Friedrich Engels

The Turkish Question

Written at the end of March 1853.

From the English.

[*New-York Daily Tribune*, No. 3746, April 19, 1853, leading article]

It is not long since the West European public and the Americans could form an approximately accurate judgement about Turkish affairs. Until the Greek insurrection, Turkey was in every respect a terra incognita <unknown land>, and the general notions in circulation were based more on the fairy tales of the “Thousand and One Nights” than on any historical facts. True, the official diplomats, who had themselves been in the country, boasted of more precise knowledge; but since none of them had taken the trouble to learn Turkish, South Slavonic or Modern Greek, their knowledge too did not amount to much, and they were therefore all dependent on the coloured reports of Greek interpreters and Frankish merchants. Besides, these idling diplomats always wasted their time with all sorts of intrigues. Only Joseph von Hammer, the German historian of Turkey, forms an honourable exception. These gentlemen cared nothing about the people, the institutions and the social conditions of the country; their relations extended only to the court, and particularly to the Greek Phanariots, the cunning go-betweens between two parties, neither of which knew the real circumstances, the power and the resources of the other. For a long time, and remarkably enough still today, the traditional ideas and views based on such paltry information form for the most part the foundation of all the actions of Western diplomacy towards Turkey.

But while England, France, and for a long time even Austria, groped in the dark in their Oriental policy, they were all outwitted by another power. In Russia, which by its nature and way of life, its traditions and institutions, is itself semi-Asiatic, there were plenty of people who had the right understanding of the true condition and character of Turkey. They had the same religion as nine-tenths of the inhabitants of European Turkey; their language was almost the same as that of seven million Turkish subjects; and the well-known facility with which a Russian learns to speak foreign languages, even if he does not master them completely, made it easy for the well-paid Russian agents to become thoroughly familiar with Turkish affairs. And very early the Russian government exploited this its extraordinarily advantageous position in the south-east of Europe. Hundreds of Russian agents traversed Turkey, directing the attention of the Greek Christians to the orthodox ruler as the head, the natural protector and eventual liberator of the oppressed Eastern Church; to the South Slavs, again, they pointed out this same ruler as the all-powerful tsar, who sooner or later would unite all the tribes of the great Slavonic race under one sceptre and make them the ruling race of Europe. The clergy of the Greek Orthodox Church soon formed a single vast conspiracy for the dissemination of these ideas. The Serbian rising of 1804 and the Greek revolt of 1821 were, more or less directly, instigated by Russian gold and Russian influence; and wherever Turkish pashas raised the standard of revolt against the central government, there was no lack of Russian intrigues or Russian money. And while the Western diplomats, who knew no more of the real state of affairs in Turkey than of the man in the moon, racked their brains in vain over this, war was declared, Russian troops marched into the Balkans, piece after piece was torn from the Ottoman Empire.

To be sure, much has been done in the last thirty years to enlighten the general public about conditions in Turkey. German philologists and critics have acquainted us with its history and literature; English residents and English merchants have collected many data on the social relations of the Turkish Empire. But for the nine-times-wise diplomats all this seems not to exist, and they cling as tenaciously as possible to the traditions created by the reading of Oriental fairy-tale literature and supplemented by the no less marvellous reports put about by the most corrupt band of unscrupulous Greek mercenaries that ever existed.

And what naturally had to result from this? That, thanks to the ignorance, indolence, continual vacillation and cowardice of the West European governments, Russia consistently achieved one intention after another in all essential points. From the battle of Navarino down to the present Eastern crisis, the action of the Western powers was either thwarted by quarrels among themselves, which for the most part sprang from their common ignorance of Oriental affairs and petty jealousies that must have appeared quite incomprehensible to the Oriental way of thinking, or else every action served the interest of Russia directly. And not only the Greeks – in Greece and in Turkey – but also the Slavs see in Russia their natural protector; and even the government in Constantinople, which again and again despairs of making its current embarrassments and its real position intelligible to these Western diplomats, who still pride themselves on their utter incapacity to learn to judge Turkish things with their own eyes, even this Turkish government sees itself forced time and again to appeal to Russia’s mercy and to take refuge with the power that openly confesses its firm intention to chase all Turks across the Bosphorus and to plant the St. Andrew’s cross on the minarets of Hagia Sophia.

In spite of diplomatic tradition, these constant and successful encroachments of Russia have at last aroused in the cabinets of the Western European powers a very faint and remote apprehension of the approaching danger. This apprehension engendered the great diplomatic patent remedy, that the maintenance of the status quo in Turkey is a condition indispensable to the peace of the world. The boastful incapacity of certain modern statesmen could have manifested their ignorance and helplessness in nothing more clearly than in this axiom, which, though always a dead letter, has nevertheless been sanctified by tradition in the short period of twenty years and has become as venerable and indisputable as King John’s Magna Charta. Maintenance of the status quo! But it was precisely to maintain the status quo that Russia stirred up the insurrection in Serbia, made Greece independent, appropriated the protectorate over Moldavia and Wallachia, and kept a part of Armenia for herself. England and France did not stir when all this happened, and only once did they give a sign of life; that was in 1849, when they protected, not Turkey, but the Hungarian refugees. For European diplomacy, and even for the European press, the whole Eastern question is confined to the dilemma: either the Russians in Constantinople, or the maintenance of the status quo – beyond that nothing exists for them.

Let one look at the London press for an illustration. There we have *The Times*, which advocates the dismemberment of Turkey and declares the Turkish race unfit to rule any longer in this beautiful corner of Europe. Clever as ever, *The Times* boldly attacks the old diplomatic tradition of the status quo and declares its continuation impossible. All the talent at the command of this paper is mustered to demonstrate this impossibility from the most diverse points of view and to rally British sympathies for a new crusade against the remnants of the Saracens <in the Middle Ages designation for Mohammedans, especially Arabs and Turks>. The merit of this reckless assault on a meaningless and time-honoured phrase, which two months ago was still sacred to *The Times* itself, cannot be denied. But whoever knows this newspaper knows also that this unwonted boldness is displayed directly in the interest of Russia and Austria. The irrefutable arguments brought forward in its columns for the utter impossibility of maintaining Turkey in her present condition serve no other purpose than to prepare the English public and the world for the moment when the most important disposition in the testament of Peter the Great – the conquest of the Bosphorus – becomes an accomplished fact.

The *Daily News*, the organ of the Liberals, represents the opposite standpoint. *The Times* at least extracts a new and pertinent aspect from the question, only to twist it afterwards for selfish purposes. The common sense, however, that reigns in the columns of the Liberal paper is, however, only of  
a very homespun kind.  
The *Daily News* does not see beyond its own nose. It is clear to it that a dismemberment of Turkey  
*under the present circumstances*  
would inevitably bring the Russians to Constantinople and that this would be a great misfortune for England; that thereby the peace of the world would be threatened, the trade in the Black Sea ruined, and that new reinforcements of England’s bases and fleet in the Mediterranean would become necessary. Consequently, the *Daily News* endeavours to arouse fear and indignation in the English public. Is not the partition of Turkey as great a crime as the partition of Poland? Have not the Christians in Turkey more religious freedom than in Austria and Russia? Is not the Turkish government a mild, paternal government, under whose sceptre the various nations, confessions and local associations can undisturbed attend to their affairs? Is not Turkey a paradise in comparison with Austria and Russia? Does not security for life and property exist there? And is not English trade with Turkey greater than that with Russia and Austria put together, and does it not increase from year to year? And so on in veritable dithyrambs, as far as the *Daily News* can be dithyrambic, and in apotheoses of Turkey, the Turks and everything Turkish, which must appear quite incomprehensible to most of its readers.

The key to this strange enthusiasm for the Turks is to be found in the works of Mr David Urquhart, Member of Parliament. This gentleman of Scottish descent, full of medieval and patriarchal memories of his homeland, yet with the modern education of a civilised Englishman, after fighting three years in Greece against the Turks, came to Turkey and there at once became one of their most ardent admirers. The romantic Highlander felt quite at home in the mountain gorges of the Pindus and the Balkan. His works on Turkey, though full of valuable information, may be summed up in three paradoxes, which read almost literally as follows: First, were Mr Urquhart not a British subject, he would certainly prefer to be a Turk; second, were he not a Presbyterian Calvinist, he would belong to no other religion than Islam; and third, England and Turkey are the only two countries in the world that enjoy self-government and civil and religious freedom. This same Urquhart has since become the great authority on Oriental questions for all English Liberals who are opposed to Palmerston, and it is he who supplies the “Daily News” with the material for its hymns of praise to Turkey.

The only argument on this side of the question that deserves attention is the following: “It is constantly said that Turkey is in decay, but in what does this decay manifest itself? Is not civilisation spreading, is not trade expanding rapidly in Turkey? Where you see nothing but decay, statistics show us only progress.” It would, however, be very deceptive to credit the increasing trade in the Black Sea solely to Turkey, and yet this is done here just as if one were to calculate the commercial and industrial capacity of Holland, the access route for the greater part of Germany, by its gross exports and imports, which nine-tenths consist of mere transit traffic. And yet, what every statistician would instantly treat as a crude falsification in the case of Holland, the entire liberal press of England, including the learned “Economist”, attempts to talk the credulous public into believing in the case of Turkey. And who are the merchants in Turkey? Certainly not the Turks. When they still lived in their original nomadic state, their method of trading consisted in plundering caravans; now that they are somewhat more civilised, it consists in all sorts of arbitrary and oppressive taxation. The Greeks, the Armenians, the Slavs, and the Franks established in the great seaports have the entire trade in their hands, and they certainly have no reason to thank the Turkish Beys and Pashas for being enabled to do so. Remove all Turks from Europe, and trade will not suffer. And the progress of general civilisation? Who spreads it in all parts of European Turkey? Not the Turks, for they are few in number and scattered throughout the country, and it can scarcely be said that they are settled anywhere except in Constantinople and two or three small rural districts. It is the Greek and Slav bourgeoisie in all the towns and trading centres that is the real support of whatever civilisation is seriously introduced into the country. This section of the population is, moreover, constantly growing in wealth and influence, and the Turks are pushed more and more into the background. If they did not possess the monopoly of state and military power, they would soon disappear. This monopoly has, however, become impossible for the future, and their power will become impotence, except in those cases where it will form an obstacle to progress. The fact is that they must be done away with. However, to assert that this can be done only by putting Russians or Austrians in their place, is at the same time to advance the assertion that the present political condition of Europe must last forever. Who can make such an assertion?