His Excellency smiled.
“We hear from time to time threats of war,” was his answer. “But when we hear them, we remember that we are sixteen million Turks; and when we sleep, we sleep quite undisturbed by any war rumours from Sofia.”
“Then you do not anticipate armed reprisals from Bulgaria?”
He laughed, but said nothing except—
“Turkey is well informed, I assure you, of all that transpires in Sofia.”
Noury Pasha’s son, a smart lad of sixteen, entered and chatted with us in French. He is going to Paris for his education, and is destined for the Turkish Diplomatic Service. He is a bright, intelligent youth, who, like his father, is imbued with Western ideas, and yet is naturally full of patriotism for his own country.
Another cup of excellent coffee, another cigarette over a chat upon private matters, and I took leave of my host—after I had begged the photograph which appears in these pages—feeling that I had met one of the most charming and most intelligent men in the great Ottoman Empire.
Next day I called at the palace of Tewfik Pasha, and on being ushered into a gorgeous reception-room—very French, but by the way lit by candles in high glass chimneys—the usual cup of coffee upon a golden tray and cigarette were brought me. The secretary of the Greek Embassy was waiting to see His Excellency upon an urgent matter concerning a massacre by a Greek band in Macedonia which had taken place near Seres the day previously. This meant, I saw, a long interview, and not caring to wait, I left a message for His Excellency to the effect that I would call and see him at the Sublime Porte on the following morning.
Next to His Imperial Majesty the Sultan, Tewfik Pasha is certainly the most powerful man in the Ottoman Empire. A quiet-mannered, quiet-spoken, grey-bearded gentleman with kindly eyes and a fatherly manner, he is entirely the opposite that one would expect of “the terrible Turk.” Born in Constantinople in 1845, the son of a General of Division, Ismail Hakki Pasha, he was destined for the army, and prosecuted his studies with great diligence. Unfortunately, owing to feeble health, he was compelled to abandon the idea of a military career—not, however, before he had passed his examination and obtained his diploma. He then chose a new career, one in which he has certainly rendered his country signal services. In 1866 he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as attaché, six years later being nominated as second secretary at the Ottoman Legation at Rome, whence he went to Vienna, to Berlin, and, later on, to Athens. He was transferred to St. Petersburg as first secretary at the moment when there arose those grave complications which resulted in the war between Russia and Turkey. Then, during the war, he was appointed diplomatic agent to the Turkish Commander-in-Chief. In 1879, after the war, he was sent back to the Russian capital, but on this occasion in the capacity of Minister Plenipotentiary.
At the early age of forty-one Tewfik Pasha found himself Ambassador at Berlin, a post which he occupied for ten years, namely, till 1895. His personal charm, his uprightness, and his frankness of manner endeared him to his colleagues in the German capital, as well as to the German Court, and it was he, indeed, who laid the foundation of the present cordial friendliness between the sovereigns at Berlin and Constantinople.