THE RUMOURED ABDICATION OF THE CZAR.
THE rumour of Czar Alexander's abdication, either for a time or for ever, which has been circulating all over Europe for a week, is still uncontradicted, and has probably, therefore, some foundation. The Czar has been reigning for twenty-one years, and it is known that the constitutional melancholy which is the curse of his House, and which has been further developed in his own case by the repeated attacks upon his life, has of late increased, until the burden of his position has become almost insufferable, and his gloom affects the whole fabric of Russian government. His deep, immovable sadness was noticed in London in 1874, and indeed it is won- derful that any Czar of Russia can do his daily work as this one has done it and keep his reason unimpaired. The unique loneliness of the position—that of a man governing directly a vast empire on two continents, loaded at once with the power of an ancient Caner and the work of a modern Premier, and the sense of responsibility generated by modern culture—must sooner or later over-strain any mind, and terrible as the thought is, it is probable that no Czar of Russia since the death of Alexis Romanoff has been throughout his life completely and uninterruptedly sane. Czar Alexander, satiated with power and success—for after all, he carried the emancipation of the Serfs, and still lives—weary of labour that can never end while he reigns, and oppressed by a climate which intensifies his melancholy, may well contemplate retirement in favour of his son ; and if he contemplates it seriously, all Europe may be profoundly affected by the change. The Czar of Russia has not, it is true, the perfectly independent volition of a Caliph in The Arabian Nights." He is surrounded by a group of statesmen, who are rarely changed, and who maintain the Russian tradi- tion; he is bound by endless links to the past and to the future, and on all the greater questions he must consult the prejudices of his people. But still he is the ultimate head of a vast empire, his will is never directly opposed, he can move a million of soldiers by an order, and within fearfully wide limits he can dictate the policy of his country. He must seek the advantage of Russia and the possession of Constantinople, but the road to his ends is left for him to choose. If the Czardona is entrusted to the Cesarevitch instead of Alexander, even for a time, there must be a change of Russian policy which all Europe will sooner or later feel. The two men are widely different, and their sympathies are as different as their characters. The father is a German, the son a Russian. The father is a dreamer, the son a man of action. The father has known deep adversity— for the failure in the Crimea was felt in the Winter Palace as bankruptcy would be felt in a London middle-class house—the son has lacked that chastening experience. Above all, if we understand anything of the two characters, the father is a self- distrustful man, who seeks advice and sees obstacles; the son an absolutely self-trusting man, one in whose mind to will and to act are almost synchronous emotions. He is even credited, though that may be mere gossip, with the tendency to violent imperiousness which has marked at different times so many princes of his House. Differences such as these in an absolute Sovereign modify policy, and though, no doubt, the ideas of an Heir-Apparent are but a poor guide to those of the same man as Sovereign, still individuality can never be wholly sup- pressed, and the highest statesman in Russia must be first of all a courtier. Whether it is true that Czar Alexander loved Germany, while the Regent Alexander will detest her; that the one looked to his uncle as a friend, while the other will seek an ally in Paris ; that the father was influenced by Germans, while the son responds to the intense Danish distrust of Germany, we do not know, but the mere fact that such differences should be discussed shows the magnitude of the questions to be affected by any change. That Czar Alexander, whether from policy or temperament, avoided war is certain ; while it is nearly equally sure that the Regent Alexander, even if he shares his father's view as to the advan- tages to be gained by letting Russia grow, will infuse more energy, more vis, more peremptoriness into the national diplomacy, and probably give it much more of a Western direction. He will, for instance, be more decided than his father has been about the Eastern question, and probably in a much more anti-Turkish sense.
That some influence is working strongly in St. Petersburg to divert the Government from the policy it has recently pur- sued is becoming obvious. Hitherto that Government, though suspected, of course, of secret designs, and though refusing to censure General Ignatieff for the original line he takes at Con- stantinople, has contrived to keep friends with the Hapsburgs, and to support their policy of postponing a catastrophe in the South. It was understood by Lord Derby as well as by the public that the revolt in the Herzegovina was to be suppressed, and everything kept for the present as smooth as possible under the circumstances. It was known, however, that this adhesion to Austrian views was very irksome to the Czar, who did not want to lose his prestige as "first friend" of all the Slays, and who suspected the Hapsburgs of desiring territorial exten- sion, and recently events have made it nearly unendurable. First, the Russian Embassy, in its suspiciousness of Austrian plans, purchased, in an underhand way, certain maps kept jealously secret by the Court of Vienna, showing the precise location of the army in the event of an Austrian occupation of Bosnia,—maps which, it is whispered, show that the military staff contemplated Russian resistance to their plans as an imminent possibility. So fierce has been the bitterness pro- duced by this scandal, which has, however, many precedents, that M. Novikoff, the Russian Ambassador in Vienna, has resigned, and rumours of a rupture between the two Courts have startled all Eastern Europe. Then the In- surgents in the Herzegovina peremptorily/ refused all con- cessions, and when the Governor of Dalmatia, after a personal Conference with the Emperor at Vienna, was sent to convince them that they must yield, they bluntly refused, and instead defeated Mukhtar Pasha, and so closely besieged Nicsics that the victualling of that fortress has become the first object of the campaign. Under the tacit agreement be- tween the two Powers, this unruly conduct should have been disapproved at St. Petersburg, but it is clearly not disapproved in any but the most perfunctory manner. On the contrary, the Russian agents keep suggesting that the best conclusion to the affair would be to annex Bosnia and the Herzegovina to Montenegro, Prince Nikita in return accept- ing a position of vassalage towards the Porte, like that of the Prince of Roumania or the Prince of Servia. He would be, in fact, an independent Prince, paying a minute tribute. That solution would secure, no doubt, all that the insurgents wish, and strip away one more great province from Turkey without avowedly dismembering her empire; but then the new Principality would have at its head a friend of Russia, and Austrian ambition would be per- manently foiled. R would be nearly impossible for Austria to bear this arrangement, as the ruler of Bosnia, the Herzego- vina, and Montenegro would have for his first object the pos- session of his natural coast, Dalmatia, now an Austrian province, and would find thousands of syrnpathiaers in Dalmatia itself, a province which is not very heartily loyal. Then, although the inspired Press of St. Petersburg is still faithful to the Andrassy Note, the half-inspired Press has suddenly begun to hold very different language, declaring that Turkey has failed in her promises, that her Government is in- effective, and that although Russia cannot yet help the South Slavonians, if they think the hour is arrived for a struggle, she will throw no obstacles in their way. It is quite certain that such sentences would not be allowed to appear unless the journals publishing them had very powerful protection, and this protection may well be that of the Heir-Apparent. If it is, and he is to be Regent, there is war imminent, for Servians, Bosnians, Herzegovinians, Mon- tenegrins, and Bulgarian. Christians are only waiting for the signal, and for that decided success in the insurrection which appears at last to be at hand. The Turkish troops are evidently demoralised, while the Bosnian Mohammedans keep uttering threats of massacre, which only rouse the Christians to frenzy. The Austrians cannot see such a. movement tranquilly, unless it is to end in the victory of men friendly to Austria, which Prince Nikita is not ; and Russia cannot see it tranquilly, if it is. The Austrian Government has many reasons to avoid war, but she cannot see South-Slavonian States formed on the Danube under a Russian Protectorate ; and if she sees it, will unquestionably incur the hazard of a campaign, even though Prince Bismarck is looking on, master of the situation. We never remember to have seen a situation more full of elements of danger to all the world than that which prevails at this moment in Eastern Europe, or one in which the accession of a Czar not devoted to peace would be more fatal to the tran- quillity of a generation. Lord Derby says everything is all right, but then Lord Derby believed that if Austria threatened with sufficient heartiness the Herzegovinian insurrection would die away, and it is not dying away, though Austria has threatened hard. It is succeeding, and its success must strain to the utmost that agreement between St Petersburg and Berlin which, even with Czar Alexander on the throne, it has been so difficult to preserve intact. If he has, indeed, resolved to retire for a time from the direct government of his country, the "tension," as the diplomatists call it, may speedily prove unendurable, and an accident, a word, an ill-advised movement of troops may plunge all Europe into hostilities. A struggle between Russia and Austria for supremacy over the South Slavonians would very speedily envelope the whole Continent in war.
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