City of Countless Names- Pera p4

In this week's post, we're looking at specific diplomatic missions which are the heart of European life in Constantinople.

-The English Embassy

Back from the Grand Rue de Pera, along the Rue Aslan, craftsmen strive to finish the newly rebuilt English embassy at the top of Pera’s hill. The massive city fire that devastated Pera in 1831, also destroyed the old English embassy, despite the building’s relative seclusion from the other buildings ablaze. Ambassador Canning and his family moved into the new embassy in 1848, despite the embassies unfinished condition.

The new embassy is a three-storied neoclassical building made of white stone, surrounded by gardens full of shrubs and myrtle trees. The Latin inscription across its façade below the roof translates to “British Embassy built for Queen Victoria in 1844”. This new embassy has a new fireproof records office unattached to the embassy building, making it one of the most secure places in Constantinople to store important documents. The embassy’s jail still has not been replaced.

Since 1842, Ambassador Stratford Canning represents the Queen to the Sultan’s court and is an ardent supporter of Tanzimat’s reforms. The logistical and strategic failures of the English army in the Crimea terribly worry Ambassador Canning. He tries to coordinate his nation’s military efforts in Constantinople.

-The French Embassy

The first ambassador representing a European power to the Ottoman Court was Ambassador Jean de la Forest, who opened the French embassy of Constantinople in 1535. After centuries of diplomacy, the French embassy holds the most influence on the Ottoman bureaucracy, followed by the English.

The French Embassy is back from the street where the Grand Rue de Pera bends south, on the Rue de Pologne. The embassy is a fine old mansion made of white stone. A multitude of potted ferns and flowers brighten its large high-ceilinged halls and provide shade from the warm sun. Outside more plants fill the embassy’s magnificent garden and a beautiful fountain gurgles water making for a very inviting environ. The mansion once belonged to the Ypsilantis, a prominent Greek family, some of whom were a part of the Filiki Eteria, a secret society dedicated to Greek Independence from the Ottoman Empire.

The current Ambassador of France is Édouard Antoine de Thouvenel. His predecessor left last year to command the French navy in the Baltic Sea, and Thouvenel was quickly assigned to Constantinople. He may be new to the city, but he’s served as a diplomat abroad in Belgium, Spain, and Greece. Thouvenel eagerly awaits the arrival of his wife and infant son.

-The Russian Embassy

At the onset of the war, the Czarina closed all diplomacy with the Ottoman Empire and locked the doors of her nation’s embassy in Constantinople. At the Southern end of the Grand Rue de Pera, it remains the largest embassy in the city, a large yellow building with colonnades around its exterior.

Despite its neglected condition, the French army uses the embassy as a hospital for convalescing officers far from the Crimean front. Every evening, Wheelchair-bound soldiers tended by brave nurses take in the incredible sights of Constantinople from the embassies’ balcony.

-The American Legation

Although the first American consulate in Constantinople started twenty-four years ago in 1831, the relationship between the United States and the Ottoman Empire is more financial than political. American businesses found a whole new market in the Ottoman Empire for cotton, rum, and other goods. In return, American firms import Ottoman products, such as silver, opium, dried fruits, and nuts. The United States remains neutral and mostly uninterested in European affairs.

A small consulate on the Grand Rue de Pera, east of Galata Serai, keeps an eye on America’s business interests in the Ottoman Empire. The consul, a Maryland lawyer named Carroll Spence, who received his appointment as a reward for campaigning on behalf of President Peirce. In the two years he’s been consul, Carroll visited much of the Middle East, and is a founding member of the Auxiliary Aluminat Society of Constantinople, a society dedicated to spreading the Eight Voices through the Ottoman Empire.