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

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 1012, 22 September 1877, Page 3

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

[3?E01I THE PEKBS.] THE CHABACTEE OP EUSSIA’S POLICY TOWAEH3 POEEION STATES. It will be seen that we do not intend to discuss the character of the Russian peasantry. This is not necessary for our purpose. In the case of Turkey it is absolutely necessary that we should know something of the character of the people whom it is proposed in the name of God to exterminate, or drive into Asia, to the banks of the Euphrates. We have seen that they are at least equal to the other peasantry of Europe, that indeed in many important particulars they are in advance of their brothers. We have seen further that they are badly governed, that Ottoman rule is as incapable and corrupt as the Government of Spain, and ofjthe South American Republics, and that this incapacity is largely due to the distracting effect of Russian intrigue. It is necessary to inquire into the nature of that Government by which it is desired to replace the Ottoman rule. Before examining evidence on this point it will be well to glance for a moment at the character of the Russian civilization and its effect upon the Russian people. Happily we have here the impartial witness of one who travelled through Russia before the present trouble arose, and whose testimony is unimpeachable on the ground of its partisan character. In a review of Arthur Arnold’s “ Through Persia by Caravan,” the “ Guardian,” a pro-Russian paper, after some remarks upon the author’s qualities as a well-informed and observant _ traveller, says, “ One general impression with regard to Russia and Persia is left upon us by Mr Arnold’s narrative —that both are, to all intents and purposes, semi-barbarous countries into which civilization has as yet penetrated but little, and has not yet thoroughly affected even the highest classes. Russia, as being now accessible to European progress, is not in the absolutely unprogressive or retrogressive condition of Persia, and though the Tzar is, like the Shah, a most irresponsible despot, it would be an insult to his merits as a ruler and as a man to compare him with his Persian brother. Mr Arnold truly remarks that it was not to be expected that twenty-two millions of people w r ould at the stroke of the Czar’s pen advance by a leap from the display of the characteristics of slavery to the exhibition of the virtues of people who have for ages sustained the ennobling cares and responsibilities of freedom.” “ Freedom of opinion and of the Press and representative institutions are as yet unknown. The peasantry is characterised by gross ignorance and degrading superstition,” “ Mr Arnold’s account of Russia is not encouraging to those who have since the Crimean war put so much faith in Russian securities as a safe investment. The country is as yet uncivilized, and burdened with an increasing debt and unproductive expenditure.” Nor is it the tendency of Russian statesmen to devote their energies to the furtherance of that social improvement and reform which alone can raise their country to a level with the civilized Powers of Europe. There is, we fear, but too much truth in these remarks of Mr Arnold’s : —“ In the absence of representative institutions and of a free Press, politicians find in the line of diplomacy and the field of foreign affairs the only road by which it is possible to arrive at a great reputation. The eyes and thoughts of Russian statesmen are Jn consequence averted from their country, and their ears are closed to appeals in the language of Russia. is no free and widely studied debate in which they can hope to win influence by making a great name throughout the Empire ; the only path to distinction is by successful manipulation of Russian influence upon external politics ; by wielding the pen which is weighted with the armed forces of Russia, or the sword which leads those forces to battle and conquest.” A sinister comment, this, upon the present attitude of Russia! “ Here we see some of the results of Russian government at home ; now let us look into Russia’s method with weak nations lying contiguous to her

territory. It may be described shortly as a policy of aggression and intrigue. That Russia is an aggressive power may be regarded as a political axiom. From the time of Ivan the Terrible, who nearly quadrupled the extent of Russia during his reign, until the present day, she has hungered for territory. Like the cuttle-fish by which she is represented in the cartoon, she casts out her feelers in all directions and draws in everything that she can lay her terrible arms upon. Ivan IV. made the larger portion of his conquests in Asia ; but since the time of Peter the Great Russia has extended herself immensely in Europe. Lapland, Finland, Courland, Esthonia, Poland, Bessarabia, the Crimea, CisCaucasia; all these represent nationalities in Europe destroyed and absorbed by Russia. In Asia, if any person will take a map say five years old and compare it with a new map of last year, he will be surprised to see how steadily Russia adheres to her traditions—remote China as well as Turkestan has contributed something to satiate her voracious appetite for territory. She occupies in Europe out of 3,900,000 square miles over two millions and a quarter ; while in Asia she measures over six millions out of 17,500,000.

The following words written in 1851, and quoted in Major Russell’s “ Wars of Russia and Turkey,” furnish a terrible indictment against the former power : —“ A reference to the map will show that Russia has advanced her frontier in every direction ; and even the Caspian Sea, which appeared to present an impediment to her progress, she has turned to advantage by appropriating it to herself. It will be seen that the plains of Tartary have excited her cupidity, while the civilised states of Europe and Asia have been dismembered to augment her dominions. It will be seen that the acquisitions she has made in Sweden are greater than what remains of that ancient kingdom ; that her acquisitions from Poland are as large as the whole Austrian Empire ; that the territory she has wrested from Turkey in Europe is equal to the dominions of Prussia, exclusive of the Rhenish provinces; and that her acquisitions from Turkey in Asia are equal in extent to all the smaller states of Germany, the Rhenish provinces of Prussia, Belgium, and Holland taken together ; and that the country she has conquered from Persia is about the size of England ; that her acquisitions in Tartary have an area equal to Turkey in Europe, Greece, Italy and Spain ; and that the territory she has acquired within the last sixty-four years (since 1772) is greater in extent and importance than the whole Empire she had before that time In sixty-four years she has advanced her frontier 850 miles towards Vienna, Berlin, Dresden, Munich, and Paris; she has approached 400 miles nearer to Constantinople ; she has possessed herself of the capital of Poland, and has advanced to within four miles of the capital of Sweden, from which when Peter first mounted the throne, her position was 300 miles distant.”

Russia is aggressive, and pursues her nefarious work cunningly. She is an adept at intriguing. As one of her statesmen formerly acknowledged, her method is to obtain her object by strategy, without the cost of war ; and this policy is steadily pursued, although she docs not scruple to shed blood when her purposes cannot otherwise be served. Her favourite method has been indicated already in words quoted from Sir E. S. Creasy in a former paper. To carry out this plan, she has her agents in every city, and her ambassadors are insurrectionary agents extraordinary. A remarkable publication, entitled “Russia’s Work in Turkey, a Revelation,” which is accepted as genuine by a large portion of the English press, illustrates this. The work “ consists of letters from General Ignatieff, who there figures as Mr X., of cyphered despatches from Russian Consuls at Serajevo, Mostar, Scutari, and other places, to the Panslavic Committees and Branch Committees at Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Vienna, and of a few other documents, all of them, if they are to be taken as authentic, and not as daring forgeries, as important as they are startling. On the former hypothesis they fully bear out the author’s assertion that for the last six years, from the close of the Franco-German war, all efforts at reform and good administration on the part of the Turkish authorities have been systematically frustrated and rendered abortive, that, in tact, ‘ a vast intrigue, enveloping the whole country, was incessantly at work, paralysing its every source of vitality.’ The author declares that‘personages invested with a high diplomatic mandate,’ first and chief General Ignatieff, * organised and directed the plot ’; that ‘ all the Consuls under their orders had, to use a homely phrase, “a finger in the pie,” and presided over the work of carrying the plot into execution’; that‘a powerful affiliation of secret societies, having their organised head abroad, enlaced Turkey and her neighbours in a close net, corresponded with ambassadors, issued orders to consuls, and obeyed the behests of princes,’ and, lastly, that ‘ the operations of these societies had for their field not only the European provinces of Turkey, but also those in Asia, and even in Africa.’ ” Her agents are carefully educated and prepared for their work. For “in 1862 she created a hundred bursaries and ordered her consuls to discover children of promise and ability, and forthwith send them to Russia to be educated, and they return as schoolmasters and priests.” And here is the fitting place to introduce an account of the action of secret societies which play so large and important a part in the Eastern question. Earl Beaconsfield has said—“ In the attempt to conduct the government of this world there are new elements to be considered which our predecessors had not to deal with. We have not to deal only with Emperors, Princes, and Ministers, but there are the secret societies, an element which we must take into consideration, which at the last moment may baffle all our arrangements, which have their agents everywhere, which have reckless agents, which countenance assassination, and which, if necessary, could produce a massacre.” These remarks were ridiculed by a portion of the Liberal press, and Lord Beaconsfield was accused of indulging in his usual Asian mystery. ' Mr E. A. Freeman goes so far as to give him the direct. He charges him with saying that which was not true. Other eminent men have made similar statements. 13 nt here is the eyidence of the fact taken from “The Secret Societies,” by Thomas Frost. The Omladina is a Panslavonic confederation, whose object is of a revolutionary character. “ Its immediate aim is a severance of the link by which Servia is bound to the Porte, and to that end it would aid to the utmost of its power and influence any and every insurrection of the Sclavonic subjects of the Sultan, whether in Bosnia, Herzegovina, or Bulgaria.” • _ • “Though the head-quarters of the society are at Belgrade, and its greatest strength is in Qcrria, it has agents actively at work in the

neighboring provinces of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires, as well as in Montenegro and Eoumauia, and in some of these it has extensive affiliations. Belgrade is well situated for the centre of such an organization, being separated only by the Danube from the Sclavonic dominion of the Kaiser, and having direct communication by road and river with the principal cities of both Empires. That the Omladina has become a great force, whether for good or for evil, has been shown equally by the pressure which it has exerted upon Prince Milan, and by the evident inability or unwillingness of the Servian Government to adopt measures for its suppression. It was doubtful even when the militia was called out, whether the influence of the Omladina would not prove greater than that of Russia, and war with Turkey precipitated ; contrary to the counsels of Prince Gortschakoff, before the three Emperors were agreed as to the course to be adopted.” And then follows an account of the manner in which the present insurrection was promoted in Bulgaria and Roumelia. This account will be found in vol. 2, pages 322 to 324. The actual working of these secret societies and revolutionary agents is shown by Viscount Strangford’s “Select Writings,” vol. 1, page 167. “ Some three weeks ago wo undertook to bring clearly before our readers the exact method by which spurious insurrections were hatched and forced into existence in Turkey, with the deliberate object of establishing a suflicient show of anarchy, bloodshed, and massacres, calculated to precipitate a diplomatic or an armed intervention on the part of the greater Powers of Europe, for the purpose’of numbing and paralysing all the Turkish Government in Turkey. That was then being done by bands of brigands recruited, subsidised, organised, and directed from without, principally by a committee at Bucharest. They received orders to break out into open plunder and pillage all over Bulgaria, so as to compel the peaceable Christian peasantry to join their ranks, and rise against their oppressors when possible, it being fully anticipated that the journals of the west could either be blinded to the real nature of such a movement, or else would be self-blinded, and would sympathise actively with it, as a natural and spontaneous revolution on the part of those who, by the imperfect light of European public opinion, ignorant of details, and seeking refuge in generalities, would be assumed as certain make common cause with the insurgent fellow Christians of Crete. The extreme energy and activity of Midhat Pasha, governor of Bulgaria north of the Balkans, completely defeated this delectable scheme of political rattening. He made short work of the filibusters, being helped to the utmost of their power by the Bulgarian Christian peasantry. These honest men determined to clear the country of these rascals, and they turned to and hunted them down everywhere, even to the very door, it may be, of the consulates of the guaranteeing Powers. The peasantry, our readers will be pleased to remark, is the same Bulgarian peasantry winch in our eyes is disaffected by hypothesis, and which it would be quite contrary to “our experience of the East” not to suppose certain to be sympathetically affected towards the so-called Cretan insurgents, and disposed to create a diversion on their behalf.

“ Many curious documents appear to have come to light in connection with this outbreak, to which the Turkish authorities will act wisely in giving the most entire and remorseless publicity at all hazards. For the present we confine ourselves to the summary of a simple document, apparently a letter, found on the person of one of the brigands who was shot off-hand shoi’tly after he was taken. This man, Costaki by name, seems to have been a person of some little substance, who had been induced to trust his whole capital, amounting to a couple of hundred ducats, to the Bucharest Committee, under a Fenian bond or guarantee of repayment of three times that sum out of the spoil—the spoil of Christian peasantry by “Christian” liberators be it remembered —in case the movement turned out all well“ You have deceived me with your insurrection,” wrote the unfortunate man, “ You sent me into Turkey expecting to find a disaffected province ready to rise, instead of a hostile people of Bulgarians ; hostile in deeds too, not only in words; for it is by Bulgarians that I am arrested and given up to the authoi’ities. We are shot clown in the plains axxd starved in the mountains, and have nothing for it bxxt to surrender ourselves to law. Is that the way you pretend to regenerate a people axxd to work for the good of the Bulgarian race ? Is that your holy woi’k in the name of civilisation and progress ? My woi’ldly goods are destx-oyed, my house is desolate, my life I am about to lay down in the flower of my age j may Gfod smite you and all those who act with you, smite you with a chastisement even more terrible than that which your victims are doomed to suffer.”

In the report of Consul Holmes of July 2nd and July 9th, 1875, we find an explanation of the recent revolt in Herzegovina. We make an extract from his letter of September 28th, a few months subsequent : —“ There is no doubt that the Mussulmans and Christians agree much better in Bosnia than in Herzegovina, where there is much more oppression to complain of. At the same time, acquainted as I am with the social condition of the country.' during fifteen years, I do not hesitate to declare that the oppression in the Herzegovina in general is greatly exaggerated by the Christians, and that the discontent which undoubtedly exists against most of the chief Turkish landowners, and against the Zapt ehs and tax farmers, has been the excuse rather than the cause of the revolt, which was assuredly arranged by Servian agitators and accomplished by force. The mass of the inhabitants unarmed, had no choice. Their homes were devastated and their lives threatened, and they were ordered to follow their leaders. And now the ruin is such that those who wish to submit cannot. They have no houses to go to, and the armed bands threaten all who breathe a whisper of submission. These bands are all formed of a mixture of people from different parts of the country, and all mutually watch each other to prevent any combination to submit.”

These facts are abundantly sufficient to justify the belief go largely prevailing that Russia is an intriguing and unscrupulous power; and in reply to those who appeal to the present Emperor’s well known sincerity as a guarantee that such charges cannot be maintained now, we conclude this paper with some extracts referring to the annexation of Khiva in 1873. On the Russian advance in Asia under Kauffman becoming known, considerable anxiety wag felt, and a question was asked about it in Parliament, In reply to this question, and for the purpose of allaying the anxiety, a declaration of the Emperor s intention and purposes was laid before Parliament in January, 1873, “ Not only was it far

from the intention of the Emperor to take possession of Khiva, but positive orders had been prepared to prevent it, and directions given that the conditions imposed should be such as could not in any way lead to a prolonged occupation of Khiva.” Here w r as a plain declaration of the Czar’s intention, laid in solemn official form before the notables of English society. If the Czar’s “ word of honor” could be accepted in the matter, nothing was clearer than this —that Russia could not annex Khiva. Within eight months (in September, 1873) of the receipt of this official document, the Khivan territory was annexed to the already overgrown Russian Empire. “ All the Khivan territory on the right bank of the Amu Darya being now annexed to the Russian dominions, the former frontier is abolished.” These are the words of the treaty made at the close of the war, if indeed it can be said to be closed. This action is in harmony with Russia’s traditional way of annexing, so clearly set forth by Lord Palmerson in his letter to Lord Clarendon, May 22nd, 1853. “ The policy and practice of the Russian Government have always been to push forward its encroachments as fast and as far as the apathy or want of firmness of other Governments would allow it to go ; but always to stop and retire when it was met with decided resistance, and then to wait for the next favourable opportunity to make another spring on its intended victim. In furtherance of this policy, the Russian Government has always two strings to its bow—moderate language and active aggression by its agents on the scene of operations. If the aggressions succeed locally, the Petersburg Government adopts them as a fait accompli, which it did not intend, but cannot in honour recede from. If the local agents fail, they are disavowed and recalled, and the language previously held is appealed to as a proof that the agents have overstepped their instructions. This was exemplified in the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, and in the exploits of Simonivitch and Yikovitch in Persia”—and, we may add, in the annexation of Khiva in 1873. This fact enables us to estimate at its real value the Czar’s assurance that he has no intention of occupying Constantinople, or that if circumstances compel him to occupy it, the occupation will not be prolonged. It is a wonder, with all the simplicity of the world, that Englishmen can be found ready to accept such threadbare statements.