The Netherlands and Turkey: Four Hundred Years of Political, Economical, Social and Cultural Relations 9781463226022

Citation preview

T h e Netherlands and Turkey

Analecta Isisiana: Ottoman and Turkish Studies

107

A co-publication with The Isis Press, Istanbul, the series consists of collections of thematic essays focused on specific themes of Ottoman and Turkish studies. These scholarly volumes address important issues throughout Turkish history, offering in a single volume the accumulated insights of a single author over a career of research on the subject.

The Netherlands and Turkey

Four Hundred Years of Political, Economical, Social and Cultural Relations

Alexander H. De Groot

1 gorbia* press

The Isis Press, Istanbul 2010

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2010 by The Isis Press, Istanbul Originally published in 2009 All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of The Isis Press, Istanbul. 2010

ISBN 978-1-61719-149-7

Printed in the United States of America

Professor Associate Dr. Alexander H. de Groot (born 1943) held the appointment to teach Islamic Institutions at Leiden University since 1986. He studied Arabic, Persian and Turkish languages and cultures at Leiden, graduating in 1969. His research for the PhD degree centred on the history of the early phase of the relations between the Ottoman Empire and the Netherlands. He became University Lecturer at Leiden University in 1973 and was promoted Senior Lecturer of the Department of the Languages and Cultures of the Middle East in 1980. His academic teaching included the history of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey as well as classical and modern Turkish Literature and the development of political Islam in the modern Middle East. His research is directed mainly to the fields of the history of Ottoman and Turkish relations with Western Europe and the Islamic Institutions of the late Ottoman Empire and Turkey. He was a regular contributor to the new (Leiden) edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam on subjects of Ottoman institutional history and prosopography. His honourary functions included that of being the treasurer of the Comité International des Etudes pré-Ottomanes et Ottomanes (C.I.E.P.O.) and the secretary of the Oriental Society in The Netherlands. He is a former chairman of the Netherlands Association of Middle-eastern and Islamic Studies (M.O.I.). He was coordinating chairman of the combined programmes of Islamic studies of the faculties of divinity and of arts of Leiden University. He retired from Leiden University in 2005. At present Dr. de Groot is a curator of the Netherlands Institute for the Near East at Leiden and the Netherlands Institute in Turkey at Istanbul. Alexander H. de Groot is married to Aliye Toker. His publications include: The Ottoman Empire and the Dutch Republic. A History of the earliest diplomatic Relations 1610-1630, Leiden-Istanbul 1978; Nederland en Turkije. Zeshonderd Jaar politieke, economische en culturele Contacten, Leiden 1986; [Ed.] Het Midden-Oosten en Nederland in historisch perspectief Muiderberg 1989; .... It began with the Tulip. The History of Four Centuries of Relationship between Turkey and the Netherlands in Pictures, Ankara 2000 ; [with Alastair Hamilton and Maurits van den Boogert] Friends and Rivals in the East. Studies in Anglo-Dutch Relations in the Levant from the Seventeenth to the Early Nineteenth Century, Leiden 2000.

CONTENTS

Foreword Abbreviations 1, The Netherlands and Turkey. Four hundred years of political, economic, social and cultural relations 2, The Dutch Nation in Istanbul 1600 - 1985 3, An Eighteenth Century Ottoman Turkish-Dutch Letterbook and some of its Implications 4, Protection and Nationality. The Decline of the Dragomans 5, The Organization of Western European trade in the Levant 15001800 The Historical Development of the Capitulatory Regime in the Ottoman Middle East from the Fifteenth to the Nineteenth Century 7. The Dutch Capitulation of 1612. Translation and Text 8. The Ottoman Mediterranean since Lepanto (October 7th, 1571) ... 9. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and the Turkish Nationalist Movement as recorded in the Dutch Press 1919-1923

7 9 11 25 47 61 83

95 129 153 181

FOREWORD

The connecting thread of the historical studies selected for inclusion in this volume is the story of the development of the relations between the Netherlands and Turkey, from their early beginning in the sixteenth century till the end of the Ottoman period in 1921. The attentive reader will notice that the narrative starts in the sixteenth and not in the fourteenth century. The reason why is that the earliest relations were a false start. In 1396 after the battle of Nicopolis the heir to the Duchy of Burgundy, the Count of Nevers, 'Jean sans Peur', was taken prisoner by the Sultan. The knight from the Lower Countries was ransomed and came home after all but this fateful event did not mark the beginning of a fruitful contact. However the lasting interest in Ottoman affairs was awakened. The pilgrims traffic to the Holy Land during the 15th and 16th centuries also produced more information and even pictures representing the power of the Turks. The illustrations of the well known travelogue by Bernhard Breydenbach, printed in 1486, are a good example. Regular commercial traffic from the Netherlands to the Ottoman Levant began in the sixteenth century. Antwerp was its centre till 1585 when the Spanish brought the town under their control and interrupted the commerce with the Ottoman lands. The Levant trade then moved to harbour towns in the Northern Netherlands. Each of the essays that follow deals with a particular aspect. Chapter one is the general historical survey. Chapter two gives a picture of the life of the Dutch community established in Istanbul. It is followed by chapter three, a study of a Turkish letterbook which is a documentary source full of detailed information on the business life of the Dutch community of Izmir, the main centre of Levant trade in the late seventeenth century. The all- important but constantly underestimated role of the intermediaries of commercial and diplomatic traffic in the Ottoman Empire, the dragomans, during the 18th and 19th centuries is the subject of chapter four. The organization of the trade differed entirely from that of the famous trading companies known in the trade in Asia. However the leading merchants organizing both lines of trade were the same people as is demonstrated in the fifth essay. The legal foundation in Ottoman Islamic Law of peaceful foreign relations with the Western Powers is studied in chapter six which offers an

8

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

analysis of the development of the capitulations from its beginning to its final systématisation and amalgamation into a general validity for all diplomatic relations of The Porte. The following chapter seven offers as an illustrative example the full translation and [transcribed] Turkish text of the first Dutch charter of capitulations granted by Sultan Ahmed I in 1612. The maritime historical background of Ottoman foreign policy since the Battle of Lepanto (1571) till the early years of the 19th century forms the subject of chapter eight. To conclude, the ninth essay contains the findings and impressions of a Dutch travelling correspondent who was an eyewitness of the final stages of the ancien régime of Dutch life in the Levant and the birth of modern Turkey in the twenties of the last century. Alexander H. de Groot Oegstgeest, June, 2008

ABBREVIATIONS

ARA BBA/OA BN BN.FF CSP EI/2 HB HP IA KB MD MM NRC SG Supp. TAD TE1

National Archives, The Hague. [ex BVA] Bagbakanlik Osmanli Ar§ivi, Istanbul. Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. Bibliothèque Nationale. Manuscripts Fonds français. Calendar of State Papers, disp. Dispatches. Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition, Leiden 1960-2007. Algemeen Handelsblad [daily newspaper], Amsterdam. De Haagse Post [-De Haagsche Post] [daily/weekly newspaper], Amsterdam. islam Ansiklopedisi, Istanbul 1942-1986. Royal Library, The Hague. Miihimme Defteri [series of registers in BBA]. Maliyye Mtidevver [record series in BBA]. Nieuwe Rotterdamse Courant [daily newspaper], Rotterdam. States General [Staten Generaal]. Turcs Manuscripts Supplémentairest turcs [in BN]. Tarih Arastirmalari Dergisi, Istanbul. Tarih Dergisi, Istanbul.

1 THE NETHERLANDS AND TURKEY : SIX HUNDRED YEARS OF POLITICAL, ECONOMIC AND CULTURAL RELATIONS

Early contacts The earliest known ties between the Netherlands and Turkey developed during the Eighty Years' War (1568-1648). In that period, direct trade began taking place between the Levant, the eastern Mediterranean (then under Ottoman rule) and Antwerp, Western Europe's main commercial centre. The Turkse Stapel (Turkish Entrepot), which opened in Antwerp in 1582, was a business office and warehouse for Ottoman merchants. After the fall of Antwerp in 1585, the Levantine trade shifted to ports in the Northern Netherlands, such as Vlissingen, Hoorn, Enkhuizen and Amsterdam. From the seventeenth century onwards, 'Turks' (non-Muslim merchants from the Ottoman Empire) could be found at the commodity exchange in Amsterdam. The first political contacts between the Dutch state and the Ottomans were forged during the forty-year reign of William I, Prince of Orange (15441584). The prince, who sought financial and military support for his war of independence from Spain, came into contact with Josef Nasi, an international banker in Istanbul with whom he had studied in Louvain. In the Southern Netherlands, Nasi had called himself Don Juan Miguez, as if he were of Spanish extraction. After leaving the city of Antwerp, which was in the iron grip of the Spanish Inquisition, he resurfaced in Istanbul, where he settled under his true name. Like many other Spanish Jews, he was received with open arms by the Ottomans; Istanbul and Thessaloniki had prosperous Sephardic communities. In the early seventeenth century, these Jewish bankers and merchants -who were present in the Ottoman Empire, the Levant and North Africa- formed an important network for relations with Turkey. Then there were the Dutch merchants and seafarers who expanded their trade to the coasts of Africa and the Mediterranean from the 1590s onwards. The Dutch were soon a force to be reckoned with throughout the Mediterranean world, from Spain to Turkey, and became rivals of the Venetians, French and British. Dutch trade through the Strait of Gibraltar (known as the straatvaart) began with the shipment of large quantities of

12

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

grain from the Baltic. This trade went on regardless of the ongoing war with Spain. A t the courts of the Moroccan and Turkish sultans, there was a growing interest in the new republic and its role as a European maritime power which sought out and defeated the Spaniards in their own waters, off the coast of Gibraltar in 1607. T o obtain an idea of the extent of this Dutch commercial expansion towards the Levant, consider that in 1591, for instance, there were approximately one hundred ships sailing this route through the Straits of Gibraltar from Amsterdam alone. In 1599, the first Dutch ship arrived in the Levant, bringing 100,000 silver ducats that it exchanged for silk, spices and cotton. In 1604, Dutch traders imported 150,000 ducats in currency into Aleppo, which was then the commercial centre of the Ottoman East. By way of comparison, the Venetians imported 1,250,000 ducats into Aleppo that year, the French 800,000, and the British 300,000. Ten years later, the import of Dutch currency into Aleppo had risen to 500,000 ducats, twice as much as the British competition's 250,000. In 1609 the Twelve Years' Truce began and Spain stopped interfering with Dutch shipping, a factor which made a substantial difference. Alongside the Spanish silver they brought to the Levant, the Dutch also began exporting large quantities of spices and pepper -very valuable and profitable goods in those days. They returned with other expensive merchandise: cotton, mohair wool, silk and gallnuts. This lucrative new development caught the attention of the government in The Hague, and the States General (the parliamentary body which acted as the supreme national authority) set out to promote the trade. At this point, the Ottoman government, or 'Sublime Porte', which had taken an interest in the trade for some time, responded to the budding interest of the States General. In 1610, a letter was dispatched from Istanbul to The Hague. The sender was Halil Pasha, who held the title of Kapudan Pasha, Ottoman Minister of the Navy and admiral of the fleet. On behalf of the Sublime Porte, this Ottoman statesman invited the Netherlands to send an ambassador to Istanbul for negotiations on the official opening of political and economic relations. The 'Grand Pensionary' Johan van Oldenbarneveldt, who was in charge of Dutch foreign policy, managed to convince the States General of the importance of relations with the leading Muslim power of the day. It was above all a question of trade interests, but humanitarian concerns also played a role. The many Dutch vessels sailing to and from the Mediterranean had started to run afoul of privateers flying the Ottoman flag, who operated out of the ports of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli (modern-day Libya). Dutch ships suspected of hostile activities or intentions were often

SIX

HUNDRED

YEARS

13

captured and sold, and their crews held for ransom in North Africa - o r 'Barbary', as it was then known. Back in the Netherlands, many people were concerned for the welfare of these 'Turkish slaves'. They hoped that official relations with the Ottoman sultan might lead to the release of prisoners and persuade privateers to treat Dutch nationals as friends of the Turks - i n other words, to leave them alone.

The seventeenth The first

century ambassador

In 1611, the newly appointed ambassador extraordinary and his staff of four were finally able to depart for Turkey. The chosen emissary was Cornelis Haga (1578-1654), an experienced diplomat born in Schiedam. In March 1612, after a four-month voyage across Europe and the Adriatic and Aegean Seas, Haga and his men arrived safely in the Ottoman capital. For a long while, the Turkish authorities had eagerly looked forward to the embassy's arrival. Halil Pasha himself was there to welcome them, and the first Dutch ambassador to the Sublime Porte was able to set up operations in Istanbul without difficulty. The embassy building was in approximately the same location as the palace housing the modern-day Dutch consulate general, along the most fashionable street in the Beyoglu district (now known as Istiklal Caddesi). Ambassador Haga would remain in residence there until 1639. The Turkish government did everything within its power to ensure the success of the Dutch mission. In July 1612, after three months of negotiation (a fairly short time by contemporary standards), the first capitulation was issued to the Netherlands in the name of the Ottoman sultan. This was a detailed enumeration of rights, privileges, obligations and conditions, which permitted Dutch nationals to travel, reside or trade throughout the Ottoman Empire on remarkably favourable terms. Since then, the Netherlands has maintained good relations with Turkey, with a long series of ambassadors and consuls in Istanbul and the country's many other commercial centres. The Ottoman government only occasionally sent envoys on special missions to the Netherlands. The Dutch embassy in Istanbul took systematic steps to arouse interest in Turkish culture and promote understanding of the Ottoman countries and their history. Cornelis Haga had a luxuriously furnished residence and returned home in 1639 with a sizeable collection of souvenirs, which was unfortunately dispersed long ago. The sale inventory mentions ancient

14

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

sculptures and paintings of '6 Turkish Emperors, 1 Turkish Mufti, 1 Patriarch of Greece'. Haga considered it part of his job to extend hospitality to Dutch scholars and other travelers. During their studies, Orientalists from the University of Leiden were grateful for the opportunity to learn more about the local languages and cultures at first hand, and. to acquire collections of manuscripts that would serve as the source materials for Dutch and Western European scholarship. Among them was Jacobus Golius (1596-1667), a professor in Leiden, who spoke Turkish and other 'Oriental' languages. This man of science served as a translator and interpreter for the States General in diplomatic communications with Arabic and Turkish speakers. In 1624, Golius requested and received a period of leave so that he could travel to the Levant in order to improve his practical language skills and assemble a collection of Oriental manuscripts for the university library. After serving as a dragoman (a translator and expert) and a chancellor at the consulate in Aleppo, he lived in Ambassador Haga's residence from 1627 to 1629. In the ambassador's reports, he occasionally mentions the scholar's continuing labours, but also his periods of rest and relaxation, which Golius spent with his 'bride' in the country house of the patriarch of Constantinople, on an island in the Sea of Marmara. Another inquisitive visitor to Istanbul and the great sites of classical antiquity was Ernst Brinck (1582-1649) of Harderwijk, who was embassy secretary from 1613 to 1614. This seventeenth-century 'tourist' assembled an instructive itinerary for his travels. He kept an album amicorum recording his encounters with fellow Dutchmen, leading lights in the world of diplomacy and members of government circles in Istanbul, in the form of complimentary or edifying inscriptions in all the languages of the Levant. During Brinck's voyage to Istanbul, his ship called at Candia (Heraklion, on Crete), which was then Venetian territory. The book is signed by all three of the commanders present from the squadron of galleys based on the island. Another twenty-six signatures follow, from Dutch travellers on their way to Persia, Syria or Istanbul, staff at Haga's embassy, diplomatic representatives of friendly and hostile powers, a number of dragomans (some working for the Sublime Porte, others for foreign embassies), the patriarch of Constantinople, orthodox bishops, the Armenian patriarch and, most notably, five Ottoman dignitaries, including (of course) the Grand Vizier and Halil Pasha, the Kapudan Pasha. The book in fact reproduces in miniature the cosmopolitan world of the Ottoman Levant.

SIX

HUNDRED

YEARS

15

Dragomans, experts in Ottoman law and custom, were prominent figures at embassies and consulates. They served as interpreters and translators, but also played a broader role, as the key participants in day-to-day diplomatic relations with the Ottoman authorities. These intermediaries were usually recruited from Christian, and sometimes Sephardic Jewish, communities. Dutch diplomats rarely developed the skill to hold such positions, though over the centuries a number of Orientalists from Leiden worked at the embassy in this capacity. One illustrious example is Levinus Warnerus (1619-1665), who studied with Golius from 1638 to 1642. In December 1644 he departed for the Levant, where he took up residence in Istanbul, combining scholarly and commercial pursuits. In 1647, he began work as a Dutch dragoman. The job suited him so well that he lost interest in the University of Leiden's offers of an academic chair. His diplomatic expertise was recognized in 1655, when the States General appointed him chargé d'affaires to the Sublime Porte. From then until the day he died, he represented the Netherlands in Istanbul. Like Haga before him, Warnerus had his family come to Istanbul to share in his prosperous lifestyle. In his role as the representative of the Republic of the United Provinces, he lived large, especially by Dutch standards. In 1657 his household included his chancellor, three dragomans, a Turkish clerk, a major-domo, a valet, a spenditor (responsible for household purchases), a cook and his assistant, a groom and stable-boys for five horses, a porter for the embassy and another for his country house, as well as two janissaries, members of the elite Ottoman infantry who served as bodyguards for foreign envoys. This does not even include the junior staff. Furthermore, recently liberated Dutch ex-slaves often stayed at the embassy and supported themselves by working there while awaiting an opportunity to return to the Netherlands. Warnerus must have had good relations with the Ottoman intellectual elite. The illustrious set of personages whom he persuaded to sign his album amicorum is proof of that. He contributed to Dutch scholarship by donating his valuable collection of Oriental manuscripts, over one thousand in all, to the University of Leiden.

Dutch communities in the Ottoman Empire In the second half of the seventeenth century, Istanbul was no longer by any means the only place in the Levant with a Dutch presence. Ambassador Haga had developed a large network of consular missions in major trading centres such as Patras, Thessaloniki, Athens, Gallipoli, Izmir,

16

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

Aleppo, Sidon, Cairo, Algiers and Tunis, laying a basis for Dutch commercial expansion. In Turkey, Izmir became home to the largest Dutch community, with fifteen trading houses. In 1657, the States General even established a separate consulate general in Izmir, and the city remained the focal point of Dutch (as well as British and French) life in the country until 1923. A Dutch Reformed congregation was established in Izmir in 1662, alongside parishes in Istanbul (established in 1628) and Aleppo. The church is still there, or at least the most recent version after a series of renovations. Catholic missionaries of Dutch and Flemish origin were at work in the Levant. These Minorites, Carmelites, Capuchin and Jesuits were not, strictly speaking, part of the Dutch community, but that is not to say that they were not on friendly terms with their compatriots. The Franciscan Pacificus Smit, a monk at the Hospice of the Holy Land in Istanbul and a neighbour of the embassy, even tutored the children of Ambassador Jacobus Colyer (in office from 1682 to 1725). The embassy ministers in Istanbul sometimes had close relations with the Orthodox patriarchate. The purportedly Calvinist confession of Patriarch Cyril Lucaris (1572-1638) is relevant here. This renowned leader of the Eastern Church received funding and expert advice in support of his efforts to introduce Modern Greek (the vernacular) into Orthodox liturgical texts.

Dutch travellers in the Levant The consul in Izmir played host to the Dutch painter and draughtsman Cornelis the Bruyn (1652-1719), who arrived in the city in 1678. De Bruyn told the story of his first great journey, which lasted nineteen years (16741693), in Reizen van Cornelis de Bruyn door de Vermaardste Deelen van Klein Asia, de Eylanden, Scio, Rhodus, Cyprus, Metelino, Stanchio etc. Mitsgaders de voornaamste Steden van Aegypten, Syrien, en Palestina (Travels of Cornelis de Bruyn through the Most Renowned Parts of Asia Minor, the Islands, Scio, Rhodes, Cyprus, Metelino, Stanchio etc., as well as the principal cities of Egypt, Syria, and Palestine), published in Delft in 1698 in a large folio volume. The magnificent etchings in this monumental work brought home to a European public the cities, landscapes and inhabitants of the Ottoman Levant. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Dutch naval vessels visited the Ottoman ports at regular intervals. The accounts of these voyages written by some naval officers form an addition to the meager collection of Dutch travel literature.

SIX

HUNDRED

YEARS

17

Pieter van Woensel (1747-1808) a doctor known in Dutch literary history as a political satirist, wrote a highly original travel story under the pseudonym 'Amurath-Effendi Hekim-Bachi' ('chief doctor Murad Efendi'). It is a complete departure from all earlier works in the genre, examining the Ottoman Turks in their international political and military context from 1784 and 1789. Van Woensel gives an eyewitness account of the horrors of Russian aggression against the Turkish population of the Crimea and southern Russia. Eventually he could no longer bear to witness these massacres and resigned from his post to travel through the Crimea, Russia and Anatolia to Istanbul, where he practiced medicine for a while.

The eighteenth century After the heyday of Dutch-Ottoman relations from 1660 to 1713, the Netherlands was eclipsed by its main commercial competitors, the French and the British. The Treaty of Utrecht (1713) ended the War of the Spanish Succession and made it clear that the Dutch Republic had played out its role on the world stage. This was an opportunity for France to make new inroads into the Levantine trade. French merchants gained control of a growing share of trade with Izmir and other Levantine ports with their new export product, fine woolen cloth from Languedoc. This was cheaper than cloth from Leiden, but of sufficient quality to attract plenty of buyers. The French used the additional profits to buy more cotton in the Levant and thereby increase their volume of trade. Despite the diminishing commercial significance of the Netherlands, Anglo-Dutch diplomacy proved critical during the reign of William III, the 'stadholder-king' (which lasted from 1672 to 1702. Turkish forces besieged Vienna in 1683, the setting-in of a prolonged war with the Habsburgs and their allies in Central and Southeast Europe. Jacobus Colyer, the Dutch ambassador to the Sublime Porte, assumed the role of mediator, in a peace process that culminated in the Treaty of Karlowitz (1699). In 1725, the States-General appointed Cornelis Calkoen, a young patrician from Amsterdam, to succeed Ambassador Jacobus Colyer, who had died in Istanbul. The new ambassador arrived in the Ottoman capital on 30 May 1727 and had his first audience with the Grand Vizier on Friday 12 September. Sultan Ahmed III received him and accepted his credentials on 14 September. Calkoen's chief duty was to protect and promote Dutch trade interests. He also took an active political role in 1737, when at the request of the Sublime Porte he and his British counterpart acted as a mediator in peace

18

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

negotiations between the Ottoman and Russian Empires (which ultimately failed). Calkoen saw Turkish art, culture and literature flourish under the reign of Ahmed III (1703-1730), which was known as the Tulip Period. He took an exceptionally keen interest in Ottoman affairs, politics and culture. With the help of his aristocratic dragoman Skarlatos Karadja (Carel Karatza), his secretary and friend Jan Carel des Bordes and the Levantine members of his staff, he built up a far-reaching network and managed to stay apprised of new developments. This led to an unusual form of diplomatic relations and EastWest dialogue, in which the Grand Vizier eagerly drew on the Dutch ambassador's information during their regular tete-a-tetes. Calkoen left Istanbul on 28 April 1744. The archival records of his years as ambassador form a rich source of historical data. Documentation of a different kind is provided by the collection of paintings that he commissioned from the French painter Jean-Baptiste Vanmour, who worked in Istanbul. Besides their political duties, the primary task of Dutch ambassadors was to protect the interests of Dutch nationals and Dutch trade. In particular, they had to make sure that the capitulations were enforced in full. Under the terms of those capitulations, Dutch nationals -as well as those who enjoyed Dutch diplomatic protection because they were in the service of a consul or embassy, or working to promote Dutch interests in some other way -were entitled to certain privileges and exemptions. It was crucial for the Netherlands to maintain or build on this special status in the day-to-day practice of trade and international relations, and to adapt it to specific circumstances in a way that favoured its own interests. After the first capitulation, received in 1612 when the embassy was established, Sultan Murad IV (who reigned from 1623 to 1640) granted another, identical one in 1634. In other words, this second capitulation was no more than a formal confirmation of the status of the Netherlands and Dutch nationals in the Ottoman Empire. The capitulation of 1680, granted by Mehmed IV (sultan from 1648 to 1687), was the result of Ambassador Justinus Colyer's diplomatic efforts. Following the example of his French and British colleagues (read: rivals) Colyer managed to obtain the reconfirmation and slight expansion of the Dutch capitulations. It was this 1680 capitulation that safeguarded the Netherlands' role and interests in the Middle East, North Africa and Southeast Europe. It remained the basis for the legal status of the Dutch until the Ottoman government effectively revoked the Empire's capitulations in 1914 (it is, however, worth noting that the capitulatory regime for foreign relations with Turkey was not officially terminated until the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923). A bilateral trade agreement concluded in

SIX

HUNDRED

YEARS

19

1840, which was based on reciprocity, was no more than a supplement to the pre-existing situation, but it did shift the foundation of relations between the Netherlands and Turkey from Islamic law to Western international law. In the eighteenth century, it became substantially less difficult to monitor compliance with the capitulations. Increasingly, the lives of Dutch nationals in the Levant were characterized by social and political stability. It was not unusual for trading companies to go bankrupt, however. Interestingly, the Dutch Levant trade -unlike that of other Western European nations- was fairly open to merchants of other nationalities, especially non-Muslim Ottoman subjects. Greeks, Armenians and Jews encountered few obstacles to entering into the service of the Netherlands, eventually obtaining Dutch nationality and becoming formidable competitors under the same Dutch flag as their erstwhile masters. As a result of this pattern, as well as the constant shortage of marriageable Protestant women, the Dutch community in Turkey gradually lost much of its national character. Many converted from Reformed Protestantism to Catholicism, and the Dutch language lost ground to French. In legal terms, however, these Levantines remained unambiguously Dutch. Consider the typical Turkish-Dutch family history of a branch of a 'Latin' (in other words, Levantine Catholic) family that set down roots in Istanbul in the fifteenth century. In 1713 Gasparo Testa became the first of his line to serve as a dragoman at the Dutch embassy. His son, the doctor Jacques Testa (who died in 1804), became a dragoman in 1766. Jacques' son Gaspard, who became a dragoman-in-training in 1776, steadily climbed the diplomatic ladder, attaining the offices of vice-chancellor in 1791, chancellor in 1798, embassy secretary in 1804 and chargé d'affaires in 1808. In 1825, he was promoted to embassy counsellor and in the year of his demise, 1847, he became the resident minister of the Netherlands in Istanbul and was created baron in recognition of his services. Baron Frederik Gijsbert van Dedem (1743-1820), a politician and diplomat, was named ambassador to the Sublime Porte in 1784. For many years, he had represented the province of Overijssel in the States General, and he became the chairman of that body in 1780. He was known to be sympathetic to the French revolutionary cause and was a prominent supporter of the Patriot movement. Van Dedem traveled to his new place of work in the company of his wife and children, his secretary Joost Frederik Tor and a multitude of servants. He arrived in Istanbul on 24 August 1785, becoming the final ambassador of the Republic of the United Provinces to the Porte. His first audience with Sultan Selim III took place on 29 November 1785. The strict protocol generally adhered to on such occasions was relaxed somewhat: the ambassador

20

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

was permitted to bring his young son Anthony Boldewijn along, as we can see in a painting of the event. Previously only Ottoman princes had, occasionally, been allowed to appear on such occasions. Van Dedem was a very energetic diplomat, and there are copious archives for his term of office. His frequent exchanges of diplomatic notes with the Porte are especially noteworthy. He also developed an extensive network of individuals under diplomatic protection in the Levant. In 1795, Ambassador Van Dedem was allowed to retain his office by the government of the new Batavian Republic. In 1799 he found himself in hot water when a French expeditionary force, commanded by General Napoleon Bonaparte, invaded Ottoman Egypt and Syria. The Ottoman Empire forged an alliance with England and Russia and declared war on France. The French chargé d'affaires and his staff were thrown into the Ottoman state prison. Though Van Dedem was the representative of the Batavian Republic, which had strong ties with France, he was spared this fate. However, the Porte did break off diplomatic relations with the Netherlands. As a token of personal esteem for Van Dedem, the Ottoman government ordered him (along with a small staff) to take up residence in Bucharest, the capital of the tributary principality of Walachia -in other words, within the Ottoman borders. This fairly tolerable form of exile lasted two years. When Van Dedem returned to Istanbul in 1802, he was able to restore his network of Dutch interest groups. From 1803 to 1807, the ambassador was on leave in his home country. Upon returning to duty in Istanbul once again -this time as ambassador of the newly appointed King of Holland, Louis Napoleon- Van Dedem succeeded in wresting the embassy from French control. In 1808, he said his official farewell to Sultan Selim III and departed for the Netherlands, never to return. He remained ambassador in formal terms until 1810, when the Kingdom of Holland was annexed by the Napoleonic Empire. Frederik Gijsbert van Dedem was raised to the French nobility as comte de l'empire and honoured with the prestigious title of senator. After the Netherlands regained its independence from France, he no longer took active part in public life. An example of the new perspective on the Turks is found in writings by Baron Frederik's son, Anthony Boldewijn van Dedem, who was ten years old when he came to Istanbul with his parents and would remain there until 1793 (with only a single trip to the Netherlands in the meantime). In his memoirs, which describe part of his eventful career, he describes social life in and around the embassy. The Beyoglu district and its surroundings were home to an especially cosmopolitan community. Thirteen embassies were located there, and the prosperity of the foreign trade colony and the Levantine elite was on firm footing. There is nothing surprising about all this, but it is

SIX

HUNDRED

YEARS

21

striking that, according to the observations of the young Van Dedem, social contacts in this period involved the Ottoman Turkish community -that is, the Muslim elite. Regular visits were paid to the Grand Vizier and his household. Even the highest-ranking spiritual leader in the Muslim hierarchy, the §eyhiilislam, and the sultan's supreme judges accepted the company of 'infidels'. Van Dedem writes of soirées where genuinely enlightened debates took place between the dragoman of the Dutch embassy, the scholar Rudolphe Braggiotti, and the chancellor of the Porte. He even confesses that - t o his continuing chagrin, so many years later- he was enamoured of the daughter of the Grand Vizier, the Ottoman prime minister. All this may be mere microhistory, but it has definite importance as an indication that cultural and social ties between Western Europe and the Turkish East, between the Netherlands and Turkey, were becoming closer than ever.

The nineteenth century In the course of the nineteenth century, the Netherlands saw its status decline to that of a minor power among those which had been granted capitulations, and the influence of its representatives in Turkey dwindled accordingly. Even so, the new treaties that the Sultan concluded with foreign nations -including those with the Netherlands in 1840, 1862 and 1873- only differed in the area of trade, without detracting from the unilateral benefits that the system had traditionally conferred. Dutch-Turkish relations did nevertheless become more of a two-way street when the Ottoman sultan appointed an envoy to The Hague in 1855. A year later, the Ottoman Empire was admitted to the Concert of Europe and thus recognized as a civilized state in European terms. The separate national capitulations of earlier centuries were merged into a single system, applied collectively by the representatives of the foreign powers involved, and the Netherlands reaped the benefits without having to make policies of its own. The resident ministers assigned to the Porte and the consuls at the many missions still in operation throughout the Middle East, Southeast Europe and north Africa continued reporting on political and economic developments. After the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869.., Dutch shipping increased in importance. During Sultan Abdulhamid H's reign (1876-1909) Istanbul became a centre for pan-Islamic propaganda. With its colony in the East Indies (modernday Indonesia), the Netherlands was in a sense a large Muslim state. Fears of Islamist fundamentalism (in fact unfounded) created some extra political work for Dutch emissaries in Turkey, who were expected to report on forces in

22

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

Istanbul that could potentially disrupt law and order in the Indies. It was no coincidence that the Dutch government's advisor for Muslim affairs, the Orientalist Christiaan Snouck-Hurgronje (1857-1936) of the University of Leiden, went to Istanbul in 1907 and 1908 and thus had the opportunity to witness at first hand the Young Turk Revolution that put an end to the autocratic regime of Abdlilhamid II. In 1915, J.H. Kramers (1891-1951) went to Istanbul, having been appointed a dragoman-in-training to the Dutch mission there by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On arriving, however, he discovered that the Ottoman government had unilaterally terminated the entire capitulatory system. As a result, Kramers could not perform his diplomatic duties, because the task of a dragoman was precisely to apply the capitulations. So it was that the last of the Dutch dragomans spent his years in Istanbul studying the Turkish language and the country's history, a field in which he garnered an international reputation. Dutch neutrality during the First World War lent additional importance to the work of the Dutch legation in Istanbul, which was charged with promoting the interests of the people and governments of Russia and certain other states at war with the Ottoman Empire.

The twentieth century The Republic of Turkey and the Netherlands The birth of the Turkish nation-state in 1919-1923, when Mustafa Kemal Atatiirk founded the republic of Turkey, did not interrupt DutchTurkish relations. The Netherlands made no objection to the definitive termination of the capitulatory system, even though it brought an end to the preferential treatment of the Dutch nationals (approximately 300 to 400 in number) who were deeply rooted in Turkish society. The Netherlands was willing to accept the new order in Turkey: the end of the sultanate and the creation of the Republic. As early as 16 August 1924, the two states signed a treaty of friendship in Ankara.

SIX

HUNDRED

YEARS

23

Bibliography Anatolica. Annuaire international pour les civilisations de l'Asie antérieure, VIII (Leiden, 1981). (Includes six articles in English and French by Turkish and Dutch scholars about modern Turkey, published in 1981, the 'Atatürk Year') R. Bakker, Reizen en de Kunst van Schriiven. Pie ter van Woensel in het Ottomaanse Rijk, de Krim en Rusland 1784-1789. Zeist 2008. R. Bekius, 'De Armeense kolonie in Amsterdam 1600-1800', De Gids 148 (1985), pp. 216-223. G.R. Bosscha Erdbrink, At the Threshold of Felicity: Ottoman-Dutch Relations during the Embassy of Cornelis Calkoen at the Sublime Porte 1726-1744, Ankara 1975. A.H. de Groot, The Ottoman Empire and the Dutch Republic: A History of the Earliest Diplomatic Relations 1610-1630, Leiden/Istanbul 1978. A.H. de Groot, De betekenis van de Nederlandse ambassade bij de Verheven Porte voor de Studie van het Turks in de 17de en 18de eeuw, Leiden 1979. A.H. de Groot, "Turkije' in: R. Peters (ed.), Van vreemde herkomst. Achtergronden van Turkse en Marokkaanse landgenoten, Bussum 1982, pp. 145-210. A.H. de Groot, Zeki Çelikkol & Ben J. Slot, Laie île Ba§ladi/It Began with the Tulip: The History of Four Centuries of Relationship between Turkey and the Netherlands in Pictures, Ankara 2000 K. Heeringa, Bronnen tot de Geschiedenis van den Levantschen Handel I in 2 (1592-1660), II (1661-1726), The Hague 1910, 1917; continued by J.G. Nanninga, III (1727-1765) and IV in 2 (1765-1826), The Hague 1952, 1964-1966. A.H. Huussen, Het Leven van Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq. En het verhaal van zijn aventuren als keizerlijk gezant in Turkije 1554-1562, Leiden 1949. J.I. Israel, 'The Phases of the Dutch straatvaart (1590-1713)', Tijdschrift voor Geschiedents 99 (1986), pp.1-30. J.H. Kramers, Analecta Orientalia. Vol. I, Leiden 1954. F.J.E van Lennep, 'Een Schilderij uit de Levant', in Late Regenten, Haarlem 1962, pp. 207-221. R. van Luttervelt, De 'Turkse' Schilderijen van J.B. Vanmour en zijn School, Leiden/Istanbul 1958. Z.R.W.M. von Martels & M. Goldsteen (intro., ed. and trans.), Ogier van Boesbeeke, Turkse Brieven, Hilversum 1994. J. Schmidt, Through the Legation Window 1876-1926. Four Essays on Dutch, Dutch Indian and Ottoman History, Leiden/Istanbul 1992 ( = Publications de l'Institut historique-archéologique néerlandais de Stamboul LXVIII). J. Schmidt, ed., Per Koets naar Constantinopel. De Gezantschapsreis van Baron van Dedem van de Gelder naar Istanbul in 1785, Zutphen 1998 (= Werken uitgegeven door de Linschoten-Vereeniging LVXCVII). J. Schmidt, From Anatolia to Indonesia. Opium Trade and the Dutch Community of Izmir, 1820-1940, Leiden/Istanbul 1998 R. Schwoebel, The Shadow of the Crescent: The Renaissance Image of the Turk (1453-1517), Nieuwkoop 1967. L. Wagner-Heidendal, Het Filhellenisme in het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden (18211829), Brussels 1972.

2 THE DUTCH NATION IN ISTANBUL 1600-1985: A CONTRIBUTION TO THE SOCIAL HISTORY OF BEYOGLU

Around the year sixteen hundred, merchants and craftsmen from the Netherlands began to settle in Galata and the neighbouring quarters of Tophane and Pera/Beyoglu. In doing so, these Dutchmen followed in the footsteps of their competitors in trade, the English, the French and the Venetians. Already during the sixteenth century, visitors from the Netherlands had come to Istanbul and the Levant. Some of them are well known. The prime example is the Habsburg envoy Busbecquius (1522-1592) who stayed there in 1554 and 1562. He had to leave behind his physician, William Quackelbeen who died of the plague. The latter's tombstone in the Roman Catholic cemetery at Ferikoy may be considered as the oldest monument to Dutch life in Istanbul 1 . Other Habsburg imperial diplomatists sent to the Sultan's court were Cornelius Scepper in 1533, Gerardus Veltwyck in 1545, and Albert de Wys who was buried in the church of San Francesco in Galata in 1569. This line of imperial envoys of Dutch descent was concluded by Karel Rym who stayed in the Ottoman capital from 1569 till 1573 2 . Pilgrims to the Holy Land and travellers touring the sites of classical antiquity passed through Istanbul. Thus Georgius Dousa of Leiden (1574-1599) stayed in 15903 for seven months as a guest of the English ambassador Edward Barton. By sixteen hundred, a small group of "Flemings" (Turkish: Felemenk) was living more or less permanently in Galata and Beyoglu. It became characteristic for the members of the "Dutch Nation" to settle for good in the Levant rather than to limit their stay to a number of active years as did most Frenchmen and Englishmen. In 1602, the three borthers Ghisbrechti, Giacomo, Carlo and Nicolo, jewellers ' a H. de Groot "Old Dutch Graves at Istanbul" Archivum Ottomanicum V (Lisse 1973) 5-16. De Vriendt, ed. Reyse van Bruussele vut Brabant te Constantinopels in Thracyen en Reyse van Weenen in Hoosteryc te Constantinopels in Thracyen. Twee reisjournaals uit de jaren 15701585, Gent 1971; F. Babinger, "Der flämische Staatsmann Karel Rijm (1533-1584) und sein verschollenes türkisches Tagebuch" in Aufsätze und Abhandlungen III, München 1976, 277285; E. Dallegio d'Alessio, ed. Relatione dello Stato della Cristianità di Pera e Constantinopoli obediente al Sommo Pontefice Romano, Istanbul 1925,53. ^G. Dousa, De Itinere suo Constantinopolitano Epistola, Leiden 1599.

26

THE N E T H E R L A N D S

AND

TURKEY

and goldsmiths, arrived. Their trade seems to have been a success. Their customers belonged to the high circles of government and the Sultan's court. It must have been worthwhile to remain in the East, for Nicolo Ghisbrechti died in Beyoglu as late as 16541. Likewise from Antwerp, the main centre of overseas trade in the Netherlands during the sixteenth century, came a competitor Lambert Verhaer (1566-1649), a Calvinist protestant goldsmith. The religious antagonism to the Ghisbrechtis' roman catholic persuasion was to be a great significance as will be seen. These immigrants from the Netherlands played some role in providing information to the Ottoman government on the progress of the Dutch Revolt and the extension of the war against Habsburg power in the Mediterranean. Another connection between Istanbul on one side and Antwerp and Amsterdam on the other was provided by another category of inhabitants of Galata and Beyoglu who were Ottoman subjects viz. the Hispano-Portuguese Jews, exiled from Habsburg territories and scattered in diaspora in the Dutch Republic, Northern Africa and the Ottoman Levant. Thanks to their network of relations and partners across the Mediterranean world and Western Europe, these new Ottoman Jews of Islam could keep the Ottoman government well informed on the growing importance of the maritime and commercial power of the Dutch Republic of the Seven United Provinces 2 . One name should stand for many others, that of the learned Isaac Pardo, who was employed as banker by the vizier Halil Pa§a around the years 1610-1612. The activities of the Dutch in the Levant, in Syria and Egypt as well as in Izmir and Istanbul, caught the interest of leading Ottoman statesmen. In the end, the Sublime Porte instructed the kapudanpaga Halil Pa§a (1565-1629) to invite the Dutch government at the Hague, the States General, to send an embassy and to put bilateral relations on an official footing. Such an initiative showed a new style in foreign policy of the Porte 3 . It should be remembered that both the French and the English in 1569 and 1579 respectively still had to apply out of their own initiative to gain a privileged status inside the Ottoman dominions. The Dutch inhabitants of Beyoglu, the Ghisbrechti brothers as well as Verhaer, were interested in this development from the beginning. The senior Giacomo Ghisbrechti sought contact with The Hague by means of his business friends, the Dutch merchants at Venice. His ambition was to play the role of ambassador himself and so to be the chief of

' A.H. de Groot, The Ottoman Empire and the Dutch Republic. A History of the earlies diplomatic relations 1610-1630, Leiden-Istanbul 1978,110,226,335nn, 52,55. 2 A.H. de Groot, The Ottoman Empire , 60,109. ''Ibidem, 58,115.

THE

DUTCH

NATION

IN

ISTANBUL

27

the Dutch trading community in Istanbul. A capitulation (Turkish: ahdnâme), i.e. a grant of commercial and legal privileges special to the Dutch, would be of great benefit to trade, if only by emancipating the Dutch from the costly protection offered to them by the French or English ambassadors and consuls by force of their respective capitulations. The vizier Halil Pa§a dispatched his letter to the States General in 1610 1 , and Giacomo Gishbrechti set out on his journey to Holland by way of Venice. Verhaer, however, seems to have moved faster. In any case, the States General decided to give a positive answer to the Ottoman government's invitation, but did select a barrister of The Hague, Cornelis Haga, to be their extraordinary (i.e. non-permanent) ambassador to Istanbul. Ghisbrechti was not considered for the post, but Verhaer became the trusted adviser and local expert of the new ambassador. During the night of March 17,1612, the Dutch ambassador and his suite discreetly entered the Ottoman capital and descended at the house in Beyoglu put in readiness for him. As things went, his stay at Istanbul, meant to be strictly temporary, lasted from 1612 till May 1639. Together with the Dutch ambassador, a small group of Dutchmen settled in Beyoglu and Galata consisting of the three young gentlemen who served as attachés and the domestic servants who had come with them from Holland. Verhaer was appointed majordomo of the ambassador's household. Hàlil Pa§a, seeing to it that the new embassy might become a success, provided an essential functionary from his own entourage, the first dragoman Paul Antonio Bon, a merchant of Venetian origin who had served the Ottoman admiral in such a capacity before. A cordial welcome to the new residents from the Netherlands was given by members of the Spanish Jewish community. The Dutch were seen as solid business partners and in general as protectors of their nation. Among these new local Istanbul friends of the Dutch were the Rabbi Moshe Eyrusalmista, banker and merchant to the §eyhUlislam, the highest Islamic dignitary of the Ottoman Empire, the brothers Israel and Jacob Alamanoglu alias Ashkenazi, financiers to the hass odabasi, a senior official of the Sultan's household, Diego Pimentel whose relative Emmanuel Pimentel served as financier to the Grand Vizier Nasuh Pa§a, Doctor Israel Coyen, and Abraham Cormano who was to serve ambassador Haga as a dragoman for many years 2 . Such local experts in finance and medicine served as precious intermediaries between the Dutch embassy and the Ottoman viziers.

1 Ibidem, 94ff, 97ff. hbidem, 109,134,154,176f, 191,197,300f, 326.

28

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

The Ghisbrechti brothers were of course bitterly disappointed by this development. Realizing the failure of their ambitions to play the central role in Ottoman-Dutch affairs, they joined the ranks of the anti-Dutch party in Istanbul, led by the French and Venetian embassies who intended to prevent an official Dutch presence which would only contribute to the success of these dangerous competitors in trade. The resident imperial agent at Istanbul not surprisingly had his own instructions to counteract the Calvinist ambassador. He made common cause with the Ghisbrechti's, who, it should be realized, were legally still subjects of the Habsburgs since they were natives of Antwerp, a city lying within the Southern, i.e. Spanish-Austrian, Netherlands. In a few months time, with full support of Halil Pa§a and other members of the Imperial Divan, the Dutch acquired their own Capitulations in the first week of July 1612 / A.H. 1021 1 . The Dutch Republic could establish an embassy and a network of consulates in the Ottoman Empire in order to organize its trade and navigation, on the basis of its new, recognized status as a friendly power enjoying a number of privileges and exemptions in the field of taxation and law. Dutch subjects, from now on, were encouraged to come and stay in the commercial centres of the Ottoman Empire. What may be called the first generation of the Beyoglu Dutch counted, among its members, Cornelis Syms, Andreas Suyderhoeff and Cornelis Pauw, young men belonging to the ruling classes in Holland. They chose to live, next to the ambassador, on Beyoglu's main street, the "Strada Maestra" later called "Grande Rue de Péra" in Levantine usage, Tartk-i 'Amm in the Ottoman Turkish. The Dutch residence stood above Tophane, next and above the French embassy on the corner of Tomtom Street. A hiiccet document, issued by the cadi of Galata in 1620, indicates that ambassador Haga already lived on the spot where stands the present day "Palais de Hollande". Passages in the unpublished diaries of one of Haga's secretaries who lived in Beyoglu from April 1613 till August 1614, point in the same direction 2 . This site belonged to the ward (mahalle) of Huseyin Aga 3 . The Dutch community of merchants, and the dragomans serving it, lived in this same neighbourhood or down the hill in Galata. Haga soon felt at home in his new surroundings. He developed an opulent lifestyle, quite in contrast to standards at home. As was the case in other embassies a large domestic staff was at his disposal. Twenty persons, l

Ibidem, 231-260, 337-9 (text and translation), plates I-XII (Facsimile). ^General State Archives of the Netherlands. The Hague (ARA) Legatiearchief Turkije 1059 dd. 5.7.1617; hiiccet in ARA SG 6894 (1620). 3 State Archives at Arnhem, Archives of Harderwijk no's 2035-2036: Mss. E. Brinck, Observationes, fol. 78.

THE

DUTCH

NATION

IN

ISTANBUL

29

including a painter 1 , a clerk and a tailor, came from Holland. J. F. Craffter, a German apothecary, native from Worms, was dismissed in 1615 for reasons unknown, and even landed in the ambassadorial prison from which he delivered himself, at the instigation of some German friends, by instant conversion to Islam. At times, Dutch seamen, former captives in the Ottoman dominions who had been set free at the expense of the ambassador, reinforced the household. While awaiting their repatriation they were in service thus compensating at least in part the considerable expenses made on their behalf. The ransom for a Dutchman "prisoner of the Turks" amounted to seventy-five ducats i.e. twelve thousand akçe in 1622. Other members of the personnel were the majordomo or steward, a messenger, a cellarmaster butler, a doorkeeper, a cook and assistant cook, a stableman, two valets, three dragomans and one apprentice-dragoman, a Turkish scribe and two janissaryguardsmen (Turkish: yasakçi, yasakkulu) allotted to the embassy. In 1622, the first of a series of Calvinist ministers arrived to serve the spiritual needs of the Dutch. At this time a place of worship was installed inside the embassy building, one of the privileges accorded by the Capitulation. The minister Anthonius Piscator served his congregation till 1628, at which time he left Beyoglu, a bitter and disappointed man who had been unable or unwilling to adapt himself to the luxury and morals prevalent in the Dutch community. A few medical men arrived from Holland to reinforce the number of local Jewish and Greek physicians who worked among the Istanbul elite. Most of the dragomans originated from the Frango-Perotic milieu of Latin Beyoglu and the Greek Archipelago or from the Sephardic Jewish nation. Only rarely we meet linguists of Dutch extraction such as oriental scholars graduated at Leiden University. Serving as embassy dragomans almost became a monopoly in certain Latin families of Beyoglu in later times. The dragoman families were a class apart, living precariously between the Ottoman world whose subjects they were and the foreign world whose interest they had to serve. Dragomans often sought to serve both, or even more, at the same time, thus enhancing profits as well as risks. Connected with Dutch Beyoglu are the names of the dragomans Nicorosio Grillo (around 1616), Marc Antonio Rosa (early 18th century), Rigo, and the Testa family who served in the Dutch embassy from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. From among the Jewish dragomans mention may be made of Ephraim Abensanchio who worked many years for Haga, Ahmet Çelebi Lacchanai, Abraham Cormano (1637-1642) and the latter's brother-in-law Moise Abenyacar who became temporary chargé d'affaires ("provisional protector") of the Dutch in 1647. ' A.H. de Groot, The Ottoman Empire..., 190-4

30

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

Professor Jacobus Golius (1596-1667), the well-known Leiden arabist, worked as a translator in the embassy in 1628, after having spent the years 1625-1627 in Aleppo in the same capacity. This scholar's main aim was to acquire knowledge and as many manuscripts as possible 1 . His Leiden students were to follow his example. In the eighteenth century, a short lived Dutch Beyoglu dragoman dynasty was founded by Guglielmo Theyls who, characteristically, served both the Dutch and the Russian interests at the same time in the years 1699-1718 2 . An exceptional figure was Ernst Brinck (1582-1649), a young gentleman who extended his "Grand Tour" to Istanbul in 1613, and spent his time most usefully as a secretary to the ambassador. A precious legacy of his Beyoglu days is contained in one of three Alba Amicorum, which he left behind. This manuscript album contains a number of names of the members of the Dutch nation in the Levant, and, even more important, some texts written by high Ottoman dignitaries. Those leaves are an extremely rare and early example of cross-cultural relations between the Ottoman world and the West 3 . These Turkish, Persian and Arabic texts are evidence of at least a certain level of social intercourse between the Ottoman and the foreign elites. This album further provides us with an insight into the network of relations, which the Dutch ambassador had been able to build up. The signature, which is foremost to be expected does indeed appear, namely that of Halil Pasha, three times Grand Admiral and twice Grand Vizier, the prime promoter of Dutch interests at the Porte 4 . From Brinck's diaries we know that he and the vizier were indeed personally acquainted. The autograph comprises sura XII of the Koran, and next to it the Pasha's seal-stamp and his monogram (Turkish: penge), covered with golddust. On the preceding page, nine lines in divant-script give the text of Brinck's passport for the journey home: "Turcice Liter e salvi conductus a Chalile Viserio at Capitan Passa... anno Domini 1614 Muhamedis 1023". The translation runs as follows: "the carrier of this document (nka) Ernesto Brinck by name, a zimmi (!), has in fact been the agent of the noble Cornel [io] Haga, the example of the emirs of the nation of the Messiah, ambassador of the Netherlands at the Central Gate of Felicity. Aforesaid still has an official status here. No one may hinder him nor do any damage or interference at the places where he will pass by. For that 1 Ibidem, 192; W.M.C. Juynboll, Zeventiende-eeuwsche Beoefenaars van het Arabisch in Nederland, Utrecht 1931,207f. 2 W . Theyls [=G. Theyls], Gedenkschriften betreffende het Leeven van Karel de XII, Koning van Sweeden geduurende sijn Verblijf in het ottomannische Gebied Leiden 1721. (There is also a French edition.) 3 Royal Library, The Hague, Album Amicorum Ernst Brinck, KB Hss 135 K 4. Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition, Leiden 1960 Volume IV 1978 s.v. KHALIL PASHA KAYSARIYVELI (sic), 970-2

THE D U T C H

NATION

IN

ISTANBUL

31

reason, this order ( h u r u f ) was written and handed to him. Written in the first ten days of the month rabi'Ul-sdnt A.H. 1023 1 Three other pages are filled with pieces of poetry, two in Persian, and one in Arabic. Its author is mentioned by Brinck as being "cubicularius et poeta imperatoris turcici", probably the hass odabasi who interceded in favour of the Dutch. One of the poems in Persian is signed "el-fakir Ahmed". Brinck also writes that this man acted as dragoman during the negotiations of the capitulation. The excellent calligraphy of these pieces points to the high level of education of the so-called "Palace School" in this period. Since the hass odaba§i belonged to the corps of white aghas in the seraglio, this particular courtier, who stood in personal contact with the monarch, may have played an important role in counteracting the influence of the chief black eunuch. This kizlar agasi El-Hac Mustafa, in function from 1605 to 1619 and again from 1620 till his death in 1624, had submitted to the Sultan a memorandum (arzuhal) in which he gave a very negative description of the political and military status of the Dutch Republic, describing it as a mere island of pirates and rebels. This document had been inspired by the anti-Dutch ambassadors to obstruct the grant of capitulations to their rival 2 . Other texts show various styles of handwriting, divant, siyakat, a datum-formula, and a poem in Turkish by a certain Abdullah felebi: cihan iginde a§iklar nolaydi muhabbet htisnile bakt kalaydi. nolaydi dilute kucarken nigari uyanip ki§i koynunda bulaydi. seni bu hiisnile gorseydi Leyla dii§iip sahralara Mecnun olaydi? " What would have happened to the lovers in the world if love and beauty had not stayed. What would have happened when embracing the loved one in a dream he had found this person in his arms upon awakening. If Leyla had seen you with that beauty She would have taken to the desert like Medjnun".

1

F. A. van Rappard, Ernst Brinck, Utrecht 1968,40 (Album, fol. II). The arzuhal is extant in a ms copy ARA SG 12593, no. 1. ^Album, Ms. cit. fol. 12 recto. 2

32

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

Other pieces in Turkish and "Tatar" are by a certain Ahmed of Kasimpaga, dated 1614/1023, e.g.; "tut bayragi sabrile atles olur" ("hold the banner with patience, it will be satin"). The dragomans who were active on the diplomatic scene at the time are also present in the album. There is the sadly famous Marc Antonio Borisi, "dragomano grande della Serenissima in Constantinopoli" (executed in 1620), who presents examples of his linguistic prowess in modern Greek, Walachian, Albanian, Russian and Italian. Another dragoman "Jahuja Cziausius" (?Yahya £avu§), writes "in spe etpatentia. Si Deus nobiscum quis contra nos". This Latin text is also translated into Hungarian and Walachian. The signature has "Christianarum Literarum in Fulgidissima Osmannia Porta Interpres" "Vetther Johan a Barbij Saxo Germanus". Leading personages of the orthodox community, like the Patriarch Cyrillus Lucaris and the Armenian patriarch, contributed lengthy passages. Other ambassadors and diplomatic agents are not absent either: Paulus Pindar, (British ambassador in Istanbul 1611-1620); Achilles de Harlay Sancy (French ambassador from 1611 to 1618); Andreas Gorsky, the Polish representative and Christophorus Valerius, the Venetian bailo Valier. The leading enemies of the Dutch cause appear also: the extraordinary ambassador of the Emperor, Andreas Negroni (d. 1615), whose reputation as an able interpreter of Turkish is borne out here with an Ottoman distich in a good oriental handwriting, and the imperial resident agent at Istanbul, Michael Starzer (in function 16101622), who wrote "pro Deo Caesare et patria Werr Gott verthraut hatt woll gebaut April 30, 1614". Other diplomatists' inscriptions are those of the envoys and agents of Ragusa (Dubrovnik), Mingrelia, Georgia and Walachia. The ambassador also played an important social and judicial role in his quality of national chief ("protector" in ancient usage) of the Netherlands community in Galata and Beyoglu. It consisted of a group of divers origin from both the Southern and the Northern Provinces, i.e. subjects of the German Emperor as well as subjects of the young Dutch Republic. Others were Dutch by choice, such as some Czech Calvinists. However, Roman Catholic priests and missionaries from the Netherlands in the Levant and Istanbul mostly opted for diplomatic protection by the French ambassadors. This does not mean that they were not welcome in the Dutch embassy. A regular guest of Haga was Father Celestinus a Sancta Liduina O.C.D, alias Petrus Golius, a brother of the famous orientalist. In a later period Father Pacificus Smit O.F.M., serving the Custodia della Terra Santa in Beyoglu from 1687 to 1690 and thus a neighbour of the Dutch embassy, readily

THE

DUTCH

NATION

IN

I S T A N B U L

33

accepted to be a schoolteacher to ambassador Colyer's children 1 . "Padri Fiaminghi" were accepted as protégés by Dutch ambassadors and consuls in the Levant. It must be noted in this respect that the Dutch capitulations never included the right of protection of any but Dutchmen. Local usage however, seems to have been liberal at times. The French ambassador who possessed a wide competence as to the protection of non-Muslim foreigners in the Ottoman lands, was always keen to accept new clients, such as Huguenots of French origin or from Geneva, thus depriving his Dutch colleague of some extra income. The profit derived from the dues payable by foreigners to obtain a protected status was not negligible. The sale of Ottoman certificates of foreign protection, berats, became a steady source of income for ambassadors during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the period 1612-1640, the Dutch "nation" probably did not count more than thirty persons excluding the embassy staff. Information on private life in Beyoglu in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is scarce. A prominent person like ambassador Cornelis Haga provides us at least with some insight in the lifestyle of foreigners in Istanbul. Thirty-four years old and single, he indulged in luxury and exuberance. In 1613, for instance, he had to pay fifty ducats to extricate himself from an action for breach of promise, brought forward by a "figluola donzella", and her mother, who pretended to be entitled to the value of 600 ducats in diamonds and other baubles. A scandal broke out during the visit of a man-of-war of the States General's fleet to Istanbul. A junior officer, unfamiliar with Levantine life, was shocked at the morals of the Dutch ambassador who appeared to be spending great sums on "whores, necklaces and fine horses rather than on the Christian charity of liberating slaves from Turkish captivity". Needless to say that this affair, which involved two prominent families in Holland, was hushed up at home afterwards. The court martial demanded by the offended Haga never took place 2 . The influence, in the years 1628-1636, of the very able Calvinist Waldensian minister of the embassy, was probably a steadying factor in the ambassador's life, as must also have been his marriage by proxy in Delft, hometown of the bride, in 1632. Soon afterwards Mrs. Haga, née Alithea Brasser, a 43 year old spinster from a prominent mercantile family, arrived at Beyoglu on a Dutch warship. It is reported by the English colleague of Haga, Sir Thomas Roe that the newly wed was welcomed on board by a committee

' P Pacificus Smit, Vier Jaren in Türkije of reizen en Lotgevallen van PJ'.S. uitgegeven door P.Fr. Stephanus Schoutens Hoogstraten 1901,70,102. 2 A.H. de Groot, The Ottoman Empire..., 197,323,326.

Minderbroeder....

34

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

including the two favourite girl companions of her husband. This bit of information may be due to some jealousy, one wonders. Dutch society at Beyoglu and Galata was regularly reinforced by visiting travellers and passing sailors. The embassy extended a large hospitality. One guest, Henrico Cops, a nephew of the ambassador, found the city so much to his liking that he decided to stay. He was to succeed his uncle in office and died in the embassy in 1647. Although life in Beyoglu may thus have been pleasant enough, one should not forget the underlying risks and dangers. The longtime or even permanent residence of non-Muslim foreigners was not a generally accepted notion according to Islamic Law. Seventeenthcentury-Istanbul was not free of violent reaction by ordinary Muslims or by strict Ottoman cadis and other high-ranking ulema. Haga's house was violated more than once by an angry Muslim mob. In May 1632 a large group of sipahh entered the gate, clamouring to massacre all dragomans unless the ambassador pays damages to the victims of Dutch contraband merchants and privateers in the Archipelago (N.B. 75 such ships were reported in the 1631 season!). Haga had to pay large sums to placate them, and promised to refer their complaints to The Hague for further indemnities. On the other hand some right of immunity was recognized. In June of the same year 1632, the so called "Calvinist Patriarch" Cyrillus Lucaris found refuge in Haga's house when he was persecuted by the Romanizing Orthodox clergy who had been set up against him by the active papal diplomacy of the French ambassador Count Marcheville. Later, Lucaris left the embassy in great pomp, indeed a victory for Haga! This was of course a case of non-Muslims in conflict with each other, but it indicates, how far capitulatory privileges and diplomatic immunities in general had developed in Ottoman Istanbul. With Haga's departure in 1639, a decline set in for the Dutch "nation" in Beyoglu. Dutch commercial interests were never centered in the Ottoman capital. Aleppo first, and towards the middle of the seventeenth century Izmir became the foremost place of settlement of merchants in the Levant. Istanbul-Beyoglu counted three merchants' firms employing six Dutchmen around 1663. The decline of Dutch Beyoglu was marked by the absence of a duly appointed ambassador of the States General. Haga was succeeded by a series of caretaker representatives recruited from among his former staff. In 1654 the Orientalists Levinus Warnerus, a pupil of the great Jacobus Golius and a longtime resident of Istanbul, succeeded his employer and host Nicolo Ghisbrechti as chargé

THE DUTCH NATION

IN

ISTANBUL

35

d'affaires ad interim 1 . In 1657, the Dutch in Izmir became independent from Istanbul when the States General appointed a consul in that city. Between 1639 and 1668, the affairs of the Dutch were looked after by persons of commercial origin, who had been residents of Istanbul for a long time, but had only a low status and did not command much respect. The fact that they married local Christian women or cohabited with them brought the risk of their foreign status being compromised and they themselves being regarded as zimmt's, i.e. non-Muslim subjects of the Ottoman Sultan. During those years the English and French ambassadors repeatedly tried to adopt the Dutch of Beyoglu into their respective circle of protection, and to reduce them to their status of before 1612. The government of the Dutch Republic realized this danger and decided in 1668 to appoint again a fully empowered diplomatic representative. Upon arrival, the new appointee Justinus Colyer (in Istanbul 1668-1682) established himself in Haga's former house, the rent of which was at 400 Lion Dollars per year. This wooden building and the neighboring houses of other Dutch nationals all burned down in 1670. The fire had started from the gin-cellar of Francisco de Brosses, the former secretary of the Dutch legation. A new house was built for the ambassador on the same spot. This new and reputedly splendid mansion was the property of an Armenian merchant, called Antonio Bogos Qelebi. This well-known Ottoman businessman and financier had by this time emigrated to Livorno. He undoubtedly was an important relation for Dutch businessmen. Contemporary Armenian sources describe "Giaour Andon" as very influential in financial matters. His brother, who had converted to Islam under the name of Hasan Aga, was for many years commissioner of the Istanbul Customs House (gUmriik emini)2 . The Dutch mansion, described as "un bel palazzo in luogo eminente che gode la vista della marina e del serraglio" found itself between the residence of the representative of Genoa, the hospitium of the "Padre Commissario di Terra Santa" and the French and Venetian embassies. The lawful acquisition by the Dutch ambassador in 1675 was considered as an extraordinary favour in Beyoglu at the time 3 .

' A. H. De Groot, De Betekenis van de Nederlandse Ambassade bij de Verheven Porte voor de Studie van het Turks in de 17de €fi 18de Eeuv, Leiden 1979, ( — Oosters Genootschap in Nederland, 9), 21-47). W.E. van Dam van Isselt, "De Mishandeling van den Legatie-secretaris de Bròsses te Constantinopel", Bijdragen voor Vaderlandsche Geschiedenis eri Outheidkunde, VIVI. Series V i l i (The Hague 1937), 77-103; Eremya Qelebi Kòmiirciiyan, Istanbul Tarihi. XVII. Asirda Istanbul, H.D. Andreasyan, ed. Istanbul 1952,40-41, 248. 3 T. Bertelé,Ilpalazzo degli ambasciatori di Venezia a Constantinopoli e le sue antiche memorie. Bologna 1932,232, n. 27: (disp, Bailo Quirini d.d. 29.1.1675, disp. Morosini d.d. 20.11.1675).

36

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

The son of Justinus Colyer, Jacobus, succeeded his father in office in 1682. Due to these two diplomatists, the status of the Dutch had been restored to its former level. In 1680, Sultan Mehmed IV granted a new capitulation, which formed the basis for the Dutch presence in the Levant till the end of the capitulatory regime in 1914, respectively 1923. Jacobus Colyer became a true Levantine Dutchman. He married locally but, most cautiously, only after having cohabited for twenty-two years. The States-General issued regulations which established the Dutch "nation" in the Levant on an orderly basis, just as was already the case of the French and the English. The ambassador was appointed as chief of the community according to Dutch law, acting together with two assessors who were elected by their compatriots. They convened regularly every week at the embassy. Elections were held every second year. A national warehouse was established next to the embassy where all foreign traders dealing with the Dutch had to unload their goods for inspection, and where consular dues were assessed. By 1675, the Dutch community numbered eight merchants. In spite of the ambassador's insisting with the authorities at The Hague to have this duty included in the regulations, they remained exempt from inspection. In case of a conflict with Ottoman subjects, another article of the same regulation advised to have recourse to the local cadi rather than to the more expensive procedure of applying directly to the Imperial Ottoman Divan. Surely this reflects an appreciation of the quality of Ottoman justice at the time, which in the literature on the subject 1 is generally not in high consideration. When, after 1657, a Dutch physician took up residence in Beyoglu and married a girl belonging to the local upper classes, the well-known problem of his legal status arose. The cadi considered him liable to Ottoman taxation because he had lost the status of harbi mtistemin (a non-muslim foreigner with privilege and free to stay). The liability of being reduced to z/mmj-subjects of the Sultan particularly hit the Dutch who frequently married local Christian girls (called kokona's). This was in contrast with the practice of the French and the English in Beyoglu, for whom such marriages were even forbidden and punished with expulsion. In general the Dutch stayed in the Levant for an exceptionally long time, if not till the end of their lives. This was not so much the case with their French and English competitors. The record of Levantine longevity must be the case of Dionysius Houset who lived at Izmir from 1675 till 1705, and, having moved to Istanbul "for want of better air" —

' K. Heeringa, Bronnen tot de Geschiedenis van den Levantschen Handel 1 in 2 (1590-1660) II (1661-1726) The Hague 1910, 1917; Continued by J.G. Nanninga III (1727-1765) ibidem 1952 and IV in 2 (1765-1826) ibidem 1964-1966; W.E. van Dam van Isselt "Het Ontwerp Regeeringsreglement voor de Levant van 1673 en het Formulier van 1675", Bijdragen voor Vaderlandsche Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde, TV, Series VI (The Hague 1907) 379-429.

THE

DUTCH

NATION

IN

ISTANBUL

37

meaning probably financial distress — died in Beyoglu in 1737, one hundred years old. This Dutchman was probably also the first to make beer in Istanbul 1 . During the first decade of the eighteenth century, five Dutch trade firms were established in Galata and Beyoglu: Townley and Bishop, Christoforo Rombouts and Henrico van Diepenbroeck, Pietro Croesen, Elias Chazelles and Pietro Heycoop, Pietro Reyger and Co., Pietro Leytstar with Gerardo Leytstar and Pietro de la Fontaine. The latter was a cousin of ambassador Jacobus Colyer who between 1682 and 1725 represented Holland in various capacities. Maria Colyer and her brother Jacobus accompanied their father Justinus on his way out to Istanbul. During the first months of 1668 she stayed at Livorno arid married Abraham de la Fontaine, Dutch consul in that port and himself a descendant of the Dutch merchant David de la Fontaine, who had settled at Istanbul in 1637. In 1680, Abraham de la Fontaine went bankrupt and, together with his family, he left Livorno to return to Istanbul. Their descendants established themselves again as merchants in Istanbul, Izmir and other places in the Levant. This Levant "dynasty" of Huguenot French-Dutch origin survives in the east till the present day 2 . By 1725, only two Dutch firms still existed at Istanbul, an indication of the fluctuations of fortune on the market. In the eighteenth century the Dutch-born merchants began to feel the increasing competition of Greek and Armenian Ottoman subjects who at first were employed as clerks and assistants of the Dutch merchants. Learning the ways and by ways of the trade on Amsterdam, they successfully established themselves in that city and, after some time, became Dutch subjects. In this way, these Ottoman zimmis were able to establish themselves in the Levant as holders of a foreign status, thanks to berats issued to the Dutch ambassadors. They thus enjoyed all the advantages, which the Dutch could claim within the capitulatory system. Unlike its French and English rivals the Dutch community in the Levant was in favour of opening its ranks to outsiders. The Directors of the Board of Levant Trade at Amsterdam considered turnover and trade profit of greater priority than maintaining a strictly national composition of the traders' community under the Dutch flag. Native Dutchmen in the Levant became victims of such an enlightened trade policy. The embassy buildings were lost during a great fire in the night of September 8, 1700. The Colyer family had to seek refuge in the nearby Venetian embassy. For a number of years the Dutch ambassador went to live Heeringa, Bronnen... II, p. 153; A.H. de Groot, "Old Dutch Graves...", 11. R. Bekius en W. Ultee, "De Armeense Kolonie in Amsterdam 1600-1800", De Gids 148 (Amsterdam, 1985), 216-224. 2

38

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

downhill on the shore of the Bosporus at Kuru^c^mc then far out of town. Rebuilding the embassy took a long time. In 1711 the new chapel of the Dutch Reformed congregation was ready. It was built in stone and was also meant at the same time to serve as a fireproof storehouse for the embassy. The twofold purpose possibly explains the priority, which was given to this building. The congregation could survive because of the number of French speaking Huguenots who joined the dwindling number of Dutch Calvinists. Walloons as well as French and Swiss coreligionists found comfort with the Dutch minister who used French or Italian rather than Dutch during services 1 . In the first half of the eighteenth century the congregation counted circa 160 members. By 1714, the new embassy had been completely rebuilt, in wood. The complicated question of ownership, the result of the intricate inheritance within the Colyer family after the death of ambassador Jacobus in 1725, was settled at last in 1749 by a decision of the substitute (naib) of the Cadi of Galata, Mollah Abdullah Efendi 2 . The register-volumes (defter in Turkish, registro in Italian usage) of the embassy records, kept by Levantine Marc Antonio Rosa, secretary to ambassador Cornelis Calkoen (in Istanbul 17271744), contain a number of legal documents ( h i i c c e t ) , issued by the naib of the Beyoglu district, concerning the original purchase of the embassy grounds and buildings, as well as the settlement of the debt-ridden legacy of the Colyers. Claims of creditors, such as the Ottoman court merchant (kapu bazirgani) David ben Salamon, on the parts of the building, situated on the tarik-i dmm between Balyoz Sokak and Tom Tom Sokak, are documented in these files 3 . The official descriptions of the building plan, as approved by the Sultan's architect (mimar aga) in his function as inspector of housing, are evidence for Ottoman city planning in the period. By 1744, the embassy palace had become a financial burden to its occupant. The bailo of Venice was interested in acquiring the Dutch palace so as to deliver himself of the exorbitant demands of the owners of his own house, in 1746 the Testa family. The Dutch palace was assessed at 25,000 piastres but a sale did not ensue. The next year, the Board of Directors of Levant Trade in Amsterdam decided to lift the burden from the ambassador's shoulders when Elbert Baron the Hochepied was appointed by the States l.I.G. Nanninga, Bronnen...III, p. 92-6. Ibidem, III, 222-3 n. 3 ARA, Legatierchief Tiirkije 1063, fol. 8, 29, 33. ARA, Archief Directie Levantse Handel 280 (Alphabetical Notes on "palace"). On Calkoen's embassy see: G.R. Bosscha Erdbrink, At the Threshold of Felicity: Ottoman-Dutch relations during the Embassy of Cornelis Calkoen at the Sublime Porte 1726-1744, Ankara 1975,305f.

1

THE

DUTCH

NATION

IN

ISTANBUL

39

General. The new incumbent was to die at his post in 1763. The former ambassador Calkoen sold the buildings to the Directors at the price of 22,800 Guilders. The sale was handled by the Chargé d'Affaires Jan Carel des Bordes, a nephew of De Hochepied, formerly secretary of Calkoen after having gone bankrupt as a merchant in the Levant. The new ambassador had to pay 2,000 Guilders per year as rent for his residence 1 . De Hochepied is the name of a long living Dutch Levant "dynasty" in Beyoglu and Izmir. The founder in the East was Daniel Jean de Hochepied who arrived as a "tourist" in Istanbul, sent by his father, a Levant merchant of Amsterdam. In 1679, the young man married a daughter of ambassador Justinus Colyer, and in 1685 he was appointed secretary to his brother-in-law who recently had succeeded his father as ambassador. Two years later, the De Hochepied family moved to Izmir, the main centre of Dutch commercial activity in the Levant, where the descendants were established till 19572. A rare glimpse of family life in Beyoglu and its surroundings may be gleaned from a small collection of private letters, exchanged between Baron Elbert de Hochepied, his son Gerard Jan, and his two daughters, Clara, married to the British ambassador James Porter (who lived in Istanbul from 1747 till 1762) and Josina who remained at the side of her father. From these letters, written between 1760 and 1764, we learn about the young man's premature ambition to succeed his father in office while still in a very junior position in Holland. Clara wrote with some esprit about her journey across the continent to Holland and on to England, while Josina, in Istanbul, tried to play the role of matchmaker on behalf of her distant brother. Life in Beyoglu and in the summer residence at Tarabya seems to have been spent in leisure, which turned into gentle poverty after the death of the father 3 . On the whole, life in Beyoglu in the second half of the eighteenth century was secure and stable, gentle and civilized, when compared with that of a hundred years earlier. Long time residence had become a matter of course for the Western foreigners as well as for their Ottoman hosts. Within the framework of the capitulations, relations had a character of lawful security. The long life of the learned Dutch merchant and dragoman Rudolphe Braggiotti (died 1796) who served the embassy from 1744 onwards can serve as an example. He married a sister of Doctor Gaubis, physician to the Sultan Abdiilhamid I (1744-1789). He lived in a large house next to the Dutch

ij.G. Nanninga, Bronnen ...III, p. 242-3. 0 . Schutte, Repertorium der Nederlandse Vertegenwoordigers, 1584-1810, The Hague 1976, index s.v. "Hochepied"

2

residerende

3 M . Wagenvoort "Een Ambassadeursfamilie in de 18de Eeuw", Nederland 410; 47-71,189-214.

in het Buitenland 57 (1905), 1: 377-

40

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

embassy 1 . The latter was destroyed again by fire in 1767. The restoration lasted from 1769 till 1770, during which period a summer residence at Biiyiikdere functioned as embassy. The costs of the new building of six storeys, designed by a local architect, amounted to 115,377 Lions' Dollars, which were paid by the Directors of the Levant Trade at Amsterdam. The ancien régime of the Dutch in the Levant came to an end with ambassador Baron Frederik Gijsbert van Dedem van de Gelder who, all in all, stayed at Istanbul from 1785 till 1808. His residence was repeatedly interrupted because of political reasons notably from 1799 to 1802 when he awaited in Bucharest the outcome of the vicissitudes of the politics in the Netherlands. Van Dedem was a leading politician at home, an enlightened liberal of Francophile disposition, who took a critical stance towards the dynasty of the Princes of Orange, Stadholders of the Dutch Republic. A member of the States-General, he often held the function of president of that body. His ambition to become Dutch ambassador to the United States was not fulfilled because of political opposition. As second best, he chose the Istanbul post. On August 17th, 1785 2 , the Dutch ship of the line "Noord-Holland" brought Van Dedem and his family to the Bosporus. The welcome ceremony by the Dutch community was also attended by a delegation of the Dutch from Izmir, led by their chief, the consul Count D. J. de Hochepied (in function from 1756-1796). The festivities lasted three days, also attended by the corps diplomatique, which, at the time, consisted of thirteen chiefs of mission. Not unlike his distant predecessor Jacobus Colyer in 1699 and 1718, this ambassador played an international diplomatic role assisting in the mediation between the Ottoman government and Austria-Hungary in the peace negotiations, which led to the treaty of Sistova, August 4 , 1 7 9 1 . He was also active in the negotiations between The Sublime Porte and Russia, which ended in the treaty of Jassy, January 8, 1792. The ambassador was also the chief of the Beyoglu Dutch, which role he played justly and severely, in a manner called "effrayant" by his French colleague count Choiseul-Gouffier. Internationally, Istanbul was an interesting scene of diplomacy, and gave Van Dedem scope to serve the interests of both Holland and the Ottoman Empire. The petite histoire of his embassy is provided in the memoirs of his son Anthony Boldewyn Gysbert van Dedem (1774-1825) who spent the early years of his life in his father's embassy in Beyoglu from 1785 to 1793 3 . 1

T. Bertelé, Palazza... Venezia, 279 pi. 137 van Ryneveld, Reize naar de Middellandsche Zee en door den Archipel naar Constantinopelen, 2 vols. Amsterdam 1803. 3 Un général Hollandais sous le Premier Empire. Mémoires du Général Baron de Dedem de Gelder 1774-1825, Paris 1900; O. Schutte, Repertorium..., 162ff.

THE

DUTCH

NATION

IN

ISTANBUL

41

According to these memoirs, an intensive social intercourse prevailed between the embassies. More interesting social contacts with the houses of leading Ottoman statesmen seem to have been normal in those years. We learn of exchanges of visits with the Grand Vizier Koca Yusuf Pa§a (1786-1789 and 1791 -1792), the §eyhUlislam, the kaziasker of Rumelia, and lesser dignitaries like the "debating friends" of Rudolphe Braggiotti, Mehmed Ra§id Efendi, a reis iil-kuttab, between 1787 and 1797, and his colleague Halil Hamid Efendi, later to become Grand Vizier and pasha. The young man fell in love with the daughter of that Grand Vizier, an affair which he considered still "trop pénible" when writing the memoirs, but which is a sure indication of the high level of social intercourse between the Ottoman Muslim elite and their Western counterpart. Some anecdotes shed more light on Dutch familiarity with the Ottoman leading circles. Two Dutch ladies, interested in watching the Ottoman army at camp in the plain of Davut Pa§a, introduced themselves into the tent of the commander-in-chief, the setdar Koca Yusuf Pa§a, disguised as men and posing as secretaries of the embassy. They were, of course, recognized by the pasha, but the incident did not lead to any break in friendly relations. Tourism around the Aegean and in the Izmir region had become a standard element of Dutch life in the Levant by this time. Of special interest was young Van Dedem's visit to the grand old man of the Ottoman navy, G$zi Hasan Pa§a, and his pet lion. The memoirs give a neat portrait sketch of this Ottoman warrior, as well as of other pashas. These petites histoires have some importance because they inform us about the enlightened level of a crpss-cultural society, entertaining a civilized mutual appreciation of eastern and western culture not seen before in Beyoglu. It may be that the Van D^dems were exceptional in their sincere interest in Ottoman culture since th^y criticize the French ambassador count Choiseul-Gouffier. The latter is described as full of ambition to play a role in French politics, using the Istanbul embassy merely as a "stepping stone" and playing rather the role of an agent of Russian and Austrian interests than serving the common interest of France and the Ottoman Empire. Perhaps not without reason Van Dedem senior was called a "Jacobin" while his son saw himself as an "esprit nqmade" 1 . Baron Frederik Gijsbert van Dedem became a count, his son a vi$count during the Empire in France. Young Van Dedem served Napoleon at Moscow, Smolensk and Leipzig in the rank of a general.

Vl.H. Uzunçargili, Osmanli Tarihi IV, 2., Ankara 19832 230-2 and n. 2.

42

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

With the annexation of Holland by the French Empire, Ottoman-Dutch relations ceased to exist officially between 1810 and 1814 1 . During these years, members of the old Latin Beyoglu family of the Testas looked after the Dutch interest. They facilitated the reopening of the embassy and of a number of consulates when in the Netherlands the former Republic of the United Provinces was replaced by the Kingdom. Already around 1760, Testas served as Dutch dragomans, while other members of the family served in the same capacity the embassies of Austria, Hungary and France. Gaspard Testa began his career in Dutch service as a giovane di lingua (dragoman-apprentice) in 1776. In 1808, he was appointed chargé d'affaires after having held the functions of dragoman, chancellor and secretary. In 1814, he was reappointed, in the same position, awaiting the arrival of a full ambassador of the King of the Netherlands. In 1825, he was promoted to councillor of the embassy, and having functioned as a minister-resident at last, he died in 1847. As a reward for a life-long service, Gaspard Testa was created a baron. His descendants continued in Dutch service in the Levant, North Africa and elsewhere, and are nowadays settled in Holland 2 . During the nineteenth century, the position of the Dutch in Beyoglu declined to that of a minor capitulatory power. The last Dutchman to be appointed at the Sublime Porte with the rank of ambassador was Hugo Baron Zuylen van Nijevelt, who resided in the old palace between 1825 and 1829. He played a role of some prominence since at that time the Greek War of Independence had caused the departure of the ambassadors of all great powers. The Dutch served as intermediaries between the latter and the Ottoman government. From 1829 onwards, only second -and third- class diplomats resided in Beyoglu. The old palace burned down in 1830. The Testas' wooden country house at Biiyiikdere had to serve as embassy for many years 3 . Between 1847 and 1859 a new embassy palace was built, this time finally in stone. The architect was Giovanni Batista Barborini. Count Julius van Zuylen van Nyevelt, minister-resident in Turkey from 1854 till 1860, also had the old chapel restored and put to its original use. It did not serve anymore as a storehouse and prison, but again as a house of worship, complete with a small but excellent Cavaillé-Coll organ. From 1857 onwards, the so-called "Dutch Chapel" is used by American Protestants. The Dutch Calvinist congregation had for long ceased to exist in Beyoglu. The last Dutch Reformed (Walloon) minister had served the chapel during the years 1790-1795. Afterwards the

' o . Schutte, Repertorium..., p. 314. Nederland's Adelsboek 1952. 45, The Hague [1952], 326-334 (genealogy Testa 1560-1951). Van's Gravenweert, Het Noorden en hat Oosten. Reisherinneringen, Amsterdam 18401841,3 vols., 1,248,277, II, 61.

2

THE

DUTCH

NATION

IN

ISTANBUL

43

number of Dutch speaking Protestants and Walloons had dwindled more and more. The so-called Dutch community of Beyoglu became a cosmopolitan group of Levantines, an increasing number of whom being Roman Catholics. Intermarriage with local Latin women had led to this development. Only in Izmir a Dutch Reformed -French speaking-congregation survived as the basic element of the national Dutch community. This thrived till after 1923, and is still to be found in very small numbers. It was unfortunate that the embassy had to pay itself for the restoration of the palace. The restrictions of the Foreign Office at The Hague led to the sale of one fifth part of the embassy site, namely on the side of the "Grande Rue de Pera", Beyoglu Caddesi that is. The buyers were Armenian furriers and jewellers, protégés of the Dutch. As a result, the elegant new embassy lies partly hidden behind a number of shop-windows. The monumental gate, surmounted by the coat of arms of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, is the main sign of the presence of the Beyoglu Dutch ever since. Life of the community and its sizable number of protégés of local stock does not seem to have been very eventful during the nineteenth century. A series of successive envoys administrated Dutch affairs as part of the now collectively applied capitulatory system, which governed all relations between the Ottoman authorities and foreign residents. The Netherlands did not play a prominent role, but as a matter of right profited from al the benefits and excessive privileges gained by the major powers during the heyday of the "Eastern Question". The legation which did all diplomatic and consular work, was mainly occupied with commercial affairs and protection of Dutch nationals. The diplomatic staff consisted of the chef de poste, who was a minister-resident or ranking envoy, a councillor or secretary, one or two dragomans and dragoman-apprentices {"élève drogman"). A Dutch "harbourmaster" was employed down at Galata at the Ottoman Customs House. Among the dragomans some Belgian-Dutch names, like Travers, appear next to old familiar Levantine names such as Testa, Giustiniani and Salzani. Some Izmir Dutch, members of old Levant families such as De Hochepied, Keun and Van Lennep, came to Beyoglu. The Minister-resident Count Van Zuylen van Nyevelt spent much of his Istanbul period (1854-1860) in devoting himself to Scottish Protestantism, which he had embraced after marrying a Scotswoman. The conversion to Christianity of Istanbul Jewish orphan girls he considered more important than his evident task of putting his legation in order, when a network of fraud, involving Dutch diplomatic personnel and some consuls in

44

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

the Black Sea ports, had come to light 1 . The affair consisted mainly of a huge falsification of insurance and cargo bills. Apart from such enterprises, Dutch businessmen showed little interest in the Ottoman economy. Within the framework of the collective capitulations, new commercial treaties were concluded in 1840, 1862 and 1873. Politically, the legation was concerned mainly with international Islamist propaganda and the subsequent pretensions of the Ottoman Caliphate. In view of the predominantly Muslim population the government in the Dutch East Indies was worrying about this so-called "Panislamism ". A record in stone of nineteenth century Dutch Beyoglu is found in the tombs of the Protestant cemetery, installed in 1852 by order (irade) of the Sultan. Next to the new general Roman Catholic cemetery at Ferikoy, this general protestant one was to collect old graves, found at various places around Beyoglu. It should serve as a central resting place, more distant, at the time, from Muslim areas. The Netherlands were allotted one twelfth part, the same as that given to the German Hanseatic Cities. In fact, Count Julius van Zuylen van Nyevelt had to defend the Dutch rights against excessive claims of his Prussian colleague 2 . The profitable but excessive and unwarranted sale of berats (Imperial Ottoman certificates of diplomatic protection by foreign powers) by the Dutch consul at Galatz, the beating up of the Dutch tradesman Richard Westerling and his wife by the Istanbul police, supposedly because the Dutchman played the violin, inside his house, too loudly for his (Muslim?) neighbours' ears, and other such small incidents mark the uneventful history of Dutch Beyoglu during the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. In 1912, the year of the Balkan War, the Dutch community in Beyoglu counted seventy-three persons. The consulategeneral of Izmir, where were living during the nineteenth century two to three hundred Dutch subjects, issued in 1914 only one hundred Dutch passports. The Ottoman policy about reduction of foreign diplomatic protection, applied since the new legislation on Ottoman nationality of 1869, must have had its effect. Protected subjects were dying out 3 , but protection was still exercised. The Dutch envoy twice requested the government at The Hague to send a sizable warship to show the flag of neutral Holland at the time of the wars between the Ottoman Empire, the Balkan states and Italy (1912-1914). A

1.1 J . Huizinga, ed., "Herinneringen van J.PJ.A. Graaf van Zuylen van Nijevelt 1819-1841" in Nederlandse Historische Bronnen, uitgegeven door het Nederlands Historisch Genootschap II, The Hague 1980,204-376, esp. 240-252. 2 A . H. De Groot, "Old Dutch Graves..."; Archives Netherlands Foreign Office prior to 1870 (BuZa) in ARA Afdeling, Constantinopel dossiers 3568,3569. 3 J.H. Kramers, Strafrechtspraak over Nederlanders in Turkije, Amsterdam 1915, 4-11, B.F. Slaars, Etude sur Smyrne, Izmir, 1868,138-143.

THE

DUTCH

NATION

IN

ISTANBUL

45

naval detachment of sixty men was stationed in the embassy gardens for the protection of the Dutch nationals in case of a foreign invasion. In 1914, the Dutch embassy played once again its role of political asylum for a victim of persecution. In that year Dukakinzade Basri Bey, a member of the Ottoman Chamber of Deputies for the (Albanian) district of Debra, took refuge inside the compound but was nevertheless arrested by Ottoman police. Diplomatic protest against the violation of the immunity of the legation led to the release of the Ottoman subject without trial, followed however by the latter's voluntary departure from the city. All the same a minor victory for the envoy Jonkheer Van der Does de Willebois who represented the Netherlands from 1884 till his death at Beyoglu in 1919, an exceptionally long tenure of office. A sign of special competence perhaps, or also of lack of interest of the home government (7) 1 . The First World War brought great changes. The year 1914 saw the end of that ill-famous and out-dated diplomatic institution, the capitulations. The Ottoman government, unilaterally, declared null and void all capitulations granted to foreign powers, friends, neutrals and enemies alike. As a result, the diplomatic function of dragomans came to an end, and holders of that title were no more recognized by the Ottoman authorities as diplomats. This was unfortunate for the most scholarly of Dutch dragomans ever appointed by the Foreign Office at The Hague. The well-known Dutch arabist, Islamic scholar and ottomanist historian, Dr. J. H. Kramers, was never allowed to function as a dragoman. He became a historian of dragomans instead. The Dutch government had no difficulty in recognizing the government of the Grand National Assembly at Ankara in due course. It is however interesting to see that the old ties of the Dutch embassy with Beyoglu were not severed so quickly. The envoy Van Welderen Baron Rengers (1920-1931) as well as his immediate successor were reluctant to leave their traditional residence and to move to Ankara. The palace at Beyoglu kept its centuries' old function as centre of the Dutch community and remained, at least formally and in part, the residence of the Dutch ambassador till recently (1984). In the present day, the Palais de Hollande, accommodates the Consulate-General and as such is a clear evidence that the history of the Dutch in Beyoglu continues.

^Information kindly provided by I.F. Pruyn, who is engaged in research on Ottoman-Dutch relations 1908-1918 and the envoy Van der Does de Willebois (1985).

3 AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY OTTOMAN TURKISHDUTCH LETTERBOOK AND SOME OF ITS IMPLICATIONS

The topic I would like to discuss offers a side aspect of the early period of linkage of the Ottoman economy with that of Western Europe in the seventeenth century. My point is that early examples exist of social linkage following the increase of a Western European presence in the Levant. The milieu of ambassadors, consuls, merchants, clerks and craftsmen gradually grew in size and households of foreigners were permanently established. Istanbul and the "scales of the Levant" witnessed their own variety of social history in the development of a modern world system 1 . During the sixteenth century letters, memoirs, travel accounts and archival records still indicate a closed cultural barrier existing between Muslim society and European-Christian foreigners resident in the Ottoman lands. During the seventeenth century, however, evidence appears of a growing interest in crossing the traditional cultural bar. Some travelers and merchants report about their contacts, more or less successfully established, with Ottoman Muslims, Turks and Arabs in the Middle East. Relations in the social and cultural field already existed with non-Muslim Ottoman subjects, Greeks, Armenians, other Christians and Jews who traditionally were appointed middlemen between Muslims and West European Christians -"Franks"- and as such could function as vehicles of cross-cultural intercourse. But now direct relations were becoming acceptable it seems, at least for a small number of enlightened members of Levant society. Some local Ottoman governors found it profitable to have direct dealings, financial as well as commercial, with foreign merchants, in order to facilitate illegal exports from the area under their control 2 . Levant merchants such as the Chevalier Laurent d'Arvieux (1635-1702, in the Levant and North Africa 1654-1697), Sir Dudley Wallerstein"s great study The Modern World-Sytem (I) and II New York, etc. 1974 and 1980 as far as to its implication for Ottoman history need revision especially on the chronology and geography of trade movements and their consequences in the field of social history. See Wallerstein's article 'The Ottoman Empire and the Capitalist World Economy: some questions for research", in Social and Economic History of Turkey, O. Okyar, H. inalcik eds., Ankara 1980, 117-122; and e.g. Astrid Kortenbach, "Problems of Ottoman Economic History and the Core Periphery model", Itinerario 6 (Leiden 1982), 127-149. 2 M.I. Kunt, "Dervi§ Mehmed Pa§a, Vezir and Entrepreneur. A study in Ottoman PoliticalEconomic Theory and Practice", in TURCICA 9 (1977), 197-214.

48

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

North (1641-1691, in Istanbul 1662-1680), scholarly consuls like Sir Paul Rycaut (1667-1677 at Izmir), Levinus Warnerus (1619-1665, in Istanbul from 1645 till his death), gave evidence of a new openness and interest towards Ottoman culture and society 1 . In their writings these men show themselves to be proud of their ability to entertain direct social relations with Ottoman Muslim partners. Levant trade in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries steadily increased in volume and -this should be stressed- in regularity. Most prominent were the merchants from France, England and Holland. In the middle of the seventeenth century more and more foreigners coming from the West of Europe settled in the Ottoman dominions, in the Beyoglu quarter of Istanbul and in the principal ports of call in the Middle East and North Africa, "scales" (échelles, iskele) such as Izmir, Aleppo, Saida, Cairo and Salonica. Izmir became the largest settlement of "Frankish" residents since it had become the foremost centre of the import and export trade of Anatolia and its Persian hinterland about the 1650's. The traditional isolation of the West European trade diaspora was first lifted here. Local circumstances were favorable. The town of Izmir had a mixed population of ca. 25,000, made up of 13,000 Muslims, 10,000 Greeks, 1,800 Jews, 200 Armenians and 200 Western Europeans. Of the town's quarters 10 were officially classified as Muslim, 10 as Christian (i.e. Rum), 10 "Frank" and Jewish, 2 as Armenian and one as Gypsy (Kiptî) 2 . A growing number of the foreign residents became interested in learning Turkish and Arabic, next to the usual pursuit of Greek and Armenian (apart from the standard proficiency in Italian, French and the Lingua Franca). Modest signs of a social and cultural change became evident in the Middle East. Among the merchants and consuls a number of orientalist scholars could be found 3 . The reverend Johann Heyman (1667-1737), a native of Wesel, served as Dutch Reformed minister at Izmir 1700 to 1707, and afterwards was professor of Oriental Languages at Leiden University. A noteworthy example of the new oriental awareness is the already mentioned Laurent d'Arvieux who spent long periods of his life in the Levant in various commercial, consular and political capacities. He played a role of some influence as an adviser on Middle Eastern affairs to Lewis XIV's minister Colbert. In the six volumes of *D'Avieux' Mémoires were published by J.B. Labat, Paris 1735 in 6 vols. A convenient excerpt in English was published by W.H. Lewis, Levantine Adventurer. The Travels and Missions of the Chevalier d'Arvieux 1653-1697, London 1962; Levinus Warnerus' correspondence was partly published in truncated form in the original Latin by G.N. du Rieu, Levini Warneri de Rebus Turcicis Epistolae Ineditae, Leiden 1883. 2 I A 5, s.v. "Izmir" (B. Darkot). 3 S o m e better known names are e.g. Jacobus Golius, E. Pococke, A. Galland, L.F. Marsigli, G.B. Toderini and P. Businello.

AN OTTOMAN TURKI S H-DUTCH

LETTERBOOK

49

d'Arvieux's Mémoirs, he proudly mentions his knowledge of Ottoman institutions and his familiarity with local personalities. The author claims to be able to speak all the relevant languages, which he informs his readers, were of great profit both in his official and his private life. Concrete evidence of such linguistic abilities, however, is lacking in his work. One becomes curious about what forms the practice of crossing cultural and social barriers took in Levant society. Did foreign residents have regular intercourse with "Turks"? Sources do indicate such was the case. But how general and how frequent was this during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries? Ottoman-Turkish source materials do not help us here. A massive search in the available record series produces very few results1. One must have recourse to Western European archival material reflecting political, commercial and private life in the Levant, official records and private documents and letters. Published travel accounts and memoirs do supplement these sources. Unfortunately these printed works give us almost exclusively the Western part of experiences and fail to give us evidence of the purported knowledge or insight of Arabic and Turkish Ottoman culture2. A distinct area of cross-cultural social and cultural contact is that of the sizable number of Westeuropean converts to Islam, "renegades" or muhtedis, living in the same places as their former compatriots. Ottoman North Africa in the seventeenth century offers an early example how thanks to these Islamic converts Ottomans became generally willing to associate with foreign non-Muslims, diplomats, merchants, sailors and craftsmen in the main cities of the corsairs. In this manner Algiers and Tunis became forerunners of Ottoman modernization and westernization economically as well as culturally speaking3. In Izmir the role of such Islamic converts -among them former Roman Catholic priests of French and Italian origins as well as local Armenians and Jews- did not have a comparable influence on social and cultural life, as was the case in Algiers. Of course the squadrons of Barbary corsairs were frequent visitors to Izmir. Their local bases were in the islands of Chios and Rhodes. The Maltese and other anti-Ottoman privateers kept station on a number of lesser islands in the Archipelago e.g. Milo, Siphnos, Kimolos ant Patmos. 'fi-g- see index of the edition of a §ikäyet Defteri kept in the Vienna National Library, H.G. Majer, ed., Das osmanische "Registerbuch der Beschwerden" (Sikáyet Defteri) vom Jahre 1675, Band I, Vienna 1984. Heidrun Wurm's admirable study on cross-cultural intercourse in Istanbul society around the scholar Hilseyin Hezärfenn (1612-1691) shows how far one can reach an insight by putting eastern and western sources together. Cf. Der osmanische Historiker Hüseyin b. Gafer genannt Hezärfenn und die Istanbuler Gesellschaft in der zweiten Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts, Freiburg i. Breisgau 1971. 3

See my article "Ottoman North Africa and the Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries" in R.OM.M. (1985), 131-147.

50

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

Both parties of corsair warfare usually sold their prize goods on the Izmir market 1 . This practice, when done by Dutch privateers, caused at times some discomfort to the consul of the Dutch Republic resident in that place. My contribution to the subject of cross-cultural relationships in the Ottoman Levant is derived from source-material in Dutch collections. Working among the manuscripts of the Leiden University Library my attention was directed to a recent acquisition, a small manuscript volume forming a souvenir of the early days of Dutch life in the Levant in Izmir, during several centuries its largest settlement and centre of trade between the Netherlands and the Near East. From 1650 till 1923 a Dutch community flourished here, governed by its consul in legal and commercial matters, and spiritually comforted (one hopes) by its Dutch-Reformed Calvinist minister in his church (the building still exists) 2 . By the end of the seventeenth century the nature of Ottoman foreign commercial relations developed a high degree of normalcy and regularity not known before. No crises interrupted the business of trade between foreigners and locals anymore. The port city of Izmir and its immediate countryside enjoyed an especially relaxed atmosphere in respect of social intercourse. It was here that a relatively large number of "giaours", Christians, settled from abroad. A steady and only moderately severe government was exercised locally by the cadi and his divan, assisted by a voyvoda. The town had the good fortune to be part of the province (eyalet) of the Ottoman Grand Admiral (kapudanpa^a). It formed the centre of the specially created sancak of Sigla 3 . No high-ranking governors resided here. The policy of the Porte and the kapudanpa§a traditionally was one of the open door towards foreign trade and maritime relations with Western Europe 4 . The foreign community of Izmir already had quite a permanent character by the end of the seventeenth century. This was certainly so in the case of the Dutch. In 1717 a Dutch merchant, Gaspard de Lespaul, was able to celebrate his fifty years anniversary of residence. In commemoration of this a medal was struck with the text: "Die Giite Gottes hat es mir gegeben. In Smyrna fiinfzig Jahr zu leben" 5 . Evidence that life was good and profitable for non-Muslim foreigners! 'See Suraiya Faroqhi, Towns and Townsmen of Ottoman Anatolia, Cambridge 1984, p. 97, with whom I disagree. 2 See J.W. Samberg, De Hollandsche Gereformeerde Gemeente te Smirna. De Geschiedenis eener Handelskerk. Leiden 1928. 3 Cf. Faroqhi, Towns and Townsmen, 17. 4 See A.H. de Groot (1978), The Ottoman Empire and the Dutch Republic, Leiden-Istanbul 1978. ^K. Heeringa, ed., Bronnen tot de Geschiedenis van den Levantschen Handel II (1661-1726), 's-Gravenhage 1917, 367.

AN OTTOMAN TURKI S H-DUTCH

LETTERBOOK

51

Indeed a number of true Levantine dynasties came into being among the French, English and Dutch. A fine example is the history of the Dutch family founded in the Levant by Daniel Jan de Hochepied who from 1688 till his death in 1723 was consul of the "Dutch Nation" 1 . The earlier Dutch consuls were appointed by their ambassador as was u$ual for minor consular officers. They were recruited from among the Greek orthodox population. In 1612 there was Nicolo Orlando, later followed by Duca di Giovanni (1635-1657). From 1657 onwards the growing importance of the place led the States General to appoint consular officials directly from Holland 2 . In this way, D.J. de Hochepied came to be appointed. He was a son of a wealthy Amsterdam Levant merchant. In 1678, the young man made a visit to Turkey and decided to stay in the Levant. He married the daughter of the Dutch ambassador, Jacobus Colyer (in place 1682-1725). On 22 July 1688, there arrived in Izmir the new appointed "consul of Anatolia, Mitylene a®d Chios" as his title described his area of office. Ten days before an earthquake had utterly destroyed the town of Izmir, and in every sense the new consul became the restorer of the Dutch nation (taife). His predecessor Jacob van Dam introduced him to the cadi of Izmir on December 13th3. Another disaster, the plague, visited the town in 1689. Refuge for the Dutch was found in country houses in the surroungding plain. In 1698, the cdnsul had his new townhouse and office completely rebuilt on the seashore along the Strada del Franchi. Two fireproof warehouses were added to the compound. In 1704, Daniel Jan de Hochepied was promoted a baron of the Kingdom of Hungary as a reward for his Christian spirit shown in the frequent liberation of slaves, subjects of the Emperor taken prisoner during the Turkish wars which ended in 1699. At his death in 1723 his sons were allowed to succeed in office: Daniel Alexander de Hochepied was consul from 1724 till 1759 (in 1741 he acquired the title of count of the Holy Roman Empire for hite family). Another son, Elbert, became Dutch ambassador at the Sublime Prte (1747 till 1763). A grandson Daniel Jan became consul in 1759, to be succeeded at his death in 1796 likewise by a son of his, who remained in oljfice at Izmir till 1810 and again from 1814 till 18244. Ih the days of the first De Hochepieds the Izmir Dutch "nation" numbered about thirteen to fourteen trading houses. According to the French traveller Tournefort (1702) the Dutch counted eighteen to twenty merchants, i.e. ca. ten firms, all well to do. The well-known Dutch traveller Cornelis de Bruyn ("Le Brun") confirmed this in his travelbook. The splendid engravings of Izmir and especially the one of the Dutch countryouse at Hacilar ("Haselaer") near the town are in evidence, too. Cf. J.W. Samberg, ...Gemeente Smirna ... 85-104. 2 S|uch was the case of M. Du Mortier (1657-1661) and Jacob van Dam (1668-1687). 3 Sbe a painting by an unknown artist (ca. 1729), now in the Rijksmuseum at Amsterdam, Cat. N6. 337-S1 (155x242 cm). 4 S|ee O. Schutte, Repertorium der Nederlandse Vertegenwoordigers residerende in het Biifenland 1584-1810, 'S-Gravenhage 1976,88, 308-309.

52

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

The Felemenk Taifesi of Izmir had demonstrated its economical strength in 1688 with the immediate rebuilding of houses, depots and stock. Its residences (frenkhane) were all along the Strada dei Franchi. One might include among their number a succession of Franciscan fathers of the "Custodia de Terra Santa" who were of Flemish-Dutch origin. These were discreetly helped by their protestant brethren to be able to rebuild their chapel and hospice. In 1699 eleven firms ("factories") were established and well to do: 1. Houzet and Fremaux 2. Van den Sanden and Coopmans 3. G. and P. de Lespaul 4. Marquis and Noorman 5. Abraham de Mons 6. Van Laar and Schagen 7. Giacomo Bourgeois and Co. 8. Ermen 9. Battels 10. Derveau and Lodewijcks 11. Gluck and Muyssaert All in all this community will have counted 50 to 60 people. Six of these firms were still active in 1711, at which date two newly founded houses existed: Rolland and Ploegstert, and Belger and Panayotti di Yusef. All the Dutch "houses" employed amongst others Dutch clerks who had their families with them as the case might be. The last named firm gives an indication of the penetration of Dutch Levant trade by foreigners, i.e. Ottoman subjects, zimmis, Greeks like in this case and also Armenians while local Jews were enjoying Dutch capilutatory protection already for years. These zimmis entered Dutch commerce as servants and clerks, then rose in position becoming associates who in the end were able to establish their own families and relations in Holland. In this way they became Dutch residents and entitled to the benefits of all other subjects of the States General in respect of the capitulations granted to the Dutch Republic. In the practice of trade in the Levant their competitive strength was quite superior. One example may illustrate this. Around 1654 the Ottoman Armenian merchant Andon Qelebi was able to fully load a Dutch ship to Amsterdam every year. His older brother made a career in Istanbul, beginning as a clerk in the customs house at Galata, and became a Muslim and commissioner of the Istanbul customs (giimriik emini)

AN OTTOMAN TURKI S H-DUTC H LETTERBOOK

53

under the name of Hasan Aga, that is, virtually in charge of all the customs services in the Ottoman Levant. His brother Andon ("Anton") Çelebi was made giimriik emini at Izmir in due course 1 . The Dutch ambassador was entitled to acquire and subsequently sell letters patent for diplomatic protection (berât) to non-Muslim subjects of the Ottoman Sultan, 5 to 6 a year. This was the usual means for zimmî merchants to gain a privileged capitulatory status; the other way was to settle in Amsterdam, to acquire local citizenship and start business from that end to the Levant. The Dutch authorities, the States General and the Directors of the Board for Levant Trade understood damage would issue from this procedure to the trade of national houses but decided to let the interests of Amsterdam trade prevail as a whole by maintaining an open door policy towards Ottoman merchants applying for Dutch citizenship. Indeed a consequence was that Levant trade continued to flourish during the eighteenth century though the number of Dutch-born participants decreased. The French and English authorities on the contrary did maintain regulations forbidding the introduction of foreigners into their "national" trade. The social and material base of the surviving Dutch commercial houses remained sufficient to safeguard a comfortable existence 2 . The estates and countryhouses in the vicinity of Izmir offered scope for some degree of association with the local population of villages like Hacilar, Narhkoy, Seydikôy (=Leodikiou), Burnabat (=Bornova) and Buca 3 . Early evidence of an increase of intercourse between Ottoman society and the foreign communities is offered by a small manuscript volume 4 . Its writer and/or owner remain anonymous. The well written lines in dîvânî and ta'lîk scripts of the leaves with texts in Turkish point to an experienced Ottoman scribe. The interleaved Italo-Dutch pages show Turkish words in the same hand next to a transliteration. The manuscript is not dated but a number of documents copied in its pages carry dates, the last one of these being A.H. 1113/A.D. 1701. The contents fall into two parts, one of proverbs with translations, vocabulary and transcriptions, the other twelve specimens of letters and documents private and official pieces in Turkish with facing translations partly, in transcription and with vocabularies. These letters and documents 'D'Arvieux, Mémoires 1,56. In 1861, Izmir still counted 336 Dutchmen among its residents including protégés of Ottoman origins. Cf. B.F. Slaars, ed., trad. C. Iconomos, Etude sur Smyrne, Izmir 1868,138-143. 3 B y 1867, Dutch families like the Hochepied, Van Lennep and Van Heemstra became owners of vast estates (çiftliks), e.g. Malkacik and Oglananasi, which became places of refuge from persecution by the Ottoman central government for i.e. members of the Karaosmanoglu family of notables in that area. 4 M S UBL cod Or 14456 150x100 mm. 119 fol in Turkish, Italian and Dutch, undated (ca.1701).

o

54

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

have a model character, typical of those a Dutch merchant in the Levant would be familiar with or need to understand. The many personal names occurring in the texts however make one think that one has to do with copies of real letters and official papers. The texts of the second part of this m.s. volume, the letters and documents I will discuss in the following pages, leaving aside the attractive collection of proverbs and sayings, many of which are familiar to us today in one form or another 1 . Of the twelve texts dealt with, numbers 1-5 are headed as being copies of letters, mektub sureti (and 5 other variations of that meaning, itself being already an indication of the instructive purpose of the collection). All texts contain the customary forms and expressions of courtesy and affectionate inquiry and address as sultamm ("my prince"), karde§im ("my brother"), ruhum ("my soul"), well-known in Ottoman epistolary style. Number one (ff.65B-69B) concerns the transfer of money and is addressed to a certain Ibrahim Aga's clerk (yazici) Mustafa £elebi, who carried the amount of 2000 guru§ which the writer of the letter exchanged and used in payment of a debt to the miri. A sum of 25,097 ak$e remained and was given for safe keeping to a Hafiz Mehmed £elebi, brother of Ismail Celebi together with a copy of the ruznam^e translated in an explanatory manner as "the journal of the Turkish court, registering dates at which debts are due". Number two (ff. 69B-77B) is about the receipt of a letter: greetings to a certain Musa Aga Nakib Efendi (i.e. the local principal of the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad) to Ali Bey and brother Mehmed Aga. News arrived about "our" Pa§a Efendi who had met four piyade firkata galleys off Kizil Liman near Mersincik on the Island of Samos 2 . One of these was taken by him, one hit with gunfire and sunk, two escaped, "his gazas may be blessed". Greetings to Ibrahim £avu§. The "Pa§a Efendi of ours" went from Istanbul to Rhodes again. So far the news from Samos on the action of the Ottoman admiral who probably may be identified as the Kapudanpa§a in whose provinces lay the city of Izmir at the time. From 1695 to 1701 the year of his death at Chios the well-known modernizer of the Ottoman navy Mezemorta Huseyin Pa§a held the post of Kapudanpa§a (c.-i.-c. of the Ottoman Fleet) for the second time 3 . Number three (ff. 79A-81A) deals with the estates of the Kapudanpaga. It is a letter to a certain Ali Bey about Siyavu§ Aga and his men, who held a ferman concerning the camels on the estate of our "Pa§a Efendi". Enquiries are 1 The contemporary transliteration of 17th century Turkish into Dutch should be of interest to students of Ottoman Turkish, the history of the spoken language and its grammar. 2 C f . Piri Reis, Kitab-i Bahriye, ed„ F. Kurdoglu, H. Alpagot, Istanbul 1935, mentioning Mersincik but not Kizil Liman, 185-187. 3 C f . Safvet, Mezemorta Huseyin Pa§a, /stanbul, 1327; lA s.v. (C. Orhonlu).

AN O T T O M A N TUR KIS H - D U T C H L E T T E R B O O K

55

made about this siftlik. No information was to be had about what the muhassil El-Hacc Ahmed had seized. Request for all information and greetings to Amber Aga as well. Number four (ff. 81A-89B) is about sending money and the purchase of various commodities to be imported or exported; the addressee is Halil Cxlcbi. Isa is the carrier of 150 guru§. Goods to be purchased are 10 kile rice, 1 kantar of linen (keten), 20 vukiyye of coffee, 1/5 kantar of tin (kalay), 5 vukiyye of pepper, 2 vukiyye of cinnamon (dargin) and cloves (karanfil), 1 mukaddem kugak ("cintura di seta delli Barbareschi") 1 ,10 endaze of Mosul cloth, 2 argun of kirmizi ma'hud £uka (a red cloth variety), 10 endaze menevi§ (a wavy looking shotsilk), 4 V2 argun emerald coloured cloth, 1 donluk telli hatayi ("gattai"). 1 Damascus (or Syrian) alaca (a cotton fabric), 1 blue magrib kugagi, 1 fistiki sakiz gall (a nut coloured Chios shawl), 1 emerald coloured kavuk (quilted turban), 1 pair of yellow boots of the best quality, all of this to be sent with the first caravan. The aforegoing seems to be a specimen listing of commodities frequently dealt with in the Izmir bazaar of clothes and textiles. Number five (ff. 91A-94B) is about a money transfer to a partner (gerik) called El-Hacc Eyiib £elebi, who is told that the carrier of this letter received 500 gurug (esedi) in gold from "my brother" El Hacc Yusuf being a credit. The request is to pay the latter, being a partner (igtirak), 500 Lion Dollars and to take "my receipt" (temessiik) from him having it recorded. Number six (ff. 94B-98B) is a copy of a temessiik dated Muharram 110 1113 A.H. Its writer has sold houses in the Kassab Hizr district of Izmir, houses with upper and lower floors, wooden rooms, some with courtyard and garden plus beehive (haliyeli) together with all dependencies to the bearer of this document (huruf), Ahmed £elebi, at 500 Lions Dollars, duly paid. The latter person can have full use of his acquired property. The description of these houses points to the sort usually inhabited by the "Franks", situated on the Izmir seafront with courtyards and garden looking seaward. Number seven (ff. 98B-102A) is the text of a receipt (temessiik) held by a certain Ibrahim Aga living in Izmir who received a credit of 100 Lions Dollars. Half of this amount, 50 esedi gurug was received back; another 20 dollars counted as the price of a squirrelfur, another 20 dollars (thus raising the sum after receipt of the second 50 dollars to a total of 120) were to be paid till one year's accounting time (tarih-i temessiik) would be completed. Then this receipt (temessiik) was to be accounted (gakk oluna).

^Mukaddem, a variant form is muhattem. Cf. M.S. Kiitukoglu, Osmanlilarda Narh Mtiessesi ve 1640 tarihli Narh Defteri, Istanbul 1 9 8 3 , 1 4 4 + n. 372, 372 a; also see R.E. Ko?u, Turk Giyim Ku§am ve Susleme Sozliigu, Ankara 1967, 176-7.

56

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

Number eight (ff. 102A-106A) concerns renting houses in Izmir to Jewish inhabitants. This document, another temessiik mentions 4 "upper" (Fevkani) and "lower" (tahtani) wooden rooms 3 upper houses plus a house with a courtyard in the locality of Dikilita§lar at Izmir. The holder of this document, Kemal son of Isak of the Jewish nation, is to pay 60 guru§ rent for one year's accounting time (tarih-i temessiik). Five guru§ is to be paid every month. Number nine (ff. 106A-108B) is a copy of a manumission deed, 'itakname (written thus at variance with the more usual 'itikname). The script is in ta'lik style (explained in Dutch as "town-hall script"). The holder is a person of open brow and middle length, Magyar by origin, Muslim by religion, named Siileyman. This "my slave is set free and delivered from servitude and to be from now on like all free men, remaining linked to his patron as a client only. This text is quite consistent with manumission deeds issued by Hanafi cadis of this period. The Dutch consul Daniel Jan de Hochepied, his sons and successors are known to have been very active in buying free a great number of Hungarian born and other subjects of the Austrian Empire during and after the years of the wars of 1683-16991. Number ten is the text of another temessiik concerning the rent of houses in Izmir, in the Frankish quarter this time: 3 "upper" and "lower" wooden houses, 2 rooms, 3 terraces (dam, "roofs" literally) a Frenkhane property (miilk) situated in the so-called Frenk Mahallesi in between the sites owned respectively by a certain Hasan £avu§ and a Subagi Mehmed Bey. A long lease is granted to the holder of this document (huruf) the Dutch (felemenk) merchant "'Avzet", i.e. Dionysius Houzet. This person is wellknown from the sources on the history of Dutch trade in the Levant. Having lived at Izmir from circa 1675 to 1705 being a partner in the firm of Houzet and Fremaux, he died in Istanbul in 1737. In 1716, Houzet was considered the senior Dutch subject living in the Levant. At the time of his death he must have been about a hundred years old. Probably he was the first ever to have brewed beer in Turkey 2 . Each year 120 guru§ was to be paid, payment of 10 guru§ being due every month. This document like nos 8 and 9 is dated gurre-i rebi'ul-ahir 1113 A.H. that is November 5th 1701. This date and the mention

' Sec K.E.O. Jahn, Türkische Freilassungsurkunden des 18. Jahrhunderts (1702-1776), Naples 1963. Idem, "Zum Loskauf christlicher und türkischer Gefangener und Sklaven im 18. Jahrhundert", ZDMG 111 (NF 36) (1961), 63-85. Further C. Imber, "Four documents from John Rylands Turkish Ms No 145", in TD 32 (1979), 173-186. 2

S e e A.H. de Groot, "Old Dutch Graves at Istanbul", Archivum Ottomanicum V (1973) 5-16 (11-12); K. Heeringa, Bronnen tot de Geschiedenis van den Levantsche Handel II, 'sGravenhage 1917,153, 367 n; J.W. Samberg, Gemeente ... Smyrna, 212.

AN OTTOMAN TURKISH-DUTCH

LETTERBOOK

57

of the name of Houzet indicate the possibility that this text might be that of a historical document and not merely an example. Number eleven (ff. 114A-116A) is a copy of a tezkere confirming payment of cizye poll-tax for the year 1113 A.H. on behalf of N.N. (Kibti), a Gypsy living in the N.N. region (aklam) of Bursa in N.N. village, dated as the foregoing document. One might connect this transaction with the fact that the town of Izmir counted one Gypsy quarter in this period 1 . Number twelve (ff. 116A-118B) is another copy of a document concerning payment of cizye, this time on behalf of the Christian community (Kefere taifesi) of N.N. village in the kaza of Manisa. The holder of this document paid the cizye due for the year 1113 A.H. in order that the aforementioned community would not be embarrassed anymore. Dated cemazi lil-evvel 10-20 1113 A.H. i.e. December 14-24th 1701 A.D. The texts of these documents offer samples of the terminology used in commercial and official writing around 1700. Some commercial and financial terms and expressions are transliterated in seventeenth century Dutch syle and translated into Italian but only rarely into Dutch. The owner or user of the booklet appears to have possessed a basic knowledge of Turkish already since the vocabulary given in its pages covers only a small part of the Turkish words with a translation. Some random examples are: musil-i varaka - "latore d'una lettera", istikraz - "domandare a credito", ahzukabz - "pigliare", "ricevere", sahib iittemessiik - "patrone della cedola", 'ale-tarik ul-kars - "a credito", tarih-i temessiik - "tempo", "reeckenteydt" (time of account), emanet - "deposito", teslim - "sodisfattione", "rendere il debito", bozmak - scambiare", i'lam "notificare", ruznamge - "daghregister des turckschen hofs, waerin gesien wordt wat maent betaelt cont werden" (i.e. journal of the Turkish Court, from which may be seen in what month payment can be done) - "lunario", metrukat, muhallefat, tereke - inheritance. The five texts of private letters are addressed by Muslims to Muslims not belonging to the askeri or ulema classes it seems. The modes of address "my brother", "my soul", "my prince" are a further indication of the private nature of these texts, as such a type of source material rarely found among Ottoman records. The seven copies (suret) of documents have been drafted on behalf of Muslim parties as well as non-Muslim ones. The use of the booklet must have been to instruct a Dutch merchant or consular official in reading Turkish official papers and correspondence likely to be met with in the course of business. At times the vocabulary facing the page with the Ottoman ^See B. Darkot, "Izmir" in M 5-2 (16502) 420-6 (data mainly limited to the European parts of the Ottoman Empire).

58

T H E

N E T H E R L A N D S

A N D

T U R K E Y

Turkish text contains not merely a translation into Italian or even Dutch but also synonyms in vernacular Turkish, for instance next to deyn (debt) is given bore; to durr (pearl), inci; to nihan (secret), gizli; to viicud (body), govde; to kazá (paying) ódemek1. What conclusions may be drawn from this letterbook? The subjects of the twelve texts cover the following categories: - financial operations (debt, loan, rent) - commercial transactions (tax and customs, listing of commodities) - manumission of slaves - support for non-Muslim Ottoman subjects - the affairs of the Kapudan Pa§a Clearly these do not cover all sorts of business done by the Dutch community at Izmir. This Leiden manuscript stands somewhat apart among the collections of source materials available for the study of the social and economic history of Izmir and its hinterland and the Ottoman Levant in general2. In view of the present state of access and availability of the Ottoman records in the Ba§bakanlik Ar§ivi at Istanbul, where source materials about Izmir's economical history are to be found only scattered among various tasnif series covering some years or short periods here and there, the records kept in the public archives of the historical trade partners of the Ottoman Empire such as the Netherlands, offer a welcome -indeed necessary- complement, as research in progress has shown 3 . The holdings of the National Archives of the Netherlands at The Hague (A.RA.) may serve as a good example. Among the records kept in the First Division of the A.RA., that is, the archival remains of the central government and related institutions of the Dutch Republic are kept the records of the consulate of Izmir. These papers were transferred to Holland after 1893. Later additions include parts of the collection of private papers acquired by bequest of the late Count. D. J. E. de Hochepied, a former

1 N.B. The seventeenth century Dutch style of transliteration has been suppressed in all examples given since the complex matter of Turkish transcription texts is not the subject of the present paper which is not concerned with linguistics. A considerable amount of Turkish transcription texts exist in seventeenth and eighteenth century Dutch manuscripts and printed books. Cf. A.H. de Groot, De Betekenis van de Nederlandse Ambassade bij de Verheven porte voor de Studie van het Turks in de 17de en de 18de Eeuw, Leiden 1979 (=Oosters Genootschap in Nederland, 9), 28 f. 2 AS Dr. C.J. Heywood of London University (SOAS) informed me that some comparable English merchants' Turkish letterbooks are kept among the manuscript collections of the Bodleian Library at Oxford for which information the present author is in his debt. 3 S e e M.S. Kutukoglu, Osmanh-Ingiliz iktisadî Miinasebetleri I (1580-1838), Ankara 1974; eadem "Osmanli Giimriik Kayitlari" in Osmanh Aragtirmalari I/The Journal of Ottoman Studies I, Istanbul 1980, 219-34; S. Faroqhi, Towns and Townsmen of Ottoman Anatolia ... 1520-1650, Cambridge, etc. 1984, esp. 114-21

AN OTTOMAN TURKI S H-DUTC H LETTERBOOK

59

vice-consul at Izmir and consul-general at Istanbul (1947-1957) who died in Munich in 1972. Dutch records of the Izmir consulate before the earthquake of 1688 are rare. The first consul de Hochepied undertook historical research to reconstruct his archives as it were, collecting copies of relevant materials in the Istanbul embassy and the record office of the States General, the central Dutch government at The Hague, as well as in the archives of the Board of Directors of Levant Trade in Amsterdam at that time. The Izmir consulate records at present in The Hague cover the period 1660-1920, occupying 19 metres of shelf space. The reference collection made after 1688 consists of 5 stout bound volumes filled with copies of resolutions on foreign policy and trade made by the Dutch government in the years 1611-1685. These are supplemented by another 8 large registers comprising this consul's tenure of office 1687-1723. Outgoing correspondence 1685-1692 and 1696-1733 is kept in 7 large volumes. His successors maintained a tradition of careful management of their archives, keeping record of Dutch trade in their area. Ankara and its wool production belonged to that area, too, since about 1699 when a certain Simsim (Jelebi introduced a western style processing plant on a Leiden model, which profitable Dutch initiative caused a general opposition by the local established interests. A sizable amount of Ottoman documents issued by the authorities in Ankara, Izmir and Istanbul from that period till the end of the eighteenth century offer an insight in the practice of the capitulatory system in a principal port of the Levant 1 . The Ottoman Turkish Dutch letterbook introduced here is a small piece of evidence of an early effort at cross-cultural intercourse. The economical articulation of East and West in the Levant originally did cross cultural social bairriers only by means of local middlemen, members of the non-Muslim communities of the Ottoman Empire Greeks, Jews and Armenians. They acted as brokers and dragomans between Turks and Franks 2 . Direct social contacts slowly developed towards the later years of the seventeenth century. The town and the countryside of Izmir were particularly favorable, it seems for such a development which flourished later in the eighteenth century if we may judge from the performance of a Lady Mary Montagu, Abate Toderini, Sir James Porter, or some Dutch Levantines for that matter. The teaching exercise in Turkish evident from our manuscript is a case in point.

On 18th century Dutch Levant trade see e.g. G.R. Bosscha-Erdbrink, At the Threshold of Felicity, Ottoman-Dutch Relations during the Embassy of Cornells Calkoen ... 1726-1744 Ankara 1974,207 ff, and K. Heeringa, op. cit., vol. II. 2 Dealing with the theme of intercourse between different social economic worlds in the Braudel sense is a recent book by Philip D. Curtin, Cross-cultural trade in World History, Cambridge, etc. 1984.

4 PROTECTION AND NATIONALITY. THE DECLINE OF THE DRAGOMANS*

The embassies of the Western powers in Istanbul as well as their consulates elsewhere in the Ottoman lands used to employ, next to a small number of their own countrymen, a large number of locally recruited staff consisting of non-Muslim subjects of the Sultan. In the early period of Ottoman diplomatic relations with Western states, the ambassadors resident in Istanbul used the services of mainly Greek Orthodox ("Greeks"), Armenians and Jews. Later, from the eighteenth century onwards, the number of "Latins" (i.e., Roman-Catholics of the Levant) increased out of all proportion and remained dominant till the middle of the nineteenth century. The latter group of Ottoman subjects was generally referred to as "Levantines" a term which acquired a pejorative sense, denoting a hybrid race, not fully Oriental nor quite accepted socially and culturally as being Western, "tainted with a remarkable degree of moral obliquity". The quality of their political and cultural allegiance appears to have been too complicated to understand, the character of their ethno-cultural ambivalence too subtle to be properly appreciated by their employers. At one time, they were considered on a par with the born subjects of the nation they were serving, then again, they were felt to remain foreign. Indeed, formally speaking, most of these Levantines remained Ottoman; they were foreign, but protected subjects till the second half of the nineteenth century at which time many of them opted for the Western nationality of their employers. 1 Culturally, however, they were crossing the barrier between East and West already many generations earlier. The long-lasting duration of the intermediate character of their social and cultural attachment was the result of their legal status under the regime of the so-called "capitulations", which defined the The principal source publication relevant to this paper is: Johan Gerard Nanninga, ed., Bronnen tot de Geschiedenis van den Levantschen handel, Vierde deel: 1756-1826, The Hague 1964, 2 vols. The texts of the capitulations are published in: Mu'ahedat Medjmu'asi, Istanbul, 1294-1298 A.H./1877-1881, 5 vols, [in Turkish]; Ignace Baron de Testa, Recueil des traités de la Porte Ottomane avec les puissances étrangères depuis le premier traité conclu en 1536 entre Suleyman I et François I jusqu'à nos jours. Continué par le Baron Alfred de Testa et le Baron Léopoldde Testa, Paris 1864-1911,12 vis. [in French]. ' Livio Amadeo Missir, Le Statut international d'une famille de Smyrne depuis Mahmoud I, (1730-1754). (Contribution à l'histoire du droit de la latinité orientale ottomane), Bruxelles, 1981, pp. 13-24.

62

THE N E T H E R L A N D S

AND

TURKEY

existence of European foreigners and their households resident in the Ottoman Empire till the beginning of the First World War in 1914 at which time it was abrogated unilaterally by the Ottomans. The regime of the capitulations was devised by the Ottomans to regulate peaceful relations with non-Muslim states and to create a base in Ottoman Islamic law for the establishment of permanent foreign embassies and foreign merchant communities resident in their midst, i.e. in dâr til-Islam. The members of the foreign communities were given the concession of a certain degree of exterritoriality. The condition of their more or less permanent residence was characterized by a grant of a number of privileges such as exemption from certain taxes and points of Islamic law. The latter was in order to avoid the classical rule which prescribed, as a consequence of a prolonged stay of a non-Muslim foreigner (a harbî) in dâr til-Islam, that such a person was reduced in status to a non-Muslim subject of the Islamic state (a zimmf)\ When entering upon lasting friendly relations with a Western power, the Ottoman government offered such a privileged status to individuals of the nation concerned who came to establish themselves in the empire be it as ambassadors, consuls, diplomatic or consular officials, merchants or tradesmen. This was done with the issue of a charter by the Sultan containing those privileges. In Ottoman usage, such a sultanic decree is called an ahdnâme, in traditional European usage, a capitulation or capitulations. Venice was the trail-blazer of this capitulatory system. Its ambassador and community were admitted on this footing in 1454. For France, the system became fully operative in 1569, for England in 1581. The Netherlands ("the Republic of the Seven United Provinces") followed in 1612, the Emperor (Austria-Hungary of later date) in 1718, Prussia in 1761. The system was extended to almost all Western states by the end of the eighteenth century. Between the years 1840 and 1868, it was confirmed by a series of various modern style bilateral treaties for all the powers. During the whole period of the capitulatory regime, the majority of locally hired personnel of the embassies and consulates in the Levant and "Barbary" (i.e. Northern Africa) was recruited from among the non-Muslim Ottoman communities, the Jews, the "Greeks" (i.e. the Greek Orthodox), the Armenians or the much smaller but well connected Roman Catholic community, generally referred to at the time as "Latins" or "Franco-Perots". Employment by a Western ambassador or consul brought with it, for these Levantine Ottomans, the enjoyment of at least a part of the legal and fiscal benefits accorded as a rule to foreign residents. The locally recruited employees in this way came under individual protection of the ambassador. This status of protégé was effected by the

PROTECTION

AND

NATIONALITY

63

respective ambassador acquiring a license from the Sublime Porte to employ an Ottoman subject. Such a license issued by the Ottoman government upon request is termed a berât or, in case of less important appointments, a ferman. The term berât denotes a Sultanic decree containing dispositions of a financial or fiscal nature. For such documents, the ambassador had to pay chancery dues to the Porte. These expenses were amply compensated by the payments demanded by the ambassadors from the would-be protected person. The interested party had to purchase a patent recognizing his status as a functionary of the embassy. The advantages of a protected status, being what they were, the beneficiaries were more than willing to pay a lot. As a consequence, a profit-seeking ambassador could earn a sizable extra income by means of what was commonly called the trade in berâts. The trade in berâts was gradually extended from single individuals to whole families, which were wishing to acquire the status of servants of an embassy as it were. In such a manner, generations of Orientals began crossing the cultural barrier between East and West and became naturalized "Occidentals". The desire to become a protégé became so widespread because a great number of Levantines could buy a sinecure function. They did not actually work for the foreign embassy or consulate but worked together with foreign merchants as their local agents or even as their partners. Quite often, they remained merely private persons without any functional link to their protectors. In this way, the Western ambassadors, by the beginning of the eighteenth century, had acquired a huge entourage of protégés spread all over the Ottoman provinces in the main commercial centers, the so-called "scales of the Levant" (=French: échelles, Italian: scala, Turkish: iskele or funduk). Instead of having an extensive network of useful servants, the ambassadors had to spend much or their time representing the interests of their protégés, the so-called "barattairs" (from the Turkish berâth). According to the Dutch capitulation of 1680, like that of the French of 1740, which regulated the regime of exterritoriality till its end in 1914-8, the protégés fell into the following categories: 1. dragomans (about whom more hereafter). 2. honorary consuls. 3. embassy servants. 4. Janissary guards allotted to the embassy and consulates, in modern sources usually referred to as eavasses (Turkish: kavas)1.

1 Dutch capitulation of 1680, articles XI, XXXII, XXXIII.

64

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

Originally as one sees from the texts of these early capitulations, only certain privileges were granted to these officials but not their right of protection in any explicit manner, let alone their equation with the status of a foreign non-Muslim. In fact, the protected status principally meant the exemption of the payment of "kharadj" (the capitation or poll tax levied on non-Muslim subjects of the Islamic state according to Holy Law, i.e. the djizya in classic terminology). The status of foreigner was extended expressly only to dragomans in the French capitulation of 1740 and, from then on, by means of the application of the rule of the most favored nation to all other capitulatory powers. In historical reality, the right of individual protection did not remain limited but was maximally extended upon the insistence of the Ottoman Christians as well as most foreign representatives who aimed at widening their sphere of influence. Dragomans' appointments of a titular nature and those of "native" consular agents were made in increasing numbers. The extreme example was Russia, which reached seven million protégés in 1800! 1 From the early days of the capitulatory regime, the Sublime Porte tried to restrict the abuse of diplomatic protection. In the last years of the eighteenth century, the first systematic action was undertaken against it but only in 1863, the curtailment of the system was effected in exchange for permission then given to foreign residents to acquire ownership of real estate in the Ottoman Empire. From 1863 onwards, many barattairs were naturalized into the foreign nationalities of their choice, crossing the social and cultural border from East to West definitively at last. In 1869, the Sublime Porte introduced, as a kind of countermeasure, the law establishing Ottoman nationality. As for protection, the situation in 1863 became thus: The old, quasihereditary protection remained limited to persons then actually enjoying it. Prolongation to their offspring was not to be granted anymore by the ambassadors of the powers who agreed now to let this category become extinct. From now on, they would only grant temporary protection in conformity with the new Ottoman regulation, the Règlement relatif aux consulats étrangers d'août 1863 [1280 A.H.] 2 . This Ottoman regulation was in fact the outcome of successful negotiations between the Porte and the ambassadors (meaning in practice their dragomans of course!) at Istanbul. Both parties agreed now on the negative aspects of excessive application of

1 Ibidem, art. XXXIII; French capitulation of 1740, article XLVIII. Also cf. Johannes Hendrik Kramers, Strafrechtspraak over Nederlanders in Turkije, Amsterdam, 1915, p. 34, n 2. ^Kramers, op.cit., 37-58, 64; Adolf Marcus Joekes, Schets van de Bevoegdheden der Nederlandsche Consuls, Leiden, 1911, pp. 187-92.

PROTECTION

AND

NATIONALITY

65

protection. From this time onwards, barattair status was still given only to the following categories of Ottomans employed by embassies and consulates: dragomans of embassies in the number desired but with protected status only in the place of their establishment. dragomans of consulates-general limited in number to four, ditto for consulates to three, of consular agencies to two. cavasses, but in a limited number likewise from four to two, subject to permission of the provincial governor-general. vice-consuls and consular agents only by way of exception as of old admitted upon the issue of a berât. This category of Ottomans was referred to as "employés privilégiés" rather than as protégés. Next to the individual diplomatic protection in the Ottoman lands, there existed a collective one, namely the religious protection exercised mainly de facto by France in the Levant and formally confirmed by the Sublime Porte with the capitulation granted in 1740 (articles 1, 32-5, 82) and again with the treaty of Berlin of 1878 (article 62). This protection was applied to the foreign institutions of the Roman Catholic Church and persons attached to it of whatever nationality. France's position was never fully exclusive though. The Republic of Venice exercised such protection and Imperial (Austro-Hungarian) protection began to compete since the eighteenth century. Other powers, even the Protestant Dutch Republic, exercised religious protection at times, the latter state actually protected the Franciscan convents of the Custodia di Terra Santa at Istanbul, Izmir and Chios till the end of the eighteenth century 1 ! The system of protection of barattairs was formally abolished during the First World War. The German and Austro-Hungarian empires were the first to agree to this restriction of their capitulatory rights, but, because of international circumstances, the abolition of all ancient protection rights was only agreed to bilaterally with the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 as regards Istanbul and the territory of present-day Turkey. In the Ottoman Empire, the European ambassador or consul was not only the intermediary representative in relations between the two governments but was also the chief of his "nation", the community of national subjects resident in the Ottoman lands and of his protégés or privileged employees. As a consequence, the ambassador for the whole of the Ottoman territory and the ' .lohan van Droffelaar, "Flemish Fathers" in the Levant. Dutch Protection of Three Franciscan Missions in the 17th and 18th Centuries", in Eastward Bound. Dutch Ventures and Adventures in the Middle East, edited by Geert Jan van Gelder and Ed de Moor, Amsterdam, 1994, pp. 81-113.

66

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

local consul were recognized as governors and judges over their national community. This activity of diplomats and consular officials produced an important and interesting amount of records: documents of legal affairs of how Ottoman society and economy were confronted by Western institutions and individuals, the precursors of Western economic and political dominance of a later age.

The dragomans in Istanbul The most prominent category of the barattair community was that of the dragomans. Only France and the Emperor (Austria) employed regularly a sizable number of born nationals in the function of dragoman. These two governments organized a training school at home: In Paris, the Ecole des Jeunes de Langue which grew into the École Nationale des Langues Orientales vivantes in 1795 and, at Vienna, the Orientalische Akademie founded in 1754 (now defunct). But next to the students of these schools, both France and Austria still employed a great number or Levantines in their embassies and consulates. The other capitulatory powers such as England, Holland and Prussia did not establish training for their own nationals to function as dragomans. Consequently, in exceptional cases only, were they able to employ born nationals in this capacity. They remained dependent on the services of generations of Levantines. In both cases, the task was the same. These employees were the indispensable intermediaries par excellence between the Western ambassador, his government and the Sublime Porte. Their linguistic skill made it possible exclusively for them to cross the social and cultural barrier between East and West, forwards and backwards so to speak. They were able to acquire a truly transnational character. Apart from the basic tasks of translation and chancellery work, the dragoman had to inform his ambassador in all matters of law, local usage and protocol. They assisted their chief in every way and gradually became the diplomatic representative's representative with the Ottoman authorities, increasingly taking over their chief's tasks, being his eyes and his ears as well as his mouth. In the period 1675-1740, the influence of the locally recruited dragomans rose steadily and acquired the benefit of full diplomatic protection. Their importance reached the level that criminal and civil law suits involving foreign nationals could not be pursued by the Ottoman judiciary without the dragoman of the embassy concerned being present. Any verdict reached by the cadi had to be agreed upon by the dragoman who took part in the deliberations of the court. This so-called

PROTECTION

AND

NATIONALITY

67

"dragomans' control" was absolute: his disagreement with the proceedings or his absence rendered void the work of the Ottoman judiciary. Towards the middle of the nineteenth century, the dragomans exercised this power of control almost in complete independence from their ambassadors' instructions. Further tasks comprised demarches and visits to the Porte in matters of ceremonial everyday negotiations, conciliation of conflicts between consuls and local authorities, information and the checking of new legislation and sultanic ordinance to current capitulatory privilege and usage as well as in general political, military and economic intelligence work. In the second half of the eighteenth century French ambassador Count de Saint-Priest (at Istanbul 1768-1784) wrote: "l'ambassadeur ne peut être et ne sera jamais que le premier secrétaire du premier drogman"1. The status of dragomans was established in the successive capitulations issued by the Sultan's government. The texts of the different charters granted, since the one given to Venice in 1454, grew into a common corpus. In the second half of the eighteenth century Western ambassadors were able to impose the application of the most favored nation rule to the capitulations of all of them. Therefore, it will do for our purpose to quote only the capitulations in their fullest form in which they remained valid till the end of the capitulatory regime. The French capitulations of 1740 (1153 A.H.) contain the following relevant articles: no. 13: dragomans are not liable to taxation of kharadj, kassabiye or tekâlif-i ôrfiyye, i.e., non-Sharia taxes; no. 20: they are free to travel in the Ottoman provinces; no. 23: they have to be registered at the cadi's court in the place of residence; no. 26: they have to be present at any trial before the cadi involving members of their "nation" (in this case: the French community and its protégés); no. 40: they have permission to buy and to consume wine; no. 43: all privileges granted are applicable to dragomans; no. 45: The ambassador and/or consul may employ any dragoman of their choice; no. 46 and 48: only "true French" (...) dragomans will be considered as representatives of the ambassador or consul and exempt from Ottoman justice; no. 47: A maximum of fifteen barattairs are allowed to the ambassador in his palace; no. 48: Ottoman subjects have to deal with dragomans in case of conflict with the consul at the cadi's court; no. 51: they are allowed to produce wine at home; no. 53: they are not responsible for debts incurred by French nationals or protégés; no. 84: they will profit from all that is contained in this latest capitulation.

1 Henri Dehérain, La vie de Pierre Ruffin, orientaliste et diplomate 1742-1824, Paris, 1929-30 2 vols, 1,650 ff.

68

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

This also applied to the subsequent Ottoman treaty of peace concluded in 1802 (1217 A.H.) and the commercial convention of 1838 (1254 A.H.). The Dutch capitulations of 1680 (1091 A.H.), which regulated all relations with the Porte till 1914, granted the Dutch every privilege that was contained in the French and English capitulations to date. According to article 6, trials against dragomans were only to be heard by the Sultan's Divan at Istanbul; no. 10: employing dragomans was granted; no. 26: they are allowed to engage in private trade; no. 33: they are exempt from customs duty on their private commodities. The locally recruited dragomans had a variety of origins. They are conveniently classified according to the religious communities of their birth, their "nations" in the old Levantine usage. Jewish dragomans mainly originated from the Spanish-speaking Sephardic communities. Armenians were mostly those converted to the Church of Rome (Uniate Armenians or Armenian-Catholics). The Greeks were those from the Slavic, Arabic or Greek-speaking Orthodox subjects of the sultan. The so-called Latins or "Franco-Perots" were the Roman Catholic Ottomans for a great part resident in Galata and Pera (present-day Beyoglu) districts of Istanbul. Muslims, Turks or Arabs were never employed but the embassies used the services of so-called "khodjas" or "effendis", a Turkish clerk whose task was to produce correctly phrased and properly styled official letters and documents in Ottoman Turkish in correspondence with the Porte and other local authorities in the empire. During the eighteenth century, the number of Jewish and Greek dragomans declined. Armenians and especially Latins took their places. The advance of the Latin dragomans led to a change in the quality of diplomatic intercourse with the Sublime Porte. These Latin Levantines were the vanguard of westernization in Istanbul and, as such, became slowly estranged from their traditional background. Their successful adoption of Western culture reduced their participation in the traffic with Ottoman Muslim society. They were on the way to becoming born Frenchmen, Italians, Russians, Germans or even Dutchmen. This attitude impaired their ability to penetrate leading Ottoman circles, their know-how became superficial like that of Western foreigners. At the same time, however, the Porte continued and extended its employment of Greek dragomans, recruiting them especially from the elite families connected with the Ecumenical Patriarchate, usually referred to as "Phanariots" (the patriarchate being established in the Fener (="Phanar") quarter of old Istanbul. This social group also cultivated the languages and culture of the West. The ancient antagonism between the Eastern and the Western church thus acquired a new dimension, playing a role in diplomacy.

PROTECTION

AND

NATIONALITY

69

In the early nineteenth century, Westernizing Muslim Ottomans began to enter a dragoman career at the Porte in growing numbers. This new generation of Westernizing Muslims was one-sided and limited in its outlook and became the mirror image, as it were, of their Latin colleagues. This social and cultural development had a generally deteriorating effect on the quality of diplomatic relations in the age of Ottoman Reform, the period of the "Tanzimat", from 1839 onwards. The development summarily sketched above may be illustrated from the actual goings-on at the Dutch embassy. Skarlatos ("Carel") Karatza served as First Dragoman from 1720 till 1756. He belonged to the Phanariot aristocracy and stood on excellent terms with leading Ottomans, not in the least because of his accomplishments as a medical doctor. He resigned his post when his son Nicolo became the principal dragoman of the Porte. This behaviour shows a remarkable sense of diplomatic sensibility! His successor in Dutch service was Rodolpho Bragiotti, a medical man himself but belonging to the Latin community. The latter's position of Second Dragoman was filled by Giacomo Testa, a scion of an ancient established family of Genoese origins living in Galata and Pera since the fifteenth century 1 . This change of personnel is indicative of the general changing policies of the appointment of dragomans. To summarize the history of the dragomans in the period under review, one may put it that the embassies in the second half of the eighteenth century began to prefer the choice of dragomans of Latin origin. This group was becoming more and more westernized, giving a proper meaning to terms as "Franco-Levantine" or "Franco-Perot". Their new outlook and interests made them less and less involved in their Ottoman environment. For instance, they discontinued their active participation in trade and commerce. The Sublime Porte, on the other hand, relied more and more on the aristocratic Phanariots who were chosen as the principal dragomans of the central government and of the admiralty. The Phanariots, in their turn, entered upon the road of Westernization and also became less in need of foreign protection or contacts as a consequence. The common ground of day-to-day relations between Ottomans and Europeans in the field of trade, the main interest of the Western presence till that time, was left to others. The Latin and Greek dragomans' activities remained on a higher plane of social, political and cultural life in the Levant.

General State Archives of the Netherlands at The Hague, Records of the Embassy in Turkey, A.R.A., Legatie archief Turkije voor 1811, no. 1291/13: ferman of Sultan Mustafa III, July 1756.

70

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

The transnational character of a dragoman dynasty As a result of the continued protection inherited from one generation to the other, true dragoman dynasties came about in the course of the eighteenth century. Among the Levantine Latins, repeated intermarriage produced intricate family relations and social networks with multiple loyalties to the different foreign powers whose embassies in the Ottoman capital provided them with lucrative employment and protection. A genealogical table would show that the foreign embassies were depending a great deal on a small tightly knit group of local notable families. Although it is wrong to say that the Franco-Perot Latins had a monopoly in the diplomatic intercourse with the Porte around 1800, their number was indeed predominant among the higher ranking dragomans at work for the ambassadors in Istanbul.

The Testa Dynasty of dragomans around 1800 The long and successful history of the Testa family of dragomans offers a clear example of the development of a network across a number of embassies and consulates in the Levant from the late sixteenth till the twentieth century. The Testas are a Franco-Perot Latin family in the fullest sense of that term. Of Genoese origin the Testas were established in Galata already in the early fifteenth century 1 . They gained a prominent position in the Roman Catholic community of Istanbul, the "Magnifica Comunita di Pera". Members were elected as one of its "priors" (kethiida in Ottoman terminology) in the seventeenth century like those of other dragomanal families as the Fornettis, Grillos, Navonis, Peronis and Tarsias. This community enjoyed "millet" status since the grant of a charter of privileges by Sultan Mehmed II conqueror of Istanbul, in 1453 and renewed by the succeeding rulers, Ahmed I (16031617) in 1613 and Murad IV (1623-1640) in 16242. In many respects, this charter given to an Ottoman non-Muslim community resembles the charters of capitulations given to the foreign resident communities. Legally, the Latins thus were always an intermediary group with a quasi-foreign status or, to put it conversely, the foreign non-Muslim communities were given a legal status resembling that of subjects of the sultans! 1 Mihail Dimitri Sturdza, Grandes familles de Grèce, d'Albanie et de Constantinople. Dictionnaire historique et généalogique, Paris, 1983,590f. 2 Eugenio Dalleggio D'Alessio, "Tratto tra i Genovesi di Galata e Maometto II", in II Veltro XXIII, 2-4 (Rome, 1979), pp.103-18; Mahmut §akiroglu, "Fatih Sultan Mehmed'in Galatahlara verdigi Fermanin Tiirkçe Metinleri", in Ankara Ùniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Cograjya Fakultesi Tarih Aragirrnalan Dergisi XIV (Ankara, 1983), pp. 211-224.

PROTECTION

AND

NATIONALITY

71

Members of the Testa family were, till the twentieth century, the keepers of the records of their community. Among these records were kept the authentic copy of the charter (ahdnâme). The relations of such a family, or rather "house" containing a number of separate families with the foreign embassies established in their part of the city, Pera (Beyoglu since the sixteenth century), have been manifold. The Testas, for instance, inherited in 1680 a palatial house in Pera from their relatives Salvago which they rented to the Bailo (ambassador) of Venice. They held the office of "procurator" of the church of St. Anna in Pera (Beyoglu) till that church was disaffected for use by the Latins in 1697 and that of "procurator" of the "Custodia di Terra Santa". In the eighteenth century, Testas were serving as dragomans in the embassies of the Netherlands, the Emperor, Venice, Poland, Sweden, Russia, Prussia and France. Within the framework of this paper, we will limit ourselves to a description of the role that the Testas played in the service of the ambassadors of the Netherlands. The Dutch embassy employed Latin dragomans from 1612 when a member of the notable Latin family Orlandi, Nicolo Orlandi, was taken over by ambassador, Cornelis Haga, from the Ottoman Grand Admiral Halil Paga's service. During the eighteenth century, the number of Dutch Latin employees was steadily rising. In this period, the Testas became prominent in Dutch affairs at the Porte. The first Testa mentioned as a dragoman in Dutch service was Bartholomeo who, in 1705, was employed at the Dutch consulate in Izmir. Francesco Draco Testa (1627-1709), son of Gasparo, a Polish dragoman, was a dragoman of Venice before entering the Dutch service. He was married to Maria Fortis-Salvago, descendant of a Venetian dragoman family. His son, Gasparo Testa (1684-1758), was dragoman to a Russian envoy and, since 1713, of the Dutch embassy. He also held the office of procurator of the "Custodia di Terra Santa", a religious establishment of the Franciscan Reformed Fathers /"Zoccholanti") formerly under Venetian protection. It stood under Dutch protection since 1672 or some time after that date. The Dutch merchant, Philippo Mommartz, had been its procurator before, in 1691, directing the rebuilding of the hospice and the chapel on a site neighbouring the Dutch embassy compound. The link with Dutch interests was confirmed by the marriage of Gasparo Testa's daughter, Lucia, with Philippo, Mommartz's son in 1743. Gasparo's son, Francesco (1717-1787) studied medicine in Padua and was attached to the French dragoman training establishment in Pera as its physician till 1780. He was married to Anna Fornetti, daughter of a French dragoman, in 1751. His other son, Jacopo (Giacomo, Jacques) (1725-1804), likewise medically trained, became Second

72

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

Dragoman of the Dutch embassy in 1747. His wife (marriage 19 April 1762) was Lucie Fonton, a scion of another famous originally French dragoman dynasty. What we are seeing here is the formation of another Levantine dragoman network in optima forma! One should also note the link of the profession of dragoman and that of physician, which occurs not unfrequently at the time among the Latin as well as the Greek group of dragomans. Rodolpho Braggiotti, the Dutch First Dragoman since 1767, and Skarlatos Karatza, his predecessor in that function, who served a number of viziers as their doctor, are just other examples. Doctor Jasques Testa's sons, Gaspard (1770-1847) and François (died 1829), definitively established the "Dutch" line of this wide-ranging dragoman dynasty. The career of François began in 1766 when he, being the son of the Second Dragoman, was sent to Holland for training as a dragoman. He received fifty Lion Dollars as pocket money and was rewarded with an official appointment by the Dutch ambassador, Willem Gerrit Dedel (in Istanbul from 1765 till his death there in 1768). It was the ambassador's intention to remedy the one serious defect prevalent with his dragomans, their lack of knowledge of the Dutch language 1 . Acting as chancellor of the Istanbul embassy in 1793, François Testa was entrusted with the preparation of fermans and berâts for the benefit of the Dutch consulate at Izmir. One of his special tasks was to trace those fermans, berats, judicial decrees and other evidentiary documents issued to and by the central and local authorities related to Dutch interests but which used to be kept inaccessible to them and were not registered by the cadi's courts. He also was entrusted with keeping the cipher for the ambassador's secret correspondence with The Hague. In 1796, François Testa was promoted First Dragoman and, therewith, in charge of all dealings of the embassy with the Porte. In 1799, when the Dutch Republic, now the Batavian Republic since 1795 as an ally of the French Empire, was at war with the coalition of England and Russia to which the Ottoman Empire acceded, the Dutch embassy had to close. Its staff was not put under arrest or internment like what happened to the French chargé d'affaires, Pierre Ruffin, and his personnel. The Dutch in the Ottoman dominions, on the contrary, were treated with courtesy. The ambassador, Frederik Gysbert Baron van Dedem (in function 1785-1808), was permitted to go and reside in Bucharest within the borders of the empire but inside the tributary principality of Walachia. He lived there till his return to Istanbul in 1802 when, after the conclusion of peace, he was once more recognized as ambassador of the Netherlands. During this time, the Dutch Testas, as well as the dragoman family Braggiotti and the other Dutch ^Nanninga, op.cit., II. P. 4 7 , 5 9 , 5 7 2 .

PROTECTION

AND

NATIONALITY

73

nationals and protégés, were admitted to enjoy the protection of Prussia. The dragoman's work continued. For instance, François Testa was able to get hold, in a tactful way, of the books and ledgers of the merchant Jan Pieter Panchaud, who held the office of treasurer of the Dutch "Nation" of Istanbul and had gone bankrupt again in 1801. From 12 September 1803 to 23 June 1807, François Testa was chargé d'affaires during the absence of the ambassador on leave to Holland. From the fact of his correspondence with the Board of Directors of Levant Trade at Amsterdam being in French, we may conclude that his early training in Holland did not have the desired linguistic result. One of the main questions he had to deal with was the opening of the Black Sea to Dutch shipping, an affair in which he cooperated with the French ambassador, General Brune (in Istanbul 1802-1804). Another pressing matter was the economic menace to Dutch trade created by the Ottoman demand of capitulatory reciprocity for the benefit of Greek Ottoman subjects who were monopolizing Dutch commercial interests and wished to establish factories in Amsterdam on the same conditions as granted to the Dutch in Istanbul. The Grand Dragoman of the Porte, Prince Ypsilanti, was the driving influence behind this move. The Secretary General of the government, the Reis Efendi, in a note communicated 24 December 1804 to the Dutch chargé d'affaires, announced that the Porte had decided to appoint a consul in the Batavian Republic. The Grand Vizier appointed Pietro Marcella (1767-1814), a Greek Ottoman subject who had already been established in Amsterdam since 1802. The Reis Efendi protested against the fact that Marcella was admitted only as a Dutch citizen and not in the quality of foreigner and Ottoman consul or official representative. This lack of official recognition could lead to reprisals against the Dutch consuls resident in the Levant whose status might be reduced to that of non-Muslim Ottoman subjects. Such a measure would have the most dreadful financial consequences for the Levantine Dutch. François Testa was successful in averting this disaster but remained fearful of an affront to the "Frankish Nation of the Batavians" in the future. This, the more so, since the Porte was sending out commissioners to the Levant scales and the capital with orders to reduce the barattairs and fermanh protégés of the Western powers to ordinary Ottoman subject status. New berâts were only to be available for these individuals at the elevated price of 500 Lion dollars. This policy of the Ottoman government would spoil the old privileges of most Dutch and other protégés. François Testa could concur a great deal with this new policy in principle. The increase in the number of foreign protected Ottomans had exceeded all limits of economic and social acceptability. Russia was specially and grossly abusing capitulatory privilege to extend its direct

74

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

local influence to the farthest corners of the Ottoman Empire. The Dutch chargé d'affaires, like many other foreign observers, saw no harm in a separation of "true born" Franks, i.e. immigrants from the Western capitulatory nations of recent or old date and the actual subjects of the Sultan on the basis of a verification of their status. Curbing the number of barattairs would reduce the embassy's revenues but the issue of the new berats was to be a compensation for that loss. The position of the Dutch chargé d'affaires was badly shaken at this juncture of events by the usurpation of the embassy by the French ambassador General Sebastiani (in Istanbul 1806-1808) in the name of the King of Holland, Louis Napoleon, who succeeded to the Republican regime in 1806 and was to rule Holland independently till its annexation to the French Empire in 1810. Ambassador Van Dedem returned only in 1807 to leave for good on December 26,1808. In 1814, when they heard that Holland had regained its independence François Testa, together with his brother Gaspard, reopened the Dutch embassy on their own initiative by hoisting the national flag of the new Kingdom of the Netherlands on top of the Palais de Hollande on the Grande Rue (now Istiklal Caddesi) in Pera. The two Testas always remained loyal to the Dutch cause in spite of repeated advantageous offers to them by foreign ambassadors in Istanbul who were in need of experienced dragomans. François was reappointed First Dragoman. The Dutch government offered him the post of chargé d'affaires again but he declined the honor preferring to retire soon after. He died in 1829. His brother, Gaspard, took up the appointment as chargé d'affaires. The Dutch career of Gaspard Testa (1770-1847) began with his appointment as giovane di lingua in 1776 upon a salary of 100 Lion dollars. In 1790, he was seconded to the Dutch ambassador at the imperial court at Vienna, Reynier Baron van Haeften, who had been ambassador at the Porte from 1778 to 1784. This diplomat was ordered to act as one of the mediators at the peace congress of Sistova where the war between the Sultan and the Emperor was concluded in 1791. From this distinction, it appears that the young Testa's capacities were already rated high. In 1791, he became vicechancellor of the embassy, working closely together with his brother, then chancellor since 1786. On February 22, 1793 "young Testa" took the oath as dragoman. Acting as a junior dragoman, he was ordered to accompany the First Dragoman, Rodolpho Braggiotti, on his daily morning visits to the Porte as an in-service training. The next day, Braggiotti introduced him to the Grand Dragoman of the Porte, Prince Mourouzi, who showed himself very friendly and presented him, in his turn, to the Reis Efendi, Rashid Efendi and his personal staff among whom was an official described in Testa's journal of

PROTECTION

AND

NATIONALITY

75

that day as "our effendi", presumably a pivotal figure in the Dutch dragomans' network. From September 5, 1793 onwards, the new dragoman accompanied his chief, Van Dedem, and his wife and son on a journey to Holland to the home of the Van Dedem family, De Gelder castle near the village of Wijhe in the province of Overyssel. The company arrived safe and sound on November 26 of the same year. However, the ambassador felt the need of sending his young collaborator back to Istanbul already in August 1794. It seems that Gaspard had grossly misbehaved himself but no details are available in the records (kept during the following years by the diligent Gaspard himself!). The affair did not affect his subsequent career, so much is clear 1 . He was back in Istanbul on December 18,1794 after a sea journey of sixty-seven days. In 1798, Gaspard Testa was appointed chancellor of the embassy. The next year, the Porte broke off diplomatic relations with the Batavian Republic and the ambassador, with the consent of the Ottoman government, left the capital to take up residence in Bucharest. He took Gaspard and his private secretary with him. They returned to Istanbul on 20 January 1802. In 1804, Gaspard Testa was appointed secretary of the embassy with a salary of 1000 Dutch florins. This gave him the status to make a decent marriage. The third of June 1804, he made Catherina Marini his wife. She was the daughter of a Neapolitan diplomatist; count Jacques Marini, himself, son-in-law of the Austrian Chancellor of State Baron Franz von Thugut(1736-1818) who had been dragoman of the Imperial "Internuntiatur" (=embassy) from 1757 to 1766 and, afterwards, court interpreter at Vienna 1766 to 1769 and Imperial "internuncio" at the Sublime Porte from 1769 to 1778. When ambassador Van Dedem definitively left Istanbul on December 26, 1808, Gaspard Testa remained as chargé d'affaires till the closure of the embassy in 1810. He then had the odious duty of delivering the records and the chancellery archives to the French chargé d'affaires, Marquis De La Tour Maubourg (in function 1808-1812). With a skeleton staff of three dragomans and one jeune de langue in Istanbul, four dragomans at Izmir and one at Aleppo, he maintained the functioning of the chancellery and the treasury in the interest of the Dutch "nation" in the Ottoman Empire. Together with his elder brother, Gaspard Testa was reinstated by the new government of the now Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1814. He reorganized the embassy and the network of consulates on the old footing as far as possible. On October 18, he was received in audience by the Reis Efendi when he formally requested the restoration of the Dutch capitulations by 1 General State Archives, The Hague, Van Dedem Papers, A.R.A., 2.21.049/58: Travelling diary of Gaspard Testa.

76

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

means of an autograph ferman of the Sultan (hatt-i §erif) and the simultaneous renewal of the berâts of the consuls and dragomans. The Reis Efendi gave a most favorable answer and expressed his regard for Testa's person. A positive reaction of the Porte was assured. Gaspard was recognized as chargé d'affaires even before his credentials, addressed to the Grand Vizier, had arrived from Holland and the Sultan had been notified. The new representative of the Netherlands was successful in making the Porte issue fermans to the Commissioner of the Customs of Istanbul to instruct his junior colleague at Izmir to give the ancient Dutch capitulations their full effect again. This was an essential precondition for Dutch Levant trade to come to life once more in its most important centre. Another familiar problem to take in hand was the three cornered relationship between Holland, Algiers and the Porte. To give his notes of protest against the Algerian transgressions of Dutch capitulatory privilege a solid legal base in precedent, Testa instated a research in the embassy records in order to convince the Porte of its bound duty to intervene on behalf of the Dutch. The Reis Efendi proceeded to do a similar search in the records of the Porte. It should not surprise us to see that the two parties reached contrary conclusions from their historical exercise! Gaspard Testa was successful in his negotiations with the representative at the Porte and the financial agent of the governor-general of Egypt, Mehmed Ali Pasha. This financial agreement prevented a so-called "avania" (a financial retribution of an incidental nature, wrongly qualified generally as "extorsion") at the expense of the Dutch trading firm of Keun at Izmir. The connection in this negotiation must have been the dragoman serving in the consulate of Izmir at the time and, afterwards, in 1815, transferred to the embassy, the Armenian, Marcar Abro, who was a relation to Mehmed Ali Pasha's banker and a cousin of the pasha's confidential dragoman, Boghos di Yusuf. A vexing question of protocol bedevilled Ottoman-Dutch relations from 1816 til 1819. The Sultan remained unwilling to recognize immediately the title of "king" for the sovereign prince of the new Kingdom of the Netherlands. In the end, it was not the oldest ally of the Dutch, Great Britain, but Russia's support which removed this conflict that is an illustration of the hesitancies that the Porte still had about the European state system to which it belonged yet only in an incomplete fashion. In September 1819, at last, Testa was received in audience by the Grand Vizier and presented with a personal

PROTECTION

AND

NATIONALITY

77

letter by Sultan Mahmud II to King William I containing the recognition of the Dutch royal title 1 . No such success for our man yet in the long lasting quest for the opening of the Black Sea to Dutch shipping and trade. The Dutch, however, did not stand alone in this. It appears from Testa's correspondence with the Board of Directors of Levant Trade in Amsterdam, the ancient regulatory organization of the Dutch merchants which was the equivalent of the English Levant Company in many respects, that the capitulatory regime by now -1817- was exercised collectively by the Western powers' missions in Istanbul. Holland, in this way, was able to gain all the advantages of the most favored Western power. The small embassy staff was kept busy. Its present chief managed to convince the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at The Hague that the level of salaries had to be adapted to the times and to be paid in guilders is in order to retain its maximum value in the Levant. The First Dragoman's salary was put at 2000 guilders, the Second Dragoman's at 1000 and the Jeune de Langue's at 700. The chancellor's emoluments were in fact an extra income for the First Dragoman and the Second one, since they filled these functions themselves. Apart from his advance in countering the everlasting claims of the customs house, Gaspard Testa's biggest triumph must be considered to be the admission of Dutch shipping into the Black Sea in 1820. He now proposed the appointment of Dutch consuls in the principal ports of the area. This demanded a solid amount of paperwork and dragomans' efforts spent at the offices of the Porte, that much will be clear. A period full of diplomatic complications and extra work, but all the more interesting from a political point of view, set in for the Dutch embassy at the outbreak of the revolt of the Hellenes in 1821. The government at The Hague only slowly began to take interest in the developments and, at last, understood it to be imperative to appoint a full ambassador to the Porte again. This was Hugo Baron van Zuylen van Nyevelt who was in function in Istanbul from 1825 to 1829. The position of old Gaspard Testa, serving under a freshly arrived diplomat from the modern school without any special knowledge of Ottoman institutions and traditions, reverted, as it were, to that of the First Dragoman of old. The new Dutch ambassador involved himself enthusiastically in the highly complicated issues concerning the Hellenic revolt. His ambition was to play a mediating role between the Porte and the Western powers supporting the Greeks. The "oriental" wisdom of an old hand

Ludy Giebels, "De Erkenning van de Koningstitel van Willem I door de Höge Porte 18141819" in A.H. de Groot, ed., Het Midden-Oosten in Historisch Perspectief, Muiderberg, 1989 (=M.O.I. Publicaties Niewe Reeks nr. 7), pp. 101-120.

78

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

such as Testa came in good stead as it turned out in the end. It was, in fact, Testa who led the work at the embassy in those years. The old established network of the Testa dynasty was still in place and useful as the new ambassador discovered in time. From 1827 to 1829, the Dutch embassy exercised diplomatic protection over all French, British and Russian subjects and interests in the Ottoman Empire. At the time, these powers were in a state of war with the Sultan and their ambassadors had left their posts. Ambassador Van Zuylen van Nyevelt fully recognized Testa's merits and informed the government at home accordingly. After his departure, Gaspard Testa became chargé d'affairs once more but this time he was fully integrated into the Dutch diplomatic service and, at last, in 1843 he received the appointment of Minister-resident of His Netherlandish Majesty at the Sublime Porte, an "appointment without costs to the state", i.e. without a rise of his salary! He retained his somewhat undutchable character since he never learned to speak or write a word of Dutch but the fact that he and his family were naturalized Dutchmen in the meantime will have had a positive effect on the authorities in The Hague. Dutch officialdom follows Dutch rules however! To his great dismay, the seventy-three year old diplomatist was informed in 1846 that he was honorably dismissed from the service because of old age. The compensation for this rude shock were the Royal Letters Patent conferring on him and his descendants in primogeniture, membership of the Dutch nobility and the title of Baron. Before receiving the actual documents, the old man died on April 16, 1847. It may be said that the life work of this Levantine Latin aristocrat, this dragoman of the old school who survived into the new age of diplomacy, ensured the continued presence of the Netherlands in the Ottoman Empire. He left a lasting network of useful relations encompassing the Levant. He took upon himself the task of keeper of Dutch interests, traditions and possessions in the Ottoman lands. His voluminous work as a self-appointed archivist and historian of the Dutch Ottoman diplomatic relations is evident from the extant rich collection of embassy records dating from his time. He not only organized the old holdings but also restored those or even reconstituted the lost context with copies of documents from other archive collections such as those from the other embassies to form a complete historical source collection for the study of the history of Dutch expansion in the Ottoman Middle East, North Africa and South Eastern Europe, thus creating the perpetuation of the labours of the lives of the dragomans such as himself.

PROTECTION

AND

NATIONALITY

79

Among his sons and descendants of successive generations till the ptesent day, many served as diplomats in the Dutch Foreign Service. The Dutch branch of the Testa dynasty established itself in Holland. The last of its members have left the Levant about fifty years ago. The survival of the Dutch Testas was, in no small way, rendered possible thanks to the network of the other branches and their friends and relations amongst whom they lived and to whom they contributed their own share. Gaspard's cousin Charles, at first, was a French dragoman, then after 1Î93 a Swedish one to end up as counsellor of the Imperial embassy with the title of baron: he is the founder of the Austrian branchy. The latter's son married into the Danish-German-Levantine family of bankers and diplomatists, the Barons Hiibsch von Grossthal ("Grossthal" being a rendering of Biiyiikdere oh the Bosporus!) and founded the Prussian branch. Uncle Bartholomeo (17231809), dragoman in Imperial service, became himself a baron and founded an Austro-Tuscan branch. If one peruses the Testa family tree, one, will meet with almost all the historical names of the dragoman dynasties of the Ottoman Levant. The history of the Dutch Testas is an excellent example of how the Levantine Latins survived the upheavals of the Napoleonic era in the Ottoman world. Remaining private citizens from 1810 till 1814, they reaffirmed the Roman Catholic presence in Pera and elsewhere in the Ottoman lands as members of the staffs of embassies and consulates. On the whole, the period of the Greek War of Independence, which caused strong anti Orthodox feeling in Istanbul, was advantageous to the Làtins' position. Even when Western ambassadors of the modern school would have wished to establish their embassies and consular representations oh a new national basis and to get rid of the hereditary positions held in their staff by local personnel, they soon discovered that they could not to without the old established dragoman dynasties. Replacement of their expert knowledge by born national elements was difficult to organize. In the case of the Dutch embassy, ambassador Van Zuylen van Nyevelt found this out after some fajilures at the renewal of his staff. In 1829, it was Gaspard Testa, again in charge on his own, who was able to organize the new network of barattair protégés across the empire now including the area of the Black Sea for the first time. Reform of the old system was at last initiated by the Ottoman government within the framework of the general modernization of the state institutions in the years 1839-1876, the so-called "Tanzimat". In 1840, a series of commercial treaties were concluded by the Porte and most of the capitulatory powers. These were modern bilateral agreements instituting a reciprocity of most favored nation treatment. In the case of the Netherlands,

80

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

the Treaty of Commerce of 14 March 1840 replaced the commercial articles of the capitulation of 1680 which, in other respects, remained valid till the end of the system. An Ottoman-Dutch consular agreement, concluded in 1857, put consular representation on a footing of reciprocity. The status of the local protégés was adapted only at a later date. The Western powers did not agree to a restriction of their protection rights till Ottoman legislation made it possible for foreigners to own real estate in Ottoman territory. Negotiations began in 1862 and led to a positive result in 1863 and1867, followed in 1869 by the new law instituting an Ottoman nationality according to Western legal principles. It was in combination with these reforms of the status of the nonMuslim foreigners residing in the Ottoman Empire that the capitulatory powers agreed to adapt and restrict their rights of protection of Ottoman subjects. Unlike the other Western powers, the Netherlands did not offer their former protégés the option of Dutch nationality when the categories of protégés were limited in 1863.

From Ottoman oriental into Western nationality At the beginning of the nineteenth century, families such as the Testas who had been serving the major embassies in Istanbul for generations, still were, legally speaking, Ottoman subjects and, as such, considered to be "orientals", not yet belonging to their employers' nation in the modern sense. They were looked at by many modern minded British ambassadors as "a mongrel breed" or, to employ the Turkish expression: "sweet water Franks". Their national character remained insecure till the latter part of the nineteenth century. In spite of, or because of, their cosmopolitan style of culture, their ambassadorial masters did not dare to fully trust their loyalty because of their evidently strong local attachments. Their incomplete acceptance was compounded by their continued practice of intermarrying with partners belonging to the same Levantine aristocracy. Looking at their genealogies, one can discern some change however in the course of the years. The first signs of a social and cultural acceptation into the foreign European community are, not surprisingly, a number of marriages with partners belonging to the families of true born national dragomans and oriental specialists of foreign missions. More or less noble French, Austro-Hungarian and Italian names appeared first, to be followed later by those of most other Western nations represented at the Porte.

PROTECTION

AND

NATIONALITY

81

As we have seen in the case of the Testas, Levantine dragomans were successful in breaking out from their closed local career circuit and began, around 1800, to enter the regular diplomatic corps of the Western states employing them. Members of Latin families thus could become eligible for promotion above the ranks of dragoman and get appointments as counsellor of embassy and chargé d'affaires or even minister-resident, i.e. chief of mission in Istanbul or elsewhere. In these positions, they definitively crossed the social and cultural barrier to their new national character. Indeed, quite a large number of Latin Levantines naturalized into foreign nationalities. In some cases, members of ancient dragoman dynasties were incorporated into the European nobility. The Testas became barons in the Netherlands, the Austrian Empire, Tuscany and Prussia. The Chaberts gained the Imperial noble title of Baron von Ostland. The originally French Fontons became Russian aristocrats like the Pisanis. During the second half of the nineteenth century (ca. 1848-1914), the majority of the Levantines lost their position as the indispensable intermediaries between the Porte and the capitulatory powers. The Orientalists took the places of the Orientals. Only a small number of dragoman dynasties survived in Istanbul and elsewhere in the Levant, no longer protégé and Ottoman subjects but nationals of the Western nations of their choice and traditional allegiance. A summary listing of examples will illustrate the point: various branches of the Testa dynasty became either Dutch, Austrian, Prussian and then German, Tuscan and Italian or French citizens. The family Hiibsch von Grossthal became Danish as well as German, Russian or Belgian subjects following their varying employments. The Pisanis became British and Russian, the Timonis Russian, Swedish and Spanish, the Chaberts British and Italian nationals.

Some concluding remarks What is the historical significance of these dragomans and their families in the development of political and cultural relations between the Islamic Ottoman Middle East and the West? During the late eighteenth century in the Ottoman Empire, the regime of the capitulations offered this category of protected Ottoman non-Muslim an almost complete immunity against interference by the local authorities, legally still placed over them. The successive generations of Western foreigners, established in the Ottoman capital as well as in the important

82

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

commercial centers of the Balkans and the Middle East, by employing them, placed them in a privileged position and developed them into the forerunners of the Westernization of the Ottoman elite in the nineteenth century. Economic and social relations with Ottoman Christians, mainly the Latins but also the Phanariot elite of the Greek Orthodox community and leading families of the Armenian communities, brought about a lasting cultural exchange, which led to an effective spreading of the knowledge and attitudes of the West. Social contacts with the Muslim elites remained rare at the time but were also slowly developing, literally by the back door of the embassies! Intermarriage between foreigners and Ottoman non-Muslim subjects did not lead anymore in this period to the foreign partner being reduced to the status of a non-Muslim, subject to the rule of Islamic law and consequently liable to the full extent of Ottoman taxation including the payment of the poll-tax. Legal usage was adapted to the needs of the state and subject to the changing demands of the time. The categories of foreign residents and indigenous protégés became amalgamated for all practical purposes. The locally hired dragomans and their families acquired their special status anyhow by force of sultanic decrees (berat and fermari) issued on their behalf upon the request of the ambassadors. A unique characteristic of the period under review is probably that the Ottoman born dragoman community still shared its attitudes and outlook with their contemporaries in the opposite Muslim governmental circles. As such, they were able to function optimally in their intermediate role of translators and transmitters between Eastern and Western culture meeting in the Ottoman Empire. Progressive Westernization of the native dragoman dynasties was to make them foreign in their own land as it were. Gradually, they were to lose the confidence of the Ottoman authorities during the course of the nineteenth century. In the Age of Reform, beginning in 1826 at the time of the Hellenic Revolt the Sultan's government began to look elsewhere for its dragoman services. The establishment of the "Translation Chamber" at the Sublime Porte, next to a few Jews, mainly employing Muslim subjects, among whom a number of recent converts, marked the beginning of a new era for the conduct of international political and cultural relations between the Ottoman Empire and the West.

THE ORGANIZATION OF WESTERN EUROPEAN TRADE IN THE LEVANT, 1500-1800

Historians of Asiatic trade and European expansion since 1500 have concentrated their researches upon East, South East and South Asia. West Asia - a term significantly seldom used in this context- has been left to the attention of other scholars, to historians of the Ottoman Empire, to nationalist historians of the present-day Arab states which were contained within the boundaries of the Empire and to the small group of historians of Levent trade. These scholars have, however, offered a view of an extended European economic history, which is a sound one. Braudel had definitively stated the case for European-Mediterranean history. This paper will attempt to add a comparative dimension by putting the Levant into an Asiatic perspective. The Levant witnessed the first and longest confrontation between the civilizations of Christianity and Islam. Data concerning the working of economical, political and cultural relations which date back to the late Middle Ages and encompass the development of the greatest Islamic state in modern history, the Ottoman Empire, should offer a useful comparative insight to the student of the affairs of Persia and Mughal India and also of those Islamic countries in Asia and Africa which became the targets of European expansion of a more overwhelming nature than that which occurred in the Near East before 1800.

1. The Levant merchants The Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century expanded from a major Sduth East European state into one of the two world powers of the age. As successor to the Mamluk Sultans in Egypt in Syria and possessor of the whole of Anatolia and the greater part of North Africa, it continued to promote and protect trade along the ancient East-West routes from Asia to Europe, which lay within its borders. This meant that the privileges acquired by the old established communities of foreign, non-Muslim merchants from Europe were confirmed. The status of autonomy and extraterritoriality enjoyed by these groups was extended to the newcomers, the English and the Dutch, but

84

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

not to the Iberians and their allies who were the enemies of the Dutch and English in the Mediterranean area and in the Indian Ocean. This "open-door" policy towards England and the Dutch Republic was continued throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. From a position of (local) superiority, the Porte granted privileges to these expanding maritime powers. In the Levant they were considered valuable as obstacles to Spanish and Portuguese expansion. The Levant trade ventures of the English and Dutch constituted a sequel to the commercial activities these two nations had conducted in the Western Mediterranean and North African lands. The English entered these virtually Spanish waters first, but they were soon followed by traders from the Low Countries. Before the arrival of the northern Europeans the Eastern Mediterranean, the Levant, had been the domain of French and Venetian traders since the last days of the crusades. The Dutch and the English could thus conform to an already existing system of trade. The long distance and the prevalent insecurity of Mediterranean seaways in the period of the Hispano-Ottoman confrontation (15098-1581), when corsairs of both sides were actively -and, it seemed, indiscriminately- harassing shipping emphasized the need for some form of organization and self-protection by the merchants concerned. In England, this resulted in the creation of a Barbary Company (1585) and a Turkey Company. In 1579-1580, merchants applied for a monopoly of English trade with the Ottoman dominions, the normal method of commercial organization at the time 1 . Seven-year monopolies were granted in 1581 to a total of twelve merchants. The Turkey Company consisted of traders in Italy and Barbary. The Company was charged with the payment of the first English ambassador to the Porte, William Harborne, who was to found the trade and establish its status 2 . In 1583 an English Venice Company was created, overlapping the monopoly of the Levant Merchants (in Crete, the Ionian Islands and the Morea). In September 1588 the first Company's charter expired, and in April 1589 the Venetian charter lapsed. Both bodies agreed to apply jointly for a renewal of the monopoly. In January 1592 trade rights to Venice and Ottoman dominions were granted for twelve years to an extended group of fifty-three with allowances made for twenty places to be filled by new applicant merchants named in the text of the royal charter: "Governor and Company of

'M. Epstein, The Early History of the Levant Company, London 1908, repr. New York 1963, p. 16 f. A.C.Wood, A History of the Levant Company, London 1935,repr. 1964,p. 11. 2 Wood, Levant Company, p. 12. Now see S A . Skiliter, William Harborne and the Trade with Turkey 1578-1582, London 1977.

W E S T E R N E U R O P E A N T R A D E IN THE L E V A N T

85

Merchants of the Levant" 1 . Their rights were extended to the overland routes through the Near East to India -eight years before the foundation of the English East India Company. Members of the Company traded independently on a regulated basis rather than on a joint stock basis 2 . A renewal of the charter took place on 31 December 1600, after a rescission by the Crown 3 . The merchants themselves renounced it in 1603 after James I's accession, on the pretext that trade was suffering too heavily from competitive English and Dutch East India trade. It should be noted in passing that thirty-one members of the Levant Company were among the original subscribers to the (English) East India Company at the time of its establishment in 1600. Its first governor, Thomas Smith, was also governor of the Levant Company. In 1605, sixty-four names of Levant merchants appeared in the charter of the Second English East India Company. The connection continued throughout the 17th century. The Levant Company's monopoly stirred up jealousy in mercantile circles. Petitions protesting against it are known to have existed 4 . On 14 December 1605 a new and more detailed charter was drawn up which did not limit the Company to a narrow group of merchants but rather opened trade to all persons over the age of twenty-six, upon payment of twenty-five Pounds, a fee raised to fifty Pounds for subsequent applications. The initial membership included 119 merchants 5 . This more detailed charter conferred the sole right to trade within the dominions of Venice and the Ottoman Sultan on these merchants, thus including the overland routes from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean. This was a permanent charter for the English Levant Company. It lasted till the final takeover of the establishment in 1821 (1825).6 Levant trade in the Netherlands began in Antwerp as a corollary to the trade with Spain and Barbary. After the fall of Antwerp (1585) its base moved to the United Provinces, mainly to Zeeland (Middelburg) and the province of Holland. The number of participants was smaller than in England. Some sort of co-operation or mutual consultation seems to have existed in the trade, as is evident from documents indicating nation-wide discussions about the dispatch

' Wood, Levant Company, p. 20. Wood, Levant Company, p. 22 quoting Travels of John Sanderson, pp. 143,171f, 178,186,196, 198 as it used to be before 1590. Wood, Levant Company, p. 36. ^Epstein, Early History Levant Company, p. 40. Wood, Levant Company, p. 39. 5 Wood, Levant Company, pp. 59-66; Epstein, Early History Levant Company, pp. 37f, 153-210 (text of charter). ^Wood, Levant Company, pp. 41,95 2

86

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

of the first Dutch embassy to the Ottoman Sultan in 1610-1611 1 . Many prominent merchants in Amsterdam had trade interests both in the Levant and in East India. Among the directors (bewindhebbers) in the early years of the YOC were Samuel Becker, Geurt Dircksz van Beuningen, Salomon de Blocquer, Joost Brasser, Geronimo de Haze, Jacob Poppen, Reinier Pauw, Jacques de Yelaer and Marcus de Yogelaer. Other Levant merchants were participants of the VOC in 1602, e.g., Guillielmo Bartholotti, Jean and Philippo Calandrini, Werner van Collen (Ceulen), Charrles de Latfeur, Abraham de Lingne, Jacques Nicquet, Volkert Overlander, Jean Pellicorne, Jasper Quingetti, Christoffel Raphoen, Hans Rombouts and Solomon Voerknecht2. On June 25, 1625 -and not least due to the advice of ambassador Cornelis Haga (in function 1611-1639)- Dutch Levant trade established its organization 3 , not as a company with a monopoly, but as a Board of Control and Advice, the seven "Gentlemen Directors of Levant Trade and Navigation in the Mediterranean Sea,' residing in Amsterdam. Later a number of subsidiary "Chambers" or Boards were established at Rotterdam (1670, with delegates from Dordt and Leiden), Hoorn (1631 or 1644), Zeeland (Middelburg, 1696) and Ostend (1817) 4 . This organization was founded by the municipality of Amsterdam at the request of the principal Levant merchants involved (altogether 37 signatures). Its function was like that of an institution of the central Dutch government, although it represented the interest of the trade. Among its main tasks was correspondence with the States' ambassador at the Porte and the Dutch consuls in the various "scales" (factories) of the Levant and Barbary 5 . Its powers to control this trade and to levy contributions on shipping were enlarged in 1625,1627 and 1633 6 . The board devised measures for self-protection with armament and convoy, which were confirmed by the States General by means of "Plakkaten" (Ordinances) in 1627, 1641, 1646, 1652, 1655 and 1667 7 . This activity partially overlapped the tasks of the Boards of Admiralty: the safeguarding of Dutch shipping. In the old established Levant trade centre of Venice, the l K. Heeringa, Bronnen tot te Geschiedenis van den Levantschen Handel, 's-Gravenhage 1910 1910-17,1, pp. 968-72,424-36. A.H. de Groot, The Ottoman Empire and The Dutch Republic... 1610-1630, Leiden 1978, pp, 83-92. ^These and more names in J..E. Elias, De Vroedschap van Amsterdam, 1 vols., Amsterdam 1903-5, reprint 1963, J.G. van Dillen, Het Oudste Aandeelhoudersregister van de Kamer Amsterdam der Ooost-Indische Compagnie, 's Gravenhage 1958. 3 Heeringa, Bronnen Levantsche Handel, 1, p. 954f. ^D.W. Canneman, De Batavorum Mercatura Levantica, The Hague 1839, pp. 43-66. Heeringa, Bronnen Levantsche Handel, 1, pp. 951,968ff. •'Heeringa, Bronnen Levantsche Handel, I, pp. 970ff. ^Heeringa, Bronnen Levantsche Handel, I, pp. 1020,1056. ^Heeringa, Bronnen Levantsche Handel, II, p. 1.

W E S T E R N E U R O P E A N T R A D E IN THE L E V A N T

87

organization was somewhat comparable. In Venice, the Board of Trade, the Cinque Savili alia Mercanzia, had been founded in 1516 to advise the government. Its members were businessmen or their relations. It used to consult members were businessmen or their relations. It It used to consult parties involved in trade and shipping in matters of navigation and financial economical policy. As was the case with the English and Dutch in the seventeenth century, the Venetians in the sixteenth century had a powerful naval position vis-á-vis the Ottomans, both with their war fleet and their merchant navy. However, experience taught the Signoria that war never furthered her commercial interests. A warlike company organization would have been more than useless. The Dutch acquired their experience in Levant trade at the end of the sixteenth century in the ports of Italy, notably in Venice, where a Dutch colony was established with its counterpart in Istanbul and probably in Aleppo. The terms offered to the Dutch in 1612 were again very much like those granted to Venice earlier. So, the Dutch trade to the Levant was not monopolized by a single company, nor was the French trade, as will be shown below. In fact no companies flourished in the Mediterranean except the English 1 . For the French, the centre of Levant trade in the period under consideration was Marseilles, a privileged port since the days of Colbert (1669). The Chamber de of Commerce (established in 1650) was charged with commercial control and had to pay a share of the Istanbul ambassador's salary till 1691 2 . This body regulated shipping and the number of merchants residing in the Levant, limiting these to prevent a too expensive competition from arising there. After 1685 no one could actually fit out ships without the permission of this body. Ambassadors and consuls corresponded directly with the Marseilles Institution 3 . In the same year a "Company of Commerce of the Mediterranean" was founded following the Dutch and English examples to succeed the Compagnie du Levant, which had been established by Paris and Marseilles merchants in 1669 and again in 1670 to trade with Egypt and Syria. Neither survived for long the jealous competition of the city of Marseilles 4 .

F.C. Lane, Venice, Baltimore 1973, pp. 3 0 3 , 4 1 8 . R. Mantran, Istanbul dans la seconde moitié du XVII Siècle, Paris 1962, p. 522+ n. 2, De Groot, The Ottoman Empire, pp. 94f, 231-60 (text of Ottoman capitulations of 1612). 2 Mantran, Istanbul, p. 557f. Mantran, Istanbul, pp. 5 6 1 , 5 6 8 . G. Rambert (ed), Histoire, du commerce de Marseille, 7 vols., Paris 1649-1956, IV, pp. 301-330. 4 I n general cf. Histoire du commerce de Marseille, III-V (1480-1789).

88

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

After the Capitulations of 1673, the French acquired a privileged status comparable to that of the English and Dutch. Thus the usual customs duty of 5 percent was lowered to 3 percent. In the eighteenth century control of commerce was removed from Marseilles and centralized in Paris. In Hapsburg Austria, a Levant Company was founded in 1665 when commercial privileges, including the Hanze, were given by the treaty of Vasvar/Eisenburg of 1664. The Company lasted till 1675 at least, trading via the Danube. After the wars, the Carlowitz peace of 1699 gave the Austrians a new opportunity for commerce to the Levant and Balkans. The different methods of organization used by the various European powers at home did not result in a parallel difference in treatment by the Ottoman government. The conditions of treatment of non-Muslim foreigners and groups were uniformly regulated by Islamic Law. All such visitors or long-time residents received the status of those, who have asked for safeconduct and truce in order to ensure safety of person and goods inside the lands of Islam for some time, which was granted by means of a charter of "capitulation."

II. The Ottoman Empire In the Ottoman dominions Westerners came principally for trade. To facilitate their entry and to gain more privileges, they sometimes exploited the fact that they had an enemy in common with the Porte. The English made references to their common hatred of idolatry as practiced by the Roman Catholics, especially the Spaniards. One of their motives was to create a diversion of the Spanish menace in the Mediterranean. The first Dutch ambassador, Haga, likewise used the rebellion against the King of Spain as a further argument to acquire Ottoman favours in commerce. Both powers entered the Mediterranean as traders as well as privateers 1 . It was the Porte, on the contrary, which tried to gain important political or at least military advantages from its relations with France, England and the Dutch Republic. With France, military cooperation had in fact preceded the regulation of commercial relations. In 1569 the Porte granted the French their first capitulations after their combined fleet had taken Nice in 1543, having cooperated militarily since 1536 and doing so again 1552-1555. After Spain and France made peace (1559), the Porte hoped to find another ally

'Lane, Venice, p. 368ff. A. Tenenti, Pricay and the Decline of Venice 1580-1615, BerkeleyLos Angeles 1967, pp. 68,80,86,98.

W E S T E R N E U R O P E A N T R A D E IN THE L E V A N T

89

in the English, who were then entering the straits and fighting and the Spaniards as well. The Dutch followed in the wake of the English and were likewise considered by the Porte to be potential source of naval support against Spain in the Mediterranean. These political views were behind the Ottoman grant of capitulations to the English (1580-1583) and the Dutch (1612). This extension of capitulatory privilege to the new maritime powers of Europe was meant principally to draw trade to the Levant; i.e., it was hoped that the big sailing ships of the Westerners would continue the lucrative transit trade to Egypt and Syria and the import of gold and silver into Istanbul. The Ottomans were aware of the menace, caused by the direct East India trade of the English and Dutch, to the old routes from Asia to Europe crossing their territory. A century before Selim I and Suleiman the Magnificent devised and offensive strategy in the beginning with defeating a Portuguese fleet in the battle of Jedda (1517); in addition, vilayets on those shores were founded: Habesh, Mokha, Yemen, Aden and Lahsa 1 . In the early seventeenth century, however, the Porte could no longer equip big ships east of Suez anymore to oppose the expansionism of the English and the Dutch. The policy became one of attracting the latter to the Levant in order to share the interests of the old trade routes there, instead of draining them of traffic and to obviate the feared decrease of trade. In this the Porte was successful. Its organization of commerce was prepared for the reception of new foreign partners, as it had been for the earlier Venetians and French. Evidence for this Ottoman economic policy may be found first of all in the grants of privilege to the Western merchant nations. The texts of these are available mainly in contemporary translations, which are not entirely reliable. Next to these are the various Sultans' decrees on trade matters recorded in the series of volumes of Muhimme Defterleri (registers) in the Istanbul State Archives, only small parts of which are available in scholarly edition or translation. Professor Omer Liitfi Barkan and his group of researchers in Istanbul did pioneer work in this field, endeavouring to answer questions raised by Braudel. Professor Robert Mantran of Aix-en-Provence published a number of relevant texts based on Barkan's work 2 . The state was still strong enough to control the movements of the Northerners and to give them no more privilege than it intended to. Foreigners could not settle in places where the Porte did not want them to do so. Thus

' R.B. Serjeant, The Portuguese off the South Arabian Coast, Oxford 1963, Beirut 19742. ^Bibliography and data in Mantran, Istanbul, esp. pp. 423-92,511-624.

90

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

the Dutch were kept out of Yemen 1 . Only much later in the century did the capitulations become the instruments of foreign commercial and financial domination of the Ottoman Empire. The land routes and their trade were still out of reach of the Westerners during the period that we are dealing with here. The English and Dutch concentrated their trade at first in the old emporia of the Levant: Aleppo, Cyprus, Cairo and other ports of Syria. Halfway through the seventeenth century, their trading was to get a new centre at Izmir, the outlet of Anatolian produce and the new terminal of the caravan routes from Persia. In these places the "scales" (échelles, schalen, factories) of the Levant merchants and their "factors" established themselves in national communities headed by their consuls, protectors of the nation and guarantors towards the Ottoman authorities 2 . The Westerners were foreigners whose personal status could not be regulated by local law, be it Orthodox Christian/Byzantine or Islamic Ottoman. Consequently their residence had to be given legal extraterritoriality implying a large degree of autonomy under the protection of the Islamic government. The Sublime Porte continued this Levant tradition and developed it into a system for foreign relations with Christian powers and their subjects inside its dominions. In this way, the earliest individual English merchants coming to the Levant, e.g., Anthony Jenkinson (1553 in Aleppo) and the Dutchmen in the same city in 1598, were given permission to do business and to settle, albeit formally under the protection and responsibility of the French consul, although no capitulation had yet been granted to their country as a whole 3 . These instruments (Turkish "ahdname" or "imtiyazâf', i.e. privileges), either granted to individuals (in that case more properly called berat or ferman) or to foreign governments, contained a list of the rights, privileges, exemptions from taxation and customs duties and conditions of residence granted. Technically it brought with it, according to Islamic Law, the temporary status of a non-Muslim subject, who had submitted to the ruler of Islam upon certain conditions. It was an internal, "national" regulation or ordinance instead of an international agreement or treaty. Its temporary character, following the strict interpretations of Islamic Law, gave rise to repeated friction between the foreign communities and the local Ottoman authorities when the latter, for some reason, chose to disregard the established practice of long time sojourns for the receivers of the Islamic safe-conduct (Arabo-Turkish: aman). This legal conflict was never properly understood in those days. 1 De Groot, Ottoman Empire, p. 150ff, quoting Terpstra, Westerkwartieren and Coolhaas (ed.), Pieter v.d. Broecke in Azië, 2 vols. 2 O n consular organizations cf. Steensgaard, art. in Scandinavian Economic History Review, XV (1967), pp. 13-55. 3 D e Groot, Ottoman Empire, p. 87ff.

W E S T E R N E U R O P E A N T R A D E IN THE L E V A N T

91

The condition of life in the Levant ports varied a good deal. In Istanbul, all foreign merchants lived near each other in individual houses in two quarters of the city, Galata and Pera (now Beyoglu) 1 . In Izmir, they lived along one street, the Rue des Francs, parallel to the seashore. In this town and the countryside around it, a rich, colonial-like lifestyle developed during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and whole dynasties of merchants came into being after their founders permanently settled in the Levant and intermarried with other merchant families across national boundaries 2 . In other places, like Aleppo, Cairo or Tripoli life was more cramped, more "oriental" so to speak. Here the "nation" had to reside together in one caravanserai (A]r./Tur. funduk) where all capitulatory foreigners lived together in such a bujlding reserved for them. Since the early sixteenth century, greater or lesser colonies of Frenchmen, Englishmen, Dutchmen and other European nationalities all following the Venetian examples, lived in the Near East. Some families stayed for many generations. In spite of an often long-term of residence in the midst of a strange civilization, this confrontation led to only very superficial contacts with local society. The attitude towards the Muslim Ottomans was one of great reserve if not worse, and social contact was kept limited by both sides. A kind of "apartheid" tendency prevailed, which was so strong that neither group developed deep interests in the other, let alone a planned policy to do so. A strongly conservative tradition of isolation prevailed. The non-Muslim subjects of the Sultan, among them the Greeks, Jews, Armenians and Roman Catholics mainly, became the go-betweens. These "nations" acted as middlemen, brokers, interpreters, servants and consorts to various degrees of legality, often acquiring the position of a national protégé, a foreign subject for all practical purposes. The role of these brokers (Turkish: simsâr, hence French censal, Dutch sensal) was made compulsory by the Ottoman authorities to avoid legal complications, which would arise from direct transactions between Muslims and non-Muslim foreigners whose status was ill-defined by Islamic Law. In all the scales of the Levant, every trading house employed its own accredited brokers, who, like the Jewish families in Istanbul, sometimes were members of the same family in hereditary succession. Their local origins made them conversant with the usages of trade in the Levant and they were fluent in the various languages spoken. Foreign merchants generally lacked such expert local knowledge. By using these middlemen, the foreigners remained more or less isolated from the Muslim population. This situation has been compared to that of the Dutch in . De Groot, Ottoman Empire, pp. 218-25; Mantran, Istanbul, pp. 510-84. "Some Dutch examples of such families: De Hochepied, Van Lennep, Keun.

92

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

Deshima/Nagasaki 1 . In the eighteenth century the Dutch communities were more or less flooded with a similar type of new Dutch "nationals" issuing from among the Levantine middlemen, who, profiting from their double experience of the worlds of their origin and of their choice, could easily compete with and surpass the business methods of their former masters and protectors. The relatively small number of Europeans active in the Ottoman Empire before 1800, together with the relatively limited aims of the trade, did not promote the creation of plans to change the Ottoman economy. What change occurred happened as a side effect. It was only at the end of the eighteenth century that travellers like Volney came to analyze the wrongs and failures of the Orient, which needed to be changed. His travel book inspired both Talleyrand and Bonaparte to an expansionist policy overseas 2 . Planned change was put into effect only in the nineteenth century, in the political and social structure as well as in the existing pattern of trade within the Ottoman Empire 3 .

III. Conclusion The traditional "open door" policy of Islamic powers in the Levant regarding foreign (European) merchants was continued by the Ottoman Sultans Selim I and his successor, Suleiman I (1520-1566), when they established their authority in the Levant and North Africa and over the transit routes from Asia. The existing privileges of the resident communities of European merchants were confirmed and extended as well to newcomers, the English and the Dutch. In contrast to what happened in South and East Asia, the presence of these Westerners did not bring about a reaction, a change in the economy and policies of their hosts. The framework for the reception of foreign elements was already there, formally organized within the institutions of the bureaucratic state. As a consequence, the Levant merchants did not need a

*Histoire du commerce de Marseille, vol. V, in R. Paris (ed.), Le Levant, pp. 79, 254-60, Mantran, Istanbul, pp. 61-2,604-24; P. Masson, Histoire du commerce français dans le Levant au XVIIe siècle, Paris, 18961, pp. 490-2;, J.G. Nanninga (ed.), Bronnen Levantsche Handel, III, 's-Gravenhage 1952, pp. 304-6. 2 H.A.R. Gibb and H. Bowen, Islamic Society and the West, vol, I, 2 pts., London 19501-571, 19634-53, François C. Volney (1757-1820), Voyage en Egypte, et en Syrie pendant les années 1783,1784 et 1785, 2 vols., Paris 1787,1792 and a new edition with notes by J. Gaulmier, Paris 1966. Volney's travel book met with great acclaim; it was read by Talleyrand and Bonaparte before their project of an expedition to Egypt. Cf. G. Lacour-Gayet, Talleyrand (1754-1838), vol. I, Paris 1947, pp. 302-5, 391f; also cf. J. Gaulmier, L'idéologue Volney 1757-1820, Beyrouth 1951 (repr. Geneva 1980); Un grand témoin de la Révolution et de l'Empire: Volney, Paris 1959. Volney was made afterwards a senator and count of the French Empire (1808) and air de France in 1814. B. Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, London 1961,1968.

W E S T E R N E U R O P E A N T R A D E IN THE L E V A N T

93

company or strong organization of trade to protect themselves overseas. Those companies that came into being were limited to purposes of capital formation, of preventing intranational competition and of insurance. The Ottoman government was able to maintain its control over the presence of foreign trading communities within its borders until the end of the eighteenth century. Only then did European expansionism in the Near East make its overpowering impact felt, which led to fundamental reforms of the state — in part imposed by the Western governments, in part devised as measures of self-defence — and to changes in economic conditions as a reaction.

6 THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE CAPITULATORY REGIME IN THE OTTOMAN MIDDLE EAST FROM THE FIFTEENTH TO THE NINETEENTH CENTURIES

The study of the capitulations has up till now suffered from either and exclusively western approach or an excessively theoretical legalistic approach based upon the classical insights in Islamic Law (the Sharia). Both timehallowed lines of research are marred by a certain neglect of the historical context of the development of the capitulations in the Mediterranean world since the later Middle Ages. Disregard of the actual historical development brought about a concomitant disregard of Islamic legal practice as opposed to legal theory. Contemporary observers of Ottoman institutions, like the English ambassador Sir James Porter (in Istanbul from 1746 to 1762), already saw clearly what later historians have largely ignored, that it was the overriding importance of legal custom together with the written law of Islam of the jurists, i.e. kanun-i kadim or adat and usul, that determined Ottoman policy. It is my contention that a careful examination of the legal exercise of custom, both local and that of central government (adat or urf, Ottoman orfj, more often referred to as kanun, "sultanic law", will go a long way towards resolving longstanding problems of definition and interpretation of the true nature of the capitulations which have been vexing modern historical research on the international relations of the Ottoman Empire with the European powers since the Middle Ages. The local legal practice of the Ottoman authorities in every period and place like that of their immediate predecessors in the Levant, the Seljuks and their successor states in Asia Minor as well as the Mamluks, successors of the Fatimid rule in Egypt and Syria, should be studied with due respect to its development in time. Since local legal custom played such an important role, superseding in practice the written law of the Sharia, it will be understood easily why Ottoman chanceries always maintained a strong sense of tradition and a deep respect of precedent (kanun-i kadim), hence their great care for keeping their records in order. This was essential as it enabled chancery officials and other members of the government to consult the files when

96

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

needed in order to find the relevant past cases, something already noted by western diplomats in the early modern age, who commented on the instant recourse Ottoman officials had to their files upon which they based their decision making in matters of foreign relations which as a rule followed the earlier behaviour of the Porte in comparable situations. The usual theoretical notion of Islamic scholars that the world was divided in two, the Dar al-Islam (Abode of Islam) and Dar al-Harb (Abode of War), and that the border in between was in a state of perpetual motion in favour of the Islamic section with, in consequence, no lasting peace, legally speaking, permissible between the Islamic empire and its non-Muslim enemies (harbis), is not useful for our understanding of the historical development of Ottoman foreign relations. In fact, the Ottomans adhered to the existing legal and political practice of their predecessors in their systematic maintaining of lasting peaceful relations with non-Muslim powers. The Ottoman authorities had to conceal the conflict between the letter of Islamic legal theory and the practice of the rule of the "law of Islam", to borrow the phrase of one of the last of the dragomans of the Dutch legation at Istanbul, the Orientalist, lawyer and historian J.H. Kramers 1 . I venture the opinion that to conceal the inherent conflict between Sharia, kanun, law and custom, theory and practice, the Ottoman statesmen, like their predecessors, took refuge in the art of legal terminology applying a varying number of more or less synonymous words and phrases seemingly to reduce the reality of lasting peaceful foreign relations with the "unbelievers" of the Dar al-Harb to the legally acceptable fiction of these being no more than domestic arrangements fitting within the legal principle of aman , safe-conduct to be given to non-Muslim visitors to the Dar al-Islam, or of hudna, truce with the enemies of Islam, or even of dhimma, legal protection given to nonMuslim subjects. Foreign commercial and political relations, which were in fact conducted on a basis of reciprocity and bilateralism, could thus, by subtle juristic formulation, be reduced to administrative ordinances of the home government, in one word to fermans, sultanic commands. Hence the rich variation in the terminology applied, the use of synonyms and variations of the words for submission (e.g. ubudiyyet), friendship (such as dostluk, ihlas), peace or truce (sulh, salah, salam, musalaha, miitareke). All the finesse the Hanafite lawyers could muster was applied in order to define realities in such a way as to avoid the vexing distinction between foreign and domestic affairs. 1 J.H. Kramers, Droit de l'Islam et droit Islamique (Analecta Orientalia II), Leiden, 1956, pp. 63-79.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CAPITULATORY REGIME

97

All non-Muslim foreigners (harbi) were to be seen as obedient subjects (zimmT) of the Dâr al-Islam on whom the benevolent ruler bestowed various privileges in order to promote the welfare of the Islamic community (maslaha). The sultan acting as head of the people of Islam would even confirm his policy towards non-Muslims with his promise (ahd) to maintain these privileges upon the condition of reciprocal loyalty. This wilful confusion in legal and diplomatic terminology concealing the daring novelty of interpretation of Islamic law of such a system of ordered foreign commercial and political relations by the always pragmaticallyinclined Ottoman men of state was compounded by the western parties' way of understanding things. International commercial and diplomatic relations between the Christian states of the late medieval Mediterranean world were likewise regulated by negotiated agreements, treaties establishing what were, for all practical purposes, bilateral and reciprocal privileges, entirely comparable to the Islamic practice of the period. Such international relationships were the products of Renaissance diplomacy, which implied a system similar to the establishment of foreign "colonies" living in a communal house, the fondaco. This institution in fact derived its very name from the Levantine Arabic funduk. Such an establishment in a foreign port city usually included a "national" church, a communal court of justice and internal autonomy and self-government by the nation's head, the podestà or bailo, whose functions were those of a consul. The Byzantine emperor had in 1391 granted the Ottoman Turks such an establishment in Constantinople consisting of a mosque and Islamic court with a kadi and which had autonomy over its internal affairs 1 . The treaties concluded with the Renaissance states in the northern Mediterranean, e.g. with the republics of Venice, Genoa, Pisa and Ancona, Catalonia or France, Castile and Aragon, were usually referred to as "capitulations." The western style of diplomacy applied one term to such arrangements while the Islamic governments piled one synonym upon another, aiming at a maximum of obfuscation of the legal truth in their definition of foreign affairs. Basically the western and the eastern systems of international relations were very much alike in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, that is the period of the late Mamluks, the Seljuks and the early Ottomans 2 . The divergence in principle and form was to develop during the 16th and 17th centuries at the time of the development of the modern law of nations in Europe and the legalistic hardening of the Ottoman practice of foreign affairs. 1

F A. Belin, Des capitulations et traités de la France en orient, Paris 1870, p. 49; J. de Hammer, Histoire de l'Empire Ottoman, Paris 1835-1843,1, p.343-344. (Henceforth referred to as HEO). ^Belin, Des capitulations, p. 7-17

98

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

The precursors of the Ottoman capitulations The foreign policy of the Fatimid and Mamluk governments in Egypt offers the earliest documentary evidence for the system of commercial and political privileges granted to non-Muslim foreigners as part of a foreign policy of attracting international trade from across the Mediterranean. The Fatimid caliph Al-Zafir (1149-1154/544-549) accorded the Pisans a set of privileges in 1149, followed by a treaty of peace in 1154, duly signed by both plenipotentiary delegates of Pisa and the vizier of the Fatimid ruler in the form of an ahdname (Letter of Promise in Arabo-Persiano-Turkish), this being the technical term for capitulations. The similarities with later Ottoman diplomatic usage in these texts are striking 1 . The famous sultan Saladin, ruling Egypt as successor of the Fatimids (1169-1193), followed their example with the grant of privileges to Pisa in 1173. He allowed them to establish a privileged community in Alexandria "according to Islamic law and customs" as stated in the document. Obedience to the Sultan's government was explicitly mentioned as a condition. The foreign residents were thus given a subject status as if they were zimmh, non-Muslim subjects in the Dor alIslam. However the Pisan community was granted its own funduk, bath and church. The same law was to be applicable to both the Pisans and the Muslims 2 . This capitulation was renewed by Saladin's successor al-Malik al'Adil in 1208 and in 12153. The Venetians were given their own capitulations by this same ruler following negotiations in 1238/636 and a consulate was established in Alexandria. This capitulation is the most extensive set of privileges given to Venetian traders in Egypt. It was renewed in 13034. The French also established a consulate in Egypt, probably as early as the period, in which St. Louis was being kept prisoner of war by Egypt's ruler, Al-Sultan al-Mu'azzam Shams-al-Din Turan Shah (1174-1181). This sultan would have concluded a "truce" for ten years. Documentary evidence is not however extant5. Mamluk Egypt's commercial and political relations with European states in the years 1365-1396 offer us a complete picture of a capitulatory regime including a number of foreign communities established in separate fondaci (funduks) next to each other in a particular quarter of the capital, Cairo. There were those of France, Venice, Genoa, Castille and Aragon, the

' Belin, Des capitulations, p. 27 Ibidem, p. 30 3 Ibidem, p. 54 ^Ibidem, p. 37 5 Ibidem, p. 38-39. 2

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CAPITULATORY REGIME

99

Kingdom of Cyprus, Naples, Ancona, Marseilles, Crete (Candia) and Narbonne 1 . The archives of Genoa contain documentary evidence of this republic's capitulatory relationship with the Byzantine Empire and the continued existence of its old-established communities in the Levant under Ottoman rule organized according to comparable conditions. It appears that the Seljukid rulers and their successors in Asia Minor, the Turkish beys' principalities (of which the Ottomans were one) dealt with the Genoese, Venetian and other Latin trading partners in the same way as the Mamluks did. The evidence for the Levant (Asia Minor in this case) points also to the expressly bilateral and reciprocal character of the early capitulatory documents issued, as a rule, as a result of negotiations between the two parties, the Muslims and the Christians who considered each other as equals2.

The Ottoman period The element of equality in bilateral international relations, which gives the early period of the development of the capitulations its attractively modern look disappeared from the capitulations issued by the Ottomans in later years. Once established in Istanbul the Ottoman chancery gradually began to give preference to the unilateral style of granting privilege instead of that of a bilaterally negotiated treaty. We must of course differentiate between capitulations in the proper sense of a charter of commercial privileges and fiscal exemptions and peace treaties ending a state of war, which are by its very nature bilateral. Strange as it may seem, this fundamental difference is often neglected in our sources and the relevant older literature on the subject of contemporaries and modern writers 3 . The formulation of peace treaties by the Ottoman chancery had to pay due respect to the principles of Islamic law. Peace had to be formulated as merely being a truce of limited duration with the

1 Ibidem, p. 48-49. John Wansborough, "A Mamluk commercial treaty concluded with the Republic of Florence 894/1489)", in: S.M. Stern (ed.), Documents from Islamic Chanceries. First Series, Oxford 1965 p. 39-79. -'Dariusz Kolodziejczyk in his magnum opus, Ottoman-Polish Diplomatic Relations (15th-18th Century). An Annotated Edition of 'Ahdnames and Other Documents, Leiden, 2000, p. 3-7 and 50, following Hans Theunisssen, "Ottoman-Venetian Diplomatics: The 'Ahdnames", ( = t o e m e t publication EJOS I) [Utrecht] (1998), no. 2, 1-698, fell victim to the flexible use of the term ahdname applied by the Ottoman chancery to peace treaties, truce and commercial privileges alike. The historical context and circumstance of every document have to be taken into consideration each time.

100

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

non-Muslim enemy 1 . The confusion between capitulation (ahdname) and peace treaty (sulhnäme) is easy to understand since Ottoman peace treaties might well contain articles granting unilateral or reciprocal privileges to the subjects of the formerly hostile non-Muslim ruler 2 . In the following I will deal only with what I call "proper" capitulations, in the accepted meaning of charters of fiscal and commercial privilege given by the Ottoman sultans. The Ottoman term is ahdname. The diplomatic form of the documents may vary from a sultanic decree, ferman, to a fiscal ordinance, berat, or general order, ni§an, i.e. an order without formal addressee in its heading but beginning with the so-called ni§an formula, or to the most solemn documents, the sultan's letter {name, name-i hümayün) or ahdname with the titles of the Ottoman ruler (intitulatio) and those of the addressee (inscriptio) in full 3 . The capitulations were meant to regularize, in accordance with the rules of Islamic law, the permanent residence within the borders of the Dar alIslam, i.e. the Ottoman domains, of non-Muslim foreigners, subjects of nonMuslim states in the Dar al-Harb (harbis) in disregard of the classic principle of the permanent state of war between these two parts of the world (cihad, holy war). The capitulations are an outstanding product of the application of the Islamic legal principle of sultanic initiative taking the place of the ancient custom of the land ( a d e t or urf in its classic sense) as a source of jurisprudence (fikh). Ottoman statesmen dealing with foreign relations were always aware of the discrepancy between the classic sense of the law and its pragmatic application by means of sultanic law (kanun), the Ottoman codified form of urf. The vizier Hasan Pa§a, plenipotentiary in the negotiations for a prolongation of the peace with the German emperor for 22 years in 1649, reported, during the exchange of ambassadors, to the grand vizier, Kara Murad Pa§a, the special concession of the Ottoman party to the imperial party of addressing the emperor in Turkish as siz instead of sen, i.e. , the Turkish equivalents of vous and tu, and the sultan's using ben (I instead of we), as well as giving the Hapsburg ruler his title of emperor instead of calling him the King of Hungary, as had been usual until that time. The Ottoman negotiator explained away his diplomatic defeat by referring to it as an exercise in hypocrisy and insincerity, permissible in dealing with a Christian power, and remarking that "this age is in any case an age of dissimulation" (bu asir ' Franz Babinger, "Zwei diplomatische Zwischenspiele im deutsch-osmanischen Staatsverkehr unter Bajezid II. (1497 und 1504)", reprinted in Franz Babinger, Aufsätze und Abhandlungen zur Geschichte Südosteuropas und der Levante I, München, 1962, p. 267. 2 F . Kraelitz, Osmanische Urkunden in türkischer Sprache aus der zweiten Hälfte des 15. Jahrhunderts, Wien, 1921, p. 46-48,51-52. 3 I am following Lajos Fekete's examples in his Einführung in die osmanisch-türkische Diplomatik der türkischen Botmässigkeit in Ungarn, Budapest, 1926.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CAPITULATORY REGIME

101

mudara asridir)1. This application of official hypocrisy or dissimulation {mudara) must be seen not so much as a legal stratagem (hila in Islamic jurisprudence) but as the postponement of the legal duty of djihad and thus a legal tactic for the benefit of peaceful coexistence2.

Two types of capitulations According to their actual contents and historical setting we are able to distinguish at least two varieties of capitulations. Their diplomatic form and style is not different however. I am referring to capitulations granted to Ottoman tributary states and to those granted to fully independent foreign powers in Europe.

The case of Dubrovnik/Ragusa In the chronological order of the historical development first comes the Ottoman relationship with the small merchant republic of Ragusa (present day Dubrovnik) on the Adriatic, which dates from 1430. In that year a ferman type of document was issued under the tugra (sultanic monogram, equivalent to the state seal) of Sultan Murad II (1421-1451). It is the confirmation of guarantees for free traffic and trade in Ottoman lands first acquired by Ragusa in 1396 3 . As a result of a war Ragusa had become involved in with the neighbouring Ottoman tributaries, Bosnia and Konavle, Sultan Murad II demanded that the Ragusan government send an embassy to Istanbul to negotiate an end to the conflict through his mediation, thus placing de facto the small republic under his protection. The Ragusan ambassadors were received in audience, the existing trading privileges were reconfirmed and on 6 December 1430 a capitulation was granted and issued in a Greek, a Serbian and a Turkish version. Ragusa remained independent for the time being, while still however being a tributary to the Crown of Hungary. In 1440 the Ottoman Porte sent its demand for tribute. Negotiations ensued. A Ragusan embassy went to Istanbul. It took two more years of conflict before the republic agreed to a compromise in February 1442. From ^Naima, Ta'rikh, Istanbul, 1281-3/1864-7,3rd ed., V, p. 21-22.; Hammer, Histoire de l'Empire Ottoman, X, p. 227f. 2 H J. Kissling, Rechtsproblematiken in den christlich-muslimischen Beziehungen, vorab im Zeitalter der Türkenkriege, Graz, 1974. 3 B . Bojovic, "Dubrovnik et les Ottomans (1430-1472). 20 actes de Murad II et de Mehmed II en medio-serbe", Turcica, XIX (1987), p. 119-173: in particular p. 122,125.

102

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

that year on the sultan was to receive an annual gift (pi§ke§) in silver of the value of 1,000 ducats. The sultan Murad II then issued a capitulation, confirmed by his solemn oath upon God, his Prophet Muhammad, the seven versions of the Quranic revelation and of all the prophets and upon his father and grandfather. The capitulation contained freedom of trade and traffic for Ragusans (aman , i.e. safe conduct) in Ottoman lands. This document of 1442 is much more detailed in its wording and highly advantageous to Ragusan interests in the Balkans and the Levant. A customs duty of only two per cent ad valorem was imposed as well as a yearly gift of 1,000 ducats. The kadi was made competent in any litigation between Ragusans and Muslims. The Ottoman chancery chose to formulate the text according to the example of the Serbian privileges once granted to Ragusa. In 1458, after a period of troubled relations, a Ragusan embassy was sent to the Sultan to restore good relations. This time the sultan, Mehmed II, the Conqueror, in camp before Skopje, imposed a capitulation confirming commercial privileges as well as a regular tributary relationship with a yearly payment of 1,000 ducats. Internal self-government was granted to Ragusa. A definitive capitulation was given by Mehmed II at Istanbul, November 10th, 1462. This short ahdname in the form of a berat confirmed all privileges 1 . The yearly tribute was set at 1,500 ducats this time. Renewals date from 1510 and 1513. The amount of the tribute rose with the years, in 1468 to 5,000 ducats, in 1471-2 to 9,000, to the stabilized amount of 12,500 ducats in 1481. This amount remained in force during the reign of Sultan Murad III and from then on until the last payment made by the Republic of Ragusa in 1804 2 . From 1430 till 1458 the relations between Ragusa and the Sublime Porte may still be defined as those between two independent states, a bilateral relationship of a minor with a major power. From 1458 onwards the texts of the capitulations and other sultanic ordinances sent to Ragusa point to the establishment of tribute-paying (harac-glizar) relationship, the incorporation into the Ottoman realm of a small city republic which retained internal autonomy and commercial and fiscal as well as legal privileges of the type met in other Ottoman capitulations of this and later periods. The distinction between being a foreign state and an autonomous one remained only indirectly indicated in the texts of these capitulations. Historical fact is more clearly in evidence. Since 1482 Ragusa was completely surrounded by Ottoman territory, the now completely conquered lands of the Herzegovina. Legally, however, Ragusa was never reduced to complete 1

Ibidem, p. 129. N . H . Biegman, The Turco-Ragusan Relationship, The Hague, 1967, p. 29-49; B. Bojovic, "Dubrovnik (Ragusa) et les Ottomans, II. Onze actes de Mehmed II en vieux-serbe 14731476", Turcica, XXIV (1992), p. 153-182; in particular p. 160.

2

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CAPITULATORY REGIME

103

conquest and inclusion into the directly-governed provinces of the Ottoman Empire 1 . The fact that no Ottoman kadi ever held office inside the city of Ragusa is an important indication of the fact that this territory was not considered to be a part of the Dor al-Islam or an immediately governed portion of the Well-Guarded Possessions of the House of Osman. Ragusa was allowed to keep its right to mint. It retained the right to appoint its consuls abroad. The status of its ambassadors, taking the yearly tribute, to the Porte, is less clear. The permanent representative residing in Istanbul was considered to be no more than an agent (kapu kahyasi), the same as those appointed by any provincial governor to guard his interests at the Porte. The Despots or Hospodars of Moldavia and Walachia sent representatives of the same category. Again the texts of the successive capitulations issued from the time of Sultan Murad II to the reign of Murad III (1574-1595) do not offer a clear-cut distinction of the Ragusans as being protected non-Muslim foreigners (mUstemin harbi) or non-Muslim subjects (zimmi). Their yearly payment of tribute (harac) results in their being referred to as "tribute-paying subjects" (harac-guzar reaya). This term is synonymous with zimmi since harac denotes in the Ottoman context the classically Islamic poll tax levied on nonMuslim subjects, the (cizye ) poll tax being levied collectively at a fixed amount (maktu). One must bear in mind that Ragusa as a state was never at war with the sultan though it at times supported the sultan's enemies. Galata and Chios

Although from a later date, the relationship of the Sublime Porte with the Latin community of the former Genoese colony of Galata is of greater importance for our understanding of the development of the capitulatory system. Galata was, in a way, a halfway house between the domestic and foreign relations of the Porte. In the Ottoman records kept in the state archives at Istanbul among the series Maliyeden Miidevver, the capitulations of Galata renewed in 1624 are kept next to those of Ragusa and Venice 2 . This systematization is enlightening for our purpose of comparison, which appears to be justified according to Ottoman standards. As a means of comparison I will apply the central elements of Ottoman privilege; taxation, the levying of cizye and/or harac and the competence of the kadi in matters of communal, consular autonomous jurisdiction. ' Bicgman, The Turco-Ragusan Relationship, p. 32f. Mahmut §akiroglu, "Fatih Sultan Mehmed'in Galatalilara Verdigi Fermanm Tiirk^e Metinleri', in: Ankara Universitesi Dil, Tarih ve Cograjya Fakiiltesi Tarih Aragtirmalan Dergisi [henceforward cited as TAD) XIV (1983), p. 211-224. 2

104

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

The capitulations granted to the "European Community" ( e f r e n c taifesi), i.e. the Frango-Perot community of the city of Galata, by Sultan Mehmed II in 1453/857 are laid down in a Greek document 1 . The privileges are given to the Genoese communal head, the podestà. Renewals are known in 1603, 1613 and again in 1617 granted by Sultan Ahmed I, in 1624 by Sultan Murad IV. From the renewal by Ahmed I in 1617, which is written in Turkish, it becomes clear that the form given to the Ottoman document is that of a financial ordinance, a berat, its text headed by the ni§an formula to be precise. In an old Italian translation this capitulation contains ten articles confirming the existing rights of property, free traffic in Ottoman lands but with trade remaining liable to customs duty, payment only of the harac, exemption from the dev§irme (the young boys' levy), continued maintenance of the existing Roman-Catholic churches (without permission to ring the bells), but with no permission to build new churches. Considering that this capitulation was granted to the "people and the nobility" of Pera as well as to the residing foreign merchants from Genoa, the mixture of submission and privilege contained in it does point to a privileged subjects status of the Perotes instead of treatment as a foreign community. The privileges seem to be a compensation for their voluntary, peaceful submission, as had been the case of Byzantine cities such as Ioannina in 1430 2 . The document of 1453 amounts to the constitution of a Latin millet (autonomous religious community) of privileged subjects who enjoyed their rights together with the resident foreign merchants of Genoese origin living there. As such they, non-Muslim subjects (zimmi), formed with foreign nonMuslims (mtistemin) a joint common group (taife or millet). During the 17th and 18th centuries its legal existence is still unclear. In the course of the 19th century the Latin millet was reconstituted under the name of the "Latin Chancellery" with certain privileges until the end of Ottoman rule. Even more relevant is the case of the island of Chios (Scio). This Genoese commercial colony governed by its Maona company already possessed tribute-paying status from the Turkish beys of Aydm on the Anatolian mainland before the final Ottoman takeover of the latter in 1403. Sultan Mehmed II confirmed this tributary status, setting the amount of payment at 6,000 ducats in 1453. The tribute was raised to 14,000 ducats in the times of Sultan Siileyman I. It was only in the spring of 1566 that the Ottoman admiral-in-chief, the kapudanpa§a Piyale Pa§a, appeared before the island and, without meeting any resistance, incorporated it into the Ottoman ^Hammer, Histoire de I'Empire Ottoman, II, p. 433f., Algemeen Rijksarchief (National Archives The Hague, "Consulaat Smyrna ", henceforth cited as CS), 676. ^Hammer, HEO, II, 523-526.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CAPITULATORY REGIME

105

Empire, making the island a directly administered sancak (sub-province) of the Province of the Islands. A governor, bey, and kadi plus a small garrison were established on Chios. Ottoman Muslim settlement however was not then allowed. The local Genoese (Latin) notables, the demogerontes or vecchiardi, were entrusted with the local administration under a privileged regime. In 1569 during the reign of Sultan Selim II a fetva was issued in favour of the return of the former Genoese ruling "clan" of the Giustiniani family who had had to leave at the conquest. This fetva added a legal base for the capitulations granted by Selim II to the Latin population, which made up a sixth to a quarter of the total population (about 6,000 around 1579) 1 . The Roman-Catholic bishop became the chief of the Latin community (millet), which possessed the status of non-Muslim Ottoman subjects (zimmi) like the Orthodox majority population. The capitulatory status of Chios was a complicated one because of the bestowal of privileges to both Latins and Orthodox (Rum) communities. There was a further division among the Latins into the former members of the Maona, the Giustiniani, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the simple Latin citizens, the borghesi, over whom the Giustiniani felt superior. In 1599, the kapudanpa§a Cighalazade Sinan Pa§a granted a capitulation to the Greek population: no Muslims (Turks) would be allowed outside the walled city of Chios, the Kastro, taxation was to consist of harac (cizye) and the Mastic tree tax, to which was added the tribute of 5,000 ducats; no customs would be levied on imports from Cegme on the nearby Anatolian mainland. The capitulations were renewed in 1578, 1621 and 1695 2 . In that last year the Latins lost their privileged status as a consequence of the Venetian occupation of the island in 1694 and 1695. From this summary of the capitulations of the sancak of Chios' Christian population it may seem that they represent another variation of the privileged status of a non-Muslim Ottoman subject community. Their capitulation gave them permission to build and repair churches; exemption from the dev§irme; exemption from all taxes except the harac, dispensation from the jurisdiction and fees imposed by the Islamic judge of inheritances (kassam) as well as by the state treasury (beyt ill-mal)\ exemption from forced labour (angarye) but not from the jurisdiction of the kadi's court, which functioned alongside the ecclesiastical, communal courts.

iÇerafettin Turan, "Sakizin Ttirk Hakimiyeti Altina Diigmesi", in: TADIV (1966), p. 173-199. ^Jeanne Z. Stephanopoli, Les îles de l'Égée. Leurs privilèges, Athens 1912,51-4,170-1.

106

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

Naxos and the Cyclades The capitulatory regime of the Duchy of the Cyclades, Naxos, offers another example of the complexities of the Ottoman institution. As with Ragusa, Galata and Chios, the original legal base of Naxos' capitulations was a tributary relationship with the Sublime Porte. The duchy of the Venetian Crispo dynasty enjoyed Venetian protection and was consequently included in the capitulations granted to the Serenissima by Sultan Mehmed II in 1454 1 . The Veneto-Ottoman peace of 1540 legally brought an end to this situation. In 1537, the Ottoman kapudanpaça, Hayreddin Pa§a Barbarossa toured the Archipelago and formally incorporated the greater number of the Latin island principalities into the Ottoman dominions. The Duke of Naxos, amongst others such as the Latin lords of Andros and of Paros, submitted to Ottoman suzerainty and received a capitulation, which confirmed his rule as a tributary prince of the Grand Signor. The text of the renewal of the original capitulations, given in 1564/972 in the form of a berat (ni§an) gives a picture of the situation. Giacomo (IV) Crispo, holder of the ferman, sent "a man" to the Porte. The islands of Santorini and Paros, belonging to Naxos, would henceforth pay 52,391 akçe (.asper) a year cizye (i.e. harac, tribute). The tribute for Syros and Milos was set at 109,609 akçe. The total tribute was to be 162,000 annually to be paid into the imperial treasury in due obedience upon the condition of lasting friendship, as had been the case with this duke's father and grandfather2. From 1566 to 1579, the duchy of Naxos was granted by Sultan Selim II to his favourite, the financier Joseph Naci (c. 1520-1579) whose status of duke was equated to that of a sancakbey, provincial governor of a subprovince of the empire. After Naci's death (August 10, 1579) the Porte deliberated on the future status of the duchy. The former duke, Giacomo Crispo, deposed in 1566, applied for his reinstatement. Likewise the former Latin lord of Andros, Cruzino Sommaripa, put forward his candidature with the financial support of rich Greeks of Chios. The grand vizier, Sokollu Mehmed Pa§a favoured Sommaripa. However the grand vizier's assassination in 1579 opened the way for the policies of the kapudanpa§a, Kilic ("Occhiali") Ali Pa§a who did not favour traditional Latin rule in his Province of the Islands. Hence the duchy was transformed into a regular sancak within the kapudanpaga's province. A certain Siileyman Çavu§ gained the tax farm (mukataa, iltizam) of Naxos for an amount greater than that proposed by ' f . A . Belin, "Relations diplomatiques de la république de Vénise avec la Turquie (Fragment)", Journal Asiatique, Vile Série (1876), p. 381-424. J. Slot,Archipetagus Turbatus. Les Cyclades entre colonisation latine et occupation ottomane c. 1500-1718, Leiden, 1982 (2 vols.), p. 78f.

T H E D E V E L O P M E N T OF T H E C A P I T U L A T O R Y R E G I M E

107

Sommaripa. Siileyman £avu§ established himself as the island's sancakbey and emin (commissioner, tax farmer) of the harac. In practice, he continued the administration more or less along the same lines as the former Latin domination. The title of duke remained in use in non-Turkish documents at least until 1617. A kadi, however, was installed on the island as a symbol of direct Ottoman rule. The feudal Court of Assizes continued to function at the same time, presided over by the Ottoman sancakbey in the role of duke 1 . In 1580, a delegation went from Naxos to request from the Porte the grant of a confirmation of the privileges of both the Latin and the Greek communities: a capitulation like the one given to Chios in fact. This capitulation of 1580/988 confirmed the privileged autonomous status of the people of the former duchy in the whole of the Ottoman Empire. The grant of this ahdname was preceded by a series of berats concerning certain privileges and payment of tribute issued since 1539/946 to the various tributary islands of Archipelago2. The capitulation of 1580 was given to the whole of the population of Naxos, the università , i.e. both Latins and Greeks. The cizye of one golden ducat per person was to be levied as well as the ispence tax for the bey. The ancient tribute (harac) remained payable as it used to be. A kadi court was installed to symbolize the sovereignty of the Islamic ruler. The number of Muslims living in these islands remained very small though. Local autonomy was maintained in the field of taxation3. The devgirme was not permitted; free exercise of the Christian religion was allowed. The legal documents dating from before Ottoman rule were declared to remain valid. Conflicts among the inhabitants might be settled outside the kadi's court. Appeals and petitions were allowed to be handed in the Imperial Divan in Istanbul. These capitulations were thus not granted to the "duke" as the tributary ruler of old, but to the community of Naxos. It was the community, which remained responsible for payment of all taxes. In fact, all privileges granted up to 1579 were confirmed at this time. The former duchy of Naxos became in essence a tax farm of the kapudanpa§a. Ottoman administration could in this way thus remain marginal. Ottoman authority in the six islands consisted of the agents (kethiida or kahya), all men of local origin, of the three naval beys (Bey Flambouriaris) commanders of galleys belonging to the squadron of the sancakbey who in turn was subordinate to the kapudanpa§a, governorgeneral (beylerbey) of the province of the Archipelago.

1

Ibidem, p. 99. I.H. Uzunçargih, Osmanli Tarihi, III/2, Ankara, 1954, p. 102. ''slot, Archipelagus Turbatus, p. 107.

2

108

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

In 1614, upon the request of the Naxiotes, Halil Pa§a, being kapudanpa§a for the second time (1613-1616), a confirmation was given of the capitulations in the form of a ferman to the kadi1. Any further oppression on the part of the bey had to stop. Payment of all taxes was to be made yearly directly into the Treasury. These were the harac, 6§iir, salt tax, customs, the levy on wine, as well as those on food and silk. An extract or summary (,icmal) of the tax register (tahrir defteri) of Naxos was to be delivered. Extra levies for the benefit of the incoming kapudanpa§a and sancakbeys (i.e. the non-resident Ottoman governors who visited annually) were established this time. This ferman was confirmed many times, in 1615 only for Naxos. In 1646, a complete renewal of the capitulations was granted by Sultan Ibrahim 2 . This ahdname of the Cyclades referred to the prior capitulations of 1537 as well as to the ones given to Chios in 1566, and 1578. The request of the Naxiotes by the deputies of Naxos, Andros, Milos, Paros, Santorini and Siphnos is mentioned. The succession of the Greek beys, the Jewish bey (Naci), the Bey Flambouriaris and the kadi are also referred to in brief 3 . The administrative system is expressly compared to that of Chios. The continued payment of tribute to the exclusion of any other is mentioned: no speza, no avariz, no maanika§ nor other tekalif (extraordinary levies), no mirt for the dead. Freedom of the Christian worship is granted. The vineyards remain subjects to the o§ur (tithe) as of old. All landed property is safeguarded. Claims of neither the kassam nor the tax farmers are admitted. The Christian community is to enjoy local legal autonomy. The kadi's registers (sicillat) and documents (hticcets) are made available to the local population. Neither the customs (gumrtik) nor the treasury officials have any claims. Neither forced conversion to Islam nor interreligious marriage is allowed. The muhzir aga (summoner, Janissary officer charged with police duties) may carry out arrests only with the approval of the local (Christian) notables. Dragomans are appointed as well as night watchmen who are to be appointed on the choice of the notables. Neither Janissaries nor yasakgis (guards) are to be admitted as judicial officers. "Thus it was ordained as it had been by my father, grandfather and brother" (viz. the sultans Mehmed III, Ahmed I and Murad IV). The capitulatory regime of the Cyclades, the former Latin duchy of Naxos, as such protected by the Republic of Venice, may be usefully compared to the development of the relationship of the Serenissima with the Sublime Porte. ' A.H. de Groot, "Khalil Pasha Kaysariyyeli" EI2, IV, p. 970-972. A R A , Legatiearchief Turkije (1813-1830) (archives of the Dutch legation in Istanbul; henceforth cited as LAT), 128 (in Greek); cf. Also Stephanopoli, Les ties de I'Egeee, p. 170173. 3 Ibidem,p. 151-154; 170-173.

2

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CAPITULATORY REGIME

109

Venice The capitulations of Venice have many elements in common with those of Galata, Chios and Naxos. The relations of Venice with the Porte were always ambivalent. On the one hand Venice was an imperial western power finding itself lying in the way of Ottoman expansion and consequently hostile to the Turks. On the other hand its territorial possessions in the Archipelago, Crete, Cyprus and on the mainland of the Balkan Peninsula (Rumelia), Albania and Dalmatia brought with it a sort of tributary relationship to Ottoman overlordship in the case of Albania, Cyprus and islands in the Achipelago. The legal situation of the Venetian-protected Duchy of Naxos was even more complicated. Venice fought many wars against the Ottomans. Those wars were ended by peace treaties negotiated by both parties. The oldest generation of capitulatory states may all be considered as tributary territories lying within the Ottoman Empire, i.e., subject to the Dar al-Islam 1 . This applies to the Italian commercial city republics with their colonies, factories, and commercial establishments, in the Black Sea region, the Aegean, Anatolia, Syria and Egypt in the border areas of the expanding Ottoman Empire. "E cosa infelicissima il confinar con Turchi" once said the experienced Venetian diplomat Lorenzo Bernardo (bailo in Istanbul 1585-1587 and extraordinary ambassador there in 1591-1592). From this point of view Genoa, with its colonies of Galata and Chios amongst others, paved the way for the Venetian relationship with the sultan. Venice possessed a number of coastal territories, cities, fortresses and islands, which one by one fell into Ottoman hands. Venice administrated territories, which of old could be considered to be tributary to Islamic rulers such as the Seljuk sultans, the Mamluk sultans of Egypt and Syria or various Anatolian beys, all predecessors of the Ottomans. The kingdom of Cyprus is the prime example of such a former tributary relationship, which dates back to 1426 during Mamluk rule in Egypt. Albanian territories fell into the same category in the eyes of the Ottomans. A justification for conquest could be constructed upon such a legal base. Payment of tribute deemed to have fallen into arrears would be seen as disobedience of a subject territory. This was the case with Cyprus in 1570. This formerly independent kingdom had become an integral part of the Venetian empire since the abdication in favour of the Republic of Venice of its last queen, Caterina Cornaro, in 1489. Interestingly enough, the leading Islamic lawyer and jurisconsult of the Ottoman government, the §eyhtilislam Ebussuud Efendi rejected this way of reasoning and reached his positive legal ' Franz Babinger (ed.), Die Aufzeichnungen des Genuesen Iacapo de Promontorio-de über den Osmanenstaat um 1475, München, 1957, p. 66.

Campit

110

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

advice (fetva) on the bias of the argument that conquest of the island would be in the interest of the Islamic community, following the example of the Prophet Muhammad in his dealings with the Meccans 1 . The first peace treaty concluded between Venice and the Ottomans is probably the document issued by Prince Siileyman ruling in the Rumelian provinces 1403-1410, one of the pretenders competing for the succession of his father, Sultan Beyazid I. It dates from 1408 or 1409. The Ottoman prince guaranteed not to invade or conquer Venetian territories in return for an annual tribute of 1600 ducats for the Republic's Albanian territories 2 . The sultan Mehmed I renewed this agreement on his accession to the whole of his empire in 1413. His successor, Sultan Murad II, did not at first grant a renewal of the peace with Venice. Only after the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 was Venice able to negotiate a peace (including the Duchy of Naxos) in 1454. The amount of the yearly tribute remained the same 3 . In 1463 conflict broke out again in the Morea and at sea. On 25 January 1479 a treaty of peace was reached with Sultan Mehmed II. The treaty confirmed the loss of Negroponte and of territories in Albania; the tribute was raised to 10,000 ducats; a payment of damages of 100,000 ducats had to be made within two years; a bilateral commission was set up to demarcate the new frontiers; exemption from customs duties was granted as well as the confirmation of the right of residence of a bailo (ambassador) in Galata-Istanbul. This bailo was given internal jurisdiction over the Venetian community in the Ottoman Empire. The Republic of Venice was granted the right of protection of all those foreigners coming into Ottoman lands under the flag of Saint Mark. This last privilege became a significant element in all subsequent capitulations to Venice as well, mutatis mutandis, as to the other western capitulatory powers of later date. In the year of his accession Sultan Beyazid II granted a capitulation to Venice in 1482/886. Its text exists in Greek and in Turkish. The Turkish copy appears to be the oldest surviving document of its kind of the series of Veneto-Ottoman treaties 4 . This capitulation, in the proper sense, not being a peace treaty, is part of Beyazid's opening up of diplomatic

1 Colin Imber, Ebu's-su'ud. The Islamic Legal Tradition, Edinburgh, 1997, p. 84-85; V.L. Ménage, "The English Capitulation of 1580. A review article", International Journal of Middle East Studies, XII (1980), p. 373-383. ^Hammer, Histoire de l'Empire Ottoman, II, p. 141, 256, 271; also Belin, "Relations diplomatiques", p. 384. 3 Hammer, Histoire de l'Empire Ottoman III, p. 17; Fr. Miklosich and J. Müller, Acta et Diplomata Graeca Medii Aevi Sacra et Profana, 4 vols., Vienna, 1860-1890, III, Vienna, 1865, p. 295-298 for the Greek text. 4 M.T. Gökbilgin, "Venedik Devlet Argivindeki Türkfe Belgeler Kolleksiyonu ve Bizimle Ilgili Diger Belgeler", T.T.K. Belgeler V-VIII (1968-1971) nos. 9-12, p. 39-42; A. Gallotta, "II trattato turco-veneto del 12 gennaio 1482", in: Studia Turcologica Memoriae Alexii Bombaci Dicata, Naples, 1982, p. 219-235; Theunissen, Ottoman-Venetian Diplomatics, p. 370-376.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CAPITULATORY REGIME

111

relations with western powers: Hungary, the emperor Maximilian I and Italian city republics, especially Milan and Venice. The sultan took the initiative in 1481. In his letters (in Greek) to Venice he offered either an immediate payment of the outstanding debt to Mehmed II of 100,000 ducats, stipulated in the 1479 treaty combined with the acquittal of annual tribute of 10,000, or, vice versa, remission of the debt of 100,000 and confirmation of a yearly tribute payment of 5,000 instead of the old amount of 10,000 ducats. This definitive capitulation was granted on January 12,1482. The contents of this document correspond in part with the 1479 treaty: mutual prohibition of damage and offence, reciprocal obligation of restitution of booty, reciprocal permission of sojourn in each party's territories with exemption from special levies and duties; inclusion of the Duchy of Naxos; reciprocal assistance at sea to merchant ships and men of war alike; punishment of piracy; prohibition of reprisals for debts incurred by each other's subjects; restitution of fugitive non-Muslim slaves or payment of compensation to their owners of 1,000 akge, refraining from appropriating shipwrecked goods; attribution of intestate inheritances of Venetians to the state of Venice in the absence of any heirs; permission for the bailo to live in Istanbul with his "embassy family" and recognition of his jurisdiction over the Venetian community with the right to invoke the assistance of the Ottoman chief of police (suba§i) of Istanbul. This document even mentions freedom of navigation in the Black Sea for which the 10,000 ducats were deemed to be payment. The granting of freedom to the Venetians, prisoners of w ar since the war between Mehmed II and Venice not foreseen in the 1479 treaty, is new. Furthermore the obligation of Ottoman corsairs not to navigate under the direct command of the kapudanpa§a and to deposit a guarantee with the local authorities as well as to refrain from harming Venetian possessions was stated and immediate payment of the indebted 5,000 ducats and acquittal of the yearly tribute of 10,000 was confirmed. Territorial clauses recognized Venetian possession of the coastal fortresses of Politza in Dalmatia and Vatica in the Morea contested by Mehmed II. Demarcation was confirmed as conceded to the Venetian plenipotentiary in 1481 of the borders at Cattaro, Antivari, E>ulcigno, Lepanto, Modon, Coron, Monemvasia and Nauplion. An emin was appointed for a new demarcation near Modon, Nauplion and Dulcigno by a separate sultanic letter. The capitulation is written in the form of a berat bearing the sultan's oath in confirmation. It is dated at Edirne, 20-30 Zi'lkade 886/1482. This capitulation confirms the existing "friendship, love and truce [idostluk-muhabbet-musalaha] above which nothing excels in this world". The legal fiction is thus upheld that this concerns a request for a truce as well as

112

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

the sultan's willingness to enter upon such a proposal of friendship in the interest of the Islamic community 1 . As such the document gives a good idea of the complexities of definition of the capitulations. It is the confirmation of prior peace treaties but itself a unilateral grant of privilege and peaceful relations, not being the conclusion of a period of belligerence. It is exemplary as a capitulation in the proper sense. War broke out in 1499 and lasted till 1502. The peace treaty of 1503 confirmed further loss of Venetian territory in the Morea including its two 'eyes', Modon and Coron. The text of the treaty exists in Greek as well as in Turkish 2 . It is a berat mentioning the Venetian request for peace and the continuation of the capitulatory relationship plus the sultan's agreement upon certain conditions: the island of Aya Mavra (Leukas) was surrendered to Ottoman dominion (to remain so until 1718); tribute for Zante, 500 ducats a year, was to be continued (raised to 1500 in 1573, continuously till 1699). The Duchy of Naxos is not mentioned as a tributary but as remaining under the protection of Venice and enjoying Ottoman friendship. Interestingly the term of the bailo's residence in Istanbul is reduced to one year (the correct legal duration of non-Muslim's safe conduct according to the theory of Islamic law). On the other hand, the sultan conceded that the Adriatic was an area reserved for Venetian shipping and commerce. The date is given in both the Muslim and Christian calendars: 24 Cemazi iil-ahir 980/14 December 1502. Its ratification was returned from Venice by May 15033. A prolongation of the relationship was confirmed by a berat of Sultan Selim I at his accession, dated Edirne, 17 §aban 911/9 October 1513. The policy of Sultan Selim I (1512-1520) appears to be a turning point in the development of the Ottoman-Venetian capitulations and the whole of the future capitulatory system. The Venetians realized that they had to react quickly to the new situation created in the Levant by Selim's conquest of the Mamluk lands of Syria and Egypt. It must be noted that Venice had recently acquired a marsum, grant of privilege, from the last Mamluk rulei 4 .

It must be noted that a reduction of the customs tariff for Venice from five to four per cent is not mentioned in spite of this being referred to in a number of standard histories as well as by W. Heyd, Histoire du commerce du Levant au Moyen âge, II, Leipzig, 1923 (reprint), p. 329331. 2 M . §akiroglu, "1503 Tarihli Tiirk-Venedik Andlagmasi", in: VIII. Türk Tarih Kongresi, III. Cilt'ten Ayribasimi, Ankara, 1983, p. 1559-1569; Marie F. Viallon, Venise et la Porte ottomane (1453-1566). Gökbilgin, "Venedik Devlet Ar§ivindeki Tiirkçe Belgeler", p. 46-50.; Korodziejcik, OttomanPolish Diplomatie Relations, p. 72; Viallon, Venise, p. 191. The official date of the definitive capitulation was 10 August 1503. ^B. Moritz, "Ein Ferman des Sultans Selim I für die Venezianer vm Jahre 1517", in: Weil, G. (ed.), Festschrift Eduard Sachau zum siebzigsten Geburstage, Berlin, 1915, p. 422-443; M. Hartmann, "Das Privileg Selims für die Venezianer von 1517", in: Orientalistische Studien Fritz Hommel zum sechzigsten Geburstag am 31. Juli 1914 gewidmet, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1918, II, p. 201-222.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CAPITULATORY REGIME

113

Sultan Selim I confirmed his father's capitulation for Venice. He extended Venetian privileges to cover any later Venetian conquests as long as these did not border on Ottoman territories. In that case no tribute payment was to be due for them. The contents of this capitulation were more detailed in parts. The elements of reciprocity were maintained. The bailo's stay was again prolonged to three years. Venetian ships had to carry a captain who was held responsible for the good behaviour of ship and crew. The bailo was not to be held responsible for the debts of his nationals in Ottoman lands. Venetians living in Ottoman territories, married or unmarried, doing business or trade, were not to be liable for harac. In legal conflicts with non-Muslim payers of tribute (kaflr) Venetian witness were to be admissible in court in spite of the (false) Holy Tradition that all unbelievers from one nation (millet-i wahide). They were to enjoy the protection of the law of the Prophet wherever they were. Muslims from the Maghreb or other places were to have the right to pass through Venetian territory while travelling for trading purposes to Ottoman dominions. This privilege was confirmed by the sultan under oath. It is dated §aban 15,919/17 October 1513 , Edirne. Selim I's conquest of the Mamluk empire in 1517 had important consequences for the relations between Venice and the Porte. The Republic immediately sent an extraordinary embassy to the Ottoman ruler in Cairo to ask for the confirmation of its old privileges and commercial establishments in Syria and Egypt. Venice declared its willingness to pay henceforward its tribute for Cyprus to the new master of Egypt. Selim accepted this proposal but demanded that the tribute, to the sum of 8.000 ducats, be paid in cash and directly to Istanbul, instead of in kind (camlets) at Cairo. He also demanded the payment of the arrears for the past five years. The capitulation for Egypt was issued in form of a berat to the Venetian consul on 8 September 1517/923 It is interesting to see that Selim I had negotiations not only in Egypt with the Venetian special ambassadors and consul there but also sent his envoy, the sipahioglan Mehmed Bey, to Venice to inform the Doge and Senate of his wish to maintain the capitulations enjoyed so far by the Venetians under Mamluk rule including the tributary relation of Cyprus. Another Ottoman envoy, Ali Bey ibn Abdullah, came to Venice on October 26, 1517 to arrange the payment of the 8,000 ducats at Istanbul. From these events it becomes evident that the notion of the reciprocity of the

' Hcyd, Histoire du commerce, diplomatiques", p. 396.

II, p. 545; Viallon, Venise,

p. 206; Belin, "Relations

114

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

capitulations was still alive with the Ottomans. Negotiations, or at least consultations, took place before such capitulations were granted. This second capitulation of Selim I to Venice is the confirmation of an existing peaceful relationship with a non-Muslim state, still containing the tributary element upholding the principle of submission. The keen interest of Selim I in maintaining the privileged position of Venice in Egypt and Syria as well is evidence of his "open door" policy towards western powers, already shown to Ragusa with his confirmation of its capitulation in 1512 1 . Siileyman I confirmed the Venetian capitulations on 1 December 1521/17 Muharram 928 with a berat (which is referred to in the text as an ahdname) in almost the same wording as his father's document 2 . The story of the lengthy negotiations at the Porte need not detain us here although these indicate the lasting bilateral nature of the capitulation in spite of its unilateral concept as a sultanic financial ordinance (berat) 3 . Its contents show for the first time most elements characteristic of all subsequent capitulations granted to western powers such as France, England and the Netherlands. Acknowledgement is given of the arrival of the ambassador with his request. The continued state of friendship and love is adduced as argument for the confirmation of peace and friendship on the same conditions as in his father's time. All dependencies of Venice are to be included, unless they are on the border with Ottoman possessions or already tributary. The meeting of Venetian and Ottoman ships on the high seas has to be acknowledged by the Venetians in a peaceful and correct manner by lowering sail "in an obedient way". In fact, all points on navigation contained complete reciprocity and this was to remain so. The presence of the dragomans of the Venetian embassy or consulates respectively is put as a condition for the validity of the kadi's proceedings involving Venetian subjects and protected persons. The visitation of Venetian ships will only take place in Istanbul and the Dardanelles. All this is sworn to by the sultan. As was normal, we find executive fermans dating from the periods in between the issues of capitulations ordering the local authorities, kadis, sancakbeys,beylerbeys and fortress commanders to have the capitulatory privileges applied in their districts. Such fermans are extant in the bailo's records kept in the State Archives in Venice 4 .

' See also the 1512 confirmation charter granted to Ragusa: cf. S. Tansel, Yavuz Sultan Selim, Istanbul, 1969, p. 218. Gôkbilgin, "Venedik Devlet Argivindeki Tiirkçe Belgeler", p. 42-46; also Belin, "Relations diplomatiques", p. 391. ^Kolodziejzik, Ottoman-Polish Diplomatic Relations, p. 6 8 - 6 9 , 7 2 , 7 5 . 4 M . §akiroglu, '1521 Tarihli Osmanli-Venedik Andlagmasimn Asil Metnr, Istanbul Ùniversitesi Edebiyat Fakultesi Tarih Enstitusu Dergisi, XII (1981-2), p. 387-404.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CAPITULATORY REGIME

115

War broke out between Venice and the Ottomans in 1537. Peace was made in 1540/947. The treaty was negotiated over three months 1 . The Serenissima lost Malvasia and Nauplion (Napoli di Romania) in the Morea and the islands in the Archipelago including the Duchy of Naxos, already annexed by the kapudanpaga Hayreddin Barbarossa in 1537, as well as some fortress towns on the Dalmatian coast. A war indemnity (another tribute?) of 300,000 ducats was imposed. Venice had intended to negotiate this peace on the base of the capitulations given by Selim I in 1513. French diplomacy both at Istanbul and at Venice defeated this purpose. The heavy payment of damages, 100,000 ducats immediately, 50,000 within the year, the remainder of 150,000 within two years, plus a yearly tribute of 75,000 ducats, was the outcome. The Ottoman phrasing stressed the humbleness of the Venetian request for peace and friendship. The mutual respect for the contents of the treaty cum capitulation (ahd-i serif, muahede-i §erij) was also emphasized, all this confirmed by the sultan's oath. Thus apart from recording the territorial gains and losses of the parties this treaty confirmed the existing capitulatory relationship using literally the same expressions occurring in the older preceding documents. The mutual nature of the capitulation was clearly mentioned as before. Thirty years of peace ensued before the Ottomans began the war for Cyprus in 1570. In 1573 Venice made its separate peace with the Porte. A new treaty and capitulations resulted on March 7, 1573. The conditions were the following; a war indemnity of 300,000 ducats to be paid within three years; the fortress of Sopot (on the coast of Albania) to be surrendered to the sultan with all its artillery; the tribute for Zante to be raised from 500 to 1,500 ducats yearly; the tribute of Cyprus, of course, to be abolished; the old frontiers to be restored in Albania and Dalmatia; confirmation of the capitulations given by the sultan's father, Siileyman I, twice during his reign; mutual compensation of the losses of the merchants on both sides caused by the war; appointment of a successor to the bailo. In 1576/983 the succeeding sultan, Murad III (1574-1595), confirmed the capitulations of Venice, expressly confirming the treaties of 1540 and 1573 in this berat, which retained the elements of mutuality of the previous texts but all this formally still "upon the request handed in at the Sublime Porte" 2 . Again we see how the affairs of war and peace and the capitulations are intertwined. A strong sense of continuity remained prevalent in the Ottoman chancery. The same applied to Murad Ill's successor, Mehmed III (1595-1603), whose berat of 9A' Viallon, Venise,

p. 240-224. It was ratified in 1541.

Mii'aheddt Mecmu'asi, p. 130-141.

5 vols., Istanbul 1294-1298 (second ed.) (henceforth cited as MM), II,

116

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

capitulation of 1595/1004 is however much more briefly formulated. Interestingly, the regular sailing of the two Venetian maonas (meaning Ottoman-type galleasses?) to Egypt and Syria is confirmed for the set periods each year 1 . The customs' tariff is kept according to the old usage (meaning probably five per cent). Fermans in form of temessuk will be issued to notify the bailo and consuls in the Levant. War indemnities are not mentioned anymore, the text expressly stating that there was now no need since all such indemnities had been paid. Sultan Ahmed I renewed the Venetian capitulations in 1604/1013 and in 1615. Osman II did so in 1618/1018, Murad IV in 1624. Ibrahim did likewise in 1641/1050. Most of these renewals were provided with the sultan's autograph (hatt-i §erif) as sign of his approval, recognized by western diplomats at Istanbul as being a signal distinction and symbol of goodwill 2 . The War of Candia was concluded in 1669/1080 by a peace treaty combined with a capitulation given by Sultan Mehmed IV "at the time of office of the Grand Vizier (Fazil, Kopriilii) Ahmed Pa§a" as it significantly said. The treaty of 9 Rabi til-ahir 1080 is laid down in westernized form of modern appearance in 17 articles, signed by both parties, negotiated in the western style of diplomacy and written in two languages, the Turkish copy signed and sealed by the grand vizier, the Italian version signed by the Captain General of the Sea, Francesco Morosini, and sealed with the seal of the Republic of Venice. Article 15 contains the renewal of the capitulations, free of payment: the arrears of the tribute of Zante would not be claimed 3 . Dated 20-30 Zi'l-hicce 1080/c.12-22 May 1670 another confirmatory ferman of the articles of the peace was issued. It was concerned with territorial questions but also confirmed the capitulations granted by the present sultan's predecessors, named from Siileyman the Great (1520-1566) onwards, using the time -hallowed phrasing of the texts mentioned before. The old kanunname defteri (provincial and imperial tax registers and regulations) was invoked to demonstrate the correctness of the present ahdname compared with the old ones granted since Siileyman I. All separately-issued fermans and berats were declared to be valid in all "factories" upon the receipt (temessuk) produced by the bailo and consuls 4 .

1 Bclin, "Relations diplomatiques", p. 396-424; F.C. Lane, Venice and History, Baltimore, 1966, p. 128-141: hence Turkish maona in the sense of the Venetian muda?; cf. F. Braudel, La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l'époque de Philippe II, 2 vols., Paris, 1966, II, p. 189. ^Belin, "Relations diplomatiques", p. 395. 3 MM,II,p. 141-158. 4 Ibidem,II,p. 155.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CAPITULATORY REGIME

117

Following the peace treaty of Carlowitz of 1699 Sultan Mustafa II issued a supplementary berat containing 33 articles and a "conclusion" of 22 articles dealing with territorial changes and the confirmation of the capitulations of Mehmed IV of 1670 in an extended version 1 . A renewal was granted by the successor, Ahmed III (1703-1730) in 1706/1118 containing articles on the exchange of prisoners, the repairs of churches and monasteries, the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, all in all a mixture of affairs pertaining to the peace as well as to commercial privileges of old, which were declared to be still valid 2 . Sultan Mahmud I likewise confirmed the capitulations and peace in 1733/1145 in modern style, being an ahdname in 26 articles almost literally repeating the whole of the earlier granted privileges, retaining thus their bilateral nature. Again in 1734, July 3/1147 the same sultan was requested by the Venetian ambassador (and former bailo) Angelo Emo to issue a solemn clarification of articles of the preceding capitulations through reference to the records of the divan. The grievances suffered by Venetian shipping as a result of the activities of the Barbary corsairs, and the acts of piracy violating the capitulations, are repeated. The Porte conceded all points invoking, even at this date, the first ferman granted in this manner to Venice concerning this matter by Sultan Murad IV in 1639, the text of which had been repeated in all renewals of the capitulations by the present sultan's predecessors. The development of the capitulations of Venice forms a model for the other western powers, which separately entered into such relations with the Sublime Porte during the 16th and 17th centuries. The French (1569), the English (1580) and the Dutch (1612) all sought to obtain privileges from the Grand Signor similar to those granted to their old competitor and precursor, the Republic of Venice. The Ottoman sultan and the Republic of Saint Mark created the system and the definitive form, if not the principle, of the capitulatory relations between the Islamic Ottoman state and the non-Muslim West. These peaceful relations were in fact based upon bilateral negotiations and the resulting, formally unilateral grants of privilege, the capitulations, may be considered as international instruments, in agreement with the western Law of Nations in its early phase of development, as well as with the Law of Islam in its modern application. The Ottoman statesmen chose the document form of the berat, the sultanic command of unilateral nature per se. Its contents betray, however, the pragmatic nature of the Ottoman lawyers where the bilateral nature is clearly formulated in the text if not expressed in form. i b i d e m , II, p. 158-188. 2

Ibidem, II, p. 180-196.

118

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

France The Ottoman capitulations for France represent the next stage in the historical development. France never stood in a tributary relationship to the Ottomans. It possessed no tributary territories nor had it common borders 1 . Nevertheless France had much in common with Venice as regards its political and economical interests in the Ottoman Empire. Therefore it sought to acquire a relationship similar to that of the Republic of Saint Mark before the other modern powers of Western Europe. The way France gained its first capitulation from the sultan did not go directly via Istanbul, however, but via Egypt. As early as 1332 and 1334 a funduk of the merchants from Marseilles in Alexandria is mentioned. A consul of the "Franks" or of the "French and the pilgrims" appears to have been installed there by that time 2 . French trade already flourished in the Levant around 1432 when the famous Jacques Coeur played an important role in organizing trade and shipping between the East and Montpellier. The first political contacts date from the era of Sultan Beyazid II (1481-1512) and the international complexities around the figure of the Ottoman prince Cem (Zizim in France). In 1501 the existence of a French consul in Alexandria, "consul of the Catalans and the French", is known 3 . In 1512 the Mamluk sultan Qansuh al Guri granted the French king Louis XII a capitulation permitting French merchants to live under his legal protection (aman) at Cairo for up to three months at a time. This appears to have been a renewal of a similar privilege given in 1507 to a French establishment at Alexandria. This Mamluk document of 23-8-1507//ta£i Ul-ahir 913 was referred to later in the Ottoman privileges given in 1517 and 1528. Sultan Selim I seems to have granted the French in Egypt a capitulation by means of a berat, issued in camp at Ghaza 20-30 Rabi ul-ahir 923/13-23 May 1517 4 . A French version of Selim I's capitulation or privileges given to the French in Egypt in 1517 mentions its delivery to the "consul of Catalans and French" at Alexandria. Here we meet with the fact that capitulations may be granted to non-Muslim foreigners from the West

1 Ibidem, II, p. 198, 214-216. N.B. The empire of Napoleon had a common border with the Ottoman Empire in its Illyrian Provinces from 1809 to 1814. 2 Belin,Des capitulations, p. 47. 3 Ibidem,p.52. 4 The original document is not extant. The only reference to it is found in Siileyman I's capitulation of 1528. Cf. E. Charrière, (éd.), Négociations de la France dans le Levant, 4 vols., Paris, 1848-1860,1, p. 122.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CAPITULATORY REGIME

119

(harbis) well before any formalized diplomatic relations with such people's home state had been established and embassies opened at the Porte 1 . The contents of this "Egyptian" capitulation as rendered in the old French-Italian text show a remarkable likeness to those of the later Ottoman capitulations given to the French for the whole of the Ottoman dominions by Sultan Selim II in 1569: assistance and salvage in cases of French shipwreck; freedom of traffic; individual legal responsibility; execution of French testaments or delivery of intestate inheritances to the consul; release of French slaves; exemption from the payment of cizye; obligatory presence of the dragoman of the French at trials before the kadi; internal French law suits within the competence of the French consul; visitation of ships only at Istanbul and the Dardanelles (Çanakkale, Kale-i Sultaniye) on departure; friendly salutation at meeting on the high seas of French and Ottoman ships; all privileges contained in the Venetian capitulations to be applicable to the French. In the French version these conditions are given in 18 articles. From the French text it is evident that the form of these capitulations had been an ahdname in optima forma with intitulatio and inscriptio preceding the body of the text unlike a ber at2. Sultan Murad III confirmed these capitulations with his grant of 1581 (in the French version in 23 articles). This time the right of diplomatic protection is given to the French. The protection of the French flag is extended to the Venetians, the Genoese, the English, the Portuguese, the Catalans, the Anconitans, the Ragusans and to all others who of old were admitted under the flag of France. The enumeration of these particular nations makes one think immediately of an amalgamation of the original Egyptian privileges of the French and their complete capitulatory status in the entire Ottoman Empire since. Apart from the familiar privileges known from the Venetian and prior French capitulations the explicit permission was given now to open consulates in Alexandria, Tripoli, Algiers and all other "scales" (factories, échelles). It is interesting to note the disregard, in the matter of foreign protection, for the effective existence of the capitulations of Venice, although these are a point of reference in the text, and for the existing English capitulations, granted a year before. This may be a case either of French pretensions or of conservatism of the Ottoman chancellery clerks in diplomatic matters. 'The same situation occured with the English in 1579 and the Dutch in 1598. Cf. S.A. Skilliter, William Harborne and the Trade with Turkey 1578-1582, Oxford, 1977, p. 49-51; A.H. de Diplomatic Groot, The Ottoman Empire and the Dutch Republic. A History of the Earliest Relations 1610-1630, Leiden-Istanbul, 1978, p. 87-88.

2

T.X. Bianchi, Nouveau guide de la conversation en français et en turc, Paris, 1852, p. 268. This article was maintained in all subsequent capitulations; see also Carrière, Négociations, III, p. 65-67.

120

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

In 1597 the French acquired a renewal of their capitulation from Sultan Murad Ill's successor Mehmed III (1595-1603). Its original appears to be no longer extant. The contents are repeated with additions in the capitulation of May 20th, 1604/20 Zi'l-hicce 1012 given by Mehmed I l l ' s son and successor, Ahmed I (1603-1617). This document was printed in Turkish and French on the Arabic printing press installed by the French ambassador François Savary de Brèves, in Istanbul from 1591-1605, and subsequently published in Paris in 1615 1 . It is also interesting that the famous Ottoman historian Mustafa Naima gave a full rendering of the purport of this capitulation "asked for by King Henri IV by means of his ambassador, Franciscus Savary", but mentioned it among the events of 1609-1610 instead of 1604/1012 2 . This anachronism does not imply that a renewal was granted in 1609-10/1018. The special attention paid to this French capitulation of 1604 by the Ottoman side is remarkable. The text was also published in the widely circulated collection of state papers of historical importance known as the Miinsheat Us-Selatin credited to the great chancellor, the reis Ul-kiittab of Sultan Selim II, and Murad III, Ahmed Feridun Efendi (Pa§a, d. 1583). This attention might be a pointer to the fact that the diplomatic instrument of the ahdname passed into an important new phase of its historical development. The reality of peaceful lasting relations with non-Muslim western powers had to be digested within the traditional frame of mind of Ottoman statesmen. To hide this new political truth the chancellery preferred to provide the ahdnâmes with an increasingly unilateral style proper to sultanic letters or commands rather than that of a treaty of bilateral nature 3 . Changes in this charter are the removal of the mention of the Venetians and the English from French protection. The conditions of trade were regulated as before. The number of contraband commodities, which the French were allowed to export, was defined, as was the case too in the later English and Dutch capitulations. The French ambassador of the ancient regime, Count de Saint Priest (in Istanbul 1768-1784), wrote in his Mémoires sur l'ambassade de France en Turquie 1525-1770 that the 1604 capitulations were "the oldest

' Hammcr, HEO, XVII, p. 119; J.-L. Bacque Grammont et al., Représentants permanents de la France en Turquie (1536-1991) et de la Turquie en France (1797-1991), Istanbul-Paris, 1991, p. 116. Na'ima, Ta'rikh, II, p. 80-82; Ahmed Feridun, Miinshe'atü's-selatin, Istanbul, 1274-75 (2nd édition) II, p. 400 ff. 3 M . Tiirker Acaroglu, "Diinyada basilan ilk Tiirkçe Kitab", T.T.K. Belleten, CXCVII (1986), p. 507-530.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CAPITULATORY REGIME

121

of the three forming... [in his day] the corpus of our capitulations" 1 . The contents of the capitulations granted since 1604 appear to have lost most of the earlier bilateral elements, those stipulations of mutual friendship mentioned before. Only the demonstration of friendship and peace at meetings on the high seas seems to have been maintained. The underlying reality of the preparatory negotiations is not reflected in the text except in its reference to the request handed in by the ambassador at the Porte. According to French tradition the accession to the throne of King Louis XIII occasioned another renewal of these capitulations (as if they were of a bilateral nature) in 1614. This would contradict the Ottoman principle of uhilaterality now adhered to by the chancellery of the Porte and is therefore highly improbable. No Turkish text is extant. It looks more like French dishful thinking, which remained a persistent element of French diplomacy at the Porte throughout the centuries. In 1618, a renewal was granted by Sultan ()sman II. Unlike the legal tradition evident from the series of the Venetian c&pitulations it seems that in the case of the French from now on renewal did not necessarily occur on the occasion of every accession of an Ottoman sultan. It was only in the reign of Mehmed IV (1648-1687) that the French gained a renewal with an important increase of privilege. Dated 10 Safer, 1084/28 May 1673 at Edirne this was given in the form of a berat (niacin) with intitulatio of the Sultan and inscriptio of the French King, Louis XIV. The audience given to the ambassador [Charles] Olier, marquis de Nointel acknowledged him as carrier of a message and request for the continuation of the old existing friendship. In fact the capitulations of 1597 and 1604 are confirmed with additions and reproduced textually in the body of the document. Reference is also made to the privileges granted by Selim II concerning certain contraband commodities being exempted. In general great stress is placed repeatedly in the t^xt on the existing old bonds of friendship shown by France to the present rulers' ancestors. French friendship was recognized as having always been superior to that of the other Christian monarchs. Therefore the ambassador of France was to be given precedence over the other western representatives as was to be the case of the French consuls in their respective stations. Sultan Slileyman is invoked in a general phrase of confirmation of all ancient privileges and safe-conducts (ahd-U-aman).

published by Charles Schefer, Paris, 1877, p. 68. The integral texts of the capitulations of 1604, 1673, and 1740, in French and in Turkish, were published in T.X. Bianchi, Collection complete des capitulations ou traités de paix, de commerce et d'amitié entre la France et la Porte Ottomane depuis 1535 (Hég. 942)....jusques et compris le dernier traité ou convention du 25 Novembre 1838, Paris, 1852 (new éd.), as an appendix to his Nouveau guide de la conversation efr français et en turc.

122

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

The capitulation contains the confirmation of the French right of protection over non-capitulatory (non-Muslim) foreigners. In the Holy Places protection of the French as well as of all other western Christians on pilgrimage considered friends of the French king was also confirmed. Bishops, subjects of France, and monks belonging to all other Frankish orders of whatever sort were to be protected as always and allowed to perform their rituals in and around Jerusalem. The "Frankish" (not "French") monks were to keep those places of pilgrimage they used to have in their keeping. Frenchmen and those subject to them were to be free to travel to and from Jerusalem. The Jesuits and Capuchins at Galata, the two being French monk communities, were allowed their two churches as of old; repair of the burnt church was allowed "according to the Holy Law of Islam"; a similar privilege is granted for Izmir, Sayda, Alexandria and other scales ; the reading of the gospel in the French monks' hospital at Galata was to be permitted 1 . The confirmation that those without ambassadors, consuls or agents of their own (kethiida, kahya) at the Porte, the Portuguese, Sicilians, Catalans, those of Messina (or Pisa?), of Ancona and other non-Muslim Frankish communities, could come under protection of the French flag as of old and enjoy the same customs tariff, makes one think immediately of the original French capitulation for Egypt. This is another pointer to the severely conservative nature of the application of the capitulatory system adhered to by both parties. This time the French were at last accorded the customs tariff of three per cent, which the English and the Dutch had gained long before. The French and those under their flag were to pay the same amount of masdariyye tax as demanded from the English merchants at Istanbul and Galata. The text concludes with the sultan's assurance of lasting friendship on the basis of mutuality, accepted and guaranteed by the souls of the sultan's forebears. The next capitulation is that of 1740/1153, granted by Mahmud I following the successful mediation of the Peace of Belgrade between Sultan and Emperor in 1739, the work of the French ambassador, the Marquis de Villeneuve (in Istanbul 1728-1741). This capitulation, based upon those of 1604 and 1673, represents the most extensive set of privileges formally given to a western power. Its most remarkable article is that recognizing France as a most favoured nation. It would henceforward profit from any privilege ever granted to any other power.

These were the only exclusive religious privileges ever granted to France in spite of its long standing claims to an all-encompassing right of religious protection over the Latin clergy in the Levant.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CAPITULATORY REGIME

123

With this measure the capitulatory system reached its completion. From now on the various capitulations granted by the Porte to western powers grew into one corpus of texts whose contents could be exploited by all foreign powers, large or small. Ancient privilege was to turn into acquired right. The last traces of the element of reciprocity dating from pre-Ottoman times are however still visible in these capitulations of 1740, such as the solemn oath of the sultan at the end. In 1802, the relationship between France and the Ottoman Empire was changed fundamentally by the peace treaty of Paris. This peace between the French Republic and the Porte was negotiated at Paris following the rules of western diplomacy. The Ottoman plenipotentiary was one of the cleverest Ottoman statesmen of the day, the acting reistilktittab, Mehmed Said Galib Efendi (later Pa§a). On the French side the names and signatures are those of the First Consul, Napoleon Bonaparte, and the minister of foreign Affairs, Talleyrand 1 . This treaty was styled according the western law of nations. The Ottoman Empire had joined the prevalent system of international relations and re-introduced that way the element of reciprocity as an essential basis of its foreign policy. This treaty marks the end of the period in which the Ottoman Islamic legal sense of superiority dominated the capitulatory system.

England and the Netherlands The series of the English and Dutch capitulations are much shorter than those of Venice and France. From that fact and from the contents it becomes clear that these two western maritime powers were successfully able to join an already developed system. In the case of these two maritime powers, remarkably enough, it was the Sublime Porte who took the initiative to open friendly relations. It was Sultan Murad III who in his command of 7 March 1579 addressed to Queen Elizabeth I offered safe conduct and free trade to the English in his privileges as the Venetians, French and Polish merchants. This promising message was confirmed by the first capitulation granted to England on 16-25 May 1580/1-10 Rabi til-ahir 988. The document issued was a berat (,ni§an), i.e. a ferman without the full address of the recipient2. In this ferman the formulas displaying obedience, sincerity, communicating submission and devotion, are a clear pointer to the theoretical adherence of the Ottoman chanccry to the theory of Islamic law, applying the legal means of safe^Belin,Des capitulations, 106-107; MM, I, p. 35-44. Skilliter, William Harborne, p. 4 9 f p . 55 (no. 67).

2

124

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

conduct (aman). The principle of mutuality is also maintained regarding the fulfilment of the conditions of the capitulation in expressing the familiar point of respectful salutation on the high seas by each party's ships. On the whole the contents are in accordance with those of the capitulations granted to Venice and France (1569) as was vouchsafed in the sultan's letter. The English were accorded the customs tariff "according to old usage and sultanic law [kanun]", meaning five per cent. The English capitulations were renewed with some additions at the accession of succeeding sultans; 1601 and again 1604/1012, together with those of Venice and France, in berat form by Ahmed I; 1614/1023 and 1624(?) by Murad IV; 1641/1051 by Ibrahim (with his oath); 1662 and 1675/1086 by Mehmed IV (1648-1687). The renewal of 1675 remained the definitive legal base of Anglo-Ottoman relations until 19231. When the English capitulation of 1580 was renewed by Sultan Mehmed III in 1601/1010, it contained some new conditions. The customs tariff was lowered from the usual five per cent to three per cent. An interesting point was the extension of the right of protection under the English flag to the Dutch, in fact only to those of the provinces of Holland, Zeeland, Friesland and Gelderland in the Republic of the Seven United Provinces. One should note that these four were the principal seafaring areas of the Netherlands. This condition was the outcome of a drawn out diplomatic conflict between the French and English ambassadors at the Porte. The Frenchman tried to uphold at least something of his old exclusive right of protection. The French position had been maintained on the renewal of the French capitulations in 1595 when the Dutch were still under the French flag. This time the English ambassador, with the support of the influential vizier and kapudanpaga Cighalazade Sinan Pa§a won his case 2 . The capitulation granted by Sultan Mehmed IV early in September 1675/10-20 Cemazi iil-ahir 1086 was issued in optima forma as a full ahdname instead of a simple berat. This time the full intitulatio and inscriptio of King Charles II are written in the text. The English version contains 75 articles 3 . The renewal of the English charter makes repeated references to the first capitulation of 1580 and the gifts presented at the time. Sultan Murad II's renewal is mentioned as well as those of his other predecessors Ahmed I (who sent an imperial letter to King James I confirming the capitulations), Mehmed III and Osman II. All privileges granted to France,

^Miibahat S. Kutukoglu, Osmanh-lngiliz 20-33. ^Ibidem, p. 23-26. 3 Ibidem, p. 30-32

iktisadi miinasebetleri

I (1580-1838),

Ankara, 1974, p.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CAPITULATORY REGIME

125

Venice, Poland and other kings who were on terms of friendship with the Porte were vouchsafed to the English. Protection of other foreigners was explicitly permitted. The assurance of mutual maintenance of friendly relations was again put as a condition for the fulfilment of the capitulations 1 . Curiously the old conflict with the French over the protection of the Dutch merchants and its Solomonic solution invented by the Ottoman vizier at the time is still written into this text of 1675 although the Dutch had had a capitulation of their own since 1612. This is another pointer to the essentially conservative outlook and style of the Ottoman chancery as well as of the English embassy, not willing ever to relinquish any privilege ever gained, be it obsolete or not. An explanatory note is even given: "That ever since Sultan Siileyman's time all nations of merchants, Spain, Portugal, Ancona, Sicily, Florence, Catalonia and all the Flemings and other harbi merchants' nations were welcome to enjoy privilege". That had been the case of the Dutch. The Porte had repeatedly issued fermans and capitulations over this matter. French opposition to the Dutch choice of protection had been duly noted by the Porte at the time. The Porte declared that all relevant capitulations and sultanic ordinances had been duly registered by the divan. At the end of this highly important Ottoman document it states that a confirmation by the English ambassador was expected. This seems to be an interesting trace of the element of reciprocity. In form the ahdname of 1675 is a splendidly unilateral charter of privilege given to the obedient and gift-bearing English in answer to their request and offer and acceptance of friendship. Apart from the expression of the condition of mutual fulfilment of friendship the capitulation is a straightforward grant of commercial privileges, lacking marked stress on the Islamic-Ottoman superiority of older texts. Apart from the repeated mentions of the gifts brought by the successive English ambassadors, no trace of any kind of tributary relations can be found in the English capitulations. The capitulation of 1675, which turned out to be the last ever granted, contains an accurate summary of the previously granted privileges and mentions the names of the ambassadors involved. Precedent, old custom and sultanic law (kanun) are stressed throughout. The text amalgamates all privileges ever granted. No obsolete ones are omitted. The English capitulation of 1675 shows much similarity in contents and in form to the one granted to the Dutch in 1612. From this it becomes evident that the Dutch capitulation, which is a fully-fledged ahdname in the grand style with intitulatio and inscriptio and oath of the sultan as personal confirmation, marked another step in the development of the capitulatory 1 MM, I, p. 240-262; G.F. Abbott, Under the Turk in Constantinople. A record of Sir John Finch's Embassy 1674-1681, London, 1920, p. 157-159,168-170.

126

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

system. The fact that the initiative of giving a capitulation to the Dutch originated with the Porte's own foreign policy against Spain, as was the case with the other maritime power, the English, might explain the generosity of form and style as well as of contents of the first Dutch capitulation. Indeed its renewals, that of Sultan Murad IV in 1634/1043 and that of Mehmed IV in 1680/1091, which turned out to be the last as well, differed only slightly and contained few additions. In the Dutch relationship we notice the development of a "cheaper" style for the renewal and extension of capitulations that is the acquisition of supplementary or explicatory fermans, to obviate the costly procedure of obtaining a new capitulation. In this way for instance the Dutch were given the right of protecting Spanish and Portuguese merchants in 1649 and confirmation of that privilege with the extension to all Hapsburg subjects in 1704. The Dutch capitulation of 1612 marks a progressive step in Ottoman foreign policy with its easy generosity of privilege 1 . The Dutch immediately obtained the reduced customs tariff of three per cent in all their factories. Permission to open consulates was given at once: consulates in Alexandria and Cairo, Tripoli in Syria, Algiers, Tunis and some islands in the Archipelago such as Chios and Andros were permitted. No mention is made of the presentation of gifts by the ambassador, Cornelis Haga (in Istanbul 16121639), although these were provided. The last trace of anything like a tributary relationship had, it seems, disappeared. Permission for Dutchmen to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem was also included together with a warning addressed to the local authorities that the fact that the Dutch were "Lutheran" (sic) was not a valid reason to hinder their entry into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Navigation in the Black Sea was also granted in 1612, at least on paper. The final capitulations of the Dutch were those given by Sultan Mehmed IV in 1680/1-10 Ramazan 1091. All previously granted privileges were confirmed here together with a few minor additions. The sultan gave his personal oath as guarantee.

Conclusion Reading the texts of the successive French capitulations, from those for Egypt of 1528 to the most extensive one ever issued, that of 1740, one sees the coming into being of a textual corpus, a series of documents, one by one *De Groot, The Ottoman Empire and the Dutch Republic, p. 231-260 (text, transcript and facsimile).

THE D E V E L O P M E N T OF THE C A P I T U L A T O R Y R E G I M E

127

being incorporated in the next. Reference to the process can be found in these texts. It becomes thus quite understandable how the experienced former dragoman of France in the Levant, Xavier Bianchi, came to publish the French capitulations as if they were one text, taking the ahdname of 1740 as his base and providing it with annotations of when a particular privilege or article was incorporated1. The fact that the French capitulations are the first to contain the clause that all privileges granted before to Venice are deemed to be included, marked the beginning of the development of the capitulatory system as such. In the 1740 capitulation the rule of the "most favoured nation" was introduced to the benefit of the Porte's good friend of the moment, France. This opened the way to all privileges to all powers represented at the Porte. This article is intended to be a contribution to a proper understanding of the nature of the Ottoman capitulations given to the western powers in the course of the history of Ottoman political relations with Europe from an Ottoman point of view. The argument is that these important, indeed historically famous, instruments of Ottoman foreign policy, were conceived in principle as instruments of domestic policy in conformity with the law of Islam, which in theory cannot recognize the legal existence of statehood outside the Dar al-Islam. This point of view could have hindered the development of lasting peaceful relations with the Christian Powers of Europe. The Ottoman lawyers and statesmen devised the expedient of the legal notion of tribute and submission to, and friendship with, the Ottoman state, which stood for the Dar al-Islam. The non-Muslim foreigner from the Dar alharb, the harbi thus could be equated with the loyal non-Muslim subject of the Islamic state, the tribute paying zimmi. The foreigner in this way could live permanently on Islami (i.e. Ottoman) territory. The legal status of safeconduct given by the Islamic ruler had to be stretched for this purpose to make possible a stay of more than one year, the legal limit in theory for a safeconduct of non-Muslim foreign residents. It is not the problem of the historical reality of Ottoman peaceful foreign relations with the Christian world we are studying so much as the elements of legal fiction the law-abiding Ottoman statesmen felt the necessity to uphold in order to direct their political system in conformity with Islamic law. The capitulations, in my view, are a splendid product of the pragmatic legal thinking of the Ottomans. The legal expedient of the tributary relationship in combination with the principle of safe-conduct, practiced in pre-Ottoman times in the Middle East, was developed to create within the framework of the law of Islam the possibility of conducting foreign policy outside the Dar al-Islam in a stable and still legal manner, eminently adaptable to the needs of the ever-changing balance of power with which the Ottomans were confronted in their contacts with the West. ^Bianchi, Collection complète, p. 247-301, (Arabic numbers 1-40).

7 THE DUTCH CAPITULATION OF 1612

The capitulation obtained for the Dutch by Cornelis Haga in 1612 formed the basis of political and economic relations between Turkey and Holland for more than three centuries. Since neither the Turkish text nor a direct translation into English have ever been published before, it seemed worthwhile to provide them here. The extensive older literature on the capitulations deals almost exclusively with the legal nature and validity of these documents, which remained in force till 1914 (exception must be made for certain rights and protections derived from the capitulatory status of ecclesiastical property in the Levant and for the curious legal institutions of the state of Israel). For those studies only the last text in date was of interest, e.ge. for France 1740, for England 1675 and for the Netherlands 1680. Scholars approaching the subject from the point of view of Islamic law have till now concentrated on the earliest forms and prototypes of the lahdnâme. The most useful bibliography to date will be found in EI 2 , III, s.v. "imtiyâzât" II (ïnalcik). The text given here is based on the copy kept in the archives of the States General which are kept in the National Archives of the Netherlands (ARA) at The Hague. Other copies existed in the records kept in the Dutch legation (or embassy) in Istanbul by Haga and his successors, but these 17th century records have for the greater part been lost. It should be remembered that the Dutch embassy was repeatedly destroyed more or less completely by fire during the 17th and 18th centuries. The hope should not be abandoned that parts of these records may still reappear in public or private collections in Turkey and elsewhere. The Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris is a case in point. An unreliable translation into Dutch, probably based on an Italian intermediate translation made by one of Haga's dragomans or by the Porte, has been available since the 17th century 1 . This text was published in Cau, Groot Placaet Boeck III, 383-390 and again in Bijlagen Handelingen Tweede Kamer, 1869-1870, pp. 1836-9-1836-14. A French translation based on this text is published in Dumont, Corps Diplomatique, V-II -205-8.

^Cf. Haga's Memoriael, d.d. 6 July 1612, in Heeringa, op. cit., 1,255 and n 1.

130

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

The old MS translation is kept in ARA SG 12578-6; another translation in ARA Legatie Turkije old no. 378/1894.1. On the whole the first Dutch capitulation contains the same concessions as those granted by the Ottoman Sultan to the French (from 1569) and the English (from 1580). The similarity in the formulation and contents of the articles, for example in the grant of the right to navigate in the Black Sea and to visit the Holy Places in Jerusalem, is striking 1 As to the form and style of the Turkish, it should be noted that the Dutch 'ahdname was drawn up with full intitulatio and inscriptio typical of the most solemn documents issued by the Ottoman Chancery, more elaborate than, for instance, the English capitulation preceding the Dutch one in 1604 but more like the French one granted in that same year 2 . The Turkish 'ahdname is written on paper ca. 40 cm wide, 4 m long, in divani-script with a golden tugra heading the text. It was brought home, together with the renewal of 1634, by Cornelis Haga himself in 1639 and handed to the States General. Another version, plainly written in naskhiscript, (ARA SG 12593-16) and companion letters of Sultan Ahmed I, the acting grand vizier, the sheykh al-islam and Khalil Pasha had already been brought home in the summer of 1612 by Lambert Verhaer. These four letters are in ARA SG 12593-10, 13, 2 and 4 respectively. A translation of 4 is in Heeringa, op.cit. I, 202-6. Verhaer also carried a letter of recommendation from Khalil Pasha to the governor-general of Buda, explaining the new relations of the Porte with the Dutch Republic and the bearer's mission. Khalil's man 'Othman Bey went as far as Buda with him (cf. B.N. Supp. Turc. fol. 164 and ARA SG Pauw K 57-50) 3 . Turkish text of the capitulation ('ahdname) granted by Sultan Ahmed I to the Dutch in 30 June-9 July 1612/1021 A.H. taken from the engrossed copy kept in the General State Archives at The Hague, First Department S.G. 12593-164, (1)

gun hazret-i malik-i miiheymen ve mute 'al ve cenab-i vahib el- 'ataya ve'l-neval calla 'an el-te§bih ve'l misal ve tenezzeh min el-nazir ve'lihtilalin kemal-i kudret-i azaliyye ve vafur-i mevhibe-i lem yezeliyyesi

' Haga had aimed to achieve conformity with French, English and Venetian privileges, cf. C.S.P. Venice XII, No. 521, disp. of bailo Valier d.d. 19 May 1612; also Heeringa, op. cit., I, 249 f. 253 f. 2 C f . H. Inalcik, art. "Padi§ah", IA, IX, 491-5. 3 C f . Heeringa, op. cit., 1,404 (R.S.G. 2 November 1639) ^Unlike the main text of this book, the following is transcribed in the system used in the Turkish edition of the EI, the Islam Ansiklopedisi.

THE

DUTCH

CAPITULATION

OF

1612

131

(2)

mukäreneti ile ve mihr-i sipihr-i nübuvvet ve ahter-i burc-i fütuvvet, pi§väy-i ztimre-i enbiyä ve mukaddä-i firka-i esfiya 'habxb-i hüdä §äfi 'elmüznibin fi yevm el-cezä Muhammad Mustafa (sallä allah ta'älä 'aleyhi ve sallama) hazretlerinin (3) mu'cizät-i kesire el-berekät muräfakati ile ve eshäb-i güzin ve hiilefä elrägidin (nzvän allah ta'älä 'aleyhim acma'in) ve cümle-i evliyä'-i hidäyetkarin ve ciimhür-i esfiya'-i se'ädet-rehin kuddisa esräruhum ilä yevm el-din hazretlerinin erväh-i mukaddeseleri muväfakati ile. [tughra] Ahmed §äh ibn Mehmed §äh Hän muzaffer dä'imä. line 1

ben ki sultän-i §anädid-i selätin ve esätin-i haväkin ve täc-bah§-i husrevän-i evreng-ni§in qäsir-i qusär el-kayäsire käsir-i cumhür elekäsire kahramän el-mä' ve'l-tin zill allah ta'älä fi'l-arzin elmükemekkin 'alä makäm el-§eri'e el-§erife (inni cä'ilun fi'l-'ard halìfatan) ve e§ref-i medä'in line 2 u em§är ve eymen-i där u diyär olan Harameyn-i §erifeynin hädimi ve Kudüs-i mübärekin hämi ü häkimi ve där el-saltanet el-'aliyye ve müfahhar-i makarr el-hilafet el-seniyye-i mahrüse-i Istanbul humiyat 'an el-beliyye ve mahmiyye-i Edirne ve mahrüse-i Brusanin Rümeli ve Teme§vär ve viläyet-i Bosna ve Budun ve Sigetvär line 3 ve Egri ve Kanije ve Semendire ve Belgrad ve viläyet-i Anadolu ve Karamänin ve diyär-i 'Arabistän ve §äm-i där el-saläm nüzhetmakämin ve nädir-i 'a§r olan mahruse-i Misr ve Yemen-i eymen ve Habe§ ve 'Aden viläyetlerinin ve dar el-hilafet Bagdad ve Küfe ve Basra ve Lahsä ve Suväkin ve San'a ve Haleb ve Zu'lkadriyye 4 ve §ehrizùl ve Adana ve Tarsus ve Antaliyya ve Kibris ve Säkiz ve Diyärbekir ve Rakka ve Rùm ve (,Tldir ve eyälet-i 'Amädiyye ve umümen Kürdistän ve Kars ve Erzurüm ve umümen Gürcistän ve Demirkapu ve Tiflis ve §irvänin ve Kefe ve Küzlü ve De§t-i Kip^äk iklimlerinin 5 ve där el-cihäd Tunus ve Tarabulus-i garb ve Cezä'ir-i garb viläyetlerinin ve Erdel ve Bogdän ve Efläk ve sä'ir där el-harbdan kuvvet-i kähire-i husreväne ve satvet-i bähire-i mülükänemiz ile bi-'avn alläh el-melik elfettäh kabze-i feth ü teshire getirilen medä'in u em§är u memälik u bi'lclimle aktar-i yer ü bahrin

132

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

§ehriyari ve emákin-i1 'izzet-disar tacdán ve Akdeñiz u Karadeñiz ve nice memalik u cezá'ir u banádir ve me'abiriñ ve nice [kere]2 yüzbiñ asákir-i nusret-me'a§iriñ padi§ámi ha'delet-penáhi ve §ehin§áh-i nusret-destgáhi mazhar-i 'ináyát el-sermediyye 3 muhsin-i áyát el-millet elmuhammadiyye sultán Ahmed Han ibn sultán Mehmed Hán ibn sultán Murád Han ibn sultán Selím Hán ibn sultán Süleymán Han ibn sultán Selim Hán ibn sultán Beyazíd Hán ibn sultán Mehmed Hán (rahimahum alláh el-melik el-mennán) 'inan-i semend-i se'ádetmend-i sáhib-kiráná kabze-i kuvvet u kudretimize mukarrer ve cümle-i rub'-i meskün ve heft iklím bi-tevfík el-§amedání zimám-i iktidárimize müsehher olmu§tur hazret-i hakk (calla 'an el-sebíh ve '1-reyb) kemál-i fazl-i bí-hesáb ile melcá'-i selátín-i §erif el-ensáb ve me'vá'-i havákín-i ulü el-ihsáb oían südde-i seníyye-i celálet-medár ve 'atebe-i 'alíyye-i se'ádet-karár lázál melcá'-i'l a'alí el-ahyár ve'l-abrárimize mefáhir elümeráyi'l-'izám el-'ísáviyye meráci'el-küberá'i el-fihám fí'l-millet elmesíhiyye muslih-i masálih-i cemáhír el-ta'ifet el-nasrániyye sáhib-i ezyál el-ha§met ve'l-vakár sáhib-i deláyil el-mecd ve'l-iftihár Nederlanda viláyetlerine tábi'olan Gelderlanda ve Hulanda ve Zelanda ve Utrah ve Frizlanda ve Uvarsil ve Gruniñga ve Grunclanda ve dahi ma§rik-i Hindistániñ viláyetlerine tabi'nice memleketleriñ I§tádi Cenerálleri ve hákimleri hutimat 'avákibuhum bi'l-hayr taraflarindan náme-i sadakat-hitámeleri ile kudvet-i a'yán el-millet el-mesíhiyye mu'teber elgileri oían Kürniliyü Haga zídet itá'atuhu vusül bulub irsál olunan námeleri mütála'a kihnub mefhümunda 'arz-i ihlás u ihtisás eylemek kusvá-yi ámálleri u aksá-yi má fi'l-bálleri olub ve harbí viláyetlere tábi' gemilerde esír olub müsülmánlan halás eyleyüb küllí re'áyetile viláyetlerine gónderüb ve memálik-i mahrusemizde oían gemilere ve adamlara bir zamánda tecávüz etmeyüb hálá 'atebe-i 'aliyyemiz ile Firanca ve Ingiltere oldugu mesáfat üzere viláyetlerine tábi 'oían yerleriñ tüccári ve adamlen ve tercümanlan memálik-i mahrüsemize emn ü aman üzere metá'lan ile gelüb gidüb ticáret eyleyüb ve mü§ár ileyhimáya oían dostluk muktezásinca verilen

' r l he word is hard to read; emakin or em§ar would fit the meaning of this sequence. Taken from SG, 12593-16. ^Muhsin a doubted reading. 2

THE

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

DUTCH

CAPITULATION

OF

1612

133

'ahdnáme-i hümáyun-i 'izzet-makrün ve ahkám-i §erife-i itá'at-nümün mü§ár ileyhim cániblerine dahí verilmek bábinda istid'á-i 'átifet etmegin ve sá'ir her neki tahrír u tastír olunmu§ ise mufassal u megrüh páye-i serir-i se'ádetmasir-i pádi§áhánemize 'arz u takrir olundukta istid'álan hayr-kabül váki' olub ve elgileri rikáb-i hümayünumuza yüz sürüb sá'ir el§iler oldugu üzere mümi ileyhi Kürniliyü Haga südde-i se'ádetimizde el?ilik hizmetine ta'yin olunub ve memálik-i mahrüsemizde oían iskelelerde künsulüs ta'yin olunmak fermánim olub i§bu 'ahdnáme-i 'adálet-'ünváni 'ináyet ve erzáni kilub fermán-i kazá-cereyánimiz bu vecihle sádir oldiki (I o ) Nederlánda viláyetlerine tábi 'zikr olunan viláyetleriñ [ve] onlara tábi' oían yerlerin tüccár tá'ifesi memálik-i mahrüsemize gelüb ve gidüb ve ali§veri§ eyleyüb, getürdlikleri altun ve guruedan resm alinmayub beglerbegiler ve kázíler ve defterdárlar ve zarbháne emínleri ve názirlari dahl u ta'arruz eylemeyüb ve guru§uñuzi ak$e kat'ederiz deyü rencíde ve remide etmeyeler (2o) ve Nederlánda tüccárindan ba'zi harbi gemilere girüb lákin kendü hállerinde ticáret üzere iken harbi gemilerde bulunduñuz deyü kendülerin esir u esbáblann girift eylemeyüb mádám ki kendü hállerinde ticáret üzere olub kürsán gemisinde fesád üzere olmayalar ol baháne ile esbáblarini girift eylemüb ve kendülerin esir eylemeyeler ve zimmilerden biri memálik-i mahrüsemizden zahire alub gideriken girift olundukda Nederlándalülerden bile olanlar cebren esir olunmayalar. (3o) ve Firanca pádigáhi olanlar kadimden ásitáne-i se'ádetlerimizle dostluk üzere olub dostluga halel verir bir va'zlan olmamagla merhüm ceddim sultán Selim Hán 'aleyhi el-rahmet ve'l-rizván zamámnda 'arz olundukda memnü' oían metá'dan pembe ve ri§te-i pembe ve sahtiyán verile deyü hükm-i §erif verilüb ba'dehü ásitáne-i se'ádetlimize oían kemál-i ihlás ü ihtisáslarina biná'en merhüm u magfür lahu babam-i hüdávendkár zamámnda ak^elcr ile balmumi ve gon verile bir ferd máni' olmaya deyü 'ahdnámede kayd olunmagin ben dahi kemakán mukarrer tutdum hálá Nederlándahler dahi ásitáne-i se'ádetimize 'arz-i ihlás ü ihlás ü ihti§á§ edüb ve páye-i serir-i a'lá'miza 'arz u i'lám olunan cümle istid'álan hayr-kabül vaki 'olmagla, firancahlara verildügi üzere ak£eler ile pembe ve ri§te-i pembe ve sahtiyán ve balmumi ve gón verile

134 22

THE N E T H E R L A N D S

AND

TURKEY

(4°) ol bàbda hig kimesne mani 'olmiya ve dahl u ta'arruz kilmiyalar ve deryà el vermeyüb vilàyetlerine varmaga ve bu cànibe gelmege mecàl olmadugi zamànda memàlik-i mahrüsemizden oían limanlarda ve iskelelerde yatub kendü hàllerinde ali§veri§ edüb kimesne mani (5o) olmiya ve Nederlanda vilayetíerinden 23 olanlanñ ve da'và ve husümeti váki 'olub ve dem ü diyet da'vàlari olur ise elíileri ve künsulüslan ayínleri üzere gòriib fasi edüb kázíler (6o) ve zàbitlardan bir ferd dahl u ta'arruz kilmayalar ve tácirleriniñ ahvàli ¡gün nasb olunan künsulüslardan ba'zi kimesneler da'và etdiklerinde 24 kendülerin habs etmeyeler ve evlerin mühürlemeyeler künsulüslan ve tercümánlari ile da'vàlan olanlariñ husüslari àsitane-i se'àdetimize istimà 'oluna ve zikr olunan mevàddin hiláfina mukaddem u mu'ahher emr-i §eríf ibràz olunur ise istimà 'olunmayub 25 (7 o ) 'ahdnàme-i hümayünum mücibince 'amel oluna ve Nederlanda vilàyetlerine tabi 'olanlardan biri miird olsa 'ahdnàme-i hümayünuma muhàlif emvàl u erzàkina beytiilmàlcilar màl-i gaybídir deyü ve sà'ir vecihle dahl u ta'arruz etmeyeler (8o) ve Nederlanda tà'ifesine verilen ahkàm-i gerífe muhkem u mu'akkad olub 26 ta'ife-i mezbüreye fá'idelü ve nef'lü ola (9o) ve kassàmlar ve kázíler tarafindan (10o) resm-i kismet taleb olunmiya ve e^ileri ve künsulüslan istedükleri yasakgilan ve olageldügi üzere murad edindikleri kimesneleri tercümanlikda istihdàm eyliyeler yeñi§erilerden ve gayrdan istemedikleri kimesneler 27 (1 I o ) hidmetlerine kari§mayalar ve sàkin olduklari evlerinde kendüleriñ ve ádemlenñun kifáf-i nefsler ¡9ün §íre sikub hamr etdiklerinde kimesne máni olmiya ve yeñi9eri kullarimizdan ve gayriden herkim olursa (12o) olsun nesne istemeyüb ve ceberile almayub zulm u ta'addi etmiyeler ve mü§ár ileyhimà 28 nzalar ile tàcirleri vilayetíerinden getürdikleri ve alub gotürdikleri meta'lanndan Halebde ve Iskenderiyyede ve sà'ir yerlerde yüzde Ü9 ak9e gümrük vereler ziyàde vermiyeler ve metà'lari ziyàde bahàya tutulmiya (13 o ) ve gemilerine tahmíl edüb getürdükleri ve alub gotürdükleri her nereden olursa olsun 29 gümrük eline gel en metà'lanndan künsulüsluk hakkini (14 o ) bikusür Nederlanda künsulüslarina vereler ve bey'Í9un ihràc olunan metà'dan Istanbulda ve her kangi iskelede olursa ahar iskeleye alub giderüz

THE DUTCH 30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

CAPITULATION

OF

1612

135

dediklerinde gümrük taleb eylemiyeler ve ähar (15°) iskeleye alub gitmege mani 'olmiyalar ve hädis olan kassäbiyya ve reft ve bäc ve yasäkküli almmayub ve (16°) gemileri gitdüklerinde ü? yiiz ak?eden ziyäde (17°) selämetlik resmi taleb olunmayub ve Cezä'ir-i garb kürsänlari Nederlandaya tabi' limànlara vardiklarinda ve re'äyet olunub bärüt ve kurgun ve sä'ir älät ve yelken verilüb läkin kürsänlar Nederlandaya täbi' tticcära rast geldikde esir eylemeytib ve mällann gäret eylemiyeler bu husüsa nzä-yi §erifim (18°) yokdur Nederlandaya tabi' olan viläyetlerden esir olurlarise ltläk olunum mällan bikusür verile eger kürsänlar tecävüz etdiklerin mügär ileyhim nämeleriyle iläm eyliyeler her kangi beglerbegi zamäninda olurise ol beglerbegi ma'zül olub gäret olunan emväl u esbäb anlara tazmin etdirile ve etdikleri esir ltläk oluna eger emr-i serìfime imsäl etmezler ies anlar dahi Nederlanda viläyetlerine varduklarinda kal'elerine ve limanlarina kabul etmeyüb ta'addi etdiklerinde 'akd olan 'ahde halel gelmeye bu bäbda mü§är ileyhimiñ §ükr u gikäyeti makbül-i hümäyünum ola (19°) ve memälik-i mahrüsemizde väki' olan beglerbegleri ve begiere ve käzilere ve iskele eminlerine ahkäm-i gerife irsäl olunub fermän-i kazäcereyänimiz bu vecihle sädir oidi ki mädämki mü§är ileyhim taraflarindan §eräyit-i 'ahd ü peymán ve 'ädet ii ihläs-i mevaddet kemä-yenbagi siyänet oluna, bu tarafdan dahi kendü mällan ve sä'ir esbäb ü metä'lari ile eger deryädan gelen kalyunlari ve sä'ir gemileri ve i^erinde olan ädemleri ve esbäb ü metä'laridir ve eger karadan gelen ademleri ve tavarlari ve mef alaridir aslä bir ferd dahi u ta'arruz eylemeyiib kendi (20°) hällerinde ve kär ü kesiblerinde olalar ve memälik-i mahrüsemizde gimdiye degin esir olanlar bulduklari yerlerden itläk oluna bahälan Nederlandalu(lar)dan taleb olunmaya her kimlerden alminar ise onlardan (21°) taleb edeler ve Nederlandaludan olanlar ehl-i isläm gemilerinden ihtiyärlarile zahire satun alub kendü viläyetlerine gider iken harbi viläyetlerine alub gitmeyüb ehl-i isläm gemileri räst geldiklerinden ahizdan soffra gemi girift ve i£inde olanlari esir eylemeyeler aniñ gibi Nederlandaludan esir bulunursa (22°) itläk olunub ve esbäbi dahi verile ve harbi tüccär ta'ifesi Nederlanda gemilerine metà'

136 38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

THE N E T H E R L A N D S

AND

TURKEY

yiikletdiklerinde meta harbíniñdir deyü bir ferd rencíde eylemeye ve memälik-i mahrüsemizde ve eger ähar viläyetlere giderken ve gelür iken rencberliklerinde iken bir tarikle esìr olurlarsa ol asillar gerü halas olalar ve memälik-i mahrüsemize emn ü aman iizere gelüb giderek anuñ gibi deryäda furtuna miizayaka verdikde läzim olanlara eger hässa gemiler (25°) halkidir ve gayirdir mü'ävenet eyleyeler ve ak9eler ile zäd ü zevädeleri tedärikinde kimesne mani olmaya ve dahl ü ta'arruz kilmayalar ve Nederlanda (26°) viläyetleri täcirleri ve tercümänlari ve sä'ir ädemleri deryädan ve karadan mémalik-i mahrüsemize gelüb bey'ü §irä eyleyüb 'ädet ü känün üzere rüsüm-i 'ädiyeleri verdikten soñra geligde ve gidi§de kapudanlardan ve deryäda yürüyen re'islerden ve gayridan ve 'asker halkindan kimesne mäni olmaya ve käziler dahl u (27°) ta'arruz kilmayalar kendülerin ve ädemlerin ve esbäb ü tavärlarin kimesne rencide eylemeye ve eger §iddet-i rüzgär olub gemilerin deryäda karaya atarsa begler ve äziler ve gayrilar mü'ävenet eyleyüb kurtulan emväl ü esbäb gerü kendülere verilüb beytülmälcilar ve gayrihüm dahl u ta'arruz eylemeyeler ve (28°) Nederlandaludan biri medyün olsa deyn borgl udan taleb olunub eline kefìl olmiyacak ähar kimesne tutulub taleb olunmaya. (29°) ve eger biri mürd olsa esbäb u emvälin kime vasiyet eder ise aña venie vasiyetsiz mürd olursa kunsulüslari ma'rifetiyle ol yerli yoldagina verile kimesne (30°) dahl eylemeye ve Nederlanda viläyetlerine tabi 'olan yerleriñ bazirgänlari ve künsulüslan ve tercümänlari memälik-i mahrüsemizde bey'u §irä ve ticäret ü kefälet husüsinda ve sä'ir ümür-i §er'iyye oldukda käziye varub gebt ü sicill etdirüb veyä hüccet alalar soñra nizä' olurise hüccet ü Sicilie nazar olunub mücibi 'amel oluna bu iki senedin biri olmayub mücerred celb ü ahz i?ün etdikleri da'vä istimä' olunmayub mädämki käzilerden hüccet olmaya ve sicilde mestür bulunmaya hiläf-i §er' rencíde olunmayalar ve ba'zi kimesneler bize sitem eyledüñüz deyü iftirä edüb hile ve hud'a ile mücerred celb ü ahz iijün etdikleri da'välan dahi istismä' olunmaya ve ol vecihle hiläf-i §er'-í §erif rencíde olunmayub men' olunalar ve bunlardan biri medyün olsa veyä bir vecihle müttehhem olun gaybet eylese anuñn i?ün (31°) kefäletsiz kimesne tutulmaya ve min ba'd Nederlandaya täbi' esir olursa künsulüslan taleb edüb Nederlanda viläyetlerinden idügi zähir olundukda alinub (32°) Nederlandalulara vereler ve anlara täbi olub

THE

46

47

48

49

50

51

52

53

DUTCH

CAPITULATION

OF

1612

137

memälik-i mührüsamizda mütemekkin olanlar eger evlü olsun ve ergen olsun rencberlik edenler anlardan (33°) haräc taleb olunmaya ve e t i l e n hidmetinde olan könsulüslar ve tercümänlar olageldügi üzere haräcdan ve kassäbiyyeden ve tekàlif-i 'örfiyyeden mu'áf (34°) olalar ve Iskenderiyye ve Tarabulus-i §äm ve Cezä'ir ve Tunus ve Cezä'ir-i garb ve Misr iskelelerinde ve gayrlara ta'yin etdükleri künsulüslarin tebdil edüb yerlerine ol hidmetiñ 'uhdesinden gelür ädernder ta'yin edüb gönderdide kimesne mäni' (35°) olmaya ve tüccär ta'ifesiniñ nzälan yogiken üzerlerine ba'zi metä biragulub (36°) ta'addi olunmiya Nederlandalu ile bir kimesneniñ nizä'i olsa käziye vardikda Nederlandalunuñ tercümanlari häzir bulunmazsa käzi da'välann istimä' etmeye eger mühim maslahatda ta'allül etmeyüb tercümänimiz häzir degildir deyü 'avk etmiyeler ve (37°) levend kayiklari Nederlandaluya täbi' olanlardan esir edüb götürüb Rümilinde ve Anadolu'da satarlar aniñ elinde bulunursa esir müsülmän olmu§ ise kimden alduguni bildirüb alan kimesneye akgesi andan ahverilüb äzäd (38°) olub sahverile ve memälik-i mahrüsemizde deryäyüzine ?ikan gemiler ve kadirgalar ve donanmalar deryäda Nederlanda gemilerine bulugduklarinda bin biriyle dostluk edüb zarar u ziyän (39°) eylemeyeler eger deryäda ve limanlarda mädämki kendü rizälariyla hediye vermeyeler cebren älät u esbäblann ve emred oglanlann ve gayri nesnelerin alub ta'addì u tecävüz eylemeyeler (40°) ve Franca u Ingilterelülere verilen 'ahdnäme-i hümayünda mestur u mukayyed olan husüslar Nederlandalulariñ hakkinda dahi mukarrer olub anlara verilen 'ahdnäme-i hümäyün mücibince eger metä' ve sä'iridir 'amel oluna §er'-i §erife ve 'ahdnäme-i hümäyünuma (41°) muhälif kimse mäni' u müzähim olmaya ve kalyunían ve gemileri gider oldukda Istanbulda aranub ve bir dahi Bogäz hisärlari önlerinde aranub gideler 'ahdnäme-i hümäyünuma muhälif Geliboluda aranmayub ve ol vecihle ak§eleri (42°) ahnmayub rencide olunmaya ve memälik-i mahrüsemizde olan iskelelerde kalyunlan ve gemileri metä' yükledüb gümrüklerin bi'l-tamam verdiklerinden soñra mücerred celb ü ahz (43°) i^iin gemilerin aramayalar ve ol vecihle rencide ü remide eylemeyeler ve Halebde ve sä'ir metä' aldiklannda gümrüklerin edä etdiklerinden soñra gemilerile Kibris ve sä'ir iskelelere geldiklerinde ba'zi metä'larm satmak i^ün ?ikarmayub ancak yükleriyle läzim gelüb

138 54

55

56

57

58

59

60

61

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

ahar gemiye tahmil etdiklerinde veyahüd bir ka? güne degin mahzene koduklarinda meta'ñizi 9ikardiñiz deyü rencíde etmeyüb olvecihle ak5elerin almayalar ve 'ahdnàme-i hümáyünuma muhalif kazíler ve hakimler (44°) ve sà'ir ehl-i 'irf ta'ifesi rencíde eylemiyeler ve Nederlandaya tabi 'oían kalyunlan ve gemileri Kibnsda ve memàlik-i mahrüsemizde oían iskelelerde ak9eler ile sà'ir müslimin aldugi narh iizere murad edindikleri mikdan tuz tahmil edüb kimesne mani' olmaya ve (45°) narhdan ziyade ak?eleri alinmiya ve cezíre-i Kibnsda gemiler safrasi Í9ün tuz yüklenüb ol tuz sà'ir tuz gibi olmayub §afra i^ün gemilerine her alanlar 'arabasma yetmi§ birer ak^e vere gelmekle Nederlanda kalyunlari ve gemileri vardikda ol tuzdan alub gemilerine safra yerine koduklarinda kadímden olageldügi üzere 'arabasina yetmi§ birer ak9e eline ziyàde alinmaya bu husüsinda kàziler ve emínler ve sà'ir ehl-i 'orf ta'ifesi rencíde (46°) eylemeyeler ve memàlik-i mahrüsemiza getürdükleri kur§un ve kalay ve demür ve 9elik ve sà'ir hurda metá'a màni' olmayalar ve 'ahdnàme-i humàyunda yazildugi üzere yüzde Ü9 ak9e gümrük ahnub ziyàde taleb olunmaya ve min ba'd ziyàde alinmaya ve ol vecihle rencíde olunmaya ve (47°) Nederlandaya tabi' oían kalyun u gemilere Dimyàt ve Iskenderiyye ve sà'ir iskelelerden ba'zi müsülmán rizàlariyla esbàb ü meta'tahmíl edüb Istanbula ve sà'ir memàlik-i mahrüsemize gotürmege màni 'olmayalar ve Nederlanda gemilerine tahmil olunmagla ziyade gümrük taleb olunmayub sà'ir müsülmánlardan alindugi üzere gümrükleri aliña ve kalyunlan u gemileri her kangi iskelede olursa tamàm gümrüklerin 'ahdnàme mücibince verdikten soñra ba'zi angariye ¡9ün alikomayalar ve angariye teklif (48°) eylemeyeler ve ve bazirgànlanndan biri metà' ile gelüb müsülmán olursa el9ileri ve künsulüslan vilayetleriñ bazirgànlanndan aldugi esbàbi ve nakdiyye[si] ahnub el9Ílerine teslím oluna ki sàhiblerine góndereler kimesnenin hakki üzerinde kalmaya bu husüsda Hàkimlerden ve kàzìlerden kimesne dahl ta'arruz (49°) kilmayalar ve Nederlandalulardan birine hilàf-i §er'-i §eríf sen müsülmán olduñ deyü rencíde ederlerse 'amel olunmaya eger tercümán oñünde rizàlariyla müsülmán oldum der ise fíhá tercümánlan gelmeyince rencíde olunmayalar ammà tercümánlan hàzir edeler (50°) ve Nederlandaya tabi' oían kalyun u gemileri geldiklerinde gümrükde oían mub§irlar cefà'en esbàblann degerinden ziyàde metà' alma ak9e taleb (51°) olunmaya ve kalyunlan ve gemileri àsitàne-i se'àdetimize ità'at üzere olmayanlar ile cenk Í9ün

THE DUTCH 62

63

64

65

66

67

68

69

70

CAPITULATION

OF

1612

139

9ikub cenk olub dügmän gemilerin alurlarsa ol zamän memälik-i mahrüsemizden her kangi mahallde ve liman u iskelelere ihtiyärlariyle ve furtuna ile vanrlarsa kimesne dahl u ta'arruz etmeye ve läzim olan zäd ü zevädelerin akgeleriyle alalar kimesne mani' olmaya (52°) ve Nederlanda viläyetlerinden ve aña tabi' olan yerlerden emn ü amänla Kudüs-i §ertf ziyärete gelüb gidenlere kimesne mäni' olmaya ve Kimäme näm kilisede olan ke§igler ve gaynlar dahi u ta'arruz etmeyeler ve siz Lüterän tä'ifesindensiniz deyü ta'allül ve bahäne eylemeyeler läzim olan yerleri (53°) ziyaret etdireler ve kalyunlari ve gemileri memälik-i mahrüsemize geldiklerinde hafz u siyänet olunub emín ü sälim gerü gideler eger emväl ü esbäb yagma olunmu§ bulunursa gäret olunan emväl ü esbäb ve ädemlerinin zuhüra gelmesi bäbinda sa'y u ikdäm olinub ehl-i fesäd (54°) her kim olursa olsun geregi gibi hakklarmdan geline ve el§ileriniñ ve künsulüslanniñ ve tercümanlanniñ ve kendü ademleriniñ hedayä u libäslari ve me'külät u me§rubätlari igün ak^elcriylc getürdükleri nesnelerden gümrük ve bäc ve reft ve kassäbiye taleb (55°) almaya ve beglerbegiler ve sancakbegleri ve kapudanlar kullarim ve käziler ve näzirler ve emínler ve hässa re'ísler ve goñüllü re'ísler ve umümen memälik-i mahrüsemiz ahälisi i§bu 'ahdnäme-i hümáyünumuñ 'adälet-makrünu ile 'amel eyleyüb kat'en hiläfina ceväz göstermeyenler göyle ki fermän-i kazä-cereyämmiza muhälefet ü mugäyeret üzere olub sa'y bi'l-fesäd üzere olan tä'ife-i tagiyeden olalar ol makulelere amän u zamän verilmeyüb hakklarmdan (56°) geline ki sä'ire mücib-i 'ibret olalar ve Nederlanda tüccäri ve sä'ir ädemleri satun aldiklari metä' bey'ü gira igün Trabzun ve Kefe ve sä'ir Karadenizde memälik-i mahrüsemizden olan iskelelere iledüb ve karadan Ten suyxndan Azaga ve Moskov ve Rus viläyetlerine alub gidüb ve memälik-i mahrüsemize ol cänibden metä' getürüb bey'ü §irä eyleyüb ticäret etdiklerinde kimesne mäni' olmaya ve metä'lanndan 'ahdnäme-i hümäyünum mucibince (57°) gümrükleri yüzde ü§ akce alinub ziyäde almayalar ve rüzgär muhälif olmagla Istanbula gelecek gemileri Kefeye veyä ol cäniblerde bir mahalle dügdükte veyähüd ihtiyärlariyle oldukda rizälanyla bay' etmedin cebren metä'i cikarub almayalar ve ol cäniblere varan kalyun u gemilerine kimesne mäni' olmayub ve mahüf u muhätara olan yerlerde hükkäm gemilerin ve iginde olan ädemlerin ve metä'larin kurudub ve giyänet eyliyeler ki zarär u ziyän olmaya ve läzim olan zäd ü zevädelerin bulunan yerlerde

140

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

71

ak^eleriyle almakda mu'avenet eyliyeler ve esbablann tahmil igiin gemi u 'araba tutmak istediklerinde §oyleki ahardan tutulmu§ olmaya kimesne mani' olmaya (58°) ve ol caniblerden Istanbula geturdiikleri meta'dan madamki satmak i^iin ahir yerde 9ikarmiyalar Istanbul'a gelince

72

giimriik alinmayub bu yere geldikde gikardiklari meta'dan giimriik alinub emin u salim ticaret eyleyeler (59°) sikarmadiklari meta'dan giimriik alinmaya ve Istanbulda meta'larindan yiizde iig ak^e gumriik alma ziyade almayalar i§bu zikr olunan 'ahd iizere madamki sadakat u ihlasda sabit-

73

kadem u rasih-dem olalar ben dahi dostlugi kabul ediib 'ahd u yemin ederim ki yerleri ve gokleri halk eden hiida-yi mu'in (calla iclaluhu ve 'amma navaluhu ve la ilah (anara allah ta'ala berahinihim) ervah-i §erifeleri igiin bu tarafdan dahi [hilaf-i]

74

ahd u misak ve mugayir-i 'ahd u ittifak i§ olunmayub i§bu 'ahdname-i hiimayun-i se'adet-makrunumun mezmun-i gerifi ile 'amel olunur §oyle bileler 'alamet-i gerife i'timad u i'tikad kilalar tahriren ii eva'il-i §ehr-i cemazi i-Tla-i sene ihda ve 'i§rin ve elf min el-hicre el-nebeviyye

75

be makam-i dar el-saltane el-'aliyye-i Kostantiniyye el-mahmiyye humiyet 'an el-beliyye ve '1-rezi'e .

Translation of the capitulation So, with the help of the perfection of eternal power and ever continuing abundant generosity of the holy excellence of the vigilant king, the supreme one, the majesty giver of presents and gifts (may he be free from comparison and similarity and above rivalry and deficiency); with the companionship of the miracles full of blessings of the holy excellence of the sun of the heaven of prophethood, the star in the constellation of chivalry, the leader of the host of the prophets, the example of the party of the pure, the beloved of God, the mediator of sinners at the day of punishment, Muhammed the chosen one (God, may He be exalted, bless him and give him peace); with the consent of the holy spirits of the holy excellences, the chosen companions, the rightly guided caliphs (God, may He be exalted be pleased with them all) and of all the saints one in right guidance and the host of the pure ones, pledges of happiness (their secrets be hallowed till the day of judgment); [Monogram of sultan Ahmed Shah, son of Mehmed Shah Khan, ever victorious. [1] [So,] I who am sultan of the chiefs of sultans and of the grand Khans, who distributes the crowns of ruling Chosroes, curtails the defects of Caesars, who breaks the multitude of Great Kings, I who am the hero of water and earth, the shadow of God (may He be exalted) upon the earths, occupier of

THE

DUTCH

CAPITULATION

OF

1612

141

the station of holy law (Lo, I am going to place a vice-gerent in the earth [Quran II, 28 Bell]), servant of the holiest of [2] towns and the most fortunate of places and regions, the two holy sanctuaries [Mecca and Medina], protector and judge of blessed Jerusalem, sovereign of the seat of the lofty sultanate, the glorified residence of the grand caliphate, well-guarded Istanbul (may it be protected from disaster) well-kept Edirne, well-guarded Bursa, of Rumelia 1 , Temesvar, the country of Bosnia, Buda, Sighetvar [3] Eger, Kanizsa, Semendria, Belgrado, the country of Anatolia, Caramania, the regions of Arabia, Damascus, the abode of peace, station of delight and rarity of the age, well-guarded Cairo, most happy Yemen, the countries of Ethiopia and Aden, the seat of the caliphate Baghdad, Kufa, Basra, al-Hasa 2 , Suakin, San'a, Aleppo, Dhu'lkadr 3 , [4] Shahrazur 4 , Adana, Tarsus, Antalya, Cyprus, Scio, Diyarbekir, Rakka, Rum 5 , £ildir, the province of 'Imadiyya 6 , Kurdistan in general, Kars, Erzurum, Georgia in general, Demirkapu 7 , Tiflis, Shirwan, the areas of Caffa, Kozlov 8 , the plain of Kip9ak [5] the countries of the abode of war Tunis, Tripoli of Africa, Algiers, Transylvania, Moldavia, Walachia and the other cities and towns, kingdoms and zones of earth and sea, all together subdued with the help of God, the King and conqueror by our Chosroes like overwhelming might and our royal overwhelming force and conquered from the house of war [6] and crowned ruler of the glorious places, sultan of the stronghold of justice, of the White Sea 9 and the Black Sea and so many kingdoms, islands, ports, passes, tribes and clans, of so many hundreds of thousands of soldiers bearing victory, king of kings, workshop of victory, appearance of everlasting grace, strong keeper of the miraculous signs [of the revelation] of the Muhammadan nation [7] sultan Ahmed Khan, son of sultan Mehmed Khan, son of sultan Selim Khan, son of sultan Su ley man Khan, son of sultan Selim Khan, son of sultan Bayazid Khan, son of sultan Mehmed Khan - God the bountiful King have mercy upon them- [8] The reins of the horse of happiness of the lord of the auspicious conjunction are secured in our grip of power and strength and all the inhabited quarter of the world and the

^Rumili cf. Note 24. Lahsa in the text. The former Turkoman principality around present day Elbistan and Malatya in southern Turkey. ^Town and region in Kurdistan, in the present day region of Kirkuk in Irak between Tebris and Medä'in and in Ottoman hands since 1554, cf., Babinger, Aufsätze, 1,419 N 2. 5 Rüm, the old name for the Turkish province of Sivas. ®North of Mosul in Irak. 7 North of Baghdad. ^Eupatoria in the Crimea. "i.e. the Mediterranean.

142

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

seven climes are conquered by the safeguard of our might, thanks to the cooperative grace of the protecting God. [91 Thanks to the countless bounty of perfection of God's holy excellence (may He be exalted above an equal) lasting resort of the high, the virtuous and the pious ones, has come to the lofty threshold, great in esteem, centre of majesty and to the sublime step, foothold of happiness, refuge of sultans of noble lineage and home of khans of high reputation from the part of the glories of the emirs of the Christian great, [points of] recourse of the illustrious leaders in the nation of the Messiah, managers of the affairs of the commonwealths of Nazarene communities, bearers of the trains of respect and dignity possessors of the symbols of splendour and pride [10] States General and rulers of the countries of the Netherlands, to which belong Gelderland, Holland, Zeeland Utrecht, Friesland, Overijssel, Groningen and Groningerland 1 , and also of many kingdoms belonging to the countries of the East Indies (may their lives be concluded by salvation)2 [11] with letters sealed by sincere friendship, the example of the notables of the nation of the Messiah, the esteemed ambassador Cornelis Haga (may his obedience increase). The dispatches have been studied and [12] [so have] the requests contained therein, the petition for friendship and privilege, which were the extreme of aspirations and the limits of thought, [and we have learned] that you had freed Muslims, prisoners taken from ships belonging to countries in a state of war with Islam (harbi) and sent them with all consideration to their countries and did not at the time make attacks on ships and men in our wellguarded dominions, you have requested [the privilege] after the [13] manner of the friendship which exists at present between our high threshold and France and England, that the merchants, servants and dragomans from the places belonging to your countries may come and go with their merchandise in safety and protection to our well-guarded dominions to trade and that there also be given to them the aforementioned [14] capitulation connected with glory and imperial commands manifesting obedience according to the friendship shown to both aforementioned [nations]. After this request for benevolence was made and everything else written and noted was submitted at the foot of our sultan's throne of felicity, the petitions were met with [15] acceptance. The ambassador was given an audience at our imperial stirrup and the same Cornelis Haga was appointed, like the other ambassadors, to serve as ambassador at our threshold of happiness. My command was issued that consuls be appointed in the scales in our well-guarded dominions. I gracefully

1 Evidently a misinterpretation of the relationship between Groningen city and its surrounding countryside forming together one of the Seven United Provinces. ^Meaning: by conversion to Islam!

THE

DUTCH

CAPITULATION

OF

1612

143

gave [16] permission for this capitulation entitled with justice, and our command of the course of destiny was issued as follows: [IV=(1°)] The community of merchants of the countries and places belonging to the Dutch provinces 1 may come and go, buy and sell in our well-guarded dominions. [V] No tax may be levied on the gold and the coins they take with [17] them. The governors-general, cadis, defterdars, commissioners and controllers of the mint may not interfere nor cause damage by saying: we will make ak$e of your silver. [VI=(2°)] So long as the Dutch merchants board ships of the enemy of Islam (harbi) to exercise their own trade they may not be detained on the pretext of being on enemy ships nor their goods be taken, since [18] they have been doing their own trade and not behaving in a hostile manner on corsair ships. [VIII] They may not be seized on that pretext nor taken prisoner. Nor, when a protected subject (zimmi) is leaving our well-guarded dominions taking [contraband] foodstuffs and is seized, [19] may be Dutchman in his company be made prisoner by force. [(3°)] Since the French Kings (padishah) entertain of old friendship between our threshold of happiness and themselves and never have given rise to [20] damage of the friendship, in the time of my ancestor sultan Selim Khan (God's forgiveness and pleasure be upon him) there was given an imperial command to sell the forbidden merchandise cotton, cotton-thread ("Filady") and morocco leather ("Corduanen"). After that, because of the perfect friendship and devotion maintained with our threshold of happiness in my late father's and sovereign's time 2 it was registered in the capitulation that not one individual would be prevented from having beeswax and coarse leather sold to him for money. For that [21] reason I too have maintained it as it was. At present the Dutch as well have offered friendship and devotion to our threshold of happiness and all the requests and notifications submitted to the feet of our high throne have been well accepted. Therefore cotton, cottonthread, morocco leather, beeswax and coarse leather will be sold (to them) for money, as they are sold to the French. [22] In this matter nobody may interfere nor make infringements. [X=art(4°)] When the sea does not permit their country to be reached and there is no possibility to come hither, nobody may interfere with their coming to anchor in the harbours and ports in our well-guarded dominions and doingn their own buying and selling.

' Nederlanda vilâyetlerine. Sultan Mehmed III (1595-1603).

2

144

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

[XI=art. (5°)] If law suits and hostility, cases of murder and bloodmoney occur among those from the Dutch Provinces, their ambassador and consul should see to it according to their customs and decide the case; no cadis nor legal officers should interfere. [XII=art. (6°)] When any persons enter upon a law suit against the consuls appointed for the [24] merchants' affairs, the consuls may not be put under arrest nor be sealed their houses. Their law suits involving consuls and dragomans must be heard at our threshold of felicity. [XIII] If imperial commands of prior or ulterior date contrary to the aforementioned articles be produced, they will not be listened to, [but] the [25] procedure will be according to our capitulation. [XIV=art. (7°)] If a subject of the Dutch Provinces dies, Treasury officials may not interfere with his goods contrary to the capitulation, saying that they are the property of unknown owners, or on any other pretext. [(8°)] The imperial commands given to the Dutch community are established [26] and assured and should be advantageous to the aforesaid community. [(9°)] The dividers of inheritances (kassam) and the cadis may not demand the duty on the division of inheritance. [XV=art. (10°)] Their ambassadors and consuls may employ the consular guards they desire and those persons whom they wish to procure, following usage, as dragomans. The Janissaries and others who are not needed, may not meddle with the [27] employment [of those in their service]. [XVI=(11°)] No one may interfere, when they are making grape juice or making wine for their own use in their residences. No one, whether members of our Janissary Corps or others, may commit the injustice and trespassing of wanting to buy under pressure. [XVII=(12°)] On the merchandise that the merchants have brought hither or bought and conveyed [28] at the request of the aforementioned [States General] they have to pay at Aleppo, Alexandria, and at other places 3% (ak§e) of customs duty and not more. The merchandise may not be assessed at an excessive price. [XVIII=(130)] When the merchandise they have loaded on their ships, bringing, buying and conveying it from wherever to wherever it may be, [29] comes into the hands of the customs, full consulate duty must be paid on it to the Dutch consuls. [XIX=(14°)] On the merchandise landed to be sold, that is, at Istanbul, or at any other scale wheresoever, [30] when they say that they are going to take it to another scale, customs duty may not be demanded, nor may anyone interfere with their going to take goods to another scale.

THE DUTCH

CAPITULATION

OF

1612

145

[XX=(15°)] The new duties 1 of kassabiye, reft, bac and yasakkuli may not be levied [(16°)] nor may more than 300 (akge) selametlik-tax be demanded on outgoing ships. [XXI= (17°)] When corsairs of Algiers [31] reach Dutch harbours, they must be treated with respect and sold powder, lead, other arms and sail, but when corsairs meet merchants subjects of the Dutch Republic they may not make prisoners nor rob their possessions. That does not have my noble pleasure. [(18°)] If there are prisoners from [(32°)] countries subject to the Dutch Republic, they must be set free and their possessions given up without default. If the corsairs commit any aggression, the aforementioned [States General should report this by letter. In the time of whomsoever governorgeneral it may be, that governor-general should be dismissed and the stolen goods be compensated [33] to them. Those enslaved must be set free. If they do not obey my noble command, they should not be received into the fortresses and harbours upon arrival in the Dutch Provinces. The capitulation concluded must not be impaired by their trespassing. On this subject the thanks and complaints of the aforementioned [States General] will be welcome to me. [34] [XXII=(19°)] To the governors-general, governors, cadis and commissioners of the scales in our well guarded domains imperial commands have been sent and our command of the course of destiny has been issued in such a manner that as long as the conditions of the capitulation and the practice of sincere friendship are observed as they should be by the aforementioned party [of the State General], on this side too [35] no person may interfere at all with their (: the Dutch) possessions or other goods, whether they are merchandise, goods and men coming by sea in galleons or other vessels or merchandise, cattle 2 and men coming by land. They must be free in their own affairs.

1 Neither the standard work of reference, Gibb-Bowen, op. cit., and Pakalin, Tarih Deyimleri nor the art. by Kopriilii, "bâc" in lA (translated in EI2 "badj"), give a full explanation of these forms of taxation. But cf. B.A. Cvetkova, Vie Economique de Villes et Ports Balkanique aux Xve et XVIe Siècles, Paris 1971,15-28 (=REI XXXVXXX, 267-355). Bâc in this case is a duty on imports, reft or reftiyye one on exports of merchandise. Kassâbiye was a tax meant to contribute towards the unkeep of the Janissary Corps (cf. Haga's disp. Of 3/23-4-1613 SG, 6889; H. Brwn, CSP Venice XII, p. Xxxiv, cf. Uzunçargili, Kapikulu 1 , 2 5 4 f.). According to the old translation of the French capitulation of 1604 "cassapelik" is "autrement nommé l'Ayde des Chairs", reft, "celui des Cuirs", bâc, "celui des Buffles", while the fourth one, yasakkûli was a duty paid "aux Gardes de nos Ports et péages", cf. Articles du Traité ... 1604: "selâmetlik" was a tax on departing ships. All these belonged to the class of tekâlif-i 'ôrfiyye. ^Line 35; cattle, tavârlan, also meaning possessions in general.

146

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

[36] [XXIII=(20°)] Those till now held prisoner in our well-guarded dominions must be set free in the place where they are. Their ransom may not be demanded from the Dutch, if [whoever of the present owners] have bought them, they should demand the ransom from those [who sold them]. [XXIV=(21°)] When any Dutchmen have bought provisions from Muslim ships at their free will while travelling [37] home, without going and buying in the countries at war, Muslim ships which meet them may not, after seizing them, arrest them nor make those on board prisoner. Likewise if any Dutchmen are found prisoner they must be set free and their goods given back. [XXV= (22°)] When enemy merchants have loaded Dutch ships with merchandise [38], nobody may confiscate this on the grounds that it is enemy goods. [(23°)] If such people, while coming from or going to our well guarded dominions or any other country in the course of their trade, become prisoner in any way, they must be released. [XXVI=(24°)] [The Dutch] coming to and going from [39] our wellguarded dominions under safeconduct must be given assistance in distress by storm at sea, this applies to all who are in need, either manning state ships or others. [(25°)] When procuring themselves provisions with money nobody may interfere, nor prevent it. [XXVII=(26°)] The merchants, dragomans and others from the Dutch Provinces may come [40] by sea and land to our well-guarded dominions, sell and buy, and, after they have paid the usual taxes according to practice and law, may not be interfered with either coming or going by commanders at sea (kapudanlar) and seagoing captains and others or by the military, nor may they be molested by the cadis. Nobody may damage them, their personnel, their goods or their cattle. [XXVIII=(27°)] If a heavy gale throws their ships at sea on to the land, governors, cadis and other must give assistance and return their salvaged goods to them. The officials of the Treasury may not interfere. [XXIX= (28°)] If a Dutchman becomes a debtor, the debt must be demanded from the one who owes it and no other may be arrested or required to pay unless he has stood as surety. [42] [XXX=(29°)] If a person dies, his goods and possessions must be given to whom he has bequeathed them. If a person dies intestate, they must be given to his local partner by way of his consul. Nobody may interfere. [XXXI=(30°)] If merchants, consuls and dragomans of places subject to the Dutch Provinces are engaged in our well-guarded dominions with selling and buying, trade and standing surety [43] and other legal business, they must

THE DUTCH

CAPITULATION

OF

1612

147

go to the cadi and have registration or a document made. If a dispute arises later the registration or the document will be taken into consideration and acted upon accordingly. If one of these documents is not there the case opened merely for summons and confiscation will not be heard, [44] as long as there is no document from the cadis nor registration written in the judicial records, they may not be injured contrary to holy law. The cases, which some people open fraudulently on the pretense of having been injured, merely to get a summons and confiscation, will not be heard either. They may not be injured in such a manner contrary to the holy law. Such cases must be [45] forbidden. If a Dutch subject is in debt or in any way suspect and makes his escape, one who has not gone bail for him may not be held. [XXXIV=(31°)] If later a Dutch subject becomes prisoner his consul must demand [him] and when it has been proved that the man is from the Dutch Provinces he should be taken and given up to the Dutch. [XXXV=(32°)] From the subjects of the [Dutch Provinces who have become residents in our well-guarded dominions, whether married to a zimmi woman or bachelor, and exercising trade, tribute (harac] may not be demanded. [(33°)] The consuls and dragomans who are employed by their ambassador are exempt from tribute, kassabiye-tax and extraordinary taxes (tekalif-i 'irfiyye), as has become usual. [XXXVI=(34°)] Nobody may present obstacles when [the Dutch] appoint consuls to the scales of Alexandria, Tripoli of Syria, the Acrchipelago, Tunis, Algiers [47] Cairo and other places, change them, appoint men capable of such a task in those places and dispatch them. [XXXVII=(35°)] Merchandise may not be left and [48] charged to the community of merchants when they have no wish for it. [XXXVIII=(36 0 )] If, in the case of a dispute, someone goes to the cadi and the dragoman of the Dutch is not present, the cadi may not hear the case. If it is about important affairs, the case shall be adjourned till the coming [of the dragoman]. But they may not seek an excuse and try to cause delay by saying: "Our dragoman is not present". [XXXIX=(37°)] If boats of privateers (levend kayiklari) make subjects of the Dutch Provinces prisoner and take them to Rumelia and Anatolia 1 [49] for sale, a thorough inspection must be made to discover where such people are, and, in whosesoever hands they are found, the [present owner] has to declare from whom he had bought the prisoner [even if he has turned Muslim. The latter will restitute the money to the former and the prisoner] will be released and freed. 1 "Rumelia and Anatolia" taken in the older, general, meaning of Ottoman Europe and Ottoman Asia.

148

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

[XL=(38°)] When in our well-guarded dominions [50] ships, galleys and fleets set sail and meet Dutch ships on the high seas, they must show friendship to each other and do no damage. [XL=(39 0 )] As long as [the Dutch] do not give presents out of their own pleasure, at sea or in port, they [Ottomans] may not take tools, goods, beardless boys and other things by force nor undertake any hostility. [51] [XLI=(40°)] The points written and registered in the capitulation granted to the French and the English are also established in favour of the Dutch. As to merchandise and other things, one must act according to the capitulation given to those [two nations]. Nobody may interfere or cause trouble contrary to the holy law and my imperial capitulation. |XLII=(41°)| Their [the Dutch] galleons and ships must be searched on departure, [52] at Istanbul and once again in front of the castles of the Dardanelles and [then] they must leave. Contrary to my imperial capitulation they may not be searched at Gallipoli nor may any money be taken in that manner or damage done. [XLIII=(42°)] After their galleons and ships have loaded merchandise in the scales in our well guarded dominions and have paid their custom duties in full, the ships may not be searched merely for the purpose of summons and confiscation nor may any damage be done in that [53] manner. [XLIV=(43°)] After they [the Dutch] have bought silk and other merchandise at Aleppo and elsewhere in our well-guarded dominions, have acquitted their customs duties and gone with their ships to Cyprus and other scales, and do not unload some of their merchandise to sell, but only out of the need to load it [54] on another vessel or to deposit it for a few days in the warehouse, damage may not be done or money taken in that manner on the pretext that they had unloaded their merchandise. The cadis, police authorities and other executive officers [ehl-i 'orf) may not cause damage contrary to my imperial capitulation. [XLV=(44°)] Galleons and ships, subjects of the Dutch Provinces, can load salt to the amount they wish at the set price which Muslims pay with their money at Cyprus and [55] the [other] scales in my well-guarded dominions. Nobody may prevent this nor may it be bought for more money than the fixed price. Also at the island of Cyprus they may load salt as ship's ballast. That salt is not like the other salt and is usually sold to every buyer at seventy-one ak^e/asper per waggon. [56] When the Dutch galleons and ships come and buy of that salt and put it on their ships in place of ballast, as usual of old not more than seventy-one ak§e per waggon may be taken for it. On this point the cadis, commissioners and other executive officers may not be vexatious.

THE

DUTCH

CAPITULATION

OF

1 6 1 2

149

[XLVII=(46°)] The Dutch importing into our well-guarded dominions lead, tin, iron [57] steel and other scrap metal merchandise may not be hindered. According to what is written in the imperial capitulation 3% ak^c may be taken as customs duties and no more may be demanded. From now on more may not be taken, nor vexation made in that manner. [XLVIII=(47°)] The loaading of goods on galleons and ships, subjects of the Dutch Republic, may not be prevented at the scales of Damietta, Alexandria and elsewhere upon the request of Muslims nor the transport [58] to Istanbul or elsewhere in our well-guarded dominions. More customs duty may not be demanded because of the loading on Dutch ships, customs duty must be taken as is being taken from other Muslims. [XLIX=(47°)] After their galleons and ships have paid full customs duties [59] according to the capitulation in whatever scale it may be, they may not be detained for some corvée (angariye) nor may it be proposed. [L=(48°)] If one of their merchants comes with merchandise and becomes a Muslim, the goods and coined money he has received from the ambassador, consul and merchants of his country have to be taken and delivered to their ambassador that he may send it to the owners. The man should not keep what is due to anybody else. In this point no [60] administrative officer or cadi must interfere. [LI=(49°)] If, contrary to holy law, people are molesting a Dutchman on the pretext that he has become a Muslim, no proceedings may be taken unless the man says in front of a dragoman that he has become a Muslim of his own free will. As long as the dragoman does not arrive there may be no molestation. A dragoman should be present. [61] |LII=(50°)| If, on the arrival of Dutch galleons and ships, the watchmen (mubgir) at the customs assess their goods unjustly above their [money] value, whatever the rate of customs be, that amount will be taken in merchandise. Money may not be demanded. [LIII=(51°)] If their galleons and ships go to fight those who are not in obedience to our Threshold of Felicity [62], if a fight occurs and they take enemy ships, nobody may interfere if they come then to any place or port or scale whatsoever of our well-guarded dominions by their own free will or through a gale. They may buy with their money the provisions they need. No one may interfere. [LIV=(52°>] No one may hinder those from the Dutch Provinces and [63] from places belonging thereto who are travelling under safe-conduct to Holy Jerusalem. The priests and other persons who are in the Church named 'Kimàme' 1 may not molest nor interfere. They may not seek a pretext, ' Kimame, recte Kiyame i.e. the Resurrection, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

150

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

saying: "You belong to the Lutheran community'. They must let him visit [64] the necessary places. [LV=(53°)] Their galleons and ships must be protected when coming to our well-guarded dominions and must go back safely. [LVI=(53°)] If goods and possessions happen to be plundered, attention must be given to the matter of the discovery of robbed goods, possessions and men. [65] Whoever the evil-minded people may be, each will be punished as fitting. [LVII=(54°)] Customs duty, bac, reft or kassabiye may not be levied on the things their ambassador, consuls, dragomans and their servants have brought for money such as presents, clothes, foodstuffs and drinks. [LVIII=(55°)] My slaves, governors-general, governors and naval commanders and cadis, supervisors [of pious foundations], commissioners, captains of the regular navy, captains-volunteer and in general the inhabitants of our well-guarded dominions must perform this, my imperial justice-bound capitulation. They must not commit any transgression against it. Thus those who oppose and distort our command of the course of destiny [67] and exert themselves in depravity will be members of the community of rebels. To that sort no pardon, nor time will be given. They must be punished so that they be a source of admonition to others. [LX=(56°)] The merchants and others from the Dutch Republic may proceed to sell and buy the merchandise they have bought at Trebizond, Caffa, and the other scales of our well-guarded dominions in the Black Sea, [68] may convey it and themselves go overland by way of the river Don 1 to Azov and the Russian countries of Moscow, and they may import merchandise from those parts into our well-guarded dominions, and engage in selling, buying and trading. No one may interfere in this. [69] From their merchandise no more than 3% ak^e may be taken as customs duty according to my imperial capitulation. [LXI=(57°)] If their ships going to Istanbul arrive at Caffa or a place in those parts because of contrary wind or of their own free will, their merchandise may not be unloaded by force when they do not sell out of their own pleasure. [70] No one may interfere with their galleons and ships arriving at those parts.

'Ten §uyu, as in the English capitulation of 1601 as published by A.N. Kurat in his Turk-ingiliz, pp. 204-8 (art. 17) and by Feridun, Miinshe'at, II, 550ff. The oldest Dutch translation however translates Ten as Danube! Cf. Bijlagen Tweede Kamer 18369-4713. From this article it is evident that the Dutch had already acquired the right of navigation in the Black Sea in 1612 and not only by means of the capitulation of 1680/1091, a fact overlooked by all previous writers on the subject, cf. E.g. Bosscha-Erdbrink, ... Calkoen.. 1726-1744, 150 and n 19. Needless to say the privilege had no practical meaning till the 19th century.

THE

DUTCH

CAPITULATION

OF

1612

151

[LXII=(57°)] The governors in dangerous places must protect their ships and the men and goods inside and keep watch that no damage occurs, [71] and they should assist in buying for money at the places where their necessary provisions are found. [LXIII] When they want to hire ships and waggons to load their goods, these must not have been hired by others. No one must interfere. [LXIV=(58°)] On the merchandise they have brought from those ports to Istanbul, so long as they do not unload it to sell at another place, [72] no customs duty may be levied till arrival at Istanbul. Upon arrival there duty may be levied from the merchandise they have unloaded. They may carry on trade safely. [(59°)] On the merchandise they have not unloaded no customs duty may be levied. At Istanbul 3% ak$e customs duty will be levied on their merchandise, not more. [LXV] As long as [the States General] will remain stand-fast [73] in friendship and devotion following this aforementioned promise, I too accept their friendship and do promise and swear, that for the sake of God the Helper, who created the earth and the heavens (his majesty be exalted, his gifts be general; there is no God but He) and for the sake of the holy souls of my noble ancestors and my father (may the Exalted God illuminate their miracleworking graves) 1 , that on this side too [74] [nothing contrary to the promise and agreement [n]or distorting the promise and the pact will occur. The noble contents of this imperial capitulation coupled with felicity will be performed. Thus it should be known. Belief and trust should be placed in the noble monogram. Written in the first ten days of the month Cemazi the first of the year one thousand and twenty-one of the Hegira of the Prophet. In the residence of the abode of the high Sultanate, well-guarded Istanbul, may it be protected from calamity and disaster.

1 burhân, plur. berâhîn, occurs frequently in 17th century Ottoman documents and monumental inscriptions. It is equated with sultan, authority, power in Ottoman usage, cf. Meninski, Lexicon 1780 ed. 1,535; the varying aspects have the connotation of argument, proof, light, illumination, miracle, miracle-working tomb, cf. F. Babinger, in Le Monde Oriental, XIV (1920) 126n (=Aufsätze I, 416 n 2), Der Islam, X (1920), 140n and R. Tschudi in Festschrift Jacob (1932), 325 n 1, 326 n 7 quoting Snouck Hurgronje, Mekka, II 374 and n 1 on kerâmet as the miracleworking grave in Java; F. Kraelitz, Osmanische Urkunden in türkischer Sprache..., Wien 1921, 24 translates "manifestationen".

152

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

Explanatory Notes [...] numbers in the translation indicate the lines of the Turkish [words] words in brackets show additions made by me numbers with indicate the article numbers as found in the old editions of the Dutch capitulations of 1680/1091. Roman numerals are equivalent to the article numbering in the oldest Dutch version of the first capitulation of 1612, published e.g. in Bijlagen Tweede Kamer 1869-1870, pp. 18369 ff.

8 THE OTTOMAN MEDITERRANEAN SINCE LEPANTO (OCTOBER 7TH, 1571). NAVAL WARFARE DURING THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

The Main Fleet of the Sultan The policy of the Ottoman central government was successful in rebuilding a new fleet of galleys in the five months following the disaster of the battle of Lepanto. Naval affairs were in the hands of the Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pa§a (1565-1579) and the admiral of Algiers K1I19 Ali Paga (1572-1587) who was made Kapudanpaga, "Grand Admiral". The Istanbul dockyards on the Golden Horn were enlarged by new ones built in the Sultan's gardens at Seraglio Point. These were capable to produce 8 galleys. In the provinces galleys were constructed at Varna, Burgas, Igneada, Vize, Ahyolu, Suzebolu, Midye, Kefken and Kerpe, Samsun and Sinope on the Black Sea; in the Danube port of Silistria and Semendria; at Biga, izmit, Gemlik and Yalova on the Marmara as well as at Rhodes and Antalya1. A battle of Lepanto was never repeated. The two powers were not to meet each other at sea ever again in such grand formation. Ottoman expansion however continued during the 17th century. Its first success was the combined fleet and army expedition led by vizier Sinan Paga and K1I15 Ali Paga as naval commander conquering Tunis in 1574. The main fleet remained in action during the following years, be it on a small scale. Each campaigning season the Kapudanpaga set out from Istanbul to make the "volta", the tour of inspection in the Archipelago and along the principal routes of navigation in the Levant Seas. In 1576, Palermo was raided. Inactivity in the years 15811590 led to a decline of the main fleet. Peace with Spain caused more damage than war! In 1582 an Ottoman fleet appeared briefly in the Western Mediterranean, but withdrew before joining the French fleet, which as a result was beaten by the Spanish in September 1582. Valencia and its surroundings were raided by the Ottomans in 1588. In 1590, the imperial dockyards at Istanbul began a big building programme on a scale comparable to the one of 1572. £ighalazade Yusuf Sinan Paga, grand admiral since 1591, continued ' E.H. Uzunçargili, Osmanli

Devletinin Merkez ve Bahriye Tegkilati,

Ankara 1948.

154

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

stepping up naval activity. Reggio in Calabria was attacked in 1591 for the second time in three years. The squadrons of Barbary were ordered to join a combined action to support the English and to further the causes of the King of Navarre and Don Antonio, pretender to the throne of Portugal, all adversaries of Spain. The plan was to raid the Andalusian shores, to capture 5000 slaves and to discipline Marseilles which adhered to the friends of Spain in these years of French civil war 1 . The shores of Calabria and Sicily were raided in 1592,1593 and 1594 by the corsair galleys from Bizerta (Tunis) and the Ottoman main fleet under Cighalazade Yusuf Sinan Pa§a with 90-120 galleys 2 . No big combined effort materialized however. The Ottoman Porte was not able to institute a general command in Barbary or a joint policy. In 1594, the Ottoman central government realized it could not exercise direct authority and made the best of it by issuing fermans to the Governors-general of Algiers and the other two provinces permitting them unlimited corsair action 3 . In 1595 the Ottoman main fleet did not go farther than its lookout at Modon. The same year a force of the Grand Duke of Tuscany occupied Chios for a short time. The area of Patras (Morea) was raided by a combined force of Tuscany, Naples and Sicily as a reprisal for the ravaging of Reggio in Calabria. Evidently the dismissal of £ighalazade Yusuf Sinan Pa§a impaired leadership. He was reappointed 1598 till 1605 and then led his fleet again out of Ottoman waters to harass the coasts of Naples and Sicily and to win booty and prizes in corsair actions. The main fleet passed Malta and Gozo on its journey to and from Algiers in 1598. In September took place this renegade Pa§a's memorable visit to his aged mother living at Messina for which exercise of filial piety the Spanish authorities in Sicily gave their charitable permission. These must have been anxious moments for the inhabitants of the shores of the Messina Straits! The following years saw raids made by the two enemy navies in each other's home waters and coasts 4 . Reverses of the Ottoman fleet caused by Florentines and Maltese were made good by the appointment of Halil Pa§a whose career had begun in the Sultan's household. His previous function was Aga (Commander in-chief) of the Janissary corps. The new admiral was not able to put to sea in the spring of that year. The Grand Vizier Murad Pa§a had ordered three galleys to fetch the emir Yusuf al-Sayfa, governor of Tripoli in Syria, who had again submitted to the Porte after a rebellion. Other ships had been ordered by the Vaughan, Europe and the Turk, Liverpool 1954,171; BBA MD 68 fol.ll (1589-1590) in A.S. liter, §imali Afrika'da TUrkler, Istanbul 1937 2 vols., 1,181. 2 Anderson, R.C., Naval wars in the Levant 1559-1853, Liverpool, Princeton 1952,63. 3 BBA MD 70, fol. 212: ferman to Shaban Pasha of Algiers in liter, op. cit., 1,182. 4 Anderson, op. cit., 65.

THE O T T O M A N M E D I T E R R A N E A N S I N C E L E P A N T O

155

Grand Vizier to ferry the troops over the Bosphorus for the year's land campaign. Thus it was only in July 1609 that Halil Pa§a was able to sail with 50 galleys from Be§ikta§. Cruising the Archipelago, the Kaptan Pa§a chased Maltese, Tuscan and Savoyard corsairs who were raiding Mitylene and Ayas (Lajazzo) in the gulf of Iskenderun. Between Cyprus and the mainland Halil hit upon three galleons and one pinnace under the chevalier de Fressinet, a French corsair of Malta, who had hoisted his flag on the famous Red Galleon of 80 guns. After a fight with heavy casualties -both Murat Reis, sancak beyi of Morea and Fressinet fell- Halil was able to take the big galleon (called 'Kara Cehennem' (Black Hell) by the Turks) and the other big ships. Only the pinnace was able to escape. Afterwards he went on the Famagusta in Cyprus and then returned chasing Tuscan and Maltese corsairs on his way. With the loss of one prize, he entered the Bosphorus again, on the 25th of November 1609. The triumphant admiral was raised to the rank of vizier by the sultan. The prizes brought home were 5 galleons, 6 tartanes and 4 frigates (i.e. galleys). Amongst the 540 captives were some knights of Malta 1 . The next season, on 16 July 1610, Halil Pa§a set out to police the archipelago and the Levant seas. Corsair ships were captured off the Morea and their crews hanged. Near Cyprus he had an encounter with a Tuscan squadron under Admiral de Beauregard but neither party was prepared for an engagement and only distant salutes were exchanged. Early December saw Halil Pa§a back in the Bosphorus, this time with 6 galleys (brigantines) as prizes. It was in 1610 that Halil began to work towards forming an offensive alliance with Morocco and Holland against Spain. Change of favour and position at court, a frequent occurrence in those days, caused a redistribution of offices in the divan at the end of 1611. Halil Pa§a, retaining his rank of vizier, i.e. the membership of the council, had to step down as admiral to make place for the sultan's favourite at the time, Damad Okiiz Mehmed Pa§a. Halil Pa§a, as Kaptan Pa§a however, had built up a position powerful enough to suffer a setback without incurring lasting damage to his political career. After his dismissal from the admiralship in the last days of 1611 Halil was actively involved in foreign policy, directed towards the western maritime powers. Of these, Venice could, then and later, count on his support though not exclusively, since Halil, in his quest for new allies against Spain, had learnt the importance of the northern sea powers, namely England and the Dutch Republic, which were both in conflict with this hereditary enemy of the F'orte. This was also the time of Anglo-French rivalry in the Levant trade. Protection of the Dutch merchants trading in the Ottoman Empire had become a bone of contention between the two powers. The Porte maintained some sort ilbid., 75; BN FF 7094, fol. 248.

156

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

of balance between them, now supporting the French cause and now the English. The position of the Dutch must have attracted Halil's attention especially because of his anti-Spanish point of view, although the Porte had all along been interested in the revolt of the Netherlands. All these interests of Halil Pa§a were fed by a wide network of intelligence, the nature of which can be inferred only obliquely by a glimpse here and there. As an admiral-in-chief and Beylerbeyi of the Archipelago, Halil was in touch with the Barbary corsairs, amongst whom were 'Turks' of English and Dutch origin who could give valuable information on the revolt in the Netherlands and Spanish naval power 1 . Other channels of information were Moriscos expelled from Spain who had settled in Barbary. These socalled 'Grenadines' were active in piracy and trade. A Morisco colony had established itself in Galata. Jews from Spain who had come to live in Holland, Morocco, Barbary and Istanbul, formed another such network of trade and intelligence across the Mediterranean. The envoys of the King of Morocco, for instance, were often accompanied by Jewish merchants. Then there were Levant merchants and artisans from European countries settled in Istanbul: Venetians, Ragusans, French, English and Dutchmen from both the northern and the southern provinces. Even from among the enemy fleets intelligence reports reached Halil Pa§a. In 1612, the French corsair in Tuscan service, Jacques Pierre, provided plans of Venetien fortresses. Of all the channels of information mentioned, the Muslims from Barbary were the most important. On 22 November 1613, Halil became admiral-in-chief for the second time, following the defeat of sultan's favourite Damad Okiiz Mehmed Pa§a at sea near Samos by Ottaviano de Aragon, admiral in the service of the Spanish viceroy at Naples, Ossuna. Halil Pa§a immediately set to work to equip the fleet, and 500 orders for the levy of criminals as rowers in the galleys were sent out. Volunteer rowers were recruited on a grand scale and the Khan of the Crimea was ordered to provide 20,000 peasants for paid rowing-service 2 . News of the gathering of a big Spanish fleet at Messina only added urgency to the preparations in Istanbul of a fleet of 80 galleys. The size of naval preparations shows how powerful Halil's position was at the time. It is also an indication of his enduring policy of defence against Habsburg pressure. Within this general frame it is only logical that an active foreign policy was undertaken in support. Halil Pa§a once more proposed an alliance between Holland, Morocco ' A corsair of Tunis, the English renegade Othman Dey with 6 sailing vessels attacked the Tuscans in the Gulf of Antalya and off Cyprus. Upon Halil Pa§a's proposal the Sultan sent him a kaftan of honour. See CSP Venice, vol. XII, 157: disp. Bailo Contarini d.d. 8 January 1611, Istanbul. 2 A R A SG 6889 Haga's (Dutch ambassador at the Porte 1612-1639) disp. of 17 April 1614.

THE O T T O M A N M E D I T E R R A N E A N S I N C E L E P A N T O

157

and the Porte, and letters in this sense were sent to the Hague and via Holland, to the King at Marrakish1. The authority of the Kaptan Pa§a was still so great that the province of Tunis sent deputies to Istanbul to ask for arbitration in a conflict with Algiers. As a result, the Beylerbeyi of Algiers was deposed to be replaced by a man loyal to the Kaptan Pa§a. This appointment was a further strengthening of the base of Halil's naval policy against Spain. The equipment of the fleet was timely completed and on 25 May 1614 Halil, after the traditional spending of alms and the Friday prayers for success, was able to put to sea, with 45 galleys in pursuit of the enemy fleet in the Archipelago2. At Scio, 20 galleys of sancak beyis of the Archipelago joined the grand fleet. With the later addition of about 10 galleys, which had taken longer to make ready, Halil in the end commanded a fleet of about 80 sail 3 , with which he left for Negroponte. Not finding the enemy there, he went on to Navarino on the west coast of the Morea. Again no enemy ships were sighted and he continued in the direction of Messina. The Christian fleet did not leave harbour, however, and the only thing to be done now was to make a raid upon Malta 4 . This did not turn out to be a big affair. After some burning, plundering and loss of men, the fleet left for Tripoli in Africa where the local Janissary commander Sefer Dey had come into rebellion. Halil Pa§a successfully restored law and order in the province by trapping the rebel leader and executing him on the spot. Having re-established the authority of the F'orte in Africa, he returned to Navarino5. On 5 September 1614 a squadron under Memi Reis, governor of Damietta, clashed with Neapolitan ships near Burak Reis (Prodano) off the coast of Morea, and here the Turkish commander lost his life. While still at Navarino, Halil Pa§a received a caftan of honour and a damascene sword as tokens of the Sultan's favour. From this base the admiral organized a punitive expedition in cooperation with the governor of Trikkala, Arslan Pa§a, and its goal was Mani, where the rebels had been receiving provisions from the Spanish viceroy of Naples, Ossuna, and the Grand Duke of Tuscany. The castle of Passava was restored to Turkish authority and the payment of taxes was once more assured for some time. ^Turkish texts in Feridun Ahmed Bey, Mun§eat us-Selatin, Istanbul 1274-75,2 vols., II, 245 ff.ARA SG 6889 Haga's disp. of 6 December 1613. 2 ARA SG 6889 Haga's disp. of 30 January 1614. 3 Anderson, op. cit., 80f (with wrong chronology); Na'ima, Tarih, Istanbul 1283 edition, II 11418. 4

Marsa Scala was plundered by a raiding party of 4000 men, cf. P. Earle, Corsairs of Malta and Barbary, London 1970,98. 5 A R A SG 6889 Haga's disp. Of 6 a. 20 August 1614 with enclosure letter of Halil Pa§a describing the campaign.

158

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

These exploits at an end, the Kaptan Pa§a left Navarino with the greater part of the fleet to arrive on 19 December 1614 in the Bosporus without having met the Spanish fleet. Considering the nature of naval warfare in the Mediterranean in this period, which was avoidance of a full-scale battle, it might be supposed that the Ottoman admiral - a s much as his Spanish opponent for that matteractually avoided a meeting at sea. The restoration of the authority of the Porte in outlying provinces like Tripoli and Morea in itself was already a remarkable achievement. The winter of 1614-1615 saw Halil Pa§a undertaking repairs and new equipment for the fleet, despite a shortage of money and materials for the execution of a building programme of 100 galleys. In April 1615, the admiral left the Golden Horn with 20 galleys to anchor at Be§ikta§ on the Bosphorus in front of the mausoleum of Hayr al-din Barbarossa, where prayers were said for success. After three days at this traditional berthing place, the fleet sailed on to Yedikule on the shore of the Sea of Marmara. Here, at the Seven Towers, marine troops were mustered and last preparations made 1 . The year's campaign turned out to be not more than police operations in the Archipelago. Halil Pa§a's ships took a Sicilian galleon off Calabria but the small fleet could not do much more. Reinforcements were not forthcoming from Barbary this year. The fate of Sefer Dey in Tripoli the previous year prompted the Beylerbeyh of Algiers to refrain from obeying the orders of the Kaptan Pa§a to join his fleet with their squadrons, although these orders had been dressed in robes of honour for each one of them. Another reason for the shortage of warships was the declaration of war against Persia in the same month. The army took the lion's share of the available funds, which the Grand Vizier needed. Halil Pa§a and the fleet were at Rhodes in August and withdrew to Scio in October 1615 when the fleet was already partially disbanded. This turned out be a serious miscalculation, although one often made due to the nature of galley warfare. For the Christian galley fleet of 27 sail turned up in the Archipelago, having taken Turkish prizes already on the sea-route from Alexandria. This lack of vigilance was criticized in Istanbul, but it was too late for Halil to do anything more about the 20 Spanish galleys cruising of the coast of Mani (Morea). The year's booty was only five French prizes taken in the Archipelago. On 14 November 1615, the fleet entered the Bosporus and the admiral was received in audience by Sultan Ahmed I. Early in 1616, Halil Pa§a drew up a report for the sultan on maritime affairs. The superiority of the Christian powers at sea was contrasted with the lack of Ottoman equipment in recent years. The sultan put 3,000 ducats from J

ARA SG 6889 Haga's disp. of 2 a. 18 April 1615.

THE O T T O M A N M E D I T E R R A N E A N S I N C E L E P A N T O

159

his privy purse at the admiral's disposal to spend at the imperial dockyards. Halil Pa§a embarked on new diplomatic activities as well. The scope of his activities point to the great prestige and power the admiral-in-chief was enjoying at this time. Halil Pa§a was not able to raise the number of newly built galleys above the normal one of about 40. Furthermore, equipment progressed slower and crews were difficult to assemble. This was not good enough for the present naval situation. The Cossacks were able to defeat the Ottoman squadron sent against them in the Black Sea under the command of viceadmiral (Tighalazade Mahmut Pa§a whose tactical skills fell far short of those of this famous father, the admiral Sinan Pa§a. Halil equipped 10 more galleys, and with a fleet of 59, set out to police the Archipelago himself after two Ottoman squadrons had been defeated, a small one off Negroponte (Egriboz; Euboea) by a Tuscan force under the admiral Inghirami, a large one at Cape Gelidonya (south Anatolian coast) by the galleon squadron of the Spanish viceroy Ossuna, which was commanded by Ribera and led by the French corsair Jacques Pierre. Halil Pa§a was able to restore his prestige somewhat by attacking successfully six galleons, Tuscan, Maltese and Sicilian, near Rhodes in August 1616. The Pa§a was assisted in this campaign by five Algerian ships, which he had requested. The fleet returned only late in the year 1616 to Istanbul 1 . During the naval seasons of 1617, 1618 and 1619, the main fleet was commanded by Celebi Ali Pa§a, a born sailor son of a Beylerbeyi of Tunis originating from Istankoy (Kos) island in the Dodecanese. Each year the fleet toured the Archipelago and visited the African coasts. Prizes were taken but heavy losses (12 galleys and transports in 1617) also were sustained. In December 1619, Halil Pa§a was made admiral-in-chief for the third time. The admiralty gave back to Halil Pa§a some scope for developing his anti-Spanish policy and the alliance with Morocco, when the divan discussed the next target for offensive policy at the behest of the warlike Osman II. In 1620, on 22 June, Halil Pa§a left with the fleet for the Archipelago and the Ionian Sea 2 . This may have been connected with the final downfall of the Spanish viceroy of Naples, the duke of Ossuna, who had left for Spain in his own galleys on 6 June. His departure meant the end of his powerful squadron of 18 sailing vessels.

^Ibid., 6890 Haga's disp. of 6 August 1616; Anderson, op.cit., 86f. On the first ever battle fought between a fleet of galleys and one of sailing vessels of Cape Gelidonya. 2 ARA SG 6894 Haga's disp. of 27 June 1620.

160

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

The Turkish fleet passed Preveza and went as far as Durazzo and then on to the Italian coasts. The admiral landed at Manfredonia on 16 August 1620. The town and castle surrendered and the Turks took their booty, 450 slaves, and left two days later 1 . The mixed Christian fleet at Messina was not able to overtake and pursue the Kaptan Pa§a, who slowly sailed back, put in to Scio and ran into Istanbul harbour in October 1620. He offered an impressive present to the divan, a procession of 400 powder-barrels covered in cloth, carried by 60 Christian slaves, old and young, both men and women, and 3 church bells, 4 medium weight guns, 6 horses, bales of silk and wool, 12 large leather purses full of gold and silver, and 2 priests in the robes of the bishop of Manfredonia, carrying crosses and the banners of their church 2 . In the 1621 season the main-fleet went to the Black Sea. Next year Halil Pa§a maintained his admiralship for another season (during the revolts in the capital which led to the deposition and murder of the Sultan Osman II and the succession by his uncle Mustafa I). The admiral-in-chief toured the Archipelago. A separate squadron was formed to serve in the Black Sea. On 5 February 1623, Halil Pa§a was dismissed. In the years 1623 to 1645 naval action of the Ottoman grand fleet remained limited to the volta in the Archipelago and the seas between 'Greece' and Italy. The Kaptan Pa§a in the years 1635 to 1638 (afterwards Grand Vizier from 1638 till 1644) Kemanke§ Kara Mustafa reorganized the imperial dockyards in Istanbul by extending the number of docks to 40 to render feasible the yearly construction of 40 galleys, which is about the average number of ships cruising in the Mediterranean in this period 3 . Special tax funds reserved from the tithe levies and extraordinary taxes, were set apart for the purpose from now on. One may summarize this period up to the outbreak of the Cretan War as the Ottoman threat being kept alive by the needle pricking done by the Maltese corsairs provoking the Turks into action every time. The ostensible motive of the Porte to begin a full-scale war against the Republic of Venice for the possession of Crete in 1645 indeed was such a provocation by Maltese corsairs, who intercepted a convoy going to Egypt. After a year's preparation the Ottoman grand fleet assembled at Navarino on 21 June 1645 and left in the direction of Crete instead of Malta as had been officially made known before.

' ibid,. 6895 Ouwercx (Dutch consul at Venice) disp. of 11 July 1620. Ibid., 6895 Haga's disp. of 9 December 1620. 3 Na'ima, Tarth, IV 33f„ 66f.; Ill, 209,300; Mehmed Hafid, Sefinet ul-Vuzera, I, Parmaksizoglu ed„ Istanbul 1 9 5 2 , 2 9 , 3 0 .

2

THE O T T O M A N M E D I T E R R A N E A N S I N C E L E P A N T O

161

According to different sources the main fleet of the Kaptan Pa§a consisted of 50 galleys and 7 transport vessels. The Beys of the naval districts in the province of the Archipelago came with 25 galleys altogether 1 . A number of 40 sailing vessels were hired from among western merchantmen present in Ottoman ports in the Levant. The three Barbary provinces were ordered to join already the year before. The Algiers squadron of 20 sailing ships came only in July, late because of the on-going war with France. Auxiliary troops and ammunition came with troops and ammunitions, which had been paid for already by the Porte. Another calculation based on Turkish sources reaches a total general of 349 warships and transport vessels, assembled at the outset of the voyage to the shores of Crete. The total number of Ottoman ships in service is difficult to estimate for each year till 1669. But a reliable source gives the following data for 1649. The then Kaptan Pa§a commanded 60 galleys, 10 transports, 3 sailing warships, to which the Barbary provinces contributed another 26 sailing ships and 10 galleys. At the occasion of the great defeat at the Dardanelles on 24 June 1656, the Kaptan Pa$a had 61 galleys, and 28 sailing ships of which only 14 galleys could be saved 2 . It will not do to describe the course of the Cretan War (1645-1669) here. Our subject is to assess what is prolongated war effort meant for the lasting Ottoman threat in the Mediterranean world. What were the consequences for the Ottoman presence elsewhere, in the Adriatic, in the Italian waters, the seas of the Levant and in the seas of Barbary and Spain? The Ottoman grand fleet was blockaded inside the Dardanelles at times, which fact reduced the presence of Ottoman warships elsewhere in the Levant. As to the Western Mediterranean it is certain that in most seasons of the 24 years the war lasted, strong contingents from Barbary were present in the main fleet. Exceptions were only those years when all ships were needed in their home waters. The three African provinces made their navies as much available to the central government as they could without fatally impairing their own defensive and offensive organisation at home. The presence of sailing warships in the Ottoman main fleet was rendered possible by the sailing contingents from Barbary. In this context one must remember the failure of the Istanbul dockyards to construct a seaworthy sailing warship in 1651 3 .

1 Anderson, op.cit., 140, 145-151; Sefinet, 32n93, 34nl03; K. Yiikep, Girit Seferi (1645-1669), Ankara, 1977, 89. Anderson, op.cit., 159f; Uzunfargih,Merkez, 422nl; Yiikep, op.cit., 17,26. 3 Katib gelebi, Tuhfetu'l-Kibar fi Esfari'l Bihar (ed. O. Gokyay), Istanbul 1973,190 (ed. Istanbul 1329,128)

162

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

The end of the Cretan War meant peace between the Ottoman Empire and Venice. It did not make an end to the aggression of the Knights of St. John of Malta with their galley squadron of 6 to 7 vessels and their irregular sailing corsair ships. Equally persistent were the corsairs of Barbary, by necessity countering their nearest foes. It was during the Cretan War that the need of a modern sailing fleet became evident to both protagonists. Unlike Venice it took many years before the Porte was able to introduce a squadron of sailing warships in its main fleet on a permanent base. The Kaptan Pa§a Ibrahim Pa§a had such ships built in 1682 and devised a suitable command structure 1 . Next to the Kaptan Pa§a an "Admiral of the Galleons" (Kapudane) was appointed ranking as a Beylerbey (governor general, Pa§a) with his flagship. Serving under him was a "second captain of galleons" ranking as a sancak beyi (governor, Bey) and a third captain. The Ottoman navy in this way could be an aggressive force again. During the Cretan War already the restoration of central power had been begun by the strong regime of the first Grand Vizier of the Kopriilii line of viziers, Mehmed Pa§a (1656-1661). The attempt to establish direct authority over the three Barbary provinces failed in spite of the sanctions enforced. At one time the Grand Vizier ordered recruitment of marine soldiers and Janissaries in the coastal districts of Asia Minor to be forbidden. Recentralization was put through in the province of the Kaptan Pa§a by the later successor in the Kopriilii line, Kara Mustafa Pa§a, who was Grand Admiral from 1661 to 1666. In the year 1683 just before starting the war against the Emperor this Grand Vizier abolished the tax-exempted coastal districts in Morea and Acarnania-Aetolia (Karlieli in Turkish). These were production zones of naval materials and recruiting areas of personnel. The task of guarding the coasts in these areas now fell to the central admiralty in distant Istanbul, instead of the maritime governors. As a consequence the Morea was denuded of naval defence when Venice attacked in 1685. The successful aggression of Venice this time is evidence of the fact that Ottoman sea power was not seen as a threat anymore. The Venetians turned out to be superior in battle. The organisation of the fleets of Venice and the Ottoman Empire was still roughly alike at this time, still a composite of galleys and sailing warships complemented by corsair cruisers 2 . Naval forces on the Ottoman side could be superior to that of Venice only if joined by the squadrons (of sailing ships) of the North African provinces.

* Ibrahim Pa§a was related to the Deys of Tripoli, cf. Sefinet, 40 a nl33; Uzun?ar§ih, Merkez, 433f, 497. 2 Anderson, op.cit„ 185-236.

THE O T T O M A N M E D I T E R R A N E A N S I N C E L E P A N T O

163

Venice had 28 galleys, 6 galleasses, 24 sailing ships and other small craft, the Turks 40 or more galleys, 16 sailing ships and lesser craft, not counting the ships from Barbary (whose number could be 10 Algerines, 6 Tripolitans and 2 Tunetans). Next to Venice there were its allies, the Maltese 8, the Pope's 5 and Tuscany's 4 galleys. One of the few successes of the Ottoman navy was gained by its sailing squadron commanded by its admiral Baba Hasan Pa§a, who defeated a Venetian squadron in the eastern Archipelago on 12 July 1686. During the course of the war it became clear that Venice had not enough power to extend its conquests to Negroponte, Chios, Mitlylene or indeed Crete. The results of battles remained undecisive. The squadrons of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli put their weight in the scales. Mezzomorto Hiiseyin Pa§a (d. 1701), once governor-general of Algiers, left his home in 1689 to become 'admiral of the galleons" in the Ottoman main fleet 1 and Grand admiral in 1695. His experience brought about a new aggressive warfare into the war with Venice. In 1690 he was able to destroy his opposite number, the commander of sailing ships of Venice, Alessandro Valier, off Milo. In 1695, Mezzomorto attacked the Venetian main fleet near the Spalmadori Islands on 15 September 1695. It was a confrontation of the 20 sailing warships of each party. For the first time an Ottoman Grand Admiral used a sailing vessel as his flagship (The Venetian Capitan General was never to do such a modern thing). From 1694 till 1698 the belligerent fleets did battle but did not gain decisive victories. When peace was made in 1699 Venice gained Dalmatia, Morea and some lesser islands in the Archipelago like Egina; Lepanto and Preveza, however, were given back to the Sultan. Mezzomorto Hiiseyin Pa§a continued to reform the Ottoman naval organisation. After his death in 1701 new Navy Regulations (the kanunname of 1113 A.H.) were issued 2 . The number of sailing ships was put at 40. Nautical knowledge and experience were made conditional for all appointments of commanding officers. Seniority was attributed to the "admiral of galleons", who was second only to the Grand Admiral and to be his successor. A strict hierarchy was instituted in the appointments of senior officers. In times of war the Grand Admiral was to use a sailing flagship. Only in peacetime was he still allowed to use the traditional baparda galley. The quality of the reformed fleet was tested in the following war with Venice. In 1714, the government of Sultan Ahmed III (1703-1730) felt strong enough to open the attack upon the Venetian territories and islands in the ' i . H . Danijmend, Izahli Osmanli Tarihi Kronolojisi, Istanbul 1971-72 in 5 vols., V, 201, 203; Sefinet 42f. Saffet Bey, Mezermortazàde Hiiseyn Pa§a, Istanbul 1328,122-29.

164

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

Archipelago. Casus belli were the constant depredations by corsairs of Ottoman shipping for which Venice was held responsible. In 1715, Tinos was conquered, an island which never had been part yet of the Ottoman dominions. The command of the fleet was in the hands of 'Canim Hoca' Mehmed Pa§a, an experienced sailor originating from Algiers and admiral of the sailing ships before being appointed Kaptan Pa§a in 1714. The same year 1715 Morea was re-conquered, Navarino and Koron were evacuated and Modon surrendered by the Venetians in August. The Venetian fleet stationed there avoided battle. Monemvasia and Santa Maura Island fell in September and October respectively. The three Venetian strongholds on Crete, Suda, Grabusa and Spinalonga were also lost. The one memorable naval battle was fought off Cape Matapan 20-23 July 1718. The outcome showed Ottoman power to be equal to that of Venice. The Ottoman fleet consisted of 36 ships of the line with 2000 guns, the Venetians had 26 ships with 1800 guns. Casualties for both parties ran into nearly 2000 each. One must realize the fleets engaged were much larger than was to be seen in the days of Nelson's victories in the Mediterranean, e.g. at Abukir Bay where 14 English ships of the line fought 13 French in 1798 The peace made at Pasarowitz in 1718 reflected the results of Ottoman superiority at sea. Venice which belonged to the victorious alliance only kept Cerigo (Kythera) and the Ionian Islands next to territory won in Dalmatia, Herzegovina and Albania. In 1722 an Ottoman squadron of 10 sail appeared before Malta to demand the release of Ottoman captives. A twenty-year truce was negotiated but in vain 2 . Troubled years followed in Istanbul and by 1733 the neglect of the navy became so evident that the old expert sailor Camm Hoca Mehmed Pa§a was recalled from his provincial governorship in Crete's Retimo. From 1733 to 1736 he reorganised the naval establishment. In 1733, the Ottoman fleet left again for the Archipelago. At the outbreak of war with Russia in 1736 Canim Hoca did not go into action in the Black Sea to support land forces in the Crimea and was dismissed 3 . The wars with Russia, which followed in the course of the 18th and early 19th centuries, changed the picture fundamentally. Russia was not allowed to have a fleet in the Black Sea according to the peace of Belgrade of 1739. When in 1768 the Sultan opened war it was necessary for the Russians 1

F.C. Lane, Venice, A Maritime Republic, Baltimore 1973, 411, 413; C. Lloyd, The Nile Campaign, Newton Abbot 173,37-55. 2 Anderson, op.cit., 271; Abbé de Vertot, Histoire des Chevaliers Hospitaliers de Saint Jean de Jerusalem..., Amsterdam 1757 5 vols., V, 294-98. 3 Sefinet, 49.

THE O T T O M A N M E D I T E R R A N E A N S I N C E L E P A N T O

165

to send a squadron from Kronstadt in the Baltic, via the Straits of Gibraltar. In 1770, this fleet of 24, plus smaller craft commanded by Count Alexis Orlov arrived at the coasts of the Morea and opened the attack upon all important fortresses and harbour towns such as Modon, Navarino, Patras and Nauplion. The Ottoman fleet under Hiisameddin Pa§a did nothing to prevent this 1 . Withdrawing to the harbour of £e§me (West of Izmir, facing Chios) the Russian fleet closed in and was able to destroy the ca. 20 Ottoman ships almost totally on July 5-6, 1770. This date marks the end of an Ottoman threat in the Levant seas. A Russian threat came in its place, at least at sea! The operations of the Russians from 1770 to 1774, the end of the war, show the limitations of sea power when it is lacking a corresponding military strength on land. That was the contrast with the Ottoman presence in the Archipelago. The destruction of the Ottoman fleet did not mean the end of corsair activities of any party in those seas. The Western -neutral or not- nations trading in the Levant had to take measures to protect their shipping. From this time on most European powers stationed one of more warships in the Levant. In 1773 e.g. the Dutch sent a man of war, stationed at Izmir. It was either a vessel detached from the Mediterranean squadron cruising along the African coast or one especially sent for this purpose 2 . An Ottoman reaction to their sorry state of naval affairs was /.a. the establishment of a naval school with the help of foreign advisers, such as the Hungarian-French Baron de Tott and the British Renegade Campbell (Ingiliz Mustafa) in 1776 3 . The general direction of naval affairs at this time was given to the experienced Cezayirli Gazi Hasan Pa§a, who became Kaptan Pa§a at first from 1770 till 1774 and again in 1774 till his dismissal in 1789 4 . During his second tenure he conducted reforms of the navy, taught at the naval school and directed the rebuilding of the fleet by French naval engineers. As a result in 1784, the Ottoman fleet had 22 ships of the line and 15 frigates. However the quality of commanding officers did not improve. The new fleet was heavily defeated by a likewise new Russian fleet in the war declared by the Sultan in 1787, and fought in the Black Sea. The new situation in the Mediterranean, where privateers were active under the Russian flag, based on 'ibid., 54: a grandson of the Ottoman admiral Camm Hoca; also Anderson, op.cit., 291 on the following year. J.C. De Jonge, Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Zeewezen, Haarlem 1858-1862 (second ed.) 5 vols, V, 105 n. 3 F . Kurtoglu, DenizMektepleri Tarihgesi,Istanbul 1931-1941 2 vols, 1 , 4 , 2 6 ; II, 1-15. 4 A . L Gencer, Bahriye'de Yapilan Islahat Hareketleri ve Bahriye Nezareti'nin Kurulu§u (17891867), Istanbul 1985,23f, 3 3 , 5 7 ; S J. Shaw, Between Old and New. The Ottoman empire under Sultan Selim III 1789-1807, Cambridge (Mass.) 1971, 25, 48, 153-65, 441 (with errors in dating); Uzunsar^ih, "Cezayirli Gazi Hasan Pa§a'ya dair", TUrkiyat Mecmuasi VII-VIII (Istanbul 1940-42), 17-40+ills.

166

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

Trieste, showed just as clearly that the main Turkish navy was no longer a threat to anyone. Its size as a result of Hasan Pa§a's direction of building was a total of 90 sail by 1790. Of large warships there were 18 sail. Of frigates 24 including 4 small ones presented by the ruler of Morocco(!), 6 galleys, 10 lesser galleys, 8 sloops, some brigs and some 20 smaller craft locally built in the naval districts of the Black Sea. The effected reforms did not produce a fleet of truly modern ships nor a properly trained personnel in spite of all efforts. In 1802, under Sultan Selim III a new programme of reforms was inaugurated which brought about essential renewal in the administration and financing of the navy. The fleet in action against the Russians again till 1809 in the Mediterranean and 1811 in the Black Sea was little prepared when hostilities broke out in February 1807. The British were allies of the Russians now. Admiral Duckworth was able to enter the Dardanelles and went on to Istanbul and back again with little losses and little success. The Russian fleet in the Mediterranean took over from the British and blockaded the exit of the Straits. Tenedos was conquered. Admiral Senyavin had 10 battleships and 6 frigates. The reformed Ottoman fleet attacking the Russian Mediterranean squadron was led by the Kaptan Pa§a. At the first action he lost 3 battleships, which were driven aground. In 1807, the greatest battle in the war took place between Lemnos and Mount Athos. The Ottomans had 10 battleships, 7 frigates, 2 sloops, 2 brigs and 70 galleys. When forced to retreat they had lost 3 battleships (i.e. the flagship of the second-in-command, the English officer in Ottoman service Baker Bey) 9 frigates and 2 sloops. The Ottoman main fleet was not able anymore to defend its home waters.

The three Barbary provinces and their fleets In the years since Lepanto (1571) the Western and Eastern Mediterranean waters were made unsafe for merchant shipping by the omnipresence of privateers, corsairs, carrying the flag of powers such as France, England, Holland, Malta or the Ottoman Sultan. Many of them exceeded their license and attacked any shipping promising to be an easy prize without regard of the ships' nationality, enemy to the home government or not. Corsairs then became mere pirates. Bearing in mind that legally in theory a permanent state of war existed between the states under Islamic rule and the so-called Christian powers the threat exercised by the corsair of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli was universal. Their attacks on Christian coasts and shipping were

THE O T T O M A N M E D I T E R R A N E A N S I N C E L E P A N T O

167

only partially checked by the conclusion of a truce or peace between the Ottoman Empire and its friends and enemies. The shipping of Malta, Spain and its allies remained excluded from any pacific arrangements till the end of the 18th century. The everlasting aggression of the Ottoman corsairs had its counterpart in corsairs and privateers operating from ports as La Valetta, Civitavecchia, Naples, Messina, Livorno and Genoa, who kept up the spirit of crusaders directing their actions to friend or foe as the chances of an easy prize might be. The North African provinces of the Ottoman Empire remained integral parts of the "House of Islam" and shared the community of interest of the Sultan in Istanbul. Never was there an initiative of separation towards independence. As warriors of Islam they kept up a permanent activity of corsair cruisers and provided naval support to the main forces of Istanbul. They were present at sea at times or even years the Kaptan Pa§a did not appear. In 1577, the Porte organised its North African dependencies into three separate provinces each governed by a governor-general (Beylerbey, Pa§a) appointed at more or less regular intervals, as was the case in the rest of the empire 1 . This division of Barbary into three provinces took many years in fact. The establishment of the internal borders proved to be a big problem. Between 1570 and 1590 the border between Tripoli and Tunis often changed. In 1614, a full-scale local war was needed to fix the borders between Tunis and Algiers. Next to the administrative division the Porte wished to install a common naval command in North Africa to compensate the absence of the main fleet in the West Mediterranean. A supreme commander was to organize the safeguarding of coasts and the sea-routes to Istanbul and Egypt. The task was allotted to Hasan Pa§a of Tunis, chosen to be "Serdar of the Ghazis" because of his expertise in naval affairs. The ferman dated 10 January 1588/10 Safar 996 A.H. had no lasting effect. The province of Tripoli was shaken by internal revolt. A mahdi had proclaimed himself leading the native Arab Muslims against the Ottomans. It took 4 years for the Porte to restore order. The Kaptan Pa§a came with a fleet of 50 galleys and troops. Two campaigns had no success, istankoylii Ahmed Pa§a, Beylerbey of Algiers at the time, took over and was able to suppress the rebels at the cost of his own life. By the year 1590, local autonomy began to take form in Tunis with the beginning of the regime of the Deys, Janissary commanders, chosen by their corps. This military being recruited from Anatolia's landless peasant 1

titer, op.cit., 1,168; II, 120,211.

168

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

populations meant that leading personalities were of "Turkish" Anatolian stock. The bond with the Ottoman centre was maintained in this way on an extensive scale during the ancien regime in the Barbary provinces till the 19th century. A comparable development took place in Algiers. The situation in Algiers showed a triple power structure: at the head the Sultan's appointee, the Pa§a whose authority varied according to his origins, local or from elsewhere in the Ottoman lands, his qualifications, as a sailor or military commander with experience or a mere courtier or clerical servant of the sultan. The community of the Turkish Muslim Janissary garrison formed the most powerful local block. In the third place came the community of the corsair captains and their sailors and marine soldiers. The autochtonous Arab population only played a marginal and subject role. The trend toward an autonomy in government and policy of the Barbary provinces becomes evident from the fermans issued by the Sultan to his Beylerbeys and other subjects there. One must look at their contents and at what was their effect (if any). An inherent weakness of the Ottoman exercise of authority by the central government was that orders to local governors were transmitted preferably via an interested party, the one who had requested a certain measure, complained about an injustice or stood to gain by the policy announced. Fermans had their effect only if registered by the local kadi's court and acknowledged by the local executive power. In Ottoman Barbary that was the divan (council) presided by Beylerbey, Dey or Bey. For instance: In the year 1585, the Porte issued orders that the capitulations granted to England in 1580, and confirmed in 1583, should have their full effect in the Barbary provinces. The interested party, i.e. England, had to transmit the fermans. An English ship carried a courier with the documents. No confirmation of receipt or any acknowledgement came forth in spite of the repeated issue of the fermansl. In the vague area of war, peace or truce between Islam and the non-Muslim powers, the Porte could nor would enforce acceptance since the Holy Law of Islam could, formally at least, not be subservient to legal practice of the Sultan's government. It took some years for the Western friends of the Ottoman Porte to understand this subtle state of affairs. To understand the permanent tension prevalent along the maritime frontiers of the Ottoman Empire in the 17th century an enumeration of naval actions should be enlightening. The lasting sense of threat ruling the waters of shores of the Mediterranean was based on the hard fact of the presence of the Ottoman corsairs who formed the most modern division of the Sultan's naval 1

Ibid.,II,222.

THE O T T O M A N M E D I T E R R A N E A N S I N C E L E P A N T O

169

forces, and an instrument of foreign policy like the main fleet of the Kaptan Pa§a used to be 1 . The coasts of Sicily, Naples, Corsica, the Papal state and Spain were open to raids of Barbary corsairs, using galleys till the second decade of the 17th century when sailing vessels were increasingly employed 2 : Algiers already equipped ca. 60 by 1617, Tunis 14 in 1618 and Tripoli a much smaller number, probably 2 or 3. With these forces the Ottomans entered a period of an unceasing series of minor operations. The Levant seas and the Western Mediterranean became separate fields of action for the main fleet and the Barbary squadrons. Since about 1620 one may consider the Barbary provinces to have become a separate circuit in Ottoman foreign relations as well as it was in maritime affairs. Cooperation at sea had to be asked for by the Porte. In 1638, Algiers' assistance led to a disaster for the squadrons commanded by the well known Ali Picinino Reis. The combined force of Algiers and Tunis (i.e. Bizerta) entered the Adriatic to act against Venetian aggression. The harbour of Spalato (Split) was being developed at the expense of Ottoman Ragusa. The 16 Barbary galleys captured a Venetian vessel near Cattaro (Kotor) and brought it inside the Ottoman harbour of La Valona (Vlore). A Venetian force of 20 galleys commanded by Antonio Capello blockaded the Barbary ships at first and then attacked these inside the roadstead destroying 4 galleys and taking the rest as prizes 3 . These were later sunk at Corfu with the exception of Ali Picinino's flag-galley, which was taken in triumph to Venice. This great loss spelled the end of galley warfare for Algiers. The transition to a modern sailing fleet was speeded up as a consequence of this momentous event. War between Venice and the Porte did not break out. According to the Veneto-Ottoman peace of 1573 corsairs were not to enter the Adriatic where Venice took responsibility for the safety of shipping. However an attack of an Ottoman harbour and its forts was an act of war against the Porte. A squadron of the main fleet of 22 galleys and 2 galleasses could not overtake the Venetians. War with Persia prevented the Sultan to open a second front in the West. In 1639, the capitulation existing with Venice was confirmed, the act of aggression compensated by a payment of an indemnity of 250,000 ducats 4 . The precarious peace with Venice lasted till a pretext for a just war was found thanks to a Maltese corsair action in 1644.

^Fisher, G., Barbary Legend. War Trade and Piracy in North Africa 1415-1830, Oxford 1957 144f. A.H. De Groot, The Ottoman Empire and the Dutch Republic, Leiden-Istanbul 1978, 35-7. 3 Na'îmâ, Tarîh, III, 439f; ARA SG 6904 Haga's disp. of 28 August 1638. 4 J. De Hammer, Histoire de l'Empire Ottoman, Paris 1835-43,18 vols. IX, 375-79,410.

170

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

When a war broke out in 1645 the Porte had asked its Barbary subjects to send their ships to join the main fleet to punish the archenemy of the corsairs and to deliver powder, for which 10,000 gold pieces were sent by the Kaptan Pa§a the year before. The dependence on its maritime provinces in the West can not be demonstrated with more clarity. In June 1645 Tunis and Tripoli's Beylerbeys arrived with their squadrons, 8, resp. 3 ships, troops plus gunpowder to assist siege warfare on Crete. One month later the Algerine squadron arrived with auxiliary troops, 20 ships in all. They were late because they had a war with France on their hands 1 . The Barbary vessels served in the Aegean during that year escorting store-ships to and from Crete. In October they lost some store-ships in a fight with galleasses and galleys. The Venetian sailing ships under Daniele Venier stayed out late and took 2 more Barbary ships at Monemvasia. The year 1646, Barbary ships again joined the Ottoman main fleet at Chios together with the squadrons of galleys of the maritime Beys of the Archipelago. At the end of the year 2 large Barbary ships, one of 30 guns, one of 20 on their way from Chios to Algiers were driven ashore on the island of Zea. This loyal support given to the Ottoman war effort did not mean that Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli ceased corsair activity in the West 2 . One should realize that the Porte always paid for naval support and the delivery of troops and war materials, in 1648 e.g. 60,000 gold pieces to Algiers. The size of the Barbary presence in the Cretan campaigns may be gauged from contemporary sources in 1649. The Kaptan Pa§a Voynuk Ahmed Pa§a had under his flag 60 galleys, 10 galleasses and 3 sailing ships plus the 26 ships and 10 galleys from the three provinces in North Africa. The Tunisian flagship was wrecked on its way home at the end of 1649. The Barbary squadrons took part in the Battle of Naxos, July 10th, 1651 when Kaptan Pa§a Hiisambeyzade 'Ali Pa§a,'Mazzamamma', lost one galleass and 11 ships plus 965 men. In the same year Barbary corsairs raided the coastal region around Civitavecchia and captured many inhabitants. 14 ships from Barbary were present at the entrance of the Dardanelles on May 16th, 1654, when the combined Ottoman forces defeated the Venetians. More African ships joined the fleet at Chios after the victory. In August they all were permitted to go home.

1

liter, op.cit., 1,208. When the English negotiated a treaty at Algiers wishing to set free 750 nationals they were told a hundred "slaves" were serving in the ships in Cretan waters acc. to G. Fisher, op.cit., 211. 2

THE O T T O M A N

MEDITERRANEAN

SINCE LEPANTO

171

The year 1655 shows a different picture. The British admiral Robert Blake (1599-1657) appeared before Tunis with 26 ships. While cruising against the French, the British decided to give an example of the kind of naval diplomacy, which became a Western tradition in dealing with the three African governments. Demands for the release of all slaves, for the return of one British ship, payment of an indemnity and the conclusion of an agreement were made known. Upon the repeated rejection of this lop-sided approach to peaceful relations Blake attacked Porto Farina (Ghar el-Melh, Tunis) on April 3rd-13th. Damage was done, 9 ships were sunk, but an agreement was not won this way. The British fleet left for Algiers where in May an agreement was reached and a number of captive English subjects released. No lasting results were effected by this gunboat diplomacy. One success must be counted. The African ships could not join the Ottoman main fleet this year. Thus the English actions indirectly contributed to Venice's victory at the Dardanelles. The Ottoman threat was doubly removed in the East and in the West of the Mediterranean for one season at least. The three Barbary provinces found themselves thus at war with many Western powers at the same time: Tunis and Tripoli at war with England 1655-1662, Algiers likewise 1656-1662; Algiers also was in conflict with France till 1666 and with Holland till 1662. Of course the state of war with Spain and its Mediterranean allies was continuous. For instance the regular Maltese navy of 6 or 7 galleys, between the years 1645-1669, operated as an ally to Venice in the Levant, but the Maltese corsairs' sailing ships operated separately and during more time than the limited summer season of the galleys from May to September. In spite of the state of war in the Western Mediterranean 15 Algerine ships were on their way to Chios in the spring of 1657 when attacked by the Venetian Captan General with a force of 19 galleys and six galleasses. The first Barbary division of 9 ships was surrounded: 4 were forced ashore, 3 taken (among them a Dutch renegade), one escaped and one surrendered (this was a recent prize, a Dutchman taken while in Venetian service). The second Algerine division retired into Scala Nuova (Kugadasi) and Sigacik. The ship in the last port, another ex-Dutchman was taken in the end and Sigacik fortress and harbour also destroyed1. The Kaptan Pa§a at Mitylene (Midilli, Lesbos) in August 1657, however, still had 11 ships from Barbary serving under him. In 1659 a crisis shook the government of Algiers. The newly arrived Beylerbey was not admitted. The divan deported him and his household forthwith on a sailing ship to Izmir. The Porte was given the news by the ' E. Armao, In Giro per il Mar Egeo con Vincenzo Coronell, Florence 1951,139f.

172

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

kadi of Izmir. The central Ottoman government recently, in 1656, had been taken over by the forceful hands of Mehmed Pa§a Kopriilii (1656-1661). Algiers received notice that this refusal of obedience to a governor-general appointed by the Porte was not acceptable. The original countermeasure taken was the discontinuation of the appointment of a Beylerbey as expression of Algiers being thrown out of the Ottoman commonwealth. Algiers' shipping was forbidden to enter the ports of the empire. The coastal districts of Anatolia received fermans forbidding recruitment of soldiers for Algiers. The pilgrimage to Mecca of Muslims from Algiers was forbidden with fermans to the Beylerbey of Egypt and the Sharif of Mecca 1 . Only when Fazil Ahmed Pa§a Koprulii succeeded his father as Grand Vizier in October 1661, relations were restored and a new Beylerbey appointed and sent. His authority remained however strictly limited to the function of being the Sultan's representative. Local policy was the domain of the divan i.e. the Janissary agas and their following constituting a collective form over government. In a similar local crisis in Tunis in 1676 the divan at Istanbul decided to give in to the refusal to accept a nominee from the Porte. At that occasion a general principle of policy was formulated to deal mildly with the unruliness of these distant provinces. In consultation with the §eyhiilislam and the Janissary Aga, it was agreed to let Tunis and Tripoli also enjoy a high degree of autonomy. From 1711 onwards the same was applied to Algiers when the locally elected Dey was made Pa§a as well. The Western powers became aware of the fact that the Porte failed in its attempt to reassert its authority in Barbary and stepped up pressure. Their squadrons appeared in the harbours of Barbary and practiced their naval diplomacy, demanding peace and slaves. Results varied according to the ports visited. Never was any power successful in all three. France's admiral failed at Algiers in 1660. The English admiral Sandwich was successful only at Algiers in 1661 whilst the Dutch admiral De Ruyter in 1662 concluded treaties with Algiers and Tunis but not with Tripoli 2 . In 1663 the English were able to make agreements with Tunis and Tripoli but were still refused at Algiers which only conceded in 1664 to end the state of war, since at the same time the French attacked Algerine territory at Djidjelli (July-October) with assistance of the Maltese galleys which did not join the Cretan war that year and the next 3 . In 1666 peace between France and Algiers was made again. Thanks to the agreements reached with the Western sea powers in the 1660's 1

liter op.cit., 1,215; II, 141f; Ragid, Tarih, Istanbul, 6 vols., 1,331. A . H . De Groot., "Ottoman North Africa and the Dutch Republic in the 17th and 18th Centuries) R.OM.M. 39 (Aix en Provence 1985) 131-47,139. 3 S . Anderson, An English Consul in Turkey, Paul Rycaut at Smyrna, 1667-1678, Oxford 1989, 139.

2

THE OTTOMAN M E D I T E R R A N E A N S I N C E L E P A N T O

173

the Barbary provinces could resume their participation in the Cretan War in 1666 and continue to do so till the last sea campaign in 1668. 10 sailing ships of Algiers and Tunis were in the main fleet at that time. Peace between Venice and the Sultan in 1669 did not restrain the activities of the corsairs. The Knights of St. John, both officially with their galleys and privately with sailing ships, went on as before. Tunis and Tripoli and the major force of Algiers did likewise. The Ottoman threat was kept alive by the Barbary corsairs cruising in the West Mediterranean all the years of the Cretan War and occasionally entering the Atlantic as far as Newfoundland. The maritime wars between France, England and Holland made it only now and then possible for them to act against the "Turks" of North Africa. Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli managed to maintain their coordinated policy towards the major maritime powers in alternating their state of war or peace, never having France and England as their enemies at the same time. In 1670, the situation was like this, the Dutch having joined the English in an attack outside the Straits of Gibraltar destroying 9 ships of Algiers, which was in peace with France just then. Bizerta was blockaded by a French fleet, which can be considered as an anti-English move. Another example: as soon as the rupture between Tripoli and England was repaired in 1676, Algiers declared 'war' on England in 1677, which lasted till 1682. The Maltese did not send galleys to the Levant every year anymore these years but were always present in their home waters and approaches. The omnipresent and continuing threat of Ottoman Barbary is evident from the actions taken against it by the principal maritime powers. The French undertook naval campaigns between 1680 and 1685. Admiral Duquesne failed to do anything before Tripoli in 1680, because of bad weather. His forces were insufficient (5 ships, a fire-ship and a store-ship) to make an impression on Algiers and Tunis. Finding the Tripolitan squadron of 8 ships next year in Chios harbour Duquesne created a major crisis in FrenchOttoman relations by attacking inside the port. The Kaptan Pa§a intervened with his squadron but was as a result blockaded himself. In 25 April 1684 peace was made between France and Algiers, as in 1685 with Tripoli and Tunis. In 1687, the corsairs of Algiers appeared for the last time in the North Sea. Three ships captured three merchant vessels, two fishermen and the London mail-boat! The Dutch sent two squadrons of 4 ships each to the waters around Cape Finisterre and in the Western Mediterranean, the familiar haimvs

174

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

of the Algerines 1 . No corsairs were caught. As usual they were faster and could profit from the nearness of their bases. The international scene changed at the outbreak of a Franco-Algerine conflict in 1687, which coincided with the beginning of the Nine Year War. From 1688 till 1697, the English and Dutch cooperated against France and its navy, the most powerful maritime force of the time. The ports of Ottoman Barbary turned from sources of threat into bases of friendly support 2 . From this period onwards the nature of the relationship between Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli on the one hand and the major Western sea powers on the other began to change. Or formulated in a different way a change in proportion came about. The increasing frequency of the conclusion of peace treaties is evidence that relations were being put on a more regulated basis. The element of threat as a component decreased, the element of "peace" i.e. friendly relations of trading partners and even of discreet military cooperation against a third, enemy party, increased. In the field of international relations the Barbary provinces again played the role of forerunners of modernization in the Ottoman world, by adopting Western style diplomacy like they did earlier with Western armament and shipbuilding in the field of technology. The texts and the form of the treaties show that reciprocity was accepted in full 3 . Ratifications were made by exchanging plenipotentiaries according to Western diplomatic usage. Algerian negotiators came to The Hague. A resident of the Algiers government resided in Holland in 1680. In 1685 an Algerian embassy came to Paris. It brought presents like French negotiators always had done going to Algiers. The exchange of presents, not mere trifles like caftans and gold medals but large amounts of money, war materials, even complete warships at times, next to the agreed indemnities to be paid by either party constituted an enforced commercial exchange and became a standard element of all succeeding treaties concluded in the 18th and 19th centuries. The contents of the successive treaties made from 1662 onwards reflect probably the increase in volume of the trade since the Ottoman parties in North Africa gradually reduced import and export duties, from 10% to 3% from 1665 to 1685 as in the case of France e.g.. The introduction of the so called "Turkish" Passports stipulated for the first time as compulsory for Western shipping in the Algero-British treaty of 1682 and accepted by the Dutch in the treaty of 1712 with Algiers, were a J

De Jonge, op.cit„ III, 31-5. The combined Anglo-Dutch Smyrna fleet of merchantmen convoyed by English warships was disastrously attacked by the French in 1693, not by the "Turks" cf. De Jonge, op.cit., Ill, 34260. 3 De Groot, art. cit., 139,142,144. 2

THE O T T O M A N M E D I T E R R A N E A N S I N C E L E P A N T O

175

further step towards creating a regulated relationship. After 1748 the system was extended to all 4 North African provinces. Not only the West European vessels had to carry these certificates of nationality but the Barbary vessels also adopted them. Inspection at sea, thus, could take the place of piracy! The threat exercised by the Barbary corsairs was gradually limited to the minor seafaring nations in the Mediterranean. One of these, Malta, is the outstanding example of the keeping up of a counter-threat. In 1705, the Order of St. John at last decided to establish an official sailing squadron next to its traditional galley fleet. Five sailing warships next to only 5 galleys came into service against the Ottoman threat. That the Barbary squadrons remained an integral part of Ottoman aggressive power is evident from the number of fermans ("orders', being requests in reality) from the Porte asking for naval assistance in the years 1685 to 1698. The central Ottoman government paid for ships, soldiers and war materials delivered by its subject provinces: in 1690 e.g. to Algiers 30,000 gold-pieces, to Tunis 7,000, to Tripoli 7,000'. The successful corsair commander Misirhoglu Ibrahim Bey became Dey of Tripoli in 1675. He organised the dockyards and navy. Fleeing a Janissary revolt he escaped to Istanbul, returned with a squadron of 9 galleons but was refused entry. The Grand Vizier and divan in Istanbul gave in to the demands of Tripoli. Ibrahim Bey began a career in the main fleet where his skills were highly appreciated. Another example of technology transfer from Barbary to Istanbul is the career of the expert corsair commander and Beylerbey of Algiers, Mezzomorto Hiiseyin Pa§a, who left North Africa to become Captain of the galleons in Istanbul 2 . His career personifies the lasting link between the Porte and its North African possessions in matters of naval policy and warfare. The exchange of personnel was its vital base: the military recruits from Anatolia to Barbary and seasoned naval commanders returning to Istanbul. Withdrawing the permission to recruit soldiers in the coastal districts of Asia Minor was one of the few means of forcing obedience left to the Porte till the last years of Ottoman Algiers. The Porte maintained its special relationship with its faraway Western outposts in various ways 3 . At the conclusion of the peace of Pasarowitz in 1718 the Porte was demanded to include the Barbary provinces as parties to the agreement. Venice, which lost her possessions in the Morea and the Archipelago wished to be sure of peaceful relations in the whole of the Mediterranean. She was on the 1 il ter, op .cit., II, 14,21f.; Safwet, op.cit., 120-22. lbid. 3 B B A MD fol. 28 fermans of 1793; BBA MD 237 fol. 17 dito of 1816 in liter op.cit., II, 7 1 , 8 8 .

2

176

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

winning side at the end of this war after all. The three provinces once again demonstrated their autonomous status. They opened negotiations with the Porte about their adherence to the general peace. Their chosen representative in Istanbul was the Kaptan Pa§a. The aged Siileyman Hoca Pa§a was a former corsair commander of Algiers who had followed Mezzomorto Hiiseyin Pa§a to take service in the Sultan's navy. In the end one of the three, this time Algiers, withheld its agreement to join the peace together with its two North African neighbours. The Porte, to reach an acceptable compromise solution, invoked the authority of Islamic legal opinion. The §eyhUlislam, the supreme legal spokesman of the empire, issued a fetva expressing the religious duty of the Deys in Barbary to obey the orders of the Sultan. In case of the contrary the corsair ships would not be allowed to enter the harbours in the Levant and recruitment of soldiers in the maritime districts of Asia Minor was to be forbidden 1 . Fermans to this effect were sent to the local provincial governors concerned: that from now on a maritime border was established within which Algiers c.s. was not to be allowed to harass Venetian shipping. Outside it Venice would not be entitled to complain to the Porte 2 . This sea-frontier ran from Apulia, Capo St. Maria-Zante-Modon-Standia-Caso-Scarpanto-RhodesFethiye (Macri) ('Yedi Burun') to Cyprus-Antalya-iskenderun-Tripoli of SyriaSaida to Alexandria and comprised all harbours and a 30 mile zone of territorial waters. Likewise the Porte promised the Austrian Emperor that the 1718 peace would also be valid between him and the Barbary corsairs. In the end Algiers was prevailed upon to adhere to the Sultan's peace. All these diplomatic efforts of the Porte are a clear indication of the lasting Ottoman threat in the Mediterranean, in the Levant, as well as in the West, still exercised upon the shipping of lesser naval powers. Corsair activity continued. In 1749 Algiers asked for help from the Porte against the combined attack made by the Pope, Malta, Venice, Genoa and Naples against Oran. Istanbul sent some troops and artillery. This event is like an echo of times past, it seems but naval bombardments of Barbary port cities were repeatedly undertaken within the framework of the armed diplomacy of the major sea powers. Even Spain tried action on land in North Africa in 1775 but without success. The Ottoman central government on the other hand, still needed support when attacked. When the peace with Venice was broken in 1781 the three Barbary provinces were again asked to send their ilbid, 34. B B A MD 129 ferman of 20-30 Rabi'iil-sani 1132/March 1720 in liter, op.cit., II, 3Qf.

2

THE O T T O M A N M E D I T E R R A N E A N S I N C E L E P A N T O

177

fleet. Algiers sent 20 sailing ships and 4 galleys, Tunis 5 and 7 respectively, Tripoli 5 and 3 dito at the tariff of 2,000 gold pieces per ship and 100 gold pieces per galley. By such means the Ottomans still were able to maintain a working unity of the "House of Islam" versus their non-Islamic enemies and to keep alive the threat of the warriors of the faith, the gazis, fighting together their "Holy War." In order to understand the actual state of affairs in the Mediterranean during the 18th and early 19th centuries one must distinguish between the position of the major Western seafaring nations and the minor powers. The relations of the leading Western Powers with the principal Barbary power, Algiers, should serve as an example. Algiers concluded peace treaties with France in 1719, 1764, 1790, 1793, 1801,1805, and 1814; with England in 1703, 1716, and 1816; with Holland in 1707, 1712, 1726, 1731, 1757, 1760, 1769, 1794, and 1816 1 . With minor Western powers peace was made only rarely: with Denmark in 1746, 1772, with the Austrian Emperor in 1748, with Spain in 1786 and 1792, with Sweden in 1792, with the USA in 1796 and 1815, with Portugal in 1793 and 1813 and with Naples and Sicily in 1816. Venice broke its tradition of only dealing with the Porte and made direct treaties in 1763, 1765 and 1792. A similar listing of the diplomatic relations of Tunis and Tripoli produces a comparable result with interesting differences in dates, from which the pattern emerges of their coordination in avoiding peace with all major naval powers at the same time. The point to be made is the frequency of peace treaties which ended the recurrent, more or less serious, conflicts. The two major powers, France and England enjoyed long stretches of peace. As a consequence, the Dutch whose shipping and trade were important, but whose relative power was decreasing, became victims of the need of the corsairs for prizes. The Dutch navy, however, still could make its presence felt and thus active naval diplomacy restored peace after not too long an interval each time. The shipping of minor powers remained under more or less constant threat since their governments could not provide protection nor show the flag by means of a sizable naval presence. Venice made a last show of its ancient naval tradition. It showed the flag of San Marco before Algiers and Tripoli in 1778 and declared war on Tunis in 1784, bombarding various ports in the years 1784-1787. However its fleet of 4 first-rate sailing ships, 2 heavy

'.I. Van Oordt, De Privaatrechterlijke

Toestand

Landen van den Islam, Leiden 1899,239,251,262.

van den Nederlandschen

Koopman

in de

178

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

frigates, 4 light frigates, 3 transport vessels and 26 smaller craft (including galleys) could not gain any advantage 1 . When peace was made in 1792 the status quo was restored. This meagre result is quite characteristic. The successive wars with the repeated bombardments of the North African ports nearly always ended without any advantage to either party except the fruits of peace. The end of the Barbary threat came nearby when revolutionary France opened war against the Ottoman Empire with its invasion of Egypt in 1798. The French aggression was answered by the Barbary governments sending soldiers to Egypt and in general preparing for war at sea. The corsairs planned to cut French communications between Toulon and Egypt and to join the Ottoman main fleet in the Archipelago 2 . Algiers, however, in 1800 made an armistice with France but was forced to reopen hostilities under English pressure in 1801. All French citizens were evacuated instead of being thrown into prison, another sign of modern style behaviour. The period 1801-1816 gave full opportunity to the Barbary corsairs to exploit the quickly changing international scene. Varying coalitions of the Western powers rendered friends into foes and vice versa in the eyes of the corsair governments. The relations with France were complicated by the extensive commercial deals concluded with the Algerine merchants Bacri and Busnach by the French government. The disappearance of Venice led to the annexation by Austria of towns on the Adriatic and Ionian coasts such as Butrinto, Parga and Preveza. Neither the Algerians nor the Tripolitans wished to recognize the new nationality of ships from these places unless being compensated. The admiral Lord Nelson failed to get satisfaction for his demand of reparation of the offence done to the British consul in Algiers in 1804. In short, harassment of shipping of all nations occurred across the Mediterranean. The big powers protested, both the small and the big powers desired peace and had to pay for it in the years 1807-1810. In 1815, a Tunisian fleet of 18 sails appeared before Cagliari on Sardinia and captured 150 slaves. This event caused a strong reaction of the Western powers united in congress at Vienna. A decision was reached to condemn slavery and to send a British squadron to Tunis and the other two corsair centres to enforce peace and the freeing of all slaves, subjects of the Kingdoms of Naples, Sardinia and Holland. In April 1816, Algiers gave in to these demands on condition of an ultimate agreement by the Porte. The fleet left: anti British riots followed in Algiers. The fleet of admiral Lord Exmouth returned, now assisted by a Dutch squadron and so numbering 32 ships in total, to proceed to a bombardment of *Lane, op.cit., 4 1 9 , 4 2 1 ; Anderson, op.cit., 308-16. Ilter, op.cit., II, 74f.

2

THE O T T O M A N M E D I T E R R A N E A N S I N C E L E P A N T O

179

the city of Algiers on 27 August 1816 which led to a new agreement which included Holland and to which Tunis and Tripoli acceded the same year. It is interesting to note that this treaty -apart from containing the freeing of all 1642 slaves (amongst them 28 Dutch and 18 Englishmen)- was a confirmation of the earlier treaties. The result of the policy of the big powers, thus, came down to a restoration of the status quo 1 . In 1819 a British-French fleet came to announce the decision of the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle of 1818 that the European powers had abolished the slave trade and corsairdom. Tunis and Tripoli agreed to this, Algiers did not. The last days of Algiers' Ottoman period saw its ships joining the Ottoman main fleet in actions to suppress the Greek insurgents in the years 1823-1827. In 1830 a French fleet of 100 sails followed by a huge transport fleet began blockading Algiers. A last intercession by the Porte sending the Kaptan Pa§a in a frigate to Algiers to mediate in the conflict failed, since the French admiral did not permit the Ottoman vessel reaching its destination. The French conquest of Algiers in 1830 meant the end of the Ottoman regime. The last elements of the old threat were removed by the deportation of all "Turks" from Algiers to their supposed places of origin in Crete and Asia Minor. A French fleet also came to Tripoli in 1830 and naval diplomacy of a traditional style imposed a new treaty ending the regime of the "presents", the yearly-enforced deliveries of strategic merchandise by foreign powers. Tripoli still possessed a fleet of 3 brigs, 1 corvette, 2 galleons, 3 old sailing ships, 4 gun-ships and 5 smaller warships 2 . In 1834, the province of Tripoli reverted to direct rule from Istanbul. France made it impossible for the Porte to restore its direct authority in Tunis as well. A French fleet intervened and prevented the Kaptan Pa§a Tahir Pa§a to land troops in Tunis in 1838. The Sultan's government limited itself then to promote its provincial governor: Ahmed Bey became Pa§a. In 1830 Ahmed Bey already had abolished his corsair activities and the slave trade, closed to bagno's and dissolved the corps of Janissaries following up the orders of the Ottoman Sultan to that effect. The aggressive policy of France in Northern Africa and the success of the Ottoman Empire to reassert its authority in Tripoli in the years 1830 1834 made an end to the corsair menace in the Mediterranean.

1 r . Perkins and K J . Douglas-Morris, Gunfire in Barbary, Havant (Hampshire) 1982,107-145. M A . Perk, Zes Jaren te Tripoli in Barbarije, Amsterdam 1875,74f.

9 MUSTAFA KEMAL ATATÜRK AND THE TURKISH NATIONALIST MOVEMENT AS RECORDED IN THE DUTCH PRESS 1919-1923

Dutch public interest in the affairs of Turkey during the later years of the 19th century was slight. The few ideas people had about the Ottoman Empire and the Sultan were superficial and ill-founded, derived as they were from the general opinion current in the centres of countries directly involved with Turkish affairs such as Paris, Vienna and London. Petersburg's opinion may be disregarded since, in my view, it was of no consequence for the Dutch public. The interest in the world of Islam and the East was mainly concentrated on the Dutch colonies in the East Indies. Arabia was known only in respect of the cultural ties existing between the Muslim population of the Dutch East-Indies and the Arabs in South Arabia and of course the Hedjaz, the holy land of Islam 1 . Panislamism meant something of a problem to Dutch politicians and administrators. Islam in the Dutch East Indies carried the ambivalent interest of Dutch missionaries, both Calvinist Protestants and Roman Catholics. The Netherlands have been a very active centre of Christian missions until recently. The scholarly activity of Dutch orientalists was of a purely scientific, mainly philological, character and had no popular echo. The exception in this field was Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje. This Arabic scholar and Islamologist (1858-1936) was greatly interested in the development of the Islamic world in the East Indies as well as in the Near East. During a short research-journey he visited in 1908 the important Islamic capital that was Istanbul, at the time of the nationalist revolution of the Young Turks. For the interested, educated public Snouck published in a solid Dutch literary and political monthly a few articles about the position of the Sultan-Caliph, about Panislamism and the rise of nationalism in the Islamic world 2 . A few Dutch travellers or rather tourists went to the Levant and discovered a number of old-established Dutch communities in Izmir, Istanbul and elsewhere. Dutch trade with the Levant began as early as the 16th century. ^cf. L.W.C. van den Berg, Le Hadhramout et les colonies arabes dans I'Archipel Indien, Batavia 1886. The results of the exploration of Hadramaut undertaken by order of the Netherlands Government, were published by D. Van der Meulen and H. Von Wissmann, Hadramaut. Some of its Myteries Unveiled, Leiden, 1932. 2 e f . C. Snouck Hurgronje, "Jong Turkije", in Verspreide Geschriften 7 vols., Bonn-Leiden 1923-27, III 204-216, 227-256.

182

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

Holland being a capitulatory power since 1612, Dutch subjects enjoyed all privileges the system of capitulations provided to foreigners in the Ottoman Dominions, which in this respect included Egypt and North Africa as a whole 1 . In the illustrated monthly Op de Hoogte, Maurits Wagenvoort published fragments of his travelling journals, giving the Dutch public some charming pictures of Dutch life in and around Izmir 2 . As for shaping public opinion, the travelling impressions and general essays published in one of the leading liberal daily newspapers, the Amsterdam Algemeen Handelsblad, must have been even more important. The director-editor Charles Boissevain (1842-1922), a well-known journalist, made a voyage aboard a steam yacht from Naples to Greece, Turkey, Syria, the Holy Land and Egypt. His impressions of the Ottoman Empire and the Eastern Question appeared in the daily column "Van Dag tot Dag" and were reissued in bookform shortly after the writer's return in 1897 3 . Boissevain's writing is permeated by an underlying Christian solidarity complex, showing itself in a constant pro-Greek bias and a deeply critical view on the Islamic world and Ottoman institutions. His historical knowledge of the part of the world he was visiting was not particularly well founded. The Turks were seen as quite interesting but entirely outside "civilization". The "Armenian atrocities" of 1895 being fresh in his memory, Sultan Abdiilhamid II's regime seemed doomed to him and rightly at that. Boissevain's opinions must have been representative of the educated classes of liberal political standing. Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920), a leader of rightwing conservative Dutch political opinion, also made a trip to the Levant. His channel of opinion making was the daily newspaper for the orthodox protestant lower middle classes of Holland, the De Standaard, founded by himself in 1872. Kuyper published his travel account in two stout volumes with illustrations in 1907 4 . It is a superficial work, but then the author did not pretend too much. The importance lies in the fact that Abraham Kuyper's opinion was the lead for a sizeable part of the Dutch people and thus his views on Islam and Turkey were highly significant for shaping their image in the Netherlands. The strong Christian sentiments had not much use for any knowledge of Ottoman Turkish civilization: the Turks were "a race of mere

' On the origins of the Dutch relations with the Levant, see A.H. de Groot, The Ottoman Empire and the Dutch Republic. A History of the Earliest Diplomatic Relations 1610-1630, LeidenIstanbul 1978,214-29. 2 M. Wagenvoort, "Smyrna en zijn Hollandsche Kolonie (losse bladen uit een dagboek), I, II, III" in Op de Hoogte with ills (1905) 27-34. ^Ch. Boissevain, Van Dag tot Dag in het Oosten, Haarlem 1897,40-95. ^A. Kuyper, Om de Oude Wereldzee, 2 vols, Amsterdam 1907, esp. Vol. I

THE

DUTCH

PRESS

183

conquerors, unlike the Arabs, Mamluks and Fellahin, unable to form a nation." Their only capacity was to exact tribute and exercise power. Inherent to such a culture is fatalism, resignation and warrior virtues. In times of peace this means a complex of superiority, at war, undaunted valour. The poisoning process of Panislamism had led to anti-Armenian pogroms in Istanbul and worse might follow if a true leader arose. Such was Kuyper's analysis of contemporary Islam. His conclusion about the Ottoman state was that the Sublime Porte looked more like the closed gate of a derelict cemetery. Such opinions or images of the Turks were the mental equipment of the average Dutchman before 1914 and the First World War did surely not cause any change in the general opinion. If anything, the negative approach to Turkey and the world of Islam increased even more due to propaganda activities of committees and societies, mostly orthodox protestant, which undertook to organize charity work for the benefit of the Christian populations suffering form the war in the East, especially in Asia Minor. The miseries of Nestorians, Syrians and Armenians were widely advertised. The Muslim inhabitants of Anatolia, who were in the same circumstances, did not inspire a comparable sympathy. That much must be noticed regrettably enough, the Ottoman legation at The Hague tried to restore the balance by organizing a Turkish Information Bureau which at times issued press-communiqués about Turkish affairs and war news. The Dutch press as a whole based its Near Eastern news coverage almost entirely on the telegrams of the great foreign news agencies. Only the Nieuwe Rotterdamse Courant (NRC) of Rotterdam, the leading liberal daily next tot the Algemeen Handelsblad (HB), seems to have had the services of a special correspondent, its "Balkan correspondent" stationed most of the time at Istanbul 1 . When the war was over, this correspondent provided news about the trials against the leading Young Turks, found guilty of the Ottoman entry into the war on the "wrong side" and of the massacres in Asia Minor. The activities of Enver Pasha were also followed with interest. At the same time the strong reaction of the Turks against the Entente policies was noticed. A real mood for Holy War was sensed now in contrast to the artificial movement in 1914. The Muslim population was felt to stand up in defence of the Sultan and of Islam, and against the imminent dismemberment of the Turkish Empire. The NRC also paid attention to protests against the harsh treatment of the Ottoman Sultan, lodged by the Islamic community of British India and supported by the Viceroy and the Indian Secretary Montagu.

lr

rhis was the curious figure of Arthur L. De Kruyff (1864-1930), self styled baron and count. See Andreas Koch, "Arthur L. De Kruyff " unpublished MA thesis Department of History, Amsterdam University 1998.

184

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

An expert source of information on Turkish affairs was lost to the Dutch Foreign Office, rather than to the general public, when the Dutch envoy at the Porte, Jonkheer Mr. P.J.F.M. van der Does de Willebois died at Istanbul on June 4th, 1919. This diplomat had served in the Near East since 1884, first as a political agent and consul-general in Egypt, since 1908 as envoy at Istanbul. In view of the role of Islam in Dutch colonial policy, the Istanbul legation still had some importance 1 . Already at the end of June 1919 the NRC reported rumours that numbers of Ottoman officers and men, regular and reserve personnel, were leaving Istanbul for the Anatolian interior to join the organization of resistance growing there against the Greek invasion allowed by the Allied Powers in the framework of their Near East policy (NRC 24.6.1919). The first information of Greek cruelties against the population of Anatolia arrived during the same month. A regular stream of news about Turkey began to be published in the NRC and other daily newspapers. The weekly press in its turn digested world news from both the foreign and home press organs. A representative example of the liberal segment of public opinion-making was the Amsterdam weekly De Haagse Post (HP), founded and directed by the then well known S.F. van Oss, with a circulation, in 1919-1920, of 41,00050,000. On January 10th, 1920, the leading article on world affairs mentioned Mustafa Kemal Pasha as the leader of the Turkish nationalists. It was said that an army of 120,000 was marching against the British, and that all Anatolia was by now probably under control of the Russian and Turkish Bolsheviks, the forces of the Sultan uniting with those of Lenin. This kind of information summed up the general opinion about Turkey in and outside the Netherlands, the case being a clear revival of Europe's worst fears. The ancient foe of Christendom was joined by the new Antichrist in a common design to destroy the Western Christian world. This cliché vision was to colour all news transmission from the Near East for years. It was generally thought that any opposition to the decisions of the Allied victors of World War I was necessarily inspired by Bolshevism, and so Turkish nationalist and Muslim patriots were considered equivalent of Lenin's following. This fiction was hard to dispel from the news media. A case in point was the HP since it depended on the Dutch daily newspapers of standing and on a few foreign correspondents like the Paris-based Jean Herbette of Le Temps and the London-based H.W. Massingham of The Nation, who reported regularly on Turkish affairs in their weekly telegrams. Thus, for our survey of Dutch public opinion about Turkey, the HP seemed a useful check on the records of the HB. This solid 'in 1920 W.B.R. van Welderen baron Rengers was appointed as Dutch minister at Istanbul. Cp. Di§i§leri Bakanligi 1967 Yilligi, Ankara 1967 s.v. "Hollanda" and NRC. of 4 June 1919.

THE

DUTCH

PRESS

185

press organ gave much space to foreign news, and Turkey was hardly absent from its pages during the years 1919-1923. The HP of March 6th, 1920 published a survey of Turkey's international position in which some statistics were given on the relative size of the different religious political communities inside the Ottoman territories. The source were the estimates published by Count Leon Ostrorog, the wellknown adviser to the Ottoman Ministry of Justice and, important in our context, a not anti-Turkish authority 1 . Mustafa Kemal Pasha was described as an outstanding general of the World War. The fall of the Grand Vizier Damad Ferid Pasha, was seen as Kemal's first political success (on June 30th, 1919). To HP it was clear already then that Turkey would be the only State of the vanquished Central Powers to which the Entente would not be able to dictate a peace treaty. The signature of the treaty of Sèvres (May 14th, 1920) did not make the HP revise its opinion. On the contrary, HP wrote that the Ottoman government had more reason to fear the Nationalists led by Kemal than the power of the Entente (HP 22.5.1920). Regularly HP gave information on supposed Turkish nationalist cooperation with the Bolsheviks e.g. in sabotaging the railway between Istanbul and Izmit, and in attacking the French troops occupying Cilicia. On the whole, HP followed the lack of confidence in the Greek venture in Asia Minor, expressed by Herbette and Massingham. Greek-inspired reports according to which half of the nationalist forces were destroyed (10.7.1920), were commented upon with the observation that the other half was still very active and that a guerrilla war had begun. Mustafa Kemal was still considered as the undisputed master of all Turkey outside the Istanbul area. On July 7th, 1920, HP's military expert wrote about the nationalist forces estimating Kemal's army at 175,000 regulars and 195,000 irregulars, all well armed. Thus the nationalist successes on the Eastern Anatolian front did not come as a surprise, but it was also surmised that Kemal had established direct contact with the Russian armed forces on the borders of Georgia, and that he was wholly converted to Bolshevism. Georgia would move to the western front to oppose the Greeks. HP considered it imperative for the British and French governments to reach an agreement with the Turkish Nationalists and so prevent the Bolsheviks from entering the Near East (H.P. Nov. 27th, 1920), while Ottoman sovereignty over the Izmir area had to be restored (H.P. Dec. 5 th, 1920). The same weekly brought a humorous item, not devoid of significance, by reporting that the secretary general of the French foreign ministry, Philippe Berthelot( 1866-1934), bought an Angora cat and gave it "the name of the ]

See Count L. Ostrorog, The Turkish Problem, London 1919, pp. 8-16,22.

186

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

present monarch in Ankara, Lenin's friend and the enemy of the Entente: Kemal". In European opinion Mustafa Kemal's image as a communist was heightened by the style used by the newsagency recently founded in Ankara (April 16th, 1920), the Anadolu Ajansi. The Marxist-Leninist jargon was noticeable in the translation of the proclamation of peace made with Armenia. The members of the nationalist government, including its leader, were styled "people's commissars" (in the Turkish text vekil), perhaps used on purpose to inspire "imperialist" Western European readers with awe. Until December 10th, 1920 the HB limited itself to transmitting foreign newstelegrams on Turkish affairs. At that date it published the first of a long series of contributions by Mr. George Nypels, whom the paper had engaged in 1919 as its special "travelling" correspondent in the Near East. His first assignment had been to Soviet Russia. Nypels described his job as an answer to the increase of Dutch popular interest in foreign affairs, brought about by the World War. The editorial staffs of serious newspapers found it more and more difficult to digest the events from the great number of new sources, many of which were evidently dominated by national or political interests and prone to censorship and/or strong bias. When they could afford it, they appointed special correspondents to see things on the spot. Nypels declared that he "began his search for the truth amongst all those foreigners, who made the old world and its surrounding parts unsafe" 1 . In the years 1920-1923 he was the only Dutch reporter of events in Asia Minor and of the peace with Turkey. Nypels used a highly personal, sarcastic style, which I will not endeavour to translate continuously. When possible, I used the HP as a kind of check on the subjects covered. His very self-assured and cynical attitude made the Handelsblad correspondent a sharp observer of the many wrongs and deceitful political manoeuvres prevalent in the Levant which was perhaps a handicap in assessing new actors on the stage, who did not care about traditional style and manners of old European politics. Nypels travelled by train to Athens on "the Lice-Orient Slow Train", and arrived to experience the effects of Venizelos' fall from power. He received a distinctly unfavourable impression of Hellenic political life during the takeover by the Royalists. In his eyes, one set of profiteering bandits was ' Cp. Een Eeuw Journalistiek 1828-1928. Jubileumnummer Algemeen Handelsblad-Nieuwe Ambterdamsche Courant. Amsterdam 1928. George Nypels (1885-1977) born in Maastricht was a son of the owner of the well-known printinghouse Leiter-Nypels in that town. After some years of medical studies in Amsterdam and Lausanne he settled for a career in commerce. In 1911 he began to act as a correspondent of the Algemeen Handelsblad, in Spain and Berlin. Since 1918 he was travelling correspondent of the same paper till 1950. He was posted in Vienna, "Carthago", Brussels (during World War Two he was interned by the German occupation authorities) and after his retirement went to live in the town of his birth. See now Henk van Renssen, De Revolutieverzamelaar. George Nypels, reiscorrespondent tussen de wereldoorlogen, Amsterdam 2006.

THE

DUTCH

PRESS

187

replacing another band of corrupt robbers, both alike in their fanatically chauvinistic, Panhellenic outlook. Nypels travelled on to Istanbul by train, and, after a short stay there, went to the middle of things, to Izmir. One of his first reports deals with the atrocities and mass murders perpetrated by the Greek forces occupying the coastal regions of Western Anatolia, stopped at last only by the presence of warships of the Allied Powers. Already in these early dispatches (published HB 4.1.1921), Nypels showed his very negative appraisal of the Greeks whom he saw as the true fanatics, contrary to the general opinion which considered the Muslim Turks as such. As evidence of the low level of their excitability, the Dutch journalist adduced the words of a Kemalist about the fetvas issued to proclaim "Holy War" in 1914 against the Entente powers and again in 1920, against the Nationalists. Not one fanatical Turk came into action on the strength of these pieces of Islamic legal advice (HB 11.1.1921). In this Dutchman's opinion the bloody treatment of Greeks and Armenians should not be condemned onesidedly but could be explained by the atrocities perpetrated by Christians and Muslims alike. The anti-Turkish policy of the Entente powers would bring about a real hatred of the Christian West. The Turks -instead of forming a barrier against the menace of Bolshevism- would be driven into its arms. HB 14.1.1921 contained parts of a letter of Mustafa Kemal addressed to Chicherin, the Russian people's commissar for foreign affairs, and published in Izwestia of November 29th, 1920. Mustafa Kemal expressed Turkey's appreciation of the sacrifices made by the Russian people for the sake of humanity. If European workers were to unite with the enslaved peoples of Asia and Africa in understanding that they were being exploited by international capitalism and in realising the crime of colonialism, the power of the bourgeoisie would be done away with. The moral authority of the Soviet government and the love of the Muslim world for the Turkish people would assure Russians and Turks that a narrow alliance between the two countries would be sufficient to unite in resisting the western imperialists. The article shows the fear of the Turk becoming alive again in Western Europe at the time. The old terror of Islam was reactivated as it were by Bolshevism, the new bugbear of Christianity. This attitude was common in the daily press in London, Paris or elsewhere 1 .

^Cp. Y. le Lannou "La Fin de l'Empire Ottoman vue par la Presse Française (1918-1923)" in Turcica IX-2/X (1978), 176-195.

188

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

In the same issue Nypels continued his earlier detailed descriptions of the Allied occupation regime in Istanbul where the Turkish population was being intimidated and terrorized by the British police forces. The Turks were no Bolsheviks, Nypels assured his readers, but might be driven to play that role as a means of resistance. The HP of 15.1.1921 reported that, according to dispatches of the Daily Mail, Armenia was in the power of the followers of Lenin and, a week later, that in Asia Minor Mustafa Kemal's forces were superior to those of the Greeks. The Kemalists -the first time this term is used in the Dutch presswere to be invited to a conference in London in view of a revision of the Sèvres treaty. This high opinion of Mustafa Kemal's military power was general in the Western European press of those days. Nypels however had a more realistic view on the respective forces in the field, whose main munition was mutual hatred! He gave as his view that the Turks would never accept the authority of Greece since it had not been one of the powers victorious over the Ottomans, but that they might respect the temporary rule of a Western Big Power which would then enforce the mutual acceptance of a continued shared settlement in Asia Minor and Thrace of Turks and Greeks together. Nypels found the proof of the feasibility of such a society in the peaceful Turco-Greek community on the estates of Dutch Levantine landowners around Izmir, such as Baron van Heemstra at Oglan Anasi and the Counts de Hochepied at Sevdikôy. To his dismay, the Dutchman found that the British had deported to Malta all persons to whom he was carrying introductions. His anti-British feelings were even more kindled when he observed how unfairly Turkish affairs were handled by the Interallied Board of Censors at Istanbul. Added to the activities of the Greco-Levantine news services in the Pera quarter (Beyoglu), the British attitude was decisive for the biased quality of the news reported by the international agencies and the French and British press. This in turn had its influence in the Netherlands newspapers, as is evident from the HB itself. This process of news reporting caused Nypels' anger, and he undoubtedly felt frustrated when he saw his own reports published side by side with what his editor thought fit to print. Nypels, however, continued his travelling correspondence in full vigour. In a dispatch, published 21.1.1921, he describes the power of Mustafa Kemal as beginning 25km. outside Istanbul's Asiatic boundary. Apart from 36 or 50 paid traitors, all Istanbul was pro-Kemal. In this and all his later reports Nypels stuck to his view that the Kemalists were bound to be victorious in the end.

THE DUTCH

PRESS

189

In order to be able to collect trustworthy information he again moved to Izmir in January 1921. But discovering the truth at Izmir turned out to be just as difficult as in Istanbul. The course of events seems to be dominated by paradox rather than by causality, exclaimed the despairing reporter who now decided to try to visit Ankara, the seat of Kemal Pasha himself. There, and not at the Greek side of the front in Asia Minor, he expected to find out what really was going on. This decision made the Dutchman almost a unique case of Levant journalism of the day. His predilection for the Turkish side he explained by stating that Mustafa Kemal and his leading elite were Frencheducated true patriots and nationalists. They were no Orientals nor Levantine traffickers who had no notion of the term "fatherland", to whom authority of the tribal chief or greed for financial gain was paramount. Greeks and Armenians, Nypels liked to explain repeatedly, were such Orientals. Consequently, Kemalists in disguise were able to buy back their lost warmaterials from the Greeks in Izmir and the Armenians in Cilicia respectively. Greed for material gain dominated even over their secular hatred. An example of successful Hellenic propaganda was the report of a Greek victory over the Kemalists at Inonii (First Battle of Inonii, 9-10 January 1921, in fact a great Turkish victory). The news was spread in Izmir so convincingly that even the Dutch warship Medea, stationed there at the time, sounded its sirens in the general Allied rejoicings! (HB 24.2.191) 1 . An example of failing Hellenic propaganda, according to Nypels, was the defection of the Anatolian guerrilla leader £erkes Ethem Bey to the Greek side, and whom the Dutchman interviewed (HB 1.2.1921). Shortly afterwards Nypels left for Antalya by the SS Carinthia of the Lloyd Triestino (ex Austrian Lloyd). This south Anatolian port was the main entrance to "Kemalistan", the Anatolian territories dominated by the nationalist government at Ankara. Traffic being controlled by the Italian occupation authorities, Nypels acquired an Italian visa from Izmir to Antalya, more or less valid till Burdur. From there a travelling permit had to be procured from the Kemalist authorities. All in all his journey into the interior lasted from 1.2.1921 (departure from Izmir) to 22.3.1921 when Nypels reembarked at Antalya for Izmir, Athens and home. Only two American journalist apparently preceded the Dutchman to Ankara: Williams of the Chicago Tribune who was received by Atatiirk on May 10th, 1920 and Clarence K. Streit of the Philadelphia Public Ledger, who in February 1921

The ship was later to be succeeded by the "Zeus" in April 1919 but during the critical month of September, when Izmir changed from Greek into Turkish hands, no Dutch warship was stationed there.

190

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

travelled via the Black Sea port of Inebolu, the other exit of Kemalist Anatolia at the time. Nypels' intention "to seek the misjudged Turks and to find out about the political will of rebellious Islam" was a personal ambition. His curiosity was certainly not inspired by the Dutch community in Izmir, although his picture of this centuries' old outpost of Dutch "merchant adventurers", who received him well, is romantic and affectionate. The established Dutch families, consisting of Calvinist Protestants and -in an increasing numberRoman Catholics, had developed a fundamental sympathy for the local Greek and Armenian communities based on business and family ties. Since the 18th century a considerable number of Dutch passport holders, protégés, had issued from these categories of Ottoman subjects. The fact that Greek brigands had kidnapped Baron van Heemstra in 1907 and murdered the Dutch resident Jonkheer Mock in 1912 had not brought about a change in this basic feeling of Christian solidarity. The lack of sympathy of the Izmir Dutch with Nypels' viewpoints on the respective merits of Greeks and Turks became evident to the readers of the Algemeen Handelsblad on 13.4.1921, when a letter to the editor was published, written by Mrs. Mock née Van Lennep, the widow of the murdered Dutch national mentioned above 1 . The evidence given by a witness, obviously taken to be "objective" because of her special personal relationship with "Hellenism" in Asia Minor, must have done no good to Nypels' standing among his readers. Mrs. Mock explained that Nypels was all wrong in his estimate of Greek character: Hellenic hatred for the Turk was the legitimate outcome of centuries full of tyranny and suppression. Heemstra's abduction and Mock's murder had taken place during Turkish domination. The Turkish police must be considered guilty because of their failure of giving protection. Neither the Greek government nor the Greek police had any part in those crimes (!). When Mrs. Mock, after an absence of 7 years, returned to Izmir in 1920, she found law and order, as exercised by the Greek regime in the region of Izmir, "unbelievable". One should appreciate Nypels' answer, explaining the true state of things in the old Ottoman Empire, where the Greek population, instead of being oppressed, enjoyed a rare degree of liberty with an even wider scope of cultural development than in Greece proper, considering the high cultural and intellectual level of Greek society in Istanbul and Izmir at that time. Absolute freedom of religion had prevailed since 1453. Nypels gave a sour comment on Greek "law and order" in Asia Minor at the time, referring to the Interallied Commission's report on atrocities perpetrated by the 'On the Van Lennep family in Izmir and their estate of Malkacik, see FJ.E. van Lennep, Late Regenten, Haarlem 1962, 208-221.

THE

DUTCH

PRESS

191

Greek military in 1919. But it must be underlined that Mrs. Mock's opinion may well have been more indicative of the image of the Turks in the Netherlands than Nypels' 1 . What should have been the climax of the Dutch journalist's toilsome news-hunt in Anatolia, namely his visit to Ankara and his audience with Mustafa Kemal Pasha, turned out to be an almost complete failure. The fact that the Dutchman came unannounced and without recommendation of his own government (which could never have been the case for a Dutch journalist then and there), and that he was a representative of a country and a press establishment practically unknown in Ankara at the time, might not have meant a failure in itself at the outset. But the arrival of this English speaking correspondent from an obscure European state, a small capitulatory power with no marked pro-Turkish stand so far, unhappily coincided with the arrest of a British secret agent, who had successfully penetrated in Ankara society posing as an Indian Muslim doctor and a Turcophile philanthropist. Unfortunately for Nypels, the Ankara authorities suspected him to be an accessory to this Mustafa Sagir (1889-1921), who had come to find out how the latter's mission was going 2 . The idea in Ankara was that Lord Curzon, the British Foreign Secretary, was behind it all, aiming at the assassination of Atatiirk! Long afterwards Nypels realized that the quasi-friendly reception he received at Ankara was organized to try him out and to detect his possibly false role 3 . The proceedings included even an "accidental" meeting in front of the National Assembly Building with the arrested Mustafa Sagir, but the Dutchman did not show any sign of recognition. Nevertheless, the meeting with Mustafa Kemal Pasha and the leading members of the nationalist movement was doomed to be a failure. To explain it, there was, on the one side, the unfortunate and unjustified suspicion of the Turks, on the other the all too cynical character of a Dutchman, whose cool distant approach to human foibles was perhaps not the right disposition for a news-hunter who found himself in a foreign country he did not yet fully know and understand. In short, the cocky, sarcastic reaction which Nypels showed to the cool reception spoiled any chances he still might have had. His first experience with Atatiirk and his political system was when he attended a session of the Grand National Assembly, with Mustafa Kemal as its chairman. The Dutchman was disappointed. He describes Atatiirk as "a small In H.B. of 13.4.1923 Nypels' style of reporting was also strongly condemned by M. Rodas, head of the Greek Press Bureau at Izmir at the time, who had read articles of Nypsis in translation. The latter found no difficulty in refuting all points of his Greek colleague. 2 cf. G. Jäschke (Jaeschke), Türk Kurtulug Sava§i Kronolojisi 1918-1922, Ankara 1970, pp. 131, 132,134,149,151,152. 3 H.B. November 13-16,1938.

192

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

man with a hard cold face and unpleasantly piercing eyes, without any beauty of face or attitude, wearing a kalpak and a sport suit; no gentleman". This description is a typical expression of disappointed high flung fantasies, based on admiration from a distance. The failure of hero worship was worsened the same evening during the interview Nypels was given by Kemal Pasha. Nypels found Atatiirk to be "a damned insolent pasha" lacking the most elementary rules of social politeness, a hateful and disagreeable person. The inability of the great man to produce some sort of veneer of a welcome to a pro-Turkish foreign reporter, made Nypels see Mustafa Kemal as "a neurasthenic of 40 years old, as well as an admirable soldier and statesman". The journalist was not able to conduct anything like the informative interview he had intended on the effective strength of the nationalist forces, Atatürk refusing to discuss such matters. Quite soon he stood up saying that the strength of his armies would show itself soon on the battlefield, and left the room to the dismay of Nypels and other persons present. As an excuse for this behaviour, it was said that the great man, after a tiring day in the Assembly, had also been seeing the Russian envoy and was moreover suffering from toothache. The Dutchman was bitterly disappointed. He envied his American colleague Streit's enthusiast descriptions, but was not given another opportunity to revise his impressions of Mustafa Kemal Atatiirk. Remaining fundamentally sympathetic to Atatiirk's cause and policy, Nypels would from now on voice mean, little criticisms of his hero. For instance: the, at first sight, wasteful use of the precious leader as a mere president of parliament was in fact meant to keep him away from drinking. It is clear that the Dutch journalist's mentality was not quite what was needed for this special assignment. More valuable are his observations of parliamentary procedures. He applauded Adnan Bey [Adivar]'s election as a vice-president and the fact that the Supreme Sheykh of the Mevlevi Order of Dervishes, Abdülhalim (,'elebi of Konya, was not re-elected. Parliament to him was a modest affair, just a building in neo-oriental style with one car Atatiirk's - in front, and the Laz warriors, Kemal's heavily armed guard, as sentries. The inside, with rows of school desks in a room too small to house the delegates properly, did not show any ornamentation whatsoever. On the press gallery were just the reporters of the four daily newspapers appearing in Kemalist territory, and five stenographers with their chief. According to Nypels, the calligraphic inscriptions were Quranic (sic) texts, meant to show that the regime was not anti-Islamic, although the clock was pointing the hour alia frangal

THE

DUTCH

PRES S

193

Kemal's policy of secular modernisation was hampered by a solid block of delegates recruited from amidst the Islamic clergy, the hocas, who must be considered as the conservative group of the Assembly. From interviews with ministers and top officials of the ministries in Ankara, Nypels concluded that the government lacked a coherent opinion on affairs, that xenophobia towards Europe at least was strong, but that it did not mean any hatred of Christians as such. For instance there was the interview with the minister of economic affairs, Celal Bey. To the question what assistance from Europe was desired to succour the misery of the refugees from European Turkey, the answer was: "Just be quiet and stay away, no presents please, but just free opportunities to engage in trade on a free market". The Red Cross was condemned by the same minister as being an organization merely set up to help Christian victims while leaving Muslims in the cold ! Eighty percent of the Turkish prisoners of war returning home from the camps in Egypt had become blind. This statement of Mahmut Celal was later corroborated by Adnan [Adivar], the Minister of Health. He declared that the sanitary services were able to cope without foreign aid. Ferid Bey, the Minister of Finance, also demonstrated full confidence in the national power to build up industry, and to take in hand the exploitation of the oil-wells in the area between Baku, Mosul and the Lake Baikal 1 . It would seem that Nypels was talking to a Panturkist. More interesting perhaps, the same minister pointed out that no paper money was being printed in nationalist Turkey where c. 80 million Ottoman paper pounds were in circulation. This was, as Nypels explained, a rare example of a country paying for its own war. The Minister of Defence, General Fevzi (Cakmak) (1876-1950), who also acted as premier, joined the feelings of national self-confidence. Nypels pretended to admire the frugal living and working climate at Ankara with its only two licensed cafes. The small number of civil servants surprised him, the Foreign Office e.g. counting only 10-30 men. Buildings suitable to house the government offices were also slight in number and capacity. Ankara had to give room to ca. 60,000 inhabitants. During the World War, a great fire had destroyed two thirds of its buildings, and so living space was extremely cramped. Nypels had to satisfy himself with a bed in a room in an old, dirty caravanserai. The only hospitable memory he describes was his stay with Adnan Adivar and his wife Halide Edib, who lived in a farmhouse 10 miles outside town, sharing the place with Hamdullah Subhi Bey (Tanriover) and Hikmet, director of the political department of the Foreign Office. Nypels conceived admiration for the projects of the Adivar couple to develop the emancipation of Turkish women, while realizing the heavy ^i.e. Ahmet Ferit Tek; cf. Jäschke op. cit. 142,148.

194

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

opposition such projects would meet from the conservative politicians, the hocas. The latter had already been successful in demanding the closure of the girls' day-school in Ankara (HB 28.4.1921). The Dutchman concluded that he could not exercise his job of critical news-reporter in an acceptable way (HB 10.5.1921). Spionitis had not killed him, but apparently there was no way to restore his standing in Ankara. The friendship of a former Ottoman military attaché at The Hague, a certain Nuri Bey, saved him from the worst. With his help Nypels was able to produce hard evidence of the fact that he was a honest Dutchman after all. The way it was done was simple but effective: Nypels had to reproduce the musical airs usually played around five o'clock in the most fashionable café-restaurant at The Hague, where Nuri Bey had been a habitué himself! Being only able to collect stories without a critical discussion of the sometimes manifestly exaggerated statements, Nypels seems to have lost interest in prolonging his stay. Unlike his colleague Streit of Philadelphia, he was not allowed to go and visit the Eski§ehir munitions factory where essential parts of aircraft, field and hand-guns, taken away by the Allied victors after the Armistice, were fabricated. Returning via Afyonkarahisar, Nypels met the nationalist commanderin-chief on that front, Refet Pasha, (who made the same very agreeable impression on him as he had done on other foreign reporters such as Mme Gaulis, who visited nationalist Anatolia for the first time in November 1919 (HB 3 , 4 , 5, 6, 8, 9, 16.4.1921) 1 . Here Nypels could ascertain his statement, made before in Izmir, that the nationalists were not using foreign personnel for military advisers, any Germans, let alone Russians. George Nypels showed himself a cynical pedant, an intelligent journalist, not flexible enough however to operate successfully in gaining information in Ankara in spite of his avowedly pro-Turkish standpoint. The end of his journey to the Levant did not mean the end of his special contributions to the HB. At home Nypels began to digest his travel notes and to publish a series of highly informative articles on the new Turkey, its leader and Turkish Islamic society in general. These writings show Nypels at his best. The Dutch press was almost exclusively based on French, British and American news agencies and correspondents, reflection the growing respect for the power of the Turkish nationalist regime. The Russian treaty of 16.3.1921, considered as an unholy alliance between the new leader of Panislamism and World Communism, must indeed have been awe-inspiring in the eyes of warweary Europeans. Kemal's influence, for instance, was seen in the anti-French 'b.G. Gaulis,La Question Turque, Paris 1931, pp. 68-86.

THE

DUTCH

PRESS

195

riots in Syria (HP 4.6.1921), a military alliance was suspected with Afghanistan, where Young Turkish, ex-Ottoman officers were active as military advisers, while Persia certainly was disengaging itself from British influence. French policy, rapidly veering round to the Turkish nationalist cause, made itself felt in the Dutch press much more than English policy, still more pro-Greek 1 . Islamic world opinion, in favour of maintaining the OttomanTurkish State and Istanbul as the seat of the Sultan-Caliph, was taken seriously in the Netherlands with their Islamic colonial empire in the East. The nationalists were favoured, because Mustafa Kemal was still largely seen as a defender of the faith of Islam and its caliph against the imperialism of the unbelievers. The HP of 7.8.1921 contained a long article by its "military collaborator" on the war in Asia Minor, in which the great tactical successes of the Greek armies were explained with the aid of a map. Since Eskigehir had been taken on July 10th, 1921, these successes continued, which meant that war would not end in a foreseeable time. Destruction of the nationalist forces not being probable, the Greeks had gained tactical victories, and according to this Dutch expert, they could not expect more. The announcement of the capture of Ankara, a piece of Greek propaganda, was published in HP .of 7.8.1921 and retracted only on 24.9. 1921. Even Reuter, ever pro-Greek, signalled then that further Greek moves towards Ankara were improbable. HP now headed its Turkish news with: "The Failure of the Greeks in the Levant". The paper's military expert declared that matters now entered the last phase, that the Greeks had to withdraw, and that Mustafa Kemal had won a very great success: "The Sakarya battle (23 August-13 September 1921) should be compared with that of the Marne". The ever increasing acceptance of the Turkish nationalist cause in Western Europe was reported by Nypels in H.B. of June 1921. Nypels explained that the French approach had been preceded by Turcophile Italian policy. The Kemalists' main communication with the outside world was running via Antalya, officially still in Italian hands. This port was accessible only with permission of the Kemalist military post established there. From "Italian" Antalya, which did not have a telegraph connexion, one had to go by sea to Rhodes, held by the Italians, where the Eastern Telegraph Company ensured communication as well as Italian and French mail services. Here the Turks for once could profit from capitulatory rights themselves by using the communication system. From Rhodes, news and couriers could travel unhindered to Rome where a permanent Kemalist representative was

1

Y. le Lannou, art. cit. 176-195.

196

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

established, the main centre of the Turkish nationalist network in Europe in 1921. Interesting side-information on the great prestige of Mustafa Kemal in the Islamic was provided by Jacob Israel de Haan, a well-known Dutch man of letters (1881-1924) and an ardent Zionist living in Palestine. His reports, published in HB of 8.7.1921 and 11.7.1921, were based on the Arab press. The publication of the Turkish treaties with Russia and Afghanistan was seen there as an indication of the ultimate liberation of Asia and a reason of joy c.q. unrest in this British Mandate territories : "The Arabs are hoping for Kemal's victory". Arab-Islamic sympathies for Mustafa Kemal's cause were also greatly furthered by the presence in Nationalist Anatolia of Sheykh Ahmad al-Sanusi, a North African leader 1 . In the latter's terms Ankara was now the Dor alnedj&t al-Islamtyya: The House of Salvation of Islam (HB 10.7.1921). In the Handelsblad the stream of news about Turkey continued. Nypels gave analyses of Kemalist military tactics, not always correct as he himself acknowledged later. The Turkish side of affairs was still hard to know from the general news media, commanded as they were by the ever active Greek propaganda. The Greeks still seemed to be the exclusive interpreters, dragomans, of Turkish affairs to the Western World. One rare example of Turkish counter-information was, according to Nypels, the refutation of the virulent anti-Turkish writings of the former US ambassador Morgenthau (probably) by Ahmed Riistem Bey, a former Ottoman ambassador to Washington. His brilliant piece of self-criticism and defence: "La Turquie devant le tribunal mondial" was published in 1919 by order of the Turkish National Congress (a nationalist non-governmental organization Milli Kongre active in 1918-1919. Under the protection of the Allied censors, the distribution centre of false news, located in the Pera quarter of Istanbul, was working at full speed. Press reports began to carry news of a serious conflict in Ankara between followers of Enver Pasha and those of Kemal, whose position was deemed to be insecure. They were probably echoes of parliamentary debates. H.B. of 29.7.1921 contains a report of Nypels' meeting, in Claridge's Hotel in Paris, with Bekir Sami Bey, whom he had met on February 11th, 1921 in considerably less comfortable surroundings in the Red Crescent Hospital at Burdur, halfway between Antalya and Ankara. Readers of the HB did not learn much from this interview. All we learn is that, according to Bekir Sami, there were no Russian troops or any foreign 1 Sidi Ahmad al-Shartf al-Sanusi (1880-1933) a son of Sidi al-Rida and grandson of Muhammad al-Mahdi. He was chief of the Sanusiyah Order from 1901 till 1916. Being pro-German he moved to Turkey where he directed pan-Islamic activities, since 1921 from Ankara.

THE

DUTCH

PRESS

197

soldiers in Anatolia. Refet Pasha had taken the initiative for election to the Parliament of some Orthodox Christian Turks, a move bound to have a positive effect on general opinion in Western Europe. A church hierarchy which was not Panhellenic should be installed, its activities limited to nonsecular matters and its representatives in the Grand National Assembly at Ankara to seven at the most. When Nypels mentioned his earlier conversation with Refet Pasha at Afyon, Bekir Sami Bey showed that he was well aware of the general European attitude towards Turkey, still considered as the champion of the age-old adversary of Christianity: "égratignez l'occidental, vous retrouverez le croiseur", he said. A striking characteristic of the Kemalist movement was, in Nypels' eyes, the way it had direct contact with the people, explaining its policy. Refet Pasha had given an example in the cinema of Afyon, then still in Turkish hands, but now, August 1921, captured and undoubtedly destroyed by the Greeks (HB 9.8.1921). So far the Handelsblad's general news pages had contained Greek-inspired reports on the impending defeat of the Turkish nationalists' forces. It was only in the issue of 23.9.1921 that the chief-editor expressed his being certain that exactly the contrary had taken place and that a revision of the Sèvres treaty had become necessary. At the same time articles appearing in the ever pro-Greek Journal des débats (Paris) were still quoted, especially with reference to the treatment of Greeks and Armenians. Sources were the writings of not altogether unbiased persons, such as the French Colonel de Brémond and the British Colonel Rawlinson 1 . This led Nypels to publish some background information on the littleknown Franco-Turkish war in Cilicia of the last two years, namely on the bloody fighting of small French units, supported by the French recruited Armenian legion, and on the active involvement of the orthodox Armenian clergy in the war. The reappearance of fear for massacres of Christians can be understood, Nypels remarks, when those perpetrated by Armenian and Greek military and irregular armed groups against the Turkish and Muslim population are taken into consideration. Why should Christians be the only people in the East in need of protection, the Dutch journalist asks rhetorically: it is tragic that in the Near East bloodguilt is being repaid by bloodguilt and not by treaties and sanctions; but mass murder of innocent civilians was no Turkish monopoly 2 .

' k . Brcmond, I,a Cilicie en 1919-1920, Paris 1921; A. Rawlinson, Adventures in the Near East, London 1923. ^Nypels refers to Revue Internationale de la Croix Rouge, Genève, no. 31, July 1921.

198

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

HB of 8.12.1921 reports Mustafa Kemal's speech of September 19th, 1921, i.e. the words of the victor of Sakarya: "Turkey has by now been punished heavily enough for its share in the Great War. Turkish demands now are to keep all lands except Syria and Mesopotamia. Persecution of the Christian population shall not take place, but Christians who collaborated with the enemy will be brought to justice before the Grand National Assembly. Muslims and Christians have the same rights in Turkey. The Turkish claim on Anatolia will be supported by arms but not with war to the extreme. What the Turks desire is peace with recognition of their right of existence". Nypels called this a beautiful specimen of the moderate, true statesmanship of Mustafa Kemal. During the first half of 1922, Dutch newspapers reported the increase of pressure on Greece by the two Great Powers to end hostilities in Asia Minor, to cooperate towards an agreement with the Turks and a suitable revision of the peace of Sèvres. It was generally understood that time was working for Turkey and Mustafa Kemal Pasha. The lack of official recognition of the Kemalist government at the Conference of Genoa, April 15th, 1922, was reported but also the increasing relations of the regime with France and Italy and -more menacingly- its links with Moscow. "Kemalistan does not yield an inch for concessions" was the impression of the editor of the Haagse Post (6.5.1922). Another special correspondent who travelled from the Netherlands to Istanbul was Jonkheer Mr. C. de Marees van Swinderen. This reporter's writings do not rise above touristic impressions of the "bizarre bazaar", and a number of cliché observations about Islamic conservatism, considered as the essential trait of the Turks. He expressed the usual disappointment with the Aya Sofya as a building, but surprisingly enough, was impressed by the devotion of the Muslims in the mosque. He noticed the number of fez pressing shops, and remarked that trade was not very flourishing, except with Russia, which was paying in gold. The activities of The Netherlands Bank for the Mediterranean gave Holland the fifth place in import to Turkey. Van Swinderen's articles do not give any political news. In the HB Nypels provided his readers with more background information, e.g. about the meaning of the Dutch Capitulations controlling economic relations with Turkey and Egypt and agreed with the Turks that these centuries-old instruments of trade had by now become outdated (HB 3.7.1922). Nypels was still convinced that Sheykh Ahmad al-Sanusi's presence in Diyarbekir was of great importance. In 1921 he presided at Sivas a Panislamic congress meant as a reaction against the great congress of Asiatic peoples at

THE

DUTCH

PRESS

199

Baku in 1920 Sunni, Shi'i and Wahabi Muslims had united with the Kemalists to make a plan for the salvation of the caliphate and to mobilize Islam against both western imperialism and Bolshevism. Al-Sanusi's prestige would protect Mustafa Kemal against the Kurds and an Anglo-Arab attack from Mesopotamia (H.B. 12.7.1922). A journey via Athens and Istanbul to Rumania and South Eastern Europe in February-May 1922 refreshed Nypels' ideas about the Turkish question. In Istanbul he had an interview with Tevfik Pasha, the Grand Vizier of the Sultan's last government, who assured him that a Greek occupation would never be suffered passively by the Turkish nation (HB 3.8.1922). During his visit to Istanbul Nypels became aware of the danger which the "decadent demon of Stamboul", supported by Islamic obscurantism, could be for Ankara. It may be noted that he thus shared the opinion of most of the Kemalist leadership. The nationalist counter-offensive of 26 August-9 September filled the headlines of the Handelsblad of 1 and 5 September 1922. A new situation arose in the Near East. The destructive and bloodymassacring retreat of the Greek armies made a very bad impression, and doubts were voiced about the real meaning of Hellenic civilization. Ambassador Morgenthau's widely read book was now judged to be illfounded, Nypels wrote 1 . The issue of 9.9.1922 contained a contribution by an anonymous correspondent on Panislamism and Enver Pasha, explaining that the myth of Enver was not valid in Ankara or Moscow but still prevailed in Central Asia, where he would rule as an Islamic prince. The author wrote that he had met Enver after the conquest of Batum. This was probably the last time the former Young Turk leader was mentioned in the Dutch press. In the opinion of Europe, Kemal had meanwhile become the undisputed master of Turkey. The entry of the Kemalists in Izmir (9 September) was reported in HB 11.9.1922 and next day, the chief-editor at last also conceded total Turkish victory. All great agencies except the French continued to distribute anti-Turkish bias, much stress being laid on probable Turkish atrocities, a traditional item of old. For good measure, the Turkish Information Bureau attached to the (Ottoman-) Turkish Legation in The Hague, sent a press release containing the Turkish conditions of peace as formulated in the National Pact of 28.1.1919. A sorry item in HB of 14.9.1922 (based on the Daily Mail) was the news of the assassination in Buca, near Izmir, of an elderly Dutch couple, the De Jong family, to be ascribed to un-disciplinary behaviour of Turkish 'cf. H. Morgenthau, Secrets of the Bosphorus, London 1918.

200

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

cavalry. This report must have confirmed some existing prejudices in Dutch public opinion. The great fire which destroyed Izmir after September 13th1, was widely covered in HB (15-16 September etc.). The chief foreign editor J.G. Barendrecht wrote leading articles (H.B. 17/18 and 24/25 September 1922) on the question of the Straits, Istanbul and the treaty of Sèvres. The point had been reached where the real decision about the future of the Near East Conflict lay with Mustafa Kemal, whatever the British, French and Italians might say. Since the Turks represented the ideal of Islam, they were more than mere pawns in the hands of the Great Powers, like the Greeks had been. After the fall of Izmir and during the so-called Çanak Crisis, the Turkish Question received daily attention from the chief-editors of the H.B. in its weekly survey of foreign policy. The HP had done so already for a year. But only now the liberal daily seemed to realize the importance of the Turkish nationalist movement for world affairs. At last Mustafa Kemal was taken seriously by the established bourgeois opinion. Hellenism, the Panhellenic idea, the Greek role as the guardian of Europe's cultural values in the East, had turned out to be a fallacy and a dream. The HP of 16.9.1922) liked the metaphor of a new Ice Age, which had begun for the Greek nation and its king: "Tino" receiving expert treatment at the hands of the Muhammedan pâtissier-glacier Mustafa Kemal Pasha. But general opinion, in the Dutch press and elsewhere, was still not able to distinguish between Islam and Turkish Nationalism. The Kemalist victories were taken to be gained by and for Islamic ideals. This understanding did greatly enhance the fear and respect now being paid to the Turks. Any warlike aggression against them would certainly lead to a general conflict between Europe and the World of Islam as a whole. "England had to realize this now and abstain from any such aggression", was the opinion voiced in all papers. The HP published a series of popular historical articles by its regular contributor C.P. van Rossem, this time on the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, obviously to provide its readers with information about Turkish power. One of the news-reports on the destruction of Izmir related how the Royal Dutch Steamship Company (KNSM) steamer Deucalion had arrived at Istanbul on 24 September, carrying the 150 members of the Dutch community of Izmir, all in a reasonable state of health. This was the end of an epoch of Dutch Levant history! (HB 26.9.1922). Nypels reacted with a critical article. Why had the Dutch of Izmir not been protected by their government? ' l h c most balanced account of the Izmir crisis seems to be E. Umar, izmir'de Yunanlarin Son Gunleri, Ankara 1974.

THE

DUTCH

PRESS

201

Why had the British, declared enemies of the Turks, been asked to provide such protection? Why had the French not been asked, with whom the Dutch in the Levant had always had good relations? No Dutch warship had been present during the crisis, caused by the unexpectedly quick capture of Izmir by the nationalist forces. Many Hellenized Dutch nationals in Izmir and elsewhere in Asia Minor were in serious jeopardy. Nypels expressed hopes that father and son, Edmond and Daniel de Hochepied, the two counts who were well versed in Turkish language and culture, might be able to give their support to that unfortunate category of Dutch subjects. He considered the fate of Izmir as really "fatal", an unavoidable tragedy symbolic of the injustice that befell Asia Minor. The burning of the town was the sequel to the burning of the towns and villages in the interior, destroyed by the retreating soldiery of Hellenism. The town simply had to be reconquered by violence. No Turkish commander, either Kemal or Refet could have prevented that. In a personal note, Nypels regretted that he had not foreseen what was going to happen so soon. Otherwise had never would have joined the Dutch royal couple on their visit to Scandinavia (!). In the late September issues of HB he give a description of the Dutch losses in Izmir and its countryside: the marble palace of Messrs van der Zee, the Dutch shipping agents on the seafront, the private residence of partner Alfred van der Zee, the new office of the Dutch national trading firm of Henri Sperco et fils and the private house of Willy Sperco. Our correspondent feared for the survival of the Izmir Dutch. In the countryside, along the Izmir-Ephesus railway, there were the farms of the Van Lennep and Van Heemstra families, the ancient estate of the counts de Hochepied at Sevdikoy, in town the historic building of the Dutch hospital with the chapel and the old churchyard. The hospital was rented to a Greek physician and so, Nypels added, the worst was to be expected. All this, together with the consulate on the "second parallel" behind the seafront boulevard, might be lost "including carpets, money, jewellery and bugs!" In compensation Nypels saw an opportunity for Dutch commerce, now that the Armeno-Greco-British competition was eliminated. Following this aside on Dutch-Turkish relations in the Levant, Nypels turns to the main course of history once again with a somewhat vague supposition about the future role of the Turkish leaders in the international arena. He even considered the chances that Mustafa Kemal might wish to become caliph himself. Kemal, the modern Janissary, would certainly not be satisfied becoming a Damad, a

202

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

Sultan's son-in-law, like Enver. Then follows a survey of Mustafa Kemal's relations with the Sultanate. Nypels rightly understood the interesting problem of the opposition between the secularism of the Young Turks and the narrow religiosity of the hocas. In any case, he concludes, Kemal is ruling supreme or, as he quotes from he canard enchaîné : "Tant bien Kemal, il a Fallu l'admettre", and "Les Turcs ont eu le toupet de rentrer dans la Turquie". Great relief was expressed in the newspapers when Mustafa Kemal agreed to negotiations, first at Mudanya and then at Lausanne. War was avoided. The HP gave some space to an unnamed but expert contributor, who wrote a few short, historical surveys of the Turkish presence in Anatolia from the 11th century onwards: Kemal is compared to that early conqueror of Izmir, Aydinoglu Umur Bey 1 . The general attitude of the Handelsblad towards the Turkish question did not change when, after a career of sixty years, Charles Boissevain stepped down and was succeeded by A. Heldring as director and J. Kalff jr. as editor-inchief. The Kemalists were recognized as the true and legal masters of Turkey, but their demands regarding the size of the new Turkish state were deemed excessive and insolently formulated. The interest in the Turkish negotiations was great. It is not surprising that Nypels was sent to Lausanne to watch the peace conference meeting there November 20th, 1922. During the formative stages, Nypels was able to report that the Turkish delegation opposed inviting delegates of Capitulatory Powers other than those already present. The Turks feared the formation of a block of such states, directed against their interests. This meant the exclusion of The Netherlands. In a general way, this attitude may be considered as hostile Turkish diplomacy (HB 22.11.1922). Nypels managed to establish personal contacts with some members of the large (40) Turkish delegation. Until the end of the first session period on 4.2.1923, his dispatches were transmitted every day to his newspaper in Amsterdam. He took care to give full attention to the Turkish point of view and mentioned Riza Nur (1879-1942) as his main informant. He had frequent conversations with this prominent member of the Turkish delegation. It is again very disappointing to find so little evidence of this precious source of information in the articles published by Nypels. The personal role of Riza Nur was repeatedly reported. His studied insolence and extremely brutal way of conducting negotiations were surmised by the

' T h e writer of the articles must be J.H. Kramers, at the time Reader in Turkish and Persian at the University of Leiden, and one time dragoman to the Dutch legation at Istanbul (HP 29.9.1922).

THE

DUTCH

PRESS

203

Dutchman as being mainly meant for "home consumption" by the members of the Grand National Assembly. This style of Riza Nur was however not unsuccessful, like in the case of excluding Bulgarian and Armenian representatives from the discussion of the minorities problem. Still, Nypels judged the inflexible, clumsy and tactless behaviour of the Turkish diplomats a useless way of provoking the Italian and French delegations into an alignment with the British. In fact, Nypels shared the common opinion in this matter. However, in his dispatches he kept supporting the Turkish viewpoint without exception, distinguishing himself from most other editors and reporters. He was also constantly aware of the inherent strength of the Turkish position, even when not presented in a very diplomatic style. What Nypels had explained long before became clear during this part of the conference. The Turkish did not act in agreement with but against the Russian interests. When negotiating the Straits question they excluded the Russians from the conference. Led by personal irritation - n o other satisfactory explanation is givenNypels severely criticized the two Dutch observers at the conference who attended the negotiations on the abolition of the Capitulations. Their discretion was such that the two Dutch newspapers present could get information on a document, which they had produced only via the Turkish delegation, which provided them with a French translation. Our reporter did not take the Dutch observers seriously. In his dispatches he does not name them, describing them only as being envoy to Berne and a reader in Oriental Languages. A singular mistake of judgement indeed since J.H. Kramers - i t was him of course- was, as a lawyer, orientalist and ex-dragoman of the legation, exceptionally qualified to deal with capitulatory affairs. During the last week before the temporary breakdown of the conference, Nypels devoted a whole article to "Riza Nur the inflexible one", who nearly wrecked the exchange of prisoners of war because, as he explained to our man, he could not deviate from the minimum demands formulated in the National Pact. Thrace, between the Mesta (Nestos) and Struma (Strymon) rivers, was authentic Turkish territory and its inhabitants should not be included in the projected exchange of populations. Any humanitarian approach to the fate of the prisoners of war, who were indeed unjustly suffering in their camps, must of necessity give way to national existence. Nypels shared the general disappointment about the deadlock of the negotiations. He left Lausanne on February 2nd, 1923, even before the formal closure of the sessions. According to the editors of HB and NRC, this failure was caused by the fanatics and obscurantists at Ankara who thwarted Ismet Pasha's work in Lausanne.

204

THE

NETHERLANDS

AND

TURKEY

Van Oss, the chief-editor of the HP, left on a cruise to the Eastern Mediterranean in February 1923. He visited Istanbul, "the Muhammedan Capital", and enjoyed the hospitality of the Dutch envoy W.B.R. van Welderen baron Rengers. At that time HNMS "Tromp" arrived in the Bosporus with another load of refugees from Izmir 1 . At this late stage of the crisis, the Dutch government had finally sent a warship to show its flag and offer protection to Dutch subjects. Van Oss was very favourably impressed by the Turkish people but did not gather more than superficial touristic experience in the East. This favourable impression was however entirely absent from the newspapers in those months, the intractability of Turkish diplomacy rekindling the old hostility of "Christian" Europe. When the conference re-opened on April 23rd, the Handelsblad did not order its correspondent to return to Lausanne. At first, Nyples was in contact with some members of the Turkish delegation by telephone. In this way he was able to report the highly surprising claim brought forward by the Turks at one stage, viz. the restoration to Turkey of the island of Adakale in the Danube, which they claimed never to have ceded. Except for Nypels, the Dutch press limited itself to printing the foreign telegrams on the progress of the negotiations. Then, on May 27th, Nypels returned to Lausanne where he found that the conference had lost its earlier brilliance. The HP published an article full of understanding for the Turkish stubbornness. The demand for fully independent sovereignty was said to find its justification in the recent history of Turkey. A partial translation of the new Turkish national march appeared, together with a fragment of Halide Edib's story Daga £ikan Kurt ("The Mountain Wolf"). Anonymously published, this apparently was another contribution by J.H. Kramers (HP 7.4.1923). All the Dutch newspapers brought the news of the conclusion of the peace at Lausanne on July 24th. The leading articles in Handelsblad and Haagse Post stressed the point that the Turks were to stay in Europe after all. The "Sick Man of Europe" was out of bed again. The view was that the present government at Ankara was more powerful than any other Turkish government in recent times. This time, a treaty had been concluded by true representatives of the Turkish people. However, HB noted, the inflexibility shown by their negotiators boded ill for the future relations with foreigners. The Eastern Question could not be considered to have ended yet, but Turkey would enjoy her independence. In fact, the peace treaty formed a bad example for the other defeated powers.

' HNMS Tromp, a coastal defence ship (Dutch: pantserschip ) built in 1906, was the first sizable Dutch warship to appear in Turkish waters since more than 30 years.

THE

DUTCH

PRES S

205

The last news item concerning Turkey in the Algemeen Handelsblad, dated August 11th, 1923, mentions Ismet [Inonii]'s return home. For a long time to come, the newspapers' interest in Turkey was to sink to a low level. In conclusion, it can be said that the birth of the new Turkey was attentively followed by Dutch press organs. Public opinion could base itself on general information, available through both the international news agencies and a remarkable series of special contributions by George Nypels. His very favourable attitude towards the case of Turkish nationalism was by no means shared by the European press of his day. Here we cannot enter into the question to what extent Nypels, or any other news reporter, did actually shape public opinion or bring about changes in the Dutch image of the Turks. After 1923, Nypels discontinued publishing on Turkish affairs and travelled elsewhere. The obituary he published in commemoration of Mustafa Kemal Atatiirk in HB of 13 and 16 November 1938 was a mere reproduction of his writings of the year 1921 and were so obsolete and irrelevant that a few readers expressed their indignation 1 . Afterwards, a satisfactory relationship between Turkey and the Netherlands developed. An increase in public interest in and a change in general opinion of the Turks came about in the 1960's, following the influx of great numbers of immigrants from Turkey.

' Among them the Dutch envoy at Ankara Ph.C. Visser, cf. Archives Dutch Foreign Office till 1940, "BUZA tot 1940, Gezantschap Ankara", 38.