TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE RUSSIAN "VOLTE-FACE."
TS Turkey to reap the whirlwind at once ? It looks very like
it. Up to the date of the decree repudiating half the Debt, the three Military Powers who hold the fate of Turkey in their hands were evidently in favour of a policy of ab- stention. Turkey and her insurgent Rayahs were to settle matters as they best could. The Prince of Montenegro, who is a Russian pensioner, was ordered not to interfere, and although he could not completely control his mountaineers, he obeyed the order. The Servians, who dread Buda-Pesth, were in- formed that if they declared war, they must not rely on any guarantees of autonomy, and might find their State occupied by an army neither Servian nor Turkish. The Roumanians, who are ruled by a Hohenzollern, were told that they must not encourage any outburst of military patriotism in Servia. Influence of a strong kind was applied at Athens to awaken Greek jealousy of the Slav, the Khedive was kept quiet, and so much was said at Constantinople, that officials there considered the revolt chiefly important in the burden thereby laid on the Exchequer. So marked and so genuine was the desire for abstention, that M. Thiers, who is well informed on all that passes abroad, made use of this policy as an argument against the latent French fear of a second invasion. No sooner, however, had the Divan decided to destroy the credit of the Empire by withholding half the interest on the Debt without previous consultation with the Bondholders, and thus paralysed their own means of putting a large army in the field, than the Russian Government executed a violent volte-face. It calculated, apparently, that French interest in Turkey would be wholly destroyed by French losses, and English interest confined to the independence of Egypt, and in the Moscow Gazette of the 29th October announced that it had returned to its traditional policy. Her recent alliance with two great Powers in the interests of peace did not involve "a sacrifice of the sympathetic interest with which Russia had always regarded the Christian population of Turkey," and she "could no longer remain an indifferent and inactive spectator of the events of which the Herzegovina was the centre," and her Cabinet has therefore raised a "voice in favour of the unhappy populations crushed by excessive taxation ;" and being joined by other Governments, Germany, Austria, France, England, and Italy, she has brought about the new decree in which the Sultan concedes an important remission of taxes, promises equal rights to Mussulman and Christian, and orders a better Administrative organisation. This decree (irade') is not, however, sufficient :— "it is hardly necessary to say that no one doubts the sincerity of the desire of his Majesty the Sultan to ameliorate the desperate condition in which his Christian subjects are found at the present moment. The Governments of all the Great Powers have received with sympathy the new irade; which they consider an incontestable proof of the care with which the Sultan looks after the interests of his Christian subjects. But the examples of a not very distant past, indicating clearly as they do that similar proclamations of the will of the Sultan in favour of the Christians have remained a dead-letter, and that the comparatively -restricted rights which the Christians of some distriots of Turkey enjoy have been forcibly withdrawn from them by the exigencies of European diplomacy, has prevented the public opinion of Europe from according to the new irade all the confidence which it merited, as being the ex- pression of the interest which his Majesty feels in the disastrous situa- tion of his Christian subjects. As to the confidence of the latter with regard to similar acts of the Government, it is so shattered that it will be extremely difficult for the Porte to re-establish it immediately with- out the assistance of the European Cabinets. It is beyond a doubt that these Cabinets will not refuse their co-operation to the Porte, and that in its turn the latter will not fail to give to the Cabinets palpable proofs of its firm resolution to fulfil the solemn engagements into which it has entered with regard to the Christians, thereby putting an end to the abnormal state of things which inspires so much uneasiness in Europe. In any case, we may well believe that the disastrous state of things which has until now existed in Turkey, to the detriment of the interest of the Porte itself, of its subjects, and of Europe, is near its end."
It is impossible, if diplomatic forms are to be employed at all, to speak in plainer language. In the judgment of the Russian Government, the Powers and the Christian subjects of Turkey must have better security than a promise from the Sultan, and this better security must be the guarantee of the European Cabinets, which obviously cannot be given while a province remains strictly Turkish. They cannot plant inspectors in every village to see that a Cadi accepts Christian evidence against a Mussulman oath, or even order their Consuls to pro- vide that a Mussulman Governor-General shall not select servile Christians for seats in the Provincial Council. They must guarantee something definite, and it can be nothing but the autonomy of the ravaged provinces, under a Christian tributary of the Porte.
It is reported from Vienna that the Austrian Emperor is alarmed and indignant at the change in Russian attitude, and undoubtedly his position as King of Hungary must make him feel that attitude extremely embarrassing to himself. It will never do for him to quarrel with the Magyars, who still govern, and under the designation of " Honveds " garrison Hungary, and who are at heart most hostile to the indeppndence of the Slav population of European Turkey. On the other hand, it will still less do for him, with a Slav majority in Bohemia., in Gallicia, and in Hungary itself, to allow the Czar to appear the sole friend left in Europe on whom Slays in insurrection can rely. The next Slays who rise may live in Bohemia or Hungary. He must, if peace is to be maintained, seem at least to agree with St. Petersburg ; and consequently his official journal accepts the Russian views in principle, but studiously endeavours- to whittle away their importance, and above all, to deny that they are new. Accordingly, four regiments are despatched to Dalmatia, ready to take advantage of any eventuality, and for the present the two Eastern Courts are in the face of the world marching together. They alike intend to require,—Austria, re- luctantly and "peacefully," Russia with ardour and menaces,— that the Turkish Government should change two more of its. provinces into a dependent State. That is, as we have always. argued, a reasonable and even a necessary demand. Nothing short of this will satisfy the Rayahs' or prevent the constant recurrence of insurrections each of which imperils the peace of Europe ; and nothing short of this will help to secure one of the greatest of European objects,—the peaceful substitution of Christian States in European Turkey for the existing dominion of the Sultans. If this could be shown to be the true object and the limited object of the new movement, we could be well content to see it succeed, and that even if Lord Derby,- in obedience to traditional and, as we think, incorrect ideas, were to formulate his protest against it. The Turks not only will not keep, but cannot keep any promise which implies the substantial equality of Mussulmans and Christians, for if they did, the Khalif's authority would cease, and the only bond of the Empire, especially in Asia, go at once to pieces; and there. are therefore no alternatives for the Christians but independence, or domestic autonomy, or submission under circumstance& which would make of submission an unendurable slavery. Of the three, autonomy is the most moderate and reasonable.
But in considering Russian action, it is always necessary to discuss the question whether the apparent object of her diplo- macy is also the real one. Is the Russian Foreign Office un- doing all that General Ignatieff has done in the last five years, overthrowing the influence which he has built up with such patience and skill, and as his enemies say, unscrupulousness, in order to constitute Bosnia a separate State under an unitedt guarantee? If she is, English Liberals may fairly argue that no case for resistance has arisen ; and it is just possible that she is, for she did do this very thing, under almost exactly similar circumstances, in the case of Servia. There also she allowed. the Servians to be beaten down, and apparently subjugated, before she stepped in, with Austria and Prussia, to secure their local freedom. It is possible that, as these States are Slav, she believes it will not be difficult, when the time is ripe, to gather them all under her flag, and entirely approves any- increase in their number, and especially an increase in ex- tremely small, and therefore weak and jealous aggregations.. It is possible, we say, that this is her policy ; and if it is, we wish it every success, for Russia will, in that case, use her greal. strength to liberate European Turkey, only to find herself faced by a federation much stronger than the Sultan, much more important to Europe, and much more likely to find effective allies. But it is a little difficult to believe that Russia can be so mistaken, that she can seriously intend to sacrifice her ascendancy at Constantinople for so limited an end, or that she would have selected such a moment without much broader purposes in view. It must be remembered that as her diplo- matists may read the situation, she is unusually free to act.. Germany would like nothing better than to see her deeply en- gaged in a war with Turkey, or, and still better, in a war with Turkey and an Austrian ally. Prance is not going to war just now with anybody who might be an ally, and England, even if exasperated to the point of action, would be most unwilling to prop up a bankrupt State, with nobody to help her, except an ally like Austria, who would want a guaran- teed loan before her armies could be fairly put in motion.. Besides it is not certain that England would be so exasperated.. Lord Derby is not Lord Palmerston, to put fleets in motion, And talk about justification afterwards. A very strong party in this country would refuse to defend Turkey on any conditions whatever, and prefer to fight, if fight they must, for a reason- able settlement after Turkey had ceased to exist as an effec- tive Power. The Russian Government therefore may think that with the whole Continent bidding for their alliance, with the Turkish Governwent so discredited that it can obtain no
-, money, with France paralysed by circumstances, and England by uncertainty as to her duty and her policy, the hour for a final blow at her secular enemy may have at last arrived. It should not be forgotten that this enterprise is always popular in Russia, that the Czars on certain traditional points are most sensitive to Russian opinion, and that they desire, before all things, finally to wipe out the recollection of the Crimean War. If this should be the policy of Russia, all Europe will be concerned, and it might be necessary for Great Britain to take resolves and form alliances which would be of the highest moment to her future, and it is the dread of discovering such designs which will and must make England uncertain in her judgment on the new proposals. She has no reason to resist the grant of autonomy to Bosnia and the Herzegovina, whoever may be selected as Hospodar. But she has every reason, if more than this is intended, to keep herself free to resist or approve the plans to be ultimately disclosed. A policy of doing nothing, with firm civility, is her rine for the moment, and for the management of such a policy, if he adopts it, the bitterest Radicals may have the heartiest confidence in the Secretary for Foreign Affairs.
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