The following is published by the German papers as the text of the
Turkish dispatch upon the claims of Greece:
Constantinople, August 8,
1878.
The Berlin congress having admitted the delegates of the Kingdom
of Greece to state the desires and views of the Hellenic
Government, M. Delyannis formulated and developed before the
distinguished assembly the demand for the incorporation with
Greece of Epirus, Thessaly, and Crete. It was in consequence of
this step of the Hellenic Government that a desire was expressed
by the congress that Greece should be accorded a rectification
of frontier, a desire which gave birth to article 24 of the
treaty of Berlin, whereby the great powers reserve the right of
offering their mediation to the Sublime Porte and to Greece in
case the two governments should not agree on the rectification
of frontier. The Ottoman plenipotentiaries at the Berlin
congress declared, in accordance with the instructions of the
Sublime Porte, that the imperial government reserved the right
of explaining to the powers the real state of things as concerns
Greece. It is by virtue of this reservation, which was inserted
in the tocol, that the imperial government, after having
examined with the most scrupulous attention the reasons adduced
by the cabinet of Athens to justify its pretensions, submits to
the great powers the considerations of a political and moral
order which should [Page 892]
enable them to judge, with full knowledge of the matter, of the
character, bearing, and consequences of a cession of territory
to Greece. The Sublime Porte is bound to declare at the outset
in the most formal manner that neither His Imperial Majesty the
Sultan nor his government ever had to deliberate on a project of
this nature, and that it was for the first time called on to
consider it when the project came to light within the congress.
It knows that the cabinet of Athens endeavors to prove that it
was owing to the counsels and assurances of some of the great
powers that it abstained during a long lapse of time from any
act of aggression against the states of the Sultan, and it thus
hopes to show that these powers, who paralyzed by their pacific
influence the action of Greece, are now its debtors and loyally
bound to support the Hellenic claims. It is not for the imperial
government to investigate the value and bearing of the counsels
given to Greece for the last two years by the western powers,
but it has a right to affirm that if Greece maintained an
expectant attitude and abstained from any direct act of
hostility toward Turkey during some time, it was not merely
through regard for the counsels and promises of certain European
powers, but also and especially by reason of the constant defeat
of all its measures for getting itself guaranteed against the
results of its enterprise. To convince any one of this it will
be sufficient to reperuse the manifesto published by M.
Deligeorgis, ex-minister of His Majesty King George, to justify
his ministry from the reproach of inaction. Let us now examine
the demand formulated by M. Delyannis before the Berlin
congress. That demand consists in the annexation pure and simple
of Epirus, Thessaly, and the isle of Crete to the Kingdom of
Greece, and is justified according to the Hellenic ministry by
arguments and considerations which may be thus summed up:
“Greece aspires to unite under the same government all the
countries inhabited by populations of Greek origin; but she
acknowledges the necessity for the present of limiting her
desire to the annexation of Candia and the provinces bordering
on the kingdom, in order to respond to the desires of Europe.
This annexation has from all time been the dearest wish of those
provinces, which have often expressed it by taking up arms.
Satisfaction given to this desire would be an act of justice and
humanity, which would complete the pacificating work of Europe,
and would thus render impossible the return of the troubles
periodically agitating these countries. Greece, which has all
along experienced the rebound of these troubles, and which
exhausts herself in armaments grounded on this abnormal
situation, and in expenditure caused by the necessity of
according succor to the refugees of the insurgent provinces and
to the repatriated combatants, might thenceforth devote her
resources to the material development of the country. Turkey
herself would gain in security, and the relations of
neighborliness which would be established between the two
countries would run no further risk of being disturbed. The
rejection of the wishes of Greece would infallibly lead to a
general conflagration in these countries, in which the Hellenic
people would be led to take part, whatever the efforts of its
rulers to prevent it.”
Such are in substance the reasons adduced by M. Delyannis to
justify his demand for an annexation. It is easy to dispose of a
doctrine which, dangerous in itself, is contrary to all the
principles of political right, and rests indeed on entirely
erroneous historical data; but the congress having at the very
first definitively set aside the idea of the annexation of Crete
to the Kingdom of Greece, and having maintained as realizable
only the project of a simple rectification of frontier on the
continent, we will confine ourselves to recalling that the
inhabitants of that isle have never taken up arms against the
legitimate authority of the Sublime Porte, or against each
other, except at the instigation of intriguers from abroad, and
on the invasion of their country by bands of foreigners
organized in Greece, not to give succor to their brethren in
arms, but to involve them in war without provocation or
pretext.
Thus, to consider only the third Cretan insurrection, that of
1867, the longest and the bloodiest, it is a fact that the
island itself did not rise in insurrection, but experienced a
veritable Greek invasion. On the very day the invasion
ceased—that is to say, when the insurrection found nothing more
to nourish it from without—the island was pacified as if by
witchery. The result of this sad enterprise was the ruin of
Crete, the death of three-fourths of the unfortunate
inhabitants, who were obliged to expatriate themselves, the
exhaustion of Greece, and the loss of so many brave Ottoman
soldiers, defenders of their sovereign’s rights. It was also, or
it ought to be, a striking and painful proof of the true
character of Cretan movements, always and exclusively egged on
by Greece, who took no thought of the calamities which it
periodically called down on this unhappy island. Crete, however,
being left out of the question by the wise will of the congress,
it remains to look at the past and present situation of the
provinces contiguous to Greece, and examine the value of the
arguments adduced by the cabinet of Athens to sunder them from
the Ottoman Empire; and let us first attend to the state of
suffering, of discontent, and effervescence in which Epirus and
Thessaly are alleged to have been plunged for many years.
History will refute the assertion. History teaches us that from
1829, when the feudal system was abolished in Roumelia, to 1853,
these two provinces have lived in perfect tranquillity; that
they were only troubled for an instant in 1845 by the resistance
of the Mussulman [Page 893]
population of Lower Albania—a resistance soon quelled, and which
for the Test had nothing to do with the pretended claims for
independence attributed to the Christian element. In 1853 Epirus
and Thessaly were invaded by two Greek army corps, who laid the
country waste, and perpetrated on the property and persons of
the Christians themselves, whom they pretended they had come to
deliver, such excesses as compelled France and England to occupy
the Piraeus in order to put an end to them. Again, after fifteen
years of quiet, these two provinces were troubled afresh with
hostile attempts publicly prepared under the eyes of the
Hellenic Government. Bands of volunteers crossed from Greece
into Thessaly and Epirus, carrying into these countries fire and
sword, obliging the inhabitants, as the imperial government is
prepared to prove, to rise against their lawful rulers but
finally failing before the wisdom and loyalty of all the people.
Then it was that in view of these failures the government of His
Hellenic Majesty, discouraged by the inflexible refusal of
Russia to give Greece a share of the fruit of her victories, and
feeling that opportunities slip away, caused its army to invade
Ottoman territory without rupture of diplomatic relations and in
full peace, in order to secure what M. Delyannis called the
objects of the national aspirations of Greece. Now, if, yielding
to the observations of some of the great powers, His Majesty
King George recalled his troops to Hellenic territory, is it
possible that his government can now make of that an argument
for maintaining that these same powers, by thus inviting him to
terminate an enterprise so contrary to the law of nations, have
entered into an obligation with Greece to make good to her the
price of her docility by means of a cession of territory?
But, however that may be, what we have just said concerning the
moral and material state of Epirus and of Thessaly for the last
50 years will suffice to nullify the first and most important
arguments urged before the congress by M. Delyannis, to wit,
that the populations of these provinces have always submitted
with impatience to Ottoman sway, that they have constantly risen
in insurrection to achieve their independence, and that their
only ambition is to see their country united to the Kingdom of
Greece. It is now, on the contrary, perfectly clear that the
inhabitants of Epirus and Thessaly have always lived peaceably,
and willingly submitted themselves to the Ottoman authorities,
that they have never taken up arms to make good supposititious
claims, that they have sometimes endured, but never invoked, the
intervention of a neighboring country, and that, in fact, if
rendered secure from the enterprises set afoot by that neighbor,
they would continue to live happily and prosperously under the
laws of the Ottoman Empire. It was, therefore, not in the name
of these provinces, the annexation of which he demanded, that M.
Delyannis was entitled to speak at the table of the congress.
Among the other arguments brought forward by him to convince
that high assembly, we shall not stop to deal with that which
consisted in the assurance that the annexation demanded would
complete the happiness of Greece. We are not qualified to deal
with this question; it is for the powers more disinterested than
we, and who have studied the history of Greece since its
creation, to determine whether an addition of territory would
result in procuring for her peace inside and outside her bounds,
with stability of institutions and government. We must confine
ourselves to pointing out that political honesty will not permit
the dismemberment of one nation to the advantage of another, for
the simple reason that the latter would thus be rendered
happier. The last great argument of M. Delyannis was based on
the assertion, loudly proclaimed, that by giving Epirus and
Thessaly to Greece, Europe would close forever the era of
struggles and conflicts between that kingdom and the Ottoman
Empire, and consolidate its work of peace. Why should M.
Delyannis have taken pains to deprive this argument of all
credibility and force by letting it be understood at the very
outset in the written communication made by him to the congress
that the true and only wishes of the Hellenic Government are,
and always have been, to unite under the same sway all countries
inhabited by Greeks, and that if Greece confined herself for the
moment merely to demanding the annexation of a few provinces, it
was out of regard to the firm resolution of Europe to establish
peace in the East without too much shaking the existing state of
things? In view of such a statement, which opens out the
seductive prospect of a lasting peace between the two states, is
it not clear that if in a few months, perhaps, Greece deems the
hour arrived to undertake a new campaign on the ground of
supposititious national claims, the same causes would produce
the same effects, and what then would become of that peace which
promised to be perpetual, but which lasted no longer than was
strictly necessary to hatch fresh enterprises against the law of
nations? Would Europe, called upon to pronounce upon this new
conflict, imperiling afresh the peace of the East and the
feelings of harmony among the great powers, again determine to
sacrifice the rights of lawful ownership to the covetousness of
an ambitious neighbor, or would she hesitate to do an act
repugnant doubtless to her honor? But, however that may be, this
eventuality forces itself with such a degree of certainty on all
minds, it is so rooted in the order of things, and so in keeping
with Hellenic theory, that it is not possible for the great
powers to admit as a decisive argument in favor of the demands
of Greece the certainty or even the hope of thus doing away with
the source of conflicts between Turkey and Greece. [Page 894] Such are the chief
facts and considerations which impose on the Sublime Porte the
duty of appealing to Europe itself from the opinion it expressed
in the congress concerning the granting to Greece of some
additional territory. His Majesty the Sultan, and his government
are firmly convinced that the great powers, if further
enlightened on the nature, arguments for, and consequences of,
the demand put forward by the Hellenic Government, will modify
their first opinion, and hasten to bring home to the cabinet of
Athens, counsels of rectitude and prudence calculated to turn it
from an enterprise equally unjust and impolitic. In any case
Europe will never seek to follow Greece along this dangerous
path, and thus run the risk of jeopardizing its work of peace. I
beg you to read this dispatch to His Excellency the Minister of
Foreign Affairs of——, and to leave with him a copy.
Accept, & c.,
