70 RUSSIA, TURKEY, AND BULGARIA. 



This Manifesto was signed by the Ottoman Minister for Foreign 

 Affairs, Safvet Pasha. 



We now pass from the domain of Conferences, Treaties, and 

 Protocols, with all their solemn declarations and pledges, to the cruel: 

 Arbiter of war, that Moody arena of " the warrior of the battlefield of. 

 confused noise,, and garments rolled in blood," that arena, which.' 

 these two great Empires had chosen for the brutal settlement of this 

 miserable quarrel. 



The Czar goes forth like his forefathers, to extend the bounds of a 

 despotic Empire, and to widen the area of an intolerant rule. 



Russia breaks loose from the concert of Europe with a wrench, she 

 takes the law into her own hands, in order that the Provinces, which 

 she declares it is her holy mission to liberate, may be the scenes 

 of havoc and carnage, far worse than all the crimes of Turkish 

 fanaticism. 



Whilst deprecating, as every man not unduly biassed against 

 Turkey should deprecate, this ambitious and aggressive policy, from 

 its commencement in 1875 to its fatal consummation in 1877, let it 

 not be understood we are therefore an advocate of Turkey. God 

 forbid. We defend neither, but we defend only the cause of Inter- 

 national Peace, and of that which is identical to it — the cause of 

 national right, the true basis ol the Sovereignty of States. 



Every friend of freedom, every lover of justice, must have been 

 indignant at the abominable atrocities committed in Bulgaria and 

 elsewhere, which aroused Europe so greatly and so justly against 

 Turkey in 1876, and which has been well characterised as Ottoman 

 barbarism. But atrocious as they were can that justify that 

 greater barbarism of Russia, by a declaration of war against 

 Turkey, or is there no other barbarism in Europe besides 

 Ottoman barbarism which would have justified a declaration 

 of war to suppress or punish ? Surely Russia and the Russophiles 

 would do well to remember the withering invective of Christ, when 

 he so suddenly appeased the fury of the multitude, " Let him that is 

 without sin cast the first stone." 



Surely for those who defend the policy of Russia, because of the 

 massacres in Bulgaria, it would be well to ask whether England her- 

 self was a . model of forbearance or of bloodthirstiness in the sup- 

 pression of the revolt in India in 1857. Like Turkey, India is an 

 Empire conquered by force of arms, and, like the insurrection in 

 Bulgaria, the Indian Mutiny was a widespread and determined revolt 

 against the Conqueror. How did England suppress the insurrection 



