86 RUSSIA, TURKEY, AND BULGARIA. 



Christian; and though in the end she was successful, surely 

 any advantages which she may have reaped cost her very 

 dear. The appalling sacrifice of human life, the immense throng 

 of widows and fatherless children, the grief and anguish of 

 the bereaved ones, the devastation of fair and fertile provinces, 

 the destruction by battle and bombardment of towns and villages ; 

 and, above all, the dire legacy of hatred and the undying thirst 

 for revenge, all these are but a portion of the evils which inevitably 

 followed in her desolating march. Surely the opinion of the civilised 

 world was silently registered against this wicked and cruel enterprise ; 

 surely, history will pronounce that declaration of war as branded with 

 the crime of having aroused the worst, and direst of all conflicts — a 

 religious war. 



Non-intervention, by force of arms, is the wisest and best poUcy, 

 whether it is England in Egypt, France in Madagascar, Austria in 

 Servia, or Russia in Bulgaria, for it rests on the sound principle of 

 international polity, the inalienable freedom of every Nation to 

 manage its own affairs, and that any Nation which interferes, 

 especially by an armed demonstration of force, in the internal 

 affairs of a Sovereign State, commits an offence, and a crime against 

 the indisputable and sacred principle of National Right, and National 

 Existence. 



It is evident, therefore, that the time of crusades is past, and, 

 most of all, a crusade by Russia, the oppressor of Poland, and the 

 annexer of Khiva; for crusade is but another name for war, and 

 should ever be deprecated, as it cannot be far removed from wars of 

 conquest, which are utterly opposed to the civilization of the 19th 

 century. 



But in the crusades of Christian Russia against Mahomedan Turkey, 

 there is this great radical error committed, namely, of supposing that 

 the Ottomain Empire in Europe and in Asia, is inhabited by a 

 homogeneous population. It is just the reverse, for the Ottoman 

 Empire is composed of populations the most diverse and hostile, 

 marked by divisions of race, divisions of religions, and these divisions 

 entangled the one with the other throughout the Empire, and 

 animated the one against the other by the pride and envy of race, 

 and the burning fanaticism of religion. There are the Slavs and the 

 Greeks, the Jews and the Catholics, and, superior to all in numbers 

 and power, are the Mussulmans or Moslems. 



If we take the three provinces that were in revolt, Bosnia, Herze- 

 govina, and Bulgaria, we find there are several millions of Mussul- 



