72 RUSSIA, TURKEY, AND BULGARIA. 



It was SO in 1870, when Prussia loudly proclaimed to Europe at 

 the moment of entering upon the struggle forced upon her by the 

 Government of France, that she renounced all ideas of conquest or 

 national aggrandizement, but when the conflict was over, in spite 

 of this declaration so pompously given, Prussia claimed Alsace and 

 Lorraine, as the purchased price so dearly won of victory, and 

 annexed them to the German Empire. 



It was so in 1874, when Russia undertook the pacification of Khiva. 

 The Ambassador of Russia at the Court of St. James's, Count Schouva- 

 loff, pledged the sacred word of Russia that no annexation was inten- 

 ded, but within six months of that date General Kauffmann,at the insti- 

 gation of the Government of Russia, utterly ignoring all official 

 declarations to the British Cabinet, and sacred words of honour, 

 crushed the independence of Khiva, and she became a dependency 

 of the Russian Empire. 



And has not history repeated itself, guided and strengthened by 

 such precedents of international tergiversation ? Does anyone sup- 

 pose that Russia waged this devastating and sanguinary war 

 against Turkey so that she might at its close have nothing to 

 gain and everything to lose ? It was impossible ! That which 

 has been her long-cherished vision, her proud ambition, for genera- 

 tions, which, it is said, was embodied in the will of Peter 

 the Great, and the dream of the Empress Catharine, and 

 which was and is the dream of every Russian General and States- 

 man of the Empire, that which Russia really desires, and 

 which, under the pretext of justice and freedom to the Christian 

 population of Turkey, she will secure, at any peril, was and is 

 territorial aggrandisement, the subjugation of Servia, Roumania 

 Bulgaria, Roumelia, in fact, every rood of territory from the Danube 

 to the Sea of Marmora, and from the Black Sea to the Euxine ; a 

 wider sea-board, the free passage of the Dardanelles, and the posses- 

 sion of Constantinople, the key of Europe and Asia, even though 

 it involves Europe in arms against her. 



This war in the East might have become war in the West, war 

 on the Danube for Bulgaria might have become war on the Rhine 

 for Alsace and Lorraine, war in Europe might have become war in Asia, 

 and from the smouldering embers of that insurrection in Herze- 

 govina might have been kindled a blaze, a war of races, and a war of 

 religions, that oceans of blood could not have quenched. This 

 military intervention of Russia, therefore, was most calamitous, for it 

 was the harvest of death, not only for the ill-fated and brave soldiers 



