THE BULGARIAN MASSACRE.
We must pass over in silence a period of four hundred years in the
history of the Ottoman Empire to open its blood-stained pages in our
own era at the narrative of the Bulgarian massacres. The centuries
and the peoples have been under the rule of the barbarian; the story
is one of continued persecution, outrage, and massacre. The Turk
never changes. What he has always done he always will do. And as
long as any Christian lands or people remain under his power and at
his mercy, so long will there be discontents, disturbances, revolts
and massacres. The only way to end these is to end the rule of the
Turk. Reform--not to say regeneration, is an impossibility. He is an
alien in race and religion. His spirit is fierce and fanatical: his
rule that of the dark ages, the rule of a tyrant without conscience
or remorse.
In the early part of this century the oppression of the Turk became
unbearable, and throughout the empire the Greek Christians rose
in rebellion.
Europe was at last horrified by the massacre on the island of Chios,
April 11, 1822, when the entire population of forty thousand Greeks was
put to the sword. Bravely did the Greeks fight for their freedom. The
Sultan called to his aid the Khedive of Egypt, and for three years
did they ravage Crete and the Peloponnesus, committing every crime
and fiendish outrage that even a Turk could think of from 1824 to
1827. At last Byron roused the spirit of England. The patience of
Europe was worn out. England, France and Russia united to crush the
power of the barbarian and to set free his victims, as the wild beast
would not let go his prey till it was dragged out of his teeth.
In November, 1827, was fought the great battle of Navarino. The
Turkish and Egyptian fleet was destroyed. Greece was saved.
The Russian protectorate over the Eastern Christians was confirmed and
renewed: and also her right to free navigation in the Black Sea and the
straits. Scarcely had this "fit of generous enthusiasm on behalf of the
struggling Greeks" passed, than England under another minister began
to regret the part she had taken. The glorious victory of Navarino
was spoken of as an "untoward event." Austria and France shared in her
misgivings. She suddenly began to talk about the necessity of muzzling
the Russian Bear, and upholding Turkey in behalf of British interests.
Ostensibly through fear of Russian aggression, but really from the
preponderance of commercial interests, England has now for more
than sixty years been the upholder and defender of the Turkish
government. The sarcasm of Freeman, the historian, is cutting and
pitiless as he reviews the policy of England up to the hour of the
terrible outrages perpetrated against the Bulgarians, and her crime
against humanity that followed the fall of Plevna.
Through fear of Russia, England induced the powers to sign a convention
in 1841 by which it was agreed that no foreign fleets should enter
the straits in time of peace.
The result of this convention was to shut up the fleet of Russia in
the Black Sea, making of it to her, merely an inland lake.
By a successful stroke of policy Louis Napoleon III., President of the
Republic of France, had himself elected Emperor in November, 1852. To
signalize his accession he sought to pose as an ally of England. It was
his policy to pick quarrels with the great military powers of Europe
and then get some other nation to help him out. He began with Russia
over the holy shrines in Jerusalem by seeking to have the privileges
of the Latin Church enlarged. The Greek Church appealed to the Czar of
Russia, the head of the Church, and then it was carried to the Porte.
In the spring of 1853, Prince Menchikoff was sent to
Constantinople. Firstly, to negotiate on the question of the shrines,
which question was settled with Russia's acquiescence. Secondly, to
extract from Porte a note confirming the treaties that had conferred
on Russia the Protectorate of the Christians of the Ottoman Empire.
The second demand was made necessary by the renewed exactions under
which some of these populations were then suffering: as it "happened,"
says an English writer, that Omar Pacha, at the head of a Turkish
force, was operating against the Christians of Montenegro. And
something of the sort was always happening somewhere. For the
Turkish policy towards the Christian has always been the same from
the beginning of its power and will continue the same to the end.
When the English Ambassador, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, returned
to Constantinople, in April, 1853, after an absence of eight months,
he was directed "to warn the Porte that the accumulated grievances of
foreign nations which the Porte is unable or unwilling to redress,
the mal-administration of its own affairs * * * may lead to a general
revolt among the Christian subjects of the Porte * * that perseverance
in his (the Sultan's) present conduct must end in alienating the
sympathies of the British nation and make it impossible for Her
Majesty's government to overlook the exigencies of Christendom
exposed to the natural consequence of his unwise policy and reckless
mal-administration."
The demand of Russia was refused and Prince Menchikoff left
Constantinople May 21st, 1853.
A few days later the Sultan issues a firman in which he promises
again that he will maintain all the rights and privileges of the
Greek Christians, and appeals to his allies.
He was merely throwing dust in the air for the wind to blow away,
though he thought he could fool Europe with his waste breath.
On the 13th of June the allied English and French fleets anchored in
Besika Bay, the nearest point they could reach without the violation
of the treaties.
The Czar Nicholas at once ordered his army to cross the Pruth and enter
Moldavia, July 2d. Yet this occupation of Moldavia and Wallachia could
not be considered an invasion of the Ottoman territory, nor a "Casus
belli, per se," for these provinces were autonomous and under Russian
protection since the treaty of Bucharest, while according to the same
treaty the Turks had no right to send troops into their territory.
The unanimous judgment of Europe was expressed in what is known as
the "Vienna Note" and in urging its acceptance upon the Porte they
practically acknowledged the justice of the Czar's demand and signed
their own condemnation in the war that ensued.
VIENNA NOTE.
"The government of His Majesty, the Sultan, will remain faithful
to the letter and to the spirit of the treaties of Kainardji and
Adrianople regarding the protection of the Christian Church."
Now the English Ambassador had received instructions to bring his
whole influence to bear upon the Turks, "and to impress them with the
strong and earnest manner in which the Vienna Note was recommended
to the acceptance of the Porte, not only by Her Majesty's government,
but also by the Cabinets of Austria, France and Prussia."
Before the presentation of the "Vienna Note" Lord Stratford had
informed the Porte with much circumstance and in his most impressive
manner that the British fleet in Besika Bay was at his disposal; while
therefore he read his instructions with most perfunctory obedience to
the Ottoman Cabinet, his whole demeanor was urging them to disregard
the note.
The duplicity of the French Emperor was more culpable as before
the rejection of the Vienna Note and while the powers were still
deliberating in concert he craftily succeeded in drawing England into
a special alliance with France: and on receipt of some hysterical
despatch from his Ambassador he insisted with the English cabinet that
it was "indispensably necessary" that their combined fleets should,
in violation of the convention of 1841 enter the straits before there
had been a declaration of war on any side. That very day without
asking any information from the English Ambassador Lord Clarendon
telegraphed to Lord Stratford: "Your Excellency is instructed to send
for the British fleet to Constantinople."
The Sultan now amended the "Vienna Note" by inserting the words,
"by the Sublime Porte," which completely destroyed the power of the
existing treaty, making it read: "The government of His Majesty the
Sultan, will remain faithful to the stipulations of the treaty of
Kainardji, confirmed by that of Adrianople regarding the protection,
'by the Sublime Porte' of the Christian religion."
In other words, the wolf solemnly engaged to protect the lambs
for himself, and all the world knows what that means: and we know
it now in 1896 by forty years more of broken promises and horrible
atrocities. What insane folly to believe the Turk. The Czar did not,
and rejected the amended note.
Seven days after his rejection of the Sultan's proposal in obedience
to the telegram from Lord Clarendon two English and two French ships
entered the Dardanelles on September 14th, and on the strength of
their presence and implied support, the Sultan declared war against
Russia on the fifth of October, 1853. Thus did Louis Napoleon
III. precipitate England into what Count Nesselrode declared to be
the most unjustifiable and the most unintelligible of wars.
Czar Nicholas replied to this, by a counter declaration of war
on November 1st, 1853, solemnly declaring to the Powers of Europe
"that the sole aim of his endeavors was to assure the rights of his
co-religionists, and to protect them from every form of oppression."
The work of two centuries was undone for Russia. She lost the Black
Sea and the protectorate of the Christians of the Ottoman empire
that she had wrung from the Porte by a succession of victorious
campaigns. Instead of the powerful champion which they lost the poor
Christians of the empire were granted another firman in which the
Sultan repeated all his lying promises of former years. Not only so
but the powers bound themselves not to interfere with the internal
administration of affairs in the Turkish Empire.
The Christian nations in solemn treaty pledged themselves to let the
Turk do what he would with the people under his yoke and promised
that they would do nothing to help them. They disclaimed any right
to interfere with the relations existing between the Sultan and his
subjects: the relations between the robber and his victim, the master
and the slave, the tyrant and the oppressed.
Future generations will stand aghast at the hideous spectacle of
three civilized nations fighting side by side with and for barbarian
Moslems to crush the noble champion of their fellow Christians and
fellow slaves compelled by their victories to languish beneath the
yoke of these savage aliens.
All reverence to the heroes of the Light Brigade
"Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well;
Into the jaws of Death
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred."
All reverence to millions of others, who at the voice of command
if not of duty, gave themselves up for an unholy cause and perished
by thousands of hunger and cold and disease on the bleak shores of
the Crimea.
Froude says "that the whole power of England and France supported
passively by Austria, and actively by Sardinia and Turkey, succeeded
with communications, secure and rapid with every advantage for
procuring supplies, in partially conquering a single stronghold. It
was a great victory but it was achieved at a cost to England alone of
eighty millions (sterling) of money and perhaps fifty thousand lives."
While Alexander writes (Manifesto 1856), "For eleven months Sebastopol
was held against the allied aggressors: and in the whole empire from
the shores of the Pacific to the Baltic, one thought, one resolution
was dominant to fulfil duty, to protect the Fatherland at any cost
of property and life. Husbandmen who had never left the fields they
cultivated hastened to take up arms for the holy struggle and were
not inferior to experienced warriors in bravery and renunciation."
And this war was fought by France and England, not in the cause of
freedom; not to redress the wrongs of the oppressed; not to help
forward the wheels of progress. No, but to pave the way for the
bloody atrocities which in 1876 called forth one long cry of horror
and indignation throughout Christendom, while these in turn were to
pale before the horrors of 1895-6 to which commercial England has
turned a deaf ear, leaving Armenia helpless in the jaws of the wolf.
The Crimean War as fostered by England and France with the avowed
purpose of upholding the power of the Turk really brought into action
two new elements of weakness. First: up to 1856 Turkey had been free
from foreign creditors, but the opening of the Dardanelles brought
commerce and a foreign loan, and on the steps of indebtedness followed
extravagance, speculation and national bankruptcy. The most wanton
and unbridled extravagance reigned at the palace. The corruptions
produced by the foreign loans found their way into every artery of
the state and poisoned the very existence of the country. New loans
could only be obtained by promises which it was impossible to fulfil
and which were made without any intention of carrying them out.
The navy was improved, the soldiers were better armed; a large part
of the money was squandered on absurd building projects; while vast
sums were spent on precious stones and personal pleasures.
These loans were liberally subscribed in England, and Englishmen
helped the Sultan to spend it lavishly. The origin of the troubles
of 1876-7 in Bosnia and Herzegovina was said to be the heavy burden
of the increased taxes imposed to pay the expenses of a visit to the
Paris Exposition, and the European capitals in 1867 made by the Sultan
accompanied by his son, two nephews and an expensive suite.
But a second and more dangerous evil was this:--The self-exclusion
of any right of interference on the part of the Powers threw the
control of affairs into the hands of a ring in whose power the Sultan
has been but little more than a puppet as the events of recent years
have clearly shown.
In 1875 the situation was thus reviewed by Gladstone, sincerely
penitent for the part he had taken in the Crimean War. "Twenty
years ago," he said, "France and England determined to try a great
experiment in remodeling the administrative system of Turkey with
the hope of curing its intolerable deficiencies. For this purpose
having defended her integrity they made also her independence secure,
and they devised at Constantinople the reforms which were publicly
enacted in an imperial Firman or Hati Humayoun."
"The successes of the Crimean War purchased * * * by a vast expenditure
of French and English life and treasure gave to Turkey, for the first
time, perhaps, in her blood-stained history, twenty years of repose
not disturbed either by herself or by any foreign power. The Cretan
insurrection imparted a shock to confidence but it was composed
and Turkey was again trusted. The insurrections of 1875, much more
thoroughly examined, have disclosed the total failure of the Porte to
fulfil the engagements which she had contracted under circumstances
peculiarly binding on interest, on honor and on gratitude."
So totally, indeed, had the Turks failed to keep any of their promises
of reform and so hopeless did the condition of these hapless Christians
appear, that they at first refused the mediation of the Powers,
declaring that they preferred death to Turkish rule.
"If you are not willing to help us to attain our liberty," they said,
"at least you can not compel us to enter into slavery again. We will
never fall into the hands of the Turks alive."
About this time Turkey partially repudiated her national debt, pledging
for the payment of the interest for some five years the tribute from
Egypt and the tobacco revenue. Bondholders became aroused. Commercial
interests, not interests of humanity, prompted some action; for if the
Christians, who are the cultivators of the soil, were exterminated,
what would become of their per cents.?
The Powers intervened by the Protocol, known as the Andrassy Note,
which proposed among others the following measures:--
1. Religious liberty, full and entire.
2. Abolition of the farming of taxes.
3. A law to guarantee that the direct taxation of Bosnia and the
Herzegovina should be employed for the immediate interests of the
provinces.
4. A special commission composed of an equal number of Mussulmans
and Christians to superintend the execution of the reforms proclaimed
and proposed.
5. The amelioration of the rural population.
The representatives of the six powers under instructions from their
governments supported these measures of reform before the Porte,
all of them heartily, except the English minister, Sir Henry Elliott,
who acting evidently under secret instructions, expressed his belief
that they would amount to nothing; and his fear that they trenched
upon the right of the Ottoman Porte to manage its own affairs without
foreign interference. The Grand Vizier did not reject them, but replied
that he was preparing a constitution which would, he believed, embody
these and other measures of reform.
The Powers believed or affected to believe these brilliant
promises. England even tendered to the Sultan the cordial expression
of her hopes that "he would soon succeed in quelling the revolts of
his subjects and restoring order." And this meant, as England ought
to have known and as all the world knows now, that the Turks might put
it down in the only way the Turk ever does put down a rebellion--with
fiercest cruelty. It meant liberty from British interference while
they proceeded to slay, kill, torture, burn, outrage, violate men,
women and children with fiendish lust and delight.
These promises of reform were made February 10, 1876, and the Turks'
answer to the cordial expression of the hope of England that they
would soon succeed in quelling the revolts of his subjects, was the
awful Bulgarian horrors executed by the orders of the Porte during
the first two weeks in May.
The whole civilized world shuddered. Just as the gates of the
Centennial were being thrown open to welcome the nations to the
celebration of the glorious victories of peace and the triumphs of art,
the unspeakable Turk let loose upon the defenceless Bulgarians the
Bashi-Bazouks. These were irregular troops, the scum and offscouring
of the Oriental cities, gathered from the prisons, jails and slums:
the vilest wretches to be found on the face of the earth without
military knowledge, ability, courage or discipline--men fit only for
the work of murder, lust, rapine and cruelty on which they were sent
by the Sublime Porte, the Infernal Tyrant.
On the 14th of May, 1876, the representatives of Russia, Austria,
Hungary, and Germany met at Berlin without any knowledge of the
massacres, and desirous of sustaining the good intentions of the Grand
Vizier, agreed upon the paper known as the "Berlin Memorandum" which
provided for a guaranty by the great Powers of the several reforms
which had been proclaimed, but were not yet put in force. Five of
the Powers signed it, but Great Britain refused, on the ground that
it must obviously and inevitably lead to the military occupation of
Turkey. Miserable subterfuge--didn't she "occupy Egypt" a little later
to secure the payment of the interest on her bonds: but she had no
"interest" in breaking the bonds and chains of Christian populations
of Turkey. She knew very well that the Sublime Porte would never
execute a reform except under compulsion.
The action of the British Ministry greatly encouraged the Turks,
and gave them very naturally the impression that England sympathized
with them, and would help them to subjugate the Christian races.
The British Ministry at first professed ignorance of the massacres:
then thought the Bulgarians as much to blame as the Turk--the lamb as
the wolf that devoured him--the helpless, disarmed Armenians as the
Turkish soldiers that swept down upon them from the mountains--and
at last compelled to acknowledge the enormity of the conduct of the
Turks, said they had been greatly provoked by the Russian emissaries
who were stirring up revolution among the Christians.
Instantly Great Britain sent her Mediterranean fleet again to Besika
Bay, where it arrived May 21st, only seven days from the first meeting
of the Powers. The Minister said it was to protect English subjects,
the Turks said it was to protect them. From what, pray? It was never
clearly explained why; but it looked then and it looks now as if
England were ready to champion the Turk as she had done in the Crimean
War. It must have made every Englishman with a conscience or heart
in him, blush for shame that the Turks themselves and all the rest
of the world took it for granted that the presence of this fleet in
Turkish waters was a friendly demonstration on the part of the English
towards the Sultan: that in fact they were going to stand by and keep
off the great Powers while the Turks continued to "restore order."
The English people however were roused to such indignation by these
massacres and by the course of the government, that under the lead
of Mr. Gladstone they very soon made their Ministers understand that
they were not at liberty to sustain Turkey in such acts of oppression
or to alienate the friendship of Russia.
Great men like John Bright, always the friend of Russia, Gladstone,
Freeman and others publicly denounced England as the accomplice of
the Turks in their deeds of horror by the moral and material support
she had so freely given them in recent years.
We need not trace the details of these horrors here but quote the
eloquent and stirring language of the greatest statesman of the age:--
"There has been perpetrated," said Gladstone, "under the authority of
a Government to which all the time we have been giving the strongest
moral support and for part of the time material support, crimes and
outrages so vast in scale as to exceed all modern examples and so
unutterably vile as well as fierce in character that it passes the
power of heart to conceive and of tongue and pen adequately to describe
them. These are the Bulgarian horrors. There is not a criminal in a
European jail; there is not a cannibal in the South Sea Islands whose
indignation would not arise and overboil at the recital of that which
has been done, which has been too late examined but which remains
unavenged--which has left behind the fierce passions that produced
it and which may spring up in another murderous harvest from the soil
reeked with blood and in the air tainted with every imaginable deed of
crime and shame. That such things should be done is a damning disgrace
to the portion of our race that did them; that a door should be left
open for their ever so barely possible repetition would spread that
shame over the whole."
Grand and noble words and yet the hand of the English Government not
only left that door open but fastened it open and kept it open till
again in Armenia the Bulgarian horrors were reproduced on a vaster
and more terrible scale if the Turk ever can be worse than the history
of centuries has so often declared and revealed him.
The Turkish government made some feeble attempts to disavow the
Bulgarian atrocities. But the Turk is an unmitigated liar. Freeman,
the historian does not hesitate to say that the Ring at Constantinople
worked with a deliberate policy to oppress and if possible to
destroy the whole Bulgarian people. The first means they took was
to plant large colonies of savage Circassians in Bulgaria who were
allowed to commit any kind of outrage on their defenceless Christian
neighbors without redress. They could drive the Christians from their
homes, rob their houses, destroy their crops, ravish their women,
and if any dared to resist their violence they were killed without
hesitation. If any dared to complain against the Circassians they
were summarily punished. But worse than this was the quartering of
Turkish troops upon the peasants and the landholders whose dastardly
outrages upon the wives and daughters of the Bulgarians were fiendish
and constant. Neither woman's honor nor human life was safe where
they were.
When flesh and blood could bear no more there was some slight
uprising of an unarmed people and then the fury of Circassian and of
Bashi-Bazouk was let loose upon them.
Freeman says again, "there can be no doubt that the massacre was
deliberately ordered by the Ring at Constantinople, the Highnesses
and the Excellencies of polite diplomacy. This is proved by the fact
that they honored and decorated the chief doers of the massacre,
while they neglected and sometimes punished those Turkish officers who
acted at all in a humane way. To this day (April, 1877) in defiance
of all remonstrances from the European powers, the chief doers of
the massacres remain unpunished, while we still hear of Bulgarians
being punished for their share in the attempt to free their country."
For a true statement of some of the facts in the case, for the full
truth can never be told, the world is indebted to the Government of the
United States, which sent a special commission of inquiry to Bulgaria,
and History will owe them a debt of gratitude for having furnished
reliable documents on this matter in which every European State was
more or less exposed to an imputation of bias. As Mr. Gladstone
observed: "America had neither alliances with Turkey nor grudges
against her nor purposes to gain by her destruction. She entered
into this matter simply on the ground of its broad human character
and moment. She had no 'American interests' to tempt her from her
integrity and to vitiate her aims."
Mr. Eugene Schuyler, American Secretary of Legation at Constantinople,
who visited the ruined villages in July and August, 1876, made his
report to the United States Minister Plenipotentiary November 20th. In
that report he says that "in the districts he visited at least nine
thousand houses were burned, seventy-two thousand persons were left
without roof or shelter and ten thousand nine hundred and eighty-four
persons were numbered as killed. Many more were killed in the roads,
in the fields, in the mountains; so that he numbers the slain at about
fifteen thousand,--but adds many more died subsequently from disease,
exposure and in prison." He says that he could only find proof of the
death of one hundred and fifteen Mussulmans. "Neither Turkish women
nor Turkish children were killed in cold blood. No Mussulman women
were violated. No Mussulman was tortured. No purely Turkish village
(with one exception) was attacked or burned. No Mussulman house was
pillaged. No mosque was desecrated."
The storm of indignation which followed the publication of the
reports of Mr. Schuyler and Mr. Baring the British commissioner, was
so terrible that even a Disraeli cabinet did not dare to enter into
another monstrous alliance with the Turks against the only champion of
the Christians. But official neutrality did not prevent the Turks from
recruiting many officers in England; in spite of it British guineas
and firearms strengthened their powers of resistance against Russia.
It is a terrible indictment that may be brought against England that
the question of righteousness never seems to enter into the questions
of her foreign "policy," but only the question of interest and that
chiefly the interest which is reckoned in pounds, shillings and pence.
From a letter dated September 4th, 1876, published in one of the
English Blue Books, addressed to the Earl of Derby by Sir Henry Elliot,
English Ambassador at Constantinople,--the Sir Henry who would not
support the Andrassy Note because he feared that the provisions of
it trenched upon the rights of the Ottoman Porte to manage its own
affairs,--the following quotation is taken, viz:--
"An insurrection or civil war is everywhere accompanied by cruelties
and abominable excesses, this being tenfold the case in oriental
countries where people are divided into antagonistic creeds and
races. * * * To the accusation of being a blind partisan of the Turks,
I will only answer that my conduct here has never been guided by any
sentimental affection for them, but by a firm determination to uphold
the interests of Great Britain to the utmost of my power, and that
those interests are deeply engaged in preventing the disruption of
the Turkish Empire, is a conviction which I share in common with the
most eminent statesmen who have directed our foreign policy. (This
is the key to every position assumed by British diplomacy at the
Porte. Never a question of righteousness.)
"We may, and must feel indignant at the needless and monstrous
severity with which the Bulgarian insurrection was put down, but the
necessity which exists for England to prevent changes from occurring
here which would be most detrimental to ourselves, is not affected by
the question whether it was ten thousand or twenty thousand persons
who perished in the suppression.
"We have been upholding what we know to be a semi-civilized nation,
liable under certain circumstances to be carried into fearful excesses:
but the fact of this having now been brought home to us all, cannot
be a sufficient reason for abandoning a policy which is the only one
that can be followed with due regard to our interests."
It is enough to take one's breath away to read such words as
these. They are clear enough. They declare what is the settled policy
of the English government. Towards Turkey? Not alone, but towards
the world. Her interests are purely commercial.--Interests payable in
gold: always and everywhere. What are her interests in Venezuela? In
the Bering Sea fisheries? In the Transvaal? In India and in China?
The integrity of the Turkish Empire must be maintained. All else is
mere diplomatic froth, waste breath and ink in the torrents of her
speeches and her correspondence with the Porte; and the Turk knows
it, and Russia knows it and the world knows it. England is pilloried
to-day for her selfishness, if not for her unrighteousness, in all
her dealings with the rest of the earth. It is her government, not
her people that the world arraigns.
Mr. Freeman is scathing and unsparing in his denunciation of the
government's position; but that he was not more severe than just
the issue plainly declared, and we tarry on this situation a moment
longer because of its special bearing upon the situation as regards
the massacres in Armenia.
War had been declared by Servia and Montenegro against Turkey on the 2d
of July, 1876, which had thus far resulted in victory for Montenegro
and defeat for Servia. This situation still further increased the
anxieties of the great powers. Not that they cared for Turkey only
because they could not agree on how it should be carved up. They
would all like a generous slice if each could have the portion that
he liked best.
When it became evident that there was no hope of any good resulting
from notes and memorandums, the British Government suggested a
conference of the powers which had been parties to the Treaty of Paris
to meet at Constantinople in December 1876: and in order to open the
way for this conference, proposed an armistice of six weeks between
Turkey and Servia.
The Turkish government proposed six months: the Russians demanded an
immediate armistice of from four to six weeks and threatened to break
off diplomatic relations at once if it was not granted. The Turkish
government complied with the demand.
In an interview with the British Minister, November 2d, 1876, the
Emperor Alexander pledged his sacred word of honor in the most earnest
and solemn manner that he had no intention of acquiring Constantinople,
and that if necessity compelled him to occupy a portion of Bulgaria
it would only be provisionally and until the peace and safety of the
Christian population could be secured.
A few days later--November 10th, the Emperor made a speech at Moscow
in which he said: "I have striven and shall still strive to obtain
a real improvement of the position of the Christians in the East by
peaceful means. But should I see that we cannot obtain such guarantees
as are necessary for carrying out what we have a right to demand of the
Porte I am firmly determined to act independently; and I am convinced,
that in this case the whole of Russia will respond to my summons should
I consider it necessary and should the honor of Russia require it."
The preliminary conference at Constantinople was opened on the 11th
of December, and was participated in by representatives from Great
Britain, France, Russia, Austria-Hungary, Germany and Italy.
The conference was foredoomed to end in failure, for by the treaty
of Paris the Powers had no right to interfere, and they were all
too righteous to sin against that treaty, though Bulgaria should be
utterly wasted with fire and sword.
The Marquis of Salisbury, now Prime Minister, was the chief
representative of Great Britain, and in a speech before the House
of Lords thus defined the purposes of the conference and its
failure. After speaking of previous treaties and the changes that
had taken place both in Turkey and Great Britain which prevented the
latter from maintaining exactly the same attitude towards Turkey which
she did in 1856, he went on to say: "If the alliance was broken up,
if our exertions for the maintenance of the Ottoman Empire were to
cease * * * assuredly it was our duty to exhaust appeal, remonstrance
and exhortation before deserting a cause we had hitherto maintained. *
* * We went to stop a great and menacing danger, namely the prospect
of a war between Russia and the Porte. It was in pointing out that
evil that our moral influence on the Porte rested. We said to Turkey,
"Unless you do this or that, this terrible danger which may well
involve the loss of your Empire is ready to fall upon you. We hope
that our influence and advice may be able to avert it: indeed we
come here for that purpose, but we warn you that we shall accept no
responsibility for the future, if you treat our advice with disdain. *
* * It seems to me, as it must to everybody else, that the refusal
of the Turk is a mystery: for the infatuation of that cause seems to
be so tremendous."
The refusal of the Turk is no mystery to-day. There was no infatuation
about it. The Porte knew that his speech meant no harm to Turkey:
that he had come to avert the loss of the Empire. He knew very well
that whatever the issue of the war might be on the battlefield,
England would never let Russia profit by her victories. Hence the
Porte in sublime contempt snapped its fingers in the face of the
Conference and politely bowed it out of existence. The issue proved
that the Turks knew exactly the man and the nation they were dealing
with. Yet the English people thought the Government really meant to
do something to help the cause of the persecuted Bulgarians: just
as they thought for awhile that Salisbury as Prime Minister meant,
really intended to do something in the cause of Armenia.
England has not changed in her traditional policy towards the Turk. She
has not deserted the cause she has maintained for now some sixty years,
and she never will desert it until she and Russia can agree about the
division of the spoils: then her love for the Turk will vanish as a
mist before the rising sun of her own increasing power and splendor.