The Turco-Russian war is partly a conflict of religions and partly one
of politics. The Turks came into Europe as the religious emissaries
of the Mohammedan religion. In all the provinces of Turkey in Europe
which they conquered, the Christians of the Greek, Armenian and
Catholic churches were the victims of a bitter persecution. The Czar
of Russia is the head of the Greek church. He has made repeated wars
in defense of the children of his faith. There have been many wars and
long sieges which, like the present, were said to be only in defense
of the faith of the Greek church--a crusade and a holy war,
But if "Neb" will only look at the map of Russia, he will see, if he
will study climate a little, that the vast empire of Russia has one
thing lacking. It has no good outlet to the Atlantic Ocean, no power
upon the seas. The Baltic Sea is closed half the year by ice. The
great wheat trade of Russia concentrates at Odessa, on the Black Sea,
and to get her grain to market she must pass through the Turkish lanes
of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles. Russia is a prisoner as to
access to the Mediterranean, and so to the Atlantic, and so to the
world at large. If she is at war, she cannot float her fleets. If
she is at peace, she cannot sell her grain without going roundabout
through her neighbors' lots. Turkey stands the tollman at the
turnpike-gate, controlling and usurping the highway of all nations.
Maps are fascinating reading. "Neb" must not think that religious
faith ever occasioned a war. Russia sincerely desires the protection
of Greek Christians in Roumania and Bulgaria in Europe, and Armenia in
Asia, but she wants also to send her ships free to the winds through
from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. Look at the map once more,
"Neb," and see how much of a great country, fertile, strong, and
industrious, is closed and shut against the outer world by the
absolute Turkish control of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles.
* * * * *
Indianapolis, 1877.
DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: I have taken every number of your splendid
magazine, and I will now try to do my share to entertain the
others.
My papa was a soldier in the great civil war, and I was born in
camp just after the close of the war, and am now nearly twelve
years old.
General Sherman, who made the great "march to the sea," wrote me a
letter, which is very much too good for one boy alone, so I send
it to you to publish, so that other children may have the benefit
of it too.--Your reader,