The Osmanlì government in Bosnia is, and has been, a government of finesse. It has no elements of stability about it, and nothing has been more prominently brought out by the present insurrection than its utter impotence. The foreign bureaucracy in Bosnia has seen itself haughtily thrust aside by the native Mahometans. Its manœuvres have utterly failed to conciliate the one class whose affections they were designed to seduce, and at the present moment there is one point on which the Mahometans and Christians of Bosnia are both agreed, and that is in abhorrence of the rule of the Osmanlì. Nor should it be overlooked that two of the greatest evils that at present afflict Bosnia are intimately bound up with the continuance of Turkish rule. One is the use of the Osmanlì language in official documents and in the law-courts; the other is the direct contact into which Bosnia is brought with the corruption of Stamboul. It is impossible that the rayah should secure justice in the law-courts, or at the hands of the government officials and middle-men, when his case or the contract into which he enters with the tax-farmers must be drawn up in a language utterly unintelligible to him, and by the hands of those who are interested in perverting the instrument of the law to injustice and extortion. It is impossible that the material resources of Bosnia, magnificent as they are, should be developed to the good of her civilization, while the enterprise of Europe has first to satisfy what is insatiable—the avarice of the Divan. The Bosniacs themselves are still blessed with many of the virtues of a primitive people, and left to themselves might secure honesty and justice in their public officers. At present the Bosnian employés must first learn their Osmanlì language, and imbibe the secrets of Osmanlì government, at the source and seminary of Turkish demoralization; and the alien bureaucracy which results, acts in Bosnia as a propaganda of corruption.
Why not then sever a connection as malign as it is artificial? Why not divorce Stamboul from Bosnia, and erect an independent State under an European guarantee? The democratic genius of the people would suggest a Republic as the best form of government, but the divided state of the country would preclude such a government to begin with, and a Principality after the model of free Serbia might combine Parliamentary government with the coherence of a monarchy.
When it is recognised by what an extremely precarious tenure the Porte holds Bosnia at present, and it is remembered that the chief aim of the native Mahometans, as of the native Christians, is Provincial Independence, even Englishmen may be inclined to accept the conclusion that the present connection between Bosnia and the hated government of the Osmanlì must be severed; the more so as the geographical configuration and position of Bosnia—a peninsula connected only with the rest of Turkey by a narrow neck—make it almost impossible to hold out against a serious invasion, and put it always at the mercy of foreign agitators.
Such a revolution may seem an Utopian dream; but when the purely artificial character of the present government of Bosnia is realized, it would be an impertinence to the confederate statesmanship of Europe to suppose that it was unable to effect it. For the moment, however, the ultimate form of Bosnian government is a question of secondary importance to the paramount necessity of re-establishing order in that unhappy land. At the moment that I write this, nearly 3,000 Bosnian and Herzegovinian villages and scattered hamlets are blackened ruins, and over 200,000 Christian refugees are starving among the inhospitable ravines of the Dalmatian Alps. In the interests of humanity, as well as of European peace, in discharge of responsibilities which no adroitness of European statesmanship can disavow, an armed occupation of Bosnia by civilized forces has become indispensable. When the Christian population of Bosnia have been rescued from the grave that yawns before them, when the robber bands of fanaticism have been disarmed, and the remnant of the refugees enabled to return to what were once their homes; then it will be time for the governments of civilized Europe to turn their energies to securing the necessary reforms, and to re-establishing the administration of the country on a sounder basis.
Discordant as are the political materials in Bosnia, fanatic as are the Christians as well as the Mahometans, I feel convinced that there exist elements of union in that unhappy country which might be moulded together by wise hands. The wrongs of the Christians in Bosnia have been intolerable, and I have shown my abhorrence of the present tyranny with sufficient emphasis in the course of this book; but I may take this opportunity of deprecating any sympathy with those who propose to deal with the Mussulman population of Bosnia in a spirit of Christian fanaticism. The whole history of Bosnia from the beginning has been one long commentary on the evils of established religions. Whatever terms the Great Powers may wish to impose on Bosnia and the Turks, let England at all events exert her influence against any setting up of an ecclesiastical tyranny. In the interests of all the warring creeds which distract the country, let the secular character of the future government be beyond suspicion. Let an European guarantee secure to the Mahometan minority of Bosnia the free exercise of their religion and complete equality before the law, and half the battle of conciliation will have been won. But let it once be supposed that Greek popes under the tutelage of Russia, or Franciscan monks under the patronage of the Apostolic Monarchy which still sets at nought, in Tyrol, the first principles of religious liberty, are to be allowed to lord it over the true believers; once encourage the hopes of Christian bigotry and the fears of Islâm, and the miserable struggle will prolong itself to the bitter end.
So far indeed from the sway of Christian denominationalism being in any sense possible in Bosnia, it must be frankly admitted, distasteful as the admission may be to some, that if an autonomous or partially autonomous state be established, a preponderating share in the government, saving European control, must for many years remain in the hands of the Mahometan part of the population. True that much of the present oppression is due to them; but they are the only class in Bosnia at present capable of holding the reins of government; they are more upright, and certainly not more fanatically bigoted, than the Christian Bosniacs. The weight of hereditary bondage cannot be shaken off in a day, and the majority of the Christian population are still too ignorant and cringing to govern their hereditary lords. True, that the Bosniac Mahometans are a minority; but it must be remembered that the Christians are divided into two sects, the Greek and the Latin, each of which regards its rival with greater animosity than the Moslem; nor can there be any reasonable doubt that, in the event of the establishment of a representative Assembly, or Bosnian ‘Sbor’, the Mahometans would secure the alliance of the Roman Catholic contingent, and would by this means obtain a working majority.
European surveillance is in any case an absolute necessity for securing the introduction of reforms, but there are no other conditions more favourable to its successful working than those above indicated. To reinforce the government of the Osmanlì would of all solutions be the most deplorable. It would be to give a new lease of life to all that is worst in the present state of Bosnia. It would be a gage of future anarchy and a perpetuation of corruption. I have far too much confidence in the shrewdness of the Oriental mind to suppose for a moment that the desired reforms would not be temporarily introduced under the eyes of Europe. But the instant that supervision was removed, the instant that the forces necessary for the enforcements of the reforms were withdrawn, the Osmanlì government in Bosnia would relapse into what it is at present,—a foreign bureaucracy, which, powerless to support the Sultan’s authority against the Conservative opposition of native Mussulmans, is reduced to pander to it. The old game of playing with the antagonisms of castes and creeds would be revived, the reforms would disappear one by one, and the smouldering elements of Christian discontent would once more burst forth in a conflagration, which might eventually light up the ends of Europe.
The great difficulty that statesmen have to contend with at the present moment is how to obtain certain elementary securities for the honour and property of an oppressed class of ignorant peasants, in the teeth of a haughty and oppressive ruling caste. To reverse the positions of serf and lord would be impossible. To bolster up a Christian government in the country, and after depriving the dominant caste of what it considers its hereditary dues, and stripping it of part of its possessions, to place it forcibly beneath the yoke of those whom it despises as slaves and abominates as idolaters, would need more supervision than Europe would be willing to accord; nor is it likely that anything short of perpetual armed occupation would succeed in enforcing such reforms, or in preventing the prolongation of an exterminating civil war.
It is then of primary necessity to conciliate the Mahometan caste of landlords and retainers, still hungering for abolished feudal privileges, and the Mahometan bourgeoisie of the towns, who in days of bureaucratic centralization sigh for their municipal privileges suppressed by the Osmanlì. And such a means of reconciling the Mahometan population of Bosnia to the new order of things can be found,—by sacrificing the Osmanlì. Turn out the sowers of Bosnian discord. Do not prevent the Mahometan gentry from taking that position in the country to which by their territorial possessions, according to English ideas, they are entitled. Let a native magistracy succeed the satellites of a foreign bureaucracy; revive the civic institutions of the towns, and the native Begs and Agas, as well as the descendants of the old municipal Starescina, will be only too glad to come to terms with the Great Powers.
The dominant caste in this way compensated, European supervision, of whatever kind, would work with at least a possibility of success in introducing the necessary reforms; nor, the period of probation concluded, and European control removed, is there any need for taking the pessimist view that the government of Bosnia would lapse into the ‘autonomy of a cock-pit.’ In the very nature of things the present difficulties have brought the worst and most fanatical elements of Bosnia to the surface, and in face of the ferocious deeds of Bosnian Ahmed Agas and their feudal train of murderous Bashi Bazouks, the more sensible and kindly side of Bosnian Mahometanism is liable to be overlooked. I have already observed that it is wrong for Christians to build too great expectations on the fact that many of the Mahometan nobles of Bosnia still preserve some of their old Christian practices, and on occasion take Franciscan monks as their ghostly advisers. Still the fact remains, to show that from some points of view they are not irreconcilable, and that the gulf between Christianity and Islâm is not so wide among the more educated classes as it is no doubt among the town-rabble. The most influential Christian in the whole country, Bishop Strossmayer, whose liberalism commands European esteem, stands on a most friendly footing with many of the leading Mahometan families in Bosnia, and when he visits his Bosnian diocese has the satisfaction of seeing true-believers flock to hear his sermons.[141] The brutal contempt of the Mahometan lord for the rayah is by no means universal, and even in Herzegovina, he at times so far conforms to the kindly democratic usage of the race as to address his Christian serf as brat or brother.[142] A few years ago the native aristocracy of Bosnia showed by its secret negotiations with the Serbian government that at a pinch it was not altogether averse to making common cause with the Giaour. In the rural districts of Bosnia and the Herzegovina religious animosity has never been so embittered as in the towns. I have myself seen the tombs of the departed Christians and the departed Moslems of a Herzegovinian village gathered together in the same God’s acre, and separated only by a scarcely perceptible path. In many parts the Mahometan peasants have suffered almost as much oppression as their Christian neighbours, and during the present insurrection there have been instances in which they have made common cause with the Christian rayah.