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They were received with the highest honours by the Imperial Family and the official world; and at the festivities which ensued the Czar was called upon to avenge the secular insults of the White Mountain and of Kossovo, and to plant the Russian standard on the Dardanelles and the Church of St. 'Sophia.' At the same time the Cretan insurrection was going on, and the Turkish provinces on the Danube were inundated with revolutionary agents, and even supplied with arms, which were sent under the false designation of railway plant. The Austrian Consul-General at Jassy reported on February 6, 1868, that it was certain that Bulgarian committees existed at Bucharest and in other Danubian towns for the express purpose of exciting disturbances in Bulgaria. All these had their eyes fixed on Russia. Without Russian support they knew that they were powerless. Whatever may have been the political intentions of the Emperor, these demonstrations have inflamed the national passions of the Russian people. The press, which has been allowed great license in the present reign whenever it addresses itself to the passions of the nation, preached the complete enfranchisement of the Christians of the East by the arms of Russia. The democratic and socialist party, which has been gaining strength for some years, was delighted to share in the agitation, under the becoming pretexts of patriotism and religious zeal. The people, under these influences, and excited by the clergy, have been stirred to a point which alarms the middle classes, and may even overpower the resolutions of an absolute government. A recent traveller in Russia writes to us: I know not whether 'we are to have a Crusade, but I have seen the Crusaders.' The war-cry of religious fanaticism is certainly not raised so loudly by the Moslems as by the Christians; and the races of the North and the East have been brought to a point at which a collision will imply much more than the ordinary operations of regular armies. Perhaps the movement has gone further than Prince Gortschakoff intended; for one of the singularities of the present state of affairs is that the Minister is extremely hostile to the intrigues of General Ignatieff the ambassador, and jealous of him as a possible successor.

And here, at the risk of interrupting our narrative, we must remark that of all the delusions current in England on this subject, one of the most mischievous, and, as we believe, absurd, is the belief that these provinces contain a Christian population capable of self-government and self-defence, for without selfdefence there can be neither independence nor self-government. The present position of Roumania and Servia is a sufficient

VOL. CXLV. NO. CCXCVII.

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answer to the question. Though nominally tributaries of the Turkish Empire, and invested with self-governing powers, they are to all intents and purposes dependencies of Russia, who can and will use them, even for military purposes, as she pleases. But if there were no such power as Russia, the mutual hatreds of the Roumanians, Serbs, Bulgarians, and Greeks would render it almost impossible to establish in these countries a strong, free, and independent government, and they would fall, if left entirely to themselves, into a state of anarchy even more fatal to the welfare of their wretched inhabitants than Turkish misrule. In such a state the control of the Russian police, though it is the most oppressive, and the rule of a Russian administration, though it is the most corrupt, might be accepted as a deliverance from greater evils.

These provinces may accept, may even seek, the aid of Russia to shake off the authority of Turkey-it may be true that they do not desire to become or to remain parts of the Russian Empire, but they may depend upon it that no choice would be left them. Do they suppose that Russia, which has stamped out the nationality of Poland, and which holds the Baltic provinces, Finland, and the Asiatic khanates in bonds, would allow a ring of ultra-democratic States, poor and utterly defenceless in themselves, to stand between herself and Constantinople? If indeed it were possible to establish in Servia, Roumania, and Bulgaria a group of neutral and independent States, whose territory should be as inviolable as that of Belgium or Switzerland, that would be the best solution of the difficulty, not only for the provinces themselves, but for Turkey, since Russia would then be effectually cut off by a neutral territory from the Danube and from the northern frontier of Turkey. But for this very reason, that is an arrangement to which Russia will never assent; it would be a greater blow to her policy than the loss of Sebastopol and the Treaty of Paris. Count Nesselrode emphatically declared in a despatch of February 12, 1830, that it was entirely contrary to the views of Russia to substitute for the Ottoman Empire states which would ere long become rivals of her own power, civilisation, industry, and wealth.' Whilst she seeks to detach gradually the Christian provinces from the Turkish Empire, Russia intends them to fall and to remain absolutely within her own control.

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But we must now return to Prince Gortschakoff. Franco-German War and its results were of incalculable advantage to Russia, and she obviously looked to that great convulsion solely with a view to her own interests in the Eastern

Question. The obligations she had already conferred upon. Prussia were increased tenfold by her neutrality, and the alliance with the new German Empire was riveted. It was evident that the surrender of the Eastern Question by Germany to Russia was the price of that alliance; whilst in the West of Europe the common action of the two great Powers which had conquered her in the Crimea, and imposed on her the treaty of 1856, was practically terminated by the disasters and prostration of France. From that moment England stood alone, and Russia made her feel it by throwing off without the least constraint the neutralisation clauses of the Treaty of Paris.

The chief value of the neutralisation of the Black Sea was not that it humbled or injured Russia, for in fact the same identical conditions were imposed on Turkey; and as Turkey has grown to be the stronger naval Power of the two, the restriction operated more directly on her than on Russia. But the neutralisation clause was a material guarantee of peace. As long as it was in force it was certain that war between Russia and Turkey could not be carried on. The moment it was abolished it became apparent that a design to provide means for the renewal of hostilities existed on the part of the State which had repudiated it. The British Government yielded to necessity, and conceded what in the absence of France and Austria, and the desertion of Germany, it could not refuse. But in making this concession Mr. Gladstone's Administration not only confirmed and renewed all the other engagements of the Treaty of Paris, but obtained the sanction of the Powers to an important addition to those engagements. The tenth article of the Treaty of Paris had simply re-enacted the first article of the Convention of 1841, by which the Sultan engaged that so long as the Porte is at peace his Highness will admit no 'ships of war into the said Straits.' But the second article of

the Treaty of London of March 15, 1871, provided that-

'The principle of the closing of the Straits and of the Bosphorus is maintained, with power to His Imperial Majesty the Sultan to open the said straits IN TIME OF PEACE to the vessels of war of friendly and allied Powers, in case the Sublime Porte should judge it necessary in order to secure the execution of the stipulations of the Treaty of Paris.'

This was in truth a great additional concession in favour of the Porte and its allles, which Mr. Gladstone and Lord Granville then obtained. From the British point of view we are not sure that it is not more than equivalent to the loss of the clauses for the neutralisation of the Black Sea. For in strict conformity with this article the Porte could now, in time of peace, open the

Straits and admit to the Black Sea a British, French, Austrian, or Italian squadron, if it were judged necessary in order to secure the execution of the Treaty of Paris. Strangely enough, this highly important modification of the Straits Convention was not much noticed at the time, and seems to have been altogether overlooked by many persons who have spoken on the subject.*

It deserves a passing notice that during the whole of this period Russia was carrying on an aggressive war with great activity in Central Asia, and endeavouring at the same time to conceal from England the nature of her operations, even at the expense of a direct violation of the truth. In January 1873, Count Schouvaloff declared to Lord Granville that the expedition against Khiva would consist of four and a half battalions, and that it was so far from the intention of the Emperor of Russia to take possession of Khiva, that positive orders had been sent to prevent it, or even a prolonged occupancy of it. This declaration was made in the most solemn official form to be communicated to Parliament. On August 24 of the same year a treaty was signed between General Kaufman and the Khan of Khiva, by which the Khan acknowledged himself to be the humble servant of the Emperor of all the Russias, and renounced his commercial and military independence; and by the third article the whole of the right bank of the Amou Darya, and the lands adjoining thereto, which have hitherto 'been considered as belonging to Khiva, passed over from the Khan into the possession of Russia, together with the people dwelling and camping thereon.'t The Russians contend that they have not violated their pledge because the town of Khiva is not occupied by Russian troops, and the Khan has not been deposed: he is only reduced to entire subjection. Are we not justified in attaching to the more recent declarations of the Russian Government precisely the same value as we have learned to attach to Count Schouvaloff's communications, more

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Mr. Bright left his hearers, recently, in the belief that access was denied by these restrictions to the trading vessels and mercantile ports of Russia. They have no reference whatever to trade. Absolute liberty of passage for trading vessels was established in 1829, and has never since been disputed. Mr. Bright himself must be perfectly aware that the 3rd Article of the Treaty of 1871 runs thus, 'The 'Black Sea remains open, as heretofore, to the mercantile Marine of 'all nations.'

See for a full account of these transactions Captain Burnaby's spirited and instructive volume, 'A Ride to Khiva,' and Mr. Schuyler's highly important work on Turkestan.

especially when we recollect that in every instance where Russia has meditated some great outrage on the faith of treaties and the security of her neighbours, similar declarations of her love of peace and disinterestedness have been made almost in the same words?

It would be tedious to trace in detail the extraordinary activity shown by the agents of Russia in bringing about the present state of affairs. Every form and every means of encouragement and agitation have been unscrupulously employed. In 1870 it even appears (if the published despatches are authentic), that the Khedive of Egypt was urged by the Sclavonic emissaries to declare his independence, and make war on the Porte, thereby uprooting all the engagements of 1840, and the Russian consul-general at Alexandria was at the bottom of the plot. During the whole of this time General Ignatieff was the Russian ambassador at Constantinople, and had acquired a vast ascendency over the mind of the late Sultan and the Divan. Did he in any instance use that influence to promote those reforms in favour of the Christian subjects of the Porte which are now found to be so necessary? Did he not on the contrary aid, abet, and encourage the very worst acts of a bad government, for the obvious purpose of rendering the Sultan's authority odious and intolerable, and inducing that wretched sovereign to throw himself entirely upon Russian protection? It is generally believed, we know not with how much truth, that he instigated the late Grand Vizier to the financial measures which destroyed Turkish credit in Europe, and dissuaded him from sending regular troops to put down the insurrection at its commencement. It is at any rate a remarkable circumstance that the very worst period of Turkish misrule was that during which the authority of General Ignatieff was undoubtedly paramount. To what, in short, did all this tend, but to bring about a catastrophe, for which Russia had carefully prepared herself? Is it possible not to see that by dividing the councils of Europe, by encouraging internal insurrections in Turkey, and by lowering the credit and authority of the Porte at home and abroad, she was preparing to bring about some great change favourable to her own interests? And what could that change be but the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire and the substitution of her own power in place of it-an attempt which she has made systematically four times or more in the last century-in 1771, in 1809, in 1828, and in 1853-without success? But to accomplish this object the destruction of the treaties of 1856 is an indispensable preliminary. Accordingly,

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