İngiliz Gizli Belgelerinde Türkiye
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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.]
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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
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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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