the Russian army again took the field, not on this occasion under the
Czar, but under General Diebitsch, who proved to be a most able general
and diplomatist. The army was again most inadequate for the campaign
which was in contemplation—namely, the crossing of the Balkans and an
advance to Constantinople. It consisted of no more than sixty-eight
thousand men, a force which, in these days, eighty-eight years later,
would count for little or nothing. It was thought necessary, as a
condition precedent to any advance, to capture Silistria. The siege
was commenced on May 17, 1829. The Russian force detailed for this
was not more than fourteen thousand men. The Turks who defended it
were twenty-one thousand in number, including eight thousand armed
inhabitants. In spite of this disparity of numbers, the town was
captured after a siege of forty-four days, on July 26th, at a loss to
the Russians of two thousand five hundred men.
In the meantime Diebitsch had advanced with the main army in the
direction of Schumla. Reschid Pasha, who had replaced Hussein Pasha as
Grand Vizier and Seraskier, issued from Schumla with forty thousand
men, and on June 18th a great battle took place at Kulewtska. The Turks
were utterly defeated by a very inferior force of Russians. They had
begun the battle with an impetuous charge, but they could not sustain
it against the serried ranks of the Russian veterans. Some ammunition
wagons exploded and, as often happened with the Turks, a wild panic
ensued. They fled from the field of battle and dispersed in all
directions. All their artillery fell into the hands of the Russians.
Reschid escaped at the head of six hundred men and found his way to
Schumla, where there were ten thousand Turks, and where a large number
of fugitives from the battle eventually found refuge. This victory at
Kulewtska had far-reaching effects. It was the first great battle in
which the new troops of Mahmoud were tested. It showed that the Russian
soldiers had an overwhelming superiority.
Silistria fell on July 13th. The Russians who had been engaged in the
siege then joined Diebitsch before Schumla. The general thereupon
decided on the bold and even perilous course of crossing the Balkans,
without previously capturing Schumla and its army. Leaving ten thousand
men to mask that fortress, where a much greater force of Turks was
now assembled, consisting largely of men demoralized by the recent
defeat, Diebitsch commenced his march with such secrecy that for some
days the Turks were not aware of it. Reschid Pasha, expecting an attack
on Schumla, and thinking his force insufficient for its defence,
had called in the various corps who were posted for the defence of
the mountain passes. Diebitsch therefore met with no opposition. He
crossed the mountains in nine days of forced marches fraught with great
hardship to his troops. When south of the mountain range, he deflected
his route to the Black Sea and got into communication with the Russian
fleet, under Admiral Greig, which assisted in the capture of Bourgas
and other ports along the coast, and afforded supplies to Diebitsch’s
army.
Three battles were fought south of the mountains, at Aidos, Karnabad
and Slivno, where small divisions of Turks were defeated and dispersed.
After three weeks from crossing the Balkans, Diebitsch arrived in
front of Adrianople, a city of eighty thousand inhabitants, with a
garrison of ten thousand men. His army was by this time reduced to
less than twenty thousand men. Its appearance before Adrianople caused
wild panic. Never before had a hostile army crossed the southern range
of the Balkans. It was thought to be impossible. It was confidently
believed that the Russian army numbered over one hundred thousand
men. The city and its garrison surrendered without making a show of
fight. Everywhere on its route through Bulgaria the Christian raya
population had received the invaders with acclamation and the Turks had
thrown away their arms and fled. The campaign of 1829 in Asia had been
almost equally disastrous to the Turks. Paskiewich had defeated them
in a pitched battle and had captured Erzerum. He was now approaching
Trebizond, after dispersing an army on the way.
When news reached Constantinople of the crossing of the Balkans and
the capture of Adrianople, there was consternation and dismay among
Turks of all classes. The Sultan almost alone maintained his presence
of mind. He issued a proclamation calling on all the Turks in the city
to join in its defence. He announced his intention to take command in
person. The sacred banner of the Prophet was unfurled. But when, at the
first review of the forces, the Sultan appeared in a carriage and not
on horseback, this “unheard of and indecorous innovation” chilled the
enthusiasm of the volunteers, and undid the good which was expected
from his action.
There was no great zeal for the defence of the capital. The chief
ministers of the Porte were unanimous in advising the Sultan to sue
for terms of peace. They were quite ignorant of the weakness of the
Russian army. They believed the stories that more than a hundred
thousand men were advancing on the capital. There were no troops at
Constantinople, they said, able to meet this army. The ambassadors of
England and France, who had recently returned to Constantinople, at the
invitation of the Sultan, backed up the ministers, and urgently advised
him to come to terms with the enemy. We now know that all this advice
and these alarms were founded on false information and that there was
no real justification for them. In fact, the real position of the
Russian army was one of extreme danger. It had suffered great losses
on the battlefields and from the hardships of the forced marches, and
was also being decimated by disease. There was no possibility of its
being reinforced. Retreat across the Balkans was almost impossible.
The Turkish army at Schumla was now reinforced. On its flank there
was an army of twenty thousand Albanians, under the rebellious Pasha
of Scotra, who had refused aid to the Porte in the earlier part of
the campaign, but who, now that the existence of the Empire was
threatened, might confidently be expected to come to its aid. Advance
to Constantinople might also be dangerous, if not impossible. It was
distant one hundred and forty miles. Its garrison of thirty thousand
men, supplemented by fresh volunteers, might be relied on to meet
the Russians, now reduced to much less than twenty thousand. These
difficulties of the Russian army, however, were not known to the Porte.
In view of the strong pressure brought to bear upon him, the Sultan,
for once in his life, gave way, and agreed to send plenipotentiaries to
Adrianople to discuss terms of peace. Diebitsch well knew the danger
of his position, and was anxious to make peace, but he maintained an
attitude of firmness and confidence. He was ready, he said, to discuss
terms, but he was equally willing to advance with his army against the
capital. Already a part of his army was pressed forward. It occupied a
line from the Black Sea at Kilia to Enos in the archipelago—a distance
of over one hundred miles, much too long for his weak force. It is
recognized by Moltke and all military authorities that if the Porte had
stood firm and had refused to agree to terms, Diebitsch could not have
made good his threatened attack on the capital. In the history of war
there has never been a more successful case of ‘bluff.’ The Porte gave
in to unreasoning and ill-informed fear, and on September 19th peace
was concluded between the two Powers and the treaty of Adrianople was
signed.
It is certain [said Moltke] that this treaty released Diebitsch from
a position as perilous as could well be conceived, and which, if
prolonged for a few more days, might have caused him to be hurled
down from the summit of victory to the lowest depth of ruin and
destruction.[33]
The terms of peace agreed to were moderate, so far as Russia itself
was concerned, though very serious in their effect on the Ottoman
Empire. The Czar had proclaimed at the outset of the war that he had
no desire for territorial aggrandizement. He fully adhered to this
promise. With two comparatively small exceptions, Russia gave up all
the territory which it had conquered in the war, both in Europe and
Asia. It retained only a small part of Moldavia which gave access to
the Sulina mouth of the Danube, a position of great importance to it
in the future. In Asia, Kars and Erzerum were given back to Turkey.
In Europe, the Pruth continued to be the boundary of the two States.
But Moldavia and Wallachia, though nominally restored to the Ottoman
Empire, were practically freed from it. They were to enjoy complete
autonomy. The Hospodars, in future, were to be appointed for life.
The two States were to be allowed to raise armies independent of the
Porte. The tribute payable in future was to be fixed, and could not
be increased. Religious and commercial freedom were to be secured to
them. The Sultan was to be their suzerain and nothing more. This meant
practical independence. The same privileges were secured for Serbia,
with the exception that the Porte was to be permitted to garrison the
fortresses of Belgrade and Orsova. The Turks were required to depart
from all other parts of the country. Silistria was to be returned to
Turkey, but other fortresses on the Danube were to be razed. That
river, therefore, ceased to be the first defence of the Turkish Empire
to the north. An indemnity of eleven and a half million ducats, equal
to five millions sterling, was to be paid by Turkey for the expenses of
Russia in the war. The payment was to be spread over ten years, and the
territory occupied by Russia was not to be wholly surrendered till this
was effected.
As regards Greece, the treaty embodied and made obligatory on the
Sultan the provisions of the treaty of London of July, 1827, between
the three Powers, and the further protocol between them of March 1829,
which defined the future limits of Greece. Under the protocol, the
boundary line was to run from the Gulf of Volo to the Gulf of Arta,
so as to include the greater part of Thessaly. The country south
of this was to be subject to a monarchical government, hereditary
in a Christian prince to be chosen by the three Powers, with the
consent of the Porte and under the suzerainty of the Sultan, and
with an administration best calculated to ensure its religious and
commercial liberty. This proposal had been submitted to the Sultan by
the ambassadors of England and France on March 22, 1829. He had then
obstinately refused to have anything to say to it. When the Russians
had crossed the Balkans, the Sultan, in the hope of propitiating
England and France, offered to the ambassadors to agree to an
autonomous Greece under a Hospodar, limited, however, to the Morea.
This the ambassadors refused. The Porte, under the treaty with Russia,
now agreed to their full demand.
The Governments of England and France appear to have taken umbrage
at the action of Russia in dealing with the subject of Greece in a
separate treaty with the Porte. It was thought that the Czar wished
to get all the credit of liberating Greece from Turkish rule. They
therefore informed the Russian Government that the execution of the
treaty of London of 1827 did not belong to the Czar alone, but was to
be the work of the three Governments. In consequence of this a further
conference took place in London, at which it was decided that the
suzerainty of the Sultan over Greece was to be abolished, and complete
independence was to be secured to the Greeks. They also came to the
unfortunate decision that the line of boundary of the new kingdom
was to be greatly restricted, and instead of running from the Gulf
of Volo to the Gulf of Arta, was to be drawn from the mouth of the
Archilous to the mouth of the Sperkius, thus excluding from the new
kingdom the whole of Acarnania and the greater part of Thessaly, where
the population was almost wholly Greek. They also decided that Crete
was not to be included, but was to be restored to Turkish rule. Mr.
Finlay says of this: “Diplomatic ignorance could not have traced a more
unsuitable boundary.”[34]
The Sultan agreed to this new project. He probably preferred a
smaller Greece with complete independence to a larger one with full
autonomy, subject to his suzerainty. Greece was accordingly recalled
into national existence with a greatly reduced area, leaving outside
large districts with completely homogeneous Greek populations. This
was fraught with grave difficulties in the future. One effect of it
was that Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, who, later, as King of the
Belgians, proved to be one of the most able rulers of his day, refused
to accept the throne of Greece on the ground that its area was too
restricted, and Otho, a son of the King of Bavaria, was selected
by the Powers for the post, and proved to be a most incompetent
and reactionary ruler. It would seem that Lord Aberdeen, who was
Minister of Foreign Affairs in England at the time, and who was mainly
responsible for these changes, was anxious to restrict the kingdom of
Greece to the smallest possible area.
Reverting to the treaty of Adrianople, it is to be observed that while
Russia acquired a very insignificant extension of territory, and was
content with the prestige of having dictated its terms, and with
having acquired a position such that it might insist on its behests
to the Porte, as regards its Christian subjects, being obeyed in the
future, Turkey lost very greatly. It was said that the Sultan, after
signing the treaty, shut himself up in his palace at Therapia for
weeks in gloomy despair. There was much cause for this. The treaty
was a complete surrender of all that he had been contending for since
his accession to the throne. It was humiliating to himself and his
Turkish subjects. It was the inevitable precursor of much that was to
occur to other parts of his Empire. His grief and indignation must
have been greatly aggravated when he came to know the real condition
of the Russian army at Adrianople and to appreciate that, if he
had stood firm in resisting the advice of his ministers and of the
ambassadors, the Russian army would have been quite unable to make an
advance against Constantinople. This, however, should not lead us to
forget the supreme error which Mahmoud committed in refusing to come
to terms with the three Powers as regards Greece after the treaty of
London. If in 1827, the Sultan had been willing to make concessions in
the direction of autonomy to Greece, it is nearly certain that there
would have been no declaration of war on the part of Russia, and in the
event of war he would not have been wanting in allies. His fleet would
not have been destroyed at Navarino, and time would have been afforded
to him to reorganize his army and to make it effective against those
of the Christian Powers. As it was, not only did he lose all real hold
over Moldavia, Wallachia, and Serbia, not only did Greece gain its
independence, but he was soon to lose all real authority in Egypt, a
Moslem country, except the barren right of suzerainty of the Sultan and
a fixed tribute in money.
It has already been stated that when, in 1824, the Sultan invited
the aid of the Pasha of Egypt to crush rebellion in Greece, Mehemet
Ali only consented to lend his army and fleet on the express promise
that the Pashalics of Syria, Damascus, Tripoli (in Asia), and Crete
would be given to him, in addition to that of Egypt. But when in 1827,
after the destruction of the Turko-Egyptian fleet at Navarino and the
expulsion of the Egyptian army from the Morea, Mehemet Ali pressed for
the performance of this promise, he met with a blank refusal, except as
regards the island of Crete, the Pashalic of which alone was conferred
on him. Mehemet was very indignant at this breach of promise, and
determined to seize by force the provinces which he coveted. He set to
work with great resolution to build another fleet, in place of that
which had been burnt or sunk, and to improve and strengthen his army.
By 1832 he completed these preparations for war. He then picked a
quarrel with the Pasha of Syria and, pretending to make war against
him and not against the Sultan, sent an army, under Ibrahim, across
the desert into Syria. It captured Gaza and Jerusalem without
difficulty, and then marched to Acre, where the Egyptian fleet met it
and co-operated in a successful attack on that fortress. After this
success Ibrahim marched with his army to Aleppo and Damascus, defeating
two Turkish armies. He then crossed the mountains into Asia Minor, and
fought another great battle at Konia on October 27, 1832, and defeated
a large Turkish army. He then marched to Brusa.
These disasters caused the greatest alarm at Constantinople. There was
no other Turkish army in the field capable of resisting the march of
Ibrahim’s army to the Bosphorus. In his peril the Sultan appealed to
the British Government for aid against the Egyptians, offering a close
alliance for the future. He met with a refusal, at the instance of
Lord Palmerston, who did not then appear to value a Turkish alliance,
though the British Ambassador at Constantinople, Sir Stratford Canning,
strongly advised it. Mahmoud then appealed for aid to the Emperor of
Russia, who gladly availed himself of the opportunity of increasing his
influence in Turkey and of effecting a virtual protectorate over it.
For a second time, within recent years, a close alliance was formed
between the Czar and the Sultan, and in February, 1833, a Russian fleet
issuing from Sebastopol conveyed an army to the Bosphorus for the
defence of Constantinople.
For a time the influence of Russia became predominant. None but
Russians had access to the Sultan. Russian troops and sailors were seen
everywhere, and Russian officers were employed to drill and command
the Turkish battalions. This state of things caused great alarm to the
British and French Governments. They were both concerned in preventing
Russia obtaining possession or control of Constantinople. They felt it
was necessary to stay the advance of Ibrahim’s victorious army, which
was the excuse for the presence of the Russians at Constantinople.
They offered, therefore, to the Sultan that if he would insist on the
withdrawal of the Russian army from his capital, they would guarantee
him against the further invasion of Mehemet Ali’s army. France, though
always very friendly to Mehemet Ali, and in favour of his independence
as against the Sultan, had no wish to see Constantinople in the hands
of Russia.
By dint of great diplomatic pressure, in which Lord Palmerston took
the leading part with the greatest ability, a double arrangement was
effected. On the one hand, Mehemet Ali, perceiving that he would be
powerless to attack Constantinople against the opposition of Russia,
England, and France, was induced to come to terms with the Sultan. A
convention was signed between them in 1833, and a firman was issued by
the Porte under which Mehemet was confirmed as the Pasha, not only of
Egypt, but of Syria, Damascus, Adana, Tripoli, and Crete, an immense
accession of dignity and power to him. The Sultan was to be suzerain
and the Pashalics were conferred on Mehemet Ali only for his life, and
there was no promise that they would be continued to his son Ibrahim
or other descendants. The concession, however, as it stood, was most
humiliating to the Sultan. On the other hand, Russia agreed with the
Porte to withdraw its troops from Constantinople and the Bosphorus, but
only on the promise, embodied in the treaty of Hunkar Iskelesi, that
Russian ships of war should have the privilege of passing through the
Bosphorus and Dardanelles, at any time, without obtaining the consent
of the Porte, a privilege which was to be denied to the ships of other
Powers, unless with the previous consent of Russia. It also secured to
Russia the right to send an army to the Bosphorus and land it there
whenever the exigencies of the Turkish Empire made it expedient to do
so. The firman to Mehemet Ali was dated May 5, 1833, and the treaty of
Hunkar Iskelesi was agreed to with Russia on July 8th of the same year.
By these two measures, the result of a great diplomatic struggle, the
menace of Mehemet Ali against Constantinople, which at one time seemed
likely to involve all the Powers in Europe in war, was brought to an
end. The Egyptian army was withdrawn into the provinces added to the
Pashalic of Mehemet Ali, and the Russian troops were recalled by the
Czar from Constantinople.
After this settlement, very favourable both to Russia and Egypt, but
humiliating to Turkey, a period of a few years’ repose was accorded
to the Sultan, so far as his relations with the Emperor Nicholas
and Mehemet Ali were concerned. But there were frequent internal
troubles and outbreaks, which were put down by Mahmoud, not without
some difficulty. Both Mahmoud and Mehemet Ali spent the interval in
making preparations for another encounter. Mahmoud could not acquiesce
in the virtual independence of so large a part of his Empire under
Mehemet Ali. The latter was determined to convert his Pashalic into an
hereditary one and to attain virtual independence of the Porte. He had
ambitions also to supplant Mahmoud as the head of the Ottoman Empire.
The Sultan, during this time, employed a large number of Prussian
officers, under Colonel von Moltke—later to become so famous in the
Franco-German War of 1870 in command of the German army—to train his
army, while Mehemet Ali again employed French officers for the same
purpose. Five years elapsed before war again broke out between them.
In 1838 Mehemet Ali, having completed all his arrangements for war with
his suzerain, announced his intention to pay no more tribute in the
future to the Porte. This amounted to a declaration of independence and
a renunciation of allegiance. Mahmoud, on his part, was determined to
crush his rebellious vassal, and collected an army on the Euphrates for
the invasion of Syria. The opportunity seemed to be a favourable one,
as the population of Syria was in revolt against Mehemet Ali, whose
government had proved to be almost as oppressive and tyrannical as that
of the Sultan. Early in 1839 Mahmoud declared war and gave directions
to his army to invade Syria. He also fitted out a fleet, consisting of
nine ships of the line and twenty-four smaller vessels, and directed it
to proceed to Syria and to co-operate with his army advancing from the
Euphrates.
Both these expeditions of the Porte came to grief. The army which
invaded Syria met the Egyptians, again under command of Ibrahim, at
Nazeb on June 25, 1839. The two armies were about equal in number, each
of them about forty thousand. The Turks were completely defeated. Many
of their battalions deserted on the field of battle and went over to
the enemy; the remainder were routed and dispersed. Six thousand of
them were killed and wounded; ten thousand were taken prisoners. One
hundred guns and great masses of stores fell into the hands of the
Egyptians. The Turkish army in these parts ceased to exist.
The great Turkish fleet had sailed from the Bosphorus on July 6th amid
many popular demonstrations. It was under the command of the Capitan
Pasha, Achmet, who proved to be a traitor. After passing through the
Dardanelles, instead of following his instructions by making his
course to the coast of Syria, Achmet sailed direct to Egypt, and there
entered the port of Alexandria with flying colours and handed over the
fleet to the enemy of the Sultan, the rebellious Pasha Mehemet Ali, a
proceeding without precedent in history. It was only accomplished, we
may presume, by profuse bribery on the part of the crafty Pasha.