The Porte counted on its fleet to guard the Dardanelles, but it needed an army and a commander to oppose Ibrahim Pasha, who again defeated the Turks at Oulon-Kislak. He then advanced towards the plains of Anatolia, where he met Rashid Pasha.
It was now December, 1830, and the atmosphere was heavy with a thick fog. The armies opened fire on each other on December 21st, with the town of Koniah in the background. The grand vizier was at the head of close on sixty thousand men, while the Egyptian army only comprised thirty thousand, including the Bedouins. The fighting had continued for about six hours when Rashid Pasha was taken prisoner; the news of his capture spread along the Turkish lines and threw them into disorder, and the Egyptians remained masters of the field, with twenty pieces of mounted cannon and some baggage: the Turks had lost only five hundred men, while the Egyptian losses were but two hundred.
The battle of Koniah was the last act in the Syrian drama. The sultan’s throne was shaken, and its fall might involve great changes in the politics of the world. Ibrahim Pasha was only three days’ journey from the Bosphorus, and the way was open to him, with no Turkish army to fight and the whole population in his favour. In Constantinople itself Mehemet Ali had a powerful party, and, if the West did not interfere, the Ottoman Empire was at an end. However, European diplomacy considered that, in spite of its weakness, it should still weigh in the balance of the nations.
Trembling in the midst of his harem, Sultan Mahmud cried for help, and Russia, his nearest neighbour, heard the call. This was the Power that, either from sympathy or ambition, was the most inclined to come to his aid. The Emperor Nicholas had offered assistance in a letter brought to the sultan by the Russian General Mouravieff, and a Russian squadron appeared in the Bosphorus with eight thousand men for disembarkment. The Russians, however, agreed not to set foot on shore unless Mehemet Ali should refuse the conditions that were being proposed to him. The viceroy refused the conditions, which limited his possessions to the pashalics of Acre, Tripoli, and Seyd, and which seemed to him incompatible with the glory won by his arms.
The sultan did not wish to give up Syria, but that province was no longer his. The sword of Ibrahim had severed the last bonds that fastened it to him, and he was obliged to yield it, as well as the district of Andama. On his side, the viceroy acknowledged himself a vassal of the Porte, and agreed to make an annual payment of the monies he received from the pashas of Syria. This peace was concluded on May 14, 1833, and was called the peace of Kutayeh, after the place where Ibrahim signed it.
It was impossible that the convention of Kutayeh should be more than an armistice. The pasha benefited by it too greatly not to desire further advantages, and the sultan had lost so much that he must needs make some attempt at recovery. Mahmud’s annoyance was caused by the fact and nature of the dispossession rather than by its material extent. The descendant of the Os-manlis, ever implacable in his hatreds, who had allowed Syria, the cradle of his race, to be wrested from him, now awaited the hour of vengeance. Mehemet Ali knew himself to be strong enough to carry a sceptre ably, and he realised that there would be no need for his numerous pashalics to pass out of his family. Henceforth his mind was filled with thoughts of independence and the rights of succession.
The viceroy and the sultan continued to strengthen their forces, and a conflict occurred near Nezib on June 24, 1839. The Egyptians completely routed their adversaries, despite the strenuous resistance of the Imperial Guard, who, when called upon to surrender, cried in the same words used at Waterloo, “Khasse sultanem mamatenda darrhi tuffenguini iere Koimas.” (“The guards of the sultan surrender arms only to death”).
Greatly elated, Ibrahim flung himself into the arms of his companion in glory, Suleiman Pasha. His prediction was verified: “This time we will go to Constantinople, or they shall come to Cairo.” They set out for Constantinople; but the viceroy was again generous. Through the mediation of Captain Caillé, aide-de-camp to Marshal Soult, who, in the name of France, demanded a cessation of hostilities, Mehemet Ali desired his son not to proceed into Asia Minor; so the general halted before Aintab, the scene of his victories, as he had done on a former occasion before Kutayeh.