Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/672

Rh 650 TURKEY [HISTORY. powers was offered to the Porte, and an armistice demanded. It was contemptuously refused. The united fleets of the powers consequently appeared before Navarino, where Ibra him was assembling his forces for an expedition against Battle of Hydra. After a vain attempt at negotiation, they entered Nava- the harbour and fought the battle of Navarino, on 20th rino - October 1 827, in which the Turco-Egyptian fleet was totally destroyed. Canning had just died ; his successors could only speak of Navarino as an &quot;untoward event&quot; and with draw from further interference, leaving Russia and the Porte face to face. After a proclamation by the sultan calling the Mohammedans to arms, war was declared by Russia in April 1828. The moment was singularly favourable for Russia, for Mahmud had, little more than a year before, Suppres- exterminated the janissaries. After bringing over soldiers sion of from Asia to make him secure of victory in the event of a conflict, he had called upon the janissaries to contribute a certain number of men to the regiments about to be formed on the European pattern. The janissaries refused and raised the standard of rebellion. Mahmud opened fire on them with cannon, and the slaughter did not cease until the last of them had perished. The great difficulty in the way of a military reorganization was thus removed, and the newly-modelled regiments were raised to about War 40,000 men. Small as the army was with which he had to meet the Russian invasion in 1828, the campaign of that sia&amp;gt; year was honourable to the Turkish arms. Though Varna fell into the hands of the Russians, Silistria and Shumla were successfully defended, and the Russians, after suffering great losses, were compelled to withdraw to winter quarters on the Danube. In the following year they advanced through Bulgaria, defeated the Turks at Kulevtcha, and, after the surrender of Silistria, crossed the Balkans under the command of Diebitsch. They reached Adrianople, which immediately capitulated. Diebitsch, concealing the real weakness of his force, sent out detachments towards the Euxine and the ^gean, while the centre of his army marched on Constantinople. Had the sultan known the insignificant number of his enemy, he might safely have defied him. But the wildest exaggerations were current in the capital; Kars and Erzeroum had fallen into the hands of Paskiewitch, commander of the czar s forces in Asia ; and in Constantinople the friends of the slaughtered janissaries threatened revolt. Mahmud listened to the advocates of peace, and on 14th September hostilities were Treaty of brought to a close by the treaty of Adrianople. This treaty Adrian- g ave R uss i a the ports of Anapa and Poti on the eastern coast of the Black Sea; but its most important clauses were those which confirmed and extended the protectorate of the czar over the Danubian principalities. The office of hospodar, hitherto tenable for seven years, was now made an appointment for life, and the sultan undertook to permit no interference on the part of neighbouring pashas with these provinces. No fortified point was to be re tained by the Turks on the left bank of the Danube ; no Mussulman was to reside or hold property within the principalities. The Bosphorus and the Dardanelles were declared free and open to the merchant ships of all nations. The Porte further gave its adherence to the treaty of London relating to Greece, and accepted the act entered into by the allied powers for regulating the Greek frontier. An indemnity in money was declared to be owing to Russia; and by leaving the amount to be fixed by subsequent agreement Russia retained in its own hands the most powerful means of enforcing its influence at Constantinople. The suzerainty over Greece, which the powers had at first agreed to leave to the sultan, was by common consent abandoned, and Greece became an independent kingdom. At the close of eight years of warfare Mahmud s south ernmost provinces were even more completely severed from ople. the empire than Servia and the Danubian principalities. Conflict It was in vain that he had borne the humiliation of calling wit1 upon his vassal, Mehemet AH, for help, and Mehemet s reward had now to be paid. Crete was offered to him ; this, however, was far from satisfying his ambition, and in November 1831 he threw an army under Ibrahim into Palestine and began the conquest of Syria. The sultan now declared Mehemet and his son to be rebels, and de spatched an army against them. The first encounter took place in the valley of the Orontes. The Turks were put to the rout, and retired into Cilicia. Ibrahim following gained a second victory at the pass of Beylan, and, after crossing Mount Taurus, destroyed the last army of the sultan at Konieh, on 21st December 1832. In this ex tremity Mahmud looked for help to the European powers, and Russia at once tendered its aid. At the request of the sultan a Russian fleet appeared before Constantinople. The French ambassador thereupon threatened to quit the capital; and finally, under French mediation, terms of peace were signed with Ibrahim at Kutaya (April 1833), the sultan making over to his vassal, not only the whole of Syria, but also the province of Adana between Mount Taurus and the Mediterranean. Scarcely had this treaty been concluded when Russian Alliance influence again won the ascendency at Constantinople, and wi th a treaty of alliance between Turkey and Russia was signed Russia - at the palace of Unkiar Skelessi, which in fact reduced Turkey to the condition of a vassal state. The form of the treaty was skilfully framed to disguise the relation of dependence which it created and the right of intervention in the internal affairs of the Ottoman empire which it gave to Russia. Each power pledged itself to render assistance to the other not only against the attack of an external enemy but wherever its peace and security might be en dangered. Another article declared that, in order to diminish the burdens of the Porte, the czar would not demand the material help to which the treaty entitled him, but that in lieu thereof the Porte undertook, when ever Russia should be at war, to close the Dardanelles to the war-ships of all nations. The control of the Dardanelles was thus transferred from Turkey to Russia, and the en trance to the Black Sea converted into a Russian fortified outpost. In this treaty, brilliant as it appeared, Russia had gone too far. The Western powers declared that they would not recognize it, and the most strenuous and system atic efforts were henceforth made both by France and England to diminish Russian influence in the East. France, anxious to gain in Egypt a counterpoise to England s naval power in the Mediterranean, made itself the patron and ally of Mehemet Ali. England adhered to the cause of the sultan, and on many occasions showed its hostility to Mehemet. Thus the two Western powers, though both in antagonism to Russia, were directly in conflict with one another in their Eastern policy. Mahmud in the mean- Renewal time was steadily preparing to renew the war with his rival. of war He obtained the services of Moltke and other Prussian ^ lt. officers in organizing his army, and, after a successful met campaign against the rebellious tribes of Kurdistan, as sembled his troops in the spring of 1839 on the upper Euphrates; and marched against Ibrahim. In the opera tions which followed the advice of the European officers was persistently disregarded by the pasha in command; and on 24th June the Turkish army was annihilated by Ibrahim at Nisib. To complete the ruin of the empire, the Turkish admiral, Achmet Fewzi, sailed into the port of Alexandria and handed over his fleet to Mehemet Ali. The sultan did not live to hear of the overthrow of his hopes. He died in the same week in which the battle of Nisib was fought, leaving the throne to his son Abd-ul- Mejid (1839-1861).