The Turkish Empire, Its Growth and Decay

by Baron G. Shaw-Lefevre Eversley

These were dutiful words. But it is not to be believed that, even if he strove to do so, Lord Stratford could hide his real thoughts from the Turkish ministers. There was that in his very presence which disclosed his volition; for if the thin, disciplined lips moved in obedience to constituted authorities, men who knew how to read the meaning of his brow, and the light which kindled beneath, could gather that the ambassador’s thoughts concerning the Home Governments of the four Great Powers of Europe were little else than an angry quos ego; the sagacious Turks would look more to the great signs than to the terms of formal advice sent out from London, and if they saw that Lord Stratford was, in his heart, against the opinion of Europe, they could easily resolve to follow his known desire and to disobey his mere words. The result was that without any sign of painful doubt the Turkish Government determined to stand firm.

This is the view of a panegyrist of Lord Stratford. We have quoted it for the purpose of showing that it was practically Lord Stratford who guided the Turkish Government in this matter.

After the failure of the settlement prepared at the Vienna Conference, the Porte, on October 1st, by the advice of Lord Stratford, made a formal demand on Russia for the evacuation of the Danubian principalities, and in default of this, a fortnight later it declared war. The Turks then boldly took the initiative. Their army, under Omar Pasha, crossed the Danube in November, 1853, and fought two battles successfully against the Russians at Oltenitza and Citale in Wallachia.

Meanwhile, on October 22nd, when Russia and Turkey were already at war, the fleets of England and France entered the Dardanelles. Though this was not an infraction of the treaty of 1841, it was a distinctly hostile act on the part of these Powers against Russia. But negotiations still continued. Whatever hopes, however, there were of a favourable issue were destroyed when, on November 30th, a Russian fleet of six battleships, issuing from Sebastopol, attacked and completely destroyed a Turkish squadron of eleven cruisers and smaller vessels lying at anchor in the port of Sinope, on the coast of Asia Minor. Four thousand Turkish sailors perished in this engagement. This was an act of war, as legitimate as the attack by the Ottoman army on the Russian force north of the Danube, the more so as the Turkish vessels were believed to be carrying munitions of war to arm the Circassians against Russia. It caused, however, an immense sensation in England and France. It was denounced as an act of treachery and as a massacre rather than a legitimate naval action. The fleets of the two Powers then lying in the Bosphorus were at once instructed to enter the Black Sea and to invite any Russian ships of war they might meet there to return to their ports. They were to prevent any further attack on Turkey. This made war inevitable. But negotiations were still for a time continued, and it was not till March 28, 1854, that war was actually declared against Russia by England and France. Armies were then sent by these Powers to Constantinople, and thence to Varna, in the Black Sea, with the object of protecting Turkey against the attack of a Russian army and of assisting the former in compelling the evacuation by the Russians of the two Danubian provinces.

Meanwhile, early in the spring of this year (1854), a Russian army had crossed the Danube and had invested Silistria, the great fortress which barred the way to the Balkans and Constantinople. It was defended with the utmost bravery and tenacity by a Turkish army under Moussa Pasha, assisted by two British engineer officers, Butler and Nasmyth. On June 25th the Russians recognized that they could not capture the fortress. They raised the siege and retreated across the Danube, after incurring immense loss of life and material.

All danger of an advance by the Russians across the Danube and the Balkans was now at an end. The Turks unaided had effectually prevented any such project. The Russian army thereupon retreated from the Danubian principalities. Their place there was taken by an Austrian army, with the consent of both Russia and the two Western Powers. No reason existed, therefore, why the war should be continued, so far as England and France were concerned. There was no longer any necessity for their armies to defend the frontiers of Turkey. But a war spirit had been roused in the two countries and was not to be allayed without much shedding of blood. The two Powers decided to use their armies which had been collected at Varna for the invasion of the Crimea and the destruction of the naval arsenal at Sebastopol, which was regarded as a permanent menace to Turkey.

Thenceforth, the part of the Turks in the war became subordinate and even insignificant. The war was fought à outrance between the two allied Powers and Russia. The successful landing of the two armies at Eupatoria, in the Crimea, their splendid victory over the Russian army at the Alma, their flank march to the south of Sebastopol, the commencement of the long siege of that fortress, the famous battles of Balaklava and Inkerman and the terrible sufferings of the British army in the winter of 1854-5, the memorable defence of Sebastopol under General Todleben, the capture of the Malakoff by the French on September 8th, 1855, and the consequent evacuation of the city and forts of Sebastopol, on the southern side of its great harbour, are events of the deepest interest in the histories of the allied Powers and Russia, but have comparatively little bearing on our present theme. Very little use was, in fact, made of the Turkish army by the Allies in the course of the war. A division of seven thousand men was sent to the Crimea in the autumn of 1854, and was employed for the defence of Balaklava. It was led by most incompetent officers, and when attacked by the Russians on the morning of the Battle of Balaklava, the men precipitately fled. This exposed the flank of the allied army to great danger. Later, another Turkish force under Omar Pasha was sent to Eupatoria. It was attacked there by a much superior Russian army, early in 1855, and fighting behind earthworks it made a very effective resistance and completely repulsed the Russians. It was said that the humiliation of this defeat of his troops by the despised Turks was the immediate cause of the death of the Emperor Nicholas.

In Asia Minor another Russian army invaded Turkish territory and laid siege to the fortress of Kars. There followed the memorable defence of this stronghold by the Turks, assisted, if not commanded, by General Williams, later Sir Fenwick Williams, and Colonel Teesdale. It was ultimately, after a four months’ siege, compelled by want of food and munitions to capitulate. The failure to relieve it was due to the grossest and most culpable negligence of the Turkish Government. In this siege and in that of Silistria and the defence of Eupatoria, the Turkish soldiers gave ample proof that when well led they had lost none of their pristine valour in defence of earthworks. The allied Powers, however, seem to have been quite ignorant or unmindful of the military value of the Turkish soldiers and made little or no practical use of them. An army of fifty thousand Turks led by English or French officers would have been of the utmost value in the earlier part of the war. It was only towards the close of it that twenty thousand Turks were enrolled under British officers. But this action was too late, and they took no part in the war.

The writer, as a young man, spent a month in the Crimea in 1855, and was present as a spectator on Cathcart’s Hill on the eventful day when the Malakoff was captured by the French, and the British were repulsed in their attack on the Redan. He well recollects the prevalent opinion among British officers, whom he met, that the Turkish army was a negligible force and of no military value in the field. This opinion was abundantly shown in the attitude of British and French soldiers to the Turkish soldiers whenever they met, and must have been very galling to the pride and self-respect of the latter.

The capture of the Malakoff, a great feat of arms on the part of the French army, was the last important event in the campaign of 1855. Early in 1856 there were strong indications that the Emperor of the French was weary of the war. Public opinion in France declared itself unmistakably against its continuance. France had nothing to gain by its prolongation. Its military pride had been satisfied by success in the capture of Sebastopol and the destruction of the Russian fleet. Its army in the Crimea was suffering severely from disease. With the British it was otherwise. Their army before the enemy was in greater force than at any previous period of the war. It was eager to retrieve its prestige, which had been somewhat impaired by the failure at the Redan. The British Government was as anxious for another campaign as was the army. But without their French ally they could obviously do nothing. The French Emperor entered into secret negotiations with the Emperor Alexander, who had succeeded Nicholas. The success of the Russian army in the capture of Kars and the valour it had shown in defence of Sebastopol made it easy to negotiate peace without slur on its military fame. It is impossible for us, who now look back on these times, to perceive what possible object could have been gained by England in prolonging the war. The projects of completing the conquest of the Crimea, and of sending an army to the Caucasus in aid of the Circassians, and another army to the Baltic to free Finland from Russia, were fantastic and perilous. England was saved from these adventures by the wiser policy of the French. The British Government against its will was compelled to enter into a negotiation for peace. This was effected through the mediation of Austria. Terms were provisionally agreed to, and a Congress of the Great Powers was held in Paris in 1856, at which a treaty of peace was finally concluded.