THE PROJECTS OF RUSSIA.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 916, 1 June 1877, Page 3

THE PROJECTS OF RUSSIA.

In " Colburn's Monthly Magazine" the following appears : —" Alexander wrote to Napoleon, ' I offer you the half of Europe, I will help you to obtain it, secure you in 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 : —' In the course of a few years Russia will have Constantinople, the greatest part of Tin-key, and all Greece. This I hold to be as 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, forseeing that the equilibrium of Europe would be destroyed. In the natural course of things, in a few years, Turkey must fall to Russia. The greatest part of her population are Greeks, whom you may say are Russians. The Powers it would injure, and who would oppose it, are England, France, Prussia, and Austria. It will be very easy for Russia to engage Austria's assistance by giving her Servia and other provinces bordering iipon the Austrian dominions which extend towards Constantinople. The only hypothesis that France and England may ever be allied with sincerity will be in order to prevent this. But even this alliance will not avail. France, England, 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 India. Above all the other Powers, Russia is the most to be feared, especially by you. Her soldiers are braver than flic Austriuns, 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. I see into 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 as king ; but your imbeciles of ministers would not consent. A hundred years hence I shall be praised, and Europe, especially England, will lament that I did not succeed. When they see the finest countries in Europe overrun and a prey to those northern barbarians they will say, " Napoleon was right."