Volume 74 / Part 2 — A FEW FACTS CONCERNING THE TURKISH QUESTION.

It is not at the point the Eastern Question has now reached that we feel disposed to go into a minute retrospect of the circumstances that have brought us to the brink of a war, whose consequences are incalculable. Although, at the moment at which we write, everything seems tending to strife, and we listen already for the echoes of cannon from the Danube’s banks and the Euxine’s waters, the changes in the aspect of this alarming question have hitherto been so numerous and so rapid in their succession, that we still refuse to cast away all hope of its amicable adjustment. True, that before these lines meet the public eye, armies may have been set in motion, and collisions have occurred; but we prefer to believe that the present warlike aspect of affairs may have been exchanged for one more pacific, and that Russia, who would gladly recede, could she do so with honour, may accept a retractation as a reason for a concession.

What has brought Europe to its present painful state of suspense and anxiety? The storm of democratic insurrection, which burst forth in 1848, and swept over the Continent, leaving few nations unscathed, had scarcely lulled, when fresh alarm spread abroad, springing from very different causes—from the aggression of a colossal power upon a feeble one, utterly unable to cope with it. Upon what was this aggression based? Its nominal origin is to be sought in the most futile matters of dispute—in a wrangle between rival churches as to the possession of a key, the repairs of a cupola, the right of entering a sanctuary by a side door, or by the front gate. It was behind an affected interest in this monkish squabble that Russia masked deep and dangerous designs.

The question of the Holy Shrines lay entirely between France and Russia, as protectors of the Latin and Greek Churches in Turkey. England looked on, and smiled with some little disdain at the sudden religious fervour of the neighbour she had long held for a latitudinarian in such matters. Russia was pleased to see her in this mood, and augured well from it for the success of her plans. For Russia had a double point to gain. One of her objects was the following up of the traditional policy that, for more than a century, has impelled her southwards, in the direction of those Dardanelles which the Emperor Alexander called one of the doors of his house. Her second aim was the downfall of the present occupant of the throne of France.

An ill-founded disbelief in the possibility of any sincere and durable alliance between England on the one hand, and France, under her present ruler, upon the other, has had much to do with the Czar’s attack upon Turkey. It will be remembered that the coup d’état of December 1851 was warmly approved by the Russian emperor. He looked upon it, as did many in this and in other countries, who neither profess nor feel attachment to despotism, as an immense service rendered to the cause of order in Europe. France had reached a point at which absolutism, or horrible and contagious anarchy, were the only alternatives left her. She had overset or trampled upon every liberal, moderate, and constitutional government she had ever had. She had proved herself unfit for them; devoid of that invaluable species of patience which enables a nation to endure small evils rather than rush upon great ones, and to seek gradual reforms by peaceable means, instead of insisting upon them suddenly and violently. She was so fortunate as to escape with the lesser of the two evils, to one of which she was evidently and inevitably speeding. The hour came, and the man. The last shred of liberty’s flag was blown away, and turbulent France had found her master. When this extraordinary event occurred, it was right, perhaps, for the friends of constitutional government, and of the natural rights of civilised nations, to protest, in the name of a great principle, against the establishment of despotism. But such protests were too often reiterated, and too virulently and offensively worded, by the only really free press remaining in Europe, to produce practical good. On the contrary, they did much harm. The persevering and rancorous manner in which the majority of the English journals assailed the sovereign whom they chose to stigmatise as a reckless adventurer, but who has proved himself a man of commanding ability and rare energy—and who may possibly yet show himself a truer friend to France than some who have made patriotism their war-cry, whilst their own advantage was their object—was well calculated to spread the belief that steadfast alliance and cordial co-operation, for the attainment of any end, were impossible between Great Britain, and France under Napoleon III. There is no doubt that this was the impression made upon the mind of the Emperor Nicholas, who, in common with more than one great statesman in other countries, looked favourably upon the new order of things, as that best calculated to retrieve France from the slough into which she had sunk, and, at the same time, to quell and daunt the revolutionary spirit throughout Europe. But past dangers are quickly forgotten. In proportion as the perils Europe had run from the democratic party grew faint and fainter in the distance, and, as the probability rapidly increased of the restoration of the Empire in France, the Czar became less and less well-disposed towards the nephew of the man whose memory Russia has certainly no reason to cherish. Perhaps recollections of his youth rose up before him—the many reverses of the Russian arms, the flames of Moscow, the blood and treasure his country had been compelled to lavish to stem one man’s ambition. The terms in which he accredited his ambassador to the new Emperor of the French sufficiently betrayed the great diminution of the good-will with which he had for a time regarded the government of Louis Napoleon.

The prevalent feeling in Europe, when Napoleon III. was proclaimed, was, that the days of his empire were numbered, that his power was doomed to speedy extinction. In war, many declared, lay his sole prospect and probability of its retention. He rested upon bayonets; his name was Napoleon, aggression and glory must constitute his sole tenure of the place he had usurped. He must fight or fall. Two years have elapsed, and as yet there is no prospect of these predictions being verified. War there may be—we are perhaps on the eve of it—but certainly it will not have been brought on or sought by the French emperor, who has shown a wise and earnest desire to avoid it, and who, as far as he is to be judged from his conduct hitherto, has a better right to the title of the “Napoleon of Peace” than the citizen-king upon whom it was so fulsomely bestowed. The war that is regretfully anticipated, but which we still hope may be averted, will have been forced upon France, and instead of being waged, as alarmists have predicted that the first war in which France should engage would assuredly be, in the British Channel and on English ground, it will present the novel spectacle of French and English fleets combined under the orders of an English admiral, and of British troops marshalled for action at the command of a French general.

When the Emperor of Russia saw that the empire consolidated itself in France—that Napoleon III., far from seeking occasions of strife or invasion, busied himself in conciliating opponent parties, in improving his capital, in devising employment for the necessitous classes of his subjects, in endeavouring to gain the good opinion of powers but little disposed to think well of him—he meditated upon the best means of urging him to some rash step, which should bring about his downfall and a Bourbon restoration. He reckoned on having all Europe with him against the usurper; and, if he counted England in the new coalition, or at least calculated on her standing aloof from France, how can we wonder at it, when, day after day, he saw the English press heaping insult and contumely upon the Emperor of the French—and, by inevitable implication, upon the people he ruled—and when Whig statesmen so far forgot their discretion as publicly to express their aversion to the government France had accepted—their contempt for the French themselves?

In accordance with a skilfully combined plan, and taking as a double pretext the war Turkey was waging against the Montenegrins and the question of the Holy Shrines, the Czar sent Prince Menschikoff to Constantinople, charged to insist, in no mild or measured terms, upon the satisfactory settlement of both those affairs. It so happened, however, that before the Prince’s arrival, Prince Leiningen, acting on behalf of Austria—and, it must be admitted, in a more moderate and conciliatory spirit than might have been expected in the envoy of a power embittered, as Austria was, against Turkey, by the latter’s protection of the Hungarian refugees—had brought the Montenegro question to a satisfactory conclusion. Thus the most important of the two ostensible motives for the Menschikoff mission had disappeared. That which remained—the question of the Holy Places—had seemed, but a few weeks previously, to be all but settled; and, at any rate, it was a very insufficient cause for so pompous and extraordinary an embassy. Upon it, however, Prince Menschikoff commenced negotiations—his peremptory tone, and the arrogance of his style, being in an inverse ratio to the importance of the matter to be discussed. Had the Muscovite Minister of Marine been sent as his master’s delegate to some petty tributary, whose power depended on his nod, he could hardly have assumed a more trenchant tone, or have demeaned himself with greater insolence. The French government, upon this occasion more vigilant than our own, appears at once to have detected an ulterior object in this mission, and in the concurrent naval and military display at Sebastopol. A French fleet showed itself in the waters of Salamis. This step the Aberdeen cabinet, or the greater portion of it—for it was reported that at least one of its members was more clear-sighted than his colleagues—blamed as precipitate and uncalled-for; and our ambassador at Paris was understood to have intimated, in a non-official manner, to M. Drouyn de l’Huys, his government’s regret at a proceeding that might rouse the susceptibility of the Czar, and that was, to say the least, extremely premature.

An extraordinary blindness as to Russia’s real views, and to the importance of the question at issue, afflicted, at that period of the question, the Aberdeen cabinet and all connected with them. The Premier could not credit any harm of Russia, nor make up his mind to look kindly or trustfully upon the government of the French Emperor. Lord Clarendon saw through the spectacles of his chief. The obstinate convictions of the composite cabinet communicated themselves to its agents. Admiral Dundas—whom Colonel Rose, then chargé d’affaires at Constantinople, in the absence of the ambassador, sent to, at the request of the Grand Vizier, to urge the propriety of his exhibiting his pennant at some point rather nearer to the Dardanelles than Malta—thought the movement unnecessary. Colonel Rose was afterwards removed from Constantinople, and one of Lord Stratford’s first acts, on his return to the post whence his prolonged absence, at such a time, was a gross impropriety, was to write to his government that there was every reason to expect that the questions pending would be brought to a satisfactory termination. This Lord Clarendon stated in his place in the House of Lords on the 25th of April, and, at the same time, gave the most satisfactory and positive assurances with respect to the state of affairs in the East. “As regards Turkey,” thus did he conclude his speech, “there was no danger of the peace of Europe being disturbed, nor any prospect of the unanimity which prevailed between this country and the other great powers of Europe, as to the necessity of maintaining the integrity and independence of the Ottoman empire, being interrupted.” It was not unnatural, the noble Secretary admitted, in another part of his speech, “that Colonel Rose, not being cognisant of the information possessed by her Majesty’s government, should participate in the alarm which was, in the first instance, caused by Prince Menschikoff’s arrival.” The information of her Majesty’s Government seems to have been worth about as much as their penetration, the sole difference being that the inefficiency of their agents, or the discretion of the Czar’s, might be the cause of the badness of the former, whilst none but themselves were responsible for the obtuseness of the latter. Upon the 5th of May, just ten days after the Foreign Secretary’s speech, the French and English ambassadors at Constantinople were made officially acquainted with the real object of the Menschikoff mission. The Czar demanded the protectorate over four-fifths of the European subjects of the Porte, over the twelve millions of Greek Christians contained in the dominions of the Sultan, who would thus, to all practical purposes, become the vassal of Russia. Confidential communications, Prince Menschikoff reminded the Turkish minister of Foreign Affairs, had already been made to the Porte of the tenor of this outrageous demand. It has not been ascertained how long previously to the official note the private intimation had been conveyed; but it is quite clear that the fact of its conveyance was not comprised in “the information possessed by her Majesty’s Government” on the 25th of April.

The Czar’s real object might have been yet longer in revealing itself, but for the skilful and decided course adopted by the French government. The English and French press—with almost the sole exception of the Times, which, in unusual opposition to the public voice, and disregarding the warnings contained in its own published correspondence, still persisted in sharing Lord Aberdeen’s views, and in maintaining the question of the Holy Shrines to be the only one at issue—had, for some time past, loudly denounced the intentions of Russia. But nothing could move Lord Aberdeen. He remained the personification of stubborn stolidity. The whole question, for him, was centred in a few ancient and sacred buildings at Jerusalem. His pretended convictions were powerfully influenced by his repugnance to anything like cordial combined action with the government of Napoleon III. His political friends on the other side the Channel rejoiced at his tenacious and wilful short-sightedness. Thanks to it, the usurper was about to find himself in isolated opposition to a European coalition. His downfall was decided upon. England would stand aloof; never—and of this the Orleanist and legitimate partisans had private and positive assurances from persons professing to speak in the name of Lord Aberdeen—would there be any real and durable alliance with France under the imperial regime. The French government felt that its position was becoming an uneasy one, and, with great judgment, resolved to bring matters to a crisis. Its ambassador at Constantinople—where the question of the Holy Places was then being discussed by the ministers of Russia, France, and Turkey—received instructions to yield so far as to bring about a prompt settlement. This was giving rope to Russia. The difficulties about the shrines once removed, Prince Menschikoff had, for sole alternative, to declare himself satisfied, and take his departure, or to produce what remained at the bottom of his official bag. This was the project of the famous sened, or convention, that was to annihilate the independence of the Porte by giving the Czar authority over four-fifths of its European subjects, and a pretext for constant interference in its internal affairs. The verbal note of the 19th April had already conveyed a pretty plain hint, that refusal of compliance with the Czar’s demands would be the signal for stringent measures on the part of the Russian envoy.

From the date of the 5th May, the Turkish question may be said to have been placed upon its proper basis. Henceforward the case was clear; none could any longer maintain that the settlement of a dispute about a silver star and a church key, about the cave of Gethsemane and the garden of Bethlehem, was the sole and simple object of Menschikoff’s mission, of the review of naval and military armaments that had preceded it, and of his menacing and offensive notes and deportment to the Turkish government. The point at which the dispute has now arrived, and the long discussion it has undergone in the public press, renders it unnecessary for us to do more than briefly note the events that have since rapidly succeeded each other. The Sultan persisting in his very natural refusal to abdicate the better half of his sovereign rights, upon the 18th of May Prince Menschikoff broke off official communications, and embarked with the whole legation on board a Russian man-of-war. On the 21st he quitted Constantinople. One more effort was made by Russia to induce the Porte to bend to her will. A letter from Count Nesselrode to the Grand Vizier renewed, with no better success, the demand that had already been rejected. The French and English fleets moored in Besika Bay, the Russian troops having previously crossed the Pruth and occupied the Danubian provinces. Simultaneously with this act of invasion, the Czar’s government protested their respect for the integrity and independence of the Turkish empire. If they occupied two of its provinces, it was merely to enforce the acceptance of conditions annulling the very independence they professed to respect. The entrance of the troops was not to be considered as an act of war, and the position guaranteed by treaty to Moldavia and Wallachia would be in no way altered by it. Notwithstanding this assurance, the hospodars were soon afterwards ordered to notify to the Porte that they broke off all intercourse with it, and should no longer pay it tribute. This was certainly a singular mode of respecting the statu quo of the principalities.

Convinced at last, by Russia’s acts, of those ulterior views it had so long refused to credit, the Aberdeen ministry applied itself, in concert with France, to endeavour amicably to terminate the untoward affair, which a little penetration or sincerity on its part might never have allowed to assume such alarming proportions. Although the conduct of Russia was a manifest violation of the treaties of Adrianople and Balta Liman, her strange declaration that the armed occupation of two Turkish provinces was not to be taken as an act of war was allowed to pass current, and negotiations were commenced—a circular of Count Nesselrode’s having previously been replied to by the governments of France and England, in terms proving their unity of action and their resolution to preserve the integrity of the Turkish empire. Austria, who had long stood undecided, offered her intervention between Russia and the Porte. It was accepted. A project of agreement drawn up at Paris, was submitted at Vienna to the conference composed of the ambassadors of England, France, Austria, and Prussia. Russian influence at Berlin, and close family alliance, had kept the last-named power aloof from the contention, in like manner as recent obligations had long restrained the young Francis Joseph from even intimating his dissatisfaction with a policy of aggression whose development no European power has more cause than Austria to apprehend and deprecate. The French note, after undergoing at Vienna some slight and unimportant alterations, was at once accepted by the Emperor. The text of this note has not, that we are aware of, yet transpired. But the Emperor’s promptness was suspicious. His acceptance was contingent on the Porte’s agreeing to the note without modification, and this the Porte refused to do. For a moment the Turkish government was blamed, until it became known that the interpretation put by Russia upon the Vienna note, was such as would have enabled her to act upon it in the same manner as upon the convention proposed to the Sultan by Prince Menschikoff, to the acceptance of which she therefore considered it virtually tantamount. Thus were the efforts of diplomacy once more frustrated, and the whole question thrown completely open.

The wisdom and moderation of which the Emperor Nicholas has, upon so many occasions, given proof, his unceasing efforts for the improvement of his subjects’ moral and physical state, and the many high qualities none can deny him to possess, command admiration, and augment our regret that he should have placed himself in a position from which he can extricate himself only by a sacrifice of dignity and prestige, or by plunging Europe into war. Upon the other hand, the state of Turkey is not a very edifying spectacle for Christendom. Under no circumstances can it be a pleasing sight to behold Christians subjected to Mahometan rule, even though that be exercised mildly, and a disposition shown to ameliorate their condition. But, although commonly assumed, it is by no means proved that the general feeling of the Greek Christians in Turkey is in favour of their transfer to the Czar. Their dream is of the re-establishment of their nationality, of an independent Byzantine empire, a project often mooted, and as often pronounced theoretical and impracticable. Failing to obtain that, they naturally ask themselves whether they would be better off under Russian than under Turkish sway. A few years ago, there would have been no doubt as to the reply, but since then their condition has greatly improved; and the present alarm of the Porte, which has already, within the last few weeks, given birth to firman after firman, conferring new privileges and immunities upon its Christian subjects—will stimulate the Sultan’s government speedily to grant all those concessions that the Greeks may fairly claim, and which their overwhelming numerical majority, backed by the influence of England and France, must secure their ultimately obtaining. This is not the moment, however, to go into these considerations, or into that minute examination of the state of the Christians in Turkey which at another time it may be interesting to institute. The news of the last few days have compressed the question, for the present, within much narrower limits. Whatever emancipation there may be in store for the Christians of Turkey—whether in the form of independence or of partition amongst Christian powers—it must not proceed from the arbitrary mandate of any one potentate. It must be matter of accord between the great powers of Europe, and such accord may be very difficult to arrive at. If treaties are to be treated as waste-paper, and international law set at nought, we sink at once into political barbarism, and establish, by a most perilous precedent, the law of the strongest to be the only one that governs us.

The conduct of Turkey, throughout the whole of this unpleasant affair, cannot in any respect be justly blamed. In the discussion of the question of the Holy Shrines, in which she herself had no interest, she displayed great patience, and a sincere desire to conciliate and please both of the powers that claimed—the one on the strength of treaties, the other by no other right than that of its influence and community of faith with twelve millions of Turkish subjects—to interfere in the appropriation of those sacred relics. The charges of bad faith and breach of engagement brought against her by Russia remind us of those brought by the wolf against the sheep that drank at the same brook. When Prince Menschikoff’s departure, and the formidable preparations that Russia had been making ever since the beginning of the year, compelled her, as a measure of the commonest prudence, actively to arm, she did it quietly and unostentatiously, and exerted herself to the utmost to keep down the fanatical spirit of the Asiatics she summoned to the defence of her European territory. The only mistake the Porte may be thought to have made in the whole affair, is that it did not at once accept the Vienna note. It would then have been in the hands and under the protection of the honour of the Four Powers who drew it up, and who certainly could not have accepted the Czar’s interpretation, nor have suffered him to act upon it. Their conference was not held to compel Turkey to yield everything to Russia, but to pare down the exorbitance of the latter power’s demands. Here, again, however, the Sultan’s government was not free to act as it chose. The fanaticism of the Mussulmans was fully roused; and a furious insurrection, the Sultan’s deposition and death, and massacres of Christians, were perhaps only to be averted by the rejection of the note, as they since have been only by a declaration of war. This was made on the 9th of October, and much speculation is already afloat as to the prospects and probabilities of a campaign, which we still trust may be brought to a close before it has been commenced by anything more important than outpost skirmishes. From its very commencement, this Eastern question has abounded in curious and contradictory positions. Thus Turkey waits until October to declare a war which Russia has actually commenced nearly four months previously, by taking armed possession of a part of the Sultan’s territory. Her declaration of war is a mere acquiescence in the attitude her adversary has already imposed upon her. Another odd circumstance is that, as Russia is not likely to cross the Danube at this season of the year, but will more probably content herself with remaining quietly in the principalities, and there establishing her influence and organising her administration, the Turks, instead of standing on the defensive, must, if they wish to do anything, move forward to seek the invader. But it is more probable that they will remain in quiet observation on the south bank of the stream, unless indeed the fanatical ardour of the Moslem troops compels their chiefs to lead them across it—certainly a hazardous enterprise at this season, and in the presence of an enemy greatly superior, we suspect, in discipline, although perhaps neither in courage nor in numbers. The line of the Danube is a long one, however, and, with the forces the Czar had, up to the last accounts, in the provinces, it might be very difficult to prevent a Turkish corps d’armée from crossing at some unguarded spot.

The Turkish army, according to the most reliable accounts that can be obtained, consists of about 150,000 men, but a fresh levy of a like number has just been ordered; and, as far as numbers go, Turkey has vast resources in her fierce Asiatic population. Independently of her regular army, various provinces, which do not furnish soldiers in peace time, are bound to do so when war breaks out. Servia, Bosnia, Upper Albania, Egypt, Tripoli, Tunis, are amongst them. Egypt has already despatched her ten thousand. The editor of the French Journal de Constantinople, M. Nogués, affirmed about four months ago, in his newspaper, that in a general war, where important objects were at stake, the Sultan, as chief of the Mahometan faith, could rally round his banner a million of armed men, ardent in his cause, and eager to fight. Before taxing this estimate with exaggeration, we must remember how easy it is to rouse the fanaticism of the Asiatic Turks. The auxiliary contingents supplied by the European and African provinces enumerated above, are estimated, by another authority, to amount to 110,000 men. The rédif, or reserve, which is what the Sultan has just called out, consists of soldiers who, having served for the prescribed term of six years, obtain their discharge. For seven years from its date, they are on the strength of the reserve, whose skeleton is kept up, whose officers and non-commissioned officers are paid, and which is mustered at intervals, like our yeomanry and militia, to renew the habit of drill and discipline. Thus this reserve forms a second army, which a very short time would render as efficient as the first. Tartars, Cossacks from the lakes of Asia Minor, and other irregulars, are counted at about 60,000. By adding all these figures together we arrive at a total of upwards of 450,000 men. We do not, by the exhibition of these formidable numbers, mean to imply a belief that Turkey, left to her own resources, could make head against Russia, but all the evidence we have collected induces us to believe that the Czar’s armies would have some trouble and sharp fighting before getting to Constantinople.

A French writer, apparently military, and well acquainted with the ground, sketched, a few days ago, in a Paris paper, the Univers, the various routes the Russians might follow, supposing them across the Danube; and it is interesting to trace upon the map the track he assigns to the invaders. The Danube crossed, the Balkan is the next obstacle, and affords excellent positions to a defensive army. There are three roads by which the passage of this mountain may be attempted, and all three are parallel to the west coast of the Black Sea, “whence,” says the writer quoted, “the Russian army might be supplied and supported by its fleet, if England and France did not oppose it. The capture of the port of Varna would be a great advantage to Russia.” Not only advantageous, but indispensable. The navigation of the Black Sea is extremely perilous for large sailing vessels (of which the Turkish fleet in those waters is chiefly composed), owing to constant and capricious changes in the wind, which often chops suddenly round and rises into tremendous hurricanes. As refuge from these, Varna is the only port on the Turkish-European shore capable of receiving large vessels. But Varna is an exceedingly strong place; the Turkish artillery practice, thanks to Prussian instructors, is equal to any in Europe; and as an example of the manner in which Turks—fallen though their empire be, and extinguished their glory—will fight when well commanded, it is not uninteresting to refer to an account of the last siege of Varna.

“The important fortress of Varna, on the Black Sea,” (says M. Poujoulat, in his Histoire de Constantinople,^[54]) “capitulated on the 10th October 1828, after a murderous siege of forty days’ duration. The Russian loss was very heavy. Yussuf Pasha, one of the chiefs of the Ottoman army, went over, with arms and baggage, to the Muscovite camp. This defection, purchased, it was said, by Russian gold, was the signal of Varna’s fall. What is certain is, that that general retired into Russia, where he lived in disgraceful splendour, although Mahmoud II. had confiscated all his possessions in Turkey. If Yussuf Pasha’s conduct was that of a traitor, that of Izzet Mehemet, governor of Varna, excited the admiration even of his enemies. Several times summoned to surrender, his invariable reply was, that he would never ask pardon of the Giaours. He fought like a gallant soldier to the very last. The Emperor Nicholas publicly eulogised his courage, and, unwilling to expose Varna to the horrors of capture by assault, he proposed to him to quit the town with the honours of war. Izzet Mehemet, who had but three hundred men left with him, accepted the offer. To recompense his brilliant behaviour, Mahmoud named him Grand Vizier.”

So that it will not do to reckon too much on the speedy capture of Varna, even in the improbable case that the English and French fleets allowed the Russians to come out of Sebastopol. Its possession, however, is not indispensable to the invaders’ land operations. Supposing a first battle to be fought and won by the Russians on the line of the Danube, the second, it is thought probable, would occur near Shumla, which is considered the key of the Balkan, and must, of course, be taken. Omar Pasha, it is said, has considerably strengthened its fortifications, as well as those of Rustchuk on the Danube. “Shumla,” says the writer in the Univers, “stands in a basin, between two abrupt peaks. A stream, the Tekie, deep sunk between its banks, covers the place on two sides. But it is approachable by artillery, especially by the side of Yenibazar (east by north), where there is a level and naked plateau. Shumla, surrounded by walls flanked by square towers, is the centre of a great intrenched camp, defended by earthen redoubts and deep ditches. Between Shumla and the Danube, most of the villages are palisaded. Shumla fallen and Pravadi taken, the Balkan would be open: the trenches and abattis in the defiles could not stop a Russian army.”

Supposing the Russians to be uniformly successful in their operations, a first campaign would hardly take them beyond Adrianople. The country between that place and Constantinople is hilly, sandy, and intersected by innumerable ravines, which the winter rains convert into watercourses. It would afford but scanty supplies, especially for the cavalry, and if the Russian fleet was captured or blockaded, the army might be put to great straits. The retreating Turks would, of course, leave as little as possible behind them, except, probably, a few bands of guerillas and partisans in the Balkan, who would be very useful in cutting off convoys. The artillery would have great difficulties to surmount in a country such as that, where the numerous mountains and ravines are as unfavourable to its progress as they are favourable to the sharpshooters, who would not fail to hang upon and harass the Russian line of march. The possession of the port of Midia, a little south of Adrianople, would be almost indispensable to the existence of the invading army. But, in or off that port, the French and English flags would doubtless be waving. Admitting, however, that all the difficulties and dangers of the march were overcome, and that the Russians were in sight of Constantinople, it is no light task that would still remain to be performed. “Constantinople,” says an authority already quoted, “is covered by a last line of which the Karasu is the chief defence. This little river forms a lake of fresh water, that flows by a large ravine into the Sea of Marmora. Eight leagues from the city it is traversed by a stone bridge, five hundred paces long. Between the city and this bridge, almost as far as the Cape of Kara-Burun, on the Black Sea, is one mass of precipitous mountains, on whose flank stands Constantinople, between the two seas. Some of the slopes extend as far as the Bosphorus, so that the city is surrounded by a girdle of natural fortifications. It would be almost impregnable on the land side, if artificial intrenchments were added to its natural defences; the old walls should be repaired, the large new barracks should be rendered, as far as possible, bombproof, and detached forts should be built on the heights, on both sides of the Liman. Hitherto we do not believe that anything very serious has been done in the way of fortifying Constantinople. Amongst other things, we doubt if sufficient attention has been paid to the hill of Multate, whence an enemy, once posted there, might batter the port and the buildings of the Admiralty. In a few weeks, however, the five or six hundred thousand inhabitants of Constantinople could construct, under the direction of European officers, the most necessary intrenchments. The Russians would then have great difficulty in taking the place. The strength and the natural resources of Constantinople account for the agony of the Byzantine empire having lasted several centuries. Besieged twenty-four times, this city has but six times been taken: in the last siege a few thousand Greeks defended it for fifty-three days, against the 250,000 soldiers of Mahomet II., at a period when the Turks were masters of the military art. “Constantinople,” the Duke of Ragusa said, “is the most important position in the world, and the easiest to defend.” As to the defences of the Dardanelles and Bosphorus they are too well known, and have been too often enumerated for it to be necessary here to recapitulate them. Tremendous and well-served batteries, guns that vomit stone-balls half a ton in weight, strong fortifications, to say nothing of the frequent fogs and difficult navigation of the Black Sea, render access to the Turkish capital by a hostile fleet a very desperate undertaking.”

The ambiguous and undecided attitude of Austria and Prussia renders it difficult to speculate on results in the case of the war on whose verge Europe apparently now totters. When Vienna conferences abruptly terminated, Olmutz and Warsaw interviews began, and it is impossible to say how far the arguments, energy, and moral superiority of the Czar may have influenced Prussia’s wavering king and Austria’s youthful emperor. The mere fact of these monarchs having hesitated to take a side, the neutrality they from the first attempted, the proposal of Austrian mediation, and the adhesion of Prussia to the Conference, sufficiently prove their real conviction as to what are their own interests and those of the countries they reign over. Had they had a doubt they would at once have declared themselves for Russia. But the course that common sense and sound policy suggest to them, is a strict union with the Western powers, than whom they are certainly not less interested in preventing that destruction of the balance of power in Europe which must result from Russia’s obtaining Constantinople. What does Russia care for the Danubian provinces, save as a step toward the attainment of her one great aim, the possession of the Turkish capital—which is at once the key of the Black Sea and of the Mediterranean, and the passage between those seas? Constantinople is the one great object on which her eyes have for more than a century been covetously fixed. If she be allowed to stretch her power that far south, none will be able to prevent her afterwards extending it both east and west. And she will become as dangerous a neighbour for Austria as she at present is for the decayed empire of the Ottomans.

If Russia persists in her aggression, which we do not believe that she will, and if Austria and Prussia stand aloof, which we doubt their doing should war break out, the contest can hardly be of long duration. The part taken in it by France and England will be chiefly maritime. The Black Sea swept of Russian vessels, all its ports garrisoned or blockaded, an Anglo-French army of moderate size supporting the Turks, and occupying Rodosti on the Sea of Marmora, French and English officers assisting the Turkish leaders with their counsels—such are the steps that will obviously first be taken. But it would be madness on the part of Russia to accept the struggle unless Austria and Prussia were with her. In that case, indeed, the war would assume a terrible and deplorable character: throughout Europe the democratic party would raise its head; Hungary and Lombardy would be quickly in arms; Germany and Italy would be the battlefields, and who shall foretell the issue of the strife!

For whatever evils may arise out of the present critical conjuncture, as well as for the prolongation of a state of suspense, which, in many respects, and especially in a commercial point of view, is nearly as prejudicial as war itself could be, Europe is indebted to the weakness of Lord Aberdeen, and to the servility of his supporters in the Cabinet. If Russia now gives way, she would manifestly have done so four months ago, had England then shown herself determined to oppose her aggressions. But the political predilections and illegitimate manœuvres of the Premier, and the feebleness and incapacity of the present Foreign Secretary, have prolonged the crisis and encouraged Russia; and if war occurs, at their door it will lie—the sole compensation being that they have at last shown themselves in their true colours, and utterly disgusted the country in whose government they have ill-advisedly been permitted to share.

Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh.

ENDNOTES:

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.

Renumbered footnotes and moved them all to the end of the final chapter.