THE TURKS IN EUROPE Qu'est ce que la Turquie ? La Turquie est le pays classique des massacres.. Son histoire se resume a ceci; pillages, meurtres, vols, con­ cussions—sur toutes les echelles—reroltes, insurrections, repressions, guerres etrangeres, guerres civiles, revolutions, ccntre-revolutions, seditions, mutineries. ARSENE PERLANT, Eterelle Turquie, " To murder a man is a crime; to massacre a nation is a question." VICTOR HUGO, 1876. THE TURKS IN EUROPE A SKETCH-STUDY BY W. E. D. ALLEN WITH A PREFACE BY BRIG-GEN. H. CONYERS SURTEES, C.M.G., D.S.O. LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 1919 All rights reserved. DEDICATION To MY BELOVED FATHER— To you I dedicate this chronicle of men's savageness and meanness. To you, who were so brilliant and so simple; so faultless your­ self yet so tolerant of fault in others; so gentle that you could not kill a bird; so kind that men marvelled ; so forbearing that they thought you weak ; so generous that they thought you fool. You were so quick of comprehension, yet so patient of stupidity in others. You could always forgive, and always understand. Men wondered when you repaid vilest ingratitude with renewed kindness. You who so loved Music and Books and Art, and to roam in the wild places of the earth, and linger in its ancient cities, were for ever im­ prisoned in an office. You began to work when most boys begin to learn ; you spent the best years of your life in drudgery, working often till mid­ night. You carried for years, while you were dying, the responsibilities and burdens of ten men. You never had a moment's rest, a moment's freedom from care. Your every waking hour was a working hour. You were suffering an illness which, born VII VIII DEDICATION of overstrain, brought with it terrible depression. Yet you never complained; to the last you were always charming, always gracious ; few even thought you might be ill. To me it does not seem sacrilege to compare you with the Perfect Man. And with all this you never set yourself above your fellows; a saint, you were yet a man of tbe world. Bad men as well as good men came to you for comfort and advice. You who had lived in the world, and not merely in its hot-houses, could understand the tragedies of the world. To you the only social pariah was the social "climber"— he who despises those who are below him in Life's ladder, the sycophant, the "time-server." You could mingle with men of every kind ; and all men would listen to you. An accomplished gentleman, your tastes were plain and modest; a philosopher, you remained a believer. Though you knew the world, and had been used ill by men, you believed that there was good in all men, and beauty in all things: you had an Irishman's sense of humour, but no man dared talk scandal in your hearing. Now you are gone, and a man wise and simple, strong and gentle, is gone from a world which has need of him. But you have left behind you an example for your sons and for others, of what a man can be. PREFACE THE study of the Ottoman Empire as it existed up to the time of the outbreak of the great European War affords a wide field for the examination of the subjects of Oriental warfare and rulership, as well as of the general movements of Turkish Society, and the author of this book is to be congratulated on having—by a careful and highly intelligent study of the recognised authorities—produced a work which is worthy to take its place amongst the most reliable of the short histories of the nations. Especially interesting is his account of the Near Eastern crisis of 1876-78, as is also the description of the origin and rise of the " Committee of Union and Progress." Having myself been a witness in an official capacity of the events which took place in Constantinople in 1908-9, as well as having been an observer of the preponderating influence there exercised by Germany as represented by that most masterful and astute of diplomatists, Baron Marschal von Bieberstein, I am able to testify to Mr Allen's accuracy, although I am inclined ix X PREFACE to think he has, if anything, erred on the side of leniency in the way in which he has treated the entire lack of sympathy with the aspirations of the Turks as evinced by our then diplomatic methods. Shorn of its former might, we are now witness­ ing the once great and glorious empire of Suleiman the Magnificent being reduced to the status of an Asiatic Amirate. "How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished ! "—2 SAM. i. 27. H. CONYERS SURTEES, Brig.-Gen. (retired), Late Mil. Attache' at Constantinople and Athens. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE THE GREAT SULTANS (1288-1566) State of Europe in the Thirteenth Century—Seldjuks and Tatars—First Settlement of the Osmanli—Orkhan and the Organisation of the Turkish Army—First Campaigns in Europe—Reign of Murad I.—The Janissaries—Subjugation of Bulgaria and Serbia— Reign of Bayazid I.—Battle of Nikopol—Timur Leng —Reign of Mahommed I.—Wars with Hungary— Mahommed the Conqueror—Bayazid II. and Selim I. —Age of Suleiman—Condition of His Empire. 1 CHAPTER II "LES ROIS FAINEANTS" (1566-1792) . Reasons for the Decline of Turkish Power—Austria and Russia — Mahommed Sokolovich — War with Austria and Treaty of Sitvatorok—Sir T. Roe on the State of Turkey, 1622—Condition of the Rumanian Principalities : of Serbia; of Bulgaria—Revival under Murad IV.—British and French Interests in Turkey— The Koprilis—Siege of Vienna and Treaty of Carlovicz, 1698—Affair of the Pruth—Treaty of Carlovicz, 1718 —Treaty of Belgrad, 1739—Expansion of Russia— Treaty of Kutchuk Kainadji, 1774—Pitt's Anti- Russian Policy—Treaty of Jassy and Outbreak of 43 the French Revolution. xi xii CONTENTS CHAPTER III PAGE REVOLUTION AND REACTION (1792-1871) 90 Character of the Revolutionary Era—Eton's Account of Turkey in 1792—Ali of Janina and Osman Pasva- noghlu—Variations of Napoleon's Turkish Policy— Outbreak of the Serbian Revolution—Proposed Parti- tion of Turkey at Tilsit—Treaty of Bukharest—Char- acter of Turkish History during the Nineteenth Century —The Philike Hetairia and the Greek Revolution— The Russian War and the Treaty of Adrianople— The Egyptian War and the Attitude of the Powers— The Great Elchi—The Crimean War and the Treaty of Paris—Britain and Russia in the Middle East— The Fall of the Second Empire and the Decline of Austria—Effect on Germany and Russia. CHAPTER IV BALKAN NATIONALISM AND THE " DRANG NACH OSTEN " (1875-1914) . 149 The Powers and Balkan Nationalism—The Nationalist Movement, 1875-78—The Russian War and, the Treaty of San Stefano—The Congress of Berlin—Bismarck's Weltpolitik—Abdul Hamid—Growth of German In­ fluence in Turkey—The Macedonian Question—The Committee of* Union and Progress—The Crisis of 1908—The Habsburgs and the Greater Serbia Idea— The Balkan League—The Balkan Wars of 1912-13 : Attitude of the Powers—The Treaty of Bukharest— Turkey in 1914. A CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF THE CHIEF EVENTS IN OTTOMAN HISTORY .... 239 INDEX ....... 249 MAPS EXPANSION OF TURKISH POWER (1343-1683) DECLINE OF TURKISH POWER (1683-1914) (WITH ETHNOLOGICAL DIVISIONS) THE TURKS IN EUROPE CHAPTER I THE GREAT SULTANS (1288-1566) I FOR five hundred years an army of occupation has held South-Eastern Europe. When a hostile army occupies a country, all the ordinary life comes to a standstill : there is little trade, no social inter­ course, probably misery and privation. A few years, even a few months, of enemy occupation has a disastrous effect. Yet for five hundred years the South-East of Europe has suffered this. "When the "Turkish Night" overshadowed the Balkan lands, all trade, all art, all literature, all education, all social progress ceased. The Bulgaria of Tsar Simeon was as progressive as the England of Edward the Confessor; the Serbia of Stephen Dushan was as advanced as the France of St Louis. But to-day the Serbs, the Bulgars, the Greeks, and the Albanians are without a national culture, without political institutions, without coherent traditions, without a history. They are the men of the Fifteenth Century: they understand only the argument of force and the i 2 THE GREAT SULTANS diplomacy of treachery; they have the mentality of mediaeval brigands. The Austrian domination has had a similar effect, though to a lesser degree, upon the subject races of the Dual Monarchy. The system which allowed men " to carry their heads for one year/' scarcely admitted the right to live, certainly not the right to think. The Turks' arrogant tolerance of subject religions, if not so oppressive, was more debasing than the brutal proselytising of the Spaniards. The " Turkish Night" is the negation of history. How was it possible for an obscure tribe of nomad shepherds from the steppes of Central Asia to impose its dominion upon a dozen nations of Europe ? To find an answer to this question it is necessary to examine the political condition of Europe towards the middle of the Thirteenth Century, when the Osmanli entered Armenia. Europe was young and men were struggling in the twilight of under­ standing. Dimly conceived ideas were beginning to shake the belief of men in the traditions and delusions of twelve hundred years. It was a time when all men fought, but few men thought. The terrors of the first thousand years of the Christian era were passing.