The Eighteenth Century: the Westernizers 405
Ocean and the Mediterranean; soon, however, they had to retire from their
possessions in the former.
Thus, concludes Resmi, the war efforts of Russia on various fronts (Poland,
Georgia, and the Mediterranean) are doomed to fail, since they are like loading
a camel with a greater burden than it can stand. Because of the devastating
results of continuous warfare upon the production and the income of its sub-
jects, love for their country (P534: memleket-perverin maslahatı) will be lost.
Moreover, the difficulties that will arise in the affairs of the notables will incite
its neighbors to wage another war against Russia. Therefore, if the Ottoman
state avoids a new war and is content with defending its borders, argues Resmi,
Russia will have to withdraw its armies and fleet and seek peace.
The pieces of advice contained in his final work, Hülâsatü’l-i’tibâr (“A sum-
mary of admonitions”), a chronicle of the disastrous Russian-Ottoman war of
1768–74,47 are mostly taken from his 1769 treatise. Resmi Efendi repeats the
idea that war and strife is the fate of the world since “the essence of the world
order has been based upon antipathy”, but then stresses that the prosperity
and welfare of a realm depend on peace. Peace, he claims, is “desirable and
orthodox according to the Sharia and reason”; Resmi cites a number of histori-
cal examples from the Islamic and Ottoman past, but also notes that “in the
opinion of Christian states, this rule is at all times held as a guiding principle”
and that they always prefer peace to war. It is interesting how Resmi reverts to
his 1769 argument about a long period of peace, but uses it to emphasize that
no-one remembers the dangers and consequences of war, rather than to la-
ment the neglect of the army (M36, 66–69).48 As for Russia’s continuous wars
and victories, he repeats his 1772 assertion that they are a historical paradox
(zuhurât-ı garibe), like Selim I’s and Süleyman’s campaigns or like a flood or
hurricane, and that they cannot last long (M85).
Similar ideas are expressed in another anonymous work, Avrupa ’ya mensûb
olan mîzân-ı umûr-ı hâriciyye beyânındadır (“On the balance of foreign affairs
relating to Europe”), completed in 1774, just before negotiations for the peace
treaty of Küçük Kaynarca; it is highly probable that it was authored by Resmi
Efendi as well.49 It begins with an interesting description of human statehood,
characteristically treating the Ottoman Empire as just another state in an in-
ternational community (Y5):
47 Ahmed Resmi – Menchinger 2011.
48 Resmi tries to justify his signing the Küçük Kaynarca Treaty and, to effect this, he blames
the Tatars of the Crimea as “a mischief-making, ill-omened people who had burdened the
Sublime State from of old” (Ahmed Resmi – Menchinger 2011, 77).
49 Yeşil 2012 (see some arguments on the authorship of the text in p. 1, fn. 4); see also Aksan
1993, 59–60 (=Aksan 2004, 36–38).