Now Grand Vizier of the Turkish Empire
By W. Francis Ainsworth, Esq.
Originally published in Ainsworth's Magazine: A Miscellany of Romance (Chapman and Hall) vol.1 #1 (Feb 1842).
The fate of the Turkish empire, so long hurrying to its goal, appears from a variety of circumstances to be about to be sealed by the approaching war with Greece. In this empire, more than in any other, public measures can be judged of by the public men placed at the helm of affairs. In a despotism so constituted, measures create the men, and not, as with us, the men sway the measures. Thus, if the Ulemas are in the ascendancy, Raúf Pasha rules the roast. If liberality is the order of the day, Reshid Pasha is wanted at the Porte. If the old Mohammedan school is triumphant, Khosrew Pasha is at the head. If blood is about to be shed, an Izzet Mehemet Pasha and a Tahir Pasha are sure to be found.
The author of the present personal recollections of Izzet Mehemet Pasha first became acquainted with him as Pasha of Angora, in 1837. His notes do not therefore comprise the early career of the man, but it is hoped they may contain enough to illustrate his character tolerably fairly. It is certain, however, that previous to his appointment to this pashalik, he had distinguished himself in the wars in Greece, and many dark deeds are also laid to his account, which, in the East, only serve to enhance the reputation of an official, as shewing that he has ferocity to revenge himself, and skill to prosper, even when charged with evil.
The first interview was characteristic. The Pasha was alone, kneeling on the corner of a divan with five or six showy Geneva watches before him, which he was winding up. For a few seconds he appeared not to notice our entrance, and when he did so, it was by looking sideways over a watch, with a smile and a peculiar look, intended to convey an idea of extreme shrewdness and cleverness. Among other subjects of conversation, were some strong representations, made through the interpreter, against a Frenchman in his service, who had cut with a two-edged sword, in proclaiming us as spies to the Pasha, while to us he had asserted that it was his Excellency's intention to detain us in Angora, or to have us waylaid and murdered if we left the city. "He has eat his words," said the Pasha, after reflecting a moment angrily, and a short time afterwards the Frenchman was congédied, and left for Constantinople.
Izzet Pasha's characteristics, are considerable powers of observation, moderate intellect, great firmness, pride, energy, and resolution, some superstition, but no morality, and hence ambition and want of scruple how he obtains his ends, activity in his enterprises, jealousy of success, avarice, but not (for an Eastern) sensuality. As a Mohammedan, he belongs to the old school; that is to say, he not only tolerates dervishes, and mad holy men, from policy, but loves them and courts their society, and on especial divan days allows them an upper seat. The mullahs, or priests, are the only persons who ever experience their master's bounty. To them he is said to give large sums of money. He has his astronomers, and always puts the most perfect reliance on their predictions of prosperous or unlucky days. And, lastly, he eminently hates all Franks, and never could nor will tolerate Europeans, except when he hopes to gain something by them, or to make them his tools. I was intimate with his chief astronomer. He had two or three astrolabes, with which he could measure to a rough approximation, the altitude of the stars and celestial bodies. He had also an almanack in which the results of the conjunctions were regularly unfolded. Thus his belief in astrology was not an imposition, but an actual faith in an imaginary science, traditionary among the Mohammedans. He often, on the contrary, expressed his wonder that Europeans, who are so accurate in astronomical observations, had not enlarged the field of astrology.
The Pasha's habits were regular. He rose early in the morning, and went out to ride or shoot before breakfast. He sometimes drove a low barouche. Fond of ostentation, he would occasionally contrive so that we should meet him on parade, and swell his retinue as he marched between two lines of troops. On these occasions, he favoured almost every soldier with one of his peculiar cat-like looks. He would then walk across the parade in conversation. If any poor person prostrated himself with a petition, he received it, but if any one spoke in his presence, he would stop short, and turning round, fix him with a glance for several seconds before he went on.
He never gave pipes to Franks, but often invited us to dinner, on which occasions he had music afterwards, and was delighted if we were pleased with the old Turkish refrain of "Welcome, Frank, welcome." On one occasion when baleing out our soup from a general basin, a severe and loud shock of an earthquake shook the old wooden and mud palace to its foundations. The attendants were astounded, and looked aghast, but the Pasha only leered up in his usual manner to see the effect it produced upon us. We said nothing, but continued the immersion of spoons. At these dinners the only beverage was sherbet or cherry-water. Once, after paying him a visit, we went into the apartment of his kaya, or deputy governor. Following us, he threw aside the curtains constituting an Oriental doorway, and, after holding them at arm's-length, staring from before a row of guards and attendants, and making a tableau of himself for a minute or more, he retired.
Baron W—, an able officer of the Prussian staff, was sent down, when war was about to break out, to organize and remodel the troops of the pashalik. This not being at all gratifying to his pride, he refused to acknowledge him, but the Baron writing to Stambul, renewed his credentials, and obliged him to effect a compromise in his usual way. He first of all objected to any alteration in the system of manual drill, and platoon exercise, as the troops had already learnt them from several French talimchis, or instructors, attached to the corps d'armée, and he said it would throw them back, to have now to learn the Prussian exercise. A new and more efficient system of military evolutions was then proposed, which he promised to think about. He did so next day, when out shooting, and coming home in good spirits, sent immediately for the Baron. "I have thought," he said, "of a good plan," rubbing his hands, and looking more than usually knowing. And he proceeded to expound a system of tactics, by which he could dovetail something of his own into what had been proposed by the Prussian officer, that he might thus be able to say that the Frank was not teaching him, but he the Frank.
He hated Hafiz Pasha as one Turkish pasha can hate another. This was first exhibited on the occasion of one of our party, in a very impolitic manner, shewing him a portrait of the Queen of England, which was intended for Hafiz. He could scarcely conceal his anger and spite. "He is a young pasha," he said, curling his lip in contempt, "young and inexperienced." But Hafiz Pasha was the favourite of the then Sultan Mahmud, and marched over Izzet's head, becoming seraskier of the army, as Izzet has since overtopped him, by becoming grand vizier. The jealousy and hatred of Izzet led in this matter, as will be subsequently seen, to the most disastrous results.
At Angora, Izzet ruled with the arbitrary sway of a petty tyrant. A beautiful summer house, erected on the banks of a river sweeping through a ravine almost in the heart of the city, attracted his desires. It belonged to a merchant, who was unscrupulously got rid of, and the Pasha entered immediately upon the enjoyment of his new possession.
In effecting his objects Izzet often exhibited no small degree of cunning. It was his custom to visit his different governments, and to personally examine the accounts, and question the peasants if the exactions were severe. This would have been well, if his objects had been to remedy the evil. But it was not so, and was merely a pretext to know what to demand of the muterellim and sheik or governor and sub-governors.
A muterellim, who had avoided his demands, by pleading his own poverty and that of the treasury, and whom he suspected of secreting money, was invited to the bath with him. Setting the example by beginning to undress, he deceived the governor into preparing himself for the bath, from which, however, he retired precipitately, and throwing himself upon the governor's clothes, obtained the girdle which Easterns generally wear round the waist, and with it the money he sought. On issuing from the bath, the muterellim found himself a beggar.
Izzet introduced at Angora the almost obsolete practice of spiking, and was particularly severe in inflicting this punishment upon the robber Kurds, three of whom were once spiked, at the same time, in the Angora marketplace. The bodies of several others might be seen occasionally on the way side, sustained on a scaffolding by three iron spikes, one passing through the head, another through the body, and a third through the legs, leaving the arms dangling downwards.
When the military preparations in the five great pashaliks of Dyarbekr, Sivas, Angora, Koniyeh, and Erzrúm, enabled the Osmanli army, under Hafiz Pasha, to enter the field against the Syro-Egyptians, under Ibrahim Pasha; Izzet Pasha was to effect a junction with the seraskier, and lend his force to assist in ensuring victory to the Sultan. But his hatred of his rival was greater than his patriotism, and by various subterfuges and delays he contrived to be no further than Derindeh, on the north side of Taurus, when the engagement so fatal to the Osmanli power took place at Nizib. Being at that time accompanied by an army of upwards of twenty thousand men, his troops would have enabled Hafiz to check the successes of his rival. But, in his usual cautious manner, Izzet defeated this object by letting it be privately known that there were no more rations, and that the army might break up. The army did so, accordingly, but not without plundering the treasury, while Izzet repairing to Constantinople, reported the affair as an accidental disaster, and a revolt on the part of his forces.
Shortly after this period, Izzet was appointed, on the occasion of the intended attack of the Allies on the Syro-Egyptian power, to the post of military chieftain of the Osmantis in that country. The writer's personal recollections do not accompany him in this campaign. But an anecdote is related of Izzet, while there, which bears all the characteristics of truth.
At the siege of Acre, a gallant German colonel was severely struck by a stone splintered by a shot, and almost immediately afterwards, his arm was broken by another. On the first impulse, he retreated from the town with the other fugitives, but was so maltreated by his companions that he returned, to give himself up as a prisoner, in which desiign he happily succeeded. It was almost entirely owing to this officer's presence that Acre made any defence. Every care was taken of him, and he was put on board a Turkish steamer, to be conveyed to Constantinople. This vessel, although belonging to the Porte, was commanded by an Englishman, well known and much respected throughout the Levant. The German officer was so seriously injured, that he felt he could not survive the transport. The English captain having to touch at Beirout, reported him, when there, to Izzet Pasha as unfit for the journey, and begged to be allowed to put him ashore. The Pasha at once refused. "Is he not our prisoner?" he said. "He is," was the reply; "but it is not customary to treat prisoners with unnecessary cruelty." "Is he not our enemy?" sternly rejoined the Pasha—"Let him die." The good captain, however, persevered, and the German was put ashore, and recovered.
The same captain brought Izzet to the Dardanelles, and on the passage the conversation happening to turn upon the anarchy that would exist among the Syrian tribes when the Allies should have withdrawn.—"Ah!" he said, his gray eye twinkling with the thought, and his arm waving to and fro, in imitation of a right and left sabre cut, "they will want me there yet. Cut a few hundred throats, and they will soon be quiet."
Such is the man, once more called from obscurity to rule the destinies of the Ottoman empire—such the character that philanthropic nations who, for their own imaginary interests, support the falling power of Mohammedanism, will have to look to for carrying into effect their well-intentioned, but mistaken policy. If the Turks are left to fight their own battles, the result will soon be manifest, in the general rise of the poor and unsympathized-for Christian races of the European peninsula. Greeks, Bulgarians, Servians, Montenigris, have but one feeling in common—a detestation of four centuries of Mohammedan misrule and despotic thraldom. But other nations will mingle in the conflict. As, in the Syrian war, a power able to govern a country may be driven out to make way for one incapable of ruling it. Such an assistance, once more tendered, may retard for a time, or another affair of Navarino may accelerate—but neither can prevent the dénouement awaiting the grand Oriental tragedy; a dénouement which, in the existing relations of the Christian and Mohammedan world, has been probably long marked out by Providence.