BOOKS.
MR. GALLENGA ON THE EASTERN QUESTION.t THESE interesting volumes were published six months ago, but it is by no means too late to call attention to them now. On the contrary, the perusal of them is in some respects more instructive at this moment than at the period of their publication. The Russian armies were then not only held everywhere at bay by their Turkish foes ; in Armenia they were forced back to the frontier. It seemed to superficial observers that the military power of the Porte was more than a match for that of Russia, and Mr. David Urquhart was eulogised for his political foresight. For had he 'not cried aloud for years, like a prophet in the desert, " Leave the Turks alone ; withdraw your enervating and paralysing • Sie, for example, Hamerton's criticism of Turnerian Topography, in the Portfolio, 7.
t Two Years of the. Eastern Question. By A. Gallengs, Author of "Italy Revisited," Ise. 2 vole. London: Samuel Tinsley. 1877.
patronage, and they will soon show themselves equal to the task of putting down Russian intrigue, or beating back Russian invasion." Well, the Turks have been left alone, and the result is a military collapse greater than that of Sedan, and a peace more disastrous than that of Versailles. The truth is, Russia began by undervaluing her foe. Both in Europe and in Asia she attacked with forces numerically inferior to the adversary ; and she overlooked the revolution made in military tactics by the deadly breech-loader. It is possible, indeed, that if the conduct of the campaign had been left from the first with the Generals who more lately carried all before them, the brilliant dash of Gourko across the Balkans in July might have had all the dramatic success which Ignatieff appears to have predicted for it. The Turks had not then learnt their strength, they were visibly cowed, and a bolder and more skilful strategy would probably have so paralysed them, that they might have offered terms of peace which Russia might then have agreed to. It would have been well for the Porte if this had happened. Plevna has been to her what Sebastopol was to Russia in the Crimean war. It absorbed all her strength and resources, and its fall was rapidly succeeded by the collapse of the Turkish defence along the whole line,— a collapse, we believe, much more complete and irreparable
than is generally supposed. And for this catastrophe— which we cannot affect to regret—the philo-Turks among our- selves, both inside and outside the Cabinet, are mainly responsible. They misled the Turks with the fatal belief that their interests as a ruling caste are bound up with the interests of England, and that come what might, British bayonets and ironclads would surely interpose to shield the Turk from Muscovite aggression. Under the spell of this delusion, the Turk rejected the very moderate terms of the Conference. Had the Western Powers sternly refused to abate any of those terms, the Turks would probably have given way. But to give an inch to an Oriental is to encourage him to take a good deal more than the proverbial " ell." The Turks treated the " irreducible minimum " with even less ceremony than they treated the original proposals, and when the Plenipotentiaries were on the point of leaving Constantinople, baffled and humiliated, the Sultan was advised by his Ministry to give public emphasis to their discomfiture. He treated himself to a diplomatic toothache, and declined to receive the farewell visits of the representatives of the Great Powers of Europe. So elated, indeed, were the Turks with their suicidal triumph, that their Foreign Minister could not refrain from mocking at the crestfallen Ambassadors. " But, gentlemen," said he, "why are you going ? " When the Ambassadors returned, a few months later, the question was sarcastically re- peated. "But, gentlemen," asked the triumphant Turk, "wherefore are you come back ?" And the Turk might well be triumphant, for not only had he refused to touch the " irreducible minimum " with the tips of his fingers, but he declined to go through the formality of even discussing the abortive suggestions of the London Protocol. And all this time the " pluck " and " spirit " of the obstinate Turk were cheered to the echo by that party among us who are now wringing their hands over the prostrate figure of their deluded victim. Russia, we are told— and the Turks were foolish enough to believe it—was only in- dulging in " bounce." Her treasury was exhausted, her army was a rotten machine which would crumble to pieces in the first shock of serious battle, and she was only seeking a decent excuse to demobilise. Those who presumed to hint that Russia was pro- foundly in earnest, and that it would be Turkey, and not Russia, which would crumble to pieces in the shock of a warlike collision, were denounced as political dolts or Russian agents. The collision has taken place, and the philo-Turks are now seized with a panic as ill-founded as their former confidence.
Those who wish to trace the development of the events which led up to the present war, but have not the time or patience to wade through the interminable pages of Blue-books, cannot do better than follow the guidance of Mr. Gallenga through the plea- sant volumes in which he has recorded his experiences and im- pressions of the Eastern Question during his sojourn at Constan- tinople as Times Special Correspondent. lie was there during moat of the period elapsing between the outbreak of the Herze- govinian insurrection and the declaration of war by Russia, and the soundness of his political judgment and forethought has been amply verified by events. He was on friendly terms, as it seems, with the Russian Ambassador, General Ignatieff, and that astute diplomatist's diagnosis of the Eastern Question, and his frank exposition, at the same time, of Russian policy, are extremely interesting at this moment, when Ignatieff is actually translating policy into history. The following is a summary of Ignatieff's views, as he explained them to Mr. Gallenga
" He was described to me," says Mr. Gallenga, " as ' the very father of lies,' and I received endless warnings against his Mephistophelian powers of fascination. Yet I could not even detect in him any attempt at dissembling. His hatred of Midbat Pasha, for instance was always boldly proclaimed, and he was equally uncompromising in his denuncia- tions of any scheme which could promise Turkey a prolongation of ex- istence by social or political reforms. He hated the Turks and con- spired to their destruction, no doubt, but never cloaked his designs under any hypocritical mask of a desire for their well-being or hope of their improvement. ' What inducement,' he observes, could he have to dissemble ? He never forgot, as be spoke, that he had eighty millions of men at his back, to make good whatever he said.'"
In the very first interview which Mr. Gallenga had with Igna- tieff, the latter launched out into a luminous exposition of the Eastern problem, as it presented itself to the mind of the far- sighted Russian diplomatist. The passage is long, but it is well worth quoting :-
" The question was to him clear as daylight, and always had been so,' even when grave statesmen stubbornly denied its existence, or felt confident that it was something in the clouds,—something that could be indefinitely, eternally postponed. Here is a city, he said, enthroned between two seas, on two continents, intended by nature and appointed by man to be the seat of empire, of a vast, world-wide empire, as it was thought at the time of its foundation, when man's instincts tended to the establishment of universal monarchy. The Turks took it in the high tide of their career, when they compassed the earth with their ambition, and it is now supposed to be coveted by that Russian Power which has overrun so large a part of Europe and Asia. That the Turks cannot long hold Constantinople, that they have no firm footing in Europe, are facts of which all men, and themselves first and foremost, are thoroughly convinced. The Turks came as an army, not as a nation ; they conquered, ground, and crushed the subject races, but never governed them. Their sway was based on martial force, and it breaks down now wherever they find themselves in a minority. Their energies have been exhausted by sloth and gross self-indulgence. Any attempt at reform of their administration, even in military matters, is, in the opinion of all sound-minded men, utterly hopeless. They could stand no shock from abroad, least of all such an onset as Russia might at any moment make upon them. Russia, however. M. Ignatieff asserted from the outset and consistently maintained, meditated no such attack. From beginning to end he showed the utmost anxiety to demolish the argument which is, and has always been, raised against Russia with respect to her traditional ambition.' It is not true, he said, that the Czars at any time looked forward to the conquest and annexation of the European provinces of Turkey, or of her capital."
In Ignatieff's view, Peter the Great's "will" is a myth. Catherine II. did indulge in "a vague, baseless fancy" of establishing a Greek State, with Constantinople for its capital and a Russian Grand Duke for its sovereign. But that was the only occasion on which it ever entered into the plans of Russian policy to establish a new empire on the ruins of the Ottoman Power. The illusions of Catherine's reign have long since passed away, according to Ignatieff " Turkey may have been to Russia what Cuba was to the United States of America. So long as the American Union was a slave-hold- ing community, Cuba, as the only slave-market, would have been to the working Cabinet a priceless acquisition. But since the triumph of the cause of Abolitionism, at the end of the Civil War, that island, with its half-million of slaves, would be a burden and a cause of strife to the Americans, who now would never take it, even if it were offered to them as a gift by Spain herself, and with the world's consent. Upon the same ground, the Russians reason, the Government of St. Petersburg, whatever may have been its former views, whatever aspira- tions it may have cherished before the instinct of nationality and love of self-government spread even among the less advanced races, would now, for its own sake, shrink from the responsibility of subjugating to its sway twenty millions of subjects of various races, creed, and lan- guage, discordant on every subject except on the one of the antipathy which all of them—Rournans, Greeks, Slays—cherish and openly evince towards Russia."
Moldavians, Wallachs, Serbs, Montenegrins, Russia, according to Ignatieff—who has here history on his aide—" most powerfully helped to withdraw from the unbearable Muasulman yoke." But their gratitude would be turned into hate, were Russia to change liberation from the Turk into absorption by Russia. And this is what Russia would be obliged to do, if she were to take possession of Constantinople. That imperial city in the hands of Russia, would of necessity become her capital ; and " can it be supposed that the Muscovite, who is now awakening to a proud sense of his nationality, would abandon his bracing climate, the hardy yet fertile soil of Holy Russia, wherein lies the compact strength of his colossal State, to expose himself to the enervating influence of southern regions ?" The Emperor Nicholas, by the way, be- lieved that the temptation here sketched out would be too strong for the Muscovite, and therefore, be proposed to save him from the temptation by making Constantinople a free city. Either reason is of course a serious one, why Russia should be dis- inclined to possess herself of Constantinople. But what, then, does Russia want, on the break-up of the Ottoman Empire, if she wants neither Constantinople nor any part of European Turkey ? She wants two things, according to Ignatieff
:- "She endeavours to keep the Ottoman Empire together as long as it will hold, and she lays the basis of the new edifice which may at some future time rise on its ruins. In pursuit of the first object, she suggests to the Porte such broad measures of reform as may establish a modus vivendi suitable to the various races and creeds subject to its sway. With a view to future contingencies, she sanctions, if she does not encourage, the development of self-government in those provinces which, like Roumania and Servia, are no longer amenable to Ottoman rule, and whose aspirations to independence can no longer be curbed. Were the period for the dissolution of the Turkish Empire and for the expulsion of the Mussnlmans from Europe to arrive, Russia's scheme would be to establish a confederacy of States in the Balkan Peninsula, possibly also including the Asiatic provinces on the Straits and the Propontis, which might have its centre on the Bosphorus, when Stam- boul, Galata, and Scutari would be raised to the rank of a free city, or perhaps of three free cities, the whole community being erected with the sanction and placed under the joint protection of all the European Powers."
Such is Ignatieff's exposition of Russian policy in regard to Turkey, and it is very important just at present. We believe it to be a sin- cere exposition,—just because it is based on common-sense, and on an enlightened perception of the interests of Russia. There never was a wilder delusion than the notion that Russia has any designs on India. Russia, though she does not shriek about her "interests," understands them far too well to embark on perilous and unprofit- able enterprises. And for our part, we earnestly trust that Ignatieff and his Government have really come to the conclusion that " the period of the dissolution of the Turkish Empire has arrived," and that, instead of a patched-up peace, they will propose some such scheme as the above. England, we believe, and all Europe might support it. It may not be the best possible scheme, but let Turkish rule be once abolished, and the subject-races be left to govern themselves, under the protection of Europe, and we have no fear for the consequences. We have occupied so much space already, that we have only time to add that Mr. Gallenga's book is by no means confined to the Eastern Question. It deals with a great variety of other matters, in a style which is both instructive and picturesque.
Previous page
