Noel Buxton : portrait of a philanthropist as a turcophobe

Abstract

In Britain, the Balkan peoples, including Turks, were often cast into political roles demanded by British political theater. The Westemers who talked about the Balkan peoples often had their own, often non-Balkan agenda. Most commentators in the West were partial, taking one or the other sides, usually against the Turks. This paper will try to exemplify this attitude in the personality of Noel Buxton, British politician, philantrophist, and founder of the Balkan Committee. His approach to reform in the Ottoman Empire, his reaction to Young Turk revolution, the Balkan Wars and the First World War, his dilemmas, his 'bartering of principles for pragmatism.' is going to be scrutinized. The sources of Buxton's decidedly biased approach to the region and the Turks is going to be traced in his religious and personal roots as well in his relation with the radical-dissenter ethos.