A British officer

Anecdote—His Birth—Reforms—Sultan Mahmud—Enlistment in the Turkish army—His application—Expeditions among the wild tribes—Appointed Generalissimo—Present high position—Domestic life—Marriage—Personal habits—Kossuth and Hungarian refugees—War on the Danube—Battle of Oltenitza.

The life of Omer Pacha is connected with perhaps the most important period in the history of Turkey—an epoch of transition from the old state of things to the new.

About twenty-five years ago a young man arrived at Widdin, and asked to see Hussein Pasha, the commander of the place. His personal appearance was unusually prepossessing, being at once handsome and majestic. His complexion was fair and clear, his eyes soft and penetrating, and his limbs pliant and athletic. The Turks, who have a superstitious veneration for a fine physiognomy, and to whom, therefore, good looks are pre-eminently, as Queen Elizabeth said, an excellent letter of recommendation, received him with great cordiality and respect. Hussein was at this time encamped before Widdin, and living in a superb tent, to which the young stranger was directed. He happened unfortunately to get there just as Hussein was waking up in no very good humor.

“What do you want?” said he, impatiently, to the intruder.

“To enter your excellency’s service,” was the reply.

“I have too many attendants already. Go away.”

In Turkey it is allowable for people in the humblest condition to offer presents to a distinguished personage without any offence. Accordingly, the young man pulled a small parcel, carefully done up, out of his pocket, and presented it to the pasha, begging him to accept it.

“What is this?” said the pasha, when he had opened the parcel.

“Gloves, your excellency.”

“And what use are they?”

“When you go out in the sun, they will preserve the color of your hands (the pasha’s were very white), and when you are riding, they will prevent them from being blistered by the bridle.”

“But how do you put them on?”

The young man answered by putting one on the pasha’s hand.

“Now the other.”

This also was put on. Hussein then clapped his hands three times, and raised them above his head, just as the officers of his suite were entering the tent. Thanks to this pair of gloves, which were the admiration of the pasha and his staff the stranger was admitted into Hussein’s service. Now this stranger was no other than Latkes, now Omer Pasha.

Of his early life but little is known. His origin is Croatian; his native place Vlaski, a village in the district of Ogulini, thirteen leagues from Fiume, on the Adriatic Sea. He was born in 1801; the religion of his forefathers, and of his youthful years, was the Greek united faith, namely, that branch of the Greek worship subject to the Roman Pontiff. He received a liberal education. His father enjoyed the important charge of Lieutenant-Administrator of the district, and his uncle was invested with ecclesiastical functions. His instruction in mathematics and military engineering he received at the military school of Thurm, near Carlstadt, in Transylvania; and in 1822, when 21 years of age, after having distinguished himself in his studies, he entered the corps of Ponts et ChaussÉes in the Austrian service, with the rank of lieutenant, that body having just been organized by the government.

At twenty-nine he left the Austrian service; but the true cause of his taking this step has always remained a mystery. Many attributed it to a family misfortune; some to a quarrel he had with his superiors, followed by acts that would have subjected him to a court-martial.

Having made his escape, he passed into Bosnia in 1830, where he arrived wholly unknown, and it was only with difficulty he was able to engage himself as a servant in Kosrew Pacha’s house, who was then at Bosna-Serai.

The second reforming Sultan had of late organized his troops on a principle of reform, not only as to discipline, but also as to the mode of equipment. Only a year, the wide and overflowing dress, the majestic turbans, the silken shawls and rich furs had given way to the more simple fez and to the European pantaloon. He began himself to assume that costume. The Khatti Sherif ordering this change was only promulgated on the 3d of March, 1829, and the sensation which the new dress occasioned among the people did not fail, according to eye-witnesses, to draw forth tears and public mourning.

All the regular troops of the army he had formed abandoned, whether they liked it or not, the picturesque and rich costume, adopted the new uniform, and accepted the command of foreign officers. An indispensable condition to the advancement of a foreigner in the Turkish service was conversion to Islamism, and Latkes became a Mussulman, under the cognomen of Omer.

Meanwhile Old Turkey was clamorous in its protests against the progress of reform; nor was it long before its indignation broke out into acts of violence and bloodshed. Popular fury was often directed against Europeans, who were regarded as abetters of reform; and in August, 1831, ten thousand houses belonging to Europeans were a prey to the flames.

It was full time that these seditious demonstrations, and the sanguinary scenes enacted under former Sultans, should teach prudence to the fortunate, but daring and impetuous Mahmud. He felt the necessity of surrounding himself with faithful and vigorous-minded friends. He chose men qualified both as intelligent advisers and men of action. He invited to a great banquet in his palace his great state functionaries, the teachers of the law, the professors, the officers, the seven generals of the empire, the magnates of the nation, and the warmest partisans of his reforms. With glowing confidence and enthusiasm he spoke in the name of the national interest and the public cause, and called upon all to sacrifice personal feelings, party spirit, and internal divisions, to the fortune and the destinies of the empire. Mahmud’s unusual familiarity astonished the greater number of the bystanders. It was an innovation at variance with the dignity of the “Shade of Allah on earth,” but all felt themselves individually flattered by it. When the salams that Oriental courtesy prescribes had been multiplied to a countless number, at a hint given to the Great Master of the Ceremonies, a large piece of tapestry was raised, a gate was thrown open, and the Sultan invited all to enter. It was a vast hall, magnificently lighted. A large number of splendid ensigns covered a table inlaid with amber, and upon it lay the Prophet’s mantle. All prostrated themselves before the holy ensign; and by order of Mahmud, the Grand Seraskier pronounced a formula, and the sovereign, with his own hands, put on his minister’s breast the great decoration of the civil and military order. The ceremony was a kind of Masonic inauguration; the ribbons of the several degrees were distributed to all present, who were invited to pledge themselves to the Sultan and to each other. The mystery attending the meeting had given it a more solemn character. All repeated the Grand Seraskier’s formula; and the work of the regeneration of the empire had commenced.

This happened in October, 1831.

That Grand Seraskier was Kosrew Pacha, in whose service the Croat fugitive Latkes, now Mussulman Omer, had lived for the last year.

Eight years afterwards, on the 3d of November, 1839, the same hall was opened in broad day, and there, with all the solemnity of a national ceremony, the warmest supporters of Old Turkey, Sheik-ul-Islam, (the chief of the faith,) and the members of the body of Ulemas, who before the same holy shrine were sworn on the hands of the Mufti (ecclesiastical president) to observe the Tanzimat, were assembled. The ashes of Mahmud were still warm: it was the first act of the reign of Abdul Medjid. The victory had been rapid: Young Turkey had, on that day, triumphed over Old Turkey.

In the gardens called Gul-hane, near the kiosks of the palace, Reschid Pacha proclaimed the new organization of the empire, granting concessions “to all subjects, of whatever sect or religion.” That act so celebrated, virtually abolished capital punishment, by reserving the right of pronouncing it to the Sultan alone, who has never had recourse to it. The political, civil, and moral character of the Turks was raised by this memorable charter to a high standard.

Well aware of obstacles which they would have to encounter, Mahmud’s friends determined to select the proper moment for action. Kosrew Pacha, who was more earnest than any other in the cause, did not miss the opportunity of availing himself of Omer-Aga, whose ardent and restless character appeared to have no ambition but to have a field open to his energetic activity. In Turkey, nobility is not the result of birth, but mostly the gift of favor, sometimes of riches, seldom of merit. One of the most remarkable examples of ennobled Turks was Kosrew Pacha himself, who had been bought in the slave-bazaar. The manners of the highest personages do not differ from those of the lowest, and their family life is distinguished by great simplicity and benevolence, even towards the slaves. Moreover, the curiosity which a foreigner awakens everywhere, and more than anywhere else in Turkey, made the Pacha desirous of having frequent interviews with the Frank convert, who by his wit, the originality of his manners, and the singularity of his position, had become the subject of daily talk. The interviews with the Pacha succeeded each other; Omer’s military knowledge made itself manifest; his independent character, his talent, his boldness of conception, and power of carrying out his plans, forcibly attracted the attention of the Pacha. Omer made his former position and misfortune known; he interested, he pleased; the Pacha’s protection was insured to him, and he enlisted in the army of Turkish Regeneration.

Favored by the protection of Sultan Mahmud, to whom Kosrew Pacha had introduced him, after having been aide-de-camp to the Pacha, then aide-de-camp and interpreter to General Chzarnowsky, lastly an officer of the Imperial Guard; dissatisfied with the slow progress of his party, which was continually thwarted by provincial insurrections, he asked to be permitted to try his fortune in some of the expeditions which were continually being made, and began his military career in 1836. Bosnia, Servia, and Bulgaria were successively the theatres of his exploits.

From that day he applied himself to improving the efficiency of his army, paying attention not only to the discipline, but also to the education, of the soldier. The Mussulman, good and meek-hearted by nature, never ferocious but in individual cases, was raised by him to the self-consciousness of human dignity, by regulations, ordinances, and laws, calculated to make him cognisant of the rights, and conversant with the duties that belong to every one, in every state of life. Self-esteem—a feeling that, being once awakened from a long lethargy, soon endears itself to every man—discipline, and Omer’s benevolent disposition even towards the lowest of his soldiers, caused him to be loved by them more as a father than as a general.

After Mahmud’s decease, his expeditions continued under the new Sultan. In Albania, in Bosnia once more, in Syria, in the Kurdistan, among the wild tribes of the Ravendus, Romelia, in the Moldo-Wallachian Principalities, and in Montenegro, he was distinguished in both a military and civil capacity. Having adopted Turkey as a second country, he loved and loves her, not as a warrior merely, but as the member of a family which powerful enemies are attempting to disorganize and destroy. Before fighting, he always tried to conciliate; compelled to employ force, he never abused victory, to assuage either the resentment or the cupidity of his troops.

In a work so difficult as the regeneration of an entire nation, he had many fellow-laborers. Amongst them the first undoubtedly was an eminent man, whose talents as a diplomatist London and Paris have had occasion to notice, and whom they have since been able to appreciate as a statesman: we mean Reschid Pacha. We call him a companion, and not the chief of the enterprise; for Reschid Pacha, indeed, tried to transplant European civilization to the empire, though by measures which would have had no immediate utility without the activity of Omer Pacha.

In the midst of many labors, he ran through all the degrees of the army, till he obtained the rank of the highest in the Ottoman service. Invested with the great decoration of the Nichani-Iftikhar by Sultan Mahmud; with that of the MejidiÈ[4] by Sultan Abdul Medjid; and, lastly, presented at Shumla with a sword of honor, he could not avoid making bitter enemies. Old Turkey was continually watching him with envious rancor; but he shrewdly flattered its apostles when he thought it proper for his purpose; overpowered them with generosity, when an exchange of hostilities would have injured his cause; and openly set them at defiance when dissembling would have been weakness, and silence an act of cowardice.

At this hour he is the first general of the Ottoman army, and millions of eyes are anxiously turned towards him. If the past may afford a clue to judge of the future, the fortune of Omer Pacha has been constant for so many years as to leave no doubt of his ability. So brilliant, so important and high a position is not reached from the lowest condition, without one’s being possessed of merit, and that in an eminent degree.

His domestic life is very far from being tainted with the debauchery that is generally attributed, and often falsely, to the private conduct of the Moslems. He has had no more than two wives; and although he was allowed to have them contemporaneously, he did not marry the second until after his divorce from the former. This was a Turkish woman, daughter of an Aga of the Janissaries, who died in 1828, and was a pupil of his protector, Kosrew Pacha. Emancipated from the severe restraint of the harem to the liberty of European customs, she abused it, and forced her husband to a separation. The second is a European, and was a very young maid, of a mild and virtuous character, when he saw her first, and married her at Bucharest, where she was exercising, at fourteen years of age, the profession of a teacher of the pianoforte. She is from Cronstadt in Transylvania, and her name is Anna Simonich. He has no offspring but a natural daughter, born of an Arabian slave in Syria. A male child, the fruit of his new marriage, died at four months of age, crushed under a carriage upset in the passage from Travnich to Saraievo. He has, therefore, as yet, no probability of being remembered in his adopted country but by his deeds.

In Omer Pacha may be traced many of the essentials of a great general. He takes a warm interest in the welfare of his men, and knows how to earn their goodwill; at the same time that he treats them with a degree of severity bordering upon harshness. Like Bonaparte, he is fond of those short, quick, terse addresses, which, in a moment, electrify an entire army, and is consequently regarded with veneration by his troops, who yield him the most implicit obedience.

His habits are simple and frugal; he is active and indefatigable in business; of an upright, benevolent, and gentle character, with a somewhat nervous and excitable temperament; often generous, sometimes prodigal, always absolute, and little accustomed to being contradicted in his opinions. He is fifty-three years of age; he is tall and thin, has a martial bearing, an expressive and marked physiognomy, a quick and penetrating eye, a nose a little compressed, a thick and grey beard, a large head—a perfectly Croatian type.

Engaged in all the struggles of the two parties during the most important period of their existence, the principal instrument of progress and of Young Turkey, he always regretted the necessity of drawing the sword against his fellow-subjects. It was farthest from his wish to tinge it with blood, even to impose what was, if not the common desire, the common advantage, namely, the improvement of society in all its developments. But of these ill-omened seditions, Turkish subjects were the arms, while the head was invisible, and kept itself in security from his blows, beyond the frontiers.

Often, even far from the noise of arms, he baffled the plots of the insidious enemies of Turkey. The most enviable of his bloodless victories was the cause of Kossuth and the Hungarian refugees, whom he met at Shumla, whither he had purposely repaired. He espoused their cause before the Sultan and the ministers of the Porte. The Sultan’s sentiments regarding them were not less noble than his own; but his protection had for its object to neutralize the effect of foreign threats, lest, by the Sultan’s yielding to them, the cause of progress should be deprived of the most valuable accession of material and intellectual forces which the new-comers might confer on it. His wishes, owing especially to the intervention of the English fleet, were crowned with success, and he succeeded in taking many of them under his command. The immigration, indeed, of Italians, Hungarians, and Poles, has been no inconsiderable help to the progress of Turkey in late years. The popular sentiment hailed them, because they were the enemies of its enemies; and the accession of elements so free, so ardent, and enthusiastic for the cause that drew them to exile, added an immense and rapid impetus to the reform party. They caused no little uneasiness to Russia and Austria, who, in every negotiation with Turkey, even in the last question, always insisted on the banishment of the political refugees to Asia. Russia fears only civilized men, and therefore she must be met by civilization dressed up in its full armor. Turkish civilization would give her the greatest annoyance: not to thwart it by every possible means would be an eternal remorse; and not to succeed in crushing it in the bud would be followed by the bitterest regrets.

The internal contest has now disappeared before the external, and Omer Pacha beholds united under his banner both old and young Turkey.

Long and difficult was the line of country he had to defend along the Danube, but his preparations were well taken, and the Russians could scarcely have crossed at any point without encountering a well-served battery, and, had they even succeeded in penetrating to the Balkan, they would have found every height bristling with fortifications, every defile in the possession of an intrepid foe. The successes of the Russians in 1828–29 depended mainly upon causes which no longer exist. They had then the undisputed mastery of the Black Sea; the Turkish navy had just been annihilated; and the Mussulman army was wholly without organization. The reverse of this was now the case, and the battle of Oltenitza was an earnest of many reverses they were doomed subsequently to sustain.

The Ottoman general, alive to the impolicy of allowing Russian and Austrian intrigue free scope for action during the winter, and aware that his own men could not but become, to a great extent, demoralized by remaining for five months in sight of an arrogant foe, boldly determined to take the initiative, and to attempt, by force of arms, that which diplomacy had been unable to achieve.

Observing at a glance the immense importance of assuming a strong position before Kalafat (in Lesser Wallachia, opposite Widdin), whence he could effectually exclude the Russians from Servia, he adopted a plan for dividing simultaneously the attention and the forces of his adversary. While, therefore, a hostile division advanced, in Lesser Wallachia, upon Crajowa and Slatina, Omer Pacha prepared to land a large body of troops at Giurgevo, and a still larger detachment at Oltenitza. The attempt on Giurgevo, possibly intended only as a feint, was unsuccessful, but at Oltenitza the manoeuvre was brilliantly accomplished.

Early on the morning of the 2d November, 1853, the Turks, to the number of 9000, crossed the Danube, between Turtukai and Oltenitza, a small village occupied by the Russians, who, as soon as they perceived the design of the Mussulmans, made a vigorous but futile resistance. Omer Pacha’s troops, eager for the fray, leaped from the boats, long before they touched the bank, fought hand to hand with their antagonists in the water, soon carried the quarantine building, and fortified it with fascines.

The precision with which these various movements were effected, sufficiently attested the presence of the Turkish commander-in-chief.

The Russian General Danenberg, having been informed of this movement by the Turks, arrived, to direct in person measures for driving them back into the Danube. Eleven thousand Russians, under the command of Pauloff, were accordingly hastily collected, and, early on the 4th November, they commenced their attack. A brisk cannonade took place for some time on both sides. The Turks, quitting their entrenchments, threw out swarms of sharpshooters, and compelled a hussar regiment to take shelter in the rear of the infantry. The sharpshooters then formed into battalions, made several smart bayonet charges, and reËntered their entrenchments.

General Danenberg, astonished to find that an enemy he had held in such utter contempt should display so much courage and such knowledge of tactics, was desirous of bringing matters to a crisis; but, by an unlucky manoeuvre, he got entangled in difficult ground between two fires, which occasioned considerable slaughter among his ranks. After four hours’ hard fighting he was compelled to retreat, with the loss of a colonel, lieutenant-colonel, and twenty-four other officers, besides 370 rank and file killed, and 857 wounded.

Omer Pacha held the position thus acquired till the 11th of November, when, without any further molestation from the enemy, he voluntarily retired to the right bank of the Danube; the Turks having meanwhile strengthened and fortified their camp at Kalafat.

The affair at Oltenitza produced a surprising effect at Constantinople, and indeed throughout the whole Turkish empire. After a century of reverses, the Turks had achieved a victory over a nation which had long treated them with disdain, and had always ridiculed their achievements in the field. The printing-office of the official Gazette, and all the streets leading to it, were crowded with eager thousands, anxious to obtain copies of the supplement containing the details of the fight.

By a curious coincidence, on the same day and at the very hour that the battle of Oltenitza was being fought, the Sultan, who had announced his intention of heading the army in the spring, was being invested, at the mosque of the Sultan Mohamed, according to the Turkish ritual, with the title of Ghazi, or warrior, a dignity conferred on those Sultans who go forth for the first time to battle.

At Petersburg the dismay occasioned by the action of Oltenitza was so great, that the Czar gave immediate orders for those measures which resulted in the foul massacre of Sinope, as though he were desirous, by a deeper stain, to efface the dishonor his arms had already incurred.

Some days before the period fixed upon for the commencement of hostilities between Turkey and Russia, the Circassians had already matured their plans, and were prepared to take up arms vigorously against the troops of the Czar. But in Asia the enemies of Russia have scarcely been as successful as might have been anticipated, when their natural prowess, continued exercise in arms, and indomitable character, is taken into account. No deficiency of military ardor can, however, be imputed to men, who for upwards of fifty years have successfully resisted all attempts at subjugation, and have baffled the strategy of Russia’s ablest generals. The chief reason why, in the present instance, they have not achieved any very signal success, has been the difficulty they have encountered in communicating with the sea-board, and in obtaining an adequate supply of ammunition and arms.