—Lord Cromer in “Modern Egypt.”
[Pg 41]
The present sultan, Abdul Hamid II, is the thirty-fourth in direct male succession from Othman and the second son of Sultan Abdul Medjid. He succeeded to the throne upon the deposition34 of his brother, Murad V, August 31, 1876, at the age of thirty-four. By the Turkish law of succession the crown is inherited according to seniority by the male descendants of Othman springing from the imperial harem. All children born in the harem, whether from free women or slaves, are legitimate35 and possess equal rights. The sultan is succeeded by his eldest36 son, in case there are no uncles or cousins of greater age. The present heir apparent to the throne is the oldest brother of the sultan, who outranks all of the five sons of Abdul Hamid as heir to the throne. It is not the custom of the sultans to contract regular marriages. The harem is kept full of women by purchase, capture, or voluntary offering. Most of the inmates37 come from districts beyond the limits of the empire, largely from Circassia.
The sultan is, without question, the most phenomenal person sitting upon any throne to-day. Educated within his own palace, having passed but once beyond the borders of the land in which he was born, he is able to outwit and outmatch in diplomacy38 the combined rulers of Europe. He has administered his widely-extended and varied39 empire in accordance with the unmodified Moslem principles of the Middle Ages, and has [Pg 42] successfully defied all attempts upon the part of Christian12 nations to change his policy. Without a navy he has succeeded in averting40 repeated threats of attack by the strongest navies of the world. With depleted41 and diminishing resources he has held his creditors42 at bay, capitalized his indebtedness, and continued to live in lavish43 luxury. It is true that his refusal to comply with the demands for reform have at times in the past led to the loss of some of his possessions, still he does not seem to have learned therefrom any permanent lesson.
Turkey as a whole has never been so unrighteously governed as it is to-day, and, in spite of the pressure of European governments, there is little prospect44 of radical45 reforms so long as the present sultan sits upon the throne. While he is an astute46 and unprincipled diplomat47 and a tireless sovereign, he is not a reformer in any sense of the word. So long as he is sultan, he proposes to be master, preferring to lose entire provinces rather than to share the administration with any. He yields only when subterfuge49 fails and the policy of delay is rejected; after he has yielded, he devotes himself to vitiating the advantages his subjects might gain by his concessions50.
Personally timid and fearful, he astonishes the world by the boldness of his strokes at home and his stubborn resistance to pressure from abroad. Himself profoundly religious, he horrifies51 all by the wholesale52 murder of his subjects through his lieutenants53 acting54 upon direct orders from the palace. This he has done repeatedly, and it is a part of his method of administering his home affairs and keeping his subjects properly subdued55.
A GROUP OF OFFICIAL TURKS IN PRAYER
FOR THE SULTAN UPON HIS BIRTHDAY
[Pg 43] The present political, social, economic, and religious problems of Turkey center in the sultan. Few countries in the world would respond so quickly to the influence of good government, and few people would so appreciatively welcome a firm and righteous administration as the people of Turkey.
The sultan exercises his power through his army and his appointees to office. The Turks make perhaps the best soldiers in the world. They are strong, inured56 to hardship, uncomplaining, and practical. To them all war with non-Moslems and rebels—and they fight with no others—is holy war. Only Mohammedans are enrolled57 in the army, and all such, over twenty years of age in the country, are liable to military service until they are forty. The empire is divided into seven army administrative58 districts, in each of which is located an army corps59. These are Constantinople, Adrianople, Monastir, Erzerum, Damascus, Bagdad, and the Yemen, with the independent divisions of the Hejaz and Tripoli. The infantry60 are armed with Mauser rifles. The effective war strength of the Turkish army is 987,900 men. The navy possesses no fighting power.
The governing force of the empire is strictly61 Mohammedan. The army is indeed a church militant62 with no unbeliever among its officers or men, except as European military experts are employed to drill and discipline the troops. The entire administration of both civil and military affairs is a religious administration. Men of other religions are asked to take part in civil affairs only when Mohammedans cannot be found to do the work required. Many high positions, even in the cabinet, have been creditably filled by Armenians and Greeks, but this is the exception and not the rule. Turkey agreed some time ago to admit Christians to her army, but has never seen her way clear to carry out the agreement. At the center of this Mohammedan administration sits the [Pg 44] sultan, Hamid II, with his valis or governors at the head of affairs in every province, in close and constant communication with himself and carrying out his imperial will. These local governors are sustained by the Moslem army, commanded by officers who also receive their instructions directly from the palace on the Bosporus.
This is the system of administration that has become established in the Ottoman empire, and that must be borne in mind as we proceed with the study of the country, the people, their economic, social, and religious conditions.
The position of Turkey and of the Ottoman empire is unique among the countries of the world. For centuries it has stood before the world as the one great Mohammedan temporal power, with its laws and usages built upon the tenets, traditions, and fanaticisms of Islam. Every civilized63 definition of a government fails when applied to Turkey, and every conception of the duty of a government to its subjects is violated in the existing relations between the Turkish government and the people of that empire. Under these conditions, much worse now than they were two generations ago, mission work is carried on.
While there are many Turkish officials who keenly deplore64 the evils of the system, and would change if they could the untoward65 relations of the government to its oppressed subjects, they are powerless to act and must even conceal66 their dissatisfaction for fear of being branded, as many have been, as traitors67 to the existing rule, for which charge the penalty is banishment68 or death. There is a general feeling that no reform can be inaugurated or carried out so long as the present monarch69 sits upon the throne.
A distinguished70 Orientalist, intimately acquainted with affairs at [Pg 45] Constantinople, has recently written upon the sultan and his diplomatic methods in the following terms. For obvious reasons the identity of the writer is concealed71:
Rarely has a young sovereign been in a more desperate and apparently72 hopeless position than Abd-ul-Hamid occupied in the third year of his reign48, 1878. His armies had been utterly73 beaten in a great war. His people had no confidence in their country, or their future, or their sultan. Prophecies were widely current about 1878-1882 identifying him as the last sultan of Turkey and the consummator74 of its ruin. The treasury75 was almost bankrupt. He himself had, and still has, a dislike and fear of ships, which paralyzed his fleet during the war that had just ended, and has ever since left it to rot in idleness, until there is at the present day, probably, not a Turkish ship of war that could venture to cross the Ægean Sea in the calmest day of summer.
The sultan alone in Turkey did not despair. He alone saw how the power of the sultans could be restored. And twenty-eight years after he seemed to be near the end of a disastrous76 and short reign he is still on the throne, absolute autocrat77 to a degree that hardly even the greatest of the sultans before him attained78, in close communication with the remotest corners of the Mohammedan world from the east of Asia to the west of Africa, respected and powerful in Moslem lands where the name of no former sultan was known or heeded79, courted by at least one leading Power in Europe and by the great American republic.
The last fact is, perhaps, the most remarkable80 of all in this strange history. The diplomatists of America, so strong and self-confident in their dealings with the greatest of European Powers, so accustomed to say to them all, “This is our will and intention,” have for many years been the humblest and most subservient81 of all the Christian Powers in their attitude to Turkey, aiming always at imitating the German policy and being on the friendly side of the Turks, but forgetting that Germany has that to give which America has not, and that America has interests to protect in Turkey of a kind which Germany has not.
The sultan had the genius or the good fortune to divine almost from the [Pg 46] beginning of his reign what only a few even yet dimly comprehend,—the power of reaction and resistance which Asia can oppose against the West. He formed the plan of consolidating82 the power of the entire Mohammedan world, and placing himself at the head of this power, and he has carried the plan into effect. The sultans had always claimed the position of khalif, but this had hitherto been a mere83 empty name, until Abd-ul-Hamid appealed from his own subjects, who rejected him, to the wider world of Mohammedans, won their confidence, and made them think of him as the true Commander of the Faithful.
One naturally asks whether this result was gained through the strength of a real religious fervor84 or through the clever playing of an astute and purely85 selfish game. While there may have been something of both elements, I do not doubt that there was a good deal of religious enthusiasm or fanaticism; the first idea could never have been struck out without the inspiration of strong religious feeling.
It used to be said about 1880 by those who were in a position to know best—no one has ever been in a position to have quite certain knowledge in Constantinople—that the sultan was a Dervish of the class called vulgarly the Howling, and that when (as was often the case) the ministers of state summoned to a council had to wait hour after hour for the sultan to appear, he was in an inner room with a circle of other Dervishes loudly invoking86 the name of Allah and working up the ecstatic condition in which it should be revealed whether and when he should enter the council. I do not doubt that the great idea of appealing to the world of Islam was struck out in some such moment of ecstasy87. At the same time, Abd-ul-Hamid has had a good deal to gain from the success of this policy.
Europeans who have been admitted to meet the sultan in direct intercourse88 are almost all agreed that he possesses great personal charm and a gracious, winning courtesy. On the other hand, ministers of state used to speak with deep feeling of the insults and abuse poured on any, even the highest, who had the misfortune to express an opinion that did not agree with his wishes.
An official in the palace described very frankly89—it is wonderful how [Pg 47] freely and frankly Turks express their opinion; this seems inseparable from the Turkish nature—to an Englishman whom he knew well the situation in the palace at the time when an ultimatum90 had been presented, and before it was known what would be the issue; how the sultan was flattered up to believe that he had only to go into Egypt and resume possession, and that the English would never resist. The Englishman remarked, “But you know better than that, and of course you give better advice when the sultan asks your opinion.” “God forbid,” was the reply, “that I should say to the sultan anything except what he wishes me to say. No! when he asks me, I reply that of course the master of a million of soldiers has only to enter Egypt and it is his. And it is not for nothing that I do this. The sultan is pleased with me, and signs some paper that I have brought him, and it may be worth 10,000 piastres to me.”
The sultan hates England with a permanent and ineradicable hatred; this feeling dominates and colors his whole policy; it is only for that reason that he tolerates Germany, which otherwise he dislikes. England has always been the friend of the Reform party in Turkey; and the sultan is the great reactionary91 who has trodden the Reform party in the dust. But, worse than that, England, pretending to help Turkey, took possession of Cyprus, nominally92 to enable her to guarantee Turkey against Russia in Asia Minor93, but really (as it seems to the Turks) by pure theft, because all pretence94 of using Cyprus as a basis of operations against Russia in Asia Minor was abandoned in 1880, and yet England kept Cyprus.
Now to the sultan the sting lies in this, that Cyprus was his private appanage, and not part of the State. The whole revenue of Cyprus went to the sultan’s privy95 purse. But worse still: at first the English paid over the Cypriote revenue, about £95,000 a year, to Constantinople, but after the Gladstonian government came into power, in 1880, this revenue was diverted to pay interest on the Turkish debt, emptying the sultan’s private purse into the lap of the European bondholders.
The sultan, therefore, welcomed the German intervention96, for the Germans encouraged him to govern as he pleased. They even persuaded him that railways were necessary for military efficiency, and showed that [Pg 48] the Hedjaz Railway must be the foundation of his khalifate. Yet the railways that he has made, and the Moslem schools that he has founded, are the surest means of educating his people, and education is the inevitable97 enemy of autocracy98.
The German policy has seemed to be very successful in promoting German interests in Turkey. But, after all, the ground fact is that the German policy was an opportunist policy, and the English policy, ignorant and ill-managed as it has been, was founded on deeper principles. History will record hereafter that the former proved a failure, and that the hatred of a people more than compensated99 for the favor of an evanescent tyrant100. The same struggle is going on in Turkey as in Russia—the educated part of the people on one side, a tyranny resting on bureaucracy and obscurantism on the other. Whatever may be the faults of Abd-ul-Hamid, his worst enemy must place him on an immensely higher level than the czar on any point of view, humanitarian101 or patriotic102, personal or political. But for England in Turkey the greatest danger is that she be tempted103 to Germanize her policy from experience of the apparent German success. Her policy has been, on the whole, the wiser, but it has been carried out with an ignorance of Turkish facts that is appalling104.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
stimulate
|
|
| vt.刺激，使兴奋；激励，使…振奋 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
engender
|
|
| v.产生，引起 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
hatred
|
|
| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
Moslem
|
|
| n.回教徒，穆罕默德信徒；adj.回教徒的，回教的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
antithesis
|
|
| n.对立；相对 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
essentially
|
|
| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
Founder
|
|
| n.创始者，缔造者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
fiery
|
|
| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
anathemas
|
|
| n.（天主教的）革出教门( anathema的名词复数 )；诅咒；令人极其讨厌的事；被基督教诅咒的人或事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
10
savages
|
|
| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
enjoined
|
|
| v.命令( enjoin的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
Christian
|
|
| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
slaughter
|
|
| n.屠杀，屠宰；vt.屠杀，宰杀 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
bind
|
|
| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
abode
|
|
| n.住处，住所 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
alluding
|
|
| 提及，暗指( allude的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
commentators
|
|
| n.评论员( commentator的名词复数 )；时事评论员；注释者；实况广播员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
applied
|
|
| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
Christians
|
|
| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
attainable
|
|
| a.可达到的，可获得的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
warrior
|
|
| n.勇士，武士，斗士 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
slays
|
|
| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
mosque
|
|
| n.清真寺 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
invoke
|
|
| v.求助于(神、法律)；恳求，乞求 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
wrath
|
|
| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
sufficiently
|
|
| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
invective
|
|
| n.痛骂，恶意抨击 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
swells
|
|
| 增强( swell的第三人称单数 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
adventitious
|
|
| adj.偶然的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
fanaticism
|
|
| n.狂热，盲信 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
parlance
|
|
| n.说法；语调 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
warfare
|
|
| n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
dinned
|
|
| vt.喧闹（din的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
deposition
|
|
| n.免职，罢官；作证；沉淀；沉淀物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
legitimate
|
|
| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
eldest
|
|
| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
inmates
|
|
| n.囚犯( inmate的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
diplomacy
|
|
| n.外交；外交手腕，交际手腕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
varied
|
|
| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
averting
|
|
| 防止，避免( avert的现在分词 )； 转移 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
depleted
|
|
| adj. 枯竭的, 废弃的 动词deplete的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
creditors
|
|
| n.债权人，债主( creditor的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
lavish
|
|
| adj.无节制的；浪费的；vt.慷慨地给予，挥霍 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
prospect
|
|
| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
radical
|
|
| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
astute
|
|
| adj.机敏的，精明的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
diplomat
|
|
| n.外交官，外交家；能交际的人，圆滑的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
reign
|
|
| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
subterfuge
|
|
| n.诡计；藉口 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
concessions
|
|
| n.（尤指由政府或雇主给予的）特许权( concession的名词复数 )；承认；减价；（在某地的）特许经营权 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
horrifies
|
|
| v.使震惊，使感到恐怖( horrify的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
wholesale
|
|
| n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
lieutenants
|
|
| n.陆军中尉( lieutenant的名词复数 )；副职官员；空军；仅低于…官阶的官员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
acting
|
|
| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
subdued
|
|
| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
inured
|
|
| adj.坚强的，习惯的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
enrolled
|
|
| adj.入学登记了的v.[亦作enrol]( enroll的过去式和过去分词 )；登记，招收，使入伍（或入会、入学等），参加，成为成员；记入名册；卷起，包起 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
administrative
|
|
| adj.行政的，管理的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
corps
|
|
| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
infantry
|
|
| n.[总称]步兵(部队) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
strictly
|
|
| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
militant
|
|
| adj.激进的，好斗的；n.激进分子，斗士 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
civilized
|
|
| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
deplore
|
|
| vt.哀叹，对...深感遗憾 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
untoward
|
|
| adj.不利的，不幸的，困难重重的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
conceal
|
|
| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
traitors
|
|
| 卖国贼( traitor的名词复数 )； 叛徒； 背叛者； 背信弃义的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
banishment
|
|
| n.放逐，驱逐 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
monarch
|
|
| n.帝王，君主，最高统治者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
distinguished
|
|
| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
concealed
|
|
| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
apparently
|
|
| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
utterly
|
|
| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
consummator
|
|
| n.圆满完成者完婚者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
75
treasury
|
|
| n.宝库；国库，金库；文库 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
disastrous
|
|
| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
autocrat
|
|
| n.独裁者；专横的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
78
attained
|
|
| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
heeded
|
|
| v.听某人的劝告，听从( heed的过去式和过去分词 )；变平，使（某物）变平( flatten的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
80
remarkable
|
|
| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
81
subservient
|
|
| adj.卑屈的，阿谀的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
82
consolidating
|
|
| v.（使）巩固， （使）加强( consolidate的现在分词 )；（使）合并 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
83
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
84
fervor
|
|
| n.热诚；热心；炽热 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
85
purely
|
|
| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
86
invoking
|
|
| v.援引( invoke的现在分词 )；行使（权利等）；祈求救助；恳求 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
87
ecstasy
|
|
| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
88
intercourse
|
|
| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
89
frankly
|
|
| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
90
ultimatum
|
|
| n.最后通牒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
91
reactionary
|
|
| n.反动者，反动主义者；adj.反动的，反动主义的，反对改革的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
92
nominally
|
|
| 在名义上，表面地； 应名儿 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
93
minor
|
|
| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
94
pretence
|
|
| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
95
privy
|
|
| adj.私用的；隐密的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
96
intervention
|
|
| n.介入，干涉，干预 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
97
inevitable
|
|
| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
98
autocracy
|
|
| n.独裁政治，独裁政府 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
99
compensated
|
|
| 补偿，报酬( compensate的过去式和过去分词 )； 给（某人）赔偿（或赔款） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
100
tyrant
|
|
| n.暴君，专制的君主，残暴的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
101
humanitarian
|
|
| n.人道主义者，博爱者，基督凡人论者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
102
patriotic
|
|
| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
103
tempted
|
|
| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
104
appalling
|
|
| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |