Weighed in the balances of the humanity, the culture, the Christianity and the civilization of the dawning century, Turkey is in every way found wanting and soon may appear the hand of fire to write on the black pages of her awful atrocities, “Thy days are numbered. Thy kingdom shall be destroyed and given to another.” How long shall the blood of her slain cry aloud in the ears of Christendom, yet in vain still cry aloud? The consciences of England and America must give answer to that cry of blood or be themselves weighed in the balances in the day of the Lord at hand.
CHAPTER VI.
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.