The Turk and his lost provinces

by William Eleroy Curtis

PART I
THE GREAT TURK AND HIS CAPITAL

I
THE LOST PROVINCES

The next battle-ground of Europe, like the last, will be the so-called Balkan Peninsula, comprising a group of petty states lying south of Austria-Hungary, bounded on one side by the Adriatic, on the other by the Black Sea, and on the south by the Ægean Sea. It is one of the most primitive, yet one of the first settled sections of Europe, where kings and queens and courts shone resplendent in ermine and jewels when Germany, Great Britain and France were still overrun by barbarians. The earliest inhabitants were the Dacians or Getæ, who had reached a considerable degree of culture when we first hear of them, from Pliny and Herodotus, resisting the invasion of Darius, the Persian, five centuries before Christ. A hundred years later, when Philip of Macedon besieged one of their cities, and was about to give a signal for the assault, the gates opened and a long line of priests, clad in robes of snow-white linen, came forth with musical instruments in their hands, singing songs of peace. Philip was so impressed by this demonstration that he laid down his sword, married the daughter of their king, and entered into a treaty of alliance with them.

They fought Alexander the Great; they resisted the Roman legions; and Julius Cæsar was planning a campaign against them when he fell in the forum with the dagger of Brutus in his breast. Trajan subdued them, and the story of his marvelous campaign is carved in marble upon his column in Rome. Theirs was the last province to be added to the Roman Empire and the first to go at its dissolution. The territory was fought over at frequent intervals by contending forces to the end of the fourteenth century, when, one after another, the several Christian states which composed the Bulgarian Empire were subdued by the Ottoman invaders who, in 1529 and 1683, actually reached the gates of Vienna. For nearly five centuries they submitted to the yoke of the Sultan and, like all his subjects, were gradually submerged in political, moral, intellectual and commercial oblivion. The existence of the once powerful people was almost forgotten. They lay helpless and hopeless under the heel of a vindictive and merciless despot until what were termed “the Bulgarian atrocities” excited universal horror in 1875-77. Then Russia intervened on the pretext of racial and religious relationship, and attempted to take them from Turkey.

The original Treaty of San Stefano, which fixed the terms of peace exacted by the Czar from the Sultan, would almost have restored the boundaries of the ancient Bulgarian Empire, given its people theoretical independence under his protection, and reduced European Turkey to a narrow strip of territory; but the jealousy of the other Powers would not permit it. Russia must not be allowed to extend her sphere of influence towards the Mediterranean. England and Germany interfered, called a conference of nations at Berlin, tore up the Treaty of San Stefano, restored a large area to the Turkish Empire, and left a group of small, weak states to stand as a buffer between the Sultan and his aggressive neighbors.

This was done upon certain conditions. Positive pledges were exacted from the Sultan concerning the administration and taxation of the restored provinces, particularly that the inhabitants should be given religious liberty, and be governed by officials of their own faith. Not one of these conditions has been fulfilled, and the most appalling injustice and cruelties have been practiced year after year, similar to those which occurred in Bulgaria and provoked the Turko-Russian war. Human life and property have been held as worthless by the Turkish officials and military garrisons. No woman has been safe from their lust. No man has been allowed to accumulate property or to improve his condition without exciting the avarice of the tax-gatherer and the military commandant. It has been useless for the inhabitants to save money or produce more than enough to supply their own wants, for the slightest surplus would attract attention and be stolen from the owner. The Christian population have had no standing in the courts and are often prohibited from practicing their religion. The number of lives wantonly taken, the number of homes wantonly destroyed, the number of women ravished and the number of children butchered in the Turkish provinces of Europe, particularly in Rumelia, where the population is almost entirely Christian, would shock the world if the truth were known, notwithstanding, year after year, the Powers of Europe have permitted these barbarities to continue. The other provinces, Kosovo, Monastir, Salonika and Scutari, have suffered severely, but the barbarities have not been so extended nor general; and they are not in such a state of anarchy, but are ripe for rebellion. Macedonia, as Eastern Rumelia is familiarly called, is the center of disturbance.

An occasional insurrection or lawless incident of which a foreigner has been the victim, such as the kidnaping of Miss Stone, has attracted public attention, and frequent written protests have been filed at the Sublime Porte by the ambassadors at Constantinople, in which the Sultan has been warned that the atrocities would not longer be tolerated, and has been admonished to repentance and reform. But, instead of improving, the conditions have grown worse. Each of these diplomatic episodes has been followed by more serious exactions and persecutions. Every remonstrance has been the signal for an increase of the military garrison in Macedonia, greater restrictions upon the liberties of the people, and the arrest and imprisonment of patriots who were suspected of having inspired the protests. This fact is well known at every embassy in Constantinople and at every foreign office in Europe, both from official and unofficial information. Every one who cares to know the truth may learn it without the slightest trouble.

How long the Powers of Europe will permit the Sultan to defy them and the present conditions to continue are questions often asked both in private and in public, but never answered. The Powers are too much engrossed in their own troubles to hear the cry from Macedonia, “Come and help us!” for neither their pride nor their pockets nor their politics are affected by the sufferings of a distant people whose commerce is insignificant and who have no influence in international affairs. Russia and Greece are the only sympathetic nations. They belong to the same race and profess the same religion. Greece, being feeble, is powerless, although her recent disastrous war with Turkey secured the partial emancipation of Crete. The Czar would instantly go to the relief of the Macedonians were he not restrained by the jealousy of Germany, Austria and England. The British people will stand unmoved and permit the entire Macedonian population to be exterminated rather than allow Russia to gain a political advantage or extend her boundaries towards the Bosphorus. Nor will Austria allow any interference lest her manufacturers lose an insignificant market.

Austria is the natural protector of the people of the Balkan Peninsula, and her administration of affairs in Bosnia has been remarkable for tact, intelligence and success. If she were allowed to extend a protectorate over Servia, Bulgaria, Macedonia and the other countries and provinces, and introduce among them the same reforms that have been admirably carried out in the countries on the Adriatic, which the Berlin Conference intrusted to her care, it would be an unmeasured blessing; but neither Germany, England nor Russia would permit such an arrangement.

Germany is more culpable than any of the other nations, because its government sustains and protects the Sultan in his atrocious policy of administration, not only in Macedonia, but in all parts of the “Near East.” No diplomatist of ancient or modern times has been more shrewd and skillful in profiting by the rivalries of his enemies. He knows that Germany will not allow Russia, England or Austria to punish him; therefore he can afford to defy them, and treat the remonstrances of their ambassadors with contempt. It must amuse His Majesty the Sultan to read the signature of the German ambassador at the bottom of the frequent diplomatic notes that are handed to him concerning the misgovernment of his empire, and we can imagine his large, sad eyes grow merry at the farces so frequently enacted at the Yildiz Kiosk, when the representatives of the Powers appear in their radiant uniforms, as they often do, to remonstrate against his inhumanity to his Christian subjects, and the massacres that are committed at his very doors. He realizes, and he knows that they realize, that the slightest interference by force on the part of any one sovereign will provoke another and even more emphatic remonstrance elsewhere, lest some political or commercial advantage may be gained. When the situation grows serious, however, he grants another profitable concession to some German syndicate as an additional policy of insurance against intervention.