THE PROPHECY OF NAPOLEON.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2634, 18 June 1877, Page 3

THE PROPHECY OF NAPOLEON.

HOW HE SAW THE, PBOBABLE DISPOSITION

OF TFBKEY,

Alexander I, Czar of Russia, wrote to Napoleon: "I offer you the half of Europe, I will help you to obtain 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," r.eplied thus: "In the course of a few years Russia will have Constantinople, the greater part of Turkey and all of Greece. This I hold to be as certain as if it had already taken place. Almost all the cajoling and flattering which Alexander practiced toward me was to gain my consent to effect this object. I would hot consent, foreseeing 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,l France, Prussia and Austria. It will be very easy for Russia to; engage Austria's assistance by giving her Servia and other provinces bordering upon the Austrian dominions which extend toward 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 canaile, 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 the Austrians, 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 farther than any other, and I wanted to establish a barrier; against those barbarians by reestablishing the Kingdom of Poland, and putting Poniatowski at the head of it as its King ; but your imbeciles of ministers would liot 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 nothern barbarians, they will say, 1 NapoleoH was right.' "