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No. 210. Ed. Add.Mr. G. H. Fitzmaurice to Mr. Tyrrell.Private.(1) British Embassy, Constantinople,My dear Tyrrell, August 25, 1908.I have been craving to write to you any time during the last four weeks
but, as I told you once, a dragoman is merged in his chief and as I have only
politics to write about, one is afraid of saying something which may not fit in
with one's chief's views. However one can avoid pitfalls by confining oneself
to generalities. I know you must have been, and are intensely interested in
recent developments in this Country. I feel too that with the ordinary data you
have divined and gleaned all that underlies a movement which has so
dramatically swept away what future historians will probably consider one of
the most extraordinary specimens of despotic Government,
especially at the end of the XIX,. Century. For whatever the future may have
in store for us the peculiar system which was built up by, or grew up around
the personality of Abdul Hamid is gone for ever. We are by no means out of the
wood and the desperate spasm in Ottoman national life which, in a violent and
desperate effort of the instinct of self preservation, destroyed in a night the web of
tyranny woven with consummately diabolical skill during the last thirty years may
yet lead to some big catastrophe and thus prove to have been the last flicker
of the candle of the dying Turk. In that case the Hamidian regime may come to be
looked upon as a last attempt to stem the current of economic forces from the West
which have been gathering strength and threatening the primitive
organism of Ottoman pre-economic life. It is however useless to speculate on the
future. The die is cast and one must hope for the best, but the task of
fusing and welding into one common Ottoman nationality the mosaic of creeds,
nationalities and tongues that go to make up the Ottoman Empire will require iron
determination and will tax the energies of the stoutest of hearts.The causes, I suppose are remotely the victories of Japan which gave a
filip to national oriental life in India and Persia. The success of Japan over
Russia the tradi, tional enemy
of the Turk made every fibre of the latter's body tingle. His national pride—that of
a race with a great past, was wounded at seeing the " contemptible Persians
making a bid for a new national life, at a time when Turkey owing.
to the despotism of the Sultan was more than ever threatened by the degrading
and increasing tutelage of Western Powers in the European provinces. Feeling
from one's contact with the Turks that we were in the hour before the dawn of
his renewed national existence I began to look upon our attempts at reform in
Macedonia as a potential anachronism and several times to O'Conor and
Barclay characterized our policy there as " insane." One felt that it
no way took into account the bedrock trend of things in the Country, ignoring as it did
the fact that the Turks existed and still possessed vitality. The Turks felt that the
situation was a desperate one and required a desperate remedy. The meeting at Reval
where they saw England and Russia actually combining in an " Anti-Turkish
" policy quickened their decision which was to attempt their coup before the British proposals. born at Reval were presented to
the Porte. Increasing the pace lead [sic]
to indiscretion and the consequent discovery by the Palace of the conspiracy. The
outbreak had been planned for the Sultan's accession on September 1st but the effort
of the Palace to strangle the movement forced Niazi Bey and Enver Bey into the
open with the results, as we know, that, the minds of everybody being
disgusted and desirous of a change, the torch lighted by him started a conflagration
which swept up to the Palace gates with bewildering rapidity. Curiously enough, I staid
[sic] in town in June after the Embassy came out to Therapia with the intention of
clearing up a lot of cases at the Palace before Lowther arrived and my general feel [sic] there was that the Sultan's 1st
Secretary had loit faith and hope in the system of(1) [Grey MSS. (Turkey), Vol. 40.]
269
Hamidian rule
which he typified, so much so that I said to Barclay some fifteen days before the
actual outbreak that I should not be surprised at any moment —even before I
got to the bottom of the stairs at the top of which we were standing —to hear 101
Guns and the proclamation of the Constitution. When the Sultan yielded one felt
that all the entanglement of reform schemes in Macedonia which for years
past-have been occupying our Embassy to the exclusion of genuine British interests had
been swept away—that a new era had dawned for the unfortunate remnants of the
Armenian race in Bitlis Mush, Van &c. and that the best policy was to go
heart and soul with the Constitutional movement. I drove at once to the Grand
Vizier's house and told him the one important thing to do was to get the Sultan out
and establish contact between him and his people. The Grand Vizier had a
most difficult task to perform but succeeded with the result that the Sultan was
greeted with something like the same popular outburst of enthusiasm as was
witnessed in London when the Queen came out during the Boer War. I have urged
Kiamil Pasha to get him over to St. Sophia but the Sultan's timidity and suspicions
are his worst enemies. He cannot go out to his Wat Tyler with the result that
the latter in the shape of the military and Young Turks are seriously thinking of
getting rid of him. They simply loathe him and think him capable of bringing in
Russia and Bulgaria with a view to overthrowing the Constitution. As for us we
have the ball at our feet to the great chagrin of our German friends who
pivoted their policy on the Sultan and his Camarilla. I saw the Minister of
Public Works who was a member of the Armenian National Assembly when I was at
Birejik working for the Armenians. I have made him as keen as myself on
Willcock's schemes in Mesopotamia. I have lent him Sir W. W[illcock]'s reports and the latter
is coming up from Cairo. Irrigation must precede the railway in Mesopotamia
and if we get the former there is every chance of everything up to Mosul being
done by us. One hopes fervently that our people will not lose the present
golden opportunity after being out in the cold all these years. The iron is hot and we must
get a few of them to strike. It may cool before long.
At the present moment Yildiz has been all but obliterated and replaced
by the League of Union and Progress. But the Turkish people after their 30
years of despotism are like a 2. year old infant that can't walk firmly and is
somewhat inarticulate. They are very raw and the Gov[ernmen]t as such is none too
strong. It has to lean on the League which finds that it cannot retire into the
background but is obliged—to preserve from danger the liberty it has just won—to
practically run the Empire—in a visible or occult form. They have many of the
requisites of successful national leaders—are impersonal and have a great sense
of responsibility but they and the Ministry under Kiamil (who is over 80
and may be called the G.O.M. of Turkey) have a heavy task before them. There are
many rocks ahead—the internal ones certain and the external ones potential. Of
the former the most dangerous is the economic one.
Under the old regime the Mahomedan battened at the expense of the
Christian. Under the new which is based on justice, equality and economic reform,
crowds of Moslems are being turned adrift and, being unable to earn a competency,
are certain to become malcontents while the Xtians,—viz. Armenians, Bulgarians,
Greeks &c., while willing to let byegones be byegones, are certain to thrive and
prosper and thus further oust the Moslem who is almost entirely devoid of business
aptitudes. The latter being the dominant element will not be content to starve in
his own country and, unless the movement is skilfully guided, is almost certain
to become diScontented with a system which to him will seem to be dealing a deadly
blow at Islam. In such an eventuality they are certain to appeal to the Emblem
of their religion,—the Caliphate and, if the occupant is a reactionary like Abdul
Hamid, it is not difficult to foresee a desperate internal struggle accompanied by
disorders which will give any lurking external enemy like Russia the chance of
upsetting a system, which, if successful, bids fair to make the crescent a permanent
ornament on St. Sophia. It must be a bitter pill to Russia to see her cherished
hopes
270
jeopardised by
a revolution which may conceivably make Turkey a strong and aggressive
Power determined to win back her old provinces in the Caucasus, the Crimea, the
Balkans &c. In fact the present movement in Turkey is a virtual challenge to
Russian policy during the last 130 years. Of course there is a liberal and
Constitutional party in Russia, but I fancy the vast majority in the Country
have not divorced themselves from the old anti-Turkish ideas and would like to assist at a Te Deum in St. Sophia.
Assuming that things go smoothly and that the Constitutional regime
solidifies, the Turks, who are now extra pleasant to foreigners as they are
dependent on the sympathy of the latter are certain to develop highly pronounced nationalist
if not chauvinistic tendencies. They will want to assert themselves strongly in
questions such as Crete, Egypt, Macedonia, Bosnia, Aden, Lebanon, Cyprus and
probably our special position at Bagdad with its sepoy guard and the "
Comet "—not to mention Lynch's present irregular status in
navigating the Tigris on the strength of a disputed ferman for the Euphrates.
There are a host of such questions giving us all food for reflection and which we
must be prepared to deal with in a non-nagging spirit. The questions with which the Turks
are certain to busy themselves with [sic]
in the immediate future are the Commercial Treaties,—the improvement of their
post offices leading up to the suppression of foreign P.O's and setting their
judicial house in order with a view to the abrogation of the Capitulations, with Cavasses,
Dragomans, Stationnaires &c. In fact if things go favourably for the Turks,
foreign Embassies here will [be] gradually reduced to the humdrum state of such
institutions in other Countries. One can easily imagine a state of
things where foreigners of three generations in Turkey will have to serve in
the Turkish army. One often wonders how the problem of Xtians serving in that army
is to be worked out. It's one of the " pivotal facts " of the situation.
At the present moment " English Kiamil " is in power but there
is a strong party who would like to see Herr von Ferid Pasha the ex-Grand Vizier
return to office. Kiamil they think is too old to deal with a critical state of affairs
like the present while Ferid is young (55), energetic and intelligent. He is
however false and vindictive while in the past he has been closely connected with the
Pro-German policy of Yildiz. Hussein Hilmi might be an alternative. One has
been suggesting to them that Kiamil ought to remain in office until after the first
session of Parliament, and that in keeping an old hand at the helm
during the period of transition they would be imitating the Japs with their
Marshal Oyama, Ito, &c. &c. instead perhaps of imitating the French who took 100
years to settle down after sweeping away the old lot in their
revolution. In fact one feels already that the cries of Liberty, Equality and
Fraternity smack too much of the French Revolution and are scarcely suited to the Turkish
character (2)
Y[ou]rs v [ery]
sincerely,
G.
H. FITZMAURICE.
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