Quotes of brilliant men from England and Europe (no Napoleon or Hitler in this one):





“They [the Turks] were, upon the whole, from the black day when they first entered Europe, the one great anti-human specimen of humanity. Wherever they went, a broad line of blood marked the track behind them, and, as far as their dominion reached, civilization disappeared from view. They represented everywhere government by force, as opposed to government by law.”
—William Gladstone, 1876
Liberal Victorian British statesman and reformer (elected four times)





“The barbarian power, which has been for centuries seated in the very heart of the Old World, which has in its brute clutch the most famous countries of classical and religious antiquity and many of the most fruitful and beautiful regions of the earth... ignorantly holding in its possession one half of the history of the whole world.”
—Cardinal Newman (1801–1890)
Victorian English Oxford Academic and CoE Priest





“They are tyrants of the women and enemies of arts...”

“It is necessary to chase away from Europe these barbaric usurpers...”

“I wish fervently that the Turkish barbarians be chased away immediately out of the country [Greece] of Xenophon, Socrates, Plato, Sophocles and Euripides. If we wanted, it could be done soon but seven crusades of superstition have been undertaken and a crusade of honour will never take place. We know almost no city built by them; they let decay the most beautiful establishments of Antiquity, they reign over ruins.”
—Voltaire (1694-1778)
French writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and his devotion to freedom






“When I consider history, I find that there has been no nation that has practiced more blasphemy of God, brutally, shameful fornication, and every kind of wild and chaotic living than the Turks.”
—Philipp Melanchthon
German intellectual, protestant reformer and theologian





“Lastly, I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilization than you seem inclined to admit. Remember what risk the nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago of being overwhelmed by the Turks, and how ridiculous such an idea now is! The more civilised so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world.”
—Charles Darwin
English naturalist, proposed the theory of evolution by natural selection




“I never disliked a Chinaman as I do these degraded Turks and Arabs, and when Russia is ready to war with them again, I hope England and France will not find it good breeding or good judgment to interfere.”
—Mark Twain, 1869
American writer



"There are no crueller and more audacious villains under the heavens than the Turks who spare no age or sex and mercilessly cut down young and old alike and pluck unripe fruit from the wombs of mothers".
— Archbishop Joseph Fabri of Vienna




"Therefore, it is customary among the Turks for one man to have ten or twenty wives and to desert or sell any of them that he will, when he will, so that in Turkey women are held immeasurably cheap and are despised; they are bought and sold like cattle."

"What is more, when the Turks go into battle their war-cry is no other word than “Allah! Allah!” and they shout it till heaven and earth resound."
— Martin Luther
German intellectual, protestant reformer and theologian



Turkish slavery:


Slavery was an important part of Ottoman society until the Ottoman Empire ended slavery of Caucasians (including Georgians, Armenians, and Circassians) in the early 19th century. The practice carried over into Ottoman reign, as slaves from other groups were allowed. As late as 1908, female slaves were still sold in the Ottoman Empire, mostly as sexual slaves.

Barbary Slavery

Hundreds of thousands of Europeans were captured by Barbary pirates and sold as slaves in North Africa and the Ottoman Empire between the 16th and 19th centuries. These slave raids were conducted largely by Arabs and Berbers rather than Ottoman Turks. However, during the height of the Barbary slave trade in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Barbary states were subject to Ottoman jurisdiction and ruled by Ottoman pashas. Furthermore, many slaves captured by the Barbary corsairs were sold eastward into Ottoman territories before, during, and after Barbary's period of Ottoman rule.

Sexual Slavery

Circassians, Syrians and Nubians were the three primary races of females who were sold as sex slaves in the Ottoman Empire. Circassian girls were described as fair, light skinned and were frequently sent by the Circassian leaders as gifts to the Ottomans. They were the most expensive, reaching up to 500 pounds sterling and the most popular with the Turks. Second in popularity were Syrian girls, with their dark eyes, dark hair, and light brown skin, and came largely from coastal regions in Anatolia. Their price could reach up to 30 pounds sterling. They were described as having "good figures when young". Nubian girls were the cheapest and least popular, fetching up to 20 pounds sterling. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, female slavery was not only central to Ottoman practice but a critical component of imperial governance and elite social reproduction. Dhimmi boys taken in the devşirme could also become sexual slaves, though usually they worked in places like bathhouses (hammam) and coffeehouses. They became tellak, köçek or sāqī for as long as they were young and beardless. (Koceks were technically young trannies dancing for their masters, very popular in Turkey.)

European suppression of Turkish Ottoman slavery

Due to European intervention during the 19th century, the Empire began to attempt to curtail the slave trade, which had been considered legally valid under Ottoman law since the beginning of the empire. A series of legal acts was issued that limited the slavery of white people initially and of those of all races and religions later. In 1830, a firman of Sultan Mahmud II gave freedom to white slaves. This category included the Circassians, who had the custom of selling their own children, enslaved Greeks who had revolted against the Empire in 1821, and some others. Another firman abolishing the trade of Circassian children was issued in October, 1854. A firman to the Pasha of Egypt was issued in 1857 and an order to the viziers of various local authorities in the Near East, such as the Balkans and Cyprus, in 1858, prohibited the trade of black slaves but did not order the liberation of those already enslaved. However, slavery and the slave trade in Ottoman Empire continued for decades, as legal texts like the above were not backed by a penalty system. It was not until 1871 that a circular of July 20th of that year introduced the penalty of one years imprisonment for those who practiced the slave trade. Later, slave trafficking was expressly forbidden by utilizing clever technical loopholes in the application of sharia, or Islamic law. For example, by the terms of the sharia, anyone taken as a slave could not be kept a slave if they had been Muslim prior to their capture. They could also not be captured legitimately without a formal declaration of war, which could only be issued by the Sultan. As late Ottoman Sultans wished to halt slavery, they did not authorize raids for the purpose of capturing slaves, and thus it effectively became illegal to procure new slaves, although those already in slavery would remain slaves. Towards the end of the 19th century, the trade of black slaves gradually ceased in places controlled by Western powers but continued undercover in countries around the Indian Ocean controlled by Eastern governments, particularly Ottoman rule such as East Africa, Arabian Peninsula. Britain and the Ottoman Empire, after the former pressed the latter on this matter, signed a treaty in 1880 for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade. However, the treaty was only enforced under Ottoman law in 1889. The Ottoman Empire and 16 other countries signed the Brussels Conference Act for the suppression of the slave trade, although clandestine slavery persisted into the early 20th century. A circular by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of October, 1895 warned local authorities that some steam-ships stripped black sailors of their “certificates of liberation” and threw them into slavery. Another circular of the same year reveals that some newly freed black slaves were arrested based on unfounded accusations, imprisoned and forced back to their lords. An instruction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Vali of Bassora of 1897 ordered that the children of liberated slaves should be issued separate certificates of liberation to avoid both being enslaved themselves and separation from their parents. George Young, Second Secretary of the British Embassy in Constantinople, wrote in his Corpus of Ottoman Law, published in 1905, that by the time the book was written the slave trade in the Ottoman Empire was only practiced as contraband. This trade continued up until the First World War. Henry Morgenthau, Sr. who served as USA Ambassador in Constantinople from 1913 till 1916, in his "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story" writes that during his term in Constantinople there were gangs trading white slaves. He also mentions that Armenian girls were sold as slaves for as low as 80 cents during the Armenian Genocide events in 1915.





Oh and also. Militarily, Turkey is not even in the top ten.