What have the Turks done in Europe?

This question might be answered in a few words. They have destroyed and they have oppressed. They have checked all progress in a large part of Europe. They have made promises and have broken them. They have shown themselves cruel, lustful, and faithless, even beyond other barbarian conquerors. This is all true in a general way; but it will be well to go a little more into detail, and to give a short sketch of the history of the Ottoman power, of its rise and its decline.

We must first of all remember that all Mahometans are not Turks, and that all Turks are not Ottomans. The Mahometan religion began in Arabia in the seventh century, with the preaching of Mahomet, who died in 632. His preaching was a great reform in his own age and country; he gathered the scattered tribes of Arabia into one nation; he taught them to forsake idols and to worship the one God. He gave them also civil and moral precepts which were much better than anything that they knew before. But unhappily in his latter days he taught his followers to spread his religion by the sword, and to force his teaching on the whole world as an universal law. The believer was to fight against the infidel till he either embraced page 20 Islam—that is, the law of Mahomet—or else consented by the payment of tribute to purchase his life, his property, and the exercise of his religion. This has been the law of all Mahometan conquerors ever since. The Christian or other non-Mahometan is spared only on condition of becoming a tribute-paying subject, a bondman in his own land. As soon as Mahomet was dead, the Arabs or Saracens, under rulers called Caliphs or successors of the Prophet, began to attack the whole world, especially the empires of Rome and Persia, which were the two great powers of those days. The seat of the Roman Empire was then at Constantinople or New Rome; Persia, the rival of Rome, was ruled by its native kings, professing the old Persian religion. In a few years Persia was utterly overthrown, and Rome lost the great provinces of Syria and Egypt. Then the Saracens spread, but more gradually, both eastward and westward, till in 711 the same Caliph ruled in Spain and in Sind. The Saracens passed into Spain in 710, and in a short time they conquered nearly all the peninsula. In the very same year they had their first dealings with the Turks.

The Turks are one of the most widely-spread races in the world, and it is only with a small part of them that we have now anything to do. Those Turks who dwelled between the two great rivers which run into the Caspian Sea, the Oxus and the Jaxartes, played an important part in the affairs of the Saracenic Empire. They pressed in as slaves, as subjects, as mercenaries, and at last as conquerors. In the end, page 21 the greater part of the Asiatic dominion of the Caliphs was practically divided among Turkish princes who owned a mere nominal supremacy in the successor of the Prophet who reigned at Bagdad. Of these dynasties the only one that we need speak of is that of the Seljuk Turks, who in the eleventh century became the greatest power in Asia. These were the first Turks who had anything to do with the history of Europe. They never actually passed into Europe but, under their Sultan Alp-Arslan, they won the greater part of the lands which the Eastern Roman Empire still kept in Asia, leaving to the Emperors only the sea-coast of Asia Minor. The capital of the Seljuk Sultans was now at Nikaia, threatening Europe, and especially Constantinople. But then came the Crusades. The Turks were driven back; the Emperors recovered a large part of their territory, and the Turkish capital fell back to Ikonion. It was in the thirteenth century that the Turks with whom we have specially to do, the Ottomans, were first heard of. Their power arose out of the breaking up, both of the Seljuk dominion and of the Eastern Roman Empire. It will therefore be necessary to give a short picture of the state of those parts of Europe and Asia with which the Ottomans had to do, as they stood at the time the Ottomans were first heard of.

In 1204 the Eastern Roman Empire had been altogether broken in pieces. Constantinople was taken by the Latins or Franks—that is, the Christians of Western Europe,—and the Empire was divided into a page 22 number of powers, Greek and Frank. Among these the commonwealth of Venice got a great share. In Asia, Greek princes reigned at Nikaia and at Trebizond, both of whom called themselves Emperors; and in 1261 the princes of Nikaia made good their right to that title by winning back Constantinople. Thus the Eastern Roman Empire in some sort began again, but with a greatly lessened dominion. It now took in little more than Thrace, part of Macedonia, and the western coast of Asia Minor; besides which the Emperors also won back some outlying dominions in Greece itself. In Europe, Greece and the neighbouring lands were cut up into various small states, and to the north of the Empire lay the kingdoms of Bulgaria and Servia. In Asia, the Emperors of Trebizond kept part of the north coast of the Euxine, but all the inland parts were held by the Turks. It is said that in the middle of the thirteenth century, a Turkish chief, Ertoghrul, came into Asia Minor from the East, at the head of a wandering tribe; he entered the service of the Seljuk Sultan, and received from him a grant of land, which grew into the Ottoman Empire. Under Ertoghrul and his son Othman or Osman, the wandering band was swelled by crowds of recruits, and the grant of land was increased at the expense both of the Christians and of other Turkish chiefs. From Othman his followers took the name of Osmanli or Ottoman; and he died in 1326, having just before his death established his capital at Brusa. His son Orchan made himself independent of the nominal Seljuk Sultan; he united most of the Turkish principalities in Asia Minor, page 23 and left to the Christian Emperors of Constantinople and Trebizond nothing but a few towns on the coast.

Under Orchan came the first settlement of the Turks in Europe. They often ravaged the European coasts, and they were often foolishly called in as helpers by contending parties at Constantinople. At last, in 1356, they seized Kallipolis or Gallipoli in the Thracian Chersonesos; and the dominion of the Turks in Europe began. Their power now steadily advanced. Orchan died in 1359. Their next prince, Murad or Amurath, fixed his capital at Hadrianople in 1361. He thus left to the Empire nothing but the lands just round Constantinople and some outlying possessions in Macedonia and Greece. Murad also made Bulgaria tributary, and was killed in 1389, after the battle of Kossova, which made Servia tributary also. Then came Bajazet, the first Ottoman prince who bore the title of Sultan. Under him the great crusade from the West, which had come to help Sigismund, King of Hungary (who was afterwards Emperor of the West), was altogether defeated in the battle of Nikopolis. Wallachia became tributary; Bulgaria became a direct Ottoman possession; Philadelphia, the last city in Asia which clave to the Empire, was taken, and Constantinople itself was for the first time besieged. But Bajazet was himself overthrown at Angora by the Mogul conqueror Timur, and his dominions were broken up and disputed for by his sons. A breathing-space was thus given to the Christians of South-eastern Europe. But the Ottoman power came together again, and page 24 under Sultan Murad or Amurath the Second, from 1421 to 1451, it again made great advances. His power was checked for a while by the great Hungarian captain Huniades; but Murad restored the Ottoman power in the Danubian lands, and took Thessalonica, though he too failed in an attack on Constantinople. Then, from 1451 to 1481, reigned Mahomet the Conqueror, who may be looked on as finally establishing the Ottoman dominion in Europe. The Eastern Empire was now confined to a small district round Constantinople, together with Peloponnesos lying far away. On the 29th May, 1453, Mahomet stormed the Imperial city itself; the last Emperor Constantine fell in the breach; the New Rome became the capital of the Ottoman power, and the great church of Saint Sophia became a Mahometan mosque. In the remaining years of his long reign, Mahomet consolidated his dominion on every side. He conquered all Greece and Albania, save a few points which were still kept by Venice, and some of the islands, especially Rhodes, which was held by the knights of Saint John. Servia and Bosnia were brought into complete bondage; the Empire of Trebizond was destroyed, and the Ottoman Sultans extended their supremacy over the Tartars of Crim or Crimea. Just before his death, Mahomet's troops had taken Otranto, as the beginning of the conquest of Italy. Under the next Sultan, Bajazet the Second, Otranto was lost again, and but little progress was made anywhere, except by the winning of a few points from Venice. The next Sultan, Selim the Inflexible, did little in Europe; but page 25 he vastly extended the Ottoman power elsewhere by the conquest of Syria and Egypt. He was the first Sultan who gave himself out as Caliph or religious head of all orthodox Mahometans. The real Caliphs of Bagdad had long come to an end; but a nominal line of Caliphs went on in Egypt, and from the last of them Selim obtained a cession of his claims. The Ottoman princes from this time, besides being Sultans of their own dominions, have deemed themselves also to be the spiritual heads of the Mahometan religion. It was as if in Western Europe a prince who was already Emperor should also become Pope. Lastly, in the reign of Selim's son Suleiman (that is, Solomon) the Lawgiver, the Ottoman dominion reached its greatest extent of power in Europe. He took Rhodes; but the knights withdrew to Malta, and he failed in an attack on that island. But he conquered the greater part of the kingdom of Hungary, and even besieged Vienna. Buda now became the seat of a Turkish pasha, as well as Belgrade. Thus under Solomon the Turkish Empire reached its greatest point. Some important conquests were made afterwards; but, on the whole, the strength of the Turks began to fail at home and abroad.

This is a short sketch of the progress of the Ottoman power from its first small beginnings in Asia to the greatest extent of its dominion in Europe. We must now see how the Ottomans dealt with the lands which they thus won. First of all, we may remark page 26 the wonderful succession of great princes which the house of Othman produced. An Eastern dynasty commonly breaks in pieces after a few generations; the Ottoman power itself broke in pieces after the overthrow of the first Bajazet. The wonderful thing is that it came together again. Now, unless we except Bajazet the Second, all the Ottoman princes down to Solomon were great rulers; some of them, according to an Eastern and Mahometan standard, we may even call good rulers. The great Sultans, as a rule, were not inclined to greater oppression than was needed to carry out their own plans. The special oppression and corruption which makes the rule of the Ottoman Turks worse even than other Mahometan despotisms, came in only gradually, and did not reach its full height till the days of the great Sultans were past. For under a despotism, the rule of the sovereign himself, if he be a man of any power and wisdom, is commonly some safeguard against the power of smaller tyrants. He may do great crimes himself, but he hinders the crimes of others. The earlier Sultans were not indisposed to do that stern kind of justice which is the Eastern substitute for law; and under them, the oppression of the subject nations, though very great, was not so great as it became afterwards. But there was one special form of oppression, which began almost from the beginning, which distinguishes the Ottoman power from all others, and which was in truth one of the main sources of its strength. This was the institution of the Janissaries, which must be spoken of a little more at length.

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We have seen that the Ottomans began as a wandering band, which was increased by recruits from all quarters. This character it has kept up ever since. The Ottoman Turks have never really become a nation. Other Mahometan powers, as the Arabs and Persians, have really been nations. So, we may say, were the Seljuk Turks; but the Ottomans were not. Their ranks have always been recruited by men of all nations who have embraced Islam and entered the service of the Sultans. In the days of the greatest power of the Sultans, the great men of the empire were much oftener Christian renegades than real Turks by blood. So their best troops were formed of men who by birth belonged to the subject nations. By the Mahometan law, the believer has a right to take tribute from the infidel, and in the reign of Orchan the Turkish princes first began to levy a tribute of children on their Christian subjects. The most promising boys were carried off at certain fixed times: they were brought up in the Mahometan religion; they entered the Sultan's service, and, being cut off from all other ties, they became his bravest and most trusty soldiers. These were the Janissaries, the chosen soldiers of Islam, who were recruited in this way from the fourteenth century to the seventeenth. Thus the great victories of the Ottoman Sultans were mainly won by men who were not Turks by birth, but Greeks and Slaves kidnapped in their childhood.

Here then was a special grievance laid upon the Christian subjects of the Ottoman Sultans, the like of which had not to be endured by the subjects even of page 28 any other Mahometan despotism. Never was there such a crafty device for holding the subject nations in bondage. Their strength was turned against themselves; their natural leaders passed into the camp of their enemies. As long as the tribute of children was levied, the enslaved nations could not revolt. In other respects the Ottoman power under the early Sultans was not worse than that of other Mahometan conquerors. The worst features of the Ottoman character, those which have specially distinguished it ever since, did not begin till after the establishment of the Ottoman power in Europe. Down to the time of Bajazet the First, the Ottomans preserved something of the virtues of hardy warriors. In his day began the extreme prevalence of that hideous moral corruption which is indeed in no way peculiar to the Ottomans, but which among the Ottomans alone has become something like an institution of state. Rulers of other nations have been given up to foul vices; but it is among the Ottomans alone that the path of the foulest shame is the surest path to power. From the time of Bajazet too dates the practice of expeditions for mere havoc and plunder, as distinguished from conquest—expeditions in which no plunder was more sought after than human prey, specially chosen out for the basest of purposes. Under Bajazet too the murder of a Sultan's brothers at his accession, in order to secure the undisputed possession of the throne, became a law of the Empire which was, not indeed always, but very commonly carried out. Thus, by the time of page 29 Mahomet the Conqueror, the character of the Ottoman power, as a system of oppression, cruelty, and brutal lust, became fully established. Under him too a systematic faithlessness was added, which we do not see under the earlier princes. From his day to ours the promise of a Turk has been simply made to be broken. The policy of Mahomet also found out another device for turning the strength of the subject nations against themselves, and for making them his tools. It was of course always open to any men of the subject nations to transfer themselves from the ranks of the oppressed to the ranks of the oppressors by embracing the Mahometan religion. This was done by many men of all the subject nations, as well as by adventurers from Western Europe; and in some parts whole classes of men became Mahometan. Thus in Bosnia, while the mass of the people remained faithful, the great landowners embraced Islam in order to keep their estates. And the same happened to a lesser extent in Bulgaria and elsewhere. But it was Mahomet the Conqueror who had found out that one particular class of Christians might be made to serve his purpose without openly forsaking their religion. These were the Fanariots, the Greeks of the Greek quarter of Constantinople, many of whom professed to be descended from great families under the Empire. These became useful to the Sultans in many ways, as being sharper-witted than their own Turks were. They became secretaries, interpreters, and in later times ambassa- page 30 dors, and tributary princes in Wallachia and Moldavia. Greek bishops and clergy were also sent out to occupy Slavonic churches; so that the Church itself to which the Eastern Christians clave so faithfully was turned by the Turk into a tool for the support of his power. But it must not be thought, because the Greeks of Constantinople found a certain profit in a foreign dominion, that the Greek nation in general fared any better than the other nations which were subject to the Turk. All Christians indeed were alike bondsmen, though it suited the policy of their tyrants to show some of them a certain degree of favour for their own purposes. Sultan Selim even purposed to make a general massacre of all the Christians in his dominions; but he was dissuaded from this by the chief expounder of the Mahometan law, whom the Sultans were bound to consult to know whether what they meant to do was according to that law. Now to kill or wantonly to molest Christians who pay their tribute is as much against the teaching of the Koran as it would be to give Christians a real equality with Mahometans. Djemali then, the man who kept back Selim from this crime, gave a righteous answer according to his own law, and he should be held in honour for his so doing.

After the reign of Solomon the Lawgiver, the Ottoman power began on the whole to go down. In the reign of his son Selim, known as the Drunkard, the Turks won the island of Cyprus from the Venetians; but their fleet was defeated at Lepanto page 31 by the fleets of Spain and Venice. No positive advantage followed on this victory, which did not even save Cyprus; still it broke the spell of Turkish success, and taught men that the Turk could be defeated. Moreover, up to the sixteenth century, the Turks had better and better disciplined soldiers than any of the European nations with whom they had to strive. But from that time the discipline of Western armies grew better and better, while that of the Turks grew worse and worse. And, though several of the later Sultans were brave and able men, and were served by able ministers, yet many of them were quite of another kind. The almost unbroken succession of great rulers ends with Solomon. Thus, on the whole, notwithstanding occasional victories and conquests, the Turkish power now began to go down. In the seventeenth century, the Turks had many wars with Venice and with the Emperors of the house of Austria, who were also Kings of Hungary. Towards the end of the century they had also wars with Poland, and at last with Russia, which was beginning to become a great power under Peter the Great. In 1669 the Turks won the island of Crete from the Venetians, after a war of twenty-four years. But in 1684 the Venetians conquered all Peloponnesos, and kept it till 1715. In 1683 the Turks again advanced from their Hungarian province, and besieged Vienna; but they were driven back by John Sobieski, King of Poland, and all Hungary was presently freed from page 32 them. Throughout the eighteenth century there were many wars between the Turks and the Emperors as Kings of Hungary. The frontier changed several times, according as the Turkish or the Imperial armies were successful, till the boundary was settled in 1791 much as it now is. Then Belgrade, which had changed hands more than once, was again given up to the Turks.

The wars of the Turks with Venice and Hungary were continuations of wars which they had begun to wage soon after they came into Europe. But in the latter years of the seventeenth century the Turks found still more dangerous enemies north of the Euxine. Here the great powers were Poland and Russia. Against Poland the Turks had some successes; they gained the province of Pedolia and the strong town of Kaminiec, which however they had to give back in 1699. This was the last time that the Turks won any large dominion which they had never held before. But the wars of the Turks with Russia, which began at this time, form an important series down to our own day. It will be remembered that the peninsula of Crimea and the neighbouring lands now forming southern Russia, were held by the Khans of Crim as vassals of the Sultan. Russia was thus cut off from the Euxine; but, as soon as Russia became a great power, she could not fail to seek an opening to the sea in this quarter. Peter the Great first won the port of Azof in 1696; and it was lost and won more than once, till it was finally confirmed to Russia by the peace of Kainardji page 33 in 1774. Catharine the Second was now Empress of Russia, and her policy was steadily directed to advance at the cost of the Turk. By the peace of Kainardji, Russia acquired a kind of protectorate over the dependent principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, which grew into a right of remonstrance on behalf of the Christian subjects of the Turk. The Tartars of Crim were acknowledged as an independent power, a state of things which could not last. In 1783 the land of Crim was added to Russia, which thus gained a great sea-board on the Euxine; and in 1791 the Russian frontier was advanced to the Dniester. All these were heavy blows to the Turk. It was a heavier blow still when Russia acquired a right of interference in the internal concerns of the Ottoman Empire.

Now it will be asked, how did all these changes affect the condition of the subject nations? That is, after all, the main point. The increasing weakness of the Ottoman power affected the subject nations both for evil and for good. It made their actual state harder; but it gave them more hopes of deliverance. As the power of the Sultans was weakened, the misgovernment of their dominions grew worse and worse. Local oppressors of all kinds were no longer kept in some kind of order by the common head. Luxury increased, extravagance increased, and, as a necessary consequence, the burthens of the tax-payer became greater, and the soldiers went without pay. The Turkish troops lost their old discipline, without gaining the page 34 new discipline of modern Europe; after a campaign they not uncommonly took to the life of open robbers. All this of course greatly increased the wretchedness of the subject nations; yet one good came of it all. The Janissaries, instead of picked soldiers chosen from the tribute children, gradually became a hereditary caste, practising various callings, and who were no longer willing to be recruited after the old fashion. Thus, in the course of the seventeenth century, the heaviest of all burthens, the tribute of children, was gradually taken away. From that time the subject nations had some hope: the best and bravest of their own kin were no longer taken to serve against them. This was a gain; and there were one or two Sultans and their ministers who did something in other ways to lessen the oppression of their subjects. But, on the whole, things got worse and worse. The population lessened; land was left untilled; towns and villages were forsaken. As the powers of the Sultans grew less, and pashas and other local oppressors grew stronger, there was less and less chance of redress for any wrongdoings. Indeed, at the end of the eighteenth century, nearly the whole of the Ottoman dominions had fallen into a state of utter anarchy. The authority of the Sultan went for nothing; many of the pashas made themselves practically independent, and whole armies of men, subject to no authority at all, laid waste lands and cities. But, on the other hand, the very excess of wrong led to the beginning of deliverance. Spirited men among the subject page 35 nations—the men who at an earlier time would have been taken for Janissaries in their childhood—defied the Turks altogether, and took to a wild independence. They were called robbers by the Turks, but patriots by themselves and their countrymen. In some parts again disorder was so great that the Christians were allowed to arm themselves in their own defence and that of the Sultan's authority against Mahometan rebels. Thus, in both these ways, there grew up bodies of Christians who were used to bear arms, and who afterwards did good service in the wars both in Servia and in Greece. And alongside of this, the hope of deliverance was raised by every war which the Turks waged against any Christian power. All the wars with Venice, with the Emperors, and with Russia, served to raise the hopes of the subject people. In the enemies of their masters they saw their own deliverers; and the fortune of war sometimes transferred some of them from barbarian to civilized masters. Thus, as we have seen, Peloponnesos was for a while held by Venice; and, in the various fluctuations of the Turkish and Hungarian frontier, many subjects of the Turks were for a while put under civilized rulers, and learned European discipline in the Imperial armies. Thus, when Belgrade and other districts were given back to the Turk after forming part of an European kingdom, the yoke was felt to be more bitter, and the longing for deliverance became stronger. Add to this that the subject nations were constantly made tools of by the enemies of the Turk, especially by Russia. Thus when, in the course of page 36 the wars with Russia, a Russian fleet appeared in the Ægæan sea, the Greeks were led to revolt in many places. And, though they were shamefully betrayed by Russia, yet every movement of this kind helped to stir the spirits and raise the hopes of the subject nations, to teach them that their masters were not invincible, and above all to teach them that they could do something for themselves. We must remember that, in the times which we are now speaking of, when we speak of Russia or Austria or any other European power, we are speaking merely of governments and not of nations. The generous impulses which in our own times have stirred whole nations had not then begun to be felt. The subject nations were used as tools by various governments who were at war with the Turks, and they were too often thrown aside like tools when they were done with. Still, by every failure of their tyrants, by every advance of every other power, they gained indirectly; they gained in heart and in hope.

At last the time came when the subject nations were really able to do something for themselves. First Servia was freed; then Greece. A large part of the Servians had for a while been subjects and soldiers of Austria, and had learned the difference between civilized and barbarian rule. When they were given back to the Turk, the power of the Sultan in those parts was altogether nominal. The land was overrun by rebellious chiefs, who were of course worse oppressors than the Sultan himself. In 1804 the Servians rose against their local enemies, and for a while the Sultan favoured their enterprise. But page 37 such an alliance could not last. Men who had risen against Mahometan rule in its worst form were not likely willingly to submit to it again, even in a form which was not quite so bad. Servia was delivered by Czerny, or Kara (that is, Black), George. It was conquered again in 1815. It was delivered again by Milosh Obrenovich, the founder of the present dynasty of princes. It became a principality, independent of its internal affairs, though it was still obliged to receive Turkish garrisons in certain fortresses. This last badge of dependence was taken away in 1862; since then Servia has been an independent state in everything but paying a tribute to the Turk.

Many causes meanwhile led to the revolt of Greece. In the wars of the French Revolution the commonwealth of Venice was overthrown. Her Greek possessions, consisting of the Ionian Islands and some points on the Hadriatic coast, were portioned out in a strange way. The Turk was to take the points on the coast, while the islands were to be made into a commonwealth, tributary to the Sultan, but under the protection of Russia. The points on the coast were gradually won by the Turks, by force or surrender; but as they were very unwillingly transferred to his rule, a stronger feeling began to be felt in favour of them, and of the subject people generally. On the other hand, though the island commonwealth could have no real freedom, it was something like acknowledging the possibility of Greek freedom. Then the islands were conquered by France; then, after the page 38 great war, they were again made a commonwealth under a British protectorate which really was British dominion. Still the name of commonwealth went for something; and in any case the rule either of France or England was better than that of the Turk. All this then joined with other causes to stir up the spirit of the Greek people, and in 1821 they rose in every part of the Turkish dominions where they could rise. In most of the out-lying parts the revolt was easily put down; but in the greater part of Greece itself, the Greek and Albanian inhabitants, with some help from volunteers both from the other subject nations and from Western Europe, were able to free the land from the Turks. Then the reigning Sultan Mahmoud got help from his vassal Mahomet Ali in Egypt, who had made himself independent of the Sultan, but who was ready to help him against Christian insurgents. Then the European powers stepped in. In 1827 the fleets of England, France, and Russia crushed the Turks at Navarino; the French cleared Peloponnesos of the Egyptians, and Greece became an independent state. But the new kingdom has been sadly hampered by the refusal of the powers to allow Thessaly, Epeiros, and Crete to share in the freedom of the rest of Greece.

While the wars of independence in Servia and Greece were going on, the Turks had more than one war with Russia, which of course told to the advantage of the Christians who were in arms. By the peace of Bucharest in 1812, the Russian frontier was advanced to the Pruth, and stipulations were made page 39 in favour both of the Danubian Principalities and of Servia. By the peace of Akerman in 1826 the rights of Servia were more fully confirmed. Then came the war in which the Russians got as far as Hadrianople, and compelled the Turks to acknowledge the independence of Greece by the treaty of 1829. Thus both Servia and Greece were freed from their bondage, and Greece became an absolutely independent kingdom. Meanwhile great changes were going on in the internal management of the Turkish Empire. Sultan Mahmoud professed and promised great reforms; but, as far as his Christian subjects were concerned, his reign was chiefly marked by bloodthirsty massacres. Whenever, both in the Greek and the Servian wars, the Turks had the power, they suppressed the insurrection in the way in which Turks do suppress insurrections. All the world has heard of the massacres in Chios and Cyprus and in the peninsula of Kassandra. Every form of cruelty and faithlessness was done both in Greece and Servia whenever the Turks had a chance. Men now living can remember how men were impaled in breach of solemn promises when the Turks won back Belgrade in 1815.

No doubt all this time the Turks were learning to ape European ways, and to put on a varnish of European civilization, which has deceived many people. Thus Mahmoud set up an army after the European manner, having first got rid of the turbulent Janissaries by a general massacre; and both Mahmoud and his successors put forth endless promises of good page 40 government for their subjects of all religions, which of course have not been kept. They have not been kept, because they were not meant to be kept, and because in truth they could not be kept. We have seen already that real reform under the Ottoman rule is impossible, because real reform—the granting of real equality to men of other religions—is contrary to the Mahometan religion. All that pretended Turkish reforms have ever done has been to throw dust in the eyes of Europe, and to increase the hatred of the subject nations by the further wrong of making promises and then breaking them. And since the death of Mahmoud, who, though a brutal tyrant, was at least a man of energy, the so-called "government" of the Sultan has got worse than ever. The rule of the independent pashas was worse than that of the great Sultans; and now something has been found worse than the rule of the independent pashas. Since the death of Mahmoud, there has been a succession of weak and worthless Sultans, who have been wholly in the hands of a corrupt "ring," as the Americans call it, at Constantinople. These men dress and talk like Europeans, and so take Europeans in, while they carry on a worse system of tyranny than that of the old Sultans. One charter after another has been put forth to say that all the Sultan's subjects, of whatever religion, shall be equally under his protection, and have equal rights. Yet the Christians are everywhere dealt with as bondmen; the Mahometan is armed, and the Christian is unarmed; the Mahometan rules, and the Christian has to obey; the Mahometan sits in the page 41 so-called court of justice, and refuses to take the evidence of the Christian against the worst Mahometan offender. Therefore no Christian is safe for a moment in anything. Whatever wrong is done to him, he has no redress; his life, his property, the honour of his family, are at the mercy of every Turk who thinks good to deal with them as he chooses. The doers of the bloodiest and foulest deeds are promoted, while any Turk who dares to act more humanely than the rest is commonly disgraced. This kind of tyranny, which has no parallel in modern Europe, and which can hardly have been surpassed in any age or country, is known in diplomatic language by two or three cant phrases, such as the "sovereign rights of the Sultan," and "the independence and integrity of the Ottoman Empire." The "integrity and independence of the Ottoman Empire" means that the Turk should be allowed the power of doing whatever crimes he pleases through the whole extent of the land which he at present holds in bondage. For many years past, to judge by their acts, it has been one great aim of European governments to keep the Turk in full possession of that power. It seems to have been thought that it was in some strange way for the good of mankind that the people of South-eastern Europe should be held in bondage. In 1854, three Christian powers actually waged a war in order to support the dominion of the Turk, when it was threatened by Russia. Then in 1856, at the Treaty of Paris, the European powers declared that they would all respect the independence and integrity of the Ottoman Empire. page 42 They declared that they had no right, collectively or separately, to meddle with the "relations of the Sultan with his subjects, or with the interior administration of his empire." That is to say, they agreed to allow the Turk to do what he pleased with the nations of South-eastern Europe. They declared in effect that he might go on oppressing them as he had always oppressed them, and that they, the Christian powers of England, France, Sardinia, and Russia, would do nothing to help them. Since then the European powers, and especially England, have, till lately, done all that they could to keep the subject nations in bondage, and even to keep their complaints from being heard. For twenty years after the Treaty of Paris the oppressed people of South-eastern Europe had no hope but in their own right hands.

Through those twenty years the Turk went on doing as he always has done, making promises and breaking them, and committing every crime against the subject people. In the lands of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which have been the most oppressed of all, the Christians have risen more than once, and they have been helped by their neighbours, the free people of Montenegro. This last is a small district, a fragment of the old kingdom of Servia, where the Christians have always held out. The Turks have often attacked the land, and sometimes overrun it; but it never was fully conquered at any time, and it is now a perfectly independent state under its own prince. Then in 1866 there was a revolt in the great Greek island of page 43 Crete. While the people of Crete were striving for their freedom, their tyrant, the Turkish Sultan, was received in London as an honoured guest; and when our consuls and officers tried to save old men, and women, and children from the rage of the Turks, orders came from the English Foreign Office that no such deed was to be done again. Other European and American ships were allowed to help the distressed; but England faithfully kept to the Treaty of Paris. For by that treaty we had bound ourselves to respect the independence of the Ottoman Empire, and not to interfere with the relations between the Sultan and his subjects. The relations between the Sultan and his subjects could mean nothing but the acts of murder, robbery, outrage of every kind, which formed those relations. It was therefore according to the treaty, to stand by and let the Turks do what they would to these poor creatures. Other nations might think that humanity was above treaties; but England stood by the treaty. At last, in 1875, began the war which has gone on since. The people of Bosnia and Herzegovina again rose. Then letters were written from the English Foreign Office exhorting the Turk to "suppress the insurrection." In Herzegovina however the Turk could not suppress the insurrection; but, when Bulgaria presently tried to rise, the Turk was able fully to carry out the instructions of his English adviser. He did suppress this insurrection with his own forces; he of course suppressed it in the way in which Turks always do suppress page 44 insurrections, in the way in which every one must have known that the Turk would suppress insurrections, if he suppressed them at all. It was perhaps going too far for an English statesman to advise him to do so; but it cannot be denied that, in doing all that was done last year in Bulgaria, the Turk was simply acting according to those relations between the Sultan and his subjects which the European powers had engaged to respect. For it must always be remembered that the late doings in Bulgaria were nothing new, nothing strange; they are the ordinary relations between the Sultan and his subjects, whenever those subjects give him any offence, sometimes when they give no offence at all. Then Servia and Montenegro stepped in to help their oppressed brethren. Nor did the people of Russia deem that they were bound by treaties to do wrong; so the people, not the government, came to help also. In the war which followed, Montenegro has been victorious; the Turk has been unable to do anything against the brave mountaineers. But in Servia he has been partly successful, and, in those parts of Servia which came under his power, he has done as he had before done in Bulgaria; that is to say, deeming the Servians to be his subjects, he has dealt with them according to the usual relations between the Sultan and his subjects. Deeming the Servian war an insurrection, he has tried to carry out the advice which he had received from England; he has tried to suppress insurrections in the only way in which Turks always do suppress them.

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But by this time the European Powers had seen that to carry out the words of the Treaty of Paris was no longer possible. In Russia, in England, in Italy, the people said with one voice that such deeds must not go on, and that the relation between the Sultan and his subjects must be interfered with. The governments yielded to the will of the people, and an European conference has tried, but tried in vain, to find out the answer to our third question,