NAPOLEON I. AND THE CZAR OF RUSSIA.

Dunstan Times, Issue 788, 25 May 1877, Page 3

NAPOLEON I. AND THE CZAR OF RUSSIA.

—o— A n English monthly magazine publishes the following letter, written by Alexander, Czar of Russia, ami Napoleon Buonaparte’s comments thereon. It is especially interesting at the present time : Alexander wrote to Napoleon “ 1 offer you the half of Europe ; I will help you to obtain it; secure you the possession of it, and all I ask in return is the possession of a single strait, which is also the key of my house.” Napoleon, according to O’Meara in his “Voice from St. Helena,” replied thus : “ fix the course of a few years Russia will have Constantinople, the greatest part ofTurkey, and all Greece. This I hold to be us certain as if it had already taken place. Almost all the cajoling and flattering which Alexander practised towards me was to gain my consent to effect this object. I would not consent to it, foreseeing that the equilibrium would be destroyed. In the course of things, in a few years, Turkey must tall to Russia. The greatest part of her population are Greek, whom you may say are Russians. The Powers it would injure, and who would oppose it, are England, France, Prussia, and Austria. It would bo very easy for Russia to engage Austria’s assistance by giving her Servia and other provinces bordering upon the Austrian’s dominions which extend to Constantinople. The only hypothesis that France and England may over be allied with sincerity will bo in order to prevent this. But even this alliance will not avail. England, Fance, and' Prussia united cannot prevent it. Russia and Austria can at any time effect it. Once mistress, of Constantinople, Russia gets all the commerce of the Mediterranean, becomes a great naval power, and God knows what may happen. She quarrels with you (England) marches off to India an army of seventy thousand good soldiers, which to Russia is nothing, and a hundred thousand canaille, Cossacks and others, and England loses IndiaAbove all the other powers, Russia is the most be feared especially by you. Her soldiers are braver than the A ustrians, and she has means of raising as many as she pleases. In bravery the French and English soldiers are the only ones to be compared to them. All this I foresaw. 1 see in futurity further than any other, and I wanted to establish a barrier against those barbarians by re-establishing the Kingdom of Poland and putting Poniatowski at the head of it king ; but your imbeciles of Ministers would not consent. A hundred years hence I shall he praised, and Europe, especially England, w.ill lament that I did not succeed. When they see the finest countries in Europe overrun and a prey to these nox-thern barbarians, they will say, ‘ Napoleon was right.’ ”