The Turkish Empire, Its Growth and Decay

by Baron G. Shaw-Lefevre Eversley

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.

After the capture of Navarino, Ibrahim continued his reconquest of Greece with uniform success. The Greeks were exhausted by their long struggle against the Turks. They could offer but a very feeble resistance to this new and far more effective enemy. In April, 1826, the Egyptian army captured Missolonghi, causing a loss to the Greeks of four thousand men. Thence he gradually subdued the whole of the Morea. Later the cities of Corinth and Athens fell into the hands of the Turks, and on May 6, 1827, at a battle at Phalerum, in the neighbourhood of this last city, Reschid Pasha, in command of an Albanian army, defeated and dispersed the last army of the Greeks then in the field. The Greek Government was forced to remove from the mainland to the island of Poros. The whole of Greece then fell into anarchy. Though the Greek fleet continued to make a gallant stand against the combined Turkish and Egyptian fleets, it was not strong enough to maintain a mastery at sea and to cut off the communication between Ibrahim’s army and its base in Egypt. It is certain that if the Great Powers of Europe had not intervened, Greece would have been completely subdued, and Turkish rule would have been reinstated there. Ibrahim threatened to remove the whole Greek population and sell them into slavery, and to replace them by Egyptians and Arabs.

Meanwhile the success of Ibrahim’s army, armed and disciplined on the model of European armies, as compared with the failure in previous campaigns in Greece of the ill-disciplined and badly armed troops of Turkey, produced a great impression at Constantinople. Mahmoud now found that his long-cherished project for the reform of the army was supported almost unanimously by the Divan and by the whole of the ulemas. He determined, therefore, to carry it into effect, and to suppress his mortal foes, the Janissaries. He had been long engaged in making preparations for a decisive issue with these turbulent troops. He had formed a body of fourteen thousand artillerymen, drilled and armed on the new model, and on whom he could thoroughly rely for support. His predecessor, Selim, had enlisted a small body of infantry on the same model. The Agha of the Janissaries, Hussein Pasha, was devoted to him, as was also the Mufti. The Sultan thereupon, in May 1826, gave orders to the Janissaries that one-fourth of them were to be incorporated in the new corps of infantry. The Janissaries refused. They marched in a body, on June 14th, to the palace, intent on overawing the Sultan, as they had so often done in the past. They met their master on this occasion. The Sultan summoned the artillery to his support. He unfolded the sacred banner and directed their action. They pounded the Janissaries with cannon shot in the streets leading to the palace and drove them back to their barracks with heavy loss. The guns were then concentrated on the barracks and set fire to them. No quarter was given. The Janissaries perished either by gun fire or in the burning barracks. Four thousand of them were disposed of in this holocaust. The Sultan ruthlessly followed up his victory. Many more thousands of the Janissaries were put to death in Constantinople and in other cities of the Empire. The force was entirely destroyed. Its very name was erased from official records. Mahmoud had obtained an overwhelming victory. His new army was at once increased to forty-five thousand men, exclusive of his artillery, with the intention of gradually raising it to two hundred thousand. It was recruited, however, wholly from the Moslem population. The Christians were excluded from its ranks as rigidly as under the old régime. There can be no doubt that if time had been allowed to Mahmoud to complete the number and efficiency of this new army, the Ottoman Empire would again have become a most formidable military Power. The Sultan did much more to centralize power in himself. He abolished the military feudal system, which had become a gross abuse. The beys were everywhere suppressed, or were allowed to draw their incomes only for the term of their lives. The rents hitherto paid to these persons were in the future to be paid directly to the State.

Mahmoud also effected many other important reforms. He abolished the Court of Confiscations, which had provided a revenue to the State out of property of persons condemned to death or exile, and which had become a great abuse. He deprived pashas of their power to put people to death at their will without trial. He enacted that no one should in future be so dealt with without formal trial and the right of appeal. He put the vast Vacouf property (dedicated to Islam) under State management. He prohibited the wearing of turbans and made the use of the fez universal in his Empire. He set the example of clothing himself after the European fashion. He entertained ambassadors and their wives and others at his palace as other sovereigns did. He contemplated great reforms in favour of his Christian subjects, but it will be seen that the task was left incomplete for his successors.

At this point of his career Mahmoud had attained unqualified success. He had succeeded in putting down all the rebellious pashas, such as Ali of Janina and others. Mehemet Ali of Egypt had recognized the supremacy of the Sultan by sending his army and navy to suppress the Greek rebellion. Greece had been practically reconquered. The Greeks in other parts of the Empire had been terrorized into submission. Insurrection in Moldavia and Wallachia had been suppressed. The Serbian fortresses were in his hands. Above all, the Janissaries, who had proved to be so useless as a military force and who had murdered two of his predecessors and deposed many others, were suppressed. He had carried out great reforms in his Empire. Mahmoud had effected all this by his own inflexible firmness and by statesmanship of a high order, not unmixed with cruelty and cunning.

Two events now occurred which materially affected the position of Turkey, and deprived Mahmoud of the fruits of his ably devised policy. The one was the death of Alexander, the Emperor of Russia, the other the decision of the British Government to intervene on behalf of Greece. Alexander for some years past had been on the horns of a dilemma. He had a deep sympathy for the subjects of the Ottoman Empire who were members of the Greek Church, and a great aversion to Turkish rule. But he also hated and feared revolution. He believed in the divine right of rulers, however bad, and would take no step to support the revolt of their subjects, however oppressive their government. He feared that a dangerous precedent might be extended to his own Empire. This conflict of views paralysed his action. He gave no assistance to the Greek insurgents. So long as he lived there was little hope that Greece would recover its independence. He died late in 1825, and was succeeded by his brother, Nicholas, a much younger and more vigorous man, and a truer exponent of Russian ideals. The new Czar had no objection to insurrection if it was not directed against his own government. He hated the Turks and wished to drive them out of Europe much more than he sympathized with the Greeks. He had many other grounds of complaint against the Porte. It has also been suggested that he wished to come to conclusions with it before time had been given for perfecting his new army.

As regards Great Britain, its Government had not originally sympathized with the Greek revolution, but the reverse. But public opinion, outraged by the barbarities which had been committed, had produced an influence on it, and Mr. Canning, the Foreign Secretary, was personally very favourable to the cause of Greece. The Government as a whole held the view that the continuance of disorder in Greece was a menace to the peace of Europe. They had no wish for the extension of Russia at the expense of Turkey. They thought that if Greece were not pacified Russia would intervene, and would not confine its claim to the settlement of the Greek claims, but would aim at other conquests. They decided, therefore, to make an effort to settle the Greek question on the basis of autonomy, subject to the suzerainty of the Sultan. In this view the Cabinet sent the Duke of Wellington to St. Petersburg in 1826 to negotiate with the Czar. He effected an arrangement which was later embodied in the treaty of London of July 6, 1827, between the three Powers, Great Britain, Russia, and France, for the pacification of Greece. Under the terms of this treaty it was agreed, with a view to bringing about a reconciliation between the Ottoman Porte and the Greeks, to offer mediation, and to demand an immediate armistice as a preliminary to the opening of a negotiation.

Under the arrangement to be proposed to the Ottoman Porte, Greece was to be granted complete autonomy, under the suzerainty of the Sultan, and was to pay a fixed annual tribute. It was to be governed by authorities whom its people were to nominate. In order to bring about a complete separation between the individuals of the two nations and to prevent the collisions resulting from a long struggle, the Greeks were to enter upon possession of all Turkish property, either on the continent or in the isles of Greece, on condition of indemnifying the former proprietors by the payment of an annual sum to be added to the tribute. By an additional secret article it was provided that “if, within one month, the Ottoman Porte did not agree to accept the mediation of the three Powers and consent to an armistice, the signatories of the treaty would find the necessity for an approximation with the Greeks by entering into relations with them, and would employ all their means for the accomplishment of the objects of the treaty without, however, taking any part in the hostilities between the two contending parties.”