The first four years of Mahmoud’s long reign of thirty-one years were fraught with bitter humiliation to him at the hands of the Janissaries. There was no indication of his subsequent career, when he proved himself to be the most able and resolute of Sultans since Solyman the Magnificent. But he was also the most unfortunate, for he was unable to prevent a greater reduction of the Turkish Empire than had been incurred by any one of the long line of degenerate Sultans. It may well be, however, that but for his action still greater losses would have resulted, for on his advent to the throne the Empire seemed to be on the brink of ruin. In every part of it turbulent and rebellious pashas were asserting independence. In Epirus the celebrated Ali Pasha of Janina had cast off allegiance, and was threatening to extend his rule over Greece, Thessaly, and the Ionian Islands. At Widdin on the Danube, at Bagdad on the Tigris, at Acre in Syria, the same process was being pursued by other pashas. In Egypt, Mehemet Ali had assumed the position of Governor and was creating an army and a navy independent of the Porte. In Arabia, the sect of Wahabees had attained a virtual independence, and had obtained possession of the holy cities. Other provinces, such as Serbia, Wallachia, Moldavia, and Greece, were seething with disaffection caused by long and intolerable misgovernment. The difficulty of holding together the distracted Empire was greatly increased by the want of an effective army under the full control of the central Government, so as to enable it to cope with the centrifugal forces which threatened disruption. The Janissaries, who had contributed so largely to the growth of the Empire, were now a standing danger to it. They were able to overawe the Sultan, and to dictate to him the appointment and dismissal of Viziers. But successive campaigns on the Danube, and conflicts with rebellious pashas, had given abundant proof of their inefficiency as a military force. Compared with the armies of European Powers they were an ill-disciplined and badly armed mob. They arrogantly refused to be armed, clothed, and drilled after the fashion of European armies. While useless for war, they were formidable for other purposes. They were under no control. They terrorized the capital, and in the provinces they were at the disposal of any adventurous pasha who suborned them to support his ambitious and rebellious projects. Mahmoud from the earliest years of his reign fully recognized, as many of his predecessors had done, how urgent the necessity was to put an end to this turbulent force, and to create a new army which would obey and support him as Sultan, and be of value against external enemies. It is his principal claim in the history of Turkey that he was able to effect this. Eighteen years, however, elapsed before he felt strong enough to grapple with these foes of his dynasty and State.

Apart from this great achievement, he showed inflexible firmness and courage in the great difficulties which confronted him, and almost alone he bore the burden of the State for thirty-one years of unparalleled peril, and often of most serious disaster. It will be seen that, in spite of these high qualities, and in spite of the reform of his army, the losses of territory to his Empire were very serious. In Greece, the Morea, and the provinces north of the Gulf of Corinth up to the frontier of Thessaly, acquired complete independence under the guarantee of the three Great Powers of Europe. Egypt, Moldavia and Wallachia, and Serbia attained almost similar independence, subject only to the nominal suzerainty of the Sultan of Turkey and the payment of fixed tributes. They no longer added to the real strength of the Empire. On the other hand, he completely destroyed the power of the rebellious Pashas of Janina, Widdin, Bagdad, and Acre, and through Mehemet Ali, the Pasha of Egypt, he subdued the Wahabees and recovered the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.

It should be added that Mahmoud, unlike so many of his predecessors, devoted his life to affairs of his State rather than to his harem. He committed at times acts of great cruelty. He put to death his brother Mustapha and Mustapha’s only son, and caused to be drowned in the Bosphorus four ladies of Mustapha’s harem who were enceinte. He had no scruple in directing the secret assassination of any persons whom he suspected of harbouring schemes in opposition to his own. He authorized the perpetration of ruthless massacres of Greeks in all parts of his Empire at the inception of the revolution in Greece. But these were acts of policy in accord with the traditions of his family, approved by public opinion of the Turks, by whom terrorism and massacre were recognized as justifiable methods of government. The murder of his relatives left him the sole survivor of the Othman race, a position which secured him from intrigues against his throne by the Janissaries.

The most serious of the losses to the Empire in Mahmoud’s reign was that of Egypt, for it was a Moslem country, and though for many years previously the hold on it by the Ottoman Porte had been slender, and the Mamelukes had been able, as a rule, to impose their will and to govern the province, yet the Porte could in the main rely on it for support to the Empire in times of emergency. It will be well, therefore, to explain the changes effected in Egypt, for it will be seen that they had a great bearing on events in other parts of the Ottoman Empire.

Mehemet Ali, who effected the virtual independence of Egypt, subject to the nominal suzerainty of the Sultan, was the most remarkable man that the Mahommedan world had produced in modern times. The son of an Albanian Moslem fisherman and small landowner at Kavala, on the borders of Thrace and Macedonia, he was left a penniless orphan, and was brought up as a dependent in the household of the chief magistrate of the district, who was a distant relative. He never learnt to read or write. He said of himself in later years that the only books he ever read were men’s faces, and that he seldom made a mistake in them. When the French invaded Egypt under General Bonaparte, Mehemet Ali was sent in defence of it with a band of three hundred Albanians, as one of their junior officers, and before long, on the return home of the commanding officer, contrived to step into his place. When the Turkish army was driven into the sea at Aboukir in 1794 by Napoleon, he was saved from drowning by a boat from the British admiral’s ship. Later he was put in command of all the Albanians employed in Egypt, and was attached for a time to the British army.

After the departure of the British from Egypt, conflict arose between the Turks and the Mamelukes for the control of the government. Mehemet at first sided with the Mamelukes, but later he threw them over in favour of the Albanians in the service of the Turks. When the British Government sent its futile expedition to Egypt in 1808, Mehemet was chiefly concerned in opposing it. He was in command at Rosetta when a great number of British soldiers were slain, and a few days later he entered Cairo in triumph through an avenue of British heads stuck on pikes. Thenceforth he rapidly rose in influence and position, and at the age of thirty-five was the most powerful man in Egypt, and was able to instal himself as Pasha. He was harassed and opposed by the Mamelukes. He determined to get rid of them. He invited about five hundred of their leading men to a friendly conference at the citadel of Cairo. After entertaining them at a sumptuous repast, he ordered the gates to be shut, and had them all shot down in the narrow street of the citadel. A single man only of them survived by leaping his horse from the wall of the citadel, a height of 30 feet. This was followed by a slaughter of nearly all the Mamelukes in the country. Mehemet in this set the example which was followed a few years later by Sultan Mahmoud in suppressing the Janissaries.

Thenceforward Mehemet was undisputed ruler of Egypt. He had a genius for organization and government. Though cruel and vindictive, and even bloodthirsty, as regards his enemies and against evildoers of all kinds, he had a keen sense of justice, and a determination to mete it out equally, and without favour, to the people of all sects and races. He brought about peace and order and prosperity such as Egypt had never of late years enjoyed. He was ambitious to extend his rule. He organized for this purpose, and for asserting himself against the Porte, an army of a hundred thousand men raised by conscription and armed and drilled on the model of European armies, with the aid of French and Italian officers who had served under Napoleon. He also built a powerful fleet with the help of French naval constructors. He soon proved the value of his new army by putting down a revolt in Arabia of the Wahabees. He did this, on behalf of, and in the name of the Sultan. He also conquered the oasis of Senaar and extended the rule of Egypt into the Sudan. It will be seen that later, in 1825 and 1826, he sent his army and navy in support of the Sultan to the Morea for the purpose of putting an end to the revolution in Greece, which the Sultan had been unable to cope with. Before dealing with this, however, it will be well to revert to Mahmoud and explain the course of events which compelled him to call in aid Mehemet Ali’s army.

One of the earliest matters which Mahmoud had to deal with was that of Serbia. The treaty of Bucharest had left that province in a very unsettled and ambiguous position. The Turks, under its terms, were permitted to garrison Belgrade and other fortresses, and were to concede to the Serbians self-government, but there was no adequate guarantee for this. The Serbians, who were in possession of the fortresses, refused to give them up to the Turks until a scheme of self-government was arranged. The Porte insisted on immediate surrender. Subsequent proceedings showed that there was no intention to give effective self-government to the Serbians. The Sultan in 1813 sent an army to enforce his claims. Kara George, in most strange contrast to his previous heroic action, lost courage on this occasion. After burying the treasure which he had amassed as virtual ruler of Serbia, he fled the country and sought refuge with the Austrians. In so doing he passed out of the history of his country, save that when, some years later, he thought he might safely return to Serbia, he was arrested and shot as a traitor.

After this defection Serbia seemed to be at the mercy of the Turks, and the greater part of it was occupied by them. But at the moment of its great peril another national patriot and hero rose to the front in the person of Milosch Obrenowitch, who, much as Kara George had done a few years previously, took the lead in rousing the Christian population to resistance, and in leading them to victory. He succeeded in driving the Turks from all the country districts and shutting them up in the fortresses. Mahmoud then sent another army with the object of relieving the Turks in the Serbian fortresses and subduing the rebels. The army, however, halted on the frontier, and negotiations ensued which lasted for some years without any result. The Sultan, it seems, was unwilling, in view of the numerous other difficulties pending in his Empire, to risk the loss of an army in a guerrilla war in the mountains of Serbia.

The most serious of Mahmoud’s other difficulties at this period was the insurrection of the Greeks in 1821. Never was rebellion of a subject race more justifiable. Nowhere throughout the Ottoman Empire were the results of its rule more degrading and intolerable than in Greece. It served none of the purposes for which governments exist. Life and property and honour were without security, and justice had degenerated into the practice of selling injustice to the highest bidder.

The condition of the Greek population was infinitely worse than that of their compatriots in most other parts of the Empire. In Constantinople the Greeks were a wealthy community. They had a large share in the administration of the Empire. The Porte, in fact, could not do without them. Their religion was under the special protection accorded to it by Mahomet the Conqueror. The trade of the Empire was largely in their hands. At Smyrna, Salonika, and many other cities, there were large numbers of Greeks who had enjoyed facilities of trade and had accumulated wealth. Mahmoud, like many of his predecessors, recognized that, by largely contributing to taxes, these people were a source of wealth to his Government, and was not disposed to adopt any measure proposed by the more fanatical of Moslems to extirpate them or to drive them into rebellion. Not a few of the islands of the archipelago, such as Scios and Psara, were practically allowed to govern themselves, and life there was as well-ordered as in any part of Europe.

It was very different with Greece on the mainland. It seems to have been the policy of the Porte to prevent its becoming a populous and wealthy country, with a view to keeping it under close subjection. Much of its land was in the ownership of Moslems, a majority of whom were Greeks by race, who had adopted Islam in order to save their property. They were a fanatical class who were quite as oppressive to the rayas, the cultivators of the soil, as were those of pure Turkish descent. The Ottoman Government presented itself to the Greeks only as an engine to extract taxes, and the pashas who were sent to govern them thought only how best and most quickly to fill their pockets, knowing that their tenure of office would be very short. The people there compared their condition with that of the self-governing communities of Scio and other islands. Education had spread to some extent in spite of the neglect of the Government. Wealthy Greeks from other districts had endowed some schools and colleges. With education came the study of the past history of Greece and the ambition to renew its nationality and greatness. For some time past secret societies such as the Hetairia, promoted in the first instance by the Greeks of Odessa, had been spreading their influence in Greece, and had laid the seeds of revolution.

The insurrection in Greece was not only based on political and racial ideals, it was also an agrarian war, the revolt of cultivators of the soil against their feudal oppressors. This gave to the outbreak in rural districts its intensely persistent, passionate, and cruel attributes.

The revolution broke out in the Morea at the beginning of April 1821, and soon spread over the whole of its country districts. It was estimated that at that time there were twenty thousand Moslems thinly spread in the country districts, most of them of Greek race, feudal lords of the soil and oppressors of the rayas. Nearly the whole of these Moslems were now brutally murdered, without distinction of age or sex. The survivors fled into the fortresses, which were garrisoned by Turks. These fortresses were speedily invested by the Greeks, and within three months nearly all of them were compelled to surrender. In most cases capitulations were agreed to on the terms that lives would be respected, but in no case were these terms adhered to. The garrisons and the Turkish inhabitants and the refugees from the country districts who had gathered there were brutally murdered.

The first encounter between the Turkish soldiers and the Greeks that could be called a battle was at Valtetsi, in the neighbourhood of Tripolitza, the capital of the Morea. Three thousand Greek peasants there defeated five thousand Turks, with a loss of four hundred Turks and a hundred and fifty Greeks. The battle destroyed the prestige of the Turks. It showed that they were no match for the insurgent Greek peasants.

As a result of this victory, Navarino and Tripolitza fell into the hands of the Greek insurgents after short sieges. In both cases the garrisons capitulated on favourable terms for themselves and the inhabitants of the towns. In neither case were the terms observed. All the Moslem troops and inhabitants were ruthlessly massacred. At Tripolitza these numbered eight thousand, including women and children. “Greek historians,” says Finlay in his History of Greece, “have recoiled from telling of these barbarities, while they have been loud in denouncing those of the Turks.”

When news of the massacres in the Morea arrived at Constantinople the greatest alarm and indignation arose. Bloody and ruthless reprisals ensued against the Greeks residing there. The Sultan set the example. He directed that many of the leading Greeks were to be immediately executed. The Greek Patriarch was hanged by his order at the gate of the episcopal residence. The fetva authorizing this was pinned to his body. There was no reason to believe that the Patriarch was implicated in the outbreak in Greece. Four other bishops met the same fate. Thousands of Greeks of inferior position fell victims to the fury of the people at the capital and at many other cities, such as Smyrna and Salonika, and in Cyprus. The Sultan took no steps to restrain these horrors. Women and children equally with men were murdered. Their houses were burnt, their property was pillaged. It was estimated that the number of Greeks thus massacred was not short of the number of Moslems slaughtered in Greece at the outbreak of the revolution. Thenceforth Greeks and Turks emulated one another in their acts of barbarity. The Turks had always been bloodthirsty when their passions and fears were roused, and they now had terrible wrongs to avenge. The Greeks had been degraded by long oppression, and were little better than Turks. Both people evidently thought that the results of their cruelties were proof of the wisdom of inflicting them. The Greeks, by extirpating the Moslems in the Morea, cleared the country, once for all, of their oppressors and effected that separation of the two races which, it will be seen later, the Great Powers of Europe thought desirable, though they hoped to attain it by peaceful expropriation and indemnity. The Turks claimed that their severities checked the spread of the revolution, and compelled one half of the Greek people living within their midst to submit to Ottoman rule.

It has been shown that the revolution broke out in the Morea. Within a few months the whole of that country was cleared of Ottoman troops and of Moslem inhabitants. The outbreak extended to most of the islands of the archipelago, where the Greeks predominated, where there was less admixture of Slav blood than on the mainland, and where the traditions of a long-past national existence and of high civilization survived in a stronger form. In spite of their greater prosperity, due to milder treatment at the hands of the Turks, they were ardently in favour of independence. It was in the islands that the majority of Greek merchant vessels were owned. They numbered between four and five hundred, and were manned by twelve thousand Greek sailors. An active war fleet was formed out of these vessels and sailors. They frequently met and defeated the Turkish fleet. They made special use of fire ships, and blew up or burnt many of the Turkish vessels and caused the greatest alarm to the Turkish sailors.

In the course of the four years 1821-4, the Turks were generally worsted by the Greek insurgents on land and sea. Not only the Morea, but the parts of Greece north of the Gulf of Corinth up to the frontier of Thessaly, including Athens—then reduced to a squalid, third-rate town—and the islands of the archipelago, achieved a practical independence. A national government and a representative assembly were constituted. The outbreak in Greece roused the sympathies of great numbers of persons in Western Europe, especially in England and France. In spite of this, the Governments of these countries for long held aloof and discouraged the rebellion, not wishing to see Turkey weakened as against Russia. Lord Byron was an enthusiast for the Greeks, and in 1824 landed at Missolonghi and joined their army. But it cannot be said that he effected much during the short time he survived there. He was evidently disillusioned, like so many other Philhellenes who joined the Greeks, by the discords, intrigues, and corruption of their leaders. But he never lost faith in their future. He confidently predicted that the Greek nation would prove itself worthy of freedom. He gave his life to the cause. He died of malarial fever within a few weeks of landing at this unhealthy spot. This did much to arouse the interest of Europe and to promote its intervention on behalf of the Greeks.

After four years of futile efforts to stamp out the Greek revolution, it became clear to Sultan Mahmoud that his army, as then constituted, was unequal to the task. He was much impressed by the success of Mehemet Ali in Egypt in creating an army armed and drilled in the manner of European armies. In 1824, he called on this great vassal to aid in the reconquest of Greece by sending his new army and fleet there. Mehemet consented to do so, but only on the promise of the Sultan that Syria, Damascus, and Crete, would be added to his Pashalic. He sent his fleet to co-operate with that of the Sultan on the coast of the Morea. It sailed from Alexandria on July 25, 1824, with an army of ten thousand infantry and a thousand cavalry, under command of Ibrahim Pasha, the son of Mehemet Ali. They were landed at Modon and marched thence to Navarino. That fortress was garrisoned by sixteen hundred Greeks. The flower of the Greek army of seven thousand men advanced to relieve the fortress. Ibrahim with three thousand men attacked and utterly defeated them. The Greeks fled in wild confusion. This battle was proof that the best Greek troops were unable to encounter the well-disciplined Egyptians in a pitched battle.

After the capture of Navarino, Ibrahim continued his reconquest of Greece with uniform success. The Greeks were exhausted by their long struggle against the Turks. They could offer but a very feeble resistance to this new and far more effective enemy. In April, 1826, the Egyptian army captured Missolonghi, causing a loss to the Greeks of four thousand men. Thence he gradually subdued the whole of the Morea. Later the cities of Corinth and Athens fell into the hands of the Turks, and on May 6, 1827, at a battle at Phalerum, in the neighbourhood of this last city, Reschid Pasha, in command of an Albanian army, defeated and dispersed the last army of the Greeks then in the field. The Greek Government was forced to remove from the mainland to the island of Poros. The whole of Greece then fell into anarchy. Though the Greek fleet continued to make a gallant stand against the combined Turkish and Egyptian fleets, it was not strong enough to maintain a mastery at sea and to cut off the communication between Ibrahim’s army and its base in Egypt. It is certain that if the Great Powers of Europe had not intervened, Greece would have been completely subdued, and Turkish rule would have been reinstated there. Ibrahim threatened to remove the whole Greek population and sell them into slavery, and to replace them by Egyptians and Arabs.

Meanwhile the success of Ibrahim’s army, armed and disciplined on the model of European armies, as compared with the failure in previous campaigns in Greece of the ill-disciplined and badly armed troops of Turkey, produced a great impression at Constantinople. Mahmoud now found that his long-cherished project for the reform of the army was supported almost unanimously by the Divan and by the whole of the ulemas. He determined, therefore, to carry it into effect, and to suppress his mortal foes, the Janissaries. He had been long engaged in making preparations for a decisive issue with these turbulent troops. He had formed a body of fourteen thousand artillerymen, drilled and armed on the new model, and on whom he could thoroughly rely for support. His predecessor, Selim, had enlisted a small body of infantry on the same model. The Agha of the Janissaries, Hussein Pasha, was devoted to him, as was also the Mufti. The Sultan thereupon, in May 1826, gave orders to the Janissaries that one-fourth of them were to be incorporated in the new corps of infantry. The Janissaries refused. They marched in a body, on June 14th, to the palace, intent on overawing the Sultan, as they had so often done in the past. They met their master on this occasion. The Sultan summoned the artillery to his support. He unfolded the sacred banner and directed their action. They pounded the Janissaries with cannon shot in the streets leading to the palace and drove them back to their barracks with heavy loss. The guns were then concentrated on the barracks and set fire to them. No quarter was given. The Janissaries perished either by gun fire or in the burning barracks. Four thousand of them were disposed of in this holocaust. The Sultan ruthlessly followed up his victory. Many more thousands of the Janissaries were put to death in Constantinople and in other cities of the Empire. The force was entirely destroyed. Its very name was erased from official records. Mahmoud had obtained an overwhelming victory. His new army was at once increased to forty-five thousand men, exclusive of his artillery, with the intention of gradually raising it to two hundred thousand. It was recruited, however, wholly from the Moslem population. The Christians were excluded from its ranks as rigidly as under the old rÉgime. There can be no doubt that if time had been allowed to Mahmoud to complete the number and efficiency of this new army, the Ottoman Empire would again have become a most formidable military Power. The Sultan did much more to centralize power in himself. He abolished the military feudal system, which had become a gross abuse. The beys were everywhere suppressed, or were allowed to draw their incomes only for the term of their lives. The rents hitherto paid to these persons were in the future to be paid directly to the State.

Mahmoud also effected many other important reforms. He abolished the Court of Confiscations, which had provided a revenue to the State out of property of persons condemned to death or exile, and which had become a great abuse. He deprived pashas of their power to put people to death at their will without trial. He enacted that no one should in future be so dealt with without formal trial and the right of appeal. He put the vast Vacouf property (dedicated to Islam) under State management. He prohibited the wearing of turbans and made the use of the fez universal in his Empire. He set the example of clothing himself after the European fashion. He entertained ambassadors and their wives and others at his palace as other sovereigns did. He contemplated great reforms in favour of his Christian subjects, but it will be seen that the task was left incomplete for his successors.

At this point of his career Mahmoud had attained unqualified success. He had succeeded in putting down all the rebellious pashas, such as Ali of Janina and others. Mehemet Ali of Egypt had recognized the supremacy of the Sultan by sending his army and navy to suppress the Greek rebellion. Greece had been practically reconquered. The Greeks in other parts of the Empire had been terrorized into submission. Insurrection in Moldavia and Wallachia had been suppressed. The Serbian fortresses were in his hands. Above all, the Janissaries, who had proved to be so useless as a military force and who had murdered two of his predecessors and deposed many others, were suppressed. He had carried out great reforms in his Empire. Mahmoud had effected all this by his own inflexible firmness and by statesmanship of a high order, not unmixed with cruelty and cunning.

Two events now occurred which materially affected the position of Turkey, and deprived Mahmoud of the fruits of his ably devised policy. The one was the death of Alexander, the Emperor of Russia, the other the decision of the British Government to intervene on behalf of Greece. Alexander for some years past had been on the horns of a dilemma. He had a deep sympathy for the subjects of the Ottoman Empire who were members of the Greek Church, and a great aversion to Turkish rule. But he also hated and feared revolution. He believed in the divine right of rulers, however bad, and would take no step to support the revolt of their subjects, however oppressive their government. He feared that a dangerous precedent might be extended to his own Empire. This conflict of views paralysed his action. He gave no assistance to the Greek insurgents. So long as he lived there was little hope that Greece would recover its independence. He died late in 1825, and was succeeded by his brother, Nicholas, a much younger and more vigorous man, and a truer exponent of Russian ideals. The new Czar had no objection to insurrection if it was not directed against his own government. He hated the Turks and wished to drive them out of Europe much more than he sympathized with the Greeks. He had many other grounds of complaint against the Porte. It has also been suggested that he wished to come to conclusions with it before time had been given for perfecting his new army.

As regards Great Britain, its Government had not originally sympathized with the Greek revolution, but the reverse. But public opinion, outraged by the barbarities which had been committed, had produced an influence on it, and Mr. Canning, the Foreign Secretary, was personally very favourable to the cause of Greece. The Government as a whole held the view that the continuance of disorder in Greece was a menace to the peace of Europe. They had no wish for the extension of Russia at the expense of Turkey. They thought that if Greece were not pacified Russia would intervene, and would not confine its claim to the settlement of the Greek claims, but would aim at other conquests. They decided, therefore, to make an effort to settle the Greek question on the basis of autonomy, subject to the suzerainty of the Sultan. In this view the Cabinet sent the Duke of Wellington to St. Petersburg in 1826 to negotiate with the Czar. He effected an arrangement which was later embodied in the treaty of London of July 6, 1827, between the three Powers, Great Britain, Russia, and France, for the pacification of Greece. Under the terms of this treaty it was agreed, with a view to bringing about a reconciliation between the Ottoman Porte and the Greeks, to offer mediation, and to demand an immediate armistice as a preliminary to the opening of a negotiation.

Under the arrangement to be proposed to the Ottoman Porte, Greece was to be granted complete autonomy, under the suzerainty of the Sultan, and was to pay a fixed annual tribute. It was to be governed by authorities whom its people were to nominate. In order to bring about a complete separation between the individuals of the two nations and to prevent the collisions resulting from a long struggle, the Greeks were to enter upon possession of all Turkish property, either on the continent or in the isles of Greece, on condition of indemnifying the former proprietors by the payment of an annual sum to be added to the tribute. By an additional secret article it was provided that “if, within one month, the Ottoman Porte did not agree to accept the mediation of the three Powers and consent to an armistice, the signatories of the treaty would find the necessity for an approximation with the Greeks by entering into relations with them, and would employ all their means for the accomplishment of the objects of the treaty without, however, taking any part in the hostilities between the two contending parties.”

In accordance with this treaty, a demand was made on the Porte, by the ambassadors of the three Powers, for an armistice, and for a pacification of Greece on the basis above described. The Porte indignantly refused to entertain the proposed mediation. It denied the right of the Powers to intervene as regards its Greek subjects. In a manifesto to its own people, the Porte justified its refusal to mediate on the proposed basis. It denied that the Greeks had any cause for complaint against the Ottoman rule. “It is notorious,” it said, “that these Greeks have been treated like Mussulmans in every respect and as to everything which regards their property, their personal security, and the defence of their homes, and that they have been loaded with benefits by the present Sultan.”

The negotiations between the Porte and the ambassadors were protracted by the former, in order that an Egyptian fleet, bringing large reinforcements to Ibrahim in Greece, might arrive at Navarino before the conclusion of them. After the final rejection of the proposals of the ambassadors, instructions were given to the combined fleet of the three Powers to effect a blockade of the Greek ports, and to prevent the entrance or departure of any Turkish or Egyptian vessels of war.

The combined fleet, under command of the British admiral, Sir Edward Codrington, thereupon took up a position outside the bay of Navarino. The admiral then entered into negotiations with the Turkish admiral and concluded an armistice on behalf of the Greeks. In spite of this, the Egyptian troops, under Ibrahim Pasha, continued to ravage the Morea in the most cruel manner, devastating property, murdering the men, and carrying off the young women for sale as slaves in Egypt. As the winter was approaching, the British admiral thought it would be difficult to maintain his position outside the bay. He determined, therefore, to enter the bay with his fleet. The combined fleet consisted of ten vessels of the line, ten frigates and smaller vessels, with about twelve hundred guns. The Turko-Egyptian fleet consisted of five ships of the line, fifteen frigates, and sixty-two smaller vessels, armed with two thousand guns. It was anchored in a crescent facing the entrance of the bay. There were also batteries on shore commanding the entrance of the bay. The allied fleet entered the bay without opposition from these batteries and anchored in a line alongside of the Turkish and Egyptian vessels.

It was obvious that the position was a most critical one, almost certain to lead to an armed conflict. The Turks fired the first gun and broke the armistice, whether intentionally, or not, is not quite clear. The challenge was taken up. There followed a fierce battle between the two fleets. In a few hours of this 20th of October, 1827, the Turko-Egyptian fleet was completely destroyed. With the exception of some of the smaller craft, all the vessels were sunk or burnt. Their crews had fought valiantly, but they were no match for those of the allied fleet. But their guns caused much loss of life and did much damage, and the British battleships, after the battle, were compelled to return to England for repairs. The batteries on shore did not begin to fire until the allied fleet had taken position. They might have effected much more damage if they had fired on the fleet when entering the bay. A more complete destruction of a fleet had never occurred.

This great victory gave no satisfaction to the British Government. The spirit of Canning no longer inspired it. He had died since the initiation of the policy which inevitably led to this naval battle. On the meeting of the British Parliament, early in 1828, the Speech from the Throne referred to the battle in the following terms: “His Majesty deeply laments that this conflict should have occurred with the naval force of our ancient ally. He still entertains a confident hope that this untoward event will not be followed by further hostilities.” The Duke of Wellington, who was now Prime Minister, when challenged in the House of Lords as to the expression ‘untoward event,’ said:—

The Ottoman Empire was an essential part of the balance of power in Europe. Its preservation had been for many years an object to the whole of Europe. While he acquitted the British admiral of all blame, he pointed out that, under the treaty of London, one of the stipulations was that the operation was not to lead to hostilities. When, therefore, the operation under the treaty did lead to hostilities, it certainly was an untoward event.

It is difficult, however, to conceive how the Duke, who had negotiated the treaty with the Czar of Russia, could have supposed that, in the event of the Sultan not agreeing to the terms of mediation, the use of force against him could be avoided.

However that might have been, the destruction of the Ottoman fleet at Navarino was of momentous importance. It cut off the communication between Ibrahim Pasha and Egypt. It restored to Greece command of the sea in the archipelago. It assured the supremacy of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea. This last was of enormous value to the Russians in the war which soon broke out with Turkey. It facilitated the capture of Varna, and enabled the Russian army to advance across the Balkans and to threaten Constantinople.

Ibrahim Pasha, finding his position in the Morea untenable, entered into a convention with the British admiral under which he was permitted to withdraw the Egyptian army from Greece and embark it for Alexandria without molestation from the allied fleet. There remained in the Morea only the Turkish troops. They held most of the fortresses there. Later, a French army, under General Maison, was, by agreement with the allies, sent to the Morea. It soon cleared the whole country of the Turkish troops.

Meanwhile, the Sultan at Constantinople, in spite of the destruction of his fleet at Navarino, still maintained an obstinate refusal to accede to the terms of the treaty of London. The ambassadors of England and France thereupon left the city. Differences then began to arise between the three allied Powers. The Emperor of Russia proposed to employ coercive measures against Turkey, and for this purpose to occupy Moldavia and Wallachia. England and France rejected the proposal. They wished to preserve the Ottoman Empire as well as to secure the independence of Greece. But the Greek question was only one of the complaints of Russia against Turkey. It had also grave reasons to complain that the treaty of Bucharest and the later treaty of Akermann of 1826, confirming and extending it, were disregarded by the Porte, which still occupied Moldavia, Wallachia, and Serbia by its armies. The Sultan, in a manifesto to his own people, had publicly announced that he had entered into the treaty of Akermann with the full intention of not being bound by its terms, and that he regarded Russia as his hereditary foe.

On April 26, 1828, Russia declared war against Turkey. England and France found themselves in a position when they could not object, for the Porte still refused their demands as regards Greece. They had joined with Russia in destroying the Turkish fleet. They were now compelled to stand by while the Russians invaded Turkey. The position, and still more the results of the war, showed what a grave error Mahmoud committed when he refused to agree to the scheme of the allied Powers for granting autonomy to Greece under the suzerainty of Turkey. If he had accepted, his fleet would have been intact. England and France would have been in a position to object to Russia’s schemes. As it was, Greece secured an absolute independence, and Wallachia, Moldavia, and Serbia were soon, by the victories of Russia, to secure the status of complete autonomy which the Sultan had refused to Greece.

The Emperor Nicholas, in nominal command of his army, crossed the Pruth on May 7, 1828. His force consisted of not more than sixty-five thousand men, a surprisingly small number for the greatest military Power in Europe to put into the field. It was necessary, however, to keep a large army in Poland, where an outbreak was expected. Another army was stationed in the Ukraine to watch Austria, who regarded the Russian attack on Turkey with suspicion and malevolence; and a fourth army of thirty thousand men, under General Paskiewich, invaded Asia Minor from the Caucasus. With the main army it was hoped to cross the Balkans and to menace Constantinople. The Turks offered no resistance in Moldavia and Wallachia. But it was not till June 8th that the Russians were able to effect a crossing over the Danube. The Sultan, on his part, commenced the campaign under great disadvantages. His old army of Janissaries had recently been destroyed. The new army, equipped and drilled in the fashion of European armies, was very raw and ill-trained. It consisted of very young men, who were recruited with difficulty, often by compulsion, for the new service was very unpopular, and the older men could not be induced to join. It did not count more than forty-five thousand men, exclusive of the artillery. It was supplemented by irregulars from Asia, and the total force under arms was estimated at one hundred and eighty thousand men, of whom, after providing for the defence of Constantinople and the Dardanelles, for a reserve at Adrianople and for other demands on the Empire in Europe and Asia, there remained only fifty thousand men to oppose the Russians in Bulgaria, and to provide garrisons for the fortresses on the Danube and for Schumla and Varna. These garrisons, however, were supported by the armed Turkish inhabitants of the towns, who could be relied on for a vigorous resistance. The Turks were under the further disadvantage that the greater part of their fleet had been destroyed at Navarino. The Russians were, in consequence, completely masters in the Black Sea. They were able to send to the Ægean archipelago another fleet, which blockaded the Dardanelles.

In spite of these difficulties, the Turks made an unexpectedly vigorous defence against the Russian invasion in Europe. The campaign of 1828 was mainly one of sieges, where the Turkish soldiers, supported by Moslems of the fortified towns, fought to the best advantage behind walls and earthworks. They could make but a poor stand in the open against their better trained enemy.

The Russians, after crossing the Danube, laid siege to Ibrail, the most important fortress on the lower stretch of the river, and which it was essentially necessary to capture before making an advance to Schumla. The garrison and inhabitants made a gallant resistance, and it was only after five weeks that it was compelled to surrender, on June 17th. The Russian army was then divided into three parts—the one to attack Silistria, the capture of which was almost as necessary as that of Ibrail; the second to besiege Varna; the third and most important, under the Emperor, to march to Schumla. The attack on Silistria failed, and after some weeks the force employed against it marched in the direction of Schumla to support the Czar’s army. Even with this addition it was found impossible to invest the fortified camp of the Turks behind Schumla, and, after a demonstration, it was compelled to hold a defensive position, in front of Schumla, while the Czar and a part of the army marched in support of the division before Varna.

On August 18th the Czar arrived there with a reinforcement of nine thousand men, and the siege then commenced, while the Russian Black Sea fleet of eight ships of the line and three frigates, under command of Admiral Greig, joined in the attack from the sea. The Turks again made a desperate and prolonged defence, which might have been successful if it had not been that Jussuf Pasha, in command of the garrison, with five thousand of his men, traitorously deserted the city, on October 14th, and threw themselves on the mercy of the Czar. The remainder of the garrison, under the Capitan Pasha, refused to be a party to the surrender. It was said that the cause of this extraordinary act of treachery was that the Sultan, in pursuance of his policy of concentrating all power and authority in himself, had been persuaded by an intrigue to confiscate the property of Jussuf, who was one of the few large landowners in Turkey, while the owner was gallantly fighting the enemy at Varna. However that may be, the remaining garrison was soon compelled to capitulate, and this most important stronghold fell into the hands of the Russians. Without it no advance could possibly have been made across the Balkans.

The campaign of 1828 came to an end with the surrender of Varna. Though the Russians had been able to capture two of the four fortresses which barred their way to the Balkans, the campaign had not been without success to the Turks. They had shown unexpected powers of resistance, and had prevented for a year the achievement of the main object of the Russians—their advance to Constantinople. The losses of the Russians had been very great, not only in the sieges, but by disease, which dogged their armies as usual.

Baron von Moltke, the German general, who, at the invitation of the Sultan, was with the Turkish headquarters during this war, writes of the Russian and Turkish troops in his remarkable history of it:—

The faults of the Russian Staff were atoned for by the innate excellence of the Russian troops. The self-sacrificing obedience of the commanders, the steadiness of the common soldiers, their power of endurance and unshaken bravery in times of danger, were the qualities that enabled them to avert the dangers of their position before Schumla and to hold the Turks in check, and to make up for all deficiencies and overcome all resistance at Varna.32

Of the Turks he adds:—

We cannot say much for the skill of the Turkish commanders, but the conduct of the Turks, from the highest officers to the last soldier at the storming of Ibrail, their courage and steadiness in the mines and trenches before Varna, were far above all praise.

In Asia the Turks had not done so well. General Paskiewich was able to defeat the army in front of him and to capture the important stronghold of Kars and its adjoining district.

The campaign of 1829 began late. It was not till the middle of May that the Russian army again took the field, not on this occasion under the Czar, but under General Diebitsch, who proved to be a most able general and diplomatist. The army was again most inadequate for the campaign which was in contemplation—namely, the crossing of the Balkans and an advance to Constantinople. It consisted of no more than sixty-eight thousand men, a force which, in these days, eighty-eight years later, would count for little or nothing. It was thought necessary, as a condition precedent to any advance, to capture Silistria. The siege was commenced on May 17, 1829. The Russian force detailed for this was not more than fourteen thousand men. The Turks who defended it were twenty-one thousand in number, including eight thousand armed inhabitants. In spite of this disparity of numbers, the town was captured after a siege of forty-four days, on July 26th, at a loss to the Russians of two thousand five hundred men.

In the meantime Diebitsch had advanced with the main army in the direction of Schumla. Reschid Pasha, who had replaced Hussein Pasha as Grand Vizier and Seraskier, issued from Schumla with forty thousand men, and on June 18th a great battle took place at Kulewtska. The Turks were utterly defeated by a very inferior force of Russians. They had begun the battle with an impetuous charge, but they could not sustain it against the serried ranks of the Russian veterans. Some ammunition wagons exploded and, as often happened with the Turks, a wild panic ensued. They fled from the field of battle and dispersed in all directions. All their artillery fell into the hands of the Russians. Reschid escaped at the head of six hundred men and found his way to Schumla, where there were ten thousand Turks, and where a large number of fugitives from the battle eventually found refuge. This victory at Kulewtska had far-reaching effects. It was the first great battle in which the new troops of Mahmoud were tested. It showed that the Russian soldiers had an overwhelming superiority.

Silistria fell on July 13th. The Russians who had been engaged in the siege then joined Diebitsch before Schumla. The general thereupon decided on the bold and even perilous course of crossing the Balkans, without previously capturing Schumla and its army. Leaving ten thousand men to mask that fortress, where a much greater force of Turks was now assembled, consisting largely of men demoralized by the recent defeat, Diebitsch commenced his march with such secrecy that for some days the Turks were not aware of it. Reschid Pasha, expecting an attack on Schumla, and thinking his force insufficient for its defence, had called in the various corps who were posted for the defence of the mountain passes. Diebitsch therefore met with no opposition. He crossed the mountains in nine days of forced marches fraught with great hardship to his troops. When south of the mountain range, he deflected his route to the Black Sea and got into communication with the Russian fleet, under Admiral Greig, which assisted in the capture of Bourgas and other ports along the coast, and afforded supplies to Diebitsch’s army.

Three battles were fought south of the mountains, at Aidos, Karnabad and Slivno, where small divisions of Turks were defeated and dispersed. After three weeks from crossing the Balkans, Diebitsch arrived in front of Adrianople, a city of eighty thousand inhabitants, with a garrison of ten thousand men. His army was by this time reduced to less than twenty thousand men. Its appearance before Adrianople caused wild panic. Never before had a hostile army crossed the southern range of the Balkans. It was thought to be impossible. It was confidently believed that the Russian army numbered over one hundred thousand men. The city and its garrison surrendered without making a show of fight. Everywhere on its route through Bulgaria the Christian raya population had received the invaders with acclamation and the Turks had thrown away their arms and fled. The campaign of 1829 in Asia had been almost equally disastrous to the Turks. Paskiewich had defeated them in a pitched battle and had captured Erzerum. He was now approaching Trebizond, after dispersing an army on the way.

When news reached Constantinople of the crossing of the Balkans and the capture of Adrianople, there was consternation and dismay among Turks of all classes. The Sultan almost alone maintained his presence of mind. He issued a proclamation calling on all the Turks in the city to join in its defence. He announced his intention to take command in person. The sacred banner of the Prophet was unfurled. But when, at the first review of the forces, the Sultan appeared in a carriage and not on horseback, this “unheard of and indecorous innovation” chilled the enthusiasm of the volunteers, and undid the good which was expected from his action.

There was no great zeal for the defence of the capital. The chief ministers of the Porte were unanimous in advising the Sultan to sue for terms of peace. They were quite ignorant of the weakness of the Russian army. They believed the stories that more than a hundred thousand men were advancing on the capital. There were no troops at Constantinople, they said, able to meet this army. The ambassadors of England and France, who had recently returned to Constantinople, at the invitation of the Sultan, backed up the ministers, and urgently advised him to come to terms with the enemy. We now know that all this advice and these alarms were founded on false information and that there was no real justification for them. In fact, the real position of the Russian army was one of extreme danger. It had suffered great losses on the battlefields and from the hardships of the forced marches, and was also being decimated by disease. There was no possibility of its being reinforced. Retreat across the Balkans was almost impossible. The Turkish army at Schumla was now reinforced. On its flank there was an army of twenty thousand Albanians, under the rebellious Pasha of Scotra, who had refused aid to the Porte in the earlier part of the campaign, but who, now that the existence of the Empire was threatened, might confidently be expected to come to its aid. Advance to Constantinople might also be dangerous, if not impossible. It was distant one hundred and forty miles. Its garrison of thirty thousand men, supplemented by fresh volunteers, might be relied on to meet the Russians, now reduced to much less than twenty thousand. These difficulties of the Russian army, however, were not known to the Porte.

In view of the strong pressure brought to bear upon him, the Sultan, for once in his life, gave way, and agreed to send plenipotentiaries to Adrianople to discuss terms of peace. Diebitsch well knew the danger of his position, and was anxious to make peace, but he maintained an attitude of firmness and confidence. He was ready, he said, to discuss terms, but he was equally willing to advance with his army against the capital. Already a part of his army was pressed forward. It occupied a line from the Black Sea at Kilia to Enos in the archipelago—a distance of over one hundred miles, much too long for his weak force. It is recognized by Moltke and all military authorities that if the Porte had stood firm and had refused to agree to terms, Diebitsch could not have made good his threatened attack on the capital. In the history of war there has never been a more successful case of ‘bluff.’ The Porte gave in to unreasoning and ill-informed fear, and on September 19th peace was concluded between the two Powers and the treaty of Adrianople was signed.

It is certain [said Moltke] that this treaty released Diebitsch from a position as perilous as could well be conceived, and which, if prolonged for a few more days, might have caused him to be hurled down from the summit of victory to the lowest depth of ruin and destruction.33

The terms of peace agreed to were moderate, so far as Russia itself was concerned, though very serious in their effect on the Ottoman Empire. The Czar had proclaimed at the outset of the war that he had no desire for territorial aggrandizement. He fully adhered to this promise. With two comparatively small exceptions, Russia gave up all the territory which it had conquered in the war, both in Europe and Asia. It retained only a small part of Moldavia which gave access to the Sulina mouth of the Danube, a position of great importance to it in the future. In Asia, Kars and Erzerum were given back to Turkey. In Europe, the Pruth continued to be the boundary of the two States. But Moldavia and Wallachia, though nominally restored to the Ottoman Empire, were practically freed from it. They were to enjoy complete autonomy. The Hospodars, in future, were to be appointed for life. The two States were to be allowed to raise armies independent of the Porte. The tribute payable in future was to be fixed, and could not be increased. Religious and commercial freedom were to be secured to them. The Sultan was to be their suzerain and nothing more. This meant practical independence. The same privileges were secured for Serbia, with the exception that the Porte was to be permitted to garrison the fortresses of Belgrade and Orsova. The Turks were required to depart from all other parts of the country. Silistria was to be returned to Turkey, but other fortresses on the Danube were to be razed. That river, therefore, ceased to be the first defence of the Turkish Empire to the north. An indemnity of eleven and a half million ducats, equal to five millions sterling, was to be paid by Turkey for the expenses of Russia in the war. The payment was to be spread over ten years, and the territory occupied by Russia was not to be wholly surrendered till this was effected.

As regards Greece, the treaty embodied and made obligatory on the Sultan the provisions of the treaty of London of July, 1827, between the three Powers, and the further protocol between them of March 1829, which defined the future limits of Greece. Under the protocol, the boundary line was to run from the Gulf of Volo to the Gulf of Arta, so as to include the greater part of Thessaly. The country south of this was to be subject to a monarchical government, hereditary in a Christian prince to be chosen by the three Powers, with the consent of the Porte and under the suzerainty of the Sultan, and with an administration best calculated to ensure its religious and commercial liberty. This proposal had been submitted to the Sultan by the ambassadors of England and France on March 22, 1829. He had then obstinately refused to have anything to say to it. When the Russians had crossed the Balkans, the Sultan, in the hope of propitiating England and France, offered to the ambassadors to agree to an autonomous Greece under a Hospodar, limited, however, to the Morea. This the ambassadors refused. The Porte, under the treaty with Russia, now agreed to their full demand.

The Governments of England and France appear to have taken umbrage at the action of Russia in dealing with the subject of Greece in a separate treaty with the Porte. It was thought that the Czar wished to get all the credit of liberating Greece from Turkish rule. They therefore informed the Russian Government that the execution of the treaty of London of 1827 did not belong to the Czar alone, but was to be the work of the three Governments. In consequence of this a further conference took place in London, at which it was decided that the suzerainty of the Sultan over Greece was to be abolished, and complete independence was to be secured to the Greeks. They also came to the unfortunate decision that the line of boundary of the new kingdom was to be greatly restricted, and instead of running from the Gulf of Volo to the Gulf of Arta, was to be drawn from the mouth of the Archilous to the mouth of the Sperkius, thus excluding from the new kingdom the whole of Acarnania and the greater part of Thessaly, where the population was almost wholly Greek. They also decided that Crete was not to be included, but was to be restored to Turkish rule. Mr. Finlay says of this: “Diplomatic ignorance could not have traced a more unsuitable boundary.”34

The Sultan agreed to this new project. He probably preferred a smaller Greece with complete independence to a larger one with full autonomy, subject to his suzerainty. Greece was accordingly recalled into national existence with a greatly reduced area, leaving outside large districts with completely homogeneous Greek populations. This was fraught with grave difficulties in the future. One effect of it was that Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, who, later, as King of the Belgians, proved to be one of the most able rulers of his day, refused to accept the throne of Greece on the ground that its area was too restricted, and Otho, a son of the King of Bavaria, was selected by the Powers for the post, and proved to be a most incompetent and reactionary ruler. It would seem that Lord Aberdeen, who was Minister of Foreign Affairs in England at the time, and who was mainly responsible for these changes, was anxious to restrict the kingdom of Greece to the smallest possible area.

Reverting to the treaty of Adrianople, it is to be observed that while Russia acquired a very insignificant extension of territory, and was content with the prestige of having dictated its terms, and with having acquired a position such that it might insist on its behests to the Porte, as regards its Christian subjects, being obeyed in the future, Turkey lost very greatly. It was said that the Sultan, after signing the treaty, shut himself up in his palace at Therapia for weeks in gloomy despair. There was much cause for this. The treaty was a complete surrender of all that he had been contending for since his accession to the throne. It was humiliating to himself and his Turkish subjects. It was the inevitable precursor of much that was to occur to other parts of his Empire. His grief and indignation must have been greatly aggravated when he came to know the real condition of the Russian army at Adrianople and to appreciate that, if he had stood firm in resisting the advice of his ministers and of the ambassadors, the Russian army would have been quite unable to make an advance against Constantinople. This, however, should not lead us to forget the supreme error which Mahmoud committed in refusing to come to terms with the three Powers as regards Greece after the treaty of London. If in 1827, the Sultan had been willing to make concessions in the direction of autonomy to Greece, it is nearly certain that there would have been no declaration of war on the part of Russia, and in the event of war he would not have been wanting in allies. His fleet would not have been destroyed at Navarino, and time would have been afforded to him to reorganize his army and to make it effective against those of the Christian Powers. As it was, not only did he lose all real hold over Moldavia, Wallachia, and Serbia, not only did Greece gain its independence, but he was soon to lose all real authority in Egypt, a Moslem country, except the barren right of suzerainty of the Sultan and a fixed tribute in money.

It has already been stated that when, in 1824, the Sultan invited the aid of the Pasha of Egypt to crush rebellion in Greece, Mehemet Ali only consented to lend his army and fleet on the express promise that the Pashalics of Syria, Damascus, Tripoli (in Asia), and Crete would be given to him, in addition to that of Egypt. But when in 1827, after the destruction of the Turko-Egyptian fleet at Navarino and the expulsion of the Egyptian army from the Morea, Mehemet Ali pressed for the performance of this promise, he met with a blank refusal, except as regards the island of Crete, the Pashalic of which alone was conferred on him. Mehemet was very indignant at this breach of promise, and determined to seize by force the provinces which he coveted. He set to work with great resolution to build another fleet, in place of that which had been burnt or sunk, and to improve and strengthen his army.

By 1832 he completed these preparations for war. He then picked a quarrel with the Pasha of Syria and, pretending to make war against him and not against the Sultan, sent an army, under Ibrahim, across the desert into Syria. It captured Gaza and Jerusalem without difficulty, and then marched to Acre, where the Egyptian fleet met it and co-operated in a successful attack on that fortress. After this success Ibrahim marched with his army to Aleppo and Damascus, defeating two Turkish armies. He then crossed the mountains into Asia Minor, and fought another great battle at Konia on October 27, 1832, and defeated a large Turkish army. He then marched to Brusa.

These disasters caused the greatest alarm at Constantinople. There was no other Turkish army in the field capable of resisting the march of Ibrahim’s army to the Bosphorus. In his peril the Sultan appealed to the British Government for aid against the Egyptians, offering a close alliance for the future. He met with a refusal, at the instance of Lord Palmerston, who did not then appear to value a Turkish alliance, though the British Ambassador at Constantinople, Sir Stratford Canning, strongly advised it. Mahmoud then appealed for aid to the Emperor of Russia, who gladly availed himself of the opportunity of increasing his influence in Turkey and of effecting a virtual protectorate over it. For a second time, within recent years, a close alliance was formed between the Czar and the Sultan, and in February, 1833, a Russian fleet issuing from Sebastopol conveyed an army to the Bosphorus for the defence of Constantinople.

For a time the influence of Russia became predominant. None but Russians had access to the Sultan. Russian troops and sailors were seen everywhere, and Russian officers were employed to drill and command the Turkish battalions. This state of things caused great alarm to the British and French Governments. They were both concerned in preventing Russia obtaining possession or control of Constantinople. They felt it was necessary to stay the advance of Ibrahim’s victorious army, which was the excuse for the presence of the Russians at Constantinople. They offered, therefore, to the Sultan that if he would insist on the withdrawal of the Russian army from his capital, they would guarantee him against the further invasion of Mehemet Ali’s army. France, though always very friendly to Mehemet Ali, and in favour of his independence as against the Sultan, had no wish to see Constantinople in the hands of Russia.

By dint of great diplomatic pressure, in which Lord Palmerston took the leading part with the greatest ability, a double arrangement was effected. On the one hand, Mehemet Ali, perceiving that he would be powerless to attack Constantinople against the opposition of Russia, England, and France, was induced to come to terms with the Sultan. A convention was signed between them in 1833, and a firman was issued by the Porte under which Mehemet was confirmed as the Pasha, not only of Egypt, but of Syria, Damascus, Adana, Tripoli, and Crete, an immense accession of dignity and power to him. The Sultan was to be suzerain and the Pashalics were conferred on Mehemet Ali only for his life, and there was no promise that they would be continued to his son Ibrahim or other descendants. The concession, however, as it stood, was most humiliating to the Sultan. On the other hand, Russia agreed with the Porte to withdraw its troops from Constantinople and the Bosphorus, but only on the promise, embodied in the treaty of Hunkar Iskelesi, that Russian ships of war should have the privilege of passing through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, at any time, without obtaining the consent of the Porte, a privilege which was to be denied to the ships of other Powers, unless with the previous consent of Russia. It also secured to Russia the right to send an army to the Bosphorus and land it there whenever the exigencies of the Turkish Empire made it expedient to do so. The firman to Mehemet Ali was dated May 5, 1833, and the treaty of Hunkar Iskelesi was agreed to with Russia on July 8th of the same year. By these two measures, the result of a great diplomatic struggle, the menace of Mehemet Ali against Constantinople, which at one time seemed likely to involve all the Powers in Europe in war, was brought to an end. The Egyptian army was withdrawn into the provinces added to the Pashalic of Mehemet Ali, and the Russian troops were recalled by the Czar from Constantinople.

After this settlement, very favourable both to Russia and Egypt, but humiliating to Turkey, a period of a few years’ repose was accorded to the Sultan, so far as his relations with the Emperor Nicholas and Mehemet Ali were concerned. But there were frequent internal troubles and outbreaks, which were put down by Mahmoud, not without some difficulty. Both Mahmoud and Mehemet Ali spent the interval in making preparations for another encounter. Mahmoud could not acquiesce in the virtual independence of so large a part of his Empire under Mehemet Ali. The latter was determined to convert his Pashalic into an hereditary one and to attain virtual independence of the Porte. He had ambitions also to supplant Mahmoud as the head of the Ottoman Empire. The Sultan, during this time, employed a large number of Prussian officers, under Colonel von Moltke—later to become so famous in the Franco-German War of 1870 in command of the German army—to train his army, while Mehemet Ali again employed French officers for the same purpose. Five years elapsed before war again broke out between them.

In 1838 Mehemet Ali, having completed all his arrangements for war with his suzerain, announced his intention to pay no more tribute in the future to the Porte. This amounted to a declaration of independence and a renunciation of allegiance. Mahmoud, on his part, was determined to crush his rebellious vassal, and collected an army on the Euphrates for the invasion of Syria. The opportunity seemed to be a favourable one, as the population of Syria was in revolt against Mehemet Ali, whose government had proved to be almost as oppressive and tyrannical as that of the Sultan. Early in 1839 Mahmoud declared war and gave directions to his army to invade Syria. He also fitted out a fleet, consisting of nine ships of the line and twenty-four smaller vessels, and directed it to proceed to Syria and to co-operate with his army advancing from the Euphrates.

Both these expeditions of the Porte came to grief. The army which invaded Syria met the Egyptians, again under command of Ibrahim, at Nazeb on June 25, 1839. The two armies were about equal in number, each of them about forty thousand. The Turks were completely defeated. Many of their battalions deserted on the field of battle and went over to the enemy; the remainder were routed and dispersed. Six thousand of them were killed and wounded; ten thousand were taken prisoners. One hundred guns and great masses of stores fell into the hands of the Egyptians. The Turkish army in these parts ceased to exist.

The great Turkish fleet had sailed from the Bosphorus on July 6th amid many popular demonstrations. It was under the command of the Capitan Pasha, Achmet, who proved to be a traitor. After passing through the Dardanelles, instead of following his instructions by making his course to the coast of Syria, Achmet sailed direct to Egypt, and there entered the port of Alexandria with flying colours and handed over the fleet to the enemy of the Sultan, the rebellious Pasha Mehemet Ali, a proceeding without precedent in history. It was only accomplished, we may presume, by profuse bribery on the part of the crafty Pasha.

Mahmoud was spared the knowledge of these two signal disasters to his Empire. He died on July 1, 1839, some writers allege from the effect of alcohol, though this is doubtful. Creasy and many other historians are unstinting in praise of Mahmoud. They assign to him a very high position in the list of Sultans. They bear testimony to his high civic courage, and to the firm resolution with which he confronted the many crises of his reign. We must fully admit these qualities. Few sovereigns in history have had to deal with such a succession of grave difficulties. Almost alone he bore the weight of Empire. We must not, however, lose sight of the fact that his administration and diplomacy were fraught with failure, that his Empire incurred greater losses than under any previous Sultan, that his armies met with invariable defeat, not only on the part of numerically weaker armies of Russia, but also from insurgent Greeks and Serbians, and even from Egyptians, whose fighting qualities were much inferior to those of the Turks. His firmness and resolution were very great, but they failed him at the supreme crisis of his career, when the Russian army, with quite inadequate numbers, after serious losses in battle and by disease, threatened Constantinople from Adrianople, and when it is now quite certain that, if Mahmoud had stood firm and had refused to come to terms, overwhelming disaster must have befallen the Russians. At another crisis also his firmness amounted to most unwise obstinacy when he refused, in 1827, to concede autonomy to Greece at the instance of the Great Powers—a supreme error from which all his subsequent misfortunes logically followed. Mahmoud seems also to have been wanting in magnetism to inspire his generals and soldiers with his own courage and resolution. He does not compare in this respect with his contemporary and rival, Mehemet Ali. He had little of the martial vigour and of the craft of that great vassal. If the Great Powers had not intervened, it was highly probable, if not certain, that Ibrahim’s army would, either in 1833 or in 1839, have marched to Constantinople, have effected a revolution there, and have put an end to the Othman dynasty. It might have given new life to the decadent Turkish Empire. In any case, there was no reason why Mahmoud, if he had been endowed with Mehemet Ali’s genius and administrative capacity, should not have created an army superior in force and discipline to that of the Egyptian Pasha, and equal to the task of preventing the Russians from crossing the Balkans.