Englishmen who are old enough to remember the Crimean war might well rub their eyes on coming to Constantinople to-day, where the stranger, after being shown the public fountain in Stamboul dedicated by the German Emperor to the Sultan, is taken over the water to Scutari, where, in the most picturesque cemetery in the world, England’s dead warriors sleep under the cool shade of the cypress-tree. Gone are the days when Englishmen and Turks fought as Allies, when the Sultan Abdul Medjid visited the British Embassy as the guest of his trusted friend, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, when English capitalists supported Turkey’s credit, and English merchant princes first introduced railways into Turkey and dominated the sea-borne commerce as well as the passenger traffic of the Levant. In those times the Englishman embodied in the eyes of the Mohammedan Turk all that was estimable and reliable among the “Franks.”

Since those comparatively recent days many changes have been wrought. Foreign bankers, powerful international syndicates have encroached upon English financial influence, and nearly all the Turkish railways and most of the shipping have gone into other than English hands. The finest passenger steamers that come to Constantinople are German, Austrian, Italian, and Russian. The dead alone sleep on as before, under the shady groves of Scutari.

Whatever may be the causes which have brought about these changes, it is permissible for an Englishman to deplore them, not only on economic grounds, but also as a matter of sentiment and of sympathy with the Turks, who have been the greatest losers thereby.

Alas that the supreme ordainment of things in the life of nations, even of whole races and creeds, takes small account of the ups and downs, the sufferings of whole generations of human beings, whatever be their virtues. The Albigenses represented a far higher level of culture, conduct, and principle than those who took up arms against them and brought about their extermination. So also with regard to the Turks in our day, their good qualities are not those which are imperative in order to enable a community to hold its own in times of strenuous commercialism and of unscrupulous political rivalry and intrigue.

For many years the traveller entering Turkish territory at the railway station of Mustapha Pasha saw the Custom House officers in ragged uniforms, on the look-out for baksheesh, since their small salary, if ever paid, was certainly in arrear. How could he come to any other conclusion than that conditions prevailed here which are no longer tolerable in Europe? For even in Asiatic Russia, with all its backwardness, they do not exist. This impression of the anachronism of a Turkey in Europe is likely to be applied to Asia as well by those who have traversed that part of the world, unless some drastic administrative and financial reforms are put into force at once.

Calling one day in the summer of 1896 at the British Embassy, at Therapia, the late Sir Michael Herbert, who was in charge during Sir Philip Currie’s absence, told me that about a hundred years ago the Ambassador of the French Republic at Constantinople, in writing home to his Government, wound up his letter by declaring that the prospects of Turkey looked so desperate that he would not be surprised if the Turkish Empire had ceased to exist before the arrival of his letter.

During a visit I paid to Constantinople in January 1907 something occurred which impressed me forcibly with the conviction that the Hamidian rÉgime, the desire of one man, however well-intentioned and industrious, to do single-handed all the directing work of an empire, was doomed to failure; and this in spite of the many evidences I had had, both in Europe and in Asia, of the personal popularity of the Sultan. It was the talk of Pera that the Chief of the Secret Police, Fehim Pasha, had been guilty of some extraordinary pranks; among them the instigation of sham conspiracies which he pretended to nip in the bud in order to give proof of his devotion to the Sultan. All attempts to draw the Sultan’s attention to this man’s misdeeds had apparently failed, owing, it was said, to His Majesty’s indulgence towards one who was the son of his own foster-brother. Emboldened by success, Fehim Pasha had extended his sphere of black-mailing operations to members of the European colony, while several murders were put to his account as having been their instigator. Still he managed to elude the arm of justice. At last he took upon himself to lay an embargo on a ship, either belonging to a German or in the cargo of which some German firm was interested. Here, however, he came into conflict with the German Ambassador, the late Baron Marschall von Bieberstein, who promptly took the part of his countrymen, saw that the embargo on the ship in question was removed, and, distrustful of the dilatoriness of the officials at the Sublime Porte, lodged a strongly worded complaint direct at the Palace. This ultimately resulted in Fehim Pasha being banished to Asia Minor, where he was subsequently assassinated by a mob in the street. This tragic development, however, only took place after I had left Constantinople.

The German Ambassador, who was always very friendly and frank with me, one day discussed the situation created by Fehim Pasha’s delinquencies. He convinced me that the man was a scoundrel, and that he himself had done no more than what he was perfectly entitled to do in endeavouring to bring one to book who was neither more nor less than a criminal miscreant, fully deserving to be given over to the public hangman.

I happened to call at the Palace next day, and went up as usual into the private room of Izzet Pasha, where, quite unexpectedly, I met my old friend Ahmed Midhat Effendi. It was one of the very few times I had ever known him to pay a visit to the Palace. Fehim Pasha’s crimes and the energetic measures of the German Ambassador formed the subject of conversation in the room. Izzet Pasha warmly expressed his indignation at an Ambassador presuming to interfere in what he considered to be a purely internal incident. “Qu’est ce qu’il s’imagine, ce Monsieur de Marschall?” Knowing what I did of the affair on such good authority, I was taken by surprise, the more so as Ahmed Midhat Effendi joined in upholding the innocence of the incriminated pasha. I could scarcely credit the culpable ignorance thus revealed to me by those to whom it should have been a first care not to lead their master astray on an issue of such vital importance. I said it was hopeless for the well-wishers of Turkey to attempt to say a good word for their Government as long as such things were possible; that the German Ambassador had had the training of a State Prosecutor, and certainly was not one to be misled by unreliable evidence, or to be moved from his point once he had decided upon it; and that English newspapers, which were not usually over-favourably disposed to German interests, had strongly supported the Ambassador in this particular matter. But it was all to no purpose. I failed to shake their belief in Fehim Pasha’s innocence. They even asserted that he was quite a good fellow. The most they would admit was that he had been somewhat hasty and headstrong owing to his youth, “un peu Étourdi.” It is only fair to state, however, that those present did not show any ill-feeling at my being so plain-spoken; but this was only in accordance with what I have so often experienced in the Turkish character. Still I left the Palace with a pessimistic feeling.

Sirry Bey, who had been the chief of our expedition in Armenia, called on me at the Pera Palace Hotel one evening and said: “I come to you on behalf of His Majesty. He feels his dignity trespassed upon by the interference of the German Ambassador in this Fehim Pasha business, which he holds to be one of an internal nature not concerning a foreign Ambassador, and he would like to see you.” I mentioned to Sirry Bey what I had heard from the Ambassador, and told him that it seemed to me to be a black business, and he would do well to convey this opinion to the Sultan. In due course I received a message to come up to the Palace immediately as the Sultan wanted to see me.

On my arrival I was taken in to His Majesty, and he at once began to discuss the Fehim Pasha incident, and to complain of the conduct of the German Ambassador. As the editor of the Daily Mail had asked me to send him a report in case I should have an opportunity of interviewing the Sultan, I asked His Majesty whether he would wish me to give his version of the affair to that paper, at the same time repeating to him what I had heard about Fehim Pasha’s delinquencies. Whether the Sultan attached any importance to what I told the interpreter I am unable to say, but in reference to my suggestion he held up his hands in a deprecatory manner, and uttered the words, “Yok! yok!” (“No! no!”) twice in succession.

“It is nothing more than my plain duty to see justice done,” the Sultan said to me. And as if it were monstrous that a doubt could exist with regard to so self-evident a truism, he added: “Even if it were one of my own sons, I would see justice done.”

Of course, I respected his wishes, and did not refer at all to the German Ambassador in my interview with His Majesty, a report of which appeared in the Daily Mail of March 8, 1907. There would also have been no point in my doing so, as I was convinced of the hopelessness of the Sultan’s case, whatever might have been the uncompromising attitude the German Ambassador had taken up. Since such outrages were possible under the very eyes of the diplomatic representatives of the Great Powers in the capital in broad day, was it not within the range of probability that many crimes which had been imputed to the Sultan had indeed been committed, though without his knowledge? I left Constantinople with the conviction that nothing, not even the support of the German Empire, could long sustain a rÉgime in which such things were allowed to happen.

The rivalry of the different European nationalities forms too important a feature in the eyes of the foreign visitor, at least those of a political turn, not to call for comment. Nowhere are Goethe’s words—written nearly a hundred years ago—more applicable than to this subject:

The idea conveyed is that whether a man speaks in the name of France, Britain, Italy, or Germany, the burden of his contention is invariably self-interest, self-love.

The question of German influence in Turkey has become such a prominent feature in the public eye that it seems to warrant more than a passing reference from one who has had many opportunities of following its development. Our attention has been drawn so much of late to this influence that we are apt to lose sight of what is likely to be a more lasting, as it is certainly a more valuable, feature, namely, its effect as a practical civilizing force. Indeed, this advent of the German, and with him of the Belgian, the Swiss, the Italian, and the Hungarian, as financial and industrial pioneers, as erectors of railways, schools, hospitals, and other useful institutions, may be said to mark a new beneficial era in the East. Nor should it be forgotten that the Germans and their partners have now and then shown a commendable spirit in inviting the co-operation of others whom they to some extent have superseded. For although the Anatolian Railway is essentially a German undertaking, M. Huguenin, a French Swiss, has been elected its chairman. The Mersina-Adana Railway, originally an English enterprise, has also been taken over by the Germans, but they have re-elected the former chairman, an Englishman, resident in Constantinople, to preside over the board of directors. Nor need there be any reason why, under normal conditions, a similar friendly co-operation should not exist in all directions, not merely in commercial and financial matters, but also in the domain of politics. It is therefore to be regretted that the flamboyant circumstances under which the Sultan’s IradÈ for the concession of the Bagdad Railway was obtained, and suddenly communicated to the world by the usual telegram, were calculated to arouse an uneasiness in the public mind which a less sensational departure would have avoided. The onerous financial guarantees imposed upon the Turkish Government by the German concessionnaires have not tended to increase the popularity of the German element among thoughtful Turks or the broad strata of the Turkish people who are called upon to make sacrifices for an undertaking the political and economic importance of which they have not the knowledge to appreciate. To such as these the German concessionnaire appears somewhat in the light of the usurer, who is now in addition credited with political aims which Germany long persistently repudiated. But however this may be, there can be little doubt that she has lost rather than gained in her hold on the sympathies of the Turks, since, in addition to the scalpel of the surgeon, the text-book of the schoolmaster, and the staff of Mercury, she has added the sword of the soldier and the Field-Marshal’s baton to the emblems of her activities in the Ottoman Empire, and increased the jealousy of the other Great Powers. Promises of political support to Turkey were undoubtedly given. The Sultan was encouraged to favour the reactionary military element in making appointments. Soldiers were asked for as Ambassadors in preference to diplomatists of Phanariote families, although the latter had supplied for generations past the most able Turkish diplomatists. By Imperial desire a Mohammedan Turkish cavalry officer, Tewfik Pasha, a charming companion, but one completely ignorant of politics, was appointed Turkish Ambassador in Berlin, and remained there until the Turkish revolution in 1908. It is not for non-Germans to decide whether it was to the advantage of the more solid German interests in Turkey and of Turkey herself that the Sultan’s favourites were loaded with Prussian decorations. The last Grand Vizier of Abdul Hamid, Ferid Pasha, an Albanian, only a few days before his dismissal received the Grand Cross of the Black Eagle, a distinction supposed to be on a level with our Order of the Garter. There are things a Government can do which would be reprehensible if done by a private individual, but there are also things which are permissible to an individual but which a Government cannot do without imperilling those unweighable assets the correct estimation and cherishing of which was one of Bismarck’s strongest points. He would never have stooped to such little manoeuvres; neither have the English nor the Russians nor even the French condescended to curry favour with the Turks by such questionable means.

For years past the German official world has made a business of flattering the Turks, instead of warning them and, as true friends, insisting on the execution of the reforms upon which the public opinion of Europe insisted. This has been more particularly the case since the GrÆco-Turkish war of 1897, which was the moment when Germany might have been able to at least postpone the evil day of reckoning which has come in our time on the blood-stained fields of Thrace and Macedonia.

Turkey’s German friends, with all the privileged insight they were allowed into her affairs, appear to have been blind to the black political outlook of the Turkish Empire which politically gifted Italians such as Mazzini and Crispi foresaw and confidently foretold half a century ago. Germany’s policy in Turkey encouraged the Turks to procrastinate and assume a truculent attitude. Hence the collapse of Turkey has been a moral blow to military Germany which might have been avoided, and which no sophistry can hide.

The Turkish officers who have served in the German army may have become imbued with the militant atmosphere of the officers’ mess of the Potsdam Guards; but this does not mean that they have assimilated the better qualities of the German army. And even if they had, they could not possibly hope to engraft these upon the Mohammedan Turk, who is in every way their antithesis. The Turks are very different from the imitative, assimilative Japanese, with whom German military instructors are said to have been so successful. Thus, contrary to current surmise, I venture to hold the heretical opinion that the expectations founded in some quarters on a successful Germanization of the Turkish army are doomed to disappointment. The best type of English or French officers would be more likely to suit as instructors of the Asiatic Turks, as they have both proved their capacity in this respect in their dealings with Asiatics in the past. But an even more pressing question may possibly present itself, namely, the growing political aspirations of Germany in Turkey, which her policy since Bismarck’s retirement, hand in hand with the optimistic publications of many German military writers, has done so much to encourage. These elements also find a support to-day in the headstrong aggressiveness of the Turkish officers above referred to. According to a recent interview with the King of Roumania, that far-sighted monarch characterized them as the one danger still threatening peace in the East.

The English, whatever their mistakes may have been, have played a more dignified and, as I venture to believe, a more far-sighted part—one which thoughtful Turks now recognize was well meant to Turkey.

The general policy of England is graphically laid down in the following letter which the late British Ambassador at Constantinople, Sir Nicholas O’Conor, favoured me with a few months before his death:

“I have no hesitation in saying that I think the strong point in our English policy is the fact that we have invariably based our representations to the Ottoman Government on the undoubted interests of both the Christian and Moslem subjects of the Sultan; that we have upheld justice to all the people; and that we have fought for an honest administration and political freedom, without compromising either the interest of the State or its Sovereign.

“We have kept aloof from the many selfish and ruinous commercial concessions which have been so disastrous in their consequences, and we have abstained from any demands which were not in the interests of Turkey as well as of England. We alone have built, organized, and developed a railway without a penny guarantee from the Turkish Government, and by capable and honest administration we have made it a commercial success. I refer, of course, to the Smyrna-Aidin Railway.

“This attitude on our part has been appreciated by Turkey and more especially by the Moslems.

“The several demands which England has put forward as conditions to her consent to the 3 per cent. increased Customs duty are as much in the interests of Turkish as of foreign trade, and our resolute insistence on these points has been an object-lesson all round.

“We have impressed upon Turkey the advantages of developing her enormous internal resources, and we have succeeded in obtaining such alterations of the old Mining Law as will now permit British as well as foreign capital to be embarked in Turkey without more risks than usually attend such enterprises.”

My own experience fully corroborates the above statement of the British Ambassador that the Mohammedans have indeed appreciated the rectitude of English policy and its freedom from all shady transactions. Also as regards the best class of Englishmen (for these alone come into consideration)—once they have rid themselves of their prejudices—their self-restraint, reserve, and, above all, their reliability and fair dealing in personal intercourse generally cause them to be trusted, if not liked, by the Mohammedan, who instinctively distrusts effusiveness, voluble protestations, and more particularly the obtrusiveness associated with the pushing commis-voyageur. This explains why many Turks, even in the hour of their humiliation, prefer the English to others in spite of many advantages they may have reaped from the latter.

That Germany may retain and even increase the commercial hold which she has already gained in Turkey seems more than likely unless others are prepared to compete successfully with her in financial enterprise and industrial efficiency. Her geographical position places her in easy connexion with the Turkish Empire for commercial purposes not only through Roumania and the Black Sea but also by the Danube and by rail through Servia and Bulgaria. All this is decidedly in her favour. But whether in the long run she will be able to use these assets to gain a permanent political ascendancy extending over Asia Minor, as openly advocated by the pan-German party, may well be open to question. Certain idiosyncrasies of the German character erect between the races a barrier which does not exist when the Turk comes into contact with the English, the Italians, the French, and the Greeks. Apart from all this the geographical position of Germany seems to set fixed limits to her political ambitions. For if there is a country the situation of which might well entitle her to look forward to political possibilities in Turkey, it is surely Austria-Hungary, whose frontiers for centuries past along the Danube have been co-terminating with those of Turkey. The character of the Austro-Hungarians also shows many points of affinity with that of the Turks. The German language is another stumbling-block in the way of extending German ideas beyond certain limits,^[29] and it encounters a powerful competitor in the French language. French has been recognized in Turkey as the foremost tongue of the “Franks” for nearly three hundred years. There are close upon six hundred schools in Turkey in which French forms part of the regular curriculum. French is spoken more or less by nearly every Turkish official above a certain rank; German by scarcely any. This difficulty of the German language competing with the French has already been felt by the German authorities engaged in the working of the Anatolian Railway. It will also be found a hindrance in case serious efforts should be made to start German colonies along the track of the railway, a plan few people who have visited these regions think likely to succeed, at least yet awhile, although many Germans will recall the strange story of the Saxon colony in Transylvania, and fondly imagine that this unique phenomenon is likely to repeat itself in Asia Minor. Germany’s geographical position, which is in her favour where commercial facilities are concerned, is decidedly against her once political influences come to the fore. Several instances in point have arisen of late years in which she has been unable to convert her Turkish sympathies into effective action in favour of Turkey against the opposition of Russia, France, and England. This was notably the case in the naval demonstration against Turkish rule in Crete in 1898 and also in a lesser degree in the GrÆco-Turkish war of 1897, when, Russia objecting to the German military instructors taking part in that campaign, Turkey was prevailed upon to recall those who had already started for the front. An even more recent case in which Germany failed to support Turkish interests successfully arose in connexion with English action on the Egyptian frontier, and this is still in public memory. But by far the most potent cause which is likely to prevent German political influence getting beyond certain well-defined limits in Turkey is to be found in the ever-watchful jealousy of Russia—Turkey’s most relentless and stealthy foe.

Neither England, France, nor Russia, as great Mohammedan Powers, can be expected in the long run to view the “conversion” of German influence into the assumption of the part of Protector of Islam with complacency, much less with favour. The fact that the action of these Powers is apparently a passive one for the present would not justify us in assuming that it will permanently remain so.

The real disposer of Turkey—the vulture hovering overhead, ready to swoop down upon her, though restrained for a time by the kindly feelings of the present Emperor Nicholas^[30]—is, and always was, Russia: Russia, which has steadily and relentlessly aimed at the destruction of the Mohammedan empire of the Ottomans.

From the moment England and Russia arrived at an understanding the fate of Turkey in Europe was in jeopardy, and any ambitions which Germany had in Turkey were doomed to sterility. Even to-day their hopelessness is not realized, for the Germans still enjoy the fruits of past prestige, and the Russians, who are not petty where great issues are at stake, have quietly looked on at Hedjas and Bagdad Railway concession-mongering. It will only be when Germany makes any serious attempt to galvanize Asiatic Turkey into life that the Russians will and can cry “Halt!”

Friedrich Bodenstedt—and few better judges of Eastern life could be quoted—writing fifty years ago, has the following: “The Caucasus is the basis of future world-hegemony. Which does not mean that it will come about in a day, nor vanish overnight, but gradually and inevitably, without the befooled nations, proudly conscious of their superior education, having a suspicion of the danger which threatens them. The submission of Shamyl in the east and the exodus of the Circassians in the west of the Caucasus are events of which the Press took hardly any notice at the time, but which future generations will consider to be among the most important happenings of the century.”^[31]

A glance at the map of the Turkish Empire and its frontier separating the territories of the Northern Colossus should be sufficient to bring home to the most casual student the full significance of this passage, and to illuminate M. Nelidow’s remark to me in 1896, “We shall never allow others to handle the key of our house,” meaning the Bosphorus. But nobody could well traverse Anatolia and witness its desolate condition, without roads or bridges—more backward than Siberia or Manchuria—without realizing that the danger of absorption by Russia is like the sword of Damocles, a menace ever present. As a matter of fact, Russia occupied Erzeroum temporarily in 1878, and only the pressure of England at the Congress of Berlin induced her to withdraw. As long as England was at variance with Russia the danger was kept in suspense, but now that they are united in an entente it would be foolhardiness for any other Power to imagine that it could intervene and prevent by force of arms any consummation which these two had agreed upon. Should such an entente lead to a dividing up of Asiatic Turkey into different spheres of influence among the Great Powers, there would in all probability be a European war, as foreshadowed by Professor VambÉry,^[32] which ultimately would be only too likely to result in the incorporation of the greater part of Turkey in Asia in the Russian Empire, since Russia never will, and in view of her geographical position never can, allow Germany to be the permanently dominating influence on the Bosphorus.

In the course of my first visit to Prince Bismarck in April 1891, the topic of Russia’s intentions with regard to Constantinople was discussed. To my surprise, the Prince stated that he did not believe Russia intended to take Constantinople. Russia might even undertake to guarantee the Sultan in the possession of his palaces, his harem, and his wives on condition that no other strong Power should be dominant on the Bosphorus. I ventured to ask the Prince whether he did not think such a development might be inimical to British interests. Bismarck replied: “Not necessarily so.”^[33]

Leaving these far-flung possibilities out of consideration, it is worth while pondering what beneficial part England can play in the East. Many liberal-minded Englishmen have advocated that Germany and England should join hands with other nations and endeavour to work peacefully together, in order to enable Turkey to introduce reforms, exploit her unlimited resources, and thus place herself in a strong independent position in Asia; the only hope left to her.

The British Government might be careful not to send minor officials to Turkey imbued with dislike for the Turk. Such men play into the hands of our rivals by drawing up reports marked by ill-feeling towards the Turks, by corresponding with English newspapers in the same vein, and thereby they indirectly hamper English chances in the competition for commercial advantages. When these practices have ceased, then the goodwill of the Turk will come as a matter of course, and will readily take the practical shape of giving English capital an equal chance in competing for the many valuable opportunities for developing trade still to be had in Turkey; for it may come as news to many Englishmen that, next to Holland and Switzerland, Turkey has the lowest tariff of any country in Europe, and approaches nearest to the English ideal of Free Trade. The splendid work already done by England in Egypt, particularly in the matter of irrigation, affords ample guarantee that honest co-operation between England and Germany, as advocated by Lieutenant-Colonel H. P. Picot (see Appendix, p. 294), might not only result in an addition to, but in a multiplication of, forces working for the benefit of Turkey and for the advantage of the world at large.