It will be remembered that the terrible winter of 1877-8 witnessed the final scenes of the war between Russia and Turkey, and that the spring of the new year found the Czar's army at the gates of Constantinople. The same period had been one of extreme misery in Egypt. The Cave mission, whose arrival I had seen at Cairo, had been followed by other financial missions of less integrity, which had resulted in what was known as the Goschen-Joubert arrangement of the Khedive Ismaïl's debts, a truly leonine settlement, according to which the enormous yearly charge of nearly seven millions sterling had been saddled on the Egyptian revenue, an amount which could only be wrung out of the ruined fellahin by forcing them, under the whip, to mortgage their lands to the Greek usurers who attended the tax-gatherers everywhere on their rounds through the villages. The last two Niles had been very bad ones, and there had been famine in the land from the sea to Assouan. Many thousands of the villagers—men, women, and children—had died that winter of sheer hunger. There had been nothing like it since the beginning of the century. Under these circumstances it was clear that either the Khedive must go bankrupt or a reduction be made on the interest of his debts, the Goschen-Joubert arrangement being abandoned. The former course would have been the more equitable and by far the better one for the country, but in the foreign bondholders' interests this was put aside, and a final attempt was made by these, this time successfully, to secure the diplomatic intervention of the great Powers for yet another settlement between Ismaïl and his creditors. The moment was a favourable one as far as England was concerned, for it coincided with the resolve of the English Government, under Disraeli's guidance, to play a forward political game, and take the leading part in the affairs of the Ottoman Empire. Lord Derby, who so far had gone unwillingly with his chief in his new policy of imperial adventure, now would go no further with him and left the Foreign Office, and, as we have seen, was replaced by Lord Salisbury. It was the signal of a general diplomatic advance, not unaccompanied with menace. The British fleet was brought through the Dardanelles into the Sea of Marmora, the Russian army was overawed and prevented from entering Stamboul, and under pressure of the English demonstration a treaty of peace was hurriedly drawn up between the Czar and the Sultan, the treaty of San Stefano. On the side of Egypt, at the same time, an official Commission of Inquiry was appointed, which, though nominally international, was intended at the Foreign Office to be mainly an English one, my friend Sir Rivers Wilson being chosen as English commissioner. His appointment was, I believe, almost the first Lord Salisbury signed on taking the command in Downing Street.
It will also be remembered that two months later a secret convention was negotiated at Constantinople by our then Ambassador, Sir Henry Layard, a man of great ability and knowledge of the East, who had acquired the personal confidence of the still youthful Sultan, Abdul Hamid, in accordance with which the island of Cyprus was leased to England and a guarantee given to the Sultan of the integrity of all his Asiatic provinces in lieu of promises of reform to be enforced by the presence in Asia Minor of certain ambulant English consuls, military men, who were to give advice and report grievances. The idea of the Cyprus Convention, certainly in the minds of Disraeli and Salisbury who signed it and of Layard its true author, was to establish informally but none the less effectually an English protectorate over Asiatic Turkey. The acquisition of Cyprus was in their view to be the smallest part of the bargain. The island was really of very little value to England as a place d'armes, and its selection for that purpose was due less to its fitness for the purpose than to a fantastic whim of Disraeli's, backed up by the roseate report of its potential wealth sent in by one of our consuls who had an interest in the island. Disraeli many years before, as a quite young man, had in his novel "Tancred" advanced half jestingly the idea of a great Asiatic empire under an English monarchy, and Cyprus was to be specially included in it as recalling the historic fact that our English king, Richard Cœur de Lion, had once been also its sovereign. The whole thing was a piece of romantic fooling, but Disraeli loved to turn his political jests into realities and to persuade his English followers, whom as a Jew he despised, in all seriousness to the ways of his own folly. The really important object aimed at by Layard in the Convention—and it was certainly his rather than Salisbury's, who was new to office and whose experience the year before at Constantinople had made him anything but a Turcophile—was to acquire the strategic control of Asia Minor, which it was thought might be effected through the ambulant consular posts it created. These were to supervise the civil administration in the provinces, and see that the peasantry were not too much robbed by those who farmed the taxes, and that the recruiting grounds of the Ottoman army were not depopulated by mismanagement. Thus the advance of Russia to the Mediterranean might, it was thought, be checked in Asia as their advance in Europe had been checked at San Stefano.
Looking back at the position now, with our knowledge of subsequent events, and especially of the Sultan Abdul Hamid's character, it seems strange both that the Sultan should have signed such a Convention which, if it had been carried out, would have put Asiatic Turkey as much into English military hands as Egypt is to-day, or that our Foreign Office should have believed in its success, and the epithet applied to it at the time by Gladstone, who denounced it as an "insane Convention," seems more than justified. It must, however, be remembered that as regards Abdul Hamid he had really no choice, with the Russian army still at his doors, but to accept the English alliance even if it should mean tutelage, and also that up to that point England had always proved a reliable and disinterested friend. Layard, on the other hand, was conscious of his personal ascendency at the palace, and he knew how great the prestige was in the Asiatic provinces of the English name. An English Consul in those days held a position of absolute authority with Valys and every class of Ottoman officials, and he may well have thought that this could be indefinitely extended. The honour of England was so great in all Turkish eyes, and her policy towards the Moslem Empire had been so sympathetic that no suspicion existed anywhere of her having selfish plans. Layard, too, was himself a believer in the Turks, and he may have had dreams of playing the part at Constantinople of Maire du Palais, which Lord Cromer has shown us an example of since at Cairo. Now, it is only astonishing that such English dreams should ever have been indulged in, or that by Moslems England's disinterestedness should ever have been trusted.
Lastly, it will be remembered that a month after the secret signature of the Cyprus Convention, the great European Congress of 1878 met at Berlin. It had been called together principally at Disraeli's instance, and was to be the most important meeting of the Powers since the Congress of Paris. Like the earlier Congress its special object was to determine the fate of European Turkey and of the Christian subjects of the Sultan, and on England's part to revise the treaty of San Stefano. On its success in this direction Disraeli had staked his whole reputation as a statesman. England had intervened, according to his showing, on the highest motives of policy as Turkey's best and most disinterested friend, and it was on her approval as such by the other great Powers that depended his political position at home no less than abroad. So vital, indeed, to Disraeli did success at the Congress appear, that he went himself to it as chief plenipotentiary, taking Lord Salisbury, who was still new to diplomacy, with him as a second ambassador, while Russia was represented by Prince Gortschakoff, France by M. Waddington, and Italy by Count Corti, Prince Bismarck presiding as host over the whole august assemblage. I may add that Currie accompanied Lord Salisbury as précis writer on the occasion, and Lord Rowton, Disraeli.
The general proceedings of the Congress are of course well known, and I need not here describe them, but what has never been published is the following all important incident, of which, as already said, I learned the particulars some little time after it occurred. The Congress assembled on the 13th of June, and as the matters to be discussed were of the highest moment, and there was not a little suspicion of each other among the plenipotentiaries in regard to a possible partition of Turkey, it was proposed at the outset that a preliminary declaration should be made by each Ambassador affirming that his Government came to the Congress unfettered by any secret engagement as to the questions in dispute. This declaration Disraeli and Salisbury, who seem to have been taken by surprise, and were unprepared to make a clean breast of their secret doings with the Sultan, had not the presence of mind to refuse, and no less than the others formally agreed and gave their word to—it must be remembered that both were new to diplomacy. It may therefore be imagined how high a surprise it was, and scandal at Berlin when a few weeks later, 9th July, the text of the hidden Cyprus Convention was published in London by one of the evening papers. One Marvin, an Oriental traveller and linguist, but who had no official position at the Foreign Office, had been imprudently employed as translator and copyist of the Turkish text by Currie, and had sold his information for a round sum to the "Globe." The publication came as a thunderclap on our Embassy at Berlin, and though the authenticity of the text was promptly denied in London, the truth at Berlin could not long be concealed. Our two plenipotentiaries found themselves confronted with the unexplainable fact that they had perpetrated a gross breach of faith on their European colleagues, and stood convicted of nothing less than a direct and recorded lie. The discovery threatened to break up the Congress altogether. Prince Gortschakoff declared himself outraged, and he was joined in his anger on the part of France by M. Waddington. Both gave warning that they would withdraw at once from the sittings, and M. Waddington went so far as to pack up his trunks to leave Berlin. The situation was an ugly one, and was only saved by the cynical good offices of Bismarck, on whom Disraeli, as a fellow cynic and a man of bold ideas, had made a sympathetic impression. The German Chancellor, as "honest broker," brought about the following compromise, with which M. Waddington declared himself satisfied. It was agreed between the French and English plenipotentiaries:
1. That as a compensation to France for England's acquisition of Cyprus, France should be allowed on the first convenient opportunity, and without opposition from England, to occupy Tunis.
2. That in the financial arrangements being made in Egypt, France should march pari passu with England; and,
3. That England should recognize in a special manner the old French claim of protecting the Latin Christians in Syria.
It was in consideration of Disraeli's surrender on these three points that Waddington consented to remain at Berlin and join the other ambassadors in arranging the Balkan settlement, which eventually was come to more or less on the lines of the English proposals. The price thus paid to France by Disraeli of a province belonging to his ally the Sultan, it is curious to reflect, enabled that statesman to return a little later to London and claim a public triumph, with the famous boast in his mouth that he had brought back "peace with honour." A curious history truly, and deserving to be specially noted as marking the point of departure for England of a new policy of spoliation and treacherous dealing in the Levant foreign to her traditional ways. To the Cyprus intrigue are directly or indirectly referable half the crimes against Oriental and North African liberty our generation has witnessed. It suggested the immediate handing over of Bosnia to Austria. It helped to frustrate a sound settlement in Macedonia. It put Tunis under the heel of France, and commenced the great partition of Africa among the European Powers, with the innumerable woes it has inflicted on its native inhabitants, from Bizerta to Lake Chad, and from Somaliland to the Congo. Above all it destroyed at a critical moment all England's influence for good in the Ottoman Empire. It embittered Moslem hearts against her in 1881 and 1882, and, as I will show, was a powerful factor in the more violent events of those troubled years in Egypt. Also it most certainly defeated its own end in Asiatic Turkey if England's co-operation in reform was really contemplated. The doings at the Congress opened the Sultan's eyes to the danger there might be in any English co-operation, and also beyond question hardened his heart to a policy contrary to English advice, and in which he has been only too successful, that of suppressing all liberty and self-government among his own Turkish subjects. To it the Liberal party at Constantinople owes more than to anything else its ruthless persecution, and it is even not too much to say that whatever woes have been inflicted on the Armenians have been caused by the false hopes raised at Berlin of their emancipation by England's moral help, a help her own immorality has made her powerless to give. The immediate effect in Egypt of the compromise come to with M. Waddington was the despatch of a telegram from Berlin to Wilson at Alexandria ordering him, much to his chagrin and surprise, to see that in all the financial appointments made in connection with his official inquiry, France should receive an absolutely equal share. It was, indeed, though unknown to Wilson at the time, the determining cause, a year later, of the Anglo-French condominium.[4]