THE EASTERN QUESTION.
"The last word in the Eastern Question," said Lord Derby, "is Constantinople." If for Constantinople we read not merely the city itself, but that half of Turkey in Europe bordering upon the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmora, and understand the real point to be, Shall or shall not Russia have it? we have the whole Eastern Question in a nutshell. Russia is bound by every consideration of policy and interest to get it if she can. Great Britain is bound by every consideration of interest, and even of self-preservation, to prevent it if she can. Germany, Austria, and France are bound to prevent it, if possible, unless they can at the same time gain equivalent advantages which shall leave them relatively to each other, and especially to Russia, not less powerful than they now are. The other nations of Europe may be left out of view in considering the question; for their interest in it is less vital, and they could do little toward the result, except as allies to one side or the other, in case of a general European war in which the great Powers should be quite evenly balanced, when their comparatively small weight might turn the scale.
A glance at the map will show the paramount importance to Russia of the acquisition of this territory. Comprising more than half of all Europe, she is practically cut off from the navigable seas. She has, indeed, a long coast-line upon the Arctic ocean, but she has there only the inconsiderable port of Archangel, and this can be reached only by rounding the North Cape and sailing far within the Arctic Circle, while the port itself is blocked up by ice seven months of the year. She also borders for seven hundred miles upon the Baltic and the Gulf of Bothnia; but here, in the northwestern corner of her territory, she has only two tolerable ports, Cronstadt and Riga, and these are frozen up for nearly half the year; but from these ports is carried on three-fourths of her foreign commerce. She next touches salt water in the Black Sea, almost 1,500 miles from St. Petersburg, on the extreme south of her territory. This sea, half of whose shores belongs to Russia, is 720 miles long, and 380 miles wide at its broadest point, covering an area, including the connected Sea of Azof, of nearly 200,000 square miles—more than twice that of all the great lakes of North America. Russia wishes to be a great maritime power. The Black Sea has good harbors and abundant facilities for building ships and exercising fleets. Into it fall all the great rivers of the southern half of Russia, except the Volga, whose mouth is in the Caspian; and the Volga may properly be considered a Black Sea river, for a railway, or perhaps even a canal of a few leagues, would connect it with the Don and the other rivers of the Black Sea system. The Black Sea is emphatically a Russian sea; but Russia enjoys the valuable use of it only by the sufferance of whomsoever holds Constantinople. By the treaty of Paris, concluded in 1856, after the reverses of the Crimean war, Russia agreed not to maintain a fleet there; and it was not till 1870 that taking advantage of the critical position of the other great Powers, she declared that this article of the treaty was abrogated. She has now a strong fleet of iron-clads and other steamers in the sea, but the actual strength of this fleet is unknown except to herself. It was certainly powerful three years ago, and is doubtless much more powerful now. A vessel and crew which has navigated the "Bad Black Sea." as the Turks call it, has nothing to fear from the broadest ocean. But this sea is liable at any moment to be a closed one to Russia. No Russian man-of-war has, we believe, ever sailed into or out of it; no merchantman can enter or leave it except by the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, which are its gates, and of these gates Turkey holds the keys.
The Black Sea is joined to the deep, narrow Sea of Marmora by the straits of the Bosporus, twenty miles long and from three-quarters of a mile to two and a half miles wide. Just where the straits open out into the Sea of Marmora stands Constantinople, a spot marked out by nature as the one on the whole globe best fitted for the site of a great metropolis. At its western extremity the Sea of Marmora—about one hundred miles long, with a maximum breadth of forty-three miles—contracts into the straits usually called the Dardanelles, which is properly the name of four castles, which, two on each side, command the passage, here less than a mile wide. Both straits could easily be so fortified as to be impassable by the combined navies of the world; and even now we suppose that only the best armored iron-clads could safely undertake to force the passage, in or out, of the Dardanelles.
Let us now consider the fearful preponderance which Russia would gain by the possession of these straits, including of course that half of European Turkey bordering upon them. We have seen that the shores of the Black Sea furnish every facility for the construction of a navy of any required strength, and its waters afford ample space for its training. With these approaches in her grasp, Russia might in ten years construct and discipline her fleet there, perfectly safe from molestation by the navies of Europe. Fleets built and equipped at Sebastopol, Kherson, and Nicolaief, could sweep through the Dardanelles, closed to all except themselves, enter the Archipelago and the Mediterranean, and dominate over their shores and over the commerce of every nation which has to use these waters as a highway. In case of its happening at any time to find itself overmatched, the Russian fleet could repass the gates of the Dardanelles, and be as safe from pursuit as an army would be if sheltered behind the rocks of Gibraltar.
Great Britain would be first and most immediately menaced by this; for a strong military and naval power established on the Bosporus would hold in command the shortest way of communication with her possessions in India. The Czar would hold in control the route by way of the Suez canal: or at best Great Britain could keep it open only by maintaining a vastly superior fleet in the Mediterranean; and it would be difficult for her to maintain there a fleet which would not be practically overmatched by one which Russia could easily keep up in the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmora. The days are past when a Hood or a Nelson might safely risk a battle if the odds against him were much less than two to one. A British admiral must henceforth make his count upon meeting skill and seamanship equal to his own, and whatever advantage he gains must be gained by sheer preponderance of force.
If Great Britain is to retain her Indian empire, a collision there between her and Russia is a foregone conclusion. An empire which, under a succession of sovereigns of very different character, has steadily pressed its march of conquest through the deserts of Turkistan, will not be likely to look without longing eyes upon the fertile valley of the Indus; and here Russia would have a fearful advantage in position. The Suez route practically closed, as it would be in the event of a war, Britain could only reach India by the long voyage around the Cape of Good Hope, while Russia would have broad highways for the march of her troops to the banks of the Indus, whence she could menace the whole peninsula of Hindostan.
We indeed do not think that the possession of her Indian empire adds anything to the power of Great Britain. She has never derived any direct revenue from it. The Indian expenditures to-day exceed, and are likely in the future to exceed, the revenues. All the vast amounts of plunder and "loot" which individuals, the East India Company, or the Crown have gained, have cost to get them more than they were worth. Unlike Australia and the Dominion of Canada, India offers no field for colonization for men of British blood, where they or their children may build up a new Britain under strange stars. It has come to be an accepted fact that Englishmen cannot long retain health and vigor in India, and that their offspring, born there, rarely survive childhood unless sent "home" at an early age. Britain holds India purely and absolutely as a conquered and subjugated territory. Whether British rule in India is, upon the whole, a blessing or a curse to the natives, is a matter of grave doubt; that it is most unwillingly borne, is beyond all question. It is a despotism pure and unmixed, and a despotism of the most galling kind—a despotism exercised by a horde alien in race and religion, alien in habits and modes of thought, in life and manners, in customs and ideas. Macaulay, when in power in India, forty years ago, said of it the best that can be said: "India cannot have a free government; but she may have the next best thing—a firm and impartial despotism." To maintain this despotism, even against the feeble natives alone, imposes a heavy strain upon the British government. The British empire in India is only a thin crust overlying a bottomless quagmire, into which it is in peril of sinking at any moment by a force from above or an upheaval from below. How nearly this came to pass during the accidental Sepoy mutiny of twenty years ago, is known to all men. Had that mutiny chanced to have broken out three years before, during the Crimean war, it is safe to say that the course of the world's history would have taken a different turn. Since then Great Britain has apparently somewhat consolidated this crust, but it is yet thin, and the weight of Russia thrown upon it could scarcely fail to break it through.
The commercial value of India to Great Britain is, we think, vastly exaggerated. India, in proportion to her population, has always been, and is likely long to be, a very poor country. The trade of Great Britain with India—exports and imports—is not much greater than that with France, considerably less than that with Germany, and far less than that with the United States; and we see no reason to suppose that it is perceptibly increased by the subjugation of India to the British crown. India sells to Great Britain what she can, and buys from her what she wants and can pay for, and would continue to do so in any case. Still, we do not imagine that the British government or people will ever be brought to take our view of the value of India to them. It will be held to the last extremity of the national power, and will only be abandoned under stress of the direst necessity. And for her secure possession of India it is absolutely essential, for reasons which have been stated, that whoever else may have Constantinople in the future, Russia shall not have it. England's interest in the question is a purely selfish one. She is content to have the Turks there because for the time being they keep the Russians out. Whatever worth may formerly have been in the sentimental averment that it is the duty of the European family of nations to see to it that no weak member of it is gravely wronged by a stronger one is past and gone. It is from no love for the Turks that Great Britain desires that the Sultan should continue to hold at least nominal sovereignty over Turkey in Europe, and the actual custody of the keys of the Black Sea. An able English writer says:[H]
The position of the Turk at Constantinople is no choice of ours, nor any creation of our policy. We do not maintain him for any love of himself, nor because we rely on his strength to guard the post—though that is absurdly underrated. His corruption and weakness are at least as great an embarrassment to us as an injury to the nations of his empire. But the whole Eastern question hangs upon the fact that he is there, and has been there with a long prescriptive right which he is not likely to yield, or to have wrested from his grasp till after a frantic struggle of despair. Nor is any practical mode apparent by which he will be soon displaced, save that, after a convulsion which would involve all Europe, the Czar should be enthroned upon the Bosporus. To prevent that catastrophe, and to avert the horrors that must precede it, is our real Eastern policy.
Still more emphatic is the declaration of Lord Derby, the British Premier, when defending the action of the Government in sending the Mediterranean fleet, last May, to Besika Bay, at the mouth of the Dardanelles: "We have in that part of the world great interests which we must protect.... It is said that we sent the fleet to the Dardanelles to maintain the Turkish empire. I entirely deny it. We sent the fleet to maintain the interests of the British empire."
Let us now glance rapidly at Turkey in Europe, the coveted prize in this case. Nominally, and upon the maps, it comprises all except the southern apex of the great triangular peninsula bounded on the east by the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmora, and the Archipelago; on the west by the Adriatic; on the north, the broad base of the peninsula, it is bounded by Austria; on the south, the narrow apex, by Greece. Russia touches it only on the northeast corner. Its area is in round numbers 200,000 square miles, not differing materially from that of France or Germany, or about five-sixths of that of Austria. No other part of Europe, of anything like equal extent, combines so many natural advantages of geographical position, soil, and climate. The population is variously estimated at from 13,000,000 upward; we think that 17,000,000 is a tolerably close approximation. Of these, in round numbers, only about 2,000,000 are Turks, or, as they style themselves, Osmanlis; 11,500,000 are of various Sclavonic races; 1,500,000 are Albanians; 1,000,000 Greeks; the remainder Armenians, Jews, and Gipsies. In religion there, there are about 4,800,000 Mohammedans, nearly half of whom are not Osmanlis, the remainder being of Sclavonic descent, whose ancestors embraced Islam in order to save their estates; they are, however, quite as devoted Mussulmans as are the Osmanlis themselves. There are now about 12,000,000 Christians, of whom some 11,000,000 belong to the Greek Church, and nearly 1,000,000 are in communion with the Church of Rome. The name Ottomans is officially given to all the subjects of the empire, irrespective of race or religion; all except Mussulmans are specifically designated as Rayahs, "the flock." Nominally, at least, by the new Constitution promulgated in December, 1876, while Islam is the religion of the State, all subjects are equal before the law, and all, without distinction of race or creed, are alike eligible for civil and military positions.
But a very considerable part of this territory is not properly included in the Ottoman empire. The principality of Roumania, in the northeastern corner, made up of what was formerly known as Wallachia and Moldavia, with a population of about 4,500,000, is practically independent, under a prince of the house of Hohenzollern, elected in 1866. It merely acknowledges the suzerainty of the Sultan, to whom it pays an annual tribute of some $200,000. Servia, on the north, bordering upon Austria, with a population something less than 1,500,000, has for years been really independent, merely paying a tribute of less than $100,000.
Roumania and Servia are strongly under Russian influence. Besides these is the little State of Montenegro, on the Adriatic, with a population of less than 200,000, which disowns the suzerainty of the Sultan, and has for many months waged a fierce but desultory war against him.
Of what properly constitutes Turkey in Europe, with a population of some 11,000,000, the following are the principal divisions, designating them by their former names, by which they are still best known: south of Roumania, and between the Danube and the Balkhan mountains, is Bulgaria; south of Bulgaria is Roumelia, in which Constantinople is situated; in the northwest is Herzegovina; between which and Servia is Bosnia; on the west, along the Adriatic, is Albania. In estimating the defensive strength of the Ottoman empire we must take main account of Turkey in Asia, with a population of some 17,000,000, by far the larger portion of whom are Osmanlis, devoted to Islam, warlike by nature, and fully capable, as was shown in the Crimean war, of being moulded into excellent soldiers. But our present concern is with Turkey in Europe.
If the ingenuity of man, working through long centuries of misrule, had set itself to the task of developing a form of government the most potent for evil and the least powerful for good, the system could not have been worse than that which exists in European Turkey; and the worst of it is that no one but the most hopeful optimist can perceive in it the slightest hope of reform or practical amendment. In theory the Sultan is the recognized organ of all executive power in the State. The dignity is hereditary in the house of Osman; but the brother of a deceased or deposed Sultan takes precedence of the son, as being nearer in blood to the great founder of the house. A Sultan, therefore, must see in his brother a possible rival, who must, in case his life is spared, be kept immured in the seclusion of the harem. A Sultan who succeeds his brother naturally comes to the throne at a somewhat mature age, but as ignorant as a babe of all that belongs to the duties of government; lucky it is if he is not also physically and mentally worn out by debauchery and excess. Turkish history is full of instances where one of the first acts of a Sultan has been to order the execution of his brothers and nephews. Thus Mahmoud II. put to death his infant nephew, the son of his predecessor, and caused three pregnant inmates of the harem to be flung into the Bosporus in order to make sure the destruction of their unborn offspring. The actual task of government is in some sort divided between the Sultan and the "Porte," a term which is used to designate the chief dignitaries of the State. The "Sublime Porte" is the Council of the Grand Vizier, who presides over the Council of State, consisting of the ministers for home affairs, for foreign affairs, and for executive acts, with several secretaries, one of whom is supposed to be answerable that the acts of the ministry are in conformity with, the supreme law of the Koran. The Porte of the Defterdar, or Minister of Finance, whose council is styled the "Divan," consists of several ministers and other functionaries. The "Agha" formerly comprised many civil and military officials whose duties were in some way immediately connected with the person of the Sultan, not very unlike what we call a "kitchen cabinet." The foregoing are all designated as "Dignitaries of the Pen." The "Dignitaries of the Sword" are the viceregal and provincial governors, styled pachas and beys. They are at once civil and military commanders; and, most important of all, tax-gatherers, and not infrequently farmers as well as receivers of taxes. If they forward to the Porte the required sum of money, little care is had as to the manner in which their other duties are performed or neglected. The manifold extortions of the local pachas keep one part or another of the empire, not only in Europe, but in Asia, in a state of perpetual insurrection, of which little is ever heard abroad.
The Koran is the acknowledged source of all law, civil and ecclesiastical. Its interpreter is the Sheikh-ul-Islam, "the Chief of the Faithful," sometimes styled the "Grand Mufti." He is the head of the Ulemi, or "Wise Men," comprising the body of great jurists, theologians, and literati, any or all of whom he may summon to his council. He is appointed for life by the Sultan, and may be removed by him. His office is in theory, and sometimes in practice, one of great importance. To him and his council the Sultan is supposed to refer every act of importance. He does not declare war or conclude peace until the Grand Mufti has formally pronounced the act "conformable to the law." It is only in virtue of his fetwa, or decree, that the deposition of a Sultan is legalized. A fetwa from him would summon around the standard of the Prophet all the fanatical hordes of Islam to fight to the death against the infidels, in the firm belief that death on the battlefield is a sure passport to Paradise. With the Koran as the supreme law, and the Sheikh-ul-Islam its sole interpreter, nothing can be more futile than the provision of the new Constitution of December, 1876, that "the prerogatives of the Sultan are those of the constitutional sovereigns of the West."
It is necessary here to touch only briefly upon the rise and decline of the Turkish empire in Europe. The Osmanlis take their name from Osman, the leader of a Tartar horde driven out from the confines of the Chinese empire, who overran Asia Minor. His great-grandson, Amurath I., crossed into Europe, took Adrianople in 1361, and overran Bulgaria and Servia. Several of his successors pushed far into Hungary and Poland. Mohammed II. took Constantinople in 1453, and brought the Byzantine empire to a close. Selim I. (1512-'20) extended his dominion over Mesopotamia, Syria, and Egypt. Solyman II., "the Magnificent" (1520-1566), raised the Turkish power to its highest point. He took Buda in 1529; and in 1532 besieged Vienna with a force of 300,000 men, but was routed by the Polish John Sobieski, with a force hardly a tenth as great. But for another half century the Turkish power was sufficient to inspire terror in all Christendom. With the death of Solyman, the power of the Turks began to wane, slowly but surely, and at the close of the last century the expulsion of the Turks from Europe seemed close at hand. The great wars of the French Revolution gave them a new lease of possession, and at its close Sultan Mahmoud II., who was by blood half French,[I] endeavored to introduce reforms which some men hoped and others feared would restore the Ottoman Empire. But the result showed the impossibility of patching up rotten garments with new cloth. The Greek revolution broke out, and at its close the Sultan found himself no match for his vassal, Mehemet Ali, Pacha of Egypt, and it was only the intervention of Russia, Austria, and Great Britain which prevented the Pacha from establishing at Constantinople the seat of a new empire, which, be it what it might, would not have been Turkish. What were the reasons of Great Britain and France it is not now easy to say. Those of Russia are patent: she wanted Constantinople to remain in the hands of the Turks until she herself was in a position to seize it. From that time the Ottoman Empire became the "sick man of Europe," around whose bedside all the other powers were watching, each determined that none of the others should gain the greater share in his estates when he died. In 1844 they formally adopted him into the family of the nations of Europe, and promised that his safety should be the common care of all.
Russia, in the mean while, was busy in endeavoring to make herself the patron of the Christian subjects of the Sultan, and when the time appeared ripe, entered upon those overt acts which led to the Crimean war. Out of this war the Ottoman Empire came with considerable apparent advantage. The man supposed to be sick unto death showed that there was unexpected vitality—of a spasmodic sort indeed—in his Asiatic members; and again there were hopes and fears of his ultimate convalescence, if not of restoration to robust health. That those hopes and fears were baseless is now clear enough. Never was the sick man so feeble as within the last five years.
The existing crisis in the Eastern Question came about in the ordinary course of things. In the summer of 1875 the pecuniary needs of the Sublime Porte were more than usually urgent, and the tax-gatherers were even more than usually exacting. The normal result ensued: there were local risings in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A secret Bulgarian revolutionary committee, favored by Russia, has for years existed in Bucharest, the capital of Roumania. They sent emissaries into Bulgaria to excite an insurrection in that province. The plan was to set fire to Adrianople and Philippopolis, each in scores of places, to burn other towns, mainly inhabited by Mussulmans, and force all the Bulgarian Rayahs to join the uprising. The insurrection broke out prematurely in May, 1876, and only a few were actively engaged in it. Two or three thousand troops would have been sufficient to have quelled the rising; but there were none in the province, and despite the urgent appeals of the Pacha none were sent. The Mussulmans, who are in a fearful minority there, were thrown into a panic; and the Pacha gave orders for calling an ignorant and fanatical population to arms. Regular troops were at last sent. The Turks gained an easy victory, and perpetrated those ineffable atrocities, the recital of which sent a thrill of horror throughout Christendom. The Bulgarians fled northward toward Servia, pursued by the Turks, who it is said made predatory incursions. Prince Milan made some extraordinary demands upon the Sultan, among which were that the government of Bulgaria should be committed to him and that of Bosnia to Prince Nicholas of Herzegovina. The Grand Vizier refused to listen to these demands; whereupon the Prince called the Servians to arms, declared war against the Sultan, invaded Bulgaria, and soon assumed the title of King of Servia. His invasion of Bulgaria met with ill success. Although aided by many Russian soldiers and officers, absent on special leave from their regiments, the Servians were driven back over their frontiers; and the war was finally suspended by a truce for six months. We suppose that there can be no doubt that the rising in Bulgaria and the action of Servia were favored, if not by the Czar personally, yet by the Russian government, although it would, if possible, have withheld Prince Milan from declaring war when he did. The Servian Bishop Strossmayer expressly affirms that the insurrection in Herzegovina was prematurely commenced against the advice of Russia, and that Servia and Montenegro went to war of their own accord, though they have naturally accepted the Russian aid since accorded to them. He adds that Prince Gortschakoff, who in the Russian government is all that Prince Bismarck is in that of Germany, the year before last "informed Prince Milan that Russia was unprepared; that only within three years did she count on taking Constantinople; and that only then would she call on the Sclaves of the South to plant the Greek cross on the dome of St. Sophia."
Meanwhile, on the news of the Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria, the Czar put his troops in motion toward the Turkish frontier, and made demands upon the Sultan which, if acceded to, would have practically made the Czar the actual sovereign of all Turkey in Europe north of the Balkhan. Great Britain sent her fleet to the mouth of the Dardanelles to "maintain the interests of the British empire" in that part of the world. Diplomatic notes and rejoinders passed between the cabinets of the great Powers; and early in January an International Conference was assembled at Constantinople to endeavor to settle, or at least to stave off the present crisis in the Eastern Question; Great Britain, through her representative, the Earl of Salisbury, apparently taking the lead. As we write, in the early days of February, all that is definitely known is: The Conference has utterly failed; the Sultan absolutely refused to accede to the propositions made to him; and the ambassadors of the great Powers have been withdrawn from Constantinople. Surmises and rumors as to what will next be done are rife; not the least significant or the least probable being that the Emperors of Germany, Russia, and Austria are consulting as to taking the matter into their own hands. Whatever the immediate issue may be—whether a peace of some kind; a partial war between Russia on the one side, and Turkey, with or without Great Britain, on the other; or a general European war—of one thing we may be certain: it will not cause Russia to more than postpone still longer her long-cherished determination to have Constantinople.
Mr. Carlyle has suggested, as a final settlement of the Eastern Question, that Turkey in Europe should be divided between Russia, Austria, and Great Britain. But, as is his wont, he leaves out some essential factors in the problem. No part of this territory would be of the slightest use to Great Britain, except perhaps the island of Candia as a sort of half-way house in the highway to India by the Suez canal. She has everything to lose and little more than nothing to gain by any such partition, which, as it necessarily must, would give Constantinople to Russia. Mr. Carlyle has so thorough a dislike to France—and with him dislike is nearly equivalent to contempt—that he naturally leaves her out of the problem. But it is surprising that he leaves out his favorite Germany, perhaps the most important factor of all.
We can conceive of a partition of Turkey between Russia and Austria which would be so manifestly and equally advantageous to both that they might agree to it. And the line of division is clearly indicated by nature. Austria, like every other great civilized nation, desires to be a maritime power; but she touches the sea only at one point, the head of the Adriatic, with the narrow strip known as Dalmatia, running half way down its eastern coast. There are only two considerable ports, Trieste and Fiume. Eastward, and back of Dalmatia, are Servia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina; and below these, on the Adriatic, is the long coast-line of Albania, with several good harbors. Across the narrowing isthmus is the Archipelago, with the excellent harbor of Salonika. Now look on any tolerable map, and one will see on the eastern borders of Servia, where the Danube breaks through the Carpathians, a range of mountains shooting southward to and crossing the Balkhan, from which it is continued still southward to the Archipelago, the whole dividing European Turkey into two almost equal halves. Let Russia take the eastern half, comprising Roumania, Bulgaria, and the half of Roumelia, including Constantinople, the whole shore of the Sea of Marmora and the Dardanelles—all that she really needs or cares for. Let Austria take the other half, which would give her the whole eastern coast of the Adriatic, and a large frontage on the Archipelago, and so a double access to the Mediterranean and thence to the ocean. She would acquire thereby an access of valuable territory equal to almost half of her present dominions, which would render her relatively to Russia fully as strong as she now is.
But such a partition could not be carried into effect without the concurrence of Germany, for Germany is undoubtedly as a military power much stronger than Russia. Germany certainly would never assent unless she could somewhere get something equivalent to that gained by Austria and Russia, and not an inch of Turkey would be of any use to her. But in quite another part of Europe is a territory comparatively small in extent, which would be of priceless value to Germany. This is the little kingdom of Holland, which is indeed physically a part of Germany, and essential to the rounding off of the boundaries of the new empire. It would give her an extended sea-front, which is what she also needs in order to become a great naval and commercial power. It would give her also in the Zuyder Zee a naval depot and harbor of refuge inferior only to that of the Black Sea, and immeasurably superior to any other in Europe. Furthermore, with Holland would go the possession of Java and as many other great islands in the Indian Ocean as she might choose to seize and colonize. To Holland, indeed, we think such an annexation would be a decided gain. Her people are in race, language, and religion closely allied to the Germans. It would be better for her to become a State, inferior only to Prussia, of the great German empire, than a feeble kingdom, always at the mercy of her powerful neighbors. But whether it would be for her good or not, would not be likely to be much taken into account should the great Powers agree upon a reconstruction of the political map of Europe. The interests of France would suffer no material damage from this, provided she were left free to extend her Algerian possessions over the whole Mediterranean coast of Africa, now almost a desert, but once the granary of the Roman empire, and abundantly capable of being restored to its ancient fertility; or in case she should think her dignity required something more, she might receive in Belgium far more than a counterpoise for her recent loss of Alsace-Lorraine.
Suppose that in some not remote future the policy of Russia, Germany, and Austria shall happen to be directed by statesmen as able and unscrupulous as Gortschakoff, Bismarck, and Von Beust, we think such a settlement of the Eastern Question by no means an improbable one. And should these Powers agree to effect it, all the rest of Europe could do nothing to the contrary.
A. H. Guernsey.
[ [H]"Quarterly Review;" October, 1876.
[ [I]His mother was a Creole, a native of Martinique, and cousin of that other Creole who came to be the Empress Josephine. She had been sent to France to be educated, and on her voyage homeward was captured by an Algerine pirate who sold her to the Dey, by whom she was sent as a present to the Sultan, whose favorite Sultana she became.