The Opelousas journal. [volume] (Opelousas, La.) 1868-1878, 1877-06-23
History of the O1tOmans.
WHAT THEY WERE AND ARE-THEIR GALLANTRY Y
IN WAR AND GOOD MORALS IN PEACE-THE
PROTECTORATEs AND NDEYALETS-CONSTAN
TINOPLE THE FUTURE "GREAT MET
ROPOLIs" OF THE OLD WORLD.
From the New York Times

But what are We to do with Constantine
plea" These were the words of the Emperor
10seph H. on the occasion OF his historic inter
view with the Empress Catherine IL, on the
Black Sea in 1887. This question has been res
peated million of times since his day, and it
will be fresh political text for a great many
years to come very probably.
In that interview the empress did not quite
show her hand She secretly meant to have
COnstantinople, and nullfy the Danube, as
Louis XIV, meant to have Spain when he told
any Pyrenees. She had made a stride to her
object when she had taken the Crinlea from
the sultan, and her grandson had been named
Constantine, meaning that he should be the
future head OF a restored lower empire. Her
spirit with her blood, descended to the EN-
peror Nicholas, who, In 1882, told Prince Met
ternich that Turkey was a sick man." This
cadaverous metaphor must have taken his fancy
wonderfully, since he could renew it a quarter
OF century subsequently, i'll the days of Sebas-
tOpO0l. With the frankneSs becoming q real
emperor and a descendant of Rurik, "that
wasp of the wave" he told the Duke of We'll
lington that he would gladly head q crusade to
accepted this - driving" us the weird" of his
house, and for the rest he had sort of justiti-
cation, according to logic of kings which many
other potentates had not Great. Britain, fer
Instance, i'll laying hands on the grand pGnin-
stlla OF India, or France apprOpratiDg the great
sea border of Algeria. Nature herself seemed
to counsel that Russian effort to come down
from the hyperbOreaU latitnaeS nearer to the
SUM- Russia and Turkey, ly1hg close together,
are, i'll fact, two of the most singularEf con-
tFasted empires in the world The one lies on
the cold northern edge of the earth, shut out
from the warm atmosphere and fertile cOndi-
tiOns of modern ciyiliZatiOn-shut out, eSpe-
cia1ly, or shut in, from the historic element of
all human greatness and glOry-the ocean. The
Baltic and Black Seas are lakes, shared or
barred by other nations while the Northern
Pacific is as yet nothing, and the terrible Arctic
border of Russia is worse than nothing as re-
CARDS trade and general intercourse On the
hand. Ottoman EnrOna
sits in the sum- surrounded by all the blessings
of the land and sea; and COnstantin0ple i'll
the midst of its beautiful waters, seems to be
the very queen OF cities, holding, as it Were the
keys of two continents on the great cross roads
of European and AsiatiG travel, as the heiress
Of Rome, Carthage, Massilia, Genoa, Venice
these SO illustriOus i'll the world No wonder
that such site should fascinate the dreams OF
the hyberboreans, who, in the end, have per-
suaded themselves that Divine Providence has
yantages and 1nercies in the hands of a people
who haye, in general three wives in their
Households and only one god IN theip churches.
very old one. Not to go back to the days of
the Crusades, we find Knolles, the grave his
torian OF the Turks, Iii 1910 calling them a set
OF @ merciless miscFeantS,' and in later times
Rev. Charles Wesley wrote hymn in which
we may read
"stretcn out Thy arm, Thou Triune Godg
The Unitarian fend expe,
ana CnaG6 his dOCLE1llGS DacR TO utlIt ~
The humanity or delieacy of the reverend
gentleman showed, itself in the use of the word
doctrines" instead of the Wretches themselves.
But the spirit OF the age was not SO scrupul0us:
III canny Scotland the arch-fend was called
q" MahOund" " tsee Burns,) and :" to hell or Asia
Minor" was the very general sentiment
respecting the Turks. 1t has been shared by
several great statesmen; by Lord John Russell,
for instance, in England; and, in our own day,
by Mr.. Gladstone, who condeScends to adopt
the 0ld-fashioned and popular English view Of
.thiB interesting subject
But the theological element is fast dying out
of the controversy, and the foremost minds
OF the age are beginning to tolerate the uni
tafianism of the OsLlanIi-the writers of the
Quarterly Review, for instance. Indeed, the
Turks themselves began that liberal fashion Of
thought over century ago, showing themsel-
YES them as now, the most tolerant Of 2u reli-
gfonists. Nowhere in the world are there SO
many Christian sectaries as in Turkey; and
nowhere could they have lived together so long
without destroying one another, But the Ilrk,
keeping his pipe iii his mouth, calms them with
a gesture full of menace and the best sort OF
good feeling The result is that as a general
rule the Greek Christians look elsewhere for
sympathy, and find it, across the border, i'll the
mind of the compassionate ear. "And that's
the quarrel" 1t is a lively controversy but it
will certainly tend to produce the Well-be1ng OF
Eurapean Turkey. Outside interference has
its praisew0rt1ly conditions. 0utsiders have
taken up the Chinese Empire, and it has, in
self-defense. adopted a set of ideas which will
keen it from decay. Japan is in the same pre-
dicanlent These Asatie powers have been
effeeting in so years or so, under Gompulsion,
what the Europeans slowly brought about in
300 No doubt, the same kind of coercion win
produce the same results in Turkey. II the
Turkish monarchy was really 6 Q sick man." it
seems about to take UP its bed and walk
Many mots have been made at the expense
of those Turks. One of the European diploma
lists, about SO years ago, told the ViZier that
the powers" he should chiefly dread were
three viz: BaEulunl, ~ Wen see;' Inshallah,
tsP1ease GOd;''t and Yarnnzsabah, e. T0-m0r=
roW'') But that Witticism has lost its force
There was another faYOrite saying that s'the
Turks are only eneamped in Eur0pes" and this
lis as wrong in its own way. The Tartars en-
ea1nped in Russia, and they have stayed there
" Scratch Russian and yon will find the Tar
tar skim The Huns, mere hated and prayed
against than the Turks, eneantpel On tile DAN
ube ; and Austria is happy to say they are there
still. The Poles, or SarImats, from tue Noiga,
encamped In Central Europe, and they are
there still IN q kind of masquerade. The Bull
garians and other slaYons came IN from Asia;
and nobady asks them to go back,
As for the Turks, they are quite at home II.
Eastern Europe among their fellow tribes from
Asia They seem to show themselves at first in
the vicinity of the Caspian, among set of
tribes who from the days OF P0mp0nius Mela
and Pliuy bore the general name Of Iufcfe,
II Tribes or as the Persian Sadi interprets the
title, Young men, 7 and about the thirteenth
century they are seen III Asia MINOR, at q tlme
when two great historic empires are sinking
into decrepftude; the elder of these emnires
being the Empire of C0nstantinGple, and the
other the Arab Khalifat of Bagaad, sustained
I in n feeble way by the SeljHkian Turks of the
raef, of Ain Arsian and Malek Shah. Our Otto
mans made themselves heirs of those two his
toric powers in series OF achievements which