Lord Byron was an enthusiast for the Greeks, and in
1824 landed at Missolonghi and joined their army. But it cannot be said
that he effected much during the short time he survived there. He was
evidently disillusioned, like so many other Philhellenes who joined the
Greeks, by the discords, intrigues, and corruption of their leaders.
But he never lost faith in their future. He confidently predicted that
the Greek nation would prove itself worthy of freedom. He gave his
life to the cause. He died of malarial fever within a few weeks of
landing at this unhealthy spot. This did much to arouse the interest of
Europe and to promote its intervention on behalf of the Greeks.
After four years of futile efforts to stamp out the Greek revolution,
it became clear to Sultan Mahmoud that his army, as then constituted,
was unequal to the task. He was much impressed by the success of
Mehemet Ali in Egypt in creating an army armed and drilled in the
manner of European armies. In 1824, he called on this great vassal
to aid in the reconquest of Greece by sending his new army and fleet
there. Mehemet consented to do so, but only on the promise of the
Sultan that Syria, Damascus, and Crete, would be added to his Pashalic.
He sent his fleet to co-operate with that of the Sultan on the coast of
the Morea. It sailed from Alexandria on July 25, 1824, with an army of
ten thousand infantry and a thousand cavalry, under command of Ibrahim
Pasha, the son of Mehemet Ali. They were landed at Modon and marched
thence to Navarino. That fortress was garrisoned by sixteen hundred
Greeks. The flower of the Greek army of seven thousand men advanced
to relieve the fortress. Ibrahim with three thousand men attacked and
utterly defeated them. The Greeks fled in wild confusion. This battle
was proof that the best Greek troops were unable to encounter the
well-disciplined Egyptians in a pitched battle.