Yes, people in this country heard much about the massacres. Doubtless they were abominable, and doubtless many innocent persons were slaughtered. But it is only common justice that one should try to find out what were the reasons for attacking Armenians before one judges and condemns those who did so. It is a fact that there was never such an outburst of enmity to the Armenians before; if there had been, there would not be over two millions living in the Ottoman empire now. The Armenians are an adventurous race; they can go anywhere, settle anywhere, and become subject to any State. Some years before the troubles, many of the foreign subject Armenians came over to Turkey, styling themselves Frenchmen, Englishmen and Americans, sometimes in the shape of missionaries, sometimes as teachers. These adventurers, together with the revolutionary Russian subject Armenians, who came mostly from the Caucasus, began to stir up the people of their own race all over Asiatic Turkey in favour of a national independence. The younger generation of the Armenian people, becoming intoxicated with great ideas and dreams of a national kingdom, overlooked the impossibility of establishing any such thing in any particular part of the Ottoman dominions, and did not realise that their people formed a miserable minority everywhere. It has been maintained by their political sympathisers in England that their agitations were for the purpose of being better governed, and in no way a separatist movement; but this is absurd, and was merely an after-thought. As a matter of fact the Armenians gave loud expression to their new aspirations of having an independent kingdom in Eastern Asia Minor. We heard everywhere from them that the Christian Powers—above all, Great Britain were going to hand over that portion of the 'decaying' Ottoman empire to them, as they had handed over Ottoman territories before to other Christian races of the East They were simply awaiting the prophesied moment of the partition of Turkey to establish their independence on their share of the divided territory. I myself heard Armenians talking about who were to be the future rulers among their own people. The Turks began to ask themselves such questions as, "Why do these people revolt against us when we suffer from misrule much more than they do, and when, moreover, the official misdeeds are partly due to Armenian jacks-in-office?"[6] The agitation among the Armenians grew worse and worse every day; the agitators resorted to the same old method, namely, they tried to provoke the Turkish populace to retaliate on its offenders, hoping that this would be represented in Europe as an outburst of Mussulman fanaticism, and would induce the Powers to intervene, and so hasten the partition. The Turks, or, more widely speaking, the Mussulman population of Asiatic Turkey, were gravely discussing what could be done to check this overbearing and mischievous behaviour. Turkish women and children were exposed to ill-treatment and insult throughout Asia Minor. The Turk's patience is almost inexhaustible, but when you attack his women and children his anger is roused, and nothing on earth can control it, and he saw that the Government of the Sultan was utterly powerless to punish the Armenian agitators and revolutionists of foreign nationality. Did the humanitarian British public know these things? No; it does not care to know anything which might be favourable to the Turks. Have the political journals of this country mentioned the facts. I have stated? Of course not, because—to speak plainly—they knew that in the Armenian pie there were the fingers of some of their own politicians. Shortly before the massacres, I heard many Turkish people, who had lived side by side with the Armenians for centuries, saying that it was a mistake to be angry with the Kurds for their treatment of the Armenians in Eastern Asia Minor, and that it was the right thing to crush these people. Then there came the dark days of those terrible massacres. The Armenian revolutionists, who ultimately managed to go abroad scot-free, gave great provocation by throwing dynamite bombs in many places and killing women and children of the Mussulman population. These people could no longer expect that the Government of the Sultan would do anything to settle the agitation and prevent further mischief, so at last they took the law into their own hands and put down the Armenian movement in the manner we all know. The Sultan, who was eating his heart out at his inability to punish the revolutionary Armenians of foreign extraction, simply connived at the doings of the enraged populace, if he did not actually instigate and encourage them; but, unfortunately, by his connivance, it was mostly innocent Armenians who perished at the hands of the mob, and only a very few of the guilty ringleaders suffered.
Although the Armenians are hard-working and energetic, they will never recover their former prosperity.
They have always had every opportunity of enriching themselves. They had a firm footing and influential positions in the royal establishments, which made them practically the trustees and paymasters of the revenues of the empire. Their opportunities began with the foundation of the Ottoman power in Asia Minor, which found them a scattered remnant of a race, with their political existence already stamped out by other conquerors, and which, though it did not restore their freedom politically, at least assured to them the advantages of individual prosperity, protection and toleration. As an instance of what the Turks have been willing to do for the Armenians, I may quote the religious difficulties early in the last century. It was at the beginning of the missionary movement in Europe, and both Protestant and Catholic missionaries poured into Turkey and set about proselytising the Armenians, with more zeal than discretion. The Armenian Patriarch appealed to the Turkish Government to expel these foreign missionaries who were causing trouble in his community, and in response to his appeal the Government at once put great restrictions upon the missionaries, and this in spite of the fact that by so doing it ran the risk of incurring European enmity. In mentioning this I do not say anything against mission work; I merely instance the circumstance to show the tolerance with which the Turks have always treated the Armenians and their religion, and how untrue is the accusation brought against them of systematic religious persecution.
However, I doubt if the Mussulman population will ever place the same confidence in the Armenians again. We do not see now so many of those flourishing Armenian Pashas in the high Government offices of Turkey as we did before, though they are regaining some of their old hold in Government circles. As a natural result of being out of favour, the race will not probably find it so easy a matter to gain admission to the educational institutions of the State.
CHAPTER VII.
A NEW COSTUME AND A NEW CAREER.
I adopt European dress—The standard of civilisation—English clothes 'made in Austria'—European dress first adopted under Sultan Mahmud—My vain attempts to get an appointment—Requisite qualifications for Government employment, bribery and espionage—The only livelihood possible for educated men—I become a lawyer—I penetrate high official quarters.
When I had passed the final examination in the law college I began to attend the Courts to see and learn the actual working of the forms of the procedures. I now grew to dislike having to go to the Courts and Government offices in the Ulema costume, which I still wore. In fact, even in my class at the college there were only a few persons belonging to madrassehs, and they alone were attired in the semi-religious dress, and the contrast between our appearance and the rest in the class, who were attired in ordinary civilian dress, seemed to us to make us look old-fashioned. So, like most of my countrymen, I was seized with the ambition of appearing up-to-date, and of dressing in the more modern manner; that is to say, European costume in all but the fez. Before I could do this, however, and become, so to speak, an ordinary layman, I had to leave the life of the madrasseh altogether, for the people in those ancient institutions regard the discarding of the academical turban and long cloak, and the adoption of European clothes, as a renunciation of the profession. Anyone who ventures to do this forfeits his right to a lodging in the madrasseh. I did not know where to go after leaving my madrasseh, as Turkish families cannot take any stranger into their houses as a boarder, while to go into a Greek or Armenian family would not do for a young Mussulman, for many reasons. So I hired two rooms in an inn, which was as filthy as these inns always are. I went to the European quarter of Constantinople and bought a suit of clothes from one of the numerous clothiers, who are mostly Austrian Jews, and who bring the clothes ready-made from Austria. Their goods are ridiculously cheap, but the tailoring and the material are extremely bad. It is a proverb in Constantinople that when you buy a suit of clothes from these Austrian shops and put it on, it will be worn out before you can cross over the Golden Horn Bridge back to Stamboul. Curiously enough, some of these Austrians try to pass their goods off as of English manufacture, as the English-made goods have a better reputation than the Austrian even in Turkey.
But, bad though they were, I was well content with my new clothes, as this was a step forward in satisfaction of my craze to dress as the Europeans did. It is a fact that most people who adopt this form of dress in the nearer East look upon those who have not adopted it, or do not desire to adopt it, as incapable of acquiring 'civilised' habits. Snobbish as it is, no doubt, this idea is not without reason. A few years ago, when there was an anti-Turkish agitation in England, I observed in some of the Radical papers remarks to the effect that, while the Eastern Christians who had been liberated from the Turkish yoke had adopted civilised methods, the Turks themselves seemed to be incapable of progress or civilisation. In reality, these 'Europeanised' Eastern Christians are no more civilised than the turbaned villagers of Asia Minor; their imitation of civilised methods and habits is merely superficial; but they manage to make themselves look like Europeans; and the world passes its judgment on most matters by surface evidence. Not long ago I saw an article in the Spectator, dealing with the incapacity of dark races to adopt civilised manners, and, as one of the examples, it was cited that the late Midhat Pasha used to hate some aspects of European costume, especially evening dress. It was a revelation to me that Midhat and his nation were included in the category of the dark races, and it was also a surprise to me that the Spectator did not remember that many Englishmen of perfectly civilised habits and high culture hate some of the grotesque forms of European costume. It was, however, this sort of feeling among the majority of Europeans that made us wish to imitate them, at least outwardly, so that we might not be accused of being unfitted for civilised ways. If the Turkish Government would make the women of harems discard their 'barbarous' veils, and go about like European women, and urge all its subjects to put on European costumes, and also hats instead of the fez or turban, its action would doubtless be hailed in many quarters as the real beginning of the civilisation of Turkey.