THE SICK MAN OF EUROPE 121opposed the sultan. Resit Mehmet attempted to cut the Egyptians’ lines
of communications to Syria but was routed at Konya on December 21.
The way to the conquest of Anatolia by the Egyptians was wide open.
The sultan’s defeat at Konya provoked Czar Nicholas of Russia to in-
tervene. He preferred the Ottomans weak and he feared the formation of
a powerful new state able to resist Russian penetration into the region.
Mahmut requested Russian assistance, and a Russian military mission
soon arrived in Istanbul to prepare the way for the arrival of Russian
troops. This startled France and Britain, who sent emissaries to Cairo and
obliged Muhammad Ali to agree to accept mediation that would assure
his rule of Syria. Despite that agreement, his forces, under Ibrahim Pasha,
resumed their advance on Istanbul and on February 2, 1833, occupied
Cathy. They then prepared to winter over in Bursa, only fifty miles from
the capital. Mahmut panicked and granted permission for a Russian fleet
to enter the Bosporus and a Russian army to march through the Balkans
to defend the city. The fleet arrived in the Bosporus on February 20 and
the Russian troops were slated to arrive later.
The British and French, now thoroughly alarmed, forced the sultan to
agree to remove the Russians and surrender Syria to Muhammad Ali as
the basis for a settlement with threats of a blockade and the withdrawal
of French military assistance if he refused.
Emboldened, Muhammad Ali demanded even more. The Russians now
admitted that they could not deliver troops to Istanbul in time to defend
it if Ibrahim resumed his offensive. Mahmut caved in and granted all the
Egyptian demands on the conditions that their army be withdrawn. Si-
multaneously, the Russians were invited to land their troops at Buyukdere,
on the European side of the Bosporus and to put them into a position to
defend Istanbul if Ibrahim should prove treacherous and attack. The Rus-
sians landed on April 5, to the great dismay of the citizenry. They opposed
the use of infidels against Muslims, no matter how threatening the latter
might be, and their presence within an Islamic nation.^1 In practical terms,
the Russian presence convinced Ibrahim to negotiate, and an agreement
was reached in which Ibrahim received the governorships of Damascus
and Aleppo as well as that of Cidde. This put him a position to control
much of the Arab world. Muhammad Ali was confirmed as governor of
Egypt and Crete. The war ended when Ibrahim withdrew from Anatolia.
This new friendship with the Western Europeans proved useful in the
next few decades. However, now Russian expansionism would be checked
and Turkey would see European armies aiding her again. The age-old
religious differences between Islam and Christianity would play a curious
part in the operations that culminated in the Crimean War.