RUSSIA, TURKEY, AND ENGLAND; OR, THE EASTERN QUESTION.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 1008, 18 September 1877, Page 3

RUSSIA, TURKEY, AND ENGLAND; OR, THE EASTERN QUESTION.

frEOM TJIE PRESS.] I'BOM THE TREATY OF KAINARDJI, 1774, TO TREATY 02'' TARIS, 1856. One principal feature in the Treaty of 1771 was that the Tartars of the Crimea were to be independent of both Russia and Turkey, " accountable to God only for their internal ' government." This was Russia's first step towards annexation. The Tartars, under their Constitution, elected a Khan who was displeasing to Russia. She fomented disaffection and insurrections, and then marched an army into the Peninsula to restore order. One result of the presence of the army was the removal of the Khan with anti-Russian sympathies, and the election of another with pro-Russian sympathies, who had spent some time in St. Petersburg, and who was unpopular with his new subjects. Naturally, outbreaks followed. The pro-Russian Khan implored the assistance of the Empress, which was graciously given, and he was sustained in liis rule by Russian bayonets for a time. Customs were introduced by him, acting under Russian influence, obnoxious to the nationality and religion of the Tartars, and fresh risings occurred. As a finale, the Khan abdicated in favor of the Empress, and the Crimea was annexed within nine years of the signing of the Treaty of Kainardji. This is a specimen of Russia's policy in dealing with her victims. " That policy was (is) to foment disturbance and civil war ; to interfere in the pretended character of a friend to the weaker party ; to bow the seeds of new and worse dissensions ; and then to make the misery and anarchy which Russian art had produced the pretext of the subjugation of the exhausted state by Russian armies." This was her policy in Poland as well as in the Crimea. Turkey was indignant, and Western Europe was moved at this high-handed robbery. France made overtures to England, but the Liberal Minister of that day—Mr Foxwould do nothing, so that the bold robbery was allowed with the indignant protest of the honest old King George 111. " If things go on in this fashion, Europe will soon be like a wood where the strongest robs the weakest, and there will be no security for any one." As no allies were forthcoming, Turkey acquiesced in the barefaced violation of treaties, and the entire loss of her one time tributary. Russia did not, however, effect her purpose in the Crimea without trouble and bloodshed. A massacre of the discontented sartars was ordered by General PotemiiE, and

30,000 of every age and sex perished by lire and sword. Seventy-five thousand Armenian Christians fled from Eussian rule —nearly the whole of whom (all but 7000) perished on the frozen Steppes, east of the Black Sea, in attempting to roach the safety of Turkish dominions. General Potemkin, for his part in the carnage and bloodshed necessary to tha pacification of the Crimea (like General Kauffman, of Khivan notoriety), was rewarded by being made Governor of the conquered territory, as well as Grand Admiral of the Black Sea.. Another war between Russia and Turkey occurred in 1788, and lasted till the peace of Jassy in 1792. During part of the time Austria was Russia's ally. This war was disastrous for Turkey, and Catherine resisted every attempt at mediation on the part of England until the state of Poland began to be troublesome. She then concluded the peace of Jassy, by which she advanced her boundary to the Dniester. It is instructive to notice that war on behalf of Turkey at this time, while William Pitt was in power, was made unpopular by the action of the Liberal leaders. Prior to the peace of Jassy, which was brought about by English intervention, Pitt prepared to enforce his diplomatic remonstrances by sending a tleet to blockade the Baltic ; but the project of an English war on account of Turkey was made unpopular by the agitation of the Liberal chiefs. In the debates in Parliament in 1791-2, Turkey was reviled by Fox and Whitbread, and the policy of Russia eulogised. We have, indeed, an exact parallel to the agitation and attitude of Messrs. Gladstone and Bright at the present time. The peace of Jassy was only intended by Catherine to be temporary. So soon as her hands were free of Polish troubles, she turned her attention again to Turkey, and made preparations for completing her destruction. Death, fortunately for Turkey, came to her aid, and she was thus delivered from her greatest enemy in 1796. Mr Eton, an Englishman residing for some years in Russia at the time of Catherine's death, and consequently well informed of the events of the time, says that "she was now in possession of every resource she required in Poland for"her army, in acting against the Turks on the European continent. The government of the acquired provinces was so firmly settled that she had no apprehension of disturbances, her army was so formidable that she could have marched beyond her frontiers at least 300,000 effective men, and she had raised 150,000 men to recruit it. Her ileet in the Black Sea was much superior to the whole Turkish navy, and there was a flotilla of small vessels built for the purpose of landing troops in three feet of water, which could have jconducted in three days 60,000 men within a few miles of the capital of the Turkish Empire. The first blow would have been the destruction of tho Ottoman fleet in its own port, and the attack of Constantinople by land at the same time. A great army had passed Derbent; an arrangement would have immediately taken place with the Persian Khans in whose quarrels, without any apparent interest, she had intermeddled ; and this army would have fallen on the Turkish Asiatic provinces ; the consequences of which would have been that all the Asiatic troops, which compose the garrison of their fortresses in Europe would have quitted them, and iled to succour their own country, and have left the road to Constantinople defenceless." During the Napoleonic wars, Turkey was at one time the ally of Russia, at another of Napoleon. Indeed she was used by both Powers unscrupulously to further their own purposes. That neither had the least sincere interest in her existence is evident from one of the secret articles of the of Tilsit, between the Emperors Alexander and Napoleon. A subsequent ncgociation was to the effect that the Ottomans were to be driven out of Europe and to be allowed to " worship Mahomet on the banks of the Euphrates;" Turkey in Europe being divided between the Imperial robbers, Austria receiving a part of the spoil as a bribe to keep her quiet. The difficulty in the way of carrying out this scheme was the possession of Constantinople, and at this point the negotiation broke oil'. At the Treaty of Bucharest, in 1812, Western Europe was in high good humour with the intendins-robber Alexander, because he had burnt Moscow, and so contributed to the downfall of Napoleon. His faults were forgotten, and he received a slice of Turkish territory, his boundaries being advanced to i the Pruth.

Through the destruci ion of her Janissaries, Turkey, in 1826, was defenceless, and Russia took advantage of her defenceless condition to require the cession of certain fortresses in Asia, and certain privileges for Moldavia and Wallachia. Turkey, indignant but helpless, had to yield in the Treaty of Akerinann, 1826, to these demands. The rising of Greece brought about the next war; first, the destruction of Turkey's fleet by the combined fleets of England, France, and Russia, at Navarino ; then subsequently, a war on the part of Russia alone—on some of her usual pretences. This ended in the Treaty of Adrianople, 1829. During the course of this war, which ended anything but satisfactorily for Russia, the Ottoman soldiers, mere boys, behaved well. Baron Moltke, now com-mander-in-Chief of the German army, served with them as a lieutenant during this war, and he has given us a description of the Ottoman troops at this period, which shows, as recent events have shown still more clearly, that Turkish soldiers are made of good stuff. The reforms introduced by Sultan Mahmond, who died in 1839, improved the position of Turkey in the judgment of Europe; so that England's alliance with her in the war against Egypt in 1839 was not merely one dictated by self interest. It was an evidence, too, of respect for a Power that was doing its best to advance with the common advancement of the rest of Europe. But while Turkey was thus making good her claim to be considered a part of the great European commonwealth, and while her efforts were regarded by the leading statesmen of England with approval, she was regarded with other eyes by her traditional adversary. Those motives were at work which issued in the Crimean war of 1853. The Czar founded on the terms of the treaty of Kainardji, the right to interfere in the government of 13,000,000 of Ottoman subjects—the Christian population. The refusal to admit this claim led to the Crimean war; and one of the articles of the Treaty of Paris was the abolition of all such rights and claims on this behalf, that might be supposed to have existed through the terms of any previous treaty, of Kainardji in particular. In the following account of conversation held by the Emperor Nicolas, of Russia, with Sir Hamilton Seymour, English Ambassador at St. Peters - burgh, quoted from Sir E. S. Creasy's " History of the Ottoman Turks," it is seen how much the action of Russia twenty-four years ago resembles her action of to-day. She wanted then, as she wants now, "material * guaxaetees" tliat fc» depaaudeia regard to tie

Christian subjects of the Sultan should be fulfilled. In those strange dialogues the Sovereign of Russia invited the representative of this country to diseu?« with him the partition of Turkey, oJTeri- g Egypt and Crete to England. "The Principalities," said the Czar, " are in fact an independent State under my protection; this might so continue; Servia might receive the same form of government ; so again with Bulgaria." In another part of the same conversation, the Emperor referred to the possession of Constantinople as the most difficult question to settle. He disclaimed any design that it should be permanently held by Russia, though he said that circumstances might cause its temporary occupation by his troops. He stated his fixed resolution that that city should never be held by the English or French or any other great nation. " Again," said he, "I never will permit an attempt at the reconstruction of the Byzantine Empire, or such an extension of Greece as would render her a powerful State; st ill less will I permit the breaking up of Turkey into little Republics, asylums for the Kossuths and Mazzinis, and other revolutionists of Europe; rather than submit to any of these arrangements, I would go to war and carry it on as long as I have a man and a musket left." The Czar spoke of Austria as identified in interest with Russia, and in a manner which seemed to infer that he regarded her as entirely subservient to his policy. He professed indifference as to what part France might think fit to take in Eastern affairs, so that there was a good understanding between Russia and England. Turkey was treated by him throughout these conversations as an expiring Empire, and he assured the British Minister that his Government must liave been deceived if it had been led to believe that Turkey retained any elements of resistance. " The sick man is dying. We have on our hands a sick man—a very sick man, and he may suddenly die on our hands." Such was his reiterated expression, and the sum and substance of his revelations and hints may be fairly characterised as a proposal, that the two strongest neighbors of the sick man should walk into his house and strangle him, and forthwith divide his goods and chattels between themselves. These overtures were properly met by the ambassador and Ministers of England with sincere disclaimers of any desire to participate in the spoils of the Ottoman, and with an expression of belief that "the sick man" was not dying, that (in the words of Lord Clarendon's despatch of March 23rd, 1853) "Turkey only requires forbearance on the part of its allies, and a determination not to press their claims in a manner humiliating to the dignity and independence of the Sultan—that friendly support, in short, which among States as well as individuals, the weak arc entitled to expect from the strong —in order not only to prolong its existence, but to remove all cause of alarm respecting its dissolution." Later on, after the Sultan's refusal to transfer the practical sovereignty of his Christian subjects, the war was declared. With what result is well known. Turkey was saved by the help of England and France. The treaty of Paris was the embodied result, which it might be supposed would give a long breathing time to Turkey. But what Russia could not accomplish by force she has continued to attempt by stratagem and cunning. Since the treaty of Paris her policy has been to foment disturbances among the Christian population of the Ottoman Empire, and to divide the three Powers that guaranteed the sick man against further violence on the part of Russia. England, France, and Austria were sufficient "material guarantee," it might be supposed, that Russia should not lay violent hands on her neighbour's territory. But one by one the interests of these Powers have been separated. Austrian power was overshadowed by Sadowa for a time ; Franco was laid hors de combat by Sedan; England's sympathies were drawn towards Russia by domestic alliance, and alienated from Turkey by the atrocities in Bulgaria last year. Turkey thus stood alone, and Russia's hour had come. In what sense remains to be seen.

In what way should England and the civilised world regard Russia's present attempt to subjugate her ancient rival? To answer this question we must adequately weigh the facts illustrating the character of each nation, which have been brought to light by recent inquiries and observations.as well as those which are written in the history of the past centuries. We shall then be able to perceive the course which is most consistent with both the interest and duty of England during the present war and its conclusion. We conclude the historical portion of our subject with the summnry of Major E. S. Russell's "Russia's Wars with Turkey," since the beginning of last century, which fairly illustrates Russia's attitude towards Turkey : —" Since the commencement of the last century, Russia, which has, be it noted, always been the aggressor, has eight times made war upon Turkey, twice (in 1735 and 1787) in alliance with Austria, once (in 1806-7) for a brief times in alliance with England, and five times (in 1709, 1768, 1810, 1828, and 1853) single handed. Therefoi'e, whatever opinion we may form of the character of the present Czar, and few can form any but a high one, nevertheless, says our author, ' Eacts and history remain, and the traditional policy of a'mighty empire, which possesses patriotic and faithful children, cannot change in a day, or suddenly become unaggressive and peaceful after having been for centuries the reverse.' "