The Boy Travellers in The Russian Empire / Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey in European and Asiatic Russia, with Accounts of a Tour across Siberia, Voyages on the Amoor, Volga, and Other Rivers, a Visit to Central Asia, Travels among the Exiles, and a Historical Sketch of the Empire from Its Foundation to the Present Time

by Thomas Wallace Knox

The weather was fine enough to tempt them to idleness, but Frank and Fred had a rule that when they had anything to do they would do it. Accordingly they busied themselves with the books at their command, and made the following condensed account of the contest of Russia with the nations of Western Europe:

"The Crimea was conquered by Russia in the time of Catherine the Great, and immediately after the conquest the Russians began to fortify the harbor of Sebastopol (Sacred City). When they went there they found only a miserable Tartar village called Akhtiar; they created one of the finest naval and military ports in the world, and built a city with broad streets and handsome quays and docks. In 1850 it had a population of about fifty thousand, which included many soldiers and marines, together with workmen employed in the Government establishments.

"In 1850 there was a dispute between France and Russia relative to the custody of the holy places in Palestine; there had been a contention concerning this matter for several centuries, in which sometimes the Greek Church and sometimes the Latin had the advantage. In 1850, at the suggestion of Turkey, a mixed commission was appointed to consider the dispute and decide upon it.

"The Porte, as the Turkish Government is officially designated, issued in March, 1852, a decree that the Greek Church should be confirmed in the rights it formerly held, and that the Latins could not claim exclusive possession of any of the holy places. It allowed them to have a key to the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem, and to certain other buildings of minor importance.

TURKISH AUTHORITY.

"If you want to know how the Christian churches are now quarrelling about the sacred places in the East, read Chapters XXII., XXIII., and XXIV. of 'The Boy Travellers in Egypt and the Holy Land.'

"France accepted the decision, though she did not like it; Russia continued to demand that the Latin monks should be deprived of their keys, and finally insisted that the Czar should have a protectorate over the Greek Christians in Turkey. The Porte said such a protectorate would interfere with its own authority, and refused the demand; thereupon the Russian Minister left Constantinople on the 21st of May, 1853.

"This may be considered the beginning of the war between Russia and Turkey, though there was no fighting for several months.