Turks from the big centers

“And all this crowd is active and busy. Everybody talks and gesticulates and rushes through the streets to accomplish some purpose.

“The modern European touch is brought by the Turks from the big centers, Nationalist leaders who have come here from Constantinople and other large cities, clad in sack suits or in uniforms cut on western patterns, but all wearing the black fur kolpak which has replaced throughout the country the red felt fez as national head gear.

“In the village proper there is not a house which does not shelter more people than it has rooms: So quite a few of the people who now live in Angora have been quartered in small farmhouses around the country and are obliged to commute every day to and from their business. There are of course no suburban trains or street cars and the “commuters,, are obliged to use carriages as all the automobiles mostly Fords are being used for military purposes or for transporting travelers and goods from villages to villages. The carriage is therefore the only means of conveyance in Angora. “Carriage” is, of course, a rather complimentary term: true that they have four wheels and are drawn by horses, but they generally have no springs, and two boards running parallel to each other and facing the horse are used as seats. From their wooden roofs hang colored curtains and the occupants are vigorously shaken over the uneven pavement of the streets.

Import them from Constantinople

“There are only a very few shops, but no one has time or leisure to shop. The strict necessities of life can be obtained at the open counters of the bazaars or markets and if they are not to be found there one has either to do without or to import them from Constantinople or from some other city. Amusement places are absolutely nonexistent: no theaters, not even movies. And of course no saloons or bars since Prohibition is vigorously enforced in Anatolia. There are one or two coffeehouses where a few old native peasants sit peacefully and, over a cup of coffee or a smoke of the ‘narghile talk of the good old days. The hostelry of the place has its lounge turned into a dormitory.

Travelers are at times obliged to sleep even on the steps of the stairs, so no space can be allotted for recreation. Besides it would be useless; no one here has time for amusement or recreation and if you ask anyone how he passes his time he will be able to answer you with a single word: Work.’ Everyone is at work to save the life of the country, everyone is endeavoring to improve the community, and everyone is engaged in assisting in some way or other the Government and the nation.

 

The national mandates even within hostile

THE SAME HYPOTHETICAL NARRATIVE CONTINUED

The spoliations above alluded to, once entertained as an ordinary topic of discussion, and a violent conflict of opinion inevitably takes place;  the fears of those who possess, and the lust and cupidity of those who desire to do so, will be fiercely arrayed against each other; public credit then receives a severe shock; consoles fall at least as low as in 1797, and all the branches of the public service will be in arrears.

At the period to which we have arrived in this suppositional glance into the future; those formidable structures, at present to be seen floating in certain of our depot rivers and harbors, carefully housed in, in stately and complete preparation for immediate war, which it gladdens the heart of an Englishman to look on, for they are associated with deeds that must forever .cast a luster upon the name of his country; those moveable fortresses which have so frequently contributed to the national security, and carried into effect the national mandates even within hostile ports and capitals, which as yet constitute the embattled chain of connation with our subject colonies and kingdoms, will now be discovered, by reason of the suspension of annual and necessary repairs, to be scarcely seaworthy: filth, rust, rot, and corrosion will have already made havoc’ in every beam, plank, and stanchion belonging to them.

The arsenals and dockyards, too, so judiciously at present stored with every species of naval provision, would be then, it is to be apprehended, found destitute of the supplies and equipments requisite for a great and sudden emergency: large quantities of these stores having been occasionally sold, we may suppose, to the merchant service, in order to meet if possible, by this apparent saving, the ordinary expenditure in the accounts of the Admiralty department.

These stupendous masses now reposing on their shadows.

WAR BETWEEN ENGLAND AND RUSSIA.

Nevertheless, the ancient courage of the nation, undiminished by one jot, would arouse itself. The trammels of well-meaning arithmeticians who may have too long unconsciously imposed their partial and limited views upon the country, under the garb of science, the devices of the merchants and manufacturers connected with the Levant, the Baltic, and the Western Archipelago; and the deprecations of the shortsighted and nervous fund holder  will be disregarded or broken through. The implicit, in short, of temporizing with a great danger will at length be revealed, and another course unanimously resolved on.

 

Spanish fortresses

But, possibly, to complicate this matter, to invest it with more plausibility, and involve us more ingeniously, in short, to give a decent and colorable appearance to the whole transaction, the President, Capo distrain, or his successor, the Knights of St. John, who have been long under the special protection of Russia and the Spanish King Ferdinand, if he yet survive, will be incited to demand of us, respectively, the restitution or relinquishment of our present Ionian, Maltese, and Spanish fortresses.

By every account this is a most respectable person. But it is supposed by many, who appear to be acquainted with these matters, that he is even now no more than a proconsul of Russia, and that he is in the receipt of a salary from the Czar. But this will not disprove his good intentions. The Moorea, even subject to the direct influence of Nicholas, would certainly be more happily situated than under the iron grasp of Ibrahim or Mahmoud.

Their great ally, the Czar, to whom an instigated appeal will be made, will cause those demands to be supported by the best selection of sophistry available for the purpose: a strenuous and uncompromising resistance being, of course, on our parts offered. France during these proceedings,—should she have been previously entrapped into erroneous and ignoble counsels—(which however must be admitted to be extremely improbable,)—will betray uneasiness—be disposed to retrace her steps, and to coalesce with us. Too late she will have discovered her desperate predicament. A vacillating ineffective conduct ensues. At one time, pacific policy will predominate,—at another, she will augment and assemble her forces on the Rhine. But these irresolute and tardy demonstrations will be held in check by the German and Russian troops in observation in the neighboring countries. Every indication of an impaired power will then declare itself in this country even to the common mind.

Flourishing condition

Some few of our colonies may not perhaps, even at present, be in a very flourishing condition; but all, indiscriminately, thenceforward will perceptibly decline in prosperity. Those who may chance to have visited the remains of the once affluent Dutch and Portuguese settlements, in. different parts of the world, will remember what sad miniatures they present of the declension and fall of states. Under those circumstances it is, that the onerous pressure of our debt would begin to be severely felt

Long ere this, the quarter’s revenue would also, we will suppose, exhibit, on each return, a progressive Ming off. Disorder and discouragement must, consequently, pervade the departments of government. Still it will be felt,—that, though inability exists to meet the public expenditure, a considerable degree of wealth, comparatively unreached by taxation, remains amassed in the country.

The propriety of spoliation the great landed, church, and funded properties will now be familiarly agitated. The passions of the poorer classes will be appealed to. Goaded by their wants, many desperate, intelligent, and partially educated persons will emerge from obscurity, and discover a calculated energy not hitherto to have been encountered in popular commotions; excesses will be less frequent, but the agitators will not be the less formidable. To restrain them, rigorous precautions and penal enactments must be resorted to.

 

Section of Constantinople

So, as my wife and I are both human, as we are still young and desire once in a while some kind of mundane distraction, we have had to frequent if not extensively at least moderately  this section of Constantinople. One glimpse of a night in Pera had been sufficient to make us realize the necessity of finding other playgrounds. We had to break, once in a while, from the quiet, peaceful and elevating life of Stamboul if it were only to make us appreciate more our normal home life.

Shortly after we had settled in our house a cousin of mine who lives in Shishli gave an afternoon tea to introduce us to his set. He is a prominent business man of Constantinople, and both his own position as well as the prominence of his family have placed him and his charming wife among the leaders of the Turkish social set of Shishli. They have an attractive house on one of the principle avenues and entertain frequently. His wife, like all the Turkish ladies of her set, has a weekly “at home.”

On these days one is sure to find a large crowd of callers in her salons. She is a perfectly charming woman, very young and beautiful. Her beauty is typically Turkish, tall and slender although not emaciated, languid black eyes with long eyelashes. She dresses exquisitely as she buys most of her frocks in Paris where she goes periodically to renew her wardrobe.

Freshly landed from America

At the time they gave the afternoon tea in our honor they had just refurnished their house with furniture purchased on their last trip to Italy and France. It was the first tea of the season and my cousin and his wife told us that all their friends were very anxious to meet us. As theirs is a dancing set the news that a Turk, freshly landed from America with his American wife, would be present at the tea had created quite a sensation; they were all keen to see the latest steps danced in the States. The dancing reputation of the Americans is worldwide and the fact that my wife was an American had stirred the interest of my cousins’ friends.

As for me, they imagined that anyone who had lived in America for such a long time must of necessity be a good dancer. Only a very few of the members of this set were known to me, and that very superficially, as I had met them as small children when I had previously’ been in Constantinople. Now most of them were married and had children of their own.

So when we arrived at my cousin’s house we had to be introduced to everyone. My cousin, Salih Zia Bey, and his wife, Madame Zia Bey, did the honors in that most exquisite modern Turkish fashion which, despite all its westernization, has still kept something of the ceremony characteristic of the old Turkey.

 

Present frontier

Nor could any army beyond the present frontier by possibility be more favorably situated for supplies. The herds of Bessarabia, the corn of Wallachia, the Crimea, &c., offer, in these essentials, a cheap and sufficient resource. Wine is the common produce of several of the adjoining provinces. The provisioning of this army ought, with good management, to cost very little more than if it had remained in concentrated cantonments. And even were it isolated upon the Bosporus, it were well worth the while of the Autocrat to incur the hazard and expense of its maintenance on so extraordinary and commanding a position.

The mere naval and military advantages, offensive and defensive, would amply indemnify him. Of the latter, the most prominent is, that it will completely lock up, as it were, and cover from all French or British expeditionary attacks,—in the possible event of hostility from those states,—the whole of his exposed, unsettled, insecure, and rebellious conquests in the Caucasian isthmus. Thus, likewise, will be protected the communication with the right flank of the position on the Araxes;—for this army also is chiefly supplied with stores, reinforcements, and even a considerable part of its provisions, by sea.

FOREIGN COMMERCE

AUSTRIA PRUSSIA SPAIN PERSIA SWEDEN

To drive the Muscovite eagles back over the Danube or Prutah may not be so easy a task as to have checked their flight ere they had passed those barriers. Prevention is generally easier and always better than remedy. If, however, prevention has not in this instance been compatible either by or through our means, then we have no more to do than reconcile ourselves to the abandonment, at no distant period, of every pretension to the station of a great or influential power—and even eventually prepare to bow our necks to the yoke;—for, if we are already so helpless, such must clearly, it is in vain to deny it, in due course of time, be the result.

The desire of wealth, when allowed to master the other passions, or to engross too exclusively the mind, has been ever found to be one of the most tenacious principles of action. Witness the Armenian and other merchants of Constantinople, who go on hoarding and acquiring, although aware that success is the ordinary precursor of confiscation and death. Witness the inflexible constancy of the banker Jews and goldsmiths, of former days, in this our own country.

Minister of Foreign Affairs

Towards midnight the doors of the dining room were opened and everyone went down stairs to have cold supper. The crowd was such that despite the rather chilly weather of the season many wandered in the gardens. It is here that I was for the first time introduced to His Highness Izzet Pasha, Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was later to show me many marks of friendship.

He of course knew my father and my family and immediately put my wife and myself at our ease by stating that he wanted to be considered by us as an “Uncle.” This is a mark of extreme courtesy in Turkey and we were, and have been ever since, duly grateful to Izzet Pasha for this and for his subsequent real friendship. Be it said in parentheses that Izzet Pasha is one of the ablest statesmen of Europe, broadminded, most progressive and democratic.

As the crowd was thinning we had an opportunity to talk some more to the Persian representative and to the Khanoum who were justly delighted with the remarkable success of their reception. They had dared to bring together all the representatives of different nations at war and of nations who had not yet concluded peace and they had been most successful in their endeavor. This was especially remarkable as it took place right in Constantinople which is and has been for many years the center of international intrigues, political rivalries and petty jealousies.

Crown Prince

We could congratulate them therefore most truthfully. They took us back into a small sitting room on the first floor where we had a few minutes private audience with the Crown Prince who courteously expressed the hope that we had enjoyed the reception. Upon learning that my wife was American he stated his admiration for the United States which he hopes to be able to visit some time.

It surely would be a very good thing for the world if through visits of this kind the western world was placed in a position to know and appreciate the Orient. The American idea of an Oriental potentate would surely be greatly revised if Oriental princes such as the Persian Crown Prince and the Turkish Imperial Princes came to America and entered into personal touch with the people.

Of course the Oriental feminine element was entirely absent from the reception at the Persian Embassy, the Persians being in this respect much stricter than the Turks, their women do not go out in society. And as Persian ladies were not to be present, Turkish ladies also remained away. But this is not the case at the receptions given by the other Embassies, especially the American Embassy.

 

Government are quartered

“The offices of the Government are quartered in the largest buildings. An old barrack shelters most of them. Its enormous rooms have been partitioned into offices with a long corridor running between them. Every office has a door on this corridor. On some of these doors there are inscriptions indicating the names of the departments which abide therein. The Department of Foreign Affairs, the Department of Commerce, the Treasury Department, the Department of Agriculture and all other civilian departments are located in this building.

“Another enormous building, a former school, shelters all the departments pertaining to every activity necessary to the national defense. Its offices are arranged on the same style as those for civilian activities. Thus the Nationalist Government has, fittingly, differentiated its war activities from its administrative activities. The departments which are engaged in constructive work, whose activities will secure the nation’s development and progress are completely separated from those whose duty is to secure the national defense.

Hygienic country in the Old World

“The two most active civilian departments, or rather the two departments to which the National Government attaches the greatest importance among those engaged in constructive work are the Department of Public Education and the Department of Hygiene. And if as all of us here are absolutely convinced the programs of these two departments are strictly adhered to, Anatolia will be in a very few years the best educated and the most hygienic country in the Old World.

“The Government conducts its business in the most democratic way possible. The different heads of departments are members of the National Assembly and are, therefore, all chosen directly by the people. They are delegated to manage the departments by the vote of all the members of the Assembly. Each head of department is individually responsible to the Assembly for the good conduct and administration of his department.

He is removable by the vote of the Assembly which immediately elects his successor. The heads of the departments have their private offices whose doors are always open to all. As the Government is of the people and for the people any citizen who desires to see one of his deputies concerning a matter connected with his department has the right to come in and is received at once without any formalities.

But he has to attend immediately to his business and then he has to leave. Efficiency is the slogan of the National Government and for this purpose all red tape has been completely eliminated. No loitering, no ‘manana’ policy is indulged in. Things that have to be done, have got to be done immediately and no one has the right to interfere for the pleasure of following the dictates of a set routine. Truly this is the most efficient form of government that I have ever seen.

English wealth

The English wealth, not falling short probably of the sum of Irish absentee money spent in this part of the United Kingdom with this advantage, that the one is a clear addition, while the other is but an abstraction, and, perhaps, injuriously so, from one integral part of the state to another.

India enables us to keep on foot about thirty thousand British troops (King’s or Company’s) over and above our other forces; besides a highly disciplined native army of two or three hundred thousand men; both being maintained free of all expense to the home government;   being armed, equipped, and clothed also from England, thereby furnishing no inconsiderable item of employment to our manufacturing population.

It is commonly supposed that the Indian army is only available on the Ganges, and is not directly contributive to the British European defense. This is erroneous with respect to the past, and will, it may be hoped, prove still more so with respect to the future.

During the last war, we transported the Spays over distant seas, and triumphed with them at many thousand miles from their native soil  against the Dutch, for example, at Batavia against the French at Bourbon, Mauritius and Egypt; and therefore on the borders of the Mediterranean.

Numerical force being

And here it may be observed, that the known fact of so great and efficient a numerical force being at our disposal, cannot fail to enhance the high consideration of the British power in the opinion of mankind: thus probably strengthening imperceptibly, though by no means unimportantly, our political weight and influence on many occasions, totally unconnected with Eastern affairs.

To these direct and collateral advantages, there may be added, what is far from immaterial to a commercial and manufacturing nation, the unlimited control of the mercantile concerns and markets, internal and maritime, of such immense and populous countries.

Finally, as the precariousness of our tenure of India ‘tends unavoidably to lessen its unequalled value as a possession’, so that very insecurity and sole source of depreciation are the strongest possible reasons for vigilance in regard to its protection. And in all such cases, there is a maxim, which can never, of course, be lost sight of with impunity, namely, that the defense of dependencies, held by the sword rather than by the affections of the inhabitants, can only be advantageously made, in advance of their frontiers.

 

Autocrat merely insists

But granting that the Autocrat merely insists on the independence of the Principalities, this is precisely what was done with respect to the Crimea. What was the result? Briefly after wards, the Khaim was compelled, by one means or another, humbly to lay his ostensible sovereignty at the feet of the Russian Empress.

RUSSIA

No parity, of course, exists between the disjointed Ottoman state and its portentous antagonist. The peculiar influence of the Russian court is becoming more, and more marked and perceptible in several of the continental capitals. The Czars and Czarinas have, during several reigns, extended an uncommon and most gracious patronage to almost every literary or scientific foreigner who may have come under their notice. We must, therefore, be the more on our guard against flattering and exaggerated statements of the ameliorations introduced into that country. No government has ever yet availed, itself more skillfully or constantly of the talent and ability of more advanced nations than that of Russia has done. This is a remarkable and, in its consequences, a most important feature of its conduct. .There is no doubt that order has been established, that industry has been promoted,—and the powers and capabilities of the empire put, in a great degree, into a course of development.

But in point of political rights or personal freedom of any kind, the Russians, with some perfectly unimportant exceptions, are essentially in almost as profound a state of debasement as at the very first day on which the Great Peter, their reputed regenerator, ascended the throne. Where such a people come as conquerors,” says an impartial and candid biographer of the late Czar,—“they trample on the existing civilization; where there is none, it will certainly not spring up under their feet.”

The occasional enfranchisement of a few hundred slaves which appear in the St. Petersburg Gazette, are proofs of individual generosity, but of course have no material effect whatever on this vast population. Alexander, it is understood, was at one period desirous of laying a basis for improvements of a more just and extensive nature than as yet exist; but was dissuaded by the magnates and influential persons of the court.

The senate is merely a salaried board of functionaries, nominated by the sovereign, removable at pleasure, and employed in the execution of details, judicial, fiscal) or otherwise, as their services happen to be required. The whole nation consists of two distinct classes, those of the slave and the master, between whom the strongest line of demarcation is drawn. The sovereigns have evinced a desire to alleviate the condition of the former,—in which they have been obstructed by the unwillingness of the latter.

 

I think that I have already said that Pera

A NIGHT IN PERA

Once our arrival in Constantinople we had heard of the night life in Pera but we had not seen it close to. Although we lived out of necessity in Pera during the first months of our return, we very seldom went out. In the summer months and in the fall we were in the country and since we had settled in Stamboul we loved too much our own quiet nights at home to seek anything else.

But when my friend, Carayanni, suggested showing us Pera at night we decided that it was almost our duty to take advantage of this opportunity of seeing it with someone who knew the place. Since the armistice Pera is so full of amusement resorts of all kinds that unless one is guided by a “habitué” one is apt to get lost in more than one sense of the word.

I think that I have already said that Pera is now inhabited by almost all the races of Europe with the exception of the Turks. The Turks have been forced out of this quarter and are certainly not keen to reenter it under its present conditions. Pera shelters all the foreigners in Constantinople, from the High Commissioners of the different nations and their immediate retinues down to the worst kind of adventurers. And of course there are many more adventurers than High Commissioners. Pera shelters most of the Russian refugees, from poor helpless former nobles whose plight is a real disgrace to civilization down to the most resourcefully immoral individuals of both sexes whose behavior is a real shame to humanity.

Pera shelters

In addition Pera shelters all the Greeks and Armenians of the city and its narrow, crooked streets are the playground and dwelling place of a nondescript people which, for lack of better name, people have agreed to call “Levantines.” The Levantine is the parasite of the Near East. He has no country, no scruples, no morals, and no honesty of any sort in business or in private life. He is the descendant of foreign traders who have settled in the Near East at some period or other and have intermingled not necessarily intermarried with Greeks and Armenians or other non-Turkish elements of the country.

His ancestors might have originally come to the Near East either attracted by the proverbial riches of the Orient at a time when the Orient was still rich or as runaways from the justice of their own country no one knows. As foreigners always had certain privileges in Turkey the present-day Levantine calls himself a foreigner when he is dealing with the Turks or with Turkish authorities. However, when he is dealing with foreigners he is very apt to call himself a Turk, an Armenian or a Greek.