THEE ATTACKS ON RUSSIA.
THE great theme of the pro-Turkish portion of the English Press has now for a long time been the craft and ambition and guilty intrigues of Russia. And from the moment when the contents of the Czar's proposal to Austria for the joint occupation of Bosnia and Bulgaria leaked out, these sardonic attacks have risen into triumphant shrieks of the "I told you so !" type, in which all pretence of grave and rational condemnation has been thrown aside. Yet the more the conduct of the Russian Government through the whole crisis is looked into, the less there seems to us to be found in it of under-handed and deceitful policy. We do not suppose, indeed, that the policy of the Russian Govern- ment has been exceptionally free from the ordinary mixture of ambitious motives which influence most Governments in crises of this magnitude. It is folly to suppose that Russia is indifferent to the extension of Slavonic influence in Europe, or that other things being equal, she would be at all less re- joiced at making a good step towards Constantinople, than England would be at making a good step towards the securing of her way to India. Doubtless Russia has been well pleased, in her own interest, to find good reasons for baffling the policy of the pro-Turkish Powers. Doubtless it has been no trouble to her to find that Turkey, with the fatal propensity of all trembling Powers for hesitating at the moment when prompt concession might have saved her, and then offering by way of compensation what nobody wanted, has played steadily into her hands. Probably, too, she has seen with unbounded satisfaction that England, who threw cold water on her over- tures in the spring, was compelled, with great reluctance, to initiate like overtures in the autumn, without any chance of per. suading either Turkey or the other European Powers that thar..."._;_ overtures really expressed the mind and purpose of the Govern,. ment from which they proceeded. We do not for a moment suppose that Russia has been more disinterested, though she has certainly been more fortunate and more consistent, than either Austria or England. She has taken full advantage of her opponents' mistakes, and is well aware how carefully they have really played her game, when they seemed to be most successful in foiling her strategy. But putting all pretensions to exceptional diplomatic virtue aside,—to which none of the Powers, as far as we can see, have any claim,—what is there in the part which Russia has really taken througtout this crisis which can be branded as cynically selfish, or in any sense treacherous ? Was it a very wicked, thing that the war party in Servia was from the first aided and abetted by Russian sympathy and help ? Why, it would be just as silly to pretend that it was a very wicked thing that in the quarrel between Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein the war party in Schleswig-Hol- stein was from the first aided and abetted by German help. Of course it was. When these questions between an oppressed nationality and the foreign Power which oppresses it arise, the oppressed party always looks to the 'quarry whence it was chopped' for support, and seldom looks in vain. Servia herself, no doubt, was not oppressed, though she was constantly harassed by Turkey in relation to boundary dis- putes. But Servia was driven to declare war by the keen sym- pathy of her people—and not of her people only, but of all the Slays—for the miserable Rayahs of Bosnia, the Herzegovina, and Bulgaria ; and under such circumstances, to make it a great charge against Russia that she had not withheld all national help, seems to us simply childish. We might just as well make it a great charge against Greece that it helped the Cretan in- surrection, and that the Government did not effectually pro- hibit all such help. Well, next to the charge of not repressing the war feeling in Servia,—and as far as the official power of the Russian Government went, there is no doubt that it was exerted decidedly against the declaration of war,—there comes the charge that after the war had actually broken out, Russia did not stop, but permitted, the influx of Russian volunteers. Well, that is a charge which has often been made against our own Government. Undoubtedly the British Government did not stop either the English bands of volunteers which joined Garibaldi in 1860, or the Irish bands of Papal volunteers which joined the Pope in the same year. Of course, these are trivial matters beside the Russian contributions to the army of Servia, but then so was the popular feeling which caused these attempts at interference, beside the popular feeling in Russia. In the case of Russian sympathy with Servia we have to deal with the symptom of a great ethnic move- ment which has been going on for centuries ; and to call the Russian Government treacherous for not setting her- self openly to stop that movement, is hire finding fault with a railway-guard because he does not throw himself in the way of a railway-train which is rushing on to a collision. All the Russian Government could do in the matter,—namely, to try to obtain, by diplomatic means, what would be so far satisfactory to the expectations of the Russian and Slavonic peoples that they would no longer feel impelled to sacrifice themselves on behalf of the oppressed Slavs,—Russia did. She joined in the British demand for administrative autonomy, only requiring that the Porte should accept the demand in the form in which it was placed before it,—a most moderate and fair condition,— fez on that point really turned the whole significance of the issue. If the Porte had accepted directly the demand of the Powers, and had signed the protocol presented to it, Europe would have gained the diplomatic right of interfering in Turkey to see the conditions imposed honestly executed. But this Turkey knew. She refused the demand, while spontaneously offering constitutional concessions which meant nothing, because nobody would have had any right to see them executed. Of course, the very reason which rendered the large spontaneous promises so much more agreeable to Turkey than the smaller conditions imposed on her,—namely, that the latter could have been enforced by the Powers, while the former could not,—rendered the overtures of the Porte entirely unacceptable to Russia.
But than it is said, before Turkey had refused the terms offered by England, the Czar had already written that letter to the Emperor of Austria proposing a joint military occupation of Bulgaria and Bosnia to see the new autonomies honestly established ; and that here the cloven foot peeped out. The Czar, it is pretended, did not wish Turkey to accept the English proposals, and therefore desired her to -7,Nnow in how humiliating a fashion Russia was disposed to ivork out these proposals in case they were accepted. Well, we do not in the least believe in the motives alleged. We believe that the Czar would very greatly have pre- ferred obtaining for the Slavonic provinces of Turkey a real autonomy, to the dangers of a war. But We do not believe that the Czar could afford to put off those provinces with the sort of make-belief autonomy which Lord Derby was not only prepared to admit, but obviously preferred. Administrative auto- nomy might mean nothing or everything, according to the way in which it was carried out. But to mean anything really useful, there must have been a military occupation of some kind, to repress the Mahommedan military caste, and the true way of testing Russia's sincerity would have been to have proposed to her to allow an English or an Italian force to join her in the occupation of Bulgaria, in order that there might be no reason to suspect her of wishing to keep what she was proposing to occupy for purely temporary political purposes. We have the strongest belief that Russia hair no desire and no intention of annexing Bulgaria or Servia, or any of the Slavonic States south of the Danube. It would be madness in her to attempt to annex a province which she could get at only by sea, and from which she is separated by land by a State which has the power of Germany behind it. As regards Servia, whatever else Russia may be suspected of, it was utterly unreasonable to suspect her of wishing to incorporate Servia with Russia, when it was the Russian party who plotted and carried out the proclamation of Prince Milan as King. No doubt that was done with a double object,—first, to commit Servia still more deeply to the war with Turkey ; but next and equally, to convince the Servians that Russia has no designs on their independence, designs which would be most unpopular in Servia. It seems to us the idlest of all talk to pretend that Russia has any intention at all 9,f extending her Empire along the banks of the Danube.
She knows very well that the German Empire would view such a policy with extreme hostility, and though she might care little for the fact that annexation would be exceedingly unwelcome- to the little Slavonic States themselves, she would certainly not care to excite the German hostility. No doubt she covets and has designs on Constantinople. But to pretend that her proposal for the occupation of Bulgaria was really a proposal of conquest seems to us the most absurd and unjustifiable of the dreams of panic-mongers. What it was necessary for her to make known was that if 'administrative autonomy 'should be accepted, the Powers would see it carried honestly into effect, which mild not have been done at all without some military occupation.
Then, lastly, there is the great crime alleged that when Turkey was pressed for a long armistice, and granted one three times as long as she was asked for, Russia declined the proposal.
Well, that was a military question. Turkey lengthened the period in her own military interests, so as to evade the great military disadvantages (to her) of a winter campaign.
Russia declined it in the military interests of her proteges, so as not to lose all the advantages to them of a winter campaign. Was not the conduct of each equally justifiable, and equally justifiable on the same ground,—that of clear interest? Of course, if there were any chance of peace, six weeks or two months' negotiations would have developed them. Me months would only give time for all sorts of cavils and quar- rels. Doubtless there was not at that time any great chewed' peace. But both parties being well aware of that, it was obvious policy of each to propose such an armistice as would best promote its chances of success when the war again broke out. Anything more simply silly than to complain of Russia for guarding carefully the military interests of Servia- in the matter, we cannot even conceive. The whole Russian people, we may say the whole of Europe, re- garded Russia in these negotiations as the legitimate. guardian of the interests of Montenegro and Servia, and to have ignored those interests would have been on her part a kind of breach of trust. On the whole, without for a, moment believing that Russia has been a bit freer from poli- tical ambition than any other State in a similar crisis,—than Germany was, for instance, on the eve of the war of 1866,— we do not find in her recent action a single point which justifies the uproar against her as a wanton disturber of the public peace of Europe, or as having acted a part like that which she certainly and notoriously acted on the eve of the Crimean war. We believe she has done simply what the emergencies of the case required from the great representative of the Slavonia peoples, and has done that reluctantly, and not without a veer sincere desire to find a compromise which, without sacrificing the interests ..of the States she was protecting, would have pre. Anted the breaking-out of war.
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