Let Our Fame Be Great

by Oliver Bullough

  The strategic clash created by the contradictions between Ottoman weakness, British imperialism and Russian expansion was the same one that would spark the Crimean War a couple of decades later, but that does not mean the plan was sensible. It was barmy and years ahead of its time. That did not bother Urquhart, however.

  The Scot was a strangely persuasive man, and his position in the British embassy in Istanbul allowed him to come dangerously close to succeeding in his warmongering. Notes of protest were exchanged between the British and Russians over the ship. But sense prevailed, the war was avoided, and Urquhart was left as a footnote to history, rather than as the great strategic visionary that he believed himself to be.

  But that was not before he had sent his two friends to Circassia to be ready to welcome the British troops when they came, and thanks to them we have a clear description of what Circassia was like before the disaster of 1864 scattered the nation across the Middle East.

  One of the most remarkable elements of the English envoys’ accounts is how deeply entrenched in Turkish society the Circassians were. Longworth, who was a journalist, found a large population of Circassians in Istanbul, many of them engaged in illegal trade with their homeland.

  When his ship reached Sinop, a Turkish port on the Black Sea coast, his plan to visit Circassia caused something of a sensation. Inquisitive Circassians thronged around him, all wearing the shaggy hats and tunics of their national dress. Some of these men had lived in Anapa, the Turkish fortress that had changed hands several times, and had fled for the last time when the Russians finally claimed it by war in 1828. Under the treaty that ended the conflict, Turkey had ceded to Russia its claim to the northern shore of the Black Sea and the Circassians’ home.

  Russia had had occasional contacts with the Circassians for centuries – Moscow still considers a 1561 dynastic marriage between Ivan the Terrible and a Circassian prince’s daughter as foundation to its claim to the region of Kabarda, for example – but Anapa was the key to their conquest.

  If Circassia belonged to anyone before 1828, it belonged to Turkey, but the Turks had never tried to enforce their claim, which was tenuous at best. Most Circassians had never noticed that they were being ruled by the Turks at all, but could not help noticing the change of ownership. Russia launched a large-scale war to enforce the rights over Circassia that it gained in its 1829 treaty with the Ottoman Empire.

  The Russian onslaught was one of the reasons that the Circassian community in Turkey was larger than normal when Longworth and Bell arrived, but its presence long predated it. The integration of Circassians into Mediterranean culture was strong, and for millennia they had been an integral part of southern civilization. Jason and the Argonauts came and sought the Golden Fleece on this coastline, perhaps in what is now Abkhazia. Other myths show how closely Greek culture was linked to the giant mountain range. Prometheus, who stole fire from the Gods to give to man, was said to be chained in perpetual torment on these mountains, an eagle pecking at his liver. According to the Bible, Noah’s Ark grounded on Mount Ararat, which is to the south of the main chain, and is said to have touched on Mount Elbrus on its way. This mountain, the tallest of all the Caucasus, has a distinctive double peak created, or so the story goes, by the keel of Noah’s ark when it floated by.

  It is easy to forget now how closely Circassia was linked to the ancient world. Before the Circassians were swallowed up by the Russians, however, the Greeks, Genoese and Turks had traded with them for centuries, above all taking female and male slaves to serve in the harems and the armies of the countries to the south. The fame of the Circassians in these two professions was broad. For much of western Europe, the Circassian lady was the very model of beauty and grace. The men, meanwhile, were choice mercenaries. Their warrior cast, the Mamelukes, ruled Egypt until driven out by Napoleon.

  The ship Bell used to reach Circassia was piloted by an engaging rogue who lived in an easy democratic way with his crew, with all sharing in the profits of the trading expedition. The risks they were taking were high, for the coast was closely blockaded by Russian ships and every visitor had to run between them, hoping that his vessel was faster than those of his pursuers.

  Bell knew the risks better than most, since he had been aboard the Vixen when she was seized and had spent some time in captivity before being returned to Turkey. His ship bravely flew the green and gold Circassian flag – which had been invented by Urquhart – as it struggled to reach the coast through adverse winds, but fell in with two Russian warships after a week at sea. The captain was loath to lighten the ship by throwing the trade goods overboard, but some sacrifice was needed. After a brief dispute that seems to have occupied the whole crew, they disposed of the gun carriage (the gun itself was in the hold) and the Circassian flag, which clearly was yet to earn the reverence that it currently enjoys.

  Although the Russians opened fire, the little boat managed to reach shore and the passengers were safe. This encounter with Russian warships became typical for anyone trying to reach the coast – Longworth had an almost identical one – and became such a cliché that comics even began to mock it. It is hard in fact to avoid the impression that the dread Russian navy was rather inept since it so frequently failed to capture visitors approaching the coastline. In Bell’s case, the Russian warships repeatedly failed to cut off their prey, sailing directly towards his ship rather than to stop it reaching the shore, thus having to change course and sail repeatedly. Their shooting also must have been slack, since they fired many times without success.

  The boat used by Longworth, who arrived separately, meanwhile outpaced its chasing warship in a straight race, which suggests the latter was a sluggish vessel, and the Circassians amused themselves by taunting their failed pursuers as they fell astern.

  ‘What are you afraid of now? Why don’t you make haste, Kaffer [unbeliever]? Don’t you see we are ready for you? Only come alongside, and we will give you a reception that will teach you how to terrify true believers in future,’ taunted a rather ridiculous fellow passenger who had been to Mecca and whom Longworth refers to as the ‘Hadji’ as a result.

  The reception received by the two travellers on arrival in Circassia was warm, and allowed them both to study Circassian culture to a degree never again rivalled by foreign visitors. The culture was marked by an extraordinary degree of hospitality. Every house was graced with a guest house, set aside from the main quarters of the family and kept in a permanent state of readiness. No warning was required before arrival, and a sheep was regularly killed for the English guests to eat.

  Their hosts seem to have been permanently delighted by the chance of showing off their largesse, and one old man with whom Longworth was billeted at one point positively revelled in it. ‘We were welcomed and waited on by the patriarch of this little hamlet, in person, to whom the duties of hospitality seemed to give new life and spirit. Indeed, it was a most pleasing sight to see him bustling beneath his burden of fourscore in the discharge of them.’

  The importance of hospitality to the culture is almost impossible to overstate, and was a crucial element in the life of the nation. Without a government, organized religion or a money-based economy, the two travellers had none of the facilities for finding accommodation that they would have been used to. It was not possible to rent a room, there being no money to do so, nor to find a government guest house as was the practice on the Russian side of the lines. As such, they stopped wherever they found themselves. Anything they expressed an interest in was given to them, since the culture of hospitality included great generosity.

  Hospitality was indeed taken to the extreme of the guest being sacred in every respect, and Longworth relates the story of a Circassian family that unwittingly welcomed a Russian engineer to its house. The Russian had Circassian guides, and was disguised as a Circassian, and his hosts were duty-bound to receive him with all warmth. The presence of the engineer, a man called Tornau, who later wrote memoirs of his own, was known to the Circassians hunting h
im. He and his guides, however, were safe within the walls of his refuge. ‘They had partaken of bread and salt under the roof of a Circassian, and he and his tribe had become responsible for it with their lives: whatever their horror of a spy and a Russian, his person was sacred in the character of their guest.’ The pursuit was called off and the Russian continued on his way.

  Longworth and Bell were not, however, normal travellers. Hoping to fund their stay in Circassia and to find commercial opportunities there, they had taken large quantities of merchandise and presents that had to be transported with them. The average Circassian carried nothing but his weapons and a little food, so their lengthy caravans presented an attractive prospect for the impoverished men who witnessed them passing by. As guests, they could not be robbed, but the Circassians were accustomed to generosity from wealthy men, and they did not see the foreigners as an exception.

  At almost every stop they were met by suitors keen to gain weapons, or gunpowder, or lead or other products, often with comic results. Many of the misunderstandings that arose may have started in the Circassian culture of giving presents, since the suitors must have been so surprised not to have been given the object they expressed regard for that they employed other means to secure it.

  Longworth, for example, became very impressed by the patriotic ardour of a visitor ‘whose sad and serious countenance interested me greatly’. On the first day, the tall and dark man stood by and waited on the visitor who was accommodated in the guest house in his hamlet, only sitting down after repeated insistences. On the second day, he consented to sit on the couch but remained largely silent. Longworth took his gloomy look to be a reflection of despair over the fate of his nation. On the third day, he took Longworth’s hand and sighed repeatedly, increasing Longworth’s respect still further. But the Englishman had completely misjudged the situation. His visitor’s love for his homeland appears to have been in a distant second place behind his love for Longworth’s telescope. ‘The reader may judge, therefore, I felt rather surprised and disconcerted when, through the intervention of the Hadji, he all at once begged as a particular favour that I would give him my telescope, the possession of which, he said, would make his hamlet the happiest in Circassia.’

  Longworth told the Hadji the Circassian could have the telescope when he left the country. The suitor then asked if, since they would henceforth travel together, he could carry the telescope. Longworth agreed and peace was restored for three days, at which point the man begged for a pistol. On being refused, he ran off with the telescope and it was never recovered. ‘It is needless to add, that though I now saw clearly through the one, I was never destined to see through the other again,’ he concluded.

  Longworth and Bell were greatly relieved when their stocks of presents ran out, since they were then left in peace. Bell, for example, gifted three tonnes of lead to the Circassian nation, thus saving himself the constant requests that continued while he was still in possession of it.

  Having arrived separately, the two men met at a large national gathering called to decide how the Circassians should respond to the Russian threat in 1837. Russian forces were in the process of building a series of coastal forts that would, in time, cut off the interior from Turkish trade and the Circassians needed a coordinated effort to rebuff the threat.

  The council is a glimpse into how a truly anarchic society managed its affairs. Not all the Circassians, it should be said, lived in the same free communities described by the two travellers. To the east, in the region known as Kabarda, the tribes were ruled by princes who had already largely submitted to the Russians and who themselves took part in quelling unrest among their subjects. But here in the west, the councils ruled themselves.

  That is not to say, however, that all Circassians were equal. Some came from princely families, while most were either freemen (called tokavs, according to Bell) or slaves. Despite these titles, however, the society was increasingly levelling itself. Longworth blamed the democratic teachings of Islam for having abolished rank, which even extended to the same fine being levied for the murder of a lord as for a commoner. But it is clear that such a fundamental shift in the way society was governed must have come from a deeper cause than just the fact the Circassians had become Muslims. Many Muslims, after all, lived in fiercely autocratic systems elsewhere. In the mountains, however, the social distinctions had been levelled.

  There was still considerable nostalgia among aristocrats for the days when they had more sway, and indeed the old ways survived in full force further to the south and further inland. Bell later travelled to the south, towards Abkhazia, and observed a court case in which a prince accidentally killed one of his own cousins, rather than the slave whom he was aiming at. This would not have been an expensive mistake in the north, where the blood-prices had been made equal, but in this still more feudal environment, it was. The young prince, after three days of negotiations, agreed to pay eighteen slaves, eighteen horses, eighteen guns and eighteen sabres. This seems to have been a very expensive murder, since elsewhere Bell gives the blood-price of a noble as thirteen slaves, and that of a freeman as eleven.

  Be that as it may, the Circassians first met by Bell and Longworth were democratic in their decision-making and they called their grand council for all the elders of their province shortly after the arrival of the two Englishmen and allowed them to be observers. The meeting, held beneath trees in the open air, presents a picture of a natural democracy that is wonderful to observe but hopeless in practice, and which could not possibly resist an organized aggressor. Anyone was allowed to speak and at any length, and the meeting went on for days.

  ‘Should there be any individual fonder than others of hearing himself talk, they have a way of silencing him peculiar to themselves; they neither crow like cocks, nor bray like certain other animals in more civilized assemblies, but adopt a method for which the form and the roomy nature of their house of meeting, al fresco, are most peculiarly adapted. The unfortunate orator in such cases is apt to find himself with no other audience than the neighbouring trees and bushes, the circle he had been addressing having rapidly dissolved and re-adjusted itself out of earshot, where it might be seen listening to somebody with better claims on its attention.’

  The council’s decision had to be unanimous, meaning the Circassians would never take action that was not agreed to by everyone, so the debates were long and tedious. This unity of purpose was both the nation’s greatest strength and its greatest weakness. Elsewhere in the Caucasus, the Russians succeeded in conquering provinces by bribing or persuading local elites to side with them. This policy was most successfully used in Georgia and the Georgians never rebelled against their rule despite the deposition of the royal family that had decided to ally itself to St Petersburg.

  In Circassia, however, the absence of a government meant the people could not be bought. Sadly it also meant the people could not be organized. The council attended by the travellers lasted for five days but had to keep moving to new locations to avoid bankrupting its hosts. Without a government to organize taxes and food for the dignitaries, the assembled elders were fed and housed by the local inhabitants.

  While the elders talked, the younger men engaged in games of strength involving shooting in the air, throwing large stones as far as they could, or showing off on their horses. ‘The principal of these [sports] is the race, or, rather, the chase, one horseman being followed at full speed by several others, whom he seeks to elude, not only by the swiftness of his horse, but by his address in dodging, winding, and availing himself of the inequalities of the ground,’ wrote Longworth, before going on to describe with similarly breathless enthusiasm how accomplished the young men were with their rifles, their bows and arrows, and their pistols.

  But this chaotic picture should not be interpreted as meaning that affairs between Circassians were not regulated, for they were, and in a manner that seems far more similar to that of the Bedouins of the desert than to the ways of other settled communities. E
very Circassian belonged to a brotherhood or society, which fulfilled the roles of an extended family. Marriages within the society were banned so, to prevent unnecessary expense, the societies were scattered and intermingled among each other. Membership of a society meant that every member was responsible for the actions of an individual. If a crime was committed, a jury of twelve – half from the society of the victim, half from the society of the criminal – would meet to decide on what action to take.

  The brotherhoods would take upon themselves the payment of fines for crimes committed by a member in the first few offences but, not wanting a drain on their resources, would take more serious action if the member was a repeat offender. Criminal cases, however, only involved those connected to the brotherhoods in question, and there were no courts or judges who dealt with cases independently. At one point, Longworth and a companion called Emin came across a fugitive wanted for murder, and the Englishman asks why Emin did not shoot him. ‘God forbid . . . I should have involved myself and my connexions in a feud with his tribe. Besides, the boy he has murdered does not belong to my tribe; and if he did, we should prefer the penalty of two hundred oxen to the villain’s life, which his own clansmen will, no doubt, take care to shorten for him, since they have found it so detrimental to them,’ said Emin. Sure enough, the murderer was later weighted with rocks and thrown into the sea.

  These descriptions are a rare glimpse into the organization of a society with no government. However, when looked at from the perspective of trying to organize resistance to the Russian invasion, the brotherhoods, and the habits of independence they encouraged, served as more of a hindrance than a help. Mobilizing the societies, and then mobilizing their members, proved almost impossible except when defending desperately against a direct attack. The Circassians would, throughout the nineteenth-century war, prove all but incapable of taking the initiative. On many occasions they dispersed rather than destroy a defeated army. The expense of an army living off the land was one that the disorganized local economy could not support.