The life of Midhat Pasha; a record of his services, political reforms, banishment, and judicial murder

by Ali Haydar Mithat

The war declared by Russia was the necessary result of the policy which Abdul Hamid had proposed to follow. Having exiled Midhat Pasha, and closed Parliament without having executed a single reform, he was equally obliged to crush every liberal tendency in order that he might monopolise the supreme power, and spared no effort to rid himself of every force that was capable of thwarting his designs. He now began to get secret information as to the opinions of all the principal Ministers and Generals, and took care at once to deprive of all power those whom he feared might be dangerous to him. The contradictory instructions that he gave to the Generals, the absurd military orders that he issued from his Palace of Yildiz, were transmitted after reports which attributed revolutionary designs to certain of his Generals—designs which they were far from cherishing—had reached him.

It was in consequence of these suspicions on the part of the Sultan that the Commander‐in‐Chief Abdul Kerim and the Marshal Suleiman Pasha were brought before a Council of War and condemned, not on account of faults committed, but simply because one of these two chief officers had participated in the deposition of the Sultan Abdul Aziz, and the other was known to have liberal opinions.

The Sultan’s efforts were crowned by the Treaty of San Stefano. The Circular of Prince Gortchakoff, which had appeared in the Official Journal of St Petersburg on the 9th April 1877, showed that what Russia had wished to obtain from Turkey by the Conference of Constantinople, differed but very little from the conditions which she imposed on the Porte in the Treaty of San Stefano, a fact to which Lord Salisbury rendered due justice in his despatch of 1st April.

Although the Cabinet of Great Britain had firmly stated its intentions of not entering into the quarrel, the general interests of Europe and the special interests of England were so deeply involved in the dispute, that it was impossible for that Power not to be obliged sooner or later to take some share in the proceedings. The intervention of England, although unhappily it came rather late in the day, led to the Congress of Berlin, which blotted out the Treaty of San Stefano.

As Midhat Pasha, however, played no part in the Russo‐Turkish War, nor in the events that followed, we will pass over them, and relate the vicissitudes of his journey in Europe, including the interviews which he had with the heads of States and celebrated politicians.

Midhat arrived at Brindisi, 11th February, 1877, and after a few days’ rest left for Naples, where he had at first wished to live, withdrawn from the world and its capitals. The following statement, which we reprint from the Neue Freie Presse of Vienna, was made by him on the future of the Constitution:—

“It is not despotism which, by my banishment, has reacted against the constitutional régime. That is not at all the case. Montesquieu has taught us that the creation of a constitution is very difficult and takes much time. A sovereign prince, accustomed to absolute power, can only be persuaded little by little to abandon his prerogatives, that being necessary to the constitutional régime. It is a difficult task, frequently interrupted by contrary currents, but for all that one need never despair of reaching the goal, for with time, patience and perseverance success is attainable. It is not in the person of the Sultan, nor yet through his present Ministers, that I see danger for the Constitution, but rather in the want of character and of courage so often to be found in those who are the Sovereign’s Councillors, and who, instead of acting according to their convictions, seek their own advantage in hiding the truth. I have never hesitated about giving my opinion to the Sultan, whoever he might be, whenever it happened to differ from his; I have always done so with the greatest respect, but also without the least reticence. Many a misfortune might have been avoided in this world of ours if there had not been a great lack of men, capable of placing the whole truth before their Sovereign.

“The danger to the Constitution lies, not in the lack of goodwill, but in the ignorance as to how to manage the mechanism. The Governmental form of despotism reminds me somewhat of a primitive mill, which may be turned by the force of water, or may equally be turned by its wheel. Constitutional Government also resembles a mill—but one that is put in movement by a complicated and artistically constructed mechanism. A knowledge as to how to work this machine and to keep it in movement is absolutely necessary. Thus, we must hope that the men of experience who find themselves at the head of affairs at Constantinople will not put the machinery of the new mill in motion, in accordance with the ideas and routine of the primitive mill. Constitutional Government cannot have the customs and the men of the Despotic system as its motive power. Reshid Pasha, our great reformer, was one day reproached for employing young men who had only just left college; he replied that it was right that it should be so, as neither one man alone, nor yet ten, could possibly do everything, and that it was therefore necessary to prepare a fresh staff of administrators. This has always been my idea, and whenever I have seen many rivals around me, I have delighted in the thought that it was to the profit of my country.

“If a man would render real and genuine services to his Sovereign and his Nation, he must be patriotic, and very much depends upon the way in which each person interprets this word. As for me, I consider that man to be a true patriot who, renouncing his own private interests, devotes himself morally and physically to one supreme aim—the welfare of his country. One must be willing to renounce everything—to be ready at a moment’s notice to sacrifice happiness, family, and life itself for what one realises to be the good of the Fatherland.