Читать книгу Behind the Veil at the Russian Court - Catherine Radziwill - Страница 11

Table of Contents

I do not think that the Eastern War of 1877 was so popular as people were fain to represent, even at its beginning. The Slav movement, which had sent thousands of volunteers to Servia to help the Christian subjects of the Sultan against their oppressors, was very popular at the moment of its inception, but as soon as the volunteers began to return home and the public heard something about “these Slav brothers” it had been eager to defend, there was a violent reaction. People began to ask what good it was to sacrifice Russian blood for the needs of people who turned out to be not only cowards but brigands as bad as the Bashi Bazouks of whose cruelties they complained. Had the Emperor declared war during the summer of 1876, before the battle of Alexinatz had been fought and lost, the enthusiasm certainly would have been great; but by April, 1877, public opinion had had time to cool, and serious people were apprehensive as to the result of what, after all, was nothing but an adventure unworthy of a great nation.

The army itself, that for months had been kept at Kichinev on a war basis, was beginning to tire of its armed inaction; and, what was worse, the incapacity of those in command had already become evident, demoralising the troops and breeding discontent among them. The Grand Duke Nicholas, who was in supreme command, had never been very popular, and the measures he had taken in view of the approaching campaign were severely criticised. One wondered why men with a serious military reputation—such, for instance, as Todleben, the defender of Sebastopol—had not been called upon to give at least their advice as to what should be done. The officers, more competent to form an opinion as to the morale of the soldiers than the Staff of the Grand Duke, knew very well that their men did not believe in the walk-over that was promised to them, and they knew also that the many refugees who had crowded to the Russian camp from Bulgaria and Servia had made anything but a good impression as to the qualities of their nations on their would-be liberators.

When, therefore, the war began in earnest, it was with far less enthusiasm among the army than was confidently expected and had been promised to the Emperor. When the Imperial manifesto was read announcing that war had been declared, and concluding with the words: “We order our faithful troops to cross the frontiers of Turkey,” it was noticed that the hurrahs that greeted them proceeded more from the officers than from the ranks, where they were but faintly echoed. It was only after the Danube had been crossed that anything like animation became evident in the army. To stimulate it a religious propaganda was started, and all the old legends concerning Constantinople and the mosque of St. Sophia, destined to become again a Christian church thanks to the efforts of Russia, were revived. That was a mistake of which the future was to prove the abysmal extent.

At length came the first battle of Plevna. It was there that Skobeleff, “the White General,” “Ak Pasha” as the Turks called him, won immortal fame. The mention of his name always recalls to my mind that sad and bloody day of the 30th of August, 1877, when the fortress was stormed for the third time in response to the mad idea of the Grand Duke Nicholas to present it as an offering to his brother on his name-day. It was a beautiful summer morning, with the roses blooming in the fields, and a clear blue sky lighting up what was so soon to become a scene of horror. The Turkish town lay in a valley, all surrounded by hills, each of which was a redoubt whence the enemy’s artillery was directed against our troops. They were ordered to storm it, and valiantly did they attempt to do so at three different times through that morning. As each regiment rushed to the attack, it was decimated by the deadly fire of the Turkish guns, thousands of men being mown down like ripe corn. At length the Bender Regiment was told to advance. It was commanded by the veteran Colonel Panioutine, to whom Skobeleff himself gave the orders to march. Panioutine looked up at the fort, which he knew that he could not by any possibility hope to wrest from the enemy, and simply answered with the classical word of the Russian soldier, “Slouchaious” (I shall obey); then he took off his cap and made the sign of the Cross. In dead silence the whole regiment took off their caps and crossed themselves, following the example of their commanding officer.

Skobeleff turned towards his staff and said: “If Panioutine is repulsed, I will myself lead the troops to the attack.”

He did lead them forward—led them to their death and to his glory. To his soldiers he appeared “the true god of war,” as Archibald Forbes justly described him. The troops followed him with an enthusiasm which made them forget their own danger, and the Turkish bullets whistling in their ears, and their old commander falling on the field of honour before their eyes. Skobeleff was the only object of their regard; and they seemed to be asking him in mute supplication to show them the way to conquer or to die.

When all was over, when the shades of night had fallen, and the sun gone down upon the scene of carnage, the “White General” turned his steps towards an ambulance where he had been told that one of his friends had been carried wounded unto death. When he gazed upon Panioutine lying on a straw couch, awaiting the eternal dawn, the hero, who unmoved had seen men fall around him stricken by the bullets of the enemy, lost the calm with which he had confronted death, and, bursting into sobs, exclaimed in a broken voice, “And to think that all this has been in vain, all in vain.”

The war continued, and at last Plevna fell, not, however, before old Todleben had been called to the rescue; the veteran of Sebastopol, who had been considered too old to be any good, was, when all seemed lost, asked to come and repair the mistakes and follies of others. Then came the day when Osman Pasha gave up his sword, and the fortress which he had defended so stubbornly fell into Russian hands. It was a bleak November day, with a cruel wind blowing from the Balkans, freezing men’s souls as well as their bodies. The Grand Duke Nicholas went in an open carriage to meet the vanquished Turkish general, greeting him with the respect and courtesy which his bravery had deserved. The Russian troops, seeing the old warrior sitting by their commander’s side, burst into acclamations, which were but homage to the courage of their vanquished opponents.

Then followed the passage of the Balkans, the battles of Shipka, when General Raiovski so bravely crossed the murderous passes of these famous mountains, and finally San Stefano, which we did not have the courage to defend against Europe, incensed at our successes, and the treaty to which General Ignatieff and M. Nélidoff were to put their names.

Much has been written about that famous treaty, but now that years have passed since it was signed we may well ask ourselves whether our occupation of Constantinople would have been so dangerous to the peace of the world as was thought at the time, and what result a war with England would have had for us. Our diplomats were too weak either to understand our position or to see farther than the needs of the moment. The Emperor felt himself bound by the declaration which, in an unguarded moment, he had made to Lord Augustus Loftus, that he did not seek territorial compensations in the Balkans. He also did not like it to appear that he had abandoned the chivalrous position he had taken up when he declared that he had only gone to war to free from the Turkish yoke the Christian subjects of the Sultan, and not for his own personal satisfaction. The Emperor, indeed, carried this vanity—for it was nothing else—so far that he sacrificed to it the interests of his own people, and the desires of his army. Less of a politician than Prince Bismarck—who had so well understood in 1870 the importance of giving satisfaction to the wishes of the troops and to the amour propre of the nation by insisting upon the Germans entering Paris for a few hours at least—Alexander II. thought it beneath him to take his soldiers before St. Sophia, and to allow some of the regiments quartered at San Stefano to enter Constantinople. He had neither the consciousness of his own power nor a just comprehension of the recognition which everybody, be they individuals or nations, must have for accomplished facts. He allowed himself to be bluffed by Lord Beaconsfield, and did not understand that when England threatened it was because she knew that she had—at that time at least—no other means than threats of enforcing her wishes. Much later, during the Berlin Conference, I asked the English Prime Minister what he would have done had we not heeded his menaces and entered Constantinople. He replied to me in the following memorable words: “I would have achieved my greatest diplomatic triumph in getting you out of it without going to war.”

Alexander II. did not realise this, and when it was pointed out to him upon his return to St. Petersburg from Bulgaria, before the Treaty of San Stefano had been signed, he said that he could not run any risk—as though risks were not the only means through which nations can accomplish their task in history!

Perhaps no war has been so disastrous to Russia as this unfortunate Turkish campaign, disastrous in spite of the victories which attended it, because it sounded the knell of our influence in the East, and gave birth to the Bulgarian, Servian, Montenegrin, and Roumanian kingdoms. These small States are destined one day to be absorbed by the strongest and most cunning among them, who will reap the benefits of our efforts and bring the Cross once more over the minarets of St. Sophia, thus entirely destroying the old tradition that it was Russia who was destined to erect it and to replace the Greek Emperors upon the throne of old Byzantium.

San Stefano reminds me of Count Ignatieff, and I will say a few words concerning him. He had great defects, but at the same time he possessed what so many of our politicians lack—a keen sense of duty to keep both the Russian flag and Russian prestige well aloft. He was a patriot in the full sense of the term, and would never admit the possibility of returning along a road once entered upon. He wanted other nations to fear Russia, and he well knew that, in Turkey especially, the moment that one did not domineer over one’s colleagues of the diplomatic corps, one was lost in the eyes of the Government to which one was accredited. Throughout the long years during which he was Russian Ambassador in Constantinople, Russian influence was paramount. The Embassy was a centre not only of social activity, but also of political power.

The Turks were very well aware that Ignatieff would never have hesitated to take the most energetic measures if one of his countrymen had been made the object of an indignity of any kind. In that he followed the example of England, who always maintains the interests of her citizens abroad. In Russia, on the contrary, it seems almost a fundamental principle for diplomats to show themselves as disagreeable as possible to those of their countrymen who happen to get into difficulties abroad, and to refuse them either aid or protection. One has only to see what happens in Paris, where both Embassy and Consulate treat worse than dogs Russians who apply there for assistance, and instead of protecting them, seem to do all that is possible to make their position even more unpleasant.

Count Ignatieff was the only Russian Ambassador who made it his duty to show not only every civility, but every protection to Russians in Turkey, and he thus sustained the prestige of his country. He had, what only great politicians have, a gift of foreseeing the future, and realising the consequences of even the most insignificant events. His conceptions of the results which the Berlin Treaty was bound to have were quite extraordinary, and it would be curious, if his family ever publishes the interesting memoirs which he has left, to read the note which he addressed upon that subject to Alexander II. In this he clearly proved that an autonomous principality of Bulgaria would inevitably become independent, and transform itself into a kingdom that would claim the succession to the Greek Emperors, to which Russia had all along aspired.

It is a great pity that the genius of Count Ignatieff was marred by a deplorable love for intrigue that had become, as it were, a second nature to him. Long accustomed to dealing with Asiatic natures—to whom a lie more or less is of no consequence—and with whom he had, when quite a young man, concluded a treaty which was to prove most advantageous for Russia; and still more used to Turks and to the various political trickeries for which Constantinople was ever famous, he seemed to think that similar tactics could be employed with success in European diplomacy. He apparently thought he could hoodwink Western diplomats as he had hoodwinked the Ministers of Sultan Abdul Aziz. Of course he made a vast mistake, and did not realise that in view of the reputation which he had acquired on the Bosphorus, his only chance was to keep a rigid guard upon every word he uttered. Hence, at the very time he was staying at Hatfield House, he incensed Lord Salisbury by entering into an intrigue against him with Austria.

It was thought that the failure of Russian diplomacy at the Berlin Conference would put an end to the career of Count Ignatieff, but to general surprise Alexander III. recalled him to power in the responsible position of Minister of the Interior, after he had parted with his father’s Liberal councillors under the influence of M. Pobedonostseff. In that capacity Ignatieff again gave a proof of his political foresight, and at the same time of the mistaken nature of the methods he employed to realise his conceptions of Government.

This occasion arose, I should say here, after the assassination of Alexander II. had struck terror all over Russia, and when everyone felt that only a strong hand could stay the spread of the revolution. At the same time, it was also felt that an outlet had to be given to the impatience of certain circles of society, who were clamouring for a change, and screaming that the promulgation of a Constitution was the only means to save Russia from disaster. Ignatieff was too clever not to see that, sooner or later, such a Constitution would have to be granted, and perhaps granted under conditions and in such circumstances that it would appear to have been snatched by force instead of bestowed voluntarily. He then evolved the idea of reviving the old Russian institution called the Zemski Sabor, which existed before the iron hand of Peter the Great had transformed into an autocracy the old monarchy of Ivan the Terrible. He thought that under a wise Sovereign such as Alexander III. this calling together of the clever and honest men of each Government—especially if this choice of men was left to the Emperor—might have a beneficial influence over the destinies of the country. In this attempt, however, he failed, for he found armed against him not only the chief counsellor of the Tsar, the redoubtable Pobedonostseff, but also the Sovereign himself, who feared that by accepting the proposal of Count Ignatieff people would be led to think that he departed from these principles of absolute government which he had made up his mind to maintain. Ignatieff was sacrificed, and had to tender his resignation, and this time his political career came definitely to an end.

Many years later I discussed with him the circumstances that had attended his fall, and he explained to me what had been his idea. Events had crowded upon us; Alexander III. was no more, and the disaster of Tsushima—in which the Count had lost a son—a disaster indeed such as Russia had never suffered before, had taken place. Everything was changed in the country, and the first Duma called together by Nicholas II. had just been dismissed. I asked Ignatieff his opinion of the general political condition of the country. He then began to talk of the time when he was Minister of the Interior, and expressed his regret that his plan of calling together the Zemski Sabor had not met with success: “I am sure that it would have proved a safety valve for the country,” he said. “You see, we were bound to come to some such solution, and it would have been infinitely better for Russia had people got accustomed to take part in political life under a monarch who had enough authority to direct that necessary adoption of Occidental forms of Government, which we could not escape à la longue. Under a weak Sovereign—and who can deny that Nicholas II. is weak?—a Duma can very easily assume the shape of a Convention such as the one that sent Louis XVI. to the scaffold in 1793. It only requires one energetic man to do that, and what guarantee have we that such a man will not be found?”

I have often thought of these words, and wondered whether they would ever come true—whether they were the utterance of a discontented politician, or revealed the foresight of a real statesman.