only the tone, but even to deceive itself sometimes in the amount; there
is perfume and ashes in incense, said the ancients, and there is
something equivocal also in the usual manner of congratulating the
Russian chancellor on his "triumph" in the question of the Euxine. To
pretend that Prince Gortchakof did not favor the audacious designs of
Prussia in order to free Russia from its bonds in the Black Sea, that he
delivered Europe in advance to Prince Bismarck in the sole hope of some
day repudiating to his advantage the act of 1856, is in truth to pay as
little honor to his genius as to his patriotism. Certainly the eminent
statesman whose "prophetic glance" the grandchildren of Washington[108]
celebrated at St. Petersburg in the year of Sadowa, supplicating the
eternal God, "who had made the sun stand still for Joshua," also to
suspend the course of life for Alexander Mikhailovitch, "so that the
eyes of the world might long remain fixed on him,"[109] the consummate
diplomat who, in the spring of 1867, slighted the important advances
made by the cabinets of Vienna and the Tuileries,--certainly this
minister did not fail at this moment to put aside with a disdainful
smile, the petty hypothesis, that in the approaching and foreseen
overturning of Europe, there would be assigned to Russia as its sole
victory and conquest, the abolition of any wounding article of a treaty
which events had long before rendered "invalid." It was not for such a
"plate of lentils," to use the language of M. de Bismarck, that Prince
Gortchakof intended to cede to the Hohenzollern the fixed _birthright_
of the Romanof; he did not think of abandoning the Occident for such a
ridiculous price: he looked higher, and expected to have the lion's
share in the quarry to come. Fortune has deceived his hopes, defeated
his calculations, and forced him to bend to many unforeseen necessities;
but, if it is puerile to allow him to have made virtues of all these
vexatious necessities, and to form for him a sort of aureole of
lightnings and thunderbolts of the war of 1870, history, in its
impartiality, must not the less take into consideration the intentions
of Prince Gortchakof, which were as great as the events themselves, and,
without denying his defeat, nevertheless accord him the full benefit _in
magnis voluisse_.
They cherished, in fact, great, gigantic projects on the banks of the
Moscova and the Neva, in all this agitated and feverish epoch which
separated Sedan from Sadowa; they deluded themselves with enchanting
dreams; they divided the world between Sclavians and Germans, and the
"national" minister responded to the ardent wishes of the entire nation
in making the Prussian alliance the pivot of its policy, in seeing in it
the absolute condition and the sure pledge of a future of glory and
prosperity for Russia. We must look back on the universal mental
agitation in consequence of the equally prodigious and unforeseen
victory of Prussia in 1866, on the innumerable fantastic plans which
were then suddenly formed for the reconstruction of empires and races;
it is necessary to recall this endless flight of Minervas all armed,
whom the blow of the German Vulcan's hammer caused to spring forth from
so many cracked heads who thought themselves Olympian,--the general
_remoulding_ which our poor philosophy of history, at once so cutting
and so malleable, undergoes in the twinkling of an eye,--to appreciate
justly the current of strange and impetuous ideas which then seized the
people of Peter the Great and of Catherine II. "An irresistible power
forces the people to reunite in great masses, making the secondary
States disappear, and this tendency is perhaps inspired by a sort of
providential prevision of the destinies of the world." This, on the day
after Sadowa, was the expression of an official document of
incontestable authority, a diplomatic manifest which announced _urbi et
orbi_ the profoundest thoughts of the imperial government of
France.[110] How can one be astonished, then, that the children of
Rourik followed the same reasoning, and asked themselves with candor if
the battle of Koenigsgraetz did not entirely deliver Central Europe to
the Hohenzollern and Oriental Europe to the Romanof? After some moments
of hesitation and surprise, Muscovite patriotism resolved therefore, to
take no umbrage at the ambition of King William I., but it immediately
proclaimed that Russia also had a mission to fulfill, an "idea" to
realize, and that the sun of national unities and grand combinations
shone for all the world.
There was in the old capital of the czars a celebrated journal whose
power has since greatly declined, and which, although now an ordinary
paper only, but still important, then exercised a preponderant, tyrannic
influence, from the Dwina to the Ural: it was occasionally called, and
without malice, "the first power in the state after the emperor." From
the time of the fatal insurrections of Poland, the "Gazette of Moscow"
was in truth the monitor of the popular passions of Holy Russia, the
office from whence the word of command for public opinion went forth
into the vast empire of the North, and it often issued formal
instructions for the directing ministers at St. Petersburg. Even at this
time the all-powerful organ of M. Katkof made itself the mouth-piece of
the nation, and imperiously traced the programme of the policy of the
future. Only a short time after the conclusion of the peace of Prague,
the journal of Moscow laid down "as an incontestable truth, that the
march of events has produced interests which invite the two Powers of
Russia and Prussia to ally themselves still more actively than in the
past;" it affirmed, moreover, that overtures on this point had been made
by M. de Bismarck, "overtures the more acceptable as Prussia has no
interests in the Orient; on this question, the cabinet of Berlin could
take, in concert with Russia, such an attitude as suited it." The theme
was again taken up and developed under many a form and in many an
article, until a leader of the 17th February, 1867, impressed on it the
great consecration of a speculative and humanitarian principle.
"The new era is at last sketched," one reads there, "and for us Russians
it has a peculiar bearing. This era is truly ours; it calls to life a
new world kept until now in the shadow and expectation of its destinies,
the Graeco-Sclavic world. After centuries passed in resignation and
servitude, this world at last reaches the moment of renovation; what has
so long been forgotten and down-trodden, comes back to the light and
prepares for action. The present generations will see great changes,
great facts, and great formations. Already on the peninsula of the
Balkan, and under the worm-eaten couch of Ottoman tyranny, three groups
of lively and strong nationalities are being formed, the Hellenic,
Sclavic, and Roumanian groups. Closely bound among themselves by the
commonalty of their faith and their historical destinies, these three
groups are equally connected with Russia by all the ties of religion and
national life. These three groups of nations once reconstructed, Russia
will reveal itself in an entirely different light. It will no longer be
alone in the world; in place of a sombre, Asiatic power, as it now seems
to be, it will become a moral force indispensable to Europe, a
Graeco-Sclavic civilization completing the Latin-German civilization,
which without it would remain imperfect and inert in its sterile
exclusiveness." Soon after descending from these rather abstract heights
to the more practical ground of ways and means, the fiery apostle of the
_new era_ exclaimed on the 7th April: "If France sustains by arms and by
its political influence the _renaissance_ of the Latin races, if Prussia
acts in the same manner _vis-a-vis_ to Germany, why, then, should not
Russia, the only independent Sclavic Power, sustain the Sclavic races,
and should it not prevent foreign Powers from placing obstacles in the
way of their political development? Russia should employ all its powers
to introduce in its neighbors of the South a transformation similar to
that which took place in Central and Occidental Europe; _vis-a-vis_ the
Sclavians it should take, without the least hesitation, the role which
France has taken in regard to the Latin races and Prussia _vis-a-vis_
the German world. The task is a noble one, for _it is exempt from
egotism_: it is beneficial, for it will achieve the triumph of the
principle of nationalities, and will give a solid basis to the modern
equilibrium of Europe; it is worthy of Russia and of its greatness; it
is immense, and we have the firm conviction that Russia will fulfill
it."
It was under the stimulant of such theories, hopes, and passions, that,
in the spring of the year 1867, the strange _ethnological exposition of
Moscow_[111] was instituted, which soon became the pretext for a great
demonstration from without, sufficiently inoffensive in appearance to
remove all diplomatic embarrassment, well calculated, however, to
produce its effect on _naif_ and inflammable minds, to fascinate
unfortunate, disinherited people, richer in imagination than in culture.
Certainly, true science would draw very little profit from this
projected reunion in the _manege_ of Moscow of all the Sclavic "types"
with their costumes, their arms, their domestic utensils, and their
flora; but the undertaking was considered not the less worthy of the
most august protection. The emperor and the empress offered considerable
sums to defray the costs of the work, the Grand Duke Vladimir accepted
the honorary presidency of it, the high dignitaries of the court and the
church charged themselves with its direction. Warm appeals were
addressed to the Sclavians of Austria and Turkey, to their different
historical, geographical, or other learned societies, to add by
numerous contributions to the magnificence of the exposition, and a
cloud of emissaries collected in the countries of the Danube and of the
Balkan in search of adhesion, samples, and "types." Committees were
formed in different parts of the empire, in order to worthily prepare
the reception of the "Sclavic guests," who did not fail to swarm to the
"national jubilee," and soon a _congress_ was spoken of, in which should
be discussed the wants and the interests of so many "brother peoples,"
the hopes and the griefs of the great common country, of the _ideal_
country. It was the moment, it is necessary to recall it, when the
Cretan insurrection, always persistent, stirred up by Greece, and
exaggerated by the journals too little or too well informed, kept the
Christian populations of Turkey in alarm and on their guard; the moment,
also, when the Czechen of Bohemia; urging on in consequence almost all
the Sclavians of Austria, protested against the Cisleithan constitution,
and refused to sit in the representative chambers of the empire. The
_Kremlin_ thus became the _mons sacer_ of the _intransigeans_ of the two
banks of the Leitha, the _congress of Moscow_ had all the appearance of
an _opposition parliament_ opposed to the Reichsrath of Vienna, and the
language held by the authorized organs of the cabinet of St. Petersburg
was not calculated to calm the susceptibilities of the interested
governments, nor to dissuade vexatious manifestations. Speaking of the
pious _pilgrims_ of Turkey and Austria who were preparing to visit
Moscow, "that holy Mecca of the Sclavians," the "Correspondance Russe,"
the ministerial journal _par excellence_,[112] thus expressed itself in
the month of April, 1867: "One cannot reasonably demand of us that we
abjure our past. We will let, then, our guests believe that they have
come to a sister nation _from whom they have everything to expect_ and
nothing to fear; _we will listen to their grievances_, and the recital
of their evils can only tighten the ties which unite us with them. If
now they intend to establish a comparison between their political state
and ours, _we will not be foolish enough_ to prove to them that they are
in the most favorable conditions of Sclavic development. These
conditions, we believe, on the contrary, to be bad; we have said so a
hundred times, and we can well say so again."
Without doubt the Russian intrigues in the countries of the Danube and
the Balkan were not of very recent invention; they even dated back very
far in the past, from the reign of the great Catherine. Underhandedly
and secretly, the Pan-Sclavic propaganda had been encouraged or
protected for nearly a century; but it was for the first time, in this
summer of 1867, that the government of St. Petersburg thus loftily
assumed the responsibility of such a propaganda, and unfurled in its
states the flags of Saints Cyrille and Methode. In an empire where all
is watched, regulated, and commanded from the throne, where nothing is
done spontaneously, where all is arranged and _devised_, "foreign
Sclavians," subjects of two neighboring and "friendly" Powers, were
admitted, encouraged to come to expose their grievances, to bring
complaints against their respective governments, to demand assistance
and deliverance in the name of a new right of nations, of a principle
lately discovered of great combinations and national unities. _They were
not foolish enough_ to dismiss these foreign "deputies," to counsel
reason and resignation to them; on the contrary they spoke to them of a
"better and approaching condition," they took them through all the
cities of the empire amidst enthusiastic manifestations directed by the
colonels and archimandrites, they overwhelmed them with testimonies of
sympathy, ovations and demonstrations, in which the army, the
magistrates, and all the higher official world took part. Generals,
admirals, and ministers presided at banquets where the disaster of
Sadowa was celebrated as a providential and happy event by the subjects
of the Emperor Francis Joseph, where appeals were addressed to the czar
"to revenge the secular outrages of the White Mountain and of Kossovo,
and to plant the Russian banner on the Dardanelles, and on the basilica
of St. Sophia." The shock given by such demonstrations to a whole race,
to a whole religious world, was profound and prolonged, and certainly
the contemporaneous annals have rarely known a period as _incorrect_ in
point of view of international right and of the usages of the
chancellors' offices as that which had for its starting point the
congress of Moscow and for its end the conference of Paris on the
subject of Greece. It was a strange one in truth, this epoch, with such
presidents of the council as Ratazzi, Bratiano, Koumondouros, with
generalissimos like Garibaldi, Petropoulaki, and "Philip the
Bulgarian;" with these expeditions of Mentana, of Sistow, of the
_Arcadion_ and _Enosis_; with these agitations, to mention all, German,
Italian, Czech, Croatian, Roumanian, Servian, Bulgarian, Grecian, and
Pan-Sclavic. Without entering farther into the tiresome history of these
complex and not yet explained events, it suffices, in order to
appreciate the general character of them and to comprehend their close
ties, to re-read with all the attention which it merits the report,
already mentioned, of the ambassador of France to the court of Berlin,
dated the 5th January, 1868. "M. de Bismarck must have," wrote M.
Benedetti, "a disturbed Italy, in permanent disagreement with France, to
constrain us to maintain forces more or less considerable in the States
of the Holy See, to be able, if necessary, to excite, by the aid of the
revolutionary party, a violent rupture between the government of the
emperor and that of King Victor Emmanuel, to neutralize, in a word, our
liberty on the Rhine.... And I would not be surprised if M. de Bismarck
were the instigator of the new impulse given since last summer to the
Pan-Sclavic propaganda; he finds in it the immediate advantage of
disturbing Austria by Russia. Russia will assuredly show itself less
enterprising, and Prussia on its part will not encourage it (Russia) to
renew the question of the Orient, for the simple reason that it itself
(Prussia) would gain no advantage in it, if it did not think it
indispensable to pay with this price for the liberty which it claims in
Germany. The uncertainty of the situation only tightens every day the
ties which unite Prussia with Russia and solidifies the ambitions of the
one in Germany with those of the other in the Orient."
A _permanent committee for the interests of Sclavic unity_ was formed on
the day after the congress of Moscow, under the auspices of a grand
duke, and his action was not slow in making itself felt among the
Ruthenes, the Czechen, the Croatians of Austria; but it was especially
in the tributary or subject provinces of the Ottoman Porte that the
agitation became as chronic as it was perilous. The unfortunate Turk was
assailed on all sides: one day it was the Vladika of Montenegro who
demanded of him in a menacing tone some port of the Adriatic, another
day the Prince of Servia demanded the evacuation of some fortress,
enforcing his request with extraordinary armaments. Numerous convoys of
arms arrived from Russia in the Danubian Provinces under the false
designation of material for the construction of railroads,[113] while
the Greek ships of war did not cease to wish to rekindle with all their
strength in the isle of Crete an insurrection about to be extinguished
and which, in truth, never was of very great extent. It was the epoch of
"committees of aid" and "liberating bands" now overrunning the States of
the Pope with the cry "_Roma o Morte!_" now making incursions in
Thessaly to revenge "the outraged manes of Phocion and Philopoemon," or
again freeing five times in the space of a year the Danube from the side
of Roumania only to awaken in the Balkans "the lion with the golden
mane!" "To-day it is our duty, brothers, to prove to European diplomacy
that descendants of the terrible Krum still exist; the lion with the
golden mane and the trumpet of war call you." Thus read in the month of
August, 1868, a proclamation dated from the "Balkans," and signed
"_Provisional Government_."[114] "It is a fact," wrote on the 6th
February, 1868, in a curious report addressed to Count de Beust by the
agent of Austria in the Principalities, Baron d'Eder,--"it is a fact
that at Bucharest, as in the different cities on the banks of the
Danube, there exist Bulgarian committees; their object is to provoke
troubles in Bulgaria, to aid them, to give them more extended
proportions than those of the past year. Only quite lately they were
persuaded here that on the return of pleasant weather serious
complications would break out in Occidental Europe which would permit
Russia to declare war against Turkey, and, foreseeing these events, they
have made preparations to influence with energy the Bulgarian rising.
Although the government of the Principalities is in the hands of a party
(radical) traditionally hostile to Russia, it has nevertheless for some
time inclined towards this Power, and expects from it the realization of
its efforts and its hopes. The journals of the opposition (conservative)
combat these Russophile tendencies of the government; they reproach it
with acting in concert with Prussia and with preparing difficulties for
Austria in case of a conflict between France and Prussia. The journals
of the government reply by saying that the national party is from
principle the adversary of no Power, and that there is no reason for
combating Russia from the moment that this Power defends the cause of
right and of oppressed nationalities."
Assuredly it would be unjust to throw on the Russian government the
responsibility of all the disorderly agitations of this epoch in the
Sclavic-Graeco-Roumanian world, but it is not the less true that it did
nothing to stop or even disown them. In looking over the parliamentary
documents of this time,--the different blue, red, green, and yellow
books of the years 1867-1869,--one is struck at meeting at every step
repeated and energetic representations, addressed by the cabinets of
London, of the Tuileries, and of Vienna to Servia, Roumania, and to
Greece concerning their military preparations, the clandestine shipments
of arms and marauding bands, while the cabinets of St. Petersburg and
Berlin carefully abstained from any proceeding of this sort. By a
piquant change of things here below, which must have astonished the
Nesselrode and the Kamptz in their heavenly abode, the Occidental Powers
now, England and France, to whom also Austria joined itself, denounced
to the world the revolutionary practices of the European demagogic
party, while Prussia kept silent, and Russia refused to deny the fact or
to plead extenuating circumstances for it. The excuses for the
government of Athens Prince Gortchakof kindly found in the Hellenic
constitution: "This constitution," said he, "gives to all Greeks full
liberty to leave their own country and to take part in any conflict such
as existed in Crete;"[115] and that was truly an original spectacle,
that of a minister of an autocracy displaying before an old whig like
Lord Clarendon the inexorable conditions of a parliamentary and legal
_regime_. The Porte, it will be remembered, wished to know nothing of a
legality which destroyed it; it ended by losing patience, by addressing
an _ultimatum_ to the government of Athens, and a conference assembled
at Paris "to seek for means to smooth over the difference between Turkey
and Greece." Some good people apprehended an embarrassed attitude on the
part of the Russian chancellor before such areopagus, they even believed
him capable of trammeling the labors of this reunion: this was to ignore
the resources of a mind as crafty as cultivated, and which profited by
the occasion to venture his famous _mot_ on Saturn. "I remember," he
wrote to Baron Brunnow, at London, 13th January, 1869, "that there are
some persons who accuse Russia of wishing to render the conference
abortive. One is not ignorant that the conference emanates from the mind
of the emperor. The fable of Saturn has no application in the wanderings
of the policy of the imperial cabinet." Alexander Mikhailovitch was not
at the end of his boldness; he became bitter, almost aggressive; he
spoke of the "excitement from without," of a "process of progress," of
the "distrust which was attached to every step of Russia," and went so
far as to denounce a great conspiracy contrived by the Occidental Powers
against the peace of the Levant. "It is impossible for us not to
remark," he said, in a dispatch to Baron de Brunnow, of the 17th
December, 1868, "that this discordant note is not the only one which has
come to _disturb the echoes of the Orient_. It is thus that we have
first seen Servia become the end in view of an agitation which,
originated with the press, ended by gaining over diplomacy; Prince
Michael Obrenovitch was suspected, and nothing less than his tragic end
was necessary to disarm the hostilities directed against him. Soon
after, accusations were directed against the government of the united
Principalities: the Bulgarian bands became a motive for incrimination,
it was reproached with having tolerated them, it was accused with having
encouraged them. This complication was scarcely removed, before a new
crisis arose in the relations of Turkey with Greece, a crisis still more
grave and more dangerous to the general peace." Decidedly, in absence of
the "fable of Saturn," that of the wolf and the lamb had its application
in the wanderings of the policy of the imperial cabinet of St.
Petersburg.