APPENDIX X.
STATEMENT OF THE CIRCASSIAN DEPUTIES IN REFERENCE TO THE CRIMEAN WAR.
We, the undersigned, having been sent from the people of the Nectouage and Abaseck, and further commissioned on their behalf by the Deputies of the other tribes of Circassia assembled at Constantinople, to carry to the Sovereigns and to the people of England and France the appeal of our nation, and to speak for our nation, and after that appeal has been rejected by the Governments of France and of England, and we have presented ourselves before various assemblies of the English people, from whom we have heard kind words, it has then been told to us that there are, among the English people, some who say that we are subjects of the Emperor of Russia, and others who say that in the time of the war in the Crimea the generals of England and France sent to us to require troops to aid them in the war, and that we refused to give such troops, and therefore it is not proper now for England to help us in our distress, or to resist Russia in her violence and aggressions. Therefore, we now say that the words so spoken against us are not true words, but false ones, and we further declare that any one who charges us with such things privately, and who does not bring them forward in such a manner that all shall hear and all shall judge, commits an act not worthy of an honest man, and ought not to be listened to by honest men.
It is easy for us to declare that we are a free people, over whom no king or emperor, or government, has had any power or authority since the world began, or as far back as the memory of man can reach, but we do not do so; we only ask what proof those can adduce who say to the contrary? Let those persons show who the king is who has conquered our country; let him tell what taxes the Circassian people has paid, or what troops have been raised amongst our tribes for the service of a foreign master. This is what no man can tell.
So also let our accusers bring forth the letters, or repeat the words, by which any request for aid was made to us in the time of the war in the Crimea, and then let him produce the answer given by us, refusing that aid or succour, and when he has done so then he may say that we did refuse to join the Allies, but not till then; but no such letter can be produced, and if such demand and such answer would be produced, it would not on that account follow that the injustice of Russia should become justice, that the danger from Russia should become security, or that the taking possession of the Black Sea by the cruisers of Russia, to interrupt all communication and all traffic, and so to make a war with England as well as Circassia, should become honourable and safe to the British nation.
The Circassians are a very small and weak people; they have no money, they pay no taxes, they have no government, they have no newspapers, they are ignorant; but this they do know, that many years Russia has been fighting against them, and that the thousands of men she loses in fighting every year, and the great treasure she expends every year, is not for the sake of Circassia. All our mountains, from the Black Sea to the Caspian, would not be worth to Russia, if she possessed them, so much as she expends on trying to conquer them in one year of the forty years she has been endeavouring to conquer them.
We therefore know that she is expending her army and her treasure, not because she wants Circassia, but because she wants India and the Ottoman Empire; and, therefore, do we say to ourselves, it is because of Turkey and England that we have to fight night and day, that our cattle are carried off, that our houses are burnt, and that our young men have to die, and our old ones and children and women to perish. Why do the Turks and the English not help us; why are they the friends of the Russians?
We will now tell that which happened in the Crimean War.
It was in the year of your era 1854 that you drew your sword against Russia; before then that sword was in the scabbard, but our sword has never been in the scabbard; peace there never had been between the Circassians and Russians, and for thirty-three years there had been fierce wars. It was at the end of that time that the great nations of Europe went to make war. When we heard this we were very happy, and thought that the time was come when we might take breath: for we have not only to fight but also to live; but it is very hard for us to live when we have always to fight. We said to ourselves, The great nations in whose hands Russia is nothing, are going to stop her and give peace. Now we can plough our fields, and pasture our flocks, and rest from our long sufferings. Yet many amongst us got ready to help, and when the Russian troops that lay all along from Anapa to Soukum Kaleh withdrew and collected together, and retired north, we also on our part followed them; but when they crossed the Kouban they did not retire further, but stopped there, and they were in great force, being tens of thousands on one bank of the river and we on the other, so that neither ventured across to attack. We could not go across whilst they were so posted, but when they saw us ready, neither could they retire so as to go to the Crimea.
Now, every day we expected that some of the Allies would appear behind them and enable us to do something to destroy them; but none came, nor did they send us any succour by the sea; and then we saw there was no aid for us. So it was at the end as at the beginning, and the Allies went away, and, as before, we remained the only enemies of Russia. But it was not by sending our horsemen into the steppes of Russia or into the Crimea that anything could be done to make Russia less powerful or give to us security after the peace.