The Turkish Empire, Its Growth and Decay

by Baron G. Shaw-Lefevre Eversley

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.