COMPARATIVE. ATROCITY.
I T is becoming apparent that all the charges of barbarity
brought against the Cossacks and Bulgarians are not mere Turkish inventions. True, it is not even yet easy to estimate the precise amount of truth in the most specific charge yet brought,—that of the various newspaper Correspondents who have put their signatures to the document published in all the daily papers of Monday. Such a document would have gained immeasurably in force, had it been transmitted direct and inde- pendently, to England ; and remembering the attitude of the Turkish Government in the past, it is very strange that so many Correspondents should " consider themselves bound" to submit such a statement —not to their em- ployers—but to the Sublime Porte. Such a fact has to be considered in. connection with some other statements which have also been made, as to the conditions under brought against the Cossacks and Bulgarians are not mere Turkish inventions. True, it is not even yet easy to estimate the precise amount of truth in the most specific charge yet brought,—that of the various newspaper Correspondents who have put their signatures to the document published in all the daily papers of Monday. Such a document would have gained immeasurably in force, had it been transmitted direct and inde- pendently, to England ; and remembering the attitude of the Turkish Government in the past, it is very strange that so many Correspondents should " consider themselves bound" to submit such a statement —not to their em- ployers—but to the Sublime Porte. Such a fact has to be considered in. connection with some other statements which have also been made, as to the conditions under
which intelligence from Shumla is allowed to be transmitted, and it will take a little time yet before any of us may con- clude that a correct analysis of the evidence has given us the real facts. It is not proved indeed that the correspondents ever sent such a telegram at all. But we fear it is too plain there has been barbarity,—savage attacks on women and child- ren, to say nothing of pillage and destruction. And savagery is savagery, by whomsoever perpetrated.
But the use made of these facts by the pro-Turkish Press is certainly very remarkable, and seems to demand a few moments' consideration. Passing by many utterances which in their wild frenzy might be justly termed indecent, there has been a general agreement to represent the conduct of Russia as even worse than that of Turkey. The Telegraph of Tuesday affirms that "Russia, according to the admissions of her most ardent apologist, stands even more guilty than Turkey before the bar of history ;" and the usually more moderate Globe, of a day or two before, in an article actually headed with the ominous word " Intervention," gives as a reason for such intervention that "the Russians have shown that their enemies compare rather favourably with themselves. They have done more than give atrocity for atrocity they have proved to the satisfaction of Europe that they can be guilty of brutalities even more hideous than the worst excesses of those they came to punish." We purposely refrain from quoting even more extreme statements of the same sort ; but as they are made the foundation of most vehement charges—charges which infringe upon the decent courtesies of English public life—against those who yet believe Turkey should be left to the judgment her sins have brought upon her (on Wednesday all such were charged with "disgraceful insincerity "), it becomes, as we have said, desirable to institute such comparison as can be made at this early stage between the conduct of the two belliger- ents. In other words, we are forced to contemplate the question of Comparative Atrocity. It very soon appears that there are indeed wide differences between the two sets of crimes which are so very flippantly compared, but that these differences are not merely the opposite of what is stated, but in contradiction to it so open and flagrant, that we are obliged to seek in the most reckless extreme of party spirit for some palliation of the use which has been made of the facts.
We find, first of all, a very vast difference in the atrocities themselves, making the very most of them. We do hear of gross barbarity, of savage cruelty, amounting to murder ; but we have not heard yet of any such deeds of savage lust as covered the Turks with infamy. There has only been, so far as we remember, one charge of violation brought in the telegrams against either Cossack or Bulgarian ; and that was made by the Turkish Government itself, without one tittle
of evidence. It is admitted now that the Turks vio- lated women and girls by hundreds, everywhere, and that scores were done to death, unwounded, by sheer brutal outrage. We had hoped to have done with referring to these things ; but if we must, we must ; and when it is said that the Russians have done "worse" than the Turks, it is time to recall what the Turks did. The utmost we have heard of Russian "barbarity " is not, oven as regards slaughter, equal to a tenth of what we know took place a year ago. Even murder—cruel but honest murder—is not "worse," but better infinitely, than foul and promiscuous dishonour; as we all felt when the first tidings (afterwards, thank God discredited) came home to ourselves concerning the Indian Mutiny.
In the second place, we find a vast difference in the cir- cumstances. We do not admit, much less urge, as sympa- thisers with Bulgaria have been falsely but freely accused of urging, that slaughter of women and children is the " necessary" consequence of war. Civilised nations have stamped it out as such. But it has always more or less accompanied uncivilised war, and such is much of that now being waged. This is no new argument, framed to meet the present case. That Daily News correspondent who seems the special aversion of pro-Turkish writers, in the series of letters which so stirred the country a while ago, made special mention of one village in Bulgaria where massacre prevailed. He mentioned it expressly as "the one case" where there was "excuse," inasmuch as there had been some—however little—. real armed resistance. For that very reason he did—there and then—admit excuse for it, even on the part of a Turk. And that covers the ground, for every single case now mentioned belongs to the same category.
Thirdly, there is a difference, and that really vast in its pro- portions, between the perpetrators of the wicked deeds and the consequences which befall them. No one pretends in any case even alleged, much more proved, that it is other than Cossack advance-troops, or Bulgarians, who have massacred the Mussulmans. No one has alleged that the outrages—for we will not blink the truth by using any other word—were committed in the presence or by the authority of responsible officers high in rank ; and this some of the vilest Turkish atrocities were. Neither is it pretended that they have yet been brought clearly and officially home to the offenders, with- out securing punishment. This we all know the foul Turkish deeds were, and that those responsible for them were re- warded ; no one dare yet even whisper that such has been the case with the crimes now charged against the Russians. On the contrary, the first impulse of the Russian representatives has been to demand investigation, to court it and ask for it. If any individuals are proved guilty, no one doubts what the result will be ; but the Turkish murderers were only decorated and promoted, for deeds that no man dare in detail describe.
And lastly, there is a difference in the motive-causes. Two different pro-Turkish journals have said, in almost precisely the same words, that for these Russian "outrages "—we again admit and adopt the word—" awful reprisals must be naturally anticipated." Another journal, in language absolutely dis- graceful, actually implies that the Turks will be almost justified in such reprisals I If this be so for what is now re- ported—taken at its worst—were not all these things, and more, to be "naturally expected" also, after the fearful deeds of 1876? Was there nothing there to avenge ? Are Turks only to have passionate human feelings, and alone be expected to satiate vengeance ? Shame upon such arguments, and upon those who use them! Let it be honestly con- fessed that the whole miserable business is horrible enough, but let the difference never be forgotten that the Cossacks have only done during war some small part of what the Turks did in peace ; that what goes on where they are not yet masters, is not a tithe of what went on where the Turks bore rule for centuries ; that what has happened in riot and convulsion, is but some small part of what has gone on in quiet and under due "authority." Let these things at least be remembered, before we talk of comparing Russian with Turkish "atrocities."
Some other considerations might have been suggested. It might have been pointed out that in one telegram the other day certain things are said to have happened, "the Bulgarians and Russians having arrived" at a certain village ; since it is so strange as to be almost incredible that the "Bulgarians" should have ventured with the very van of the Russian irregular forces. Something might have been said upon the strangeness of the Turkish Government sending the succession of telegrams it has done, after the utter dis- regard it showed to the whole subject in 1876, and likewise upon the very obvious imitation, in some at least of these, of certain crimes of their own in that fatal year, as reported to English journals. Such a series of telegrams from such a source is of itself very suspicious, especially when they profess to give" exactly "—as on Wednesday—what has been done in places occupied by the enemy ; and when the Daily Telegraph makes the shocking suggestion, which it did last week, that "the whole atrocity business forms part of a consistent plan," and that these particular atrocities, as is said in the same article, have been perpetrated "not in hot blood," but "with a definite purpose and a political aim," it is impossible to avoid the reflection that there may be a " purpose " in the circulation of these stories at Constantinople,—namely, to provoke and justify before- hand one last final massacre of the Christian races. It is not a "Christian fanatic," but a pro-Mahommedan paper, which on Thursday stated, on express Turkish authority, that what is now charged against the Cossacks "will be avenged by such a punishment, that all Europe will thrill at the story when told l" Nay, it further presumes to inform us that England must inter- fere at once, even to " mitigate, although she cannot now prevent, the effects of reprisals which will be severe and sanguinary I" In plain words, we are told that Turks expect events beside which even Bulgaria in 1876 shall be forgotten, and the expectation may help to produce the consequence.
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