CHAPTER II IN SEARCH OF THE TRUTH

His Excellency Noury Pasha—A quiet chat at his home—Turkish view of European criticism—The Turk misunderstood—The massacres in Macedonia—My visit to the Sublime Porte—His Excellency Tewfik Pasha tells me the truth—A great diplomatist—The fashion to denounce Turkey—The attitude of the Porte towards Bulgaria—Significant words.

The first visit I paid was to His Excellency Mehmed Noury Pasha, Secretary-General of the Imperial Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who is one of the most advanced and progressive of Turks, and who, next to Tewfik Pasha, the Sultan’s Foreign Minister, is one of the most powerful men in Turkey.

As such, it may be interesting to note that he was born in Constantinople, and having made his early studies in that city, was sent by the Sultan to Paris, where he underwent a long course of training, returning to occupy the post of Inspector in the Ministry of Public Works. Afterwards, he became Director-General, and subsequently his perfect knowledge of French brought him again before the notice of the Sultan, who appointed him to the office of Secretary-General in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a position which he has held for the past eighteen years.

Through his hands all diplomatic correspondence passes, and to him is mainly due the clever and tactful diplomacy of the Porte. His is, indeed, a delicate and laborious task.

His Excellency Noury Pasha.

He is a slim, fair-bearded, middle-aged man of very charming manner, and a delightful companion; shrewd, full of tact and clear discernment. Times without number he has given proof of assiduous work for his country’s advancement, and no one knows better than he the defects of Turkish rule.

By no means bigoted, he is, on the contrary, broad-minded and eager for reform. He was sent by the Sultan to represent him at Rome at the silver wedding of the King and Queen of Italy in 1893, and later, was one of the Peace delegates at the Conference after the Greco-Turkish War. He acted as second delegate of the Ottoman Empire at the Conference at Rome against the Anarchists, and also at the Peace Conference at The Hague.

At this latter Conference he won golden opinions from all the delegates of the other Powers for his politeness, his charm of manner, and the clever tact with which he performed his somewhat difficult mission.

Few, if any, of the dignitaries of Constantinople possess such a wide knowledge of Europe, European ways, and European politics. Enjoying the full confidence of the Sultan and of the Sublime Porte, he is recognised by the foreign missions as the working head of the Department of Foreign Affairs. He is the right hand of his chief, Tewfik Pasha, whom he aids with all his intelligence in the incessant difficulties which beset Turkish diplomacy. As a mark of their esteem he has been decorated by nearly every sovereign in Europe, while the Sultan has given him the plaque in brilliants of the Orders of Osmanie and the Medjidie.

Noury Pasha being well known to me as one of the cleverest men in Turkey, it afforded me great pleasure to obtain a chat with him one evening in the quiet of his own home.

He received me in a cosy room on the ground floor, a room that was more European than Turkish, and where I noticed many signed photographs of the chief diplomatists of Europe who are his friends.

When we were seated, a man-servant brought us the inevitable tiny cup of excellent coffee, and delicious cigarettes, and then we fell to chatting.

I gave him a message from a notable foreign ambassador who was our mutual friend, and told him the reason I was in Constantinople.

“Ah! So you wish to see His Majesty, and also His Excellency Tewfik Pasha! Well, I will see what can be done,” was his reply.

“But I want your Excellency to tell me, if you will, what is the present situation in Turkey, and what are her future aspirations?” I said boldly.

The question was rather a poser. He hesitated. I pressed him to tell me the truth as far as he was able, without being injudicious; and at last, after some reluctance, he consented.

“You Europeans,” he laughed, “are under a great misconception as regards Turkey. My sovereign, His Imperial Majesty, is often portrayed as a bloodthirsty brute, who has no regard for human life, and whose reign is one of terror and terrible injustice. Now the exact opposite is the truth. You will meet His Majesty, and judge for yourself. I have good opportunities of seeing how deeply he has the welfare of his people at heart. Is it not he, for instance, who out of his own pocket supports some six hundred schools in Turkey? It is he, personally, who has more than once prevented a declaration of war. I know we Turks have many defects. But what nation has not? Even you English are not—well, exactly perfect,” he laughed. “Foreigners come here to Constantinople and hold up their hands that we do not sweep our streets, as is done in other capitals. The fact is, Turkey is not a rich country, and we have no money to expend on scavengers. I and every Turk would only welcome cleanliness. But how can we do it when we have no funds? Again, the very people who criticise us, the foreigners, can come and live here for twenty years and not pay one piastre of municipal tax. Can they do that in any other country?”

I admitted that they could not.

“Then why should they criticise us? All we want to be allowed to do is to carry on our government in our own way. Our population is of different race and different creed from Europeans, and therefore necessitates a totally different method of government. England does not understand Turkey, or Turkish methods. I readily grant that our government would not suit England, but neither would British ideas be tolerated here. For many years all the diplomatic correspondence of the Sublime Porte has passed through my hands, hence I know what I am speaking about when on the topic of Turkish diplomacy. Abroad, we are told that our word is not our bond, that we give promises that we do not fulfil, and that we are a century or so behind the times. Well, I admit that we are not a twentieth-century nation. I admit that our Sublime Porte is not so imposing as your Foreign Office in Whitehall, or the Ministère des Affaires Étrangères in Paris, or in Vienna. But I do maintain that the government of my sovereign, the Sultan, is a beneficent one for Turkey, and that our foreign policy has for its base the peace and welfare of the Balkans.”

“But Macedonia?” I remarked.

He shrugged his shoulders.

“The question of Macedonia is, I admit, an extremely difficult one,” he answered. “We have to govern a population so varied, both in nationality and in creed, that there must of necessity be constant aggressions and outbreaks. It is said that we aid and abet the Greek bands in massacring the Christians. I totally deny this. We do not. Surely it is to our own interest to maintain peace and order in Macedonia, and not to allow outsiders to create disorder and dissension!”

“And the protests of Bulgaria?”

His Excellency smiled.

“We hear from time to time threats of war,” was his answer. “But when we hear them, we remember that we are sixteen million Turks; and when we sleep, we sleep quite undisturbed by any war rumours from Sofia.”

“Then you do not anticipate armed reprisals from Bulgaria?”

He laughed, but said nothing except—

“Turkey is well informed, I assure you, of all that transpires in Sofia.”

Noury Pasha’s son, a smart lad of sixteen, entered and chatted with us in French. He is going to Paris for his education, and is destined for the Turkish Diplomatic Service. He is a bright, intelligent youth, who, like his father, is imbued with Western ideas, and yet is naturally full of patriotism for his own country.

Another cup of excellent coffee, another cigarette over a chat upon private matters, and I took leave of my host—after I had begged the photograph which appears in these pages—feeling that I had met one of the most charming and most intelligent men in the great Ottoman Empire.

Next day I called at the palace of Tewfik Pasha, and on being ushered into a gorgeous reception-room—very French, but by the way lit by candles in high glass chimneys—the usual cup of coffee upon a golden tray and cigarette were brought me. The secretary of the Greek Embassy was waiting to see His Excellency upon an urgent matter concerning a massacre by a Greek band in Macedonia which had taken place near Seres the day previously. This meant, I saw, a long interview, and not caring to wait, I left a message for His Excellency to the effect that I would call and see him at the Sublime Porte on the following morning.

Next to His Imperial Majesty the Sultan, Tewfik Pasha is certainly the most powerful man in the Ottoman Empire. A quiet-mannered, quiet-spoken, grey-bearded gentleman with kindly eyes and a fatherly manner, he is entirely the opposite that one would expect of “the terrible Turk.” Born in Constantinople in 1845, the son of a General of Division, Ismail Hakki Pasha, he was destined for the army, and prosecuted his studies with great diligence. Unfortunately, owing to feeble health, he was compelled to abandon the idea of a military career—not, however, before he had passed his examination and obtained his diploma. He then chose a new career, one in which he has certainly rendered his country signal services. In 1866 he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as attaché, six years later being nominated as second secretary at the Ottoman Legation at Rome, whence he went to Vienna, to Berlin, and, later on, to Athens. He was transferred to St. Petersburg as first secretary at the moment when there arose those grave complications which resulted in the war between Russia and Turkey. Then, during the war, he was appointed diplomatic agent to the Turkish Commander-in-Chief. In 1879, after the war, he was sent back to the Russian capital, but on this occasion in the capacity of Minister Plenipotentiary.

At the early age of forty-one Tewfik Pasha found himself Ambassador at Berlin, a post which he occupied for ten years, namely, till 1895. His personal charm, his uprightness, and his frankness of manner endeared him to his colleagues in the German capital, as well as to the German Court, and it was he, indeed, who laid the foundation of the present cordial friendliness between the sovereigns at Berlin and Constantinople.

Finally, in 1895, the Sultan recalled him to Turkey and promoted him to be Minister of Foreign Affairs, a powerful position which he still holds. For the past eleven years he has directed the destinies of the Ottoman Empire with broad-mindedness, tact, and patience, that have, without doubt, been highly beneficial to his country’s interests. His post is no sinecure, as recent history has shown us. Yet he is a conscientious man of Western ideas and Western views; one of the cleverest diplomatists in the whole of Europe, and yet at the same time just and honourable in his dealings. However much we in England may criticise the policy of the Sublime Porte, we can have only admiration for Tewfik Pasha, both as a man and as the faithful servant of his Imperial master.

In Turkey fresh diplomatic difficulties arise every minute, yet with Noury Pasha’s assistance he grapples with them and deals with them in a manner which the diplomatists of few other nations could ever hope to do. Honoured by the most complete confidence of his sovereign, who possesses for him a particular esteem, Tewfik Pasha is universally known and liked. The diplomatic corps in Constantinople are ever loud in their praises of his extreme kindness and courtesy and his readiness to accede to all requests that are in reason.

His Excellency’s courtesy towards myself was very marked. Hardly had I been ushered into his anteroom at the Sublime Porte—a very shabby, unimposing building of long dreary corridors with broken windows and broken wooden flooring—when the usual coffee was brought, and I signed his big visitors’ book. In that book I noticed the signatures of all the diplomatic world of Constantinople. Then there entered the Russian Ambassador, who, with a cheery “Bon jour, m’sieur,” crossed, and also signed the book.

A moment later the secretary came, and presenting His Excellency’s regrets to the Ambassador, pointed out that he already had an appointment with me, and asked whether he would call later. The representative of the Tzar said he would call the following morning, and I was then ushered into Tewfik’s private room, a big, cheerful apartment with splendid Persian carpets, long windows and a large writing-table at one end, where sat the grey-bearded Minister in frock-coat and fez. He rose and greeted me with a hearty hand-shake. With him was seated the Grand Vizier and Noury Pasha, both of whom also greeted me.

We four had a long and very interesting conversation in French, its drift, however, being such as would be injudicious to print in these pages. The chat was of a purely private character, although it closely concerned the present political situation in the Near East.

“The fact is,” remarked His Excellency presently, smiling as he sat back in his arm-chair before his littered writing-table, “we Turks are not understood abroad. Writers in England, and especially your journalists, not knowing Turkey and never having visited the East, criticise us, and say all sorts of hard things about Turkish rule and Turkish diplomacy. They call us intolerant and fanatical. But surely there are evidences in Constantinople that we are tolerant? We allow Christians to erect churches wherever they want them; and again, have we not done everything possible in Macedonia to preserve for its inhabitants their religious liberty? Really, the English ought to know the truth concerning Turkey. Unfortunately, the fashion of late seems to be to denounce our land and all its ways!” And he laughed again.

The entrance to the Bosphorus.

In Constantinople.

I referred in guarded words to the possibilities of war with Bulgaria, whereupon he said—

“We view the matter with perfect tranquillity. The Government of His Imperial Majesty regrets most deeply those unfortunate incidents in Macedonia that so constantly occur, but is unable to remedy it. It is the Greek bands that are to blame—not the Turks.”

“And your diplomatic relations with Bulgaria?” I asked.

“They are perfectly normal,” was his reply. “Dr. Stancioff is an able Minister, and he fully understands us.”

“Then you do not anticipate hostilities at an early date?” I asked, pressing home my question.

His Excellency said nothing. He merely shrugged his shoulders. But that gesture was, to me, sufficiently significant.

“You are going to Macedonia,” he said. “It is not altogether safe, you know, especially around Presba and Ochrida, or about Seres. But if you are determined to go, I wish you every good luck on your journey.”

I thanked him, and after another half-hour’s pleasant chat with the Grand Vizier and Noury Pasha I rose, and Tewfik Pasha grasped my hand heartily in warm farewell, his parting words being—

“Go, see for yourself, and I believe you will find that we Turks are not quite so black as we are painted.”

And I left the presence of a man whose broad-minded policy, if it were adopted in every particular, would, I feel sure, advance the Turkish cause, and place the Ottoman Empire in a very different position from what it is to-day.

I crossed the Sea of Marmora to Haidar Pasha, in Asia Minor, visited Ismid, and saw the new German railway that has its head opposite Stamboul and is to have its terminus on the Persian Gulf. I went to Brusa, the ancient capital of the Ottoman Empire, walked in the wonderful burying-grounds of Scutari, and made many interesting excursions about Asia Minor, in order to observe the all-powerful influence of Germany in that country. And I was amazed.

On my return to Constantinople I had other interviews at the Yildiz with His Majesty himself, and with members of the Government, all of which combined to show that Turkey is not in any way afraid of Bulgaria. The fact is, she is uncertain of the attitude of Servia and Roumania, and is rather mystified as to what Austria will do in the event of war. Relying upon Germany, and treating Great Britain with studied politeness, she views the present critical position with perfect coolness and indifference.

Indeed, as Noury Pasha very justly said one day to me—

“It takes a good deal to arouse us Turks, but when we are aroused, we fight—and fight to the death.”

Turkey to-day is still in its lethargic state, but once aroused, who knows where the war will end, or what European complications will result?