In 1838 Mehemet Ali, having completed all his arrangements for war with his suzerain, announced his intention to pay no more tribute in the future to the Porte. This amounted to a declaration of independence and a renunciation of allegiance. Mahmoud, on his part, was determined to crush his rebellious vassal, and collected an army on the Euphrates for the invasion of Syria. The opportunity seemed to be a favourable one, as the population of Syria was in revolt against Mehemet Ali, whose government had proved to be almost as oppressive and tyrannical as that of the Sultan. Early in 1839 Mahmoud declared war and gave directions to his army to invade Syria. He also fitted out a fleet, consisting of nine ships of the line and twenty-four smaller vessels, and directed it to proceed to Syria and to co-operate with his army advancing from the Euphrates.

Both these expeditions of the Porte came to grief. The army which invaded Syria met the Egyptians, again under command of Ibrahim, at Nazeb on June 25, 1839. The two armies were about equal in number, each of them about forty thousand. The Turks were completely defeated. Many of their battalions deserted on the field of battle and went over to the enemy; the remainder were routed and dispersed. Six thousand of them were killed and wounded; ten thousand were taken prisoners. One hundred guns and great masses of stores fell into the hands of the Egyptians. The Turkish army in these parts ceased to exist.

The great Turkish fleet had sailed from the Bosphorus on July 6th amid many popular demonstrations. It was under the command of the Capitan Pasha, Achmet, who proved to be a traitor. After passing through the Dardanelles, instead of following his instructions by making his course to the coast of Syria, Achmet sailed direct to Egypt, and there entered the port of Alexandria with flying colours and handed over the fleet to the enemy of the Sultan, the rebellious Pasha Mehemet Ali, a proceeding without precedent in history. It was only accomplished, we may presume, by profuse bribery on the part of the crafty Pasha.

Mahmoud was spared the knowledge of these two signal disasters to his Empire. He died on July 1, 1839, some writers allege from the effect of alcohol, though this is doubtful. Creasy and many other historians are unstinting in praise of Mahmoud. They assign to him a very high position in the list of Sultans. They bear testimony to his high civic courage, and to the firm resolution with which he confronted the many crises of his reign. We must fully admit these qualities. Few sovereigns in history have had to deal with such a succession of grave difficulties. Almost alone he bore the weight of Empire. We must not, however, lose sight of the fact that his administration and diplomacy were fraught with failure, that his Empire incurred greater losses than under any previous Sultan, that his armies met with invariable defeat, not only on the part of numerically weaker armies of Russia, but also from insurgent Greeks and Serbians, and even from Egyptians, whose fighting qualities were much inferior to those of the Turks. His firmness and resolution were very great, but they failed him at the supreme crisis of his career, when the Russian army, with quite inadequate numbers, after serious losses in battle and by disease, threatened Constantinople from Adrianople, and when it is now quite certain that, if Mahmoud had stood firm and had refused to come to terms, overwhelming disaster must have befallen the Russians. At another crisis also his firmness amounted to most unwise obstinacy when he refused, in 1827, to concede autonomy to Greece at the instance of the Great Powers—a supreme error from which all his subsequent misfortunes logically followed. Mahmoud seems also to have been wanting in magnetism to inspire his generals and soldiers with his own courage and resolution. He does not compare in this respect with his contemporary and rival, Mehemet Ali. He had little of the martial vigour and of the craft of that great vassal. If the Great Powers had not intervened, it was highly probable, if not certain, that Ibrahim’s army would, either in 1833 or in 1839, have marched to Constantinople, have effected a revolution there, and have put an end to the Othman dynasty. It might have given new life to the decadent Turkish Empire. In any case, there was no reason why Mahmoud, if he had been endowed with Mehemet Ali’s genius and administrative capacity, should not have created an army superior in force and discipline to that of the Egyptian Pasha, and equal to the task of preventing the Russians from crossing the Balkans.

XX
THE RULE OF ELCHIS
1839-76

Mahmoud was succeeded by his son, Abdul Mehzid, a youth of sixteen years, who proved to be of very different stamp from his father. He was of mild and gentle nature, without physical or mental vigour, and wanting in force of character. He was enfeebled early in his reign by excessive indulgence in his harem. Later he was addicted to alcohol, like many of his predecessors. His father had monopolized power, and had frequently changed his ministers, with the result that he left no statesman behind him who could impose his will on the young Sultan and govern in his name. Nor was any lady of the harem ambitious and competent to guide or misguide the ship of State, as had not infrequently been the case in the past, when the reigning Sultan was unequal to the task. The main power during this reign as regards foreign affairs, and to some extent even as regards internal affairs, seems to have been vested in the ambassadors of the Great Powers. This power was exercised collectively by them on the rare occasions when they were unanimously agreed, but at other times by one or other of them, and chiefly, as will be seen, by the British Ambassador, Sir Stratford Canning, later Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, who, by his force of character and commanding presence, obtained immense personal influence over the feeble mind of Abdul Mehzid, and exercised an almost undisputed sway from 1842 to 1858, with the exception of brief intervals when he was in England on leave, and when the Russian Ambassador succeeded in obtaining exclusive influence.

The new Sultan was fortunate, as compared with his father, that in the thirty-one years of his reign his Empire experienced no serious loss of territory. It is necessary, however, to advert to the two main events of it—the one, the suppression of Mehemet Ali’s ambitious projects and the restriction of his hereditary Pashalic to Egypt; the other, the Crimean War, as it is known in history—the war with Russia, the effect of which was to stave off for nearly twenty years the dismemberment of the Turkish Empire in Europe.

As regards the first of these events, it has been shown that, in the last year of Mahmoud’s reign, Mehemet Ali was in a position of great strength, which might have enabled him to overthrow the Othman dynasty. He had destroyed the main Turkish army in Asia, at Nazeb, on the frontier of Syria, and by the infamous treachery of Achmet Pasha he had obtained possession of the Turkish fleet. He comported himself, however, with moderation at this stage. He informed the Porte that he was willing to come to terms if they would recognize the Pashalics of Egypt, Syria, Tripoli (in Asia Minor), Adana, and Crete as hereditary in his family. He had no intention, he said, to use the Turkish fleet against his suzerain, the Sultan. He would give it back to the Porte, if his terms were agreed to. If Sultan Mahmoud had been alive, it may be confidently assumed that he would have rejected these terms with contumely, and would have fought it out with his rebellious vassal. But Abdul Mehzid was wanting in courage to meet the crisis. The two disasters caused the greatest alarm at Constantinople. The majority of the Divan were ready to concede the demands of Mehemet Ali. They were prevented from doing so by an unprecedented occurrence. The ambassadors of the five Great Powers—England, France, Russia, Austria, and Prussia—met in conclave and came to the conclusion that it was contrary to the interests of their respective Governments that Mehemet Ali’s demands should be acceded to. They informed the Porte that their Governments desired to discuss the questions raised by Mehemet Ali, and invited the Sultan to suspend a definitive arrangement with him. This was agreed to by the Divan. The settlement of the relation of the rebellious pasha to the Sultan fell into the hands of the ambassadors, and a kind of tutelage was established over the Turkish Empire.