The Turk and his lost provinces

by William Eleroy Curtis

The Moslem world believes that Abraham was the founder of Mecca; that Ishmael was their ancestor and that they have inherited the religion of Abraham with its promises and blessings, and the characteristic traits ascribed to Ishmael. Their hand has been against every man, and every man’s hand has been against them, and still they defy all other nations, whether pagan or Christian. Padishah (father of all the sovereigns of the earth) is the official title of the Sultan, and is used exclusively by the Turks in official communications. He is also styled Imam-ul-Muselmin (pontiff of Mussulmans), Alem Penah (refuge of the world), Zil-ullah (shadow of God), Hunkiar (the slayer of infidels), and has several other honorary titles. He controls the Mohammedan subjects of all nations, and if he should go to a little mosque at the Seraglio, unfurl the green banner which was carried by Mohammed, and declare a holy war, the sons of Ishmael in every part of the earth—in India, Africa, China, the East Indies, and the islands of the sea—would be required by their religion to sustain him and obey his orders, regardless of their allegiance to their own civil authorities.

Abdul Hamid II., the present Sultan, who was sixty years old in September, 1902, is said to be a great coward who dare not leave his country palace or show himself in his own capital. It is true that the most extraordinary precautions are taken for his protection. He dare not leave the safe solitude of Yildiz Park, which is situated about two miles outside the gates of Constantinople and surrounded by a double wall. The road from the palace to the Bosphorus passes between those walls and is protected every inch of the way from the gates of the park to the wharf on the Bosphorus, where, once a year only, he takes a state barge and is rowed over to the Seraglio to perform the obligation imposed upon him by his religion: viz., to worship the holy mantle of the prophet on the anniversary of the death of Mohammed. That act is required of him. If he did not perform it the whole church would rise against him. Therefore, for that day, he is compelled to suppress his fears and appear before the public; but it would be impossible for an outsider to get anywhere near him unless he were highly recommended and identified. Some people say that his cowardice is cultivated by his ministers and other men who surround him, because they find it to their personal advantage to prevent him from going abroad. So they keep him locked in the Yildiz Kiosk, where they can control his surroundings and prevent him from receiving any information that will be to their discredit. At the same time there is no doubt that the Sultan keeps constantly in mind the fact that many of the twenty-seven Padishahs who have reigned at Constantinople are believed to have died by violence. Several endeavored to save their lives by abdication, but the public never saw them again.

The conspiracies are all among his own people and his immediate attendants—the “outs” are always scheming to get in and the “ins” are always conspiring to maintain their position. There are no political parties in Turkey; there are no political issues. It is all a question of obtaining the Sultan’s favor, and the entire Mohammedan population is divided into two classes,—the ruling favorites and those who have been discarded. The officials and army officers who have been disgraced and removed from their positions naturally desire to recover them, and hate the Sultan because he likes other people better than themselves. The same jealousies prevail among the men of the court as among the women of the harem. The outside population take no interest. They are glad to be let alone. The business community consists of Armenians, Greeks and Jews, with a few Turks. It would not be accurate to say that all Turks are in office, but it is actually true that all the offices are filled by Turks, and as there are not enough offices to go round, those who are left out and compelled to get their living without the aid of the government, are forever conspiring against the Sultan or the grand vizier.

Some curious conspiracies are discovered. One of the most recent, which for a time created a profound sensation at the Yildiz Kiosk and caused the Sultan the loss of considerable sleep, was inspired by a young Turk of high family named Rechad Bey. His father occupies a post of distinction and many of his relatives are employed about the court in offices of responsibility. As a rare favor to the family the Sultan permitted them to send the young man to England, where he attended school for several years and imbibed a great many ideas which do not conform to the present state of affairs in Turkey. In 1901, upon his return, he organized a football club among the young men of his acquaintance and practiced in a vacant lot behind a high wall in the neighborhood of his father’s palace. The detectives, who are always around, discovered that something unusual was going on, and upon making a thorough investigation decided that Rechad Bey had organized a desperate conspiracy against the life and government of the Sultan. He was arrested in the middle of the night. The keys to the garden and the clubhouse were seized, and the most astounding discoveries followed. In the clubhouse were found several footballs, a lot of jerseys and the colors of the club, with shin guards, nose protectors, elbow pads and other paraphernalia familiar to football players. To complete the damning evidence one of the detectives cunningly ascertained that the name of the large elastic bomb which these young men were in the habit of kicking around at each other was the same term as that used by the Turks for a cannon ball. Hence it must be a new kind of bomb or shell, and the police authorities were convinced that they had unearthed an important conspiracy to assassinate the Sultan and blow up the palace. The footballs were submerged in water to prevent their explosion, and the sweaters and the rest of the outfit were carried cautiously to the palace in order that the Sultan might see for himself.

Football has been played for years in Constantinople by the young men of the English embassy and the European colony, and also by the students of Robert College, but the police authorities and the Sultan never happened to hear of it. Hence they knew nothing of the game. When the friends of Rechad Bey learned how serious a predicament he was in they appealed to the British embassy for assistance. One of the secretaries was sent to the minister of police to explain the nature of the game and the uses of the terrible articles that had been discovered at the clubhouse. He unlaced a football without the slightest trepidation and showed the officials how it was made. He put on the nose guards, the shin protectors and the other armor and attempted to convince them of its innocent purpose. But they were still very suspicious. Perhaps their pride had something to do with it, for they insisted upon having Rechad Bey severely punished, and he was bundled off in great haste to Teheran, Persia, where he cannot do anything to aid in the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire.

The Sultan’s advisers tell him that his life is in danger, and are continually discovering conspiracies which never exist. A recent fictitious conspiracy against him was attributed to one of his best and most loyal friends, Fuad Pasha, “The Hero of Elena,” one of the foremost generals in the war against Russia in 1877 and the war against Greece in 1897. Fuad Pasha is an enlightened and honest man and has had the confidence of the foreigners to a degree greater than almost any other of the Sultan’s favorites. Until recently he was so much of a favorite that the Sultan allowed him to hold his handkerchief for the people to kiss, which was a mark of the greatest honor and confidence. He kept Fuad Pasha about his person constantly, giving him the command of his bodyguard; but Fuad in some way offended the detective department, which reported to the Sultan that his favorite was involved with the reformers known as the “Young Turkey” party, and spies were set to watch his house. Fuad noticed strange men about the premises. He probably suspected who they were and what they were there for, but pretended to believe that they were burglars, and purchased a supply of rifles and revolvers, which he placed in the hands of his servants with instructions to fire upon the intruders if they became offensive. This fact was reported to the Sultan promptly, and the vigilance of the spies was increased. A few days later a collision occurred between them and Fuad’s servants, in which several were killed and wounded. Fuad was immediately arrested, taken to the palace, and after an interview with the Sultan was sent aboard the latter’s private yacht, which sailed at once for Beirut without allowing the prisoner to communicate with his family or friends. He is supposed to have been sentenced to exile at Damascus instead of being executed, which is a mark of great forbearance upon the Sultan’s part.

Fuad found plenty of company at Damascus. Several other of the Sultan’s former favorites are there in exile, hopefully awaiting a day when their sovereign will be less susceptible to the influence of his hired spies and detectives and more trustful of his loyal friends and supporters. The great difficulty, however, is in His Majesty’s natural distrust. When his suspicions are once aroused his ideas are always distorted and his confidence can scarcely ever be restored. He is thus driving away some of his most valuable supporters.

In 1901, when the Sultan went to Seraglio Point to worship at the mosque that holds the sacred mantle of the prophet, another funny thing occurred. He was landed at the regular dock, where a carriage was waiting to convey him to the old palace, but he had not proceeded far when he noticed that telegraph wires had been stretched across the driveway along the line of the railroad, and positively declined to pass under them. Nobody knows what was in his mind, or what he thought would happen, but the entire procession was stopped right there, and remained motionless until aides-de-camp had galloped away to summon somebody from the railway headquarters who could climb the poles and cut down the wires. Nor have they been replaced. The Sultan positively forbade it, but the railway officials are supposed to have dug a trench and hidden them underground. If the Sultan learns that fact he may refuse to drive over them.

He is very superstitious about electricity, but is as inconsistent concerning it as he is with everything else. He will not permit electric lights or telephones or electric street cars anywhere in Turkey, although the government has a telegraph line to every important point in the empire, and the Sultan has an instrument and an operator in his private office to receive messages in his own private cipher from detectives and other officials in different parts of the country in whom he has special confidence, or to whom he may have intrusted important business. He maintains a regular system of communication with officials of the empire entirely distinct from and without the knowledge of their immediate superiors. The general of the army and the minister of war do not know what communications are passing between commanders of posts and districts and their sovereign, and the minister of the interior can never be sure what private reports are being made by his subordinates. Thus the mutual distrust that exists between the Sultan and his ministers is not only recognized, but promoted. There are three electric-light plants in Constantinople—at one of the hotels, at the palace of the mother of the Khedive of Egypt on the Bosphorus, and at the palace of Hassan Pasha, minister of marine. There are two private telephone systems, one between the headquarters of the Imperial Ottoman Bank and its branches throughout the city, and the other between the signal-station where the Bosphorus connects with the Black Sea and the headquarters of the Maritime Association in Constantinople. The Sultan will not allow gas or petroleum or other explosives to be used about the palace, although the park surrounding the palace is brilliantly illuminated by gas. His rooms and the other apartments are lit with candles and equipped with beautiful crystal chandeliers. There are several street-car lines operated by horses, and the companies have repeatedly applied for permission to use electricity, but have always been refused. In the street-cars, ferry-boats and other public conveyances there is always a little apartment curtained off for the use of ladies.

Gorges Dorys, author of “The Private Life of the Sultan,” recently published in England, France and the United States, has been sentenced to death. His real name is Adossides. The proceedings are only formal, however, because Mr. Dorys left the country before the manuscript of the book was finished and is now living in Paris. The French government has been asked to surrender him, but has refused to do so. Mr. Dorys, however, will never be able to return to his home. All of the European nations were requested by the Turkish ambassadors to suppress the volume, and the Sultan has been led to believe that his wishes have been complied with all over the world; but nothing has been actually done, except in Sweden, where an attempt to prevent the sale of the book by legal proceedings not only failed but gave it a tremendous advertisement.