gazi ahmet muhtar paşa

• tarihi biri. simdi hatirlariz ya da hatirlamayiz ama tarih derslerinde bu adami da okuduk hepimiz. gercek birer kisilik olduklarina inanmak cok zor. ama buyrun:
  
  1886 yilinin ocak ayinda ingiliz daily news gazetesi muhabirinin ahmet muhtar pasa ile yaptigi roportaj:
  
  "i found mukhtar pasha inhabitating the handsome little palace in the ismailieh quarter of the city, where the khedive and family had resided previous to the death of vice-queen mother, and which latterly had served as a refuge to the prince and princess hussein. we were ushered up the grand marble staircase by a polite gentleman from constantinople. with us was an egyptian bey, who had also come out on a visit of ceremony, son of mahmoud pasa el ainout, and brother-in-law to the princess fatmah. passing through an ante-chamber, where four circassians of the imperial ottoman guard stood at attention with drawn swords, we entered the spacious saloon where the khedive used to receive his visitors, and found mukhtar pasha seated in the corner of a small louis xv sofa, smoking a cigarette through a magnificient amber holder. within easy reach of his hand was a small gueridon. he rose as we entered and shook hands, while the bey rushed forward and kissed the hem of his garment, which mukhtar, as is customary in the east endevoured to prevent. the bey retired to the extreme end of the apartment, where he remained seated in what we might consider an abject attitude - without opening his mouth the whole time. he seemed to regard the envoy with awe. this, too, was perhaps only oriental affectation. mukhtar had altered since i last saw him some five years ago, after the signing of the famous treaty of san stefano. the lines on his face had become somewhat accentuated, and his beard, which was then quite black and somewhat pointed, was now cut square and appeared wiry as if from constant trimming, while here and there a few grey hairs appeared. it was impossible not to notice the inevitable imprint of the hands of time on his stern features; but the eagle eye had lost none of its fire, and his martial bearing confessed him to be every inch a soldier. he spoke a good deal about your intrepid correspondent mr. o'donovan; and entered into conversation about the montenegrin campaign, the battle of aladjah bagh, and the retreat from kars. his eyes sparkled with animation as he was reminded of an incident now almost forgotten.
  
  "ah!" he exclaimed, 'les annes passent. c'est la vie humaine!' the subject now turned on the soudan, and i asked him if he did not consider it a grand mistake to have given up the soudan. 'a mistake!' he said; 'i should think so - a crime!' the idea of handing over a magnificient country like that to a lot of semi-savages; in fact, egypt is not egypt without the soudan. for many reasons - political, strategical, and commercial - it should be held. egypt should mean the nile. who knows it might be tampered with by an enemy to the enormous injury of this country?'
  
  mukhtar was evidently thinking of an idea which has entered the heads of some, that the nile could be turned into the red sea, but this is known to be impossible, as the river would have to ascend many feet, or, even if it were possible with gigantic labour, assisted by most able engineers, to turn it at certain places into the desert on the west bank. 'however' he continued, 'as long as you are in the country the war will always go on, for it is now a religious war, and the soudanese will continue fighting against you to the last, regarding you, as they do, as foreigners and enemies of the creed. it will ever continue,' he repeated, with some bitterness 'a religious war while the british remain in egypt.' i told him i knew the country, being one of the few survivors of hicks's army, and the character of the natives, and i agreed with him that at any rate it was a great pity to lose a fertile province like sennaar, in parts rich in gold and in other mineral wealth, in parts fertile in the extreme - and that this eastern soudan, if fully developed, ought to be most valuable in a commercial point of view to egypt. 'but,' i remarked, 'i know that the natives have detested the very name of turk ever since the atrocities which were commited by turkish armies in 1821, and the terrible chastisement that they received at the hands of ismail pasha, the son of mehmet ali, and at the hands of the defterdar who conquered the soudan between them - plundering and massacring the inhabitants of dara and obeid, and in fact overrunning the whole country, and slaugthering in cold blood the inhabitants of shendy. the memories of those days' i said, 'is still fresh in the minds of many living, and has been handed down from father to son. i aver that the animosity of these arabs and indigenous tribes against us is not a tenty what it is against the turks, and that they look upon every egyptian as a turk. i must remind you, too' i added. 'that this religious war commenced before the english were in egypt; besides, many tribes who hated you - like the shagrahs - were friendly to us.' 'true' he said, with a sardonic smile, 'true, they detest the turks; but they feared and obeyed them. you must rule savages with a rod of iron. the soudanese are savages, and must be treated as savages. i cannot say what would be best to do under the present circumstances. i must fully study the subject first, and then, according to the convention, i shall confer with sir drummond wolff.'
  
  i should very much like to have asked him who he proposed to put into soudan to reconquer it, as he admitted that he never supposed that the egyptians could do this alone. the tenour of this conversation seemed to show that he thought that the turks and egyptians could do this together, as they had before; but in those days the soudanese had no rifles or firearms of any sort, and the conquering army was composed in reality of turks, born perhaps in egypt, or of men of turkish descent - quite another thing from an army of fellaheen soldiers. bu he had already given his opinion more freely than he had to other englishmen , some of whom, high in the civil service here, declare they could not make him touch on egyptian politics. perhaps he was more communicative to me as he knew i was acquainted with the soudan, and was glad to find someone who knew the value of those southern lands. i have always held in fact that, though kordofan and darfur were never worth keeping, sennaar ought to be productive of wealth to egypt. i saw that he did not wish to prolong the conversation, which he had verged so much on disagreeable subjects. i knew, too that he had been receiving visits all the day, and must be weary of them, so i rose to take my leave. he again shook hands, returning my salute in a polite but somewhat stern manner, while the bey again rushed up to kiss the hem of his garment, but this time mukhtar pasha showed a positive dislike to the humiliating ceremony, and pulled his coat away. i left the room with the conviction that i had been conversing with a thoroughly honest man and true soldier, who, though he may respect or like englishmen individually, has a genuine hatred of our policy towards turkey; and whose rooted opinion is that we never ought to leave at once; in fact that this departure is the only subject fit to be discussed, and that until this is arranged there is nothing else to be done. that this is his opinion is now pretty well known."