The French Consul tells me of Bashi-Bazouks relating to circles of admiring listeners how the cut off the heads of little children, and how the dismembered trunks would leap and roll about like those of chickens; and I shut my ears and say, " This is enough; I do not want to hear any more ; I do not care to investigate any further/' It does not matter to me that a few more or less have been committed. You cannot increase or diminish the horror of the thing by mere statements of round numbers. I shall leave the statistics to Mr. Schuyler and Mr. Baring, and shall be quite willing to accept their estimates.
It has been said that these acts were committed by irregular troops, over whom the Government had no control, for whom the Turkish authorities were in no way responsible, and that the latter would, on the contrary, have been very glad to restrain them. Unfortunately, there are many facts connected with the business which show that this view of the case is altogether erroneous.
Had the Government really been in earnest in making these protestations, it would have seized some of the principal leaders of the Bashi-Bazouks, some of those who had particularly distinguished themselves by their ferocity, and punished them summarily. Chefket Pacha, for instance, who burned the village of Bazardjik, and slaughtered nearly all of its inhabitants under more than usually revolting circumstances, should have been one of the first to feel the strong arm of the law City Tours Istanbul.
Sultan at Constantinople
But having done all this, he has been promoted to a high position in the Palace of the Sultan at Constantinople. Again, there is the case of Achmet Aga, a captain of a company of Bashi-Bazouks, who likewise distinguished himself by his ferocity. He wished to burn Philip- popolis, and was only withheld from doing so by the energetic action of the governor, who has since been removed, and who threatened to attack him with the regular troops. It was he who slaughtered 8,000 people at Batak, and burned 200 women and children alive in the school.
He is a low ignorant brute, who can neither read nor write, and yet he has been promoted to the rank of Pacha, and with that exquisite mockery of European demands for justice, for which the Oriental is so distinguished, he has been named a member of the commission appointed to prosecute and punish the Bashi- Bazouks. The reason is clear and simple. These men carried out the wishes and intentions of the Government, if not the positive orders. They did their duty, and have been rewarded.
But it has been said that the Bulgarians set the example of committing atrocities, and even Lord Derby, upon the authority of Sir Henry Elliot, made the statement before the House that both sides had been equally guilty in this respect. It might be interesting to learn where Sir Henry Elliot obtained his information. As I have already explained, the English Government had no agent here capable of sending information until the arrival of Mr. Baring. He could not have obtained it from other Governments, for the reason that the various consuls here, with all of whom I have talked, never reported any atrocities on the part of the Bulgarians to their respective Governments.
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