not solely, or chiefly because the rule is infidel or alien, but because it is also incurably vicious and leaves men who happen to be Christians and Europeans no room to live their lives in security and happiness. The three notions, which may be regarded as the primary factors of anti-Turkism, generally went pretty much together, and together constituted the main strength of that View. The other anti-Turkish notions came in to reinforce the conclusions or to justify the policy to which these three pointed; but of themselves they would never have aroused the passion and enthusiasm which the first three evoked. The Crusading and Historic notions collectively often found expression in the phrase "the Turk is non-European." Sometimes the phrase "the Turk cannot reform" was used as an equivalent. The meaning was that the root of the evil was not so much Turkish misgovernment as Turkish government over a people of European stock and religion. The acceptance or rejection of the doctrine implied by these phrases will be found to be one of the main dividing lines of the controversy. Reform in this sense was equivalent to becoming European by adoption. The word pointed to methods of government which it was urged a Mahometan power could not adopt from the nature of its creed. Such a power, it was said, governing a mixed population, could only be true to the first principles of political justice as understood by Europeans by being false to the first principles of its religious creed.1 But the persuasion that the Turks could not reform bore another aspect, namely, that of special ineradicable vices inherent in the Turkish government, and this last aspect was not very clearly distinguished from that first alluded to. Thus there arose a controversy as to "the capacity of the Turks to reform." What really was urged was, on one side, that there were democratic and tolerant elements in the Turkish polity, and, on the other, that, even if this were so, the Ottomans in Turkey were a governing race, holding a race of another faith in subjection; and that under such circumstances, the more democratic the government of a governing race, the worse it is for the governed; but that, in fact, the government of the Turkish Pashas was incurably vicious and corrupt. Thus nothing short of emancipation from the yoke of the Pashas was adequate to cure the evils which the Provincials groaned under. 1 Compare preface to second edition of Freeman's History of the Saracens, published in 1876 (Macmillan), and see review in Times, Oct. 19th, 1876. The great exponent of this argument was Mr. E. A. Freeman, and it appears constantly in the numerous writings which he contributed to the controversy. The first article from which we quote is noteworthy, on account of the time at which it appeared, and the influence it undoubtedly had in forming Public Opinion. I have in the course of this article more than once, of set purpose, made use of phrases which I know will provoke controversy. I have called the Turks barbarians. I have called them an invading horde. . . . The one point to be clearly understood is, that the state of things in South-Eastern Europe is not an ordinary case of government, good or bad. It is a case of subjection to a Power which has no right to be called a government at all. . . . The evil is far too deeply rooted for any mere attempts at reform to mend it. The truth is that no real reform can be made as long as Mahometans, whether Turks by blood or not, bear rule over men of any other religion. . The Turk, then, must go, or he must cease to be a Turk. As he is not likely to cease to be a Turk, it is enough to say he must go. It does not follow that he need go all at once. From Servia he has gone already. Bosnia and Herzegovina have given him notice to quit, and from them he must go at once. It will be time for him to go from Bulgaria and Albania when Bulgaria and Albania give him notice to quit also. But Bosnia and Herzegovina have made up their minds that they will get rid of him or perish. Which of these two alternatives is to take place is the true Eastern Question. -E. A. Freeman.1 The Turks came in 500 years back as an invading horde, and an invading horde they have ever since remained. They have neither assimilated themselves to the people of the land, nor have they assimilated the people of the land to themselves. The distinction between the conqueror and the conquered, the oppressor and the oppressed, is as broad now as it was when the first Ottoman crossed the Hellespont. And so it ever must be as long as a Mahometan minority bears rule over a majority of Christians or of men of any other religion. Herein is the great lesson of experience, the lesson which philanthropists and pedants understand, but which those who sneer at them appear unable to understand. The Turk cannot reform. If he would reform, he must first cease to be a Turk. People talk of liberal Turkish statesmen, of the spread of Western Ideas, of reforms, concessions, this and that pretty sounding phrase. But the light of experience proves all such talk to be moonshine.-E. A. Freeman.2 If we are to form any just estimate of the Turk's capacity for reform it will be necessary to observe the attitude of the Koran towards this question. At first sight all looks hopeful. There is an air of sententious philanthropy about it. . . . it breathes the 1 "The True Eastern Question," Fort. Rev. Dec. 1875. 2 Letter to P. M. G. June 8th, 1876. very essence of the purest democracy, and establishes a community in which all outward distinctions vanish in the presence of religion. But the most casual observation reveals the fact that these benefits are reserved for co-religionists alone. Here is the flaw.... Each promise of reform extorted by Western Diplomacy is glibly made by Parisian-taught Pashas, who know its value. But it is resented as an impious insult to their creed by the fanatics who form the bulk of the nation.-Fraser's Mag. July, 1876.1 § c.-Humanity. The word "Humanity" is often used in the sense of simple hatred of cruelty, bloodshed, and oppression. It is quite certain that this feeling has been a very powerful factor in English politics. Hallam 2 in reference to the Marian persecution speaks of the English as "constitutionally humane," and endorses Burnet's suggestion that their dislike to Romanism is due to their horror of that persecution. Macaulay says we have become "not only a wiser, but also a kinder people," and goes on to speak of our "sensitive and restless compassion." 5 The weak point in the temperament of England is now fully disclosed. It is an incontinence of sympathy showing itself by hysterical sobs and cries.-P. M. G., Oct. 17, 1876.4 Humanity as an element of English political opinion probably comes out in its strongest form when a government is cruel, and its subjects are the victims. The settled resolve against extending the extradition laws to political offences may witness to the strength of this feeling. So a government which makes use of cruel or excessive punishments will draw down a great amount of English ill-feeling upon itself and its agents. The unpopularity of Austria in England twenty or thirty years ago was probably more owing to the idea people had of Italians languishing in "Austrian dungeons," than to any purely political wish for Italian unity. If there is any question of cruelty to women the symptoms are marvellously heightened, as was shown when General Haynau was attacked by the men employed at Barclay and Perkins's brewery. The case of Turkey was presented as one in which the Christian subjects were exposed not only to grinding extortion enforced by the most cruel means at the hands of the 1 "The Koran v. Turkish Reform." 3 Hist. Eng. chap. iii. ad fin. "The Competition of Barbarism." Turkish officials, but also to outrages and crimes of the direst nature at the hands of the dominant race, outrages against which they were prevented from protecting themselves by carrying arms, and for which they were unable to obtain protection or redress from the law; and this, partly as the normal condition of things, partly as a measure of terrorism on the part of the Government. Hence it is not surprising that a very great body of English opinion should be excited when attention was drawn to the outrages to which the Provincials were subject. Wherever one goes in the Turkish Empire one hears the same story of the inhabitants oppressed by exactions, of wanton cruelties perpetrated by the officials and the tax-farmers. [The Porte guards against the dangers of local governors getting too strong by changing them very frequently.] A good governor-for there are good governors even in Turkey-is taken away just when he has begun to know something of his district, and all the sooner if it is suspected that he is popular there. A bad one . . . makes the most of his short tenure by squeezing every piastre he can out of his wretched subjects, whether by way of taxes or of plain downright extortion. And in both sets of cases all continuity and regularity of administration, all possibility of carrying out reforms, is destroyed by these frequent changes. From the unspeakable misery which this misrule causes, the Mahometan population suffers, not indeed so much as the Christian, because the former have more chance of protection from the courts of law, may carry arms, and are less liable to be robbed or bastinadoed by a brother Muslim, but still quite enough to entitle them to our earnest sympathy. It is surely a mistake in dealing with this question to endeavour to set creed against creed, and enlist European feeling on behalf of the Christians only. It is also a mistake to make the indictment against the Porte appear to rest on isolated acts of cruelty and revenge, however hideous. It rests upon a long course of misgovernment, persevered in after repeated warnings, which has reduced some of the richest countries in the world to beggary, which makes the lives of their inhabitants wretched, which produces the state of society wherein massacres, like that of May last, become possible.-James Bryce, Fort. Rev. Dec. 1876. What kind of treatment it is that Turkish rule carries with it παίδων παρθένων γυναικῶν ἀνήκεστος φθορεία. "Every pretty girl," so I heard at Ragusa, "is carried off, as a matter of course.' It was a specially foul outrage of this kind which immediately led to the revolt.-E. A. Freeman, Fort. Rev. Dec. 1875. It must be allowed that the champions of the Turk have one great advantage in all these disputes. There are some crimes which are protected by their own foulness. . . . The hearts of the men who are now fighting for all that is just and holy against the powers of darkness have been turned to steel, their blood turned to flame, by wrongs compared to which the wrongs of Icilius and Virginia might hardly seem to have deserved the yells and the pelting which fell upon the head of Appius Claudius.-E. A. Freeman, D. N. July 13th, 1876. Europe is astounded to find that it has within its confines a race races, perhaps, it should be said, for more than one goes to make up the Turk-capable of worse things than even the African or the Red Indian. Against neither of these is it alleged that they do more than fighting men have ever done against fighting men. The worst incidents of warfare among those who are called "savages" in any part of the world hardly exceed the Homeric standard. Military details from Central Africa or Central America are full of horrors, but not unreadable, for they are the favourite reading of many pure-minded persons. On the contrary, the Bulgarian details are a new chapter in human nature-new, that is to say, to those who happen not to be versed in Tartar or Turkish history. Turkey, unable to trust arms to the greater part of her population, just as she is unable to trust them with office or power, holds her ground by what may be called brute means-worse than brute, it should be said. She can let loose on the people a deluge of rapine the instant they rise against her hateful yoke; and she trusts that the horrible nature of the weapons she employs may make a widespread impression. A good many millions are cowed and kept in what Englishmen would feel to be a bondage by the thought of what might happen, not to soldiers, or even to citizens, but to women and children. The Turkish rule is to regard the wife and the daughter as hostages for the obedience of the husband and the father.-T. Sept. 8, 1876. The anti-Turkish view in its aspect of revolt against inhuman cruelties committed by a people alien to European civilisation and Christian morality appeared in many newspaper columns, and in many magazines. But it finds perhaps its most eloquent expression in passages from Mr. Gladstone's two pamphlets:-1 Let me endeavour very briefly to sketch, in the rudest outline, what the Turkish race was, and what it is. It is not a question of Mahometanism simply, but of Mahometanism compounded with the peculiar character of a race. They are not the mild Mahometans of India, nor the chivalrous Saladins of Syria, nor the cultured Moors of Spain. They were upon the whole, from the black day when they first entered Europe, the one great anti-human specimen of humanity. Wherever they went, a broad line of blood marked the track behind them; and as far as their 1 Published by Murray, London. G |