The Turkish Empire, Its Growth and Decay

by Baron G. Shaw-Lefevre Eversley

Lord Stratford’s words on hearing that the treaty was signed were, “I would rather have cut off my right hand than have signed that treaty.”

The writer paid a second visit to Constantinople in 1857. He rode there from Belgrade, passing through Bulgaria on the way, and was witness of the miserable condition to which this province had been reduced by Ottoman rule. He spent a few weeks at Therapia, where the Ambassador was residing, and was favoured by many conversations with him. Lord Stratford was always most kind and communicative to young men. He made no secret of his bitter disappointment. The treaty of Paris, he alleged, was a death-blow to the cause of reform in Turkey. If the Christian population were not protected from misgovernment, the Empire was doomed. He was under no illusion as to the misgovernment of the country. He knew that if left to themselves the Turks would do nothing, and that all the reforms promised by the Hatti-Humayun which he had obtained with so much labour and difficulty before the conclusion of the Crimean War would remain unexecuted and would be a dead letter. He considered that England had been betrayed at the Congress of Paris, that the clause in the treaty which embodied the Hatti-Humayun was nullified by the provision that its recognition did not entitle the Great Powers either collectively or separately to interfere in the internal affairs of Turkey. He held that this was fatal to the enforcement of the new reforms. He maintained that the only way to induce the Turks to act in accordance with them was through threats and fear, and that some external Power should bring such pressure to bear on them. This might be done by England alone, or by England in alliance with France, or by the Great Powers collectively. He preferred the first of these; he had little hope of the last; but the treaty had extinguished all methods equally.[38] It was the last year of the Great Elchi’s reign at Constantinople. He retired from his post and from the public service in the following year at the age of seventy-one.

He was succeeded by Sir Henry Bulwer, later Lord Dalling, an ambassador of a very different type. Though an able diplomat, he cared nothing for reform in Turkey. He allowed himself to be placed under personal obligation to the Sultan, which destroyed his influence. He made no effort to induce, still less to compel, the Porte to give effect to the Hatti-Humayun which his predecessor had obtained with so much labour.

The cause of reform in Turkey [says Mr. Lane Poole], for which Lord Stratford had striven for so many years, began its downward course when the Turks understood the altered character of the British Embassy under Sir Henry Bulwer. Lord Stratford’s farewell to Constantinople was the occasion for a stately ceremony, in which the Sultan and all his ministers and the whole population joined in paying a last tribute to the departing Elchi.... He knew, however, that he was assisting in the obsequies of his hopes. His long struggle for reform of the Ottoman Empire was at an end, and in the character of his successor he could trace the antithesis of all he had striven for, the abandonment of all he had won.[39]

Lord Stratford lived on in retirement to the age of ninety-three, long enough to see the verification of all his fears as to the effect of the unfortunate clause in the treaty of Paris in nullifying the promises of reforms in Turkey and of all his predictions as to the result of this in the revolt in 1874 of the Christian populations of Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Bulgaria under the stress of appalling misgovernment and tyranny, and in their final liberation from Turkish rule by the armies of Russia. On this occasion the revolt of these subjects of the Porte had his full sympathy, and he admitted that Russia was fully justified in its intervention.[40]

Mr. Gladstone in 1876 dedicated to Lord Stratford his pamphlet on Bulgarian atrocities, which had such a powerful effect in preventing England from taking up arms again in support of Turkey.[41]

Looking back at the Crimean War, it is now possible for us to perceive and admit that its main, if not its only, result was to postpone for a few years the break up of the Turkish Empire in Europe. It negatived for a time the claim of Russia to an exclusive protectorate over the Christian populations of the Balkans which would secure to them the benefit of good government. Lord Stratford’s hopes of a reformed Turkish Empire, more or less under the ægis of England, were frustrated by the treaty of Paris. As a result, no reforms were effected in Turkey. Its downward course was retarded, but not averted. When, in 1876, the accumulated grievances of the Christian population compelled an outbreak, it will be seen that the intervention of Russia on their behalf was practically admitted by England and the other Great Powers.

Abdul Mehzid died in 1861. He had not realized even the small promise of his youth. He had many instincts that were sound and good. He was the most humane of the long list of Sultans. He fully recognized the urgent necessity for reforms in his State, in order to bring it into line with other civilized States in Europe. But he had not the energy or the will to carry them into effect, and the programme of reform conceded to Lord Stratford remained a dead letter. He was prematurely aged by debauchery. He was the first Sultan to fall into the hands of moneylenders of Western Europe. Great sums were borrowed ostensibly for the war with Russia. But the larger part of them was expended by Abdul Mehzid in wild extravagance, in gratifying the caprices of the multitude of women in his harem, in building palaces, and in satisfying the demands of corrupt ministers. On the occasion of the marriage of one of his daughters with the son of a Grand Vizier he spent forty millions of francs on her trousseau and in fêtes. Meanwhile the services of the State were neglected, nothing was done to relieve Kars, and corruption spread in all directions.