France in the Nineteenth Century

by Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer

Sultan Mahmoud, who had come to the throne in 1808, had done his best to destroy the power of his pashas. He hated such powerful and insubordinate nobles, and after the destruction of the Mamelukes in 1811, he placed Egypt under the rule of the bold Macedonian soldier, Mehemet Ali, not as a pasha, but as viceroy. In course of time, as the dominions of Sultan Mahmoud became more and more disorganized by misgovernment and insurrection, Mehemet Ali sent his adopted son, Ibrahim Pasha, with an army into Syria. Ibrahim conquered that province and governed it far better than the Turks had done, when he was stopped by a Russian army (1832), which, under pretence of assisting the sultan, interfered in the quarrel. An arrangement was effected by what is called the treaty of Unkiar-Thelessi. Ibrahim was to retain the pashalik of Syria for his life, and Russia stipulated that no vessels of war should be allowed to pass the Dardanelles or Hellespont without the consent of the sultan.

Mehemet Ali, who was anxious above all things to have his viceroyalty in Egypt made hereditary, that he might transmit his honors to his brave son, cast about in every direction to find friends among European diplomatists. Six years before, he had proposed to England, France, and Austria a partition of the sultan's empire. "Russia," he said, "is half mistress of Turkey already. She has established a protectorate over half its subjects, who are Greek Christians, and where she professes to protect, she oppresses instead. If she seizes Constantinople, there is the end of your European civilization. I am a Turk, but I propose to you to inaugurate a crusade which will save Turkey and save Europe. I will raise my standard against the czar; I will put at your disposal my army, fleet, and treasure; I will lead the van; and in return I ask only my independence of the Porte and an acknowledgment of me as an hereditary sovereign." This proposition was promptly declined. It was renewed, in 1838, in a modified form, but again England, France, and Austria would not listen to the viceroy's reasoning. Mehemet Ali became a prey to despair.

Sultan Mahmoud meantime was no less a victim to resentment and anxiety. He hated his enforced subservience to Russia, and above all he hated his great subject and rival, Mehemet Ali. With fury in his heart he watched how, shred by shred, his great empire was wrenched away from him,—Greece, Syria, Servia, Algiers, Moldavia, and Wallachia. Little remained to him but Constantinople and its surrounding provinces. Russia, all-powerful in the Black Sea, could at any moment force him to give up to her the key of the Dardanelles. Among the Turks (the only part of his subjects on whom he could rely) were many malcontents. Fanatic dervishes predicted his overthrow, and called him the Giaour Sultan. He had destroyed Turkish customs, outraged Turkish feelings, and by the massacre o the Janissaries, in 1826, he had sapped Turkish strength. He now began in his own person to set at nought the precepts of the Koran. All day he worked with frenzy, and at night he indulged himself in frightful orgies, till, dead drunk, he desisted from his madness, and was carried by his slaves to his bed.[1]

[Footnote 1: Louis Blanc, Dix Ans.]

In the early months of 1839 Mahmoud made quiet preparations to thrust Ibrahim Pasha out of Syria; and in June a great battle was fought between the Egyptians and the Turks on the banks of the Euphrates, in which Ibrahim Pasha, by superior generalship, wholly defeated the Turkish commander, Hafiz Pasha.

Sultan Mahmoud never heard of this disaster. He died of delirium tremens the very week that it took place, and his son, Abdul Medjid, mounted his throne. Ibrahim Pasha immediately after his victory had made ready to threaten Constantinople, when despatches from his father arrested him. Mehemet wrote that France had promised to take the part of Egypt, and to settle all her difficulties by diplomacy.

Meantime the new sultan, or his vizier, having offended the Capitan Pasha (or Admiral of the Fleet), that officer thought proper to carry the ships under his command over to Mehemet Ali.

It was a proud day for the viceroy when the Turkish ships sailed into the harbor of Alexandria. This defection of the fleet so discouraged Abdul Medjid that he offered his vassal terms of peace, by which he consented to Mehemet's hereditary viceroyalty in Egypt, and Ibrahim Pasha's hereditary possession of the pashalik of Syria.

But the Great Powers would not consent to this dismemberment of the Turkish Empire. A fierce struggle in diplomacy took place between France and England, which might have resulted in an open rupture, had not Louis Philippe and Marshal Soult (then Minister for Foreign Affairs in France) been both averse to war. The old marshal had seen more than enough of it, and Louis Philippe felt that peace alone could strengthen his party,—the bourgeoisie. Mehemet Ali, his rights and his wrongs, seem to have been entirely overlooked in the tempest of diplomacy.

After some weeks of great excitement the Five Great Powers agreed among themselves that Mehemet Ali should become the Khedive, or hereditary viceroy, of Egypt, but that he must give up Syria. To this he demurred, and the allied troops attacked Ibrahim Pasha. Admiral Sir Charles Napier bombarded his stronghold, St. Jean d'Acre, and forced him into submission. The triumph of Lord Palmerston's policy was complete; as Charles Greville remarked: "Everything has turned out well for him. He is justified by the success of his operations, and by the revelations in the French Chambers of the intentions of M. Thiers; and it must be acknowledged he has a fair right to plume himself on his diplomacy."