KISMET; OR, THE DOOM OF TURKEY. BOOK I. CAN the effete, expiring Ottoman Empire be supported and renovated by the alliance and armed intervention of England and France? Ought the attempt to be made at the risk of a general continental war, which will again let loose the very unwise and violent revolutionists of Europe, who played such deplorable pranks in the years 1848-9 ? Can highly civilized Christian powers really league together to support a barbarous anti-Christian government, the oppressor of Christianity in all its forms? Have the changes which go by the name of Reforms been beneficial or injurious to Turkey? Has there been introduced any real liberty, justice, or religious toleration; or is not the Christian majority (the Rayah subjects of the B Porte) still cruelly oppressed in the European dominions by the armed Mussulman minority? Are not the Turks dying out and disappearing from the face of the earth, as well in Asia Minor as in their European provinces? These are important questions which now occupy the minds of all who think seriously of public affairs, and have at heart the tranquillity of the civilized world. For years the subject has occupied much of my attention; and I will now attempt to give a brief solution of the problems, without prejudice or dogmatism. If any of my arguments be wrong, my facts cannot be otherwise than right. The reader may make his own deductions from them. They were collected at two different periods, at the cost of much time, toil, and trouble and no inconsiderable expense, in health as well as in money. I first went to Turkey in the summer of 1827, was there when the battle of Navarino was fought, and remained in the country until the end of the year 1828.* After the long interval of twenty years I returned to the beautiful but desolated country, and continued my researches from the *In the spring of 1829 was published my first work on the subject: Constantinople in 1828; or, a Residence of Sixteen Months in the Turkish Capital and Provinces.' London: Saunders and Otley. month of August, 1847, to the month of July, 1848. I had no other occupation or business to attend to, and I had every possible facility afforded me for collecting information and getting at the truth. I certainly spared no trouble. I examined everything with my own eyes. Except the harems and the inner recesses of the serraglio and the other palaces of the Sultan, I saw everything in Constantinople, where I resided about five months. I travelled over the best province in Asia Minor, proceeding as far as Kutayah, and making numerous excursions in various directions. On the European side, I took a careful and minute survey of all the country which lies between Constantinople and Adrianople, and passed some time at the latter city and a neighbouring village on the banks of the Hebrus. I occupied myself mainly in examining the state of agriculture, and studying the condition of the people, or the various peoples, nations, or races that live under the rule of the Sultan. Scarcely less then than now I considered it of the highest political importance to England that the true condition of the Ottoman Empire should be made known.* * At the beginning of 1850 was published my work entitled, 'Turkey and its Destiny: the Result of Journeys made in 1847 and 1848 to examine into the State of that Country.' London: John Murray. I never should have thought of going to Turkey in 1847 if I had not been induced to believe that, since my sojourn there in 1827-8, the government and the condition of the people had both been greatly improved; that by the vaunted Tanzimaut an equality of rights had been established between the Mussulmans and the Christian and other Rayah subjects of the Sultan; and that the corruption, tyranny, and grinding oppression on the part of the Pashas, and all men in office and power, which had so harassed my feelings during my former residence, had been restrained and had almost ceased since the accession of the present Sultan, Abdul Medjid, and the rise of his noted vizier Reschid Pasha. Without taking au pied de la lettre all that was told to me by Prince Callimaki, then Ottoman Minister at our court, and by other persons in the service of the Turkish Government and closely connected with Reschid Pasha, I yet felt confident, from their solemn and often repeated assurances, that Turkey had made, and was then making, a considerable progress in order, justice, and civilization, and more especially that the Christian portion of the population had been rescued from the barbarous tyranny under which I had seen them groaning. I went honestly 'in search of this improvement; but to see and judge for myself. Cruel, in every way, was my disappointment! I had not been a week at Constantinople before I saw good grounds to suspect that the boasted Tanzimaut was a sham and an imposition; and during the eleven months (in all) that I remained in the country, this mournful conviction was everywhere, and nearly every day, forced upon my mind-that Turkey was in an incomparably worse condition than that in which she stood when I left her in 1828. Those twenty years had been not years of progress, but years of rapid awful decline. In that interval the Osmanlee Turks had lost not only their old fanaticism, but their very religion; and with their creed and faith their patriotism has died out and is extinct. Among the people, and more particularly on the European side, it was rare to find a man who seemed to care anything for his Koran, his mosque, his sultan, or his country. All of them had an entire belief of the speedy fulfilment of the old prophecy that the Turkish empire is to be broken up by the yellow-haired races from beyond the Danube.* Of this they were constantly speaking * It is well known that, even during the existence of the Greek empire, there was an ancient prophecy that some Northern people would one day get possession of the Eastern Seven-Hilled City. This prophecy, it seems, was handed over to the Turks when they conquered Constantinople; and the progress made |