APPENDIX A.
A BIT OF AMERICAN DIPLOMACY IN TURKEY.
THE CASE.
The legation of the United States of America has the honor to invite the attention of his highness, the minister of foreign affairs, to the matters following:
By note No. 167, June 13, 1883, the legation informed his highness that two American citizens, traveling in the vilayet of Bitlis, had been set upon by Kurds, robbed, and left to die, and that the governor-general of the vilayet had manifested the most singular indifference about the affair, and might be fairly charged with responsibility for the escape of the malefactors. The suggestion was then made that his highness would serve the cause of humanity and justice by ordering the most energetic measures to be taken for the apprehension of the robbers.
By a communication, No. 71235, June 13, 1883, his highness was good enough to answer the note of the legation, and give the pleasing intelligence that the governor-general had succeeded in discovering the goods taken from the two gentlemen, and that the robbers had been arrested and delivered up to justice. This information his highness reported as derived from the governor-general.
This report the legation found it necessary to correct; and for that purpose it addressed a second note to his highness, the minister of foreign affairs, No. 179, dated September 10, 1883, declaring that the robbers had not been arrested, and that the goods and money taken from Messrs. Knapp and Reynolds had been returned to them, but in small parts. Under impression that it was yet possible to obtain the powerful assistance of the Sublime Porte in bringing the thieves and assassins to justice, the legation in the same note proceeded to give the full particulars of the affair, both those connected with the assault and those descriptive of the action of the governor-general. Of the assault, it remarked that Messrs. Knapp and Reynolds, accepting the assurance of the governor-general that the roads were perfectly safe, set out on their journey without a guard of zaptiehs. They put up for a night at a house where there was present Moussa Bey, son of Meza Bey, an influential Kurdish chief. When they took their coffee they failed to send a cup of it to the said Moussa, who feeling himself insulted by the inattention, took four assistants and next day waylaid the gentlemen, one of whom, Mr. Knapp, they beat with clubs until they supposed him dead. Moussa Bey, with his own hand, cut down Dr. Reynolds, giving him ten cuts with a sword. The two were then bound and dragged into the bushes and there left to die. That there might be no excuse, such as that the murderers were unknown, the legation gave his highness the names of the subordinate assassins and their places of abode, Sherif Oglon Osman and Iskan Oglon Hassan, both of the village of Movnok. A third one was pointed out as the servant of Moussa Bey, living in the village of Kabiaa. Of the action of the governor-general the legation said further that when the affair was reported to him he made a show of action by sending zaptiehs to arrest the robbers, but, singular to remark, he selected Meza Bey, the father of Moussa, to take charge of the party. Going to the village of Auzont, Meza Bey pointed out four Kurds of another tribe as the guilty men, took them into custody and carried them for identification to Messrs. Knapp and Reynolds, who said they were not the assailants.
During the night, in Aozou, a bundle was thrown through a window into a room occupied by the police, which on examination proved to contain a portion of the stolen goods. With this the governor-general rested from his efforts and dispatched to his highness the minister of foreign affairs, that the stolen goods were recovered and returned, and the felons captured and punished. This report, the legation took the liberty of informing his highness, was not true, also that the chief of the assassins, Moussa Bey, was still at large; and to emphasize its statement, the legation further said to his highness, that the details it communicated were current through all the region of Bitlis, having been first given out by Moussa himself. The legation then, in the same note, exposed the maladministration of the governor-general in language plain as respect for his highness, the minister, and for the Sublime Porte would permit, and suggested as the only means of accomplishing anything like redress that a brave impartial officer be sent to Bitlis to investigate the conduct of the governor and take the affair in his own hands. “Such a step,” it was added, “might serve to save the lives of many Christians,” and it was further represented that “could the assassins be brought to just sentence it would unquestionably lessen the demand for indemnity which otherwise it would be the duty of the legation to present against the Imperial Government in this connection.”
On November 7, 1883, the legation of the United States, by a third note, No. 184, communicated to his highness, the minister of foreign affairs, that the governor-general of Bitlis had confronted four persons with Mr. Knapp for identification, and that that gentleman had recognized Moussa Bey as one of those who had robbed and wounded him. The legation of the United States then expressed a hope that the minister of foreign affairs would give proper orders for bringing Moussa Bey and his companions in crime before the tribunals for trial.
Still later, on November 12, 1883, the legation of the United States addressed a fourth note, No. 185, to his highness, the minister of foreign affairs, detailing again the circumstances of the attempted murder of Messrs. Knapp and Reynolds, and representing the untrustworthiness of the governor-general by charging that Moussa Bey had already obtained from him assurances of immunity in the event of a trial and conviction.
His highness, the minister, was then requested that, if it was decided to maintain the governor-general at his post, orders be given for the transfer of the criminals to Constantinople for trial.
The three notes last named of the legation of the United States have not been answered by his highness, the minister of foreign affairs, except in a note, dated December 8, 1883, in which he is pleased to renew assurances based upon telegrams from the governor-general, which are utterly unreliable.
Wherefore, abandoning hope of justice through the governor-general of Bitlis, and the judicial tribunals of the empire, the legation of the United States finds itself compelled to change its form of application for redress, and demand of the Sublime Porte indemnity in behalf of Messrs. Knapp and Reynolds, for the former £1,500, and for the latter, because of the more serious nature of his injuries, £2,000.
THE POSITION TAKEN IN WASHINGTON.
Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your No. 317, of the 25th ultimo, relative to the case of the Rev. Mr. Knapp and Dr. Reynolds, murderously attacked by Kurds near Bitlis, and to say that, after a careful consideration of all the facts before the Department, the inaction of the governor of Bitlis and the failure of the supreme Government to force him to undertake such measures as the case evidently demanded, must be regarded as a denial of justice. While this Government is always averse to making money demands for indemnity in countries whose administration of justice may differ from our own, the Department feels compelled to resort to this remedy under circumstances which manifestly make the local officers and the Government of the Porte responsible for the failure to do justice in this case.
The action reported in your dispatch is, consequently, approved.
THE POSITION TAKEN IN CONSTANTINOPLE.
General Lew Wallace is understood to have been emphatically a persona grata as U. S. Minister to Turkey, in fact to have enjoyed, to a very exceptional degree, the personal confidence and friendship of His Majesty the present Sultan. The following quotation will show what treatment even he received in the discharge of his official duties in the case under consideration:
The Porte, in deciding how far it is safe to affront foreign Governments, has even ranked the United States below some of the European States. The Porte during the past year has treated General Wallace as if he were the representative of a Danubian Principality. Remonstrance after remonstrance against fresh violations of the treaties it has left unanswered, and it has repeatedly omitted the courtesy of a bare acknowledgment of their receipt. In fact, Turkey has been relying upon the distance of the United States. Perhaps its officials even suppose that the American navy is afraid to risk adventures so far from home as the coasts of the Levant.
General Wallace found it necessary, for the sake of the safety of American citizens in Turkey, to press for some definition of the situation. During nearly five weeks he had been refused a personal interview with the Minister of Foreign Affairs on the ground of “indisposition.” During all that time the representative of that Minister declined to enter upon any discussion of the important questions at issue. Four times the Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States had been turned away from the door of the Sublime Porte by the refusal of the Grand Vizier to see him. Each time plausible reasons were assigned which seemed to render any insistance on the part of the General uncourteous. Yet it became daily more evident that all these plausible excuses for declining negotiation on the injuries done by Turkey to American commerce and to American citizens were part of a settled purpose not to redress the wrongs.—New York Semi-Weekly Tribune, March 28, 1884.
THE RESULT.
The ten years that have elapsed since the above was written clearly show that what seemed then to be a “settled purpose” has become the settled policy of the Ottoman Government in regard to Americans and their rights in Turkey.
In regard to the outcome of the case of Messrs. Knapp and Reynolds, the humiliating fact must be recorded that not one cent of the indemnity demanded by the United States of America has to this day been obtained. The monster, Moussa Bey, was allowed by the Turkish Government to continue his outrages on the Armenian villages of the great Moosh plain, until his record became so appalling, that under European pressure the Porte summoned him to Constantinople, where he was entertained as the Sultan’s guest. He was whitewashed by the courts, but the Sultan was prevailed upon to invite him to make a pilgrimage to Medina at his expense, and there spend the remainder of his days in religious exercises.