The Tragedy of Turkey.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIX, Issue 4, 22 January 1913, Page 4

The Tragedy of Turkey.

Ghazi Mukhtar Pasha —The Bearer of Turkey’s Burdens.

yj V PON the shoulders of the most fl I venerable, as well as tile most \jL brilliant of lier elder statesmen, "Mukhtar the Victorious,” Turkey saddled the burden of ‘the Balkans. In his capacity of adviser to the Sultan, Ghazi Mukhtar Pasha awaited in Con-

stantinople the four conquering armies of the Balkan allies, there to foil the purposes of the allied kings who would drive the Moslem from Europe. The long life of Mnkhtar has been spent in baffling the designs of great powers upon the Sultans in Turkey.. When he swayed the councils of the Osmanli in their ■capital, observes the Paris 'Temps,” European diplomacy was helpless against Iris imperial masters. Mukhtar has bad the misfortune to incur the suspicion of Turkey’s rulers, however. He has been exile-1 for years at a time. During these periods of banishment, his native land lias lest territory, lost prestige, lost glory. But when the empire was on the brink of ruin, he was given a decisive voice in affairs. The supreme necessity in the late conflict, from the Moslem point of view, was the retention of a foothold in Europe. This could «be effected if the great powers of The north worked against the little powers of tire ©outh. This was the key to Mukhtar’© problem. In the Ghazi Mukhtar of recent distracted times the Paris paper beholds the grandest of Turkey’s many grand old men. Turkey’s grand young men, it observes. failed miserably. The misfortunes of the Sultan were the work of the Young Turks. In a few brief years they lost possessions in Africa, ravaged whole districts in Europe and sowed revolt in every part of Asia. The mischief had been undone in part by the Old Turks, and Ghazi Mukhtar is the greatest of these. He us a soldier, a diplomatist, a statesman. He is honest, clean, temperate. He has health and strength and ideals. The catalogue of his personal qualities could be prolonged to his credit, observe© the Vienna “Nene Freie Presse,” for his personality is a blend of the best that is in the European with all that is characteristic of the Moslem. From a modest home on the Adriatic bank of the Bosphorus, where Ire dwells in dignified ease upon an ample patrimony. Mukhtar was summoned to the post of Grand Vizier a little while ago by a messenger who found him in bed. Tire one wife of the aged Irero of the Turco-Russian war implored him upon her knees to return to his slumbers. His two granddaughters, we road, wept and tore their hair. The grandsons were away at the front, as was <he only ©on, Mohammed Pasha, a gallant soldier in high command near Adrianople who lost all his battles. For nearly an hour, it seems, the aged Turk, white barred but vigorous, listened impassively to tire pleas of his household. At last he ordered the reading aloud of a favourite chapter of the Korun. Then, conimendiirg his soul to Allah, he made arrangements for the conduct of hi© household in the event of his death. So airsolute ie the domestic rule of the Old Turk Chat no one ventured to offer a further word of remonstrance. So contagious is tire optimum at the foundation of Mukhtar’s character, observes the Paris •'Matin,’’ that his advent in the palace of the Haitian restored confidence at once. There had been preparations for flight into Asia. The imperial h-arrin had been equipped with clothing for tire sudden journey. Ghazi Mukhtar kept everyone in the capital. He took hie morning coffee at hi© desk. He smoked his narghile in the public street after a frugal luncheon. He prayed at sundown with the pious. He bail his favourite Hafiz read to him by a secretary when he dined. He received the members of the diplomatic corps ©milingly. He took lessons in the two of a typewriter equipped with Turkish charIn a western country the gallant oM Mnkhtar would Is* deemed, according to the London “Standard,” a scholar in

polities. He began life a© a teacher with literary ambitions fully sixty years since. In early manhood he found himself tutoring one of the imperial family —no less interesting a person, indeed, than the youth who subsequently became Abdul Hamid, now a deposed Sultan and a prisoner in his former capital. Mukhtar belonged to a dktrngifs-lied family of teachers, writers ami ecclesiastics, learned in the lore of the commentators. He had written gracefully in the divan style of the Persians. He had edited an edition of the "Arabian Nights” and translated Firdnso. Hrs mind was imbued with the spirituality of the traditional faith as dii tinguished from the heretical teachings of the Persians, He made Abdul Hamid pious, but he did not make him good. That is, our contemporary opines, the tragedy of Turkey.

Like all well-born Turks, Mukhtar had received'a military education. This circumstance afforded the palace clique at Yildiz an excuse to be rid of him when, years ago. the war with Russia threatened the Cismanli power in Europe with extinction. Mukhtar, then a quiet, courteous, smiling voting man of thirty, was dispatched to tlie front. He was not robust. He had never fought. Transferred from the palace luxury of the capital to the vicinity of the fortress of Erzeroum. he lived a© roughly as u peasant. He had the piety, the passion, the personality, of one of the Saracen heroes celebrated by Tasso. He fought as fiercely, animated by devotion to the faith. It may be true that in his blood runs, as some dailies in Europe declare, the blood of those Arab© whp faced the (Jrusadeie of old. In no long time, the ramp of the Moslems rang wit'll tales of his exploits. The soldiers plucked hair© from his head and beard to preserve a© liiementoi© and relic*. His supreme triumph came with the long siege of the great Turkish fortress. He rose steadily to command there. The prodigies of valour credited to him won for Mukhtar bi© cherished title of Ghazi or “the victorious.'’ The close of the war found him the most renowned of living Moslems.

Back in Constantinople, Abdul Hamid followed the rtee of his tutor to glory with an agonised jealousy. The courtiers at Yildiz assured the Sultan that Mukhtar aspired to supremacy in the State. He was the idol of the troops, the supreme soldier in the Ottoman army, the most illustrious -of living Turks. His return to the capital in triumph was followed by an order that he remain secluded in hie home indefinitely. During this period the disgraced hero of Turkey’s war with Russia had a -clandestine meeting with the Sultan now on the throne. The hapless brother of Abdul Hamid was a prisoner of state in one of the royal palaces on the-Bosphorus. The merest allusion to him at Yildiz Kiosk wae a species of treason. The Hamidian subtlety of the despot in Constantinople contrived an exquisite punishment for the object of his suspicion, Mukhtar was sent with every circumstance of pomp to represent the sovereignty of the Csmanli in Egypt. The Khedive, it may be mentioned, is nominally vassal of the Sultan’s. Aibbas the

Second sends hie yearly tribute to Yildiz still. The theoretical overlord of the Court in Cairo is commander -of the faithful in Constantinople. To incarnate this shadow of suzerainty, Mukhtar Ghazi Pasha was dispatched to the banks of the Nile, to dwell in lonely grandeur

irpon a ©tipend greater than the Khedive’s. The greatest soldier and ■statesman of his time was forbidden to adt foot in Constantinople upon pain o’f death. Upon every occasion of public circumstance, the representative of the Turkish Sultan took precedence of the Khedive. He went about with a guard of honour. He was received with salutes in the palace. His signature validated the decisions of the Government. Bitt he remained as truly a prisoner Of State as was the Sultan’s brother on the iKtrtks of the Bosphorus. All the tragedies of the past Tew weeks leave Ghazi Mukhtar Pasha .-onshaken in his belief that Turkey will emerge in triumph from the ordeal of the Balkan war. He is the instrument of the Old Turks, according to the French dailies. They regard the reign of the Young Turks as an orgy of incapacity, a carnival of impiety! Their refuge is the faith. The task set himself by Mukhtar in the familiar Turkish work of setting one European power against another,, while the Moslem profits by the dissension he sows. In the discharge of thia duty of the hour, the grand old man is fortified by lira contempt of Christianity and all powers Christian, his incorruptible honesty and his firm belief in tho precepts of the Koran.