The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 Part 11

M. de Lavelaye, who studied the condition of things in Turkey not long after the war of 1877-78, thus summed up the causes of the social and political decline of the Turks:--

The true Mussulman loves neither progress, novelty, nor education; the Koran is enough for him. He is satisfied with his lot, therefore cares little for its improvement, somewhat like a Catholic monk; but at the same time he hates and despises the Christian _raya_, who is the labourer. He pitilessly despoils, fleeces, and ill-treats him to the extent of completely ruining and destroying those families, which are the only ones who cultivate the ground; it was a state of war continued in time of peace, and transformed into a regime of permanent spoliation and murder. The wife, even when she is the only one, is always an inferior being, a kind of slave, dest.i.tute of any intellectual culture; and as it is she who trains the children--boys and girls--the bad results are plainly seen.

Matters were not always and in all parts of Turkey so bad as this; but they frequently became so under cruel or corrupt governors, or in times when Moslem fanaticism ran riot. In truth, the underlying cause of Turkey's troubles is the ignorance and fanaticism of her people. These evils result largely from the utter absorption of all devout Moslems in their creed and ritual. Texts from the Koran guide their conduct; and all else is decided by fatalism, which is very often a mere excuse for doing nothing[86]. Consequently all movements for reform are mere ripples on the surface of Turkish life; they never touch its dull depths; and the Sultan and officials, knowing this, cling to the old ways with full confidence. The protests of Christian nations on behalf of their co-religionists are therefore met with a polite compliance which means nothing. Time after time the Sublime Porte has most solemnly promised to grant religious liberty to its Christian subjects; but the promises were but empty air, and those who made them knew it. In fact, the firmans of reform now and again issued with so much ostentation have never been looked on by good Moslems as binding, because the chief spiritual functionary, the Sheikh-ul-Islam, whose a.s.sent is needed to give validity to laws, has withheld it from those very ordinances. As he has power to depose the Sultan for a lapse of orthodoxy, the result may be imagined. The many attempts of the Christian Powers to enforce their notions of religious toleration on the Porte have in the end merely led to further displays of Oriental politeness.

[Footnote 86: "Islam continues to be, as it has been for twelve centuries, the most inflexible adversary to the Western spirit"

_(History of Serbia and the Slav Provinces of Turkey,_ by L. von Ranke, Eng. edit. p. 296).]

It may be asked: Why have not the Christians of Turkey united in order to gain civic rights? The answer is that they are profoundly divided in race and sentiment. In the north-east are the Roumanians, a Romano-Slavonic race long ago Latinised in speech and habit of mind by contact with Roman soldiers and settlers on the Lower Danube. South of that river there dwell the Bulgars, who, strictly speaking, are not Slavs but Mongolians. After long sojourn on the Volga they took to themselves the name of that river, lost their Tartar speech, and became Slav in sentiment and language. This change took place before the ninth century, when they migrated to the south and conquered the districts which they now inhabit. Their neighbours on the west, the Servians, are Slavs in every sense, and look back with pride to the time of the great Servian Kingdom, carved out by Stephen Dushan, which stretched southwards to the _aegean_ and the Gulf of Corinth (about 1350).

To the west of the present Kingdom of Servia dwell other Servians and Slavs, who have been part.i.tioned and ground down by various conquerors and have kept fewer traditions than the Servians who won their freedom.

But from this statement we must except the Montenegrins, who in their mountain fastnesses have ever defied the Turks. To the south of them is the large but little-known Province of Albania, inhabited by the descendants of the ancient Illyrians, with admixtures of Greeks in the south, Bulgarians in the east, and Servians in the north-east. Most of the Albanians forsook Christianity and are among the most fanatical and warlike upholders of Islam; but in their turbulent clan-life they often defy the authority of the Sultan, and uphold it only in order to keep their supremacy over the hated and despised Greeks and Bulgars on their outskirts. Last among the non-Turkish races of the Balkan Peninsula are a few Wallachs in Central Macedonia, and Greeks; these last inhabit Thessaly and the seaboard of Macedonia and of part of Roumelia. It is well said that Greek influence in the Balkans extends no further inland than that of the sea breezes.

Such is the medley of races that complicates the Eastern Question. It may be said that Turkish rule in Europe survives owing to the racial divisions and jealousies of the Christians. The Sultan puts in force the old Roman motto, _Divide et impera_, and has. .h.i.therto done so, in the main, with success. That is the reason why Islam dominates Christianity in the south-east of Europe.

This brief explanation will show what are the evils that affect Turkey as a whole and her Christian subjects in particular. They are due to the collision of two irreconcilable creeds and civilisations, the Christian and the Mohammedan. Both of them are gifted with vitality and propagandist power (witness the spread of the latter in Africa and Central Asia in our own day); and, while no comparison can be made between them on ideal grounds and in their ethical and civic results, it still remains true that Islam inspires its votaries with fanatical bravery in war. There is the weakness of the Christians of south-eastern Europe. Superior in all that makes for home life, civilisation, and civic excellence, they have in time past generally failed as soldiers when pitted against an equal number of Moslems. But the latter show no constructive powers in time of peace, and have very rarely a.s.similated the conquered races. Putting the matter baldly, we may say that it is a question of the survival of the fittest between beavers and bears. And in the Nineteenth Century the advantage has been increasingly with the former.

These facts will appear if we take a brief glance at the salient features of the European history of Turkey. After capturing Constantinople, the capital of the old Eastern Empire, in the year 1453, the Turks for a time rapidly extended their power over the neighbouring Christian States, Bulgaria, Servia, and Hungary. In the year 1683 they laid siege to Vienna; but after being beaten back from that city by the valiant Sobieski, King of Poland, they gradually lost ground. Little by little Hungary, Transylvania, the Crimea, and parts of the Ukraine (South Russia) were wrenched from their grasp; and the close of the eighteenth century saw their frontiers limited to the River Dniester and the Carpathians[87]. Further losses were staved off only by the jealousies of the Great Powers. Joseph II. of Austria came near to effecting further conquests, but his schemes of part.i.tion fell through amidst the wholesale collapse of his too ambitious policy. Napoleon Bonaparte seized Egypt in 1798, but was forced by Great Britain to give it back to Turkey (1801-2). In 1807-12 Alexander I. of Russia resumed the conquering march of the Czars southward, captured Bessarabia, and forced the Sultan to grant certain privileges to the Princ.i.p.alities of Moldavia and Wallachia. In 1815 the Servians revolted against Turkish rule: they had always remembered the days of their early fame, and in 1817 wrested from the Porte large rights of local self-government.

[Footnote 87: The story that Peter the Great of Russia left a clause in his will, bidding Russia to go on with her southern conquests until she gained Constantinople, is an impudent fiction of French publicists in the year 1812, when Napoleon wished to keep Russia and Turkey at war. Of course, Peter the Great gave a mighty impulse to Russian movements towards Constantinople.]

Ten years later the intervention of England and France in favour of the Greek patriots led to the battle of Navarino, which destroyed the Turco-Egyptian fleet and practically secured the independence of Greece.

An even worse blow was dealt by the Czar Nicholas I. of Russia. In 1829, at the close of a war in which his troops drove the Turks over the Balkans and away from Adrianople, he compelled the Porte to sign a peace at that city, whereby they acknowledged the almost complete independence of Moldavia and Wallachia. These Danubian Princ.i.p.alities owned the suzerainty of the Sultan and paid him a yearly tribute, but in other respects were practically free from his control, while the Czar gained for the time the right of protecting the Christians of the Eastern, or Greek, Church in the Ottoman Empire. The Sultan also recognised the independence of Greece. Further troubles ensued which laid Turkey for a time at the feet of Russia. England and France, however, intervened to raise her up; and they also thwarted the efforts of Mehemet Ali, the rebellious Pacha of Egypt, to seize Syria from his nominal lord, the Sultan.

Even this bare summary will serve to ill.u.s.trate three important facts: first, that Turkey never consolidated her triumph over the neighbouring Christians, simply because she could not a.s.similate them, alien as they were, in race, and in the enjoyment of a higher creed and civilisation; second, that the Christians gained more and more support from kindred peoples (especially the Russians) as these last developed their energies; third, that the liberating process was generally (though not in 1827) delayed by the action of the Western Powers (England and France), which, on grounds of policy, sought to stop the aggrandis.e.m.e.nt of Austria, or Russia, by supporting the Sultan's authority.

The policy of supporting the Sultan against the aggression of Russia reached its climax in the Crimean War (1854-55), which was due mainly to the efforts of the Czar Nicholas to extend his protection over the Greek Christians in Turkey. France, England, and later on the Kingdom of Sardinia made war on Russia--France, chiefly because her new ruler, Napoleon III., wished to play a great part in the world, and avenge the disasters of the Moscow campaign of 1812; England, because her Government and people resented the encroachments of Russia in the East, and sincerely believed that Turkey was about to become a civilised State; and Sardinia, because her statesman Cavour saw in this action a means of securing the alliance of the two western States in his projected campaign against Austria. The war closed with the Treaty of Paris, of 1856, whereby the signatory Powers formally admitted Turkey "to partic.i.p.ate in the advantages of the public law and system of Europe."

This, however, merely signified that the signatory Powers would resist encroachments on the territorial integrity of Turkey. It did not limit the rights of the Powers, as specified in various "Capitulations," to safeguard their own subjects residing in Turkey against Turkish misrule.

The Sultan raised great hopes by issuing a firman granting religious liberty to his Christian subjects; this was inserted in the Treaty of Paris, and thereby became part of the public law of Europe. The Powers also became _collectively_ the guarantors of the local privileges of the Danubian Princ.i.p.alities. Another article of the Treaty provided for the exclusion of war-ships from the Black Sea. This of course applied specially to Russia and Turkey[88].

[Footnote 88: For the treaty and the firman of 1856, see _The European Concert in the Eastern Question, _by T.E. Holland; also Debidour, _Histoire diplomatique de l'Europe _(1814-1878), vol. ii. pp. 150-152; _The Eastern Question, _by the late Duke of Argyll, vol. i. chap. i.]

The chief diplomatic result of the Crimean War, then, was to subst.i.tute a European recognition of religious toleration in Turkey for the control over her subjects of the Greek Church which Russia had claimed. The Sublime Porte was now placed in a stronger position than it had held since the year 1770; and the due performance of its promises would probably have led to the building up of a strong State. But the promises proved to be mere waste-paper. The Sultan, believing that England and France would always take his part, let matters go on in the old bad way.

The natural results came to pa.s.s. The Christians showed increasing restiveness under Turkish rule. In 1860 numbers of them were ma.s.sacred in the Lebanon, and Napoleon III. occupied part of Syria with French troops. The va.s.sal States in Europe also displayed increasing vitality, while that of Turkey waned. In 1861, largely owing to the diplomatic help of Napoleon III., Moldavia and Wallachia united and formed the Princ.i.p.ality of Roumania. In 1862, after a short but terrible struggle, the Servians rid themselves of the Turkish garrisons and framed a const.i.tution of the Western type. But the worst blow came in 1870.

During the course of the Franco-German War the Czar's Government (with the good-will and perhaps the active connivance of the Court of Berlin) announced that it would no longer be bound by the article of the Treaty of Paris excluding Russian war-ships from the Black Sea. The Gladstone Ministry sent a protest against this act, but took no steps to enforce its protest. Our young diplomatist, Sir Horace Rumbold, then at St.

Petersburg, believed that she would have drawn back at a threat of war[89]. Finally, the Russian declaration was agreed to by the Powers in a Treaty signed at London on March 31, 1871.

[Footnote 89: Sir Horace Rumbold, _Recollections of a Diplomatist_ (First Series), vol. ii. p. 295.]

These warnings were all thrown away on the Porte. Its promises of toleration to Christians were ignored; the wheels of government clanked on in the traditional rusty way; governors of provinces and districts continued, as of yore, to pocket the grants that were made for local improvements; in defiance of the promises given in 1856, taxes continued to be "farmed" out to contractors; the evidence of Christians against Moslems was persistently refused a hearing in courts of justice[90]; and the collectors of taxes gave further turns of the financial screw in order to wring from the cultivators, especially from the Christians, the means of satisfying the needs of the State and the ever-increasing extravagance of the Sultan. Incidents which were observed in Bosnia by an Oxford scholar of high repute, in the summer of 1875, will be found quoted in an Appendix at the end of this volume.

[Footnote 90: As to this, see Reports: _Condition of Christians in Turkey_ (1860). Presented to Parliament in 1861. Also Parliamentary Papers, Turkey, No. 16 (1877).]

Matters came to a climax in the autumn of 1875 in Herzegovina, the southern part of Bosnia. There after a bad harvest the farmers of taxes and the Mohammedan landlords insisted on having their full quota; for many years the peasants had suffered under agrarian wrongs, which cannot be described here; and now this long-suffering peasantry, mostly Christians, fled to the mountains, or into Montenegro, whose st.u.r.dy mountaineers had never bent beneath the Turkish yoke[91]. Thence they made forays against their oppressors until the whole of that part of the Balkans was aflame with the old religious and racial feuds. The Slavs of Servia, Bulgaria, and of Austrian Dalmatia also gave secret aid to their kith and kin in the struggle against their Moslem overlords.

These peoples had been aroused by the sight of the triumph of the national cause in Italy, and felt that the time had come to strike for freedom in the Balkans. Turkey therefore failed to stamp out the revolt in Herzegovina, fed as it was by the neighbouring Slav peoples; and it was clear to all the politicians of Europe that the Eastern Question was entering once more on an acute phase.

[Footnote 91: Efforts were made by the British Consul, Holmes, and other pro-Turks, to a.s.sign this revolt to Panslavonic intrigues. That there were some Slavonic emissaries at work is undeniable; but it is equally certain that their efforts would have had no result but for the existence of unbearable ills. It is time, surely, to give up the notion that peoples rise in revolt merely owing to outside agitators. To revolt against the warlike Turks has never been child's play.]

These events aroused varied feelings in the European States. The Russian people, being in the main of Slavonic descent, sympathised deeply with the struggles of their kith and kin, who were rendered doubly dear by their membership in the Greek Church. The Panslavonic Movement, for bringing the scattered branches of the Slav race into some form of political union, was already gaining ground in Russia; but it found little favour with the St. Petersburg Government owing to the revolutionary aims of its partisans. Sympathy with the revolt in the Balkans was therefore confined to nationalist enthusiasts in the towns of Russia. Austria was still more anxious to prevent the spread of the Balkan rising to the millions of her own Slavs. Accordingly, the Austrian Chancellor, Count Andra.s.sy, in concert with Prince Bismarck and the Russian statesman, Prince Gortchakoff, began to prepare a scheme of reforms which was to be pressed on the Sultan as a means of conciliating the insurgents of Herzegovina. They comprised (1) the improvement of the lot of the peasantry; (2) complete religious liberty; (3) the abolition of the farming of taxes; (4) the application of the local taxation to local needs; (5) the appointment of a Commission, half of Moslems, half of Christians, to supervise the execution of these reforms and of others recently promised by the Porte[92].

[Footnote 92: For the full text, see Hertslet, _The Map of Europe by Treaty_, iv. pp. 2418-2429.]

These proposals would probably have been sent to the Porte before the close of 1875 but for the diplomatic intervention of the British Cabinet. Affairs at London were then in the hands of that skilful and determined statesman, Disraeli, soon to become Lord Beaconsfield. It is impossible to discuss fully the causes of that bias in his nature which prejudiced him against supporting the Christians of Turkey. Those causes were due in part to the Semitic instincts of his Jewish ancestry,--the Jews having consistently received better treatment from the Turks than from the Russians,--and in part to his staunch Imperialism, which saw in Muscovite expansion the chief danger to British communications with India. Mr. Bryce has recently pointed out in a suggestive survey of Disraeli's character that tradition had great weight with him[93]. It is known to have been a potent influence on the mind of Queen Victoria; and, as the traditional policy at Whitehall was to support Turkey against Russia, all the personal leanings, which count for so much, told in favour of a continuance in the old lines, even though the circ.u.mstances had utterly changed since the time of the Crimean War.

[Footnote 93: Bryce, _Studies in Contemporary Biography_ (1904).]

When, therefore, Disraeli became aware that pressure was about to be applied to the Porte by the three Powers above named, he warned them that he considered any such action to be inopportune, seeing that Turkey ought to be allowed time to carry out a programme of reforms of recent date. By an _irade_ of October 2, 1875, the Sultan had promised to _all_ his Christian subjects a remission of taxation and the right of choosing not only the controllers of taxes, but also delegates to supervise their rights at Constantinople.

In taking these promises seriously, Disraeli stood almost alone. But his speech of November 9, 1875, at the Lord Mayor's banquet, showed that he viewed the Eastern Question solely from the standpoint of British interests. His acts spoke even more forcibly than his words. That was the time when the dawn of Imperialism flushed all the eastern sky.

H.R.H. the Prince of Wales had just begun his Indian tour amidst splendid festivities at Bombay; and the repet.i.tion of these in the native States undoubtedly did much to awaken interest in our Eastern Empire and cement the loyalty of its Princes and peoples. Next, at the close of the month of November, came the news that the British Government had bought the shares in the Suez Ca.n.a.l, previously owned by the Khedive of Egypt, for the sum of 4,500,000[94]. The transaction is now acknowledged by every thinking man to have been a master-stroke of policy, justified on all grounds, financial and Imperial. In those days it met with sharp censure from Disraeli's opponents. In a sense this was natural; for it seemed to be part of a scheme for securing British influence in the Levant and riding roughshod over the susceptibilities of the French (the constructors of the ca.n.a.l) and the plans of Russia.

Everything pointed to the beginning of a period of spirited foreign policy which would lead to war with Russia.

[Footnote 94: For details of this affair, see Chapter XV. of this work.]

Meanwhile the three Empires delayed the presentation of their scheme of reforms for Turkey, and, as it would seem, out of deference to British representations. The troubles in Herzegovina therefore went on unchecked through the winter, the insurgents refusing to pay any heed to the Sultan's promises, even though these were extended by the _irade_ of December 12, offering religious liberty and the inst.i.tution of electoral bodies throughout the whole of European Turkey. The statesmen of the Continent were equally sceptical as to the _bona fides_ of these offers, and on January 31, 1876, presented to the Porte their scheme of reforms already described. Disraeli and our Foreign Minister, Lord Derby, gave a cold and guarded a.s.sent to the "Andra.s.sy Note," though they were known to regard it as "inopportune." To the surprise of the world, the Porte accepted the Note on February 11, with one reservation.

This act of acceptance, however, failed to satisfy the insurgents. They decided to continue the struggle. Their irreconcilable att.i.tude doubtless arose from their knowledge of the worthlessness of Turkish promises when not backed by pressure from the Powers; and it should be observed that the "Note" gave no hint of any such pressure[95]. But it was also prompted by the hope that Servia and Montenegro would soon draw the sword on their behalf--as indeed happened later on. Those warlike peoples longed to join in the struggle against their ancestral foes; and their rulers were nothing loth to do so. Servia was then ruled by Prince Milan (1868-89), of that House of Obrenovitch which has been extinguished by the cowardly murders of June 1903 at Belgrade. He had recently married Nathalie Kechko, a n.o.ble Russian lady, whose connections strengthened the hopes that he naturally entertained of armed Muscovite help in case of a war with Turkey. Prince Nikita of Montenegro had married his second daughter to a Russian Grand Duke, cousin of the Czar Alexander II., and therefore cherished the same hopes. It was clear that unless energetic steps were taken by the Powers to stop the spread of the conflagration it would soon wrap the whole of the Balkan Peninsula in flames. An outbreak of Moslem fanaticism at Salonica (May 6), which led to the murder of the French and German Consuls at that port, shed a lurid light on the whole situation and convinced the Continental Powers that sterner measures must be adopted towards the Porte.

[Footnote 95: See Parliamentary Papers, Turkey, No. 5 (1877), for Consul Freeman's report of March 17, 1877, of the outrages by the Turks in Bosnia. The refugees declared they would "sooner drown themselves in the Unna than again subject themselves to Turkish oppression." The Porte denied all the outrages.]

Such was the position, and such the considerations, that led the three Empires to adopt more drastic proposals. Having found, meanwhile, by informal conferences with the Herzegovinian leaders, what were the essentials to a lasting settlement, they prepared to embody them in a second Note, the Berlin Memorandum, issued on May 13. It was drawn up by the three Imperial Chancellors at Berlin, but Andra.s.sy is known to have given a somewhat doubtful consent. T his "Berlin Memorandum" demanded the adoption of an armistice for two months; the repatriation of the Bosnian exiles and fugitives; the establishment of a mixed Commission for that purpose; the removal of Turkish troops from the rural districts of Bosnia; the right of the Consuls of the European Powers to see to the carrying out of all the promised reforms. Lastly, the Memorandum stated that if within two months the three Imperial Courts did not attain the end they had in view (viz. the carrying out of the needed reforms), it would become necessary to take "efficacious measures" for that purpose[96]. Bismarck is known to have favoured the policy of Gortchakoff in this affair.

[Footnote 96: Hertslet, iv. pp. 2459-2463.]

The proposals of the Memorandum were at once sent to the British, French, and Italian Governments for their a.s.sent. The two last immediately gave it. After a brief delay the Disraeli Ministry sent a decisive refusal and made no alternative proposal, though one of its members, Sir Stafford Northcote, is known to have formulated a scheme[97]. The Cabinet took a still more serious step: on May 24, it ordered the British fleet in the Mediterranean to steam to Besika Bay, near the entrance to the Dardanelles--the very position it had taken before the Crimean War[98]. It is needless to say that this act not only broke up the "European Concert," but ended all hopes of compelling Turkey at once to grant the much-needed reforms. That compulsion would have been irresistible had the British fleet joined the Powers in preventing the landing of troops from Asia Minor in the Balkan Peninsula. As it was, the Turks could draw those reinforcements without hindrance.

[Footnote 97: _Sir Stafford Northcote, Earl of Iddesleigh_, by Andrew Lang, vol. ii. p. 181.]

[Footnote 98: Our amba.s.sador at Constantinople, Sir Henry Elliott, asked (May 9) that a squadron should be sent there to rea.s.sure the British subjects in Turkey; but as the fleet was not ordered to proceed thither until after a long interval, and was kept there in great strength and for many months, it is fair to a.s.sume that the aim of our Government was to encourage Turkey.] The Berlin Memorandum was, of course, not presented to Turkey, and partly owing to the rapid changes which then took place at Constantinople. To these we must now advert.

The Sultan, Abdul Aziz, during his fifteen years of rule had increasingly shown himself to be apathetic, wasteful, and indifferent to the claims of duty. In the month of April, when the State repudiated its debts, and officials and soldiers were left unpaid, his life of luxurious retirement went on unchanged. It has been reckoned that of the total Turkish debt of T200,000,000, as much as T53,000,000 was due to his private extravagance[99]. Discontent therefore became rife, especially among the fanatical bands of theological students at Constantinople. These Softas, as they are termed, numbering some 20,000 or more, determined to breathe new life into the Porte--an aim which the patriotic "Young Turkey" party already had in view. On May 11 large bands of Softas surrounded the buildings of the Grand Vizier and the Sheik-ul-Islam, and with wild cries compelled them to give up their powers in favour of more determined men. On the night of May 29-30 they struck at the Sultan himself. The new Ministers were on their side: the Sheik-ul-Islam, the chief of the Ulemas, who interpret Mohammedan theology and law, now gave sentence that the Sultan might be dethroned for mis-government; and this was done without the least show of resistance. His nephew, Murad Effendi, was at once proclaimed Sultan as Murad V.; a few days later the dethroned Sultan was secretly murdered, though possibly his death may have been due to suicide[100].

[Footnote 99: Gallenga, _The Eastern Question_, vol. ii. p. 99.]

[Footnote 100: For the aims of the Young Turkey party, see the _Life of Midhat Pasha_, by his son; also an article by Midhat in the _Nineteenth Century_ for June 1878.]

We may add here that Murad soon showed himself to be a friend to reform; and this, rather than any incapacity for ruling, was probably the cause of the second palace revolution, which led to his deposition on August 31. Thereupon his brother, the present ruler, Abdul Hamid, ascended the throne. His appearance was thus described by one who saw him at his first State progress through his capital: "A somewhat heavy and stern countenance . . . narrow at the temples, with a long gloomy cast of features, large ears, and dingy complexion. . . . It seemed to me the countenance of a ruler capable of good or evil, but knowing his own mind and determined to have his own way[101]." This forecast has been fulfilled in the most sinister manner.

[Footnote 101: Gallenga, _The Eastern Question_, vol. ii. p. 126. Murad died in the year 1904.]

If any persons believed in the official promise of June 1, that there should be "liberty for all" in the Turkish dominions, they might have been undeceived by the events that had just transpired to the south of the Balkan Mountains. The outbreak of Moslem fanaticism, which at Constantinople led to the dethronement of two Sultans in order to place on the throne a stern devotee, had already deluged with blood the Bulgarian districts near Philippopolis. In the first days of May, the Christians of those parts, angered by the increase of misrule and fired with hope by the example of the Herzegovinians, had been guilty of acts of insubordination; and at Tatar Bazardjik a few Turkish officials were killed. The movement was of no importance, as the Christians were nearly all unarmed. Nevertheless, the authorities poured into the disaffected districts some 18,000 regulars, along with hordes of irregulars, or Bashi-Bazouks; and these, especially the last, proceeded to glut their hatred and l.u.s.t in a wild orgy which desolated the whole region with a thoroughness that the Huns of Attila could scarcely have excelled (May 9-16). In the upper valley of the Maritza out of eighty villages, all but fifteen were practically wiped out. Batak, a flourishing town of some 7000 inhabitants, underwent a systematic ma.s.sacre, culminating in the butchery of all who had taken refuge in the largest church; of the whole population only 2000 managed to escape[102].

[Footnote 102: Mr. Baring, a secretary of the British Legation at Constantinople, after a careful examination of the evidence, gave the number of Bulgarians slain as "not fewer than 12,000"; he opined that 163 Mussulmans were perhaps killed early in May. He admitted the Batak horrors. Achmet Agha, their chief perpetrator, was at first condemned to death by a Turkish commission of inquiry, but he was finally pardoned.

Shefket Pasha, whose punishment was also promised, was afterwards promoted to a high command. Parl. Papers, Turkey, No. 2 (1877), pp.

248-249; _ibid_. No. 15 (1877), No. 77, p. 58. Mr. Layard, successor to Sir Henry Elliott at Constantinople, afterwards sought to reduce the numbers slain to 3500. Turkey, No. 26 (1877), p. 54.]

It is painful to have to add that the British Government was indirectly responsible for these events. Not only had it let the Turks know that it deprecated the intervention of the European Powers in Turkey (which was equivalent to giving the Turks _carte blanche_ in dealing with their Christian subjects), but on hearing of the Herzegovina revolt, it pressed on the Porte the need of taking speedy measures to suppress them. The despatches of Sir Henry Elliott, our amba.s.sador at Constantinople, also show that he had favoured the use of active measures towards the disaffected districts north of Philippopolis[103].