This great charter was certainly not intended by its author to be a dead letter. It was, on the contrary, an earnest attempt to grapple with the new conditions of the empire, and to restore the spirit of its ancient Constitution, whilst reconciling it to the new requirements of the day.
This double purpose was clearly manifested in every line of the new decree, the preamble of which ran as follows:—
“Every one knows that when the Empire was first founded, its laws and precepts, which were of a high standard, were scrupulously obeyed. Therefore the Empire grew in strength and grandeur, and all its subjects, without distinction, attained to a high degree of ease and prosperity. For the last five hundred years a succession of accidents and divers causes have brought it about that men have ceased to conform to the sacred code of laws and regulations that flow from it, and therefore the force and prosperity of former days have been converted into weakness and poverty—for a nation always loses all stability when it ceases to observe its laws. These considerations have been ceaselessly present to our mind, and since the day of our accession to the throne the thoughts of the common weal, the amelioration of the condition of the provinces, and the lessening of the burdens of the people, have been the subjects of our constant preoccupation. Moreover, if the geographical position of the Empire; the fertility of its soil; the aptitude and intelligence of its inhabitants; be considered, they will lead to the conviction that if a ruler applies himself diligently to discover the efficacious means to effect necessary reforms, the results that we hope to attain, with the help of the Almighty, may be achieved in the course of a few short years. Therefore, full of trust in the help of the Almighty, and leaning on the intercession of our Prophet, we consider it right and proper to set about, by the help of new institutions, procuring for the provinces of our Empire the blessings of a sound administration.”
Reshid Pasha, by order of the Sultan, set himself earnestly to the task of translating the general principles enunciated in the Hatti Humayoun, with special laws and regulations that should reduce them to practice, and four years after its promulgation at Gulhané, the Tanzimat, or regulations for the organisation of all the branches of administration, was published throughout the empire. Under the four general heads:—
| I. | The Government proper (Mejalice devleti aliie); |
| II. | The Administration (Zaptié ve mulkie memourlari); |
| III. | Justice and Public Instruction (Ylmie); |
| IV. | The Army and Navy (Seifiie), |
it gave the most elaborate directions for the organisation of each branch of the public service. Considering the condition of confusion into which the administration of the country had fallen in the course of ages, and the absence of any guiding principle in it, the Tanzimat must be considered one of the most remarkable efforts of administrative organisation ever displayed in any country, and a monument of the genius of Reshid Pasha. It is not altogether without reason that he has been called the “Richelieu of Turkey.”
But it does not suffice to decree great changes; it is in the endeavour to reduce them to practice that the chief difficulty arises. And no great wonder if in a country like Turkey, where vested interests had grown around the old order of things; where conservative prejudices, as in every country in the world, obstruct the path of reform; where trained civil servants did not exist but had to be created, that the execution of these important and all‐embracing reforms should not have taken place by decree as by a magician’s wand, but required time and patience for their realisation. Events, too, were taking place in Europe which were destined to change the aspect of things and divert the minds of statesmen from internal organisation to the necessities of defending the existence of the national independence. The revolutionary movement of 1848–1849 in Europe afforded a little respite to a country outside the sphere of this movement, and it was just at this disturbed period of the rest of Europe that Turkey enjoyed the greatest peace and made the greatest progress in the work of re‐organisation. But scarcely had the revolutionary effervescence calmed down in Europe, and the fears connected with it been laid to rest, when the Emperor Nicholas—who had finally suppressed the Magyar insurrection and restored Hungary to the House of Hapsburg—turned his attention once more to Turkey, and resolved on decisive action. To suppose that the progress in organisation that was being effected in that country was not entirely unconnected with this determination would be only to deny that the arguments and reasons of State put forward by Pozzo di Borgo, in 1828, were operative in the mind of the Emperor Nicholas twenty years later:
“When the Imperial Cabinet examines the question as to whether the moment had not arrived to take up arms against the Porte, some doubt might possibly have existed as to the urgency of such a measure in the minds of those who had not sufficiently meditated on the effects of the sanguinary reform (destruction of Janissaries) that the Ottoman ruler had just executed with such terrible force. Now, however, the experience that we have just had ought to enlist the sympathy of all in favour of the course that we have adopted. The Emperor has put the new Turkish system to the proof, and His Majesty has discovered in it a commencement of moral and physical organisation which it never possessed before. If the Sultan has been enabled to oppose to us a more spirited and regular resistance than before, whilst scarcely able to put together the elements of his new plan of reform and amelioration, how much the more formidable should we have found him if he had had the time to give it more solidity.”[5]
However that may be, hardly had the Russian troops withdrawn from Hungary than the Emperor Nicholas, addressing Sir Hamilton Seymour, the English Ambassador at St Petersburg, dwelt on the moribund condition of the Turkish Empire, and proposed to him its partition. Crete and Egypt were to be the spoils of England, whereas Servia, Montenegro, Wallachia, Moldavia, and Bulgaria were to fall to the share of Russia. This offer was duly reported to the Cabinet of St James, and categorically declined by it. The state of Europe at the time was not unfavourable to the Czar’s designs. Austria was bound to Russia by gratitude for important services rendered, and only Metternich suspected her to be then capable of “stupendous ingratitude.” Prussia was united to the Czar by ties of near kindred, and by her traditional indifference to the affairs of the East. France having fallen into the hands of a sovereign capable of reviving Napoleonic traditions, was as much an object of suspicion to all the crowned heads of Europe as by his coup d’état he was to liberal opinion throughout the world. The last thing that seemed likely, or even possible, was a coalition between Napoleonic France and the England of Lord Aberdeen. The omens seemed favourable for striking a decisive blow.
A quarrel in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, between Greek and Latin monks, afforded the desired pretext. After some diplomatic haggling between the Porte and France, in which the latter first put forward and then withdrew claims which would have afforded a precedent and pretext for Russian pretensions, Prince Mentchikoff suddenly appeared, with much bluster, at Constantinople, as the bearer of an Ultimatum demanding the assent of the Porte, within the space of five days, to a Russian protectorate over all the Orthodox subjects of the Sultan in his dominions. Europe, startled by the brusqueness of this action, as well as the serious import of the demand, endeavoured immediately to interpose her mediation to avert a crisis. Sir Strafford de Redcliffe and Mr de la Cour, who happened to be absent from Constantinople on the arrival of Prince Mentchikoff, returned precipitately to their posts, and, seconded by the Austrian Ambassador, Prince Leiningen, spared no effort that ingenuity could devise to give effect to their conciliatory instructions. But as no compromise could possibly be found between the pretensions put forward in the Ultimatum and what the Porte was willing to concede, Prince Mentchikoff had the escutcheon removed from the Russian Embassy at Pera, and with his whole suite quitted Constantinople.