Until documents of a contrary tenor come to light, we may say with some approach to certainty that the responsibility for the war of 1877-78 rests with the Sultan of Turkey and with those who indirectly encouraged him to set at naught the counsels of the Powers. Lord Derby and Lord Salisbury had of late plainly warned him of the consequences of his stubbornness; but the influence of the British embassy at Constantinople and of the Turkish ambassador in London seems greatly to have weakened the force of those warnings.
It must always be remembered that the Turk will concede religious freedom and civic equality to the "Giaours" only under overwhelming pressure. In such a case he mutters "Kismet" ("It is fate"), and gives way; but the least sign of weakness or wavering on the part of the Powers awakens his fanatical scruples. Then his devotion to the Koran forbids any surrender. History has afforded several proofs of this, from the time of the Battle of Navarino (1827) to that of the intervention of the Western Powers on behalf of the slaughtered and harried Christians of the Lebanon (1860). Unfortunately Abdul Hamid had now come to regard the Concert of the Powers as a "loud-sounding nothing." With the usual bent of a mean and narrow nature he detected nothing but hypocrisy in its lofty professions, and self-seeking in its philanthropic aims, together with a treacherous desire among influential persons to make the whole scheme miscarry. Accordingly he fell back on the boundless fund of inertia, with which a devout Moslem ruler blocks the way to western reforms. A competent observer has finely remarked that the Turk never changes; his neighbours, his frontiers, his statute-books may change, but his ideas and his practice remain always the same. He will not be interfered with; he will not improve[123]. To this statement we must add that only under dire necessity will he allow his Christian subjects to improve. The history of the Eastern Question may be summed up in these assertions.
Abdul Hamid II. is the incarnation of the reactionary forces which have brought ruin to Turkey and misery to her Christian subjects. He owed his crown to a recrudescence of Moslem fanaticism; and his reign has illustrated the unsuspected strength and ferocity of his race and creed in face of the uncertain tones in which Christendom has spoken since the spring of the year 1876. The reasons which prompted his defiance a year later were revealed by his former Grand Vizier, Midhat Pasha, in an article in the Nineteenth Century for June 1877. The following passage is especially illuminating:--
Turkey was not unaware of the attitude of the English Government towards her; the British Cabinet had declared in clear terms that it would not interfere in our dispute. This decision of the English Cabinet was perfectly well known to us, but we knew still better that the general interests of Europe and the particular interests of England were so bound up in our dispute with Russia that, in spite of all the Declarations of the English Cabinet, it appeared to us to be absolutely impossible for her to avoid interfering sooner or later in this Eastern dispute. This profound belief, added to the reasons we have mentioned, was one of the principal factors of our contest with Russia[124].
It appears, then, that the action of the British Government in the spring and summer of 1876, and the well-known desire of the Prime Minister to intervene in favour of Turkey, must have contributed to the Sultan's decision to court the risks of war rather than allow any intervention of the Powers on behalf of his Christian subjects.
The information that has come to light from various quarters serves to strengthen the case against Lord Beaconsfield's policy in the years 1875-77. The letter written by Mr. White to Sir Robert Morier on January 16, 1877, and referred to above, shows that his diplomatic experience had convinced him of the futility of supporting Turkey against the Powers. In that letter he made use of these significant words:--"You know me well enough. I did not come here (Constantinople) to deceive Lord Salisbury or to defend an untenable Russophobe or pro-Turkish policy. There will probably be a difference of opinion in the Cabinet as to our future line of policy, and I shall not wonder if Lord Salisbury should upset Dizzy and take his place or leave the Government on this question. If he does the latter, the coach is indeed upset." Mr. White also referred to the personnel of the British Embassy at Constantinople in terms which show how mischievous must have been its influence on the counsels of the Porte.
A letter from Sir Robert Morier of about the same date proves that that experienced diplomatist also saw the evil results certain to accrue from the Beaconsfield policy:--"I have not ceased to din that into the ears of the F.O. (Foreign Office), to make ourselves the point d'appui of the Christians in the Turkish Empire, and thus take all the wind out of the sails of Russia; and after the population had seen the difference between an English and a Russian occupation [of the disturbed parts of Turkey] it would jump to the eyes even of the blind, and we should débuter into a new policy at Constantinople with an immense advantage[125]." This advice was surely statesmanlike. To support the young and growing nationalities in Turkey would serve, not only to checkmate the supposed aggressive designs of Russia, but also to array on the side of Britain the progressive forces of the East. To rely on the Turk was to rely on a moribund creature. It was even worse. It implied an indirect encouragement to the "sick man" to enter on a strife for which he was manifestly unequal, and in which we did not mean to help him. But these considerations failed to move Lord Beaconsfield and the Foreign Office from the paths of tradition and routine[126].
Finally, in looking at the events of 1875-76 in their broad outlines, we may note the verdict of a veteran diplomatist, whose conduct before the Crimean War proved him to be as friendly to the interests of Turkey as he was hostile to those of Russia, but who now saw that the situation differed utterly from that which was brought about by the aggressive action of Czar Nicholas I. in 1854. In a series of letters to the Times he pointed out the supreme need of joint action by all the Powers who signed the Treaty of Paris; that that treaty by no means prohibited their intervention in the affairs of Turkey; that wise and timely intervention would be to the advantage of that State; that the Turks had always yielded to coercion if it were of overwhelming strength, but only on those terms; and that therefore the severance of England from the European Concert was greatly to be deplored[127]. In private this former champion of Turkey went even farther, and declared on Sept. 10, 1876, that the crisis in the East would not have become acute had Great Britain acted conjointly with the Powers[128]. There is every reason to believe that posterity will endorse this judgment of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe.
FOOTNOTES:
[86] "Islam continues to be, as it has been for twelve centuries, the most inflexible adversary to the Western spirit" (History of Serbia and the Slav Provinces of Turkey, by L. von Ranke, Eng. edit. p. 296).