CHAPTER II

THE BALKAN PROVINCES UNDER THE PROTECTION OF THE EUROPEAN CONCERT—1856-1870

WELL MIGHT THE TREATY OF Paris (1856) have seemed to inaugurate a new régime in relation to the affairs of the Ottoman empire. For the first time in its history that empire was now recognized as forming a component part of the great European system, and the Sublime Porte was formally “admitted to participate in the advantages of the Public Law and System (Concert) of Europe.”

In the famous Hatti-Humayoun (famous though futile) of February 18, 1856, the Sultan confirmed all the privileges and immunities heretofore granted to his non-Mussulman communities, and promised equal rights to all subjects, irrespective of race, religion or language. Provision was also made in this imperial decree for needed reforms along various other lines; and we may discern in the firman the expression, at least, of a feeling that the empire had now been raised to a higher dignity, and had entered upon a new era.

The formulation and the promulgation of this definite and comprehensive Imperial edict was largely due to the untiring efforts of Stratford Canning (Viscount Stratford de Radcliffe). For sixteen years (1842-58), as England’s ambassador at Constantinople, he kept up “active and friendly intervention” with the Porte, in order to bring about from within the reform of the Ottoman empire.

Mr. Canning felt very keenly, however, that unless some “force from without” should “keep up a steady animating pressure” on the Turkish authorities, this great Charter of Reforms would be merely “a lifeless paper, valuable only as a record of sound principles.” He tried to induce the London government to protest against placing in the treaty any promises or guarantees that would lead to the conclusion among Ottoman authorities that the Sultan was thereby rendered unquestionably secure in the possession of his dominions and in the exercise of absolute sovereignty. All his efforts in that direction, however, were unavailing. The powers that had conquered Russia were already committed to that policy; and such promises and guarantees were embodied in the treaty of Paris as would naturally inspire, at the Porte, an implicit confidence that the integrity and the independence of the empire had now become inviolable.

Although the treaty of Paris lacks any specific guarantee that the signatories would defend the independence and territorial integrity of the Turkish empire, still there is in it engagements and guarantees that might well have seemed to free the Porte from all danger in this connection, because of coercion from without. Each of the contracting parties guaranteed the strict observance of its engagement to respect the independence and territorial integrity of the Ottoman empire, and any violation of the engagement was to be considered a “question of general interest.” Moreover, it was agreed that no one or more of the signatories should use force against the Porte without first giving the others an opportunity for mediation. Also, in recognizing the high value of the Sultan’s communication to the powers (the Hatti-Humayoun of February 18, 1856), decreeing radical reforms, and “recording the Sultan’s generous intentions toward the Christian population of his empire,” it was expressly agreed that in no case could the communication of this edict give to the powers the “right to interfere, either collectively or separately, in the relations of the Sultan with his subjects, or in the internal administration of his empire.” Moreover, among other precautionary measures, the treaty neutralized the Black Sea, closed the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus to foreign ships of war while the Porte was at peace, and provided for the free navigation of the Danube, under an international commission for improving and regulating the navigation of that river. Then, also, before the ratifications of the treaty of Paris were exchanged (April 27, 1856), Great Britain, France and Austria signed a treaty of alliance (April 15, 1856), guaranteeing, jointly and severally, the independence and integrity of the Ottoman Empire recorded in the treaty of Paris, and agreeing to consider any infraction of the latter treaty as a casus belli.

The treaty of Paris was a somewhat carefully devised system of checks and balances, with the primary purpose, it would appear, of providing for the peace and the perpetuity of the Ottoman empire. In general, the privileges of four parties are noted in the treaty: the Ottoman empire (politically and territorially); the contracting powers; the autonomous provinces; and all non-Moslem (but in particular the Christians) subjects of the empire. Of these four parties, the provinces seem to have been the least limited by either legal or circumstantial restrictions. It is true that the signatories guaranteed to these provinces only such privileges and immunities as they already possessed; but at the same time the Porte engaged to preserve in each (not including Montenegro) “an independent and national government.”

One of the three “requisite levers” suggested by Mr. Stratford Canning for improvement within the Turkish empire was action prompted by “the right spirit” on the part of the provincial authorities. But in undertaking to protect Turkey’s semi-independent European provinces, the powers denied themselves everything except the right of collective intervention; and as disagreement respecting the necessity or the manner of coercion was probable, no really effective means remained for making the action of the provincial authorities conform to the chief aim of the treaty—the independence and integrity of the Turkish empire.

Subsequent events indicate that the European powers were more inclined, all along, to induce the Porte to pacify the Balkan provinces by granting increasingly liberal concessions, than they were to hold in check the ambitions and aspirations of these groups of the Sultan’s subjects. So one concession followed another, until racial sympathies were to lead Servia and Montenegro to join Bosnia and Herzegovina in a war against the Porte (1876), which in its turn was to lead on to other complications, thereby drawing the affairs of the Balkan territory into one general current of events that carried Roumania, Servia and Montenegro on to independence. This same struggle also virtually separated Bosnia and Herzegovina from Turkey, and created a semi-independent New Bulgaria and the partly autonomous province of Eastern Roumelia (1878). In tracing somewhat in detail these political movements in Servia, Montenegro, and the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia (Roumania, after 1866), between the treaty of Paris and the treaty of Berlin (1856-78), it seems advisable to continue the method adopted in the first chapter and follow separately, for the most part, the course of events in each province. As in the previous chapter, the affairs of Wallachia and Moldavia (Roumania) first claim our attention.

THE FORMATION OF ROUMANIA

Provisions were made in the treaty of Paris for blocking Russia’s supposed roadway to Constantinople. By requiring the Tsar to cede a part of Bessarabia to Turkey, the Russian frontier was pushed away from the Danube; and it was particularly stipulated that no exclusive protection by any one of the guaranteeing powers should be exercised over Wallachia and Moldavia.

France, England and Russia were ready to proceed at once to organize these two principalities under one central government, but Turkey and Austria objected to such a procedure, and Prussia and Sardinia were more or less unconcerned. The result was that the treaty merely provided that the laws and statutes of these principalities should be revised; and that a special commission should proceed to Bucharest charged with the duty of investigating the conditions in the two provinces. This commission was expected, moreover, to ascertain the wishes of the people, as expressed in representative assemblies (divans ad hoc); to suggest bases for the future organization of the principalities; and to transmit a report, without delay, to Paris. But there was delay and difficulty in getting at the wishes of the people through these constituent assemblies. After about a year (September, 1857) these bodies expressed a practically unanimous wish for a union of Moldavia and Wallachia under a foreign prince. The next year, from May to August, the powders held conferences in Paris and finally agreed on a series of ordinances that were to constitute the definitive organization of these principalities. These “Articles” represented a very comprehensive scheme, according to which the people in the provinces were to carry on their own affairs under the suzerainty of the Porte.

The peculiar features of this European plan for the government of these provinces resulted from the attempt to conform, as nearly as might be, to the wishes of all parties concerned. Turkey and Austria still continued to oppose the formation of one government for the two provinces, so the treaty powers worked out a sort of combination of union and separation. The name adopted was The United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, and a central commission was ordered. This commission was made up of eight members from each principality—four selected by the hospodar from among men who had served the people in high offices, and four by each Assembly from its own body. This so-called Central Commission was intended to be permanent during the life of the two provincial...