DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62355#0014
ii
INTRODUCTION.
Nor did her efforts end here; for in 1833, when the revolt of Mehemet Ali had
shaken the empire of the Ottomans to its very centre, she came forward as a
protector to the nation which she had thus despoiled; and, as the recompense of
her insidious friendship, compelled her powerless victim to sign the celebrated
Treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi, which opened the Strait to the Russians, and closed it
against every other European power; while, with so much ostentation was this
mortification inflicted upon the ill-fated victims of Muscovite ambition, that the
waters of the Bosphorus, as far as Buyukdere, were laden with Russian line-
of-battle ships, and the heights above Unkiar-Skelessi were white with Russian
tents. For nearly four centuries the crescent alone had held sway where now the
blue cross on a white field fluttered in the rougli blasts which swept down from
the Black Sea; and as the bewildered Moslems gazed upon the thronging
strangers, many a proud heart swelled with resentment, or sank with sad fore-
bodings of the future; nor were politicians wanting in Europe to foretell the
speedy annihilation of the Ottoman empire.
Still, however, the other Powers were true to the faith which they had
pledged; and when, in 1839, the Pacha of Egypt, already master of Syria and
Candia, gained the battle of Nezib, they once more interposed; and for awhile
Russia had no pretext for further aggression.
Crushed as he had been alike by his enemies and by his ally, Sultan Mahmoud
had earned for himself the respect of the western sovereigns ; he had given evidence
of high and noble powers ; and it is probable that, had his life been spared, he might
have redeemed his misfortunes; but they were yet too recent at the period of his
decease for him to have recovered from the shock which he had received. He had,
moreover, committed a fatal mistake in the destruction of the Janissaries, who,
turbulent and unruly as they were, could, be relied on alike for their bravery and
their devotion; and who, when disbanded, returned to their homes and to their
families, and resumed their duties as mechanics and agriculturists; while the new
troops which were levied to replace them, and which were pressed, and conducted
to the capital rather like felons than like men who were called upon to uphold the
freedom and dignity of their country, were forbidden, on pain of death, to marry,
to revisit the villages or the relatives from whom they had been torn, or to form
any social ties which would divert them from their military duties. The effect of
so harsh and ill-judged a measure as this became only too apparent ere there was
time to remedy the evil. The villages thus decimated fell to ruin; the fields were
bare of tillage, and the country of population; the exactions of the Pashas drove
the remaining inhabitants to despair; and, meanwhile, the raw and undisciplined
state of the conscript-army was pitiable in the extreme.
As time wore on, however, the latter evil became gradually diminished.
INTRODUCTION.
Nor did her efforts end here; for in 1833, when the revolt of Mehemet Ali had
shaken the empire of the Ottomans to its very centre, she came forward as a
protector to the nation which she had thus despoiled; and, as the recompense of
her insidious friendship, compelled her powerless victim to sign the celebrated
Treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi, which opened the Strait to the Russians, and closed it
against every other European power; while, with so much ostentation was this
mortification inflicted upon the ill-fated victims of Muscovite ambition, that the
waters of the Bosphorus, as far as Buyukdere, were laden with Russian line-
of-battle ships, and the heights above Unkiar-Skelessi were white with Russian
tents. For nearly four centuries the crescent alone had held sway where now the
blue cross on a white field fluttered in the rougli blasts which swept down from
the Black Sea; and as the bewildered Moslems gazed upon the thronging
strangers, many a proud heart swelled with resentment, or sank with sad fore-
bodings of the future; nor were politicians wanting in Europe to foretell the
speedy annihilation of the Ottoman empire.
Still, however, the other Powers were true to the faith which they had
pledged; and when, in 1839, the Pacha of Egypt, already master of Syria and
Candia, gained the battle of Nezib, they once more interposed; and for awhile
Russia had no pretext for further aggression.
Crushed as he had been alike by his enemies and by his ally, Sultan Mahmoud
had earned for himself the respect of the western sovereigns ; he had given evidence
of high and noble powers ; and it is probable that, had his life been spared, he might
have redeemed his misfortunes; but they were yet too recent at the period of his
decease for him to have recovered from the shock which he had received. He had,
moreover, committed a fatal mistake in the destruction of the Janissaries, who,
turbulent and unruly as they were, could, be relied on alike for their bravery and
their devotion; and who, when disbanded, returned to their homes and to their
families, and resumed their duties as mechanics and agriculturists; while the new
troops which were levied to replace them, and which were pressed, and conducted
to the capital rather like felons than like men who were called upon to uphold the
freedom and dignity of their country, were forbidden, on pain of death, to marry,
to revisit the villages or the relatives from whom they had been torn, or to form
any social ties which would divert them from their military duties. The effect of
so harsh and ill-judged a measure as this became only too apparent ere there was
time to remedy the evil. The villages thus decimated fell to ruin; the fields were
bare of tillage, and the country of population; the exactions of the Pashas drove
the remaining inhabitants to despair; and, meanwhile, the raw and undisciplined
state of the conscript-army was pitiable in the extreme.
As time wore on, however, the latter evil became gradually diminished.