No matter how immutable the Ottoman Empire appeared, there were transformations in the bureaucratic system as well as in society. The changes mostly concerned the conservative Pashas who belonged to the ' old school.' They were removed from their posts for the sake of progress and improvement. Barkley had business with a few of them. ' The most honest, the simplest, and the most agreeable I have ever met' are the words of praise that the civil engineer devotes to one of his old acquaintances, whom he respected for his reliability and straightforwardness:
He was a Turk of the Turks, one of the old school, that hated a Giaour in the abstract, but liked him individually, and […] [his] word when given was to be trusted implicitly. Unfortunately for me he was removed long before the line was finished, and I lost a friend, who was replaced by an à la Franca Pasha. (Barkley, Bulgaria, 20.)
By the middle of the last century the à la Franca Pashaor the efendi, somebody who had mastered the arts of reading and writing, was a curious mixture of East and West. Davison gives us the description of the species offered by William G. Palgrave, a contemporary of Barkley. It shows that what passed for advancement and westernisation was no more than skin-deep.
The alafranga efendi, the westernised efendi, was often a contemptible person, sometimes Levantine in outlook if not in blood because of the unassimilated elements of East and West in his training. At his worst, the alafranga efendi appeared thus: "The same black frock coat, black trousers, generally unbuttoned where European ideas would most rigorously exact buttoning, the same padded undercloths, shiny boots, and slight red cap, the same shuffling gait and lack-lustre eye, characterize every man of the tribe (Palgrave, 14.)". (Davison, p. 34.)
Barkley does not provide such a detailed description of the appearance of these new Ottomans. His accounts produce an analysis of their moral character, based on the assumption that mixed cultures in a person indicate degeneration. To support his point of view he quotes the words of an old Turkish farmer who advised him never to have dealings with a Turk who is dressed in ' Frank clothes' :
If through force of circumstances you are obliged to do so, don' t believe what he says, but take it for granted he is a rogue. A Turk never adopts the dress of a Giaour till he has lost his native virtue and honesty, and acquired some of the vices of the people he apes. (Barkley, 88.)
The syntax of the quotation does not allow us determine in how far the second of the quoted sentences is also part of the speech of the old Ottoman. Considering the rude expressions it contains, I would rather say it belongs to the argument of the Englishman, who immediately afterwards asserts that ' the ruin of the [Turkish] nation […] is being brought about entirely by the vices of its Europeanised officials' (Barkley, 89.). This would mean that Barkley possessed the spirit of his time. The Victorians, as well as the Romantics before them, praised the pure nature of anything: species, ideas or races. Mixed cultures, species, etc., were seen as monstrous, as abnormal. In Barkley this notions has moral dimensions: it is a sign of personal decline:
They are all dishonest and only live to increase their wealth, and, as long as they can do this by fair means or foul, care nothing for others or what may come after them. […] They have failed to adopt any of the virtues of the West, but have welcomed with open arms all the vices. (Barkley, 91.)
Barkley thinks that the best sign of the moral degeneration of the new Ottomans is ' the most pernicious of all civilised evils -- drunkenness' . This spread rapidly during the time of his stay in Bulgaria. Alcohol was one of the forms of bakshish that the railway company had to pay to keep friends with the local administrators. In order to save the officials from a bad reputation and possible pangs of conscience, nobody called the whiskey by its proper name. It was termed ' barley water' . The behaviour of the a la Francas disgusted Barkley, who found their conduct hypocritical:
Their word is never to be relied on, and their most sacred promises stand for nothing. They cringe and fawn on all they think above them, and are brutal and overbearing to their inferiors. (Barkley, 91.)
Under these circumstances, the Englishman saw no future for the Ottoman Empire and, what is worse, for the Turkish nation.
Possibly I am wrong and the Turks may, under altered circumstances, develop qualities for which I am not inclined to give them credit. (Barkley, vi.)
Barkley, Henry C., Between the Danube and the Black Sea or Five Years
in Bulgaria
(London: Murray, 1877).
Barkley, Henry C., Bulgaria before the War during Seven Years' Experience
of European
Turkey and Its Inhabitants (London: Murray, 1877).
Davison, Roderick H., Reform in the Ottoman Empire 1856-76 (New Jersey: Princeton UP, 1963).
Palgrave, William G., Essays on Eastern Questions (London, 1872).
Last modified 2001