Truth About Russia tUy': ;V>?'';'5;'?-: ■J- ■•■■■-■ - V Pi'^'^*l\?ii'- W. T. STEAD THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNL\ RI\'ERSIDE Ex Libris C. K. OGDEN TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA / {. /^/^ i TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. JiY W. T. S T E A D. The truths we least like to hear are those which it is most for our advantage to know." CAS SELL & COMPANY, Limited LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK & 3IELB0VRNE. 1888. [all lilGHTS KE8ERVED.] ^74 CONTENTS, ^ooSi I. CHAPTER FROM LONDON TO ST. PETEESBURG. I. Why this Book is Written II. From the Standpoint of London . III. From Paris after Seeing General Boulanger IV. In Belgivm with M. de Laveleye V. The Capital of Prince Bismarck VL In the Empire of the Tzar PAGE 1 4 9 21 27 38 ^ooR II. WAR OR PEACE? I. At Count Tolstoi's, Yasnaia Poliana II. How England does not do her Duty III. Austria as Disturber of the Peace IV. Concerning Reptiles and Worms . V. Bismarck the Peacemaker VI. Russia : What is Russia ? VII. The Crux in Bulgaria . VIII. Who is to Keep the Keys of the Tzar's House? IX. England's Real Danger in Central Asia . X. The Tzar as Peace-keeper of Europe 49 56 65 74 83 90 98 107 113 120 CONTENTS. '^idOC^ III. NEW FIELDS FOR BRITISH ENTERPRISE. CHAPTER I. A Treaty of Commerce with Russia IT. The Case for Reciprocity III. The Central Asian R.ulway TV. The Watek-%vay to the Russian Australia PAOK 131 141 148 159 ■^.tiooU IV. THE TRIBUNE OF ALL THE RIJSSIAS. I. The Flock of Little Brown Sheep II. The Government of the Flock III. Shepherds and Shearers of the Flock lY. The Imperial Shepherd . V. Eves and Ears for the Tzar VI. A Plea for More Prisons VII. The Deputy Tzar of St. Petersburg 109 17o 18G 194 204 223 24 (J ^.3ooli V. THE IDEAS OF GENERAL IGNATIEFF. I. The Russian Mr. Gladstone .... 259 II. General Ignatieff's Early Career . . . 270 III. From the Const.antinople Conference to San Stefano . 276 IV. General IiiXATiEFF's Policy in the E.vst . . . 287 V. Minister of the Interior .... 293 VI. General Ignatieff at Home .... 298 VII. His Future ...... 300 CONTENTS. '^coii VI. THE SHADOW ON THE THRONE. iIIAI'TER I. Castor and Pollux, or the Siamese Twixs II. Archbishop Laud Kedivivis III. The Effect of Monopoly IV. The Dog in the Manger V. The Story of the Pashkoffski VI. Exiled Uxheard VII. Persecution Naked and Unashamed VIII. The Futility of Persecution PAIIK 31.') 322 329 339 3.')3 3()3 372 380 '2^oolx VII. COUNT TOLSTOI AND HIS GOSPEL. I. A Week at Yasnaia Poi.iana II. "Resist not I-^vii. " .... III. -'Sell all that thou hast and give to the Poor" IV. The Five Commandments of the Kingdom of Heaven V. The Teacher and the Teachings of Count Tolstoi 393 404 420 426 437 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA, FROM LONDON TO ST, PETERSBURG. CHAPTER I. WHY THIS BOOK IS WRITTEN. In London in the spring- o£ 1888 there existed a widespread feeling- of uneasiness and of anxiety as to the possible outbreak of war in Europe. The Continent had just passed through the scare caused by the alleged concentration of Russian troops on the frontiers of Germany and Austria. Germany had enormously increased her armaments, Austria was preparing for war, and, to add to the general unrest, the rise of General Boulanger to notoriety in France seemed to menace with convulsion the disturbed quasi-tranquillity of the Continent. In military circles the talk was all of war. General Boulanger was going to overthrow the Republic, and then finding that he must do something to justify his ascendancy, it was gravely declared that he would probably attack England ! London, with its incalculable wealth, lay at the mercy of a daring adventurer. Russia, it was added, was preparing to rush Constantinople, under pretext of an expedition to re-establish her lost ascend- ancy in Bulgaria. The air was full of premonitions of the panic which subsequently had a somewhat abortive issue in the columns of the Baily Telegraph and the speeches of the Duke of Cambridge and Lord Wolseley. The chief cause of this, no doubt, must be sought, first, in the abiding sense which rightly possesses the public mind as to the insufficiency of our armaments to stand the strain of serious war ; and secondly, in the consciousness that Europe was entering upon a new era — the most conspicuous sign of which was the passing away of B 2 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. the men who had made the history of the last quarter of a century. The reign of Frederick^ whose death-bed was his only throne, marked the parting- of the ways between the Old Europe and the New. Before the new Emperor came to the throne of Germany, I thought it desirable to endeavour to ascertain as best I could, by means of a personal visit to the three northern capitals, what was the opinion of those in whose hands lay the destinies of the future as to the prospects of peace. Especially did it seem to me important to visit St. Petersburg in order to see the authorities who have it in their power either to keep the peace of Europe or to light up the flames of world-wide war. Whether for good or for evil, Russia holds in her hands the balance of power in Europe. The other states are either paralysed by internal dissensions, or foreign vendettas, or en- tangling alliances. Russia alone of the great military Powers is self-contained and self-sufficing, free alike from embarrassing alliances and paralysing antagonisms. According to popular prejudice in England, the Tzar is the great disturber of the peace alike of Europe and of Asia. This is the root idea of the so-called traditional policy of the British Empire, and this lai'gely influences the attitude of the Salisbury Government in its Continental policies. Briefly stated, the Ministerial idea in foreign policy has been based upon the following conception of the situation. The dis- turbing forces in the European situation are France and Russia. France avowedly is in training for an attack upon Germany; Russia is her natural, her only ally. Russia, moreover, has designs of her own on the Balkan Peninsula and Constantinople, which render her of necessity a menace to the status quo. To keep the peace, it is necessary to form a League of Peace, of which Germany, from position and necessity, would form the nucleus. Germany and Austria made an alliance for defensive purposes, and to this alliance Italy was subsequently admitted. The idea of Lord Salisbury and his supporters was believed to be that England should also join this Peace League, at first as the ally of Italy. Signer Crispi publicly declared that Italy had concluded an alliance with England on the seas ; and although Sir James Fei'gusson subsequently denied the existence of the alliance, Ministers are believed to have given the Italians some WHY THIS BOOK IS WRITTEN. . 3 verbal assurances which, during Lord Salisbury's tenure of office, might compel the English fleet to undertake the defence of the Italian littoral against a French attack. This is, however, onl}^ the extrenie outgrowth of the under- lying conviction about the Russian menace to the general peace which dominates the English Foreign Office and English society. If that conviction is erroneous, then the above attitude in relation to other Powers is more or less mistaken ; and if so, the greatest service which any Englishman can render to his countrymen is to ascertain the truth about Russia. Is this great Empire which divides Asia with us a power which makes for peace, or which makes for war ? In the New Europe upon which we are enter- ing, must we regard the Tzar as peace-keeper or peace-breaker of the Continent ? That is what I went to St. Petersburg to ascer- tain, and the results of my inquiries are chronicled in these pages. Events, of course, may utterly confound the conclusions at which I have arrived. Nothing, it is often said, ever happens except the unforeseen. I make no pretensions to the gift of political prophecy. I only claim that, having had opportunities which few Englishmen have enjoyed of ascertaining the actual aspira- tions of the men whose ideas and resolutions are the governing forces in Russian policy, I am fairly entitled to claim a hearing from those who care to form an intelligent judgment upon the governing factor in the great problem of peace or war. Much of the matter of this volume has appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette. But the abiding interest of the subject has been held to justify its republication in a shape less evanescent than the columns of a daily newspaper, which '^ to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven." If my conclusions are mis- taken, of course there is no more to be said. But if they are sound, then the foreign policy of England should be revolution- ised. A thesis which, if proved, carries with it so tremendous a corollary, needs to be considered as a whole, before its conclu- sion is either accepted or rejected. As it is impossible to discuss Russia as a factor in inter- national policy without taking into account the probable course of internal development, I have included in this volume, which deals primarily with Russia as the peace-keeper of Europe, chapters setting forth what seem to me the salient features of the domestic situation. Speculations of this nature, based, as they 4 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. must be^ upon a very rapid and cursory survey, cannot pretend to claim the same attention as the net result of a study of Russian foreig-n policy which has occupied my attention, with little intermission, ever since I entered journalism. Nevertheless, this side of Russia cannot be ignored. I have also added a chapter on Count Tolstoi, the novelist, under whose roof the chapters on " Peace or War ? " were written, and whose per- sonality excites more widespread interest, both in the Old World and the New, than that of any other subject of the Tzar. CHAPTER II. FROM THE STANDPOINT OF LONDON. Before leaving England, I made it my business to ascertain how things looked in the eyes of political leaders of all parties. Ministers were not greatly preoccupied with foreign affairs. Their interests were firstly Irish, and secondly electoral and administrative. ^' Do you thmk," I was asked, " if we antici- pated war, we should have reduced the navy estimates this year £800,000 ? Our only object is peace." The Ministerial view is that, if they have laid themselves open to the reproach of risking war, they have done so solely because they loved peace so well they were willing to risk war in order to maintain the Conti- nental equilibrium. That they consciously desired war not even their worst enemies assert. But, in their exertions to maintain peace, the danger lay in the fact that they might be mistaken as to the Powers in whose support, in the interests of peace, they should cast the weight of English influence. No Administration was ever bound over more heavily to abstain from unnecessary war. Lord Salisbury is in office, and, barring accidents, there he is likely to remain. The only thing that would upset him would be the possibility that in his zeal for the maintenance of peace Lord Salisbury might commit the country to a war from which the nation recoiled. Lord Salisbury is strong by the strength of his weakness. He depends for his existence from day to day FROM THE STANDPOINT OF LONDON. 5 upon the support of tlie Liberal Unionists^ headed by Lord Hartington^ who would check, and check in time, any adventurous policy to which he mig-ht be inclined if he had a majority entirely of his own way of thinking-. There is always a possibility that an English Tory majority may emulate the exploit of the swine of Gadara, and run violently down the steep slopes of Jingoism into the abyss of a war with Russia; but, fortunately for the prospects of his Cabinet, Lord Salisbury is warned off: from this road to ruin by a double barrier. Lord Hartington and the Liberal Unionists are not Jingoes, and an unnecessary interven- tion in the affairs of Europe which involved the country in war would compel them to vote against the Government. Their an- tipathy to Home Rule, and their distrust of Mr. Gladstone, are too strong to be overcome by any lesser peril. For the sake of the Union with Ireland, and in order to keep Mr. Gladstone out, they will tolerate almost anything". The one thing which they will not tolerate is an avoidable war. Lord Salisbury has also to reckon upon the opposition of a formidable section of his own supporters. Lord Randolph Churchill, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons when Lord Salisbury formed his Ministry, is now a supporter with views of his own, and as one of these views is an emphatic determination that England shall not be plunged into war for any purely Con- tinental interests, Lord Salisbury could not go very far in a warlike direction without finding the wheels of his war chariot " spragged " by his own friends. Whether from this or from any other cause, whatever they may have dreamed of once, the present attitude of Ministers is not that of men who are resolved to play a decisive or even a leading part in the European drama. The coming" man in the Conservative Cabinet, Mr. Balfour, Lord Salisbury's nephew, who has excited an extraordinary amount of enthusiasm among" his own party by his courage and consistency, has a tolerably level head, and is not dominated in foreign politics by antiquated prejudices. He is a young man with a great career before him, able, uprig-ht, honest, and in private life as charming" and attractive as in the House of Commons he seems to his opponents the reverse. When I called at the Irish Office, before leaving" town, I was grieved to see that the harass and the worry of Irish administration were already 6 TRUTH ABOUT BUSSTA. bleaching the coal-black hair of the Chief Secretary. It was only here and there that the white hairs showed, but the process had begun. Mr. Balfour was as pleasant and as light-hearted as ever, for few Chief Secretaries — despite the tell-tale evidence of his hair — ever took their grave and responsible duties more easily. He was, however, too much engrossed in the work of his depart- ment to have much thought to spare for foreign complications. He made one remark, however, which is worth noting and quoting. I had remarked that the question of peace or war affected him perhaps more than anyone, because it was always England's troubles abroad which had given Irish Nationalists their oppor- tunity at home ; and if England were involved in war abroad the necessity of withdrawing the 30,000 soldiers now kept in Ireland would necessitate the concession of the Irish demands. Such at least, I said, has been the invariable course of Irish history. Such, I knew, was the deep-rooted conviction of at least one eminent member of the Conservative party. " I disagree," said Mr. Balfour ; " I do not think that if England became involved in a foreign war it would necessitate any abandonment of the policy which we are pursuing. I think I see how this policy can be carried out resolutely for twenty years, whether we have peace or war, and those twenty years will solve the Irish question.^-' Nevertheless, the more anxious the Con- servatives are about achieving the success of their Irish policy, the more sedulously will they eschew the adoption of any adven- turous policy elsewhere which might bring their Administration down with a run. They have given many hostages to fortune in Ireland, and the Union binds them over to keep the peace. The growing ascendancy of Mr. Balfour in the party cannot be regarded as otherwise than hopeful for the adoption of a pacific and intelligent policy abroad. From the Irish Office to 16, James Street, is but a short walk, but between the occupant of No! 16 and the Irish Secretary there is a great gulf fixed. Eor No. 16, James Street — a pleasant little bye-street within a stone's throw of Buckingham Palace — was the town residence of Mr. Gladstone. I found him busily engaged writing in a snug study at the back of the house. He entered heart and soul into the problem which I wished to solve, and discussed the question with the keenest interest. Age has not dulled his interest in human affairs^ nor FROM THE STANDPOINT OF LONDON. 7 have the disillusions of life deadened the enthusiastic faith with which he steps forth to meet the unknown future. One of his remarks was very characteristic. Speaking- of the right of Bulgaria to independence, he exclaimed, referring- to the differ- ences between his point of view and that of those who take their stand on arrangements made at the Berlin Congress, " I believe in freedom. Yes, in freedom. F-R-E-E-D-O-M ! " spelling it out letter by letter — "freedom in the plain, simple orthography of the word, and it is that which makes my Stand- point so different from theirs.'^ Mr. Gladstone has no belief in England being in danger of war from France or from Russia. He ridiculed the idea of a French invasion, and said that the arguments used against the Channel Tunnel made him blush to look a Frenchman in the face. " Not that I am so much for the Tunnel,''^ he said, " as I am against those who are against it.^' Mr. Gladstone was careful to point out that he was not a '^ non- interference man,''^ which is perfectly true. He has never been, and is not now, a non-interventionist. At the same time, he is a strenuous opponent of any alliances with any European Power. " It is,'^ he declared with great emphasis, " not only desirable that we should be entirely free from entangling alliances for our own sake ; I would go further, and assert that it is the indispensable condition of our being able at any time to inter- vene with advantage on behalf of the general peace. ^^ He was as much opposed to a league of pacific Powers, for the purpose of preventing war by force, as to any other kind of league. Even with the strongest case that could be made out in favour of such a league he would have nothing to do. To recon- stitute the European concert on the basis of existing treaties, and to ally all the Powers against any one of their number who attempted to subvert the status quo by the sword, was entirely opposed to his ideas. It would involve an alliance with Germany to prevent Alsace and Lorraine ever reverting to France. That might be a good thing or a bad thing, but whether good or bad, it was not for Englishmen to settle. It was a matter primarily concerning the populations of those provinces, and after them the people of France and Germany. Englishmen had neither the knowledge to enable them to interfere in such a matter wisely, nor any responsibility for discharging such a duty. Suppose we put it the other way. " Shall you and I 8 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. undertake to decide that because the populations o£ these pro- vinces have become largely French in their habits of thought, language, &c., therefore they must be returned to France? That is not a question for us to decide. If we attempted to do so, the French and the Germans might, on their part, under- take to say whether or not we should grant Ireland Home Rule/' Mr. Gladstone expressed himself strongly in favour of a peaceable solution of the Bulgarian question. He would see with grave dissatisfaction any attempt on the part of any Power to interfere arbitrarily with Bulgarian freedom. He was full of praise of the capacity for self-government shown by the Southern Slavs. Leave them alone and they will do well. He still stands by the famous formula, ''Hands off '.•'■' He had addressed it to Austria in 1880, and he thought that he had done good by so doing. I could see that he was equally ready to say, '' Hands off!'' to Russia, if in his opinion she should be encroaching upon the rights, the liberties, and the privileges of the Balkan Slavs. There was, as might be expected, an entire absence of any predisposition to judge the policy of Russia or that of any other Power, excepting as he would wish his own policy to be judged. No man has a more singularly open mind, or is more generous in his judgment of others. Certain misapprehensions as to Russia's policy in the Penj-deh dispute which might have embittered other men, only made him anxious to ascertain whether or not he had beeir accurately informed in the matter, and no trace of prejudice could be discovered which would prevent him welcom- ino- with all the goodwill in the world an entente cordiale be- tween Russia and England. Lord Randolph Churchill would not even allow Bulgarian freedom to stand in the way of a good understanding with Russia. Lord Derby remains true to his determination to main- tain a policy of strict abstinence from Continental broils. He is, after Mr. Bright, the most thoroughgoing non-interventionist in the Empire. On the whole, so far as our statesmen are con- cerned, the danger of the adoption of a deliberately hostile policy to Russia seems to me of the slightest. The danger does not lie in that direction, but in a policy of drift above, with a constant liability to sudden gusts of j)opular passion and pre- judice from below. The general note at present of the British AFTER SEEING GENERAL BOULANGER. 9 politician^ whether in or out of office, towards foreign affairs, is one of extraordinary and unintelligible indifference — unintelli- g-ible, that is, if statesmanship is to be henceforth anything- more than a mere game of finesse and intrigue, of bluster and of bounce, with a horizon strictly limited by the date of the next General Election. With that limitation, the prevailing apathy is, alas ! only too intelligible. CHAPTER III. FROM PARIS AFTER SEEING GENERAL BOULANGER. It was a splendid moonlight night, when the little two-funnelled steamer Samphire left Dover Pier for Calais. Nearly four years before, I had crossed the Channel at night on a hurried visit to the King of the Belgians. But although the moonlight and the straits were the same, how changed was all besides ! On the night before my audience at the Royal Palace at Brussels, the Channel was as smooth as a mill-pond. Hardly a ripple moved the waters across which the moonlight spread a long silver track — a kind of celestial carpeting for the passage of Her Majesty^s mail. But this time the wind was up, and the steamer tossed lightly as a cork upon the moonlit waves which thundered and moaned and heaved under her bow. The night was lovely though the wind was high, and the waves made the steamer heel and roll until the bright lights of the Foreland — that double-eyed Pharos which keeps watch and ward over the English Channel from the brow of a ghostly range of white chalk cliff's — shone sometimes above and sometimes below the boats which hung from the davits at the side. There was something weird and Spenserian in the great white cliffs with the blazing eyes of flame gleaming sleepless over the tossing straits, while overhead even the stars seemed to shift and wander as the vessel heaved and rose and fell on the chopping sea. I was not sorry the sea was rough. That little strip of tumbling brine is worth to England, at the lowest computation, the annual interest on a thousand millions sterling, and in the 10 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. present turbulent aspect of Europe there is comfort even in the mat de mer which haunts as a kind of local pestilence the water- way between the French and English shores. Arriving in Paris on the morning of the day (April 27) on which General Boulanger was to make his long-expected manifesto, I found opinion much divided as to the prospects of his campaign; but on one point there was general agreement. That point is that General Boulanger is an honest man, a good fellow, unassuming and simple, the last man in the world who would be expected to play the part of a Louis Napoleon. He may have his Morny in Laguerre, and in his entourage there may be pesti- lent rufhans like the bloodsuckers whom the Third Napoleon gave carte blanche to drink from the veins of France, but he himself is no adventurer of the familiar type. His opponents ridicule him. He is nobody, they say. His friends idolise him, declar- ing you may trust him implicitly, but both agree in scouting the idea that he is capable, either for good or for evil, of playing the evil role of the Napoleons. It may be a relief to some people to know that there was an equally universal agreement as to the absurdity of the conviction, seriously entertained in some influential quarters in London, that General Boulanger's accession to power would endanger the security of England. The suggestion was hailed with peals of incredulous laughter. " Attack England ! What for ? It is too absurd." And then everyone would laugh at the immensity of the joke. Two very decided views were expressed as to the grounds why such an idea should be summarily dismissed as entirely beyond the pale of possibility. The first was material. To invade England, the first essential is a fleet, and M. Ferry, by his colonial wars, destroyed the efliciency of the fleet. The wear and tear of the Chinese camj)aign played havoc with the material of the French nav}^, and so far from the French being in a position to undertake to command the Channel, and transport an army of 100,000 men to the coast of Kent, it is doubtful whether, if war were to break out with Italy, the French iron- clads would be able to keep their ground in the Mediterranean. The second argument was moral ; the French electors, it is said, have a mortal horror of war. It is doubtful whether they could be roused to fight for Alsace and Lorraine. It is certain that they would oppose any other war, and a war with England would AFTER SEEING GENERAL BOULANGER. 11 be regarded, alike by the peace party, which includes all the industrious toilers in town and country, and all the war party, which is headed by the League of Patriots and the like, as being sheer lunacy. General Boulanger's popularity with the warlike section, as well as with the advocates of peace and progress, has arisen in no small measure from his unconcealed opposition to any policy which scattered the national forces, or diverted the atten- tion of France from her own affairs. To suppose that* he, of all men in the world, would suddenly place himself at the head of an army of invasion directed against England, is almost as wild a dream as to imagine Sir Wilfrid Lawson adopting a policy of free trade in drink as his programme, after being established in the Home Office, or to suppose that if Mr. Morley became Irish Secretary he would offer the whole of the Nationalists the historic alternative of " Hell or Connaught."" " It is amazing, it is incredible,''^ exclaimed one eminent diplomat, when I was endeavouring to explain the nature of the alarms which affect some eminent men in London, " it is marvellous to think that such a delusion could be entertained by anyone of regular brain. ^•' If General Boulanger's success means war at all, ib will be war with Germany, and with Germany alone. But he strongly protests against the supposition that he is an advocate for war. I had an appointment with the General at No. 73 at ten o'clock on the morning of April 28. I was there twenty minutes before time, and had to wait for half an hour after the time fixed. The corridor on the third story was filled with expectant visitors. All the seats were occupied, and men and women stood about the corridor waiting until the little curly-headed boy in buttons — a namesake and a compatriot of Joseph who was sold into Egypt — summoned them into the presence of the great man. It was a motley throng. One lady was reading the Athenaum, another wore the deepest mourning, A smart officer in full uniform strode in with his sword under his arm, seedy-looking veterans with Napoleonic moustaches lounged about patiently, like bullocks waiting for water; here and there an ouvrier in a blouse stood waiting, but the majority were well-dressed gentlemen. As a rule the interview accorded to each visitor did not exceed five minutes. The page-boy Joseph studied L'Intransifjeant with the gravity of a philosopher in the 12 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. intervals between the 'entry and the exit of the visitors. The corridor was like the antechamber of a Minister. Already it was full of those who were hastening to pay court to the rising sun. The General's apartment was a pleasant^ sunny room, with plenty of windows, a cheerful fire, and a pleasant greenery of shrubs at the opposite end. General Boulanger came forward to greet me. Nothing could be kinder and more cordial, more simple and unaffected, than General Boulanger's welcome. In appearance he reminds you of anything in the world excepting a fire-eater or an adventurer of any kind. He was simply dressed, and he might have been mistaken any day either for a German or an Englishman. A kindly, good-hearted creature he seemed, con- scientiously bent upon doing his best, whatever he did, and by no means quite sure whither the destinies are driving him, but gradually acquiring a conviction that they have something great in store for him — that was General Boulanger as he seemed to me, and by no means a man for a cotcp d'etat. But I am by no means sure whether he might not prove equal, if the occasion arose, to purging the Chamber — let us say of Jews, jobbers, and rascals — after the fashion of Colonel Pride. Of that, however, it is in vain at present to speculate. After bidding me welcome and expressing the usual courteous compliments. General Boulanger explained that he feared he would not be able to answer my questions so fully as he would have wished to do, because he had put a lock on his lips which prevented him speaking. I had been told that he spoke English fluently. His mother is said to have been Welsh, and he was educated at Brighton. He explained that it was so many years since he had spoken English he could only use the lang.uage with difficulty. He understood it also very badly, and would prefer the conversation should take place in French. I said that if he could not speak freely to me, might I speak freely to him ? " Certainly," he replied. I gladly availed myself of the permission : — " In Loudou," I began, " we look upon the situation with great interest, and we regard it as being serious. " Moi aussi," said the General, " so do I ; the situation is very serious." " Generally speaking," I went on, "I think that I may say that in AFTER SEEING GENERAL BOUL ANGER. 13 England your movement is regarded as seriously threatening (1) the Republic, (2) the peace of Europe, and (3), although this is only in some quarters, the peace of England." General Boulauger replied quietly, but decisively, " And all these suppositions are false." " It may be so," I replied, " but that is the way in which the situation strikes the English mind. The popular English traditional idea of the' French people is that, while they are very reasonable, industrious, and peaceable as a general rule, they are liable every now and then — say at intervals of from fifteen to eighteen years — to periodical fits of restless- ness — almost madness — when they are apt to make trouble and rush into war, and the idea prevails among many of our peojile that such a period has now arrived." General Boulanger nodded, to indicate that he followed the line of argximent. " The French people," I continued, " seem to be discontented with the Government and the system, which has disappointed their aspirations, and, being discontented, they usually fling themselves at the feet of someone. This someone happens to-day to be General Boulanger." General Boulauger struck in — '" Attendez. Much is said about my personal ambitious. The real truth is that I have striven to the best of my ability to serve my countrymen. The French people have seen this and recognised it. There lies the only secret of my strength. M}' strength is solely the strength of the feeling among the people that I have done this." " No doubt," I replied ; " it is uot that we impute personal ambition to you. We merely note that France seems disposed to fling herself at your feet, and the danger is that the Republic may go under. Then if General Boulanger comes at the top, owing to the dissatisfaction felt at the shortcomings of the ReiJublic, General Boulanger must do something to satisfy the restless cravings of the nation. If Russia will help, so they argue, he will go to war with Germany. But Russia will not help. Then, as he must do something, so they come to the conclusion that he will go to war with England." General Boulauger, laughing, " But why ? " " Simply because they say you must do something, and as you cannot attack Germany single-handed with any chance of success, you will be driven to attack England." General Boulanger listened attentively, and then replied, " What you say was true enough formerly, but it is not so now. At the present moment there are internal social questions which urgently demand solu- tion. These questions must be solved. It is not war, but the solution of these questions, which is the business of the nation. War would post- pone and aggravate them all." I ventured to remind him that history abounded with examples of Governments going to war under these very circumstances, in order to evade or postpone internal difficulties. 14 TBTJTE ABOUT RUSSIA. " Tes," said the General, " that has no doubt been the case. But now in France the people have their minds set upon the solution of these internal questions, and they would tolerate no diversion which would distract their attention from them. As for the notion that I shall attack England, I have never dreamed of such a thing. Of course," he added, with a merry little laugh, " if England were to attack us, we should have to defend ourselves." " England," I exclaimed, " attack you, with our little handful of an army ! " General Boulanger shrugged his shoulders, and we all laughed at the ridiculous idea. The conversation then turned to the manifesto which he had launched the previous night. I remarked that I had been considerably surprised to read his declaration that he would be one of the first to vote for the sup- pression of the Presidency if it were proposed to abolish it in the Con- stituent Assembly summoned to revise the Constitution. " It is quite true," said the General, gravely ; " I am perfectly prepared to vote for its abolition." "But," I asked with some abruptness, "what would become of you in that case ? If there is no presidency, what would be your position ? " '' Nous verrons," said General Boulanger ; " we have a French proverb which says, ' There will always be water flowing under the bridge.' " I did not quite see the point of the proverb, and he repeated it in English : " There is always water flowing under the bridg-e/' and explained that, whatever happened, he did not fear that he would always find some opportunity in which to serve his country. One of his friends subsequently told me that what General Boulanger would really like was not the Presidency, but the position of permanent Minister of War, an office from which he could watch over the welfare of the Army of the National Defence. This, however, is quite a different idea from that which he formerly favoured, which, as I reminded him, was. to reconcile his candidature with the Republic by constituting him an American President : — " Pewt-etre,'' said General Boulanger. " But," I replied, " if there is no Presidency, what is there then left but dictatorship ? " " I have never dreamt of it," replied General Boulanger, with some emphasis; " jamais, jamais /" The General then stretched out his hand. He shook my hand with a curious corkscrew-like twist, and then, retaining it in both of his, he said: — "'My only idea has been to serve the people. It is for them that I have AFTER SEEING GENERAL BOUL ANGER. 15 laboured, aud my position is entirely due to their appreciation of my efforts for them." " But is it not also," I said, " because they believe that you, best of all, will help them to reg-ain the lost provinces of Alsace and Lorraine ? " General Boulanger replied, " No doubt that may be the case. But mark my words. I shall never seek a pretext for making war against Germany ; but, of course, if Germany attacks us, we shall do well to be prepared. France," said he, with more feeling than he had shown during the conversation, " can never forget her lost provinces. Never. But to attack Germany or to wish for war — that is another thing." This brought me to the root of the question, and I attacked it without reserve. " Tell me," said I, " do the French people still care as much as ever for Alsace and Lorraine ? Only yesterday I was assured that President Grevy had expressed a decided oj)iuion to the contrary." " M. le President Gr6vy ? " asked the General. " Yes," said I, " so I was told." " Then, if so," said General Boulanger, " it is only a j)roof that M. Grevy is un gdteux. I mean," he explained, " that he has grown so infirm that his opinion has no longer the weight it had." " But," I continued, " there are others of M. Grevy's opinion. I was assured yesterday by one who professed to be very confident on the subject, that there was not a single mother in Bordeaux, or Marseilles, or elsewhere, who would send her son to die for the sake of restoring Stras- burg to France." " We shall see, said the General, " who is right." "And in the Nord also at the late election," I said, "the feeling of the people was decidedly adverse to war." " And so am I adverse to war," said General Boulanger. " We do not desire war. We are for peace. But," he said, " my ideas as to peace are these — namely, that peace to be permanent must be honourable. It must not be a peace which has been imposed in the pride of conquest, aud that has to be submitted to because the throat of the vanquished is under the heel of the conqueror.'' I feared that this was only another way of saying that France would take the first good opportunity that offered to wrest back her ceded pro- vinces, and I said so. He replied with the stereotyped formula : "" We shall not provoke a war, but we must be prepared against an attack." We once more shook hands. " Au revoir/' said the General, " when you return to Paris." And our place was taken by the next on the list. The stream of callers continues from half-pfist nine to half-past eleven every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. General Boulanger may not be a great man, but he seems to have a remarkable ffift in the knack of winnins: 16 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. confidence and making friends. It reminded me, when I saw him welcoming" successive visitors with such empressement, of a verse or two from the history of Israel in which it is written that — " Absalom said, Oh, that I were made judge in the land, that every man which hath any suit or cause might come unto me, and I would do him justice ! And it was so, that when any man came nigh to him to do him obeisance, he put forth his hands and took him and kissed him. ... So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel.''^ The net result of my conversations with the statesmen, the diplomats, and the journalists whom I met in the French capital is not difficult to sum up in a single sentence; they all say one thing and one thing only : France is for peace. If there is to be war in Europe, France will not make it. Neither will France upset the Republic. The French have not gone mad. They are a little restive and discontented, but their malaise is no more likely to result in war and revolution than a passing indigestion is likely to develop into delirium tremens. Whether General Boulanger comes to the front, or whether General Boulanger disappears, does not matter. If he were to put him- self forward as the advocate for war, he would have no following, save M. Deroulede and the handful of enthusiasts who form the League of Patriots. If it depends on France there will be no war. France will neither attack Germany nor provoke war with Germany. France is for peace. So says the Prime Minister, so says General Boulanger, so says the Minister-maker, M. Clemenceau, and so say the representatives, journalistic and official, of other powers in Paris. I can hardly exaggerate the optimism that prevailed in all circles in the French capital as to the prospects of peace. ''There will be no war; certainly France will make none. Nor do I think that Germany will make one either, so long at least as Bismarck lives,^' was the declaration made by one of the most influential men in France ; and Ministers and diplomatists all say the same thing. As for the nightmare of a war with England, the suggestion is simply drowned in such shrieks of laughter that it is impossible to discuss the subject. Everything, of course, may change, like the weather ; but for the moment the political weatherglass in Paris points to "set fair.'"' I had a very pleasant and profitable time calling ujDon AFTER SEEING GENERAL BOUL ANGER. 17 Ministers and political and diplomatic personages, and I acknow- ledge with gratitude the ready courtesy and consideration with which I was everywhere received. My fii'st visit was naturally paid to the Ministry of the Interior, now the official residence of the Prime Minister of Prance. M. Carnot, the President of the Republic, being now on a tour in the South of France, there was no occasion to call at the Elysee, and as I had to leave Paris before the President's return, I contented myself with a view of his portrait at the Salon. M. Carnot, who, together with General Boulanger, M. Ferry, and Cardinal Lavigerie, figures among the more con- spicuous portraits of the year, does not appear to be an impress- ive or an overpowering personality. A black-visaged gentleman with a certain wooden immobility of countenance, commonplace but obstinate, M. Carnot's portrait is a striking contrast to that of M. Ferry, whom he defeated in the contest for the Presidency. M. Ferry's deeply lined and somewhat gross countenance showed more character — not of the best sort — than could be discerned in M. Carnot, but both showed to a great disadvantage beside the honest, open, intelligent face of General Boulanger, whose excellent full-length portrait was almost as prominent in the Salon as the original is in French politics. But this is a digression. The Salon is at the Ministry of Fine Arts, and my first visit was paid to the Ministry of the Interior. The French Home Office stands back from the Faubourg St. Honore, almost opposite the British Embassy, where Lord Lyt- ton displays in the hall the trophies which remind his visitors that the present occupant of the Embassy was at one time Viceroy of India. Unlike Mr. Matthews, whose windows look out upon a dismal quadrangle of stone, the French Minister of the Interior looks out on a garden ; not a very large one, it is true, but its green grass triangle is a welcome relief to the eye. It is a famous place, is this centre of the centralised Govern- ment of France. Under the Empire here was the box-seat of the coachman to whom Napoleon entrusted the di'iving of France. From the comfortable and spacious chamber in which M. Floquet graciously gave me audience, and discussed the pro- spects of General Boulanger and of the peace of Europe, went forth the decrees which Imperial prefects in every department Avere ready to enforce, c 18 TllUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. The present occupant of the Ministry of the Interior, M. Floquet, is a man of singular rectitude, and of great civic courage. In his earlier days he was vehement and impulsive ; and words and acts of his in those days of hot youth are still remembered in his favour even by those who differ from his sentiments. It is hardly fair to say that he has fought his way up step by step, for politics have never been to him the pro- fession which they are to many Frenchmen. M. Floquet is a man of independent fortune, and he is in politics to serve his coun- try, not to make himself a fortune. He was an honest man, and while M. Wilson was entrenched at the Elysee it was impossible for an honest man to make much headway in French politics. When M. Wilson fell, and it was resolved to make a deter- mined attempt to cut out the gangrene of official corruption, M. Floquet naturally became Prime Minister of France. The Ministry for Foreign Affairs stands on the other side of the Seine, near to the Chamber, and not very far from the Invalides, the gilded dome of which is one of the most familiar landmarks of Paris. Inside, the splendour of the Foreign Office throws the Ministry of the Interior entirely into the shade. M. Goblet, who is now Minister for Foreign Affairs, was no long time ago Prime Minister of France. Like M. Thiers, he is not tall. He reminded me at first — I don't exactly know why — of the portraits of Prince Gortschakoff, although in appearance he might easily be mistaken for an Englishman. He speaks with great precision and clearness. In the tribune and in former Ministries it is said he displayed some impetuosity of temper, and he is a Gallic cock that crows quite as loudly when defeated as when victorious. His room was business-like, and the great windows flooded the place with light. Immediately behind the comfortable and solid arm-chair in which the Minister transacts the foreign affairs of France hung several large maps, one I noticed particularly -being by Kiepert, the German geographer. After seeing Ministers it was necessary to see the Minister- maker, and I had a very pleasant talk with M. Clemenceau in the office of his paper, Za Justice, close to the boulevard Montmartre. M. Clemenceau received me in his office, which is notable as having among its appurtenances a large east of the Venus of Milo, a divinity not usually encountered in the editorial AFTER SEEING GENERAL BOUL ANGER. 19 sanctum. M. Clemenceau, who was accompanied by his brilliant lieiitenant, M. Camille Pelletan, looked pale and out of sorts. lie had a hacking couyh, but his spirits were high and iiis eon- hdence both in peace and in the Republic was more emphatic than that of anyone I have met in Paris. His position with regard to the Floquet Ministry is somewhat equivalent to that occupied by Lord Hartingtou in relation to the Salisbury Cabinet. If at any time he were to withdraw his support, down would come M. Floquet and Cabinet and all. He is, however, going to continue to support the Government, preferring to do so from the outside for reasons which satisfied M. Floquet when M. Clemenceau alleged them as reasons for declining the portfolio that was placed at his disposal. Quite as interesting as my interviews with the Ministers was the visit — my first — to the Salon, which was opened for private view. From the point of view of my mission I noted in passing that in this Salon there were comparatively few battle pictures, and hardly any of these related to the incidents of the Franco-German war. The most striking in its grim realism represented an incident in the taking of the Malakoff, when a French colonel salutes the colours which a French soldier has clasped in death. The foreground is a horrid compost of corpses, and the central figure of the dead soldier is only too vividly real. There was a confused battle-piece representing the battle of Borodino, and another called the battle of Waterloo. Here and there, there were pictures representing more recent events, but if the Salon walls afford any test, the French were not thinking much about revenge. They were thinking much more about what Matthew Arnold styled their great goddess Lubricity. The nudities in the Salon were very numerous and very naked, and very much not ashamed. Most of them were very ugly, as if mere absence of clothes atoned for all other defects. By far the most striking painting in the Salon was M. Albert Maignan^s magnificent picture of " The Voices of the Tocsin.^'' It is a marvellous conception, executed by the hand of a master. It represents the ringing of the tocsin in time of war. Four men are pulling with desperate energy at the bell- ropes, straining every muscle with convulsive effort to make the great bell peal forth over the threatened land the dread alarum of war. Far on the distant horizon, the lurid glare of a burning c -Z 20 , TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. hamlet flames blood-red ag-ainst the sky, and overhead the great bell swing's madly to and fro, and from its iron mouth pour forth in maddening rout the "Voices of the Tocsin/' These are personified as creatures of the storm, entirely human, although fleeting down through the air like spirits, each with frenzied eyes, and a face of agonised alarm, crying aloud their message of terror and of dismay over a doomed land. It is a great picture, a wonderful realisation, full of the force, the fury, and the terror of the alarm of war. How long, I wondered, as I stood before that painted canvas, will it be before " the voices of the tocsin " are let loose over Europe ? how long before the journalists of the Continent are labouring like these tortured ringers to sound the alarm of war ? Who knows ? Not I, nor M. Floquet, Nor Prince Bismarck, nor the Tzar. If we could depend upon declarations, the tocsin will never be sounded by the French. Everywhere in France, in the highest quarters and in the lowest, there is only heard one word on the subject, and that word is peace. France will never declare war. France will never provoke war. If she is attacked she will defend herself with elan, and hurl back the invader with irresistible ai'dour, but to attack Germany — never ! As for the supposition that, under any conceivable circumstances, France would attempt to invade England, that is treated as a joke worthy only of opera-bouffe. The French, I heard everywhere, while ready to offer the most formidable resistance France lias ever offered to an invading foe, were not prepared to undertake a war of conquest. Their army is a magnificent militia, so strong as to make France practically invulnerable. But it is neither organised nor instructed, nor capable of waging an offensive war beyond its borders. With one consent all Frenchmen whom I saw declared that, wherever there may be danger of war breaking out, the one Government which is absolutely certain never to declare war is the Government of France. 21 CHAPTER IV. IN BELGIUM WITH M. BE LAVELEYE, From Paris to Berlin, even an ordinary through train will take you first-class for five guineas in twenty-four hours. The at- tempt to make the jouruey in Imperial style in 1870 cost the Third Napoleon his throne, and France five milliards and two provinces, while the Germans, even with all their unprecedented victories, were more than eight weeks ia covering the ground which in time of peace every traveller skims across in a single day. The road from Paris to Berlin lies through Belgium. In peace time the through train passes Namur, Liege, and Aix-la- Chapelle. In war time this through route is blocked by the neutrality of Belgium, a neutrality which it is erroneously supposed England is under treaty obligation to defend by force of arms. But the temptation to break through Belgium despite its neutrality will be almost overwhelming, if either Germany or France seriously desires to invade the other. For this reason : — ever since the great war the two Powers have been busily engaged in rendering their respective frontiers impassable, by constructing lines of fortresses against which an invading army from the other side will break its head in vain, France glares at Germany and Germany glares at France from behind a chevaux de frise of fortresses bristling with cannon and crammed with soldiers armed with repeating rifles beneath the hail of which no troops can live. But while the immediately adjacent frontiers are thus rendered inaccessible, immediately to the North lies the direct road — at present the open road — through Belgium, by which either combatant could march his forces into the enemy^s country. My route lay directly along the line that would be taken by the invadex-. It was a line full of historic interest, crossing the cockpit of Europe. From Namur to Aachen how many armies have marched and countermarched, how many battles have been fought, how many fields fattened with the corpses of innumerable soldiers ? As it has been, who can say how soon it may not be again, neutralities notwithstanding ? May Day broke in peace and sunshine over the Belgian valleys, culling to labour the peaceful peasant and 22 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. artisan, whom I watched husy in their fields and at their mines soou after five o''clock. It is a pretty, rug-g-ed country, the g-reat rocks towering up picturesquely above the line, and the fresh, bright green of May beginning to make glad the woods and the valleys. Everything was peaceful and still. The first swallow I had seen this year darted overhead, the sparrows chirped by the wayside, flocks of pigeons lazily rose from the fields as the train hurtled past, the child on its way to the well with water-pails paused as we passed ; the whole was an idyllic picture of rural life. Right in the heart of the open road, through which the opposing hosts may rush, and which may become the arena of the great combat to the death, stands the ancient and famous town of Liege, on the river Meuse. It is famous, among other things in the past, as having been the birthplace of Charlemagne, whose equestrian statue is one of the most conspicuous monu- ments of the town. Liege was the seat of a prince- bishopric in old times, but it is more notable at present as the seat ot a university which is attended by some 1,600 students, and which has the good fortune to have M. Eniile de Laveleye as one of its leading professors. It is a peculiar good fortune that so intelligent and observant a publicist should have been planted as it were in a watch-tower midway between the opposing Powers, and it was with great pleasure I accepted his invitation to break my journey at Liege on my way from Paris to Berlin. "Not this year,^'' said M. de Laveleye thoughtfully; '^ I don't think it will come this year. Prince Bismarck will not go to war, and in France, as you have found, they will not, in reality cannot, attack with any prospect of success. The de- ciding voice is at St. Petersburg. If Russia sends an armv into Bulgaria, I fear that it will be almost impossible to avoid war with Austria. But even then I do not think the relations between France and Russia are so close as to lead France to attack Germany, even if Russia should be at war with Germany's ally in south-eastern Europe. I do not see how the war is to come about even in that case. And if there is no war in Bulgaria, there seems little chance of the peace being disturbed. '^ As we were walking through the streets from the station we. WITH M. DE LAVE LEY E. 23 met many persons, women and artisans^ carrying j^-uns and gun- barrels in various stages of completion. Liege is a great centre oi: the gun trade, and business was looking up just then. The local makers had just executed an order for fifteen million cartx'idges for the Bulgarians — a fact of somewhat sinister significance. The Russian Minister at Brussels was not over- pleased, but he could do nothing. This is not the only connection between Liege and the Eastern Question. If Liege manufacturers fill the cartridge boxes of the Bulgarian conscripts, General de Brialmont, the Belgian master of the art of fortification, who is now building forts I'ound Liege, has built a perfect network of impregnable fortresses round Bucharest. The Roumanian capital is now a fortress of the first class, and behind its steel-eased bulwarks the Roumanians could effectually check a Russian advance into the Balkan Peninsula. M. de Laveleye himself has done not a little to interest Western Europe in the affairs of the Southern Slavs. His was a potent voice in 1876-1878 in favour of the liberation of Bulgaria, and he is at this moment seeing through the press a second edition of his important work on " The Balkan Peninsula,^'' in which he contends strongly that the only satis- factory solution of the Eastern Question is to be found in a federation of Roumania, Servia, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Greece, based on three principles — a Customs Union, a supreme federal tribunal for the settlement of differences, and reciprocal assistance in case of attack. M. de Laveleye has travelled in these regions, and he entertains a strong conviction as to the importance and the possibility of developing these nascent States into a powerful and pacific Federation. General Brialmont, who is constructing simultaneously the fortifications designed to close the open gates through which Russia enters Turkey, and by which Germany and France can invade each other^s territory, is a friend of M. de Laveleye, and, like most military men, he takes a more gloomy view of the prospects of peace than the politicians. He never ceases to lament that he received orders to fortify Belgium too late to have his fortresses ready before war will be declared. As he will have them completed in two years, it is evident General Brialmont does not regard the peace of Europe as likely to be of long duration. General Brialmont is also a specialist, and, like 24 TRUTH ABOUT BUSS Li. all specialists, is inclined to think that there is nothing like leather, or, in his case, nothing like steel-cased, turtle-backed forts. He is putting up twelve of them round Namur to block the rush of the French towards Germany, and eight of them round Liege to block the German advance towards France. They are odd little forts, hardly visible above the surface. In old times the castle was the most conspicuous object in the whole country side, and even the ruins of the old feudal keeps tower in grandeur above more modern buildings. But artillery is a great leveller. The earthwork rampart long ago replaced the castellated fortress, and now the great earthwork forts, such as those which made Metz and Mayence impregnable, are doomed. According to General Brialmont, the new explosives, of which both the opposing armies have ample store, will enable either of them to burst their way through all the so-called " impregnable " fortresses built a few years since. Of course, if this be so, the peril of Belgium is small, for in that case melinite will clear the way, and the battles will take place where they were fought in 1870-1. But General Brialmont probably exaggerates the de- structive power of the new explosive, and under-estimates the toughness of earth and masonry. Even against melinite his for- tresses are guaranteed to stand. They are in the first case planted like an island in the midst of a lake of concrete, which hardens into a solid rock against which shells will burst in vain. The fort itself is turtle-shaped, like the earlier ironclads in the American war, and the sloping roof is of the hardest steel. Each fort is armed with two immense guns revolving in a turret, exactly like the armament of our latest ironclads. It would, indeed, be difficult to describe General Brialmont's system better than by saying that he anchors round the position which he wishes to defend a flotilla of non-seagoing ironclads, fitted with turrets, protected by armour plates, and each manned by the ordinary fighting complement of a first-class man-of-war, after deducting those whose duty is to sail and not to fight. The largest Belgian fort will have a complement of 400 men ; the smaller forts will be sufficiently manned by a garrison of 200. They will cost when finished four millions sterling, and, if adequately supported by a territorial army, will effectually bar the passage of any invading force. The Belgian door will be closed in 1889. WITH M. DE LAVELEYE. 25 The question of supplying- a field force sufficiently strong- to support the forts eng-ag-es much attention. The King' is pressing- hard for applying- the principle of universal military service. His Ministers proposed it ; the Liberals generally approved ; but the Clericals, fearing- loss of votes in the country, where the prin- ciple of compulsory military service is impopular, opposed the Government, and the proposal was dropped. It will be revived ag-ain, however, and if the King can manage it the Belgians will before long be passed through the mill like the rest of the Con- tinent. There seems to be some reason to believe — although the defence of Belgium is being conducted equally against both her neighbours — that the only enemy which is really feared is France. And they do not fear France very much. The French could only break through Belgium into Germany by exposing themselves to great danger of a flank attack, which the Germans are very conveniently placed to deliver. The Germans, on the other hand, would find Belgium, especially if fortified, a very convenient base from which to turn the French flank, and of course, in case of war, Belgium might see her w^ay to enter into an arrangement by which she threw in her lot with Germany in exchange for an adequate quid pro quo of guaranteed security. If France were to triumph, the Belgians believe she would annex them without scruple. They have no such fear as to Germany. Nothing, of course, is known of any such understanding as is here alluded to. All that is known is that when the Belgians agitated themselves mightily for permission to make their own ordnance, reasons of State and Royal promises were invoked to send the orders for the new guns to Krupp. M. de Laveleye talked much and well about the prospects in France, but it was evident that he could n^t assent to the con- temptuous estimate of the forces behind General Boulanger that prevails in Ministerial quarters at Paris. Not that M. de Lave- leye is a Boulangist — far from it. But he remembers the dis- comfiture of all the well-informed persons when Cavaignac went down before the Third Napoleon, and is loath to prophesy as to what is possible or is not possible in that " land of the unbe- known.'^ General Boulanger, of course, has no name like that of Napoleon with which to conjure. But he represents a rallying- point for all the discontent; and if all the Monarchists, all the Bonapartists, and all the stupid people rally round him, he will 26 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. be formidable indeed. The man who could command the suffrag-es of all the stupid would come in at the head of the poll every- where. But even if General Boulanger achieved a momentary success with a negative programme, M, de Laveleye does not think that he could make war with Germany ; while as to the possibility of a sudden descent upon England, that he regards as too ludicrous for discussion. " No doubt/"* said M. de Laveleye, '' you are not strong enough in England, and if in the course of a long war your fleet were to be used up, or if the discovery of some new torpedo were to destroy youi ironclads, the temptation to dash at London would be enormous. Why do you not adopt universal military service in England ? Something between the Swiss and the German systems would enable you to enjoy a security which at present is impossible. ^^ I told JNI. de Laveleye that before we would ever listen to such an outrage on all the ideas most tirmly held across the silver streak, we ought at least to try to provide such men as we have now in uniform with organisation, with improved weapons, with transport, with horses, and with artillery. When we cannot work up the half a million men — regulars, reserve, militia, and volunteers — out of a miscel- laneous mob into an oi'ganised military force, it is absurd to suggest as a remedy for everything the addition of two or three millions of units to the uniformed crowd. It is not men we want so much as a guiding brain, a resolute will, and an unswerving purpose. But the fact that so intelligent an observer as M. de Laveleye, who knows England down to the ground, should be- lieve that it would be well for us to adopt compulsory military service is an unpleasant fact which hardly harmonises with the optimism that hitherto has been universal. But it is always optimism limited. This year they say there will be no w^ar. Nor possibly the next. But some time, possibly if Bismarck were to die — then ! Bismarck is everywhere — in Paris, in Liege, in Berlin — regarded as the keystone of the arch of European peace. But, after Bismarck ? CHAPTER V. THE CAPITAL OF PRINCE BISMARCK. Few pleasanter experiences ever befall a traveller thaa that which I enjoyed when I put foot on German soil. The train for Berlin did not leave Cologne for an hour and a half after the arrival of the train from Liege. It was after seven, and I thought all but an outs'ide view of the great cathedral would be impossible. To my sui'prise the great Dom was open. A service was going on. About a thousand persons were listening to a sermon in praise of the Virgin Mary. Tlie preacher was in a little pulpit de- corated with the white flower of the Virgin, and his clear and resonant voice vibrated distinctly through the cathedral, as he denounced English Protestants for refusing to do honour to the Mother of God, and declared with great emphasis that what we are in the habit of calling Mariolatry was the very essence of the Christian religion. I did not mind his denunciations, and I was glad that, in however strange a fashion, woman should be rever- enced. But after awhile he ceased; his vibrating accents, which, oddly enough, recalled reminiscences' of Luther, although the preacher's face was spare and stern, died away, there was a movement towards the choir, and then from out the mists of night which rendered indistinct even the glories of the easteini windows, and tilled the great cathedral with a sense ol: infinity, as of the firmament of heaven, there floated down upon the as- sembled worshippers a stream of exquisite melody. They were women^s voices, limpid and sweet. What they sang I know not more than I know what the lark sings in mid-heaven ; all that I know is that the voices of the unseen singers filled the great aisles of the cathedral with wondrous music, which floated upward to the vaulted I'oof, as if it bore on angels' wrings the intense but inarticulate aspirations of the human heart. They ceased ; the organ pealed, and the great congregation took u]) the refrain, singing heartily and well. In front of the choir stood the Mother Mary with her child in arms. Around her were arrayed a great wealth of shrubs and flowers, before her burned a mul- titude of candles, and again in front knelt a great company of boys and girls. Again the sweet voices of the choir thrilled 28 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. through the great Dom ; on each side of the nave worshipiKi were bowed in prayer. The great figure «.f St. Christopli. bearing the Sacred Child on liis shoulders, loomed huge over t : crowd. The saiuts and sages who glowed with rich colour v the lower windows, the glory of the soaring arches, tl- tions of the famous Dom, and, above all, the liquid I . the female voices and the sweetness of the sacred music, com bined to produce one of those rare impressions which an ' result of a union of the forces of romance, of art, of hi.-: and of religion. • It was with difhculty I tore myself from the cath. • took the train for Berlin, and fell askvp. 1 never woke tili i.. conductor roused me with the statement that we were only halt an hour from Berlin. I lo<»ked out. We were running ihrougli a flat, sandy country; the sun was shining brightly in th- eastern sky ; a canal glimmered in the sunbeams, and right m the centre of the scene, with a background of fir-tre«'8, wrr. two companies of Prussian soldiers at signal-drill. Part of tluMu wore scarlet, the other i)art dark blue unifi>rms ; and this lit up the picture with a very bright spot of colour, full of sug^gvstion as to the ceaseless watchfulness that is kept (»ver the capital of the German realm. I found Berlin more peaceful, if possible, than Paris, and it the only danger of war in lluroiie arose from the danger of an immediate collision between the Freiu-h and the Germans, 1 would have returned to London at once. In 1870 the ex|HTi- enced permanent head of the Foreign Oflice con <-*\ Lord Granville on taking ollice at a time when ti:' „'u horizon was unprecedented ly free from all menacing clouds. Within a fortnight ihe war broke out betwet'n France antl Germany, and that contrast between pacitic outhnik and warlike realisation always recurs to the mind when the diplomatists are crying, " Peace, peace." Nevertheless, notwithstanding Lord Hammond's painful experience, I am inclined to risk the pre- diction that, so far as the two great antagonists are concemetl, there has never been a time sinee peace was signed when there seemed less human probability of a renewal of hostilitit*8. I found at Paris that the foremost politicians vied with each other in their protestations of their determination to abstam from provoking war. There is no reason to doubt the hiiM.iltv i.f THE CAPITAL OF PBIXCE BISMARCK. 29 these protMtations. The Frt-iu-h have not al)andonc(l their desirt' ' .-ir l<»st jTovinces ; hut tlie very intensity of their c - them resolute not to sacrilice them forever hy makin^f a premature plun^^e into a war in which they would have no allii-*; and for wlmh they are not prepare*!. France will not make the war of rev»-njre this year, if fur no other n-jwon than thi«, tliat she is not ready, that she ha.s no allies, and, what is mueh mon* - he haa for ((ffen-^ive ptir|>os<'s practieallv no army. For ....•-,..• purp<»tni< hln- never was stronj^cr. Mcr trixijm, cinefully triin.tl, well diw.'ipliued, and a«lmirahly arme(J, rest upon a chain of fortrt'iwfii, which make France practically 1" ' iri fron- ti- ..jr way to Berho, there to tlictatii-fi • -va* left atterly unprovided with r t1- :. F,t,t th- I . .-. — .. — , • . officers know their own countnr ; tker know ahoat the land l>. Tia « ^ .. . . ine French have tak. n -. a coO' dition in »!»:• 1. •;. . .'ht from (ftTinui ■. ! re they f»***l Tf- j.e- hande■'.' ' ^f their own rr>an* '. - i '^r man be in power, they wil So at leaat they spoke u* i'ar.*, m^ :-^ :=>iTi • :>l re 28 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. throuo-h the great Dom ; on each side of the nave worshippers were bowed in prayer. The great figure of St. Christopher, bearing the Sacred Child on his shoulders, loomed huge over the crowd. The saints and sages who glowed with rich colour in the lower windows, the glory of the soaring arches, the associa- tions of the famous Dom, and, above all, the liquid beauty of the female voices and the sweetness of the sacred music, com- bined to produce one of those rare impressions which are the result of a union of the forces of romance, of art, of history, and of religion. It was with difficulty I tore myself from the cathedral, took the train for Berlin, and fell asleep. I never woke till the conductor roused me with the statement that we were only half an hour from Berlin. I looked out. We were running through a flat, sandy country ; the sun was shining brightly in the eastern sky; a canal glimmered in the sunbeams, and right in the centre of the scene, with a background of fir-trees, were two companies of Prussian soldiers at signal-drill. Part of them wore scarlet, the other part dark blue uniforms ; and this lit up the picture with a very bright spot of colour, full of suggestion as to the ceaseless watchfulness that is kept over the capital of the German realm. I found Berlin more peacefid, if possible, than Paris, and if the only danger of war in Europe arose from the danger of an immediate collision between the French and the Germans, I would have returned to London at once. In 1870 the experi- enced permanent head of the Foreign Office congratulated Lord Granville on taking office at a time when the foreign horizon was unprecedentedly free from all menacing clouds. Within a fortnight the war broke out between France and Germany, and that contrast between pacific outlook and warlike realisation always recurs to the mind when the diplomatists are crying, " Peace, peace." Nevertheless, notwithstanding Lord Hammond's painful experience, I am inclined to risk the pre- diction that, so far as the two great antagonists are concerned, there has never been a time since peace was signed when there seemed less human probability of a renewal of hostilities. I found at Paris that the foremost politicians vied with each other in their protestations of their determination to abstain from provoking war. There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of TEE CAPITAL OF PRINCE BISMARCK. 29 these protestations. The French have not abandoned their desire to recover their lost provinces j but the very intensity of their desire makes them resolute not to sacrifice them for ever by making" a premature plung-e into a war in which they wovxld have no allies and for which they are not prepared. France will not make the war of revens^e this year, if for no other reason than this, that she is not ready, that she has no allies, and, what is much more serious, she has for offensive purposes practically no army. For defensive purposes she never was stronger. Her troops, carefully trained, well disciplined, and admirably armed, rest upon a chain of fortresses, which make France practically impregnable. But as for attempting to cross the German fron- tier, to break through the German fortresses, and force their wav to Berlin, there to dictate a peace which would restore Alsace and Lorraine, the French are no more prepared to attempt the operation than we are prepared to attempt the colonisation of the moon. The French army which started for Berlin in the summer of 1870 was at least furnished with maps of the terri- tory through which it was proposed to make a promenade of victory, although it was left utterly unprovided with maps of the country in which the campaign actually was decided. But the French army to-day has no maps of Germany. Its officers know their own country ; they know nothing about the laud beyond the frontier. The fact is, and it will be an enormous weight off the mind of every thoughtful man to know it, the French have taken seventeen years to put themselves in a con- dition in which they can feel safe against a sudden onslaught from Germany. They will have to take seventeen more before they feel themselves strong enough to take the offensive single- handed against their old antagonist. The war of revenge, if it has to be begun on the initiative of France, will hardly begin, barring accidents, before the close of the century. And this is true whether or not General Boulanger or some other soldier comes to the front. The French may, no doubt, like the English, occasionally go mad, but the experiences of 1870-1 have not been thrown away. The French know what the English have never known — what it is to have war carried into the heart of their own country — and, whether General Boulanger or any other man be in power, they will not lightly go to war. So at least they spoke in Paris, and the same opinions were 30 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. expressed still more strongly at Berlin. There will be no war in Europe if the Germans have to make it, I found diplomatists who are opposed on almost every other ground agree in this. Germany is for peace. Prince Bismarck^s supreme object is peace. " Ger- many/^ said the representative of a Power with whom it is some- times pretended that Germany is going to war, "Germany is in the ]iosition of a man who has had as good a dinner as he can swal- low, and who only asks to be let alone. ^^ The apparent semblance of bellicose preparation is really due to the stress and strain of his overwhelming passion for peace. The opinion in best-informed circles in Berlin is that Prince Bismarck has practically secured an international guarantee of the status quo. There is no written agreement. England, for instance, has not signed any treaty promising to place her navy at the disposal of Germany in case France were to begin the war of revenge. But it is tacitly understood that all the Powers will use their utmost endeavours to prevent an outbreak of war. How far these en- deavours will go is not exactly defined. But they will certainly go as far as possible without drawing the sword, and no one can say whether this diplomatic support may not, in some cases at least, develop into armed resistance. The relations between England and Germany, for instance, are now so much more friendly than they were a couple of years since, that it is now imderstood that if the dread entertained by some high authori- ties in England were realised, and the French were, in a gambling mood, to make a dash at London, the moment they developed their scheme it would be met by a declaration of war from Berlin. This would not have been so recently, biit I am given to understand on very high authority that it would be so now. The Germans are not in the least uneasy at the thought of a French attack. They are not expecting it, and they are pre- pared for it if it should come. I found at Berlin a very healthy and well-founded conviction that the French are not going to run their heads against a stone wall for the sake of Alsace and Lorraine. " There are only two men in France,^' said a foreign diplomatist who knows his Paris well, "who dream of war with Germany, and one of them is a woman. The other is a poet. Madame Adam and M. Paul Deroulede — behold the party of revenge ! It is vehement and self-conscious, but it is hardly strong enough to upset the peace of Europe.^^ As for General THE CAPITAL OF FRINGE BISMARCK. 31 Boulang-er, it is not believed that he will be able to do anything-; and he is ridiculed in comic songs. But Paris at Berlin stands for France, and the Germans have not yet realised the possibility o£ provincial France imposing" its candidate upon the capital. General Saussier, who commands the garrison of Paris, would not hesitate to shoot General Boulanger or anyone else who attempted a coup d'etatj but the danger of a Dictator in France does not come from the mob of Paris. It comes rather from the same forces which put Louis Napoleon over Cavaignac, and strengthened the arm of M. Thiers so as to enable him to crush the capital after a campaign directed from Versailles. General Boulanger, however, it' he arrives as the choice of the provincials, will not have a mandate to go to war. He may regild the dome of the Invalides to amuse the public, which, by all Frenchmen, from Napoleon the First to Clemenceau the Minister-maker, is regarded more as a child to be amused than a rational adult to be consulted. There is another aspect of the question which it would not be honest if I ig-nored. There can hardly be two opinions outside France as to the immensity of the relief that would follow a final renunciation on the part of the French of the dream of revenge and the definite abandonment of the lost provinces. But at the same time it is possible that such a relief might be bought too dear if it involved the extinction of the last spark of idealism in the French character. And there is too much reason to fear that the dying" away of interest in Alsace and Lorraine is due, not to the growth of an elevated morality, of Christian resignation, or even of philosophic complacency; it is due, I fear, chiefly to the supremacy of a vulgar and debasing" materialism. The worship of the almighty dollar is the one faith that survives in France. So at least say those who live in the country, and who deplore the dwindling of all enthusiasms save the enthusiasm of making 10 per cent. "The Frenchman cares for nothing but the franc," said one shrewd Ambassador ; " Alsace and Lorraine — pah ! that does not pay ! " And as the outward sign and symbol of the present condition of things, these melancholy moralists point to the ascendancy which has everywhere been obtained by the one race which is solely materialistic, which has no frontier, and whose Holy of Holies is the Bourse. France is eaten up by the Jews. '' Rothschild is the real Kmir of France. If the Comte de Paris were 32 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. to ascend the throne, it would only be as the Viceroy of the Rothschilds/' so I was told in Berlin; and whatever may be thought of this from other points of view, it cannot be said to impair the prospects of peace. If Rothschild be the Caesar of the Third Republic, he is not likely to use his authority to plunge France into war for the sake of a disputed province. Peace, therefore, from good motives or from bad — peace will last between Germany and France : neither will attack the other for some time on its own initiative. If there be war, it will have to begin elsewhere. The new Emperor seems as if he intended to make a change, but when I was in Berlin Prince Bismarck was Mayor of the Palace at Berlin, and a Mayor of the Palace who seemed likely to make his office hereditary. As an Amurath an Amurath succeeds, so when Prince Otto von Bismarck is gathered to his fathers, the present Count Herbert will step by legitimate heirship and the natural fitness of things into the vacant place. Count Herbert is a chip of the old block. He has been trained under a stern master, and he has followed his model sedulously, even in his brusqiierie of manner, and when his turn comes he hopes to prove that a second Bismarck is as possible in Germany as a second Pitt in England. And unless Count Herbert is belied, he has his ambitions to hand down the Bismarck line with a mixture of English blood. They call him an Anglomaniac in Berlin, but they attribute his recent unusual journey to the Viceregal Cuurt at Dublin in the depths of a wretched winter to a deeper and more romantic motive. Count Herbert is not married, at least not jei, and although his father during the war jested somewhat coarsely as to the advantages of a Semitic connection, his son is more likely to marry into England than into Israel. Prince Bismarck is hale and well. Every day he may be seen riding in the Thiergarten, and not even the grim and gruesome tale that is told about his favourite body physician — a tale recalling one of the stories of Herodotus — prevents him following his advice and profiting thereby. During his last great speech in the Reichstag, an English corre- spondent assures me that he counted him drink no fewer than eighteen glasses of some beverage, which his son and an assistant were kept busy concocting for him all the ninety minutes he was on his legs. Whether that beverage was the sherry and TEE CAPITAL OF PEINCE BISMARCK. 33 egg favom-ed by Mr. Gladstone, or some stronger liquor, is unknown; but, whatever it was, the Iron Chancellor needed a dram every five minutes that he was on his legs. In Berlin no one counts for anything after the Emperor save the Chancellor and his son. In international politics the Bismarcks pere el fih are as supreme as any Tzar. And, in the exercise of their autocracy, they are sometimes as rough as Peter the Great. Take, for instance. Prince Bismarck's intervention in the affair of the Princess Victoria's betrothal. Prince Bismarck, like the Tzar, thoroughly dislikes Prince Alexander of Battenberg. He may be cruelly maligned, this young man, but if so, he has none the less managed to convince the two most powerful men in Europe that he is a faithless, untrustworthy person, with whom the less honest men have to do the better. When the Emperor and Empress approved of the betrothal of their daughter to this Prince, Bismarck objected, and persisted in his objection. No one can complain of his doing so. He M'as therein true to the principle of Prussian State policy, which exacts sacrifices for the State equally from ruler and ruled. But that which was rude and brutal about the matter was the means taken by the Chancellor to strengthen his hand by letting the whole dispute get into the papers, or rather, unless he is much maligned, by taking direct means for putting the whole story into the papers. Sovereigns may be overruled by their Chancellors, without a murmur, but even a worm would turn if its Chancellor insisted upon vetoing its wishes with an accompaniment of bullying press criticisms. Prince Bismarck, however, cares for none of these things. If a press bludgeon lies ready to his hand, he will use it ; nor does he weigh the possible pain to the vanquished against the advantage of strengthening by ever so little the chances of his vanquisher. The one thing needful in Prince Bismarck's eyes is " to mak' siccar " of attaining his end. Tact, however, is not a pre-eminently Prussian virtue. Neither, to say the truth, does it seem to be held in the highest regard by the illustrious English lady with whom Prince Bis- marck recently crossed swords. The Empress Victoria is a brilliant woman, full of " go," of enthusiasm and of indomitable courage. There is no saying what magnificent services she may yet render to her sex, and to civilisation, and refinement, and all the arts which beautify and sweeten life; but the very D 34 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. pre-eminence of her position makes her a mark of jealousy and of suspicion. The Germans seem to have exhausted their regard for women in the days of Tacitus ; they cannot tolerate the ascendency which this g-ifted and brilliant Englishwoman exercised over her husband and her immediate entourage ; and she, on her part, perhaps not unnaturally, showed a reckless disregard of the prejudices and sentiments of her German subjects. The unceremonious fashion in which she bundled out all the sacred relics of Queen Louisa when she set a firm of Oxford Street tradesmen to furnish in English style the old palace where her Majesty was lodged during her recent visit to Berlin, made the German blood run cold. Sayings of hers also are repeated — witty and true, no doubt, but which sting all the more for their wit and their truth. But all admit that her devo- tion to her husband has been beyond praise. No mere Jiausfratc of them all could have excelled her patience, her assiduity, her tender care in the sick-room ; but she is a woman, and for a woman to be so visibly in the foretop of the State is quite shocking to the serious German mind. There is something very touching, and even ennobling, in the magnificent devotion of the Germans to their great Chan- cellor. I remember long ago asking Thomas Carlyle what practical advice he had to offer to those who, in this age of ballot-boxes and universal suffrage, nevertheless accepted his teachings, and only wished to know what practical immediate step to take first. Mr. Carlyle replied by telling me that those who saw the hollowness of the prevailing cant, those whose souls revolted against the mockery of supposing that supreme wisdom could be evolved out of the submissive consultation of the majority of fools, should hold themselves aloof and wait, possessing their souls in patience while things got worse and worse, until the supreme strong and capable man appeared, when they should step forward and acclaim him as their lord. He will appear, said Mr. Carlyle, if you are prepared for his coming. It did not sound very hopeful advice in England ; but here in Germany they seem to have acted upon it with some considerable success. In the blunt Pomeranian squire they found their supremely able man. Although the Germans carry the right of private judgment to such lengths that there are at least six systems of philosophy, politics, and religion to be found TEE CAPITAL OF PRINCE BISMARCK. 35 wherever six Germans meet in a hierhaus, they have agreed to sink everything, bear everything, dare everything, to do his behests. It is very curious to see thus suddenly emerging from the chaos of principalities and of ballot-boxes this revived soul of the old kingship, as real, although not so picturesque, as when the ancestors of these same Germans raised some victorious chieftain upon his shield in the day of triumph, and swore him allegiance unto death. Not, however, for war do these German tribes rally round Bismarck to-day, but for peace. They are a peaceful folk, these German men, and in Prince Bismarck they see the keystone of the ai'ch of European peace. Behind his broad buckler they nestle secure, accepting whatever sacrifice he demands for the sake of peace ; and after what I have heard in Paris and in Berlin, I cannot for a moment doubt that the German this time is right. Prince Bismarck^s chief concern is peace. His methods are of the old order. If you wish for peace, prepare for war; but the pre- parations for war are not for conquest but for defence. That he is j)reparing for war, and that he has never ceased preparing for war, is true. All the way along the Polish frontier, which we skirted as I came to Russia — owing to the floods which had interrupted the traffic on the main-line through Konigsberg — the Germans were making ready. They were doubling the line of rails, building landing platforms for cavalry and artillery, erect- ing sheds for horses — everywhere they were on the alert, to fore- stall attack — an attack which will not come. The three great Powers whose capitals I have visited are all in the same position. They can all hold their own in defensive war; but that is all. They are none of them strong enough to have any assured hope of conquering each other. Wars do not break out under these circumstances. Napoleon thought that he could march to Berlin : Prince Bismarck knew he could march to Paris. Hence a readi- ness for war on both sides in 1870 which does not exist to-day. Each knows the other to be too strong to offer much hope of victory. So the status quo will remain, and there will be no war. All European interests were overshadowed in the German capital in May by the personal question of the Emperors — past, present, and to come. The shop windows were mono- polised by the photographs and busts of the late Empero.-, with Da 36 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. views of his lying-in-state and o£ the procession to his last resting-place. In the streets the flower-sellers offered nothing- but violets, the favourite flower of the Emperor who lay dying at Charlottenburg, and the portraits of the dying Kaiser and of the Crown Prince, who was so soon to ascend his grandfather's throne, were to be seen everywhere. It was, therefore, natural that as soon as possible after my arrival in Berlin I called iipon Sir Morell Mackenzie. Charlottenburg lies a mile or two out of Berlin, on the main line from the west. The rain was falling when I passed through the Thiergarten where Prince Bismarck takes his afternoon ride every day between five and six o^clock, on the other side of the chariot-crowned Brandenburg gate. There are no deer in the Thiergarten now, nor anything to distinguish it from any other suburban woodland, save the gilded statue that crowns the column of victory, and the numerous little wooden boxes affixed to the trees for the birds to nest in. As we drove westward a regiment of Prussian infantry passed us in the road, singing a cheerful marching song as they walked through the rain. The last regiment I had seen was in Paris, where some French infantry tramped along the Rue de Bivoli. What a contrast ! The Prussians swung along with the precision and the impetus of a great machine. As they approached us swinging their left arms with measured regularity, the red band on the wrist cuff showed along the whole line like a red ribbon, the hundreds of arms making the same movement at the same moment. There was a solidity, a homogeneity about the column that was singu- larly impressive. How different it was in France ! The infantry in the Hue de Rivoli were all shapes and sizes, a miscellaneous crowd in uniform, and carrying rifles, shambling along in a slipshod fashion which boded ill for the Republic if ever the great duel should be renewed between the Teuton and the (jaul. Hardly had the blithe notes of the soldiers' song died away when the great dome of the Charlottenburg Palace appeared above the trees. As we approached it we could see the stalwart but youthful sentinels pacing to and fro before the gates, while a clump of soldiers clustered in what appeared to be a guard- room on the right of the Palace. We had an appointment with Sir Morell Mackenzie, and in a few moments we were being THE CAPITAL OF PRINCE BISMARCK. 37 ushered along- a long- whitewashed corridor in the left wing of the Palace to the English doctor^s room. Upon the door an envelope was pinned on which was written " Sir Morell Mackenzie/^ Our guide touched an electric bell, the door opened, and we found ourselves in the presence of the great specialist. Sir Morell Mackenzie occupied a pleasant and well-lighted room adjoining the central portion of the Palace. We had hardly sat down when the bell began to ring. " It is the Emperor/' said Dr. Mackenzie ; " I must go," and he instantly left the room to attend his august patient. Sir Morell Mackenzie looked slightly worn and anxious. His fine mobile features showed traces of the long vigil by the couch of the Emperor. Dr. Hovell, who had been up all night, had gone to bed. Sir Morell Mackenzie was now in charge, and was summoned from time to time, during our visit, to the bedside of the patient. This is not the place to revive the painful controversy that raged round the dying Emperor, but I may mention that Sir Morell Mackenzie assured me that nothing could exceed the kindness and confidence which he had received from the first day of his arrival from the Emperor and the Empress. He was a stranger to them when he came to Berlin. He was accorded from first to last the most absolute confidence, and all his directions were implicitly obeyed. But, as erroneous im- pressions have gained groiind on this point, owing to the bickerings of the doctors, and the attention paid to their differences by the press, it is well to say once for all that, however much controversy may have raged outside, in the sick- room Dr. Mackenzie's authority has been as supreme and undis- puted as if the Emperor had been an ordinary patient in his own hospital. As a patient. Dr. Mackenzie told me, the Emperor was all that could be desired, so far as temper, patience, and cheerfulness were concerned. He was as obedient and trustful as a fine-dispositioned child; he bore pain bravely, and he did not worry. The Emperor was in the habit of mind common to all sufferers from long- standing chronic diseases. In those cases patients alternate between a belief that they will live for a couple of years, when their minds are occupied with arranging plans for the future, 33 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. and a fear tliat all will be over in a few days. In this case it was not over in a few days. But it was all over in a fe\Y', weeks ; and when I came back from Petersburg Berlin was draped in black, and William II. sat on the throne which Frederick III. had nominally occupied for exactly ninety days. CHAPTER VI. IN THE EMPIRE 0¥ THE TZAR. " Travelling in Russia is the most luxurious in Europe/' said Lord Randolph Churchill to me shortly before I started. " The distances no doubt are great, but the carriages are so comfort- able, the restaurants by the wayside so convenient and so well served, that there is no country more pleasant to travel in.'' His words often came back to my mind as, with aching head and weary limbs, I stood on the platform of the Schlaf-Wagen and watched for hour after hour the monotonous landscape of Eastern Prussia. At last we reached Eydtkuhnen, the last station on the German line. From thence the train goes on to Wirballen, the first station on the Russian side. Suddenly, as I was looking out of the window, I saw a little stream hardly deep enough for a duck to swim in, and on the other side of it, pacing leisurely along, a big burly fellow with long grey over- coat, something like the fleece of a sheep round his neck, and on his shoulder a rifle with a fixed bayonet. It was a Russian soldier mounting guard on the frontier of an Empire the other shore of which was washed by the Pacific Ocean and Behrings Straits. A picturesque figure he was — picturesque and signifi- cant. The train rolled on, leaving him behind. A moment more and we were in Wirballen. We were in a new world. The language, the manners, the apj^earance, everything had changed. Seldom have I seen so great a contrast in so short a time. At Eydtkuhnen everything was German, At Wirballen everything was Russian. The very characters of the alphabet were different, the uniform of the gendarmes, the shape of the J.V THE EMPIRE OF THE TZAR. 39 locomotive, the talk of the people. It was as if Calais and Dover were suddenly brought within a hundred yai'ds of each other, and you passed in a few minutes from Eng-land to France. As if still further to mark the change, we had to deliver up our passports to a picturesque-looking gendarme in grey and red uniform, booted and spurred, with a sword by one side and a pistol at the other, but withal a humane-looking janitor of the Western railway gate of the Empire of the Tzar. On entering the airy and commodious restaurant was a bookstall in charge of a very pretty young girl. All the books and papers in her charge were Russian save .one. The solitary exception was Zola^s " L'Assommoir,-'^ which represented the contribution of Western genius and civilisation to the railway bookstall of Wirballen. Later in the year the stock of French books was increased, but in May " L'Assommoir " stood alone. Neither in May nor in June was there a single English book. The E-ussian railway restaurant is infinitely superior to any- thing in France or Germany. Everything is delightfully clean and cool and airy. The chairs are of clean white wood. The display of viands is tempting, and the viands themselves are perfection. And then the tea ! fragrant and refreshing as ambrosial nectar for the headachy, wearied traveller. In a short time my headache left me, and the rest of the journey was accomplished with comfort. After dinner our passports were brought back, the bell rang, and we went out on to the platform. The train was waiting. And what a train ! It was just as if we had suddenly been transported to America. There was the engine with the huge chimney, the tender piled high with wood. And the cars were all like those in Switzerland and in the States, without com- partments and communicating, so that the train can be traversed when in motion from end to end. The engine fire is fed by two stokers, who are kept pretty busy heaving logs — short lath-wood we should call it in England — into the furnace. The maw of the steam fiend is capacious, and the woodpile on the tender diminishes amain. The smell of the burning wood is pleasant to the nostril ; a faint piquant flavour of pine woods in spring- time is liberated by the fire. At night the sparks fly fast from tlie funnel, but of black smoke there is none. 40 TBUTR ABOUT RUSSIA. The second and third bell sound, and at last we are off, bowl- ing along smoothly over a level sandy track through Poland towards St. Petersburg. The sun was sinking in the western sky, the ruddy flush on the horizon showing brightly red against the tops of the distant pines, but there was still an hour or two o£ daylight before we turned in for the night. How Irish the whole scene seemed ! There were the Irish cabins, irregular and uneven, with the thatched roof, the peaty soil, splashing up black and miry on the walls ; there were the patches of bog and the barefooted women, and there too was the inevitable pig, the "gintleman that pays the rent." But every rural district on the Continent is more Irish than English; for as Mill long ago remarked, Ireland is in the main stream of European life ; whereas England is exceptional, and apart. But Russia on the threshold was more Irish than rural France, more Irish than rural Germany. There were, however, points of difference as well as of resemblance. The peasants were ploughing in the fields as late as eight o'clock. They wore sheepskins and high boots, and round their villages of thatched cottages stood more trees than are common in Ireland. Here and there, too, were oxen ploughing, which you never see in Ireland. Neither were there any of the extraordinary stone fences with which the finest peasantry in the world train the boldest hunters that ever followed fox. Neither hedge nor dyke breaks the expanse. Only here and there is a more or less dilapidated fence of unbarked saplings. And over and above all there was absent from the landscape the saddest, the dreariest, and most charac- teristic of all things Irish, the gable-ends of cottages which had been pulled down. It is not the round tower which is the dis- tinctive Hibernian structure, but the rough triangular wedge of masonry left standing here, there, and everywhere in all parts of rural Ireland, marking the place where a family had gathered under the sheltering roof-tree of a humble home, but which now is but a desolation and a ruin, the rude tombstone of a perishing race. Alone among the peoples of Europe the numbers of the Irish dwindle in their own land. In Russia the population increases and multiplies amain, adding a million and more to its hundred millions every recurring year. Hence naturally the landscape is not scarred with the wreck of dismantled houses, nor is the eye pained by the perpetual reminder of IN THE EMPIRE OF THE TZAB. 41 the chronic civil war that rages across the Irish Sea between the e victors and the evicted. The wayside stations in Russia are more picturesque than those of Western Europe. They seem all to be built of one pattern. They are of wood^ of course. Russia is the country of wood, as distinguished from the countries of stone j just as it is the country of the plain as distinguished from the countries of the mountain. The wayside railway stations are one-story buildings, neatly and simply built. They are roofed with thin sheet-iron, painted a reddy brown. At first it is difficult to distinguish the iron from shingles. But when, as is sometimes the case, it is painted green to resemble verdigris, the iron is distinguishable. At every station there are three objects conspicuous in the front of the building : a clock, a bell, and a large thermometer. A station without the three would not be Russian ; but if by any chance one were missing it would not be the thermometer. What stories of piercing cold and blazing heat the mere presence of that silent recorder of temperature tells ! Of the climate of England many vile things have been said, but one thing may at least be said in its favour — it does not render a thermometer a necessity of life. In addition to the three stationary objects on the wall of the station, there is on the platform the gendarme, with his white stiff plume on his head, his spurs on his heel, his pistol under his right hand, his sword under his left. He stands almost as motionless as the water-butt from which travellers can descend to drink — a practice probably more common in summer than in early spring, for I never saw any passenger alight for that purpose. There is also the metallic gong on which the approach of the train is signalled from the previous station. All night the train jogged smoothly on, and when morning broke we were running through a flat sandy country with here and there a lake. Then we entered a region more thickly wooded. The sun came out, and the landscape gave token of returning spring. All day long the train bowled along its smooth and uneventful course. At five o'clock we were at Gatschina, and at six we reached St. Petersburg. I was in time to take part in the most characteristically Russian and Eastern Church ceremony in the whole year. Saturday was Easter Eve according to the Russian calendar. The long fast, practised here with an austerity almost incredible 42 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. to easy-going Anglicans, was drawing to a close. The streets were gay with the white, blue, and red of the national flag. All the pastry-cooks' windows were full of red Easter eggs, and the white, sour-cream, raisin-speckled compound called the paska, which occupies the place of honour in the feast with which the good Orthodox broke their fast at an early hour on Sunday morning. As the night wore on, the streets became rather more instead of less crowded. The isvostchiks with their four-wheeled little droschkies were dashing about everywhere over the pavement, which is fanged with more murderous stones in St. Petersburg than ever I have bumped over in any other capital in Europe. Only on the Nevski Prospect — that splendid street which, with its electric lamps, stretches like a great beam of white light for three miles through the heart of the city — is the roadway passably smooth. The air was nipping cold. I had seen the snow-wreaths lying still unmelted by the railway side near Gatschina, and there was still a pinch of frost in the air. The sky was beautifully blue, with here and there a star. A few lights gleamed in the windows of the Anitchkoff Palace, whither the Tzar had returned that day from Gatschina : the dvorniks, or house-porters, swathed in huge fur overcoats, kept watch at the house doors. A great stream of people filled the sideways, while the roadway was as crowded as Regent Street at four o'clock. All was bustle, animation, palpitating life. Passing the great Kazan Cathedral, which recalls visions of St. Peter's at Rome, and which was crowded to the doors three hours later by an immense crowd of worshippers, I made my way to the Cathedral of St. Isaac. There were officers in uniform, ladies in full dress, notables resplendent in decorations, all kept in order with difficulty, but with great good nature, by the soldiers and police. After a great crush, we got through the wicket gate. A moment more and we stood beneath the great dome, whose golden splendour forms one of the most conspicuous, land- marks of St. Petersburg. From the gilded gates before the altar a carpet was spread down the centre of the nave. Exactly under the dome on a raised dai's or platform stood the table on which lay the full-length picture representing our Lord in the grave. On either side blazed an immense number of candles. Men and women of all classes advanced to the picture and IN THE EMPIRE OF THE TZAB. 43 reverently kissed it, crossing" themselves the while, sometimes once, sometimes twice, and sometimes thrice. A few kissed the carpet at the foot of the table. All seemed reverent and devout. A clerk or some such functionary was reading the while from a desk behind, his voice sounding fitfully above the low hum and movement of the multitude. Conspicuous in the throng was the line of young guardsmen, handsome fellows in white uniform. The Cathedral was but imperfectly lighted ; yet even by the flickering- tapers you could discover the massive proportions of the great structure, and see something of the gorgeous splendour of its ornamentation. I had an excellent position, close to the dais under the dome, fronting the altar. Immediately before me rose a colossal pillar, one of those supporting the dome, which from its mere immensity and solid grandeur seemed like an architectural reminiscence of the Roman Empire, looming" up huge and strong from the misty past. The marble pavement was barely visible beneath the feet of the great company. But for the uniforms, which were Russian, the gathering" mig-ht have been mistaken for an English congregation. The faces, the dresse's — both of men and women — were much more English than any I had seen either in Paris or Berlin. Then after a while they began to light the candles which burn before the great pictures. The pillars of green malachite supporting the screen, the blue columns of lapis-lazuli on either side of the gilded gates that concealed the altar, formed an imposing frame for the singularly beautiful mosaic pictures of Jesus of Nazareth and His mother Mary with her child — both fortunately with no other halo than that of their intrinsic beauty. On either side were colossal mosaics of haloed saints — St. Isaac of Dalmatia, after whom the Cathedral is named, and St. Nicholas, favourite of Russian saints, on the left; on the right, St. Alexander Nevsky, the warrior King", and St. Catherine and her wheel. Above the gates was a group in silver, dimly visible, of our Lord and His angels ; higher up, again, a picture of the Lord's Supper. All the while people were crowding into the Cathedral, until at last it seemed as if no more standing-room remained. Then suddenly the monotonous sound of the reader's voice was hushed in a great burst of song from the choir, which stood ai'rayed in blue and yellow vestments before the altar. The gates opened, and beyond a blaze of innvimerable candles was U TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. visible above the altar the gigantic figure of our risen Lord in the great eastern window. After a time the gates closed again, but still the singing continued. Then came a procession of banners, preceded by a curious lamp and cross, which passed down the nave to the far end of the church. The procession is supposed to symbolise the disciples who came to our Lord^s tomb. Then at last they come back to where the body lay on the dais, and they ask, " Where is He ? " And then comes the reply, " He is not here. He is risen ! '^ After which the choir bursts forth into song, chanting the anthem of "The Resurrection.^' What followed I cannot even attempt to describe. All that remains on my retina is a confused splendour of long-haired men in shining raiment, stiff with silver and gold, wearing wondrous headgear, crusted with jewels, chanting in an unknown tongue the praises of their God. First of all, the table with the picture of Christ in the grave was removed, and carried on the heads of two priests to the altar, the congregation crossing itself the while. Then came down a gorgeous procession of ecclesiastics, swinging censers of incense and carrying candles innumerable, who after various evolutions marched finally down the nave to the other end of the Cathedral, The choir assembled on the da'is. Before this, however, I should have mentioned what was perhaps the strangest sight of all — the lighting of the candles — and the most suggestive, dating as it does from a time when the early Christians met in catacombs and had to worship each by the light of his own lamp. Nearly every person in the Cathedral had a white taper. Before the procession started down the nave these tapers were lighted. Imagine St. Paul's at midnight filled with an immense concourse, and place in the hand of every other man and woman a lighted candle, and you may form some idea, but a very faint idea, of the scene in St. Isaac's. For St. Paul's in the interior is as bare as a barn compared with the splendours of the Russian Cathedral. When the whole human pavement of the Cathedral was thus illuminated, came the lighting of the great candelabra pendent from the roof. A long cotton thread hung down from each. It was lighted, and suddenly a red flame was seen running upwards to the candles. These candles are all connected by similar threads, and the light travelled from wick to wick lighting every candle. I did not see IN THE EMPIRE OF THE TZAB. 45 one missed, and the whole illumination was completed in almost as short a time as I have taken to tell it. But after the candelabra were all ablaze, the red flame from the burning thread continued to mount higher and higher into the vast and misty recesses of the great dome. Still it went upwards and upwards, climbing like a small red star to the infinite. Suddenly it stopped, and lo ! from where it stopped a circle of living fire began to run along, until the dome was circled with a ring of flaming gas-jets which from the immense height seemed to flicker dim and small. Then came back the procession. The long-haired men with shining garments of silver embroidery, with the jewelled crosses and strange enamelled head-gear, grouped themselves upon the dais, and then the choir began to sing. They sang for nearly two hours with but brief interludes. The burden of their song was, "Christ is risen! Christ is risen!" And thereat there was much crossing and bowing in the great con- gregation, the movement of so many hands in the candle- light being indeed strange to see. The voices of the boys were sweet, the men were strong and deep — deeper, indeed, than can be heard anywhere outside a Russian church. It was a weird scene. Ever and anon the long-haired priests, habited in stiff and rustling vestments, would take a censer and march down to the altar swinging their censers the while, and then return, only to have the same ceremony repeated by another two, so on almost ad infinitum. Occasionally the choir would cease their singing, and in deep guttural tones a black-bearded priest would chant some verses, to which another would respond, and then again the choir would break out into the richest and loveliest song. For nearly an hour or more, I should think, the chief figure in the procession — who took the place of the Metropolitan, who was absent — stood in the centre of the dais, making signs from time to time, but other- wise remaining motionless, save when he wiped his face, for his jewelled crown seemed to be very heavy, and the air of the Cathedral was thick with incense and warm with the heat o£ innumerable tapers. It seemed as if the singing would never end. The incense in the censers burned out, and they had to be replaced. It was no doubt all very beautiful and suggestive to those who understood it. To me, alas ! being one of those 46 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. whom the moujik describes as the niemetz, or the dumb, because they understand not Russian, it was utterly unintellig-ible. Melodious it was, no doubt, as the singing of birds at sunrise, but quaint and weird and unreal as a scene from another world. Only one thing- stirred me, and that, oddly enough, by the same associations that were roused by the singing of a lark in a forest clearing which we had jjassed in the train. The associations were those of Borodino. In that fatal battle, when the cannon thunder ceased for a moment, the soldiers are said to have heard in the pause of the fight the glad trill of a lark's song raining down from the far blue sky. And now again in the crowded Cathedral, with its incense-laden air, and the twinkling of its lights, numerous as the stars of heaven, the only articulate sounds I could distinguish brought back reminiscences of the same grim fight. For all that I could make out in the maze of melodious sound were the words " Gospodi pomilioui (Lord have mercy upon us), Gospodi pomilioui, Gospodi pomilioui.'" It was these strange unfamiliar words that the French soldiers heard on the dawn of that fray when the grey-coated Russians knelt in prayer before they stood up to die for Russia and their Tzar. The walls of the massive Cathedral seemed to melt away, the lights grew dim and disappeared, the splendour of the high priests in their shining robes was forgotten. Only I seemed to hear the simple, earnest cry of the Russian peasant as he flung himself that day of doom across the path of the great Napoleon. "Gospodi pomilioui, Gospodi pomilioui'''' — "Lord, have mercy on us ! " It was a salutary memory, checking into humiliation the momentary temptation to look down upon the faith which needed to find nutriment in ceremonial as of the theatre, in music as of the opera, and leaving only a bewildering consciousness of my incapacity of understanding, as of a missing sense. For, how- ever strange and incredible it may be to those reared in the stern simplicity of English Nonconformity, that the souls of men can be stirred, their lives ennobled, and their deathbeds soothed, by what seem such fantastic combinations of spiritual truth and theatrical flummery, the fact remains. This Church, with all its pomp of ritual and melody of song, has at least taught the Russians how to die. Whether in spite of its rites and ceremonies, or because of them, it has made itself for J.Y THE EMPIRE OF TEE TZAR. 47 centuries one of the most vital realities in all these Eastern lauds. Even now, many Russians assert that Russia is not primarily a State ; Russia is primarily a Church. Great is the Tzar, but j^reater is the Orthodox Eastern Church, whose servant he is, and whose creed, which he must subscribe to before he is crowned, forms the only Constitution of his Empire. If this be difficult to understand, if it be strange for us Westerns to comprehend how this religion of ceremonial and outward rite is able to supply a hundred millions of fellow-creatures with the only draught of the water of life which will ever cross their lips in their pilgrimage from the cradle to the grave, it is no marvel. Think you, who have not even learned to decipher the Cyrillian alphabet so as to read the names of the stations and of the streets, that it is easier to penetrate at the first careless glance into the secret mysteries of the inner arcanum of the national life? About two o'clock the first part of the service was over. The procession marched down to the altar, the music ceased, and then the second service of mass began. I left the Cathedral, but outside the scene was almost as strange as within. For all round the sacred building, on all the steps, were displayed long rows of paskas and koolitchies, the heaps of clotted cream and currant cake adorned with paper flowers, and illuminated with tapers. The owners of the cakes sat behind their goods, waiting for them to be blessed by a priest. The lanes of light round the Cathedral, the bright-coloured decorations, the dense crowd, made a very vivid picture. Overhead a cross of brilliant gas flared outside the eastern window, and still higher, on the Cathedral towers, fires blazed in the brazen urns. And over all the stir and movement of the crowd, in the midst of which a gendarme's horse was prancing and curvetting restlessly, was audible a soft, deep, rich note of music as of a distant organ peal. It was the peal of the bells, far different from the riotous, jubilant music of our English bells, more solemn and soft and sad, like the undertone of mournful melody which is never absent from Turgenieff's novels. WAR OR PEACE? CHAPTER I. AT COUNT TOLSTOI-'s, YASNAIA POLIANA."^ When I left London Lord Wolselej told me that my first duty would be to discover whether the Cossacks would be in Bu- charest in May. May has come and gone, and never a Cossack has been moved towards the Roumanian frontier. I have spent three weeks in the capital of the Empire which in London seems to be regarded as the disturbing centre of European tranquillity, seeing every one who was likely to be able or willing to enlighten me as to the probable course of events. I have visited Moscow, and now I have retired to the country seat of Count Leon Tolstoi, far from the hubbub and turmoil of the great cities, to write at the desk of the author of "War and Peace •'^ the net result of my observations as to the chances of War or Peace. I have been exceptionally favoured in the opportunities afforded me alike of collecting information and of summing up the net result of my investigation. I am at a loss to express my sense of the cordial kindness with which I have been welcomed everywhere. From the highest to the lowest I have to acknowledge gratefully the same simple, hearty friendliness which has made my stay in this country a period of intense and almost unmingled enjoy- ment. And now, after living as it were in oxygen for a month in St. Petersburg and Moscow — after spending night and day in the midst of the immense stimulus that is afforded by a perpetual recurrence of new scenes and the incessant intercourse with the ablest and most interesting men and women who are gathered together in the capital of a great Empire — I have fled away into * These chapters wpre written at Connt Tolstoi's country seat in the Government of Toula iu early June, 1888. E 50 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. a secret place apart, to write down in the midst o£ the solitude and tranquillity of Nature, far from the hum and stir of cities, the judgment which I have formed on all I have seen and heard. Here we are in the full splendour of the early summer. All day long the air is tremulous with the song of larks, and at night, when the stars begin to glisten and glitter in the beautiful blue of the sky after the gloaming, the nightingales fill the woods with plaintive music. The lilacs and the yellow acacia are in full bloom; the plantations ai'e fragrant with the heavy scent of the lily of the valle}^, which grows everywhere wild among the trees. Great silver birches, with trembling leaves, bend and bow in the pleasant wind, and down the long avenue of elms you catch glimpses of the ponds, wherein the frogs keep up that curious chorus so strange to English ears. Everywhere the ground is covered with vegetation, green and rank. Nature overflows with verdure, and the bees in the acacias keep up a ceaseless and soothing murmur. The silence at present is almost absolute. Only now and then the far-away notes of a lark invisible in mid-heaven can be heard, or the sharp twit-twit of the glancing swallow. It is still early morning. Later in the day the voices of children at play will sound fitfully in the distance, blending pleasantly with the bird's song, and the soughing of the wind in the trees, as natural and as beautiful as they. I am writing in Count Tolstoi's little study. In the next room, separated only by a door that is ever ajar, lies his shoe- maker's outfit — his awl, his knife, and his leather. On the wooden partition wall hangs the scythe with which a little later he will renew the pleasures of mowing which he has eulogised in ''Anna Karenina^' — pleasures which, however rapturous they appear in his pages, depend largely for their enjoyment upon the existence of a stouter back and sturdier loins than those possessed by gentlemen who first take to mowing in m.iddle age. In an hour or two the great novelist — perhaps the greatest living novelist — will appear in his moujik's garb, with the dark loose coat and leather girdle, and we shall sally forth together over field and forest, drinking-in the glad sunshine, and exult- ing in the beauty and glory and melody of spring. What a WAR OR PEACE/ 51 charm there is in these walks ! One nig-ht we rambled for verst after verst through the woods, now stopping to drink at a rustic well, then exchanging- greetings with pilgrims passing- on their way to the shrines at Kieff or Troitsa, anon pausing on the hill- side to catch the strain of music that floated up the vale from where the village maidens were trilling out in chorus a peasant's song. The sun sinking low on the western horizon lit up with golden radiance the zebra-like trunks of a g-reat plantation of silver birches, filling them with a g-low and a warmth that con- trasted strangely with their appearance an hour later, when twi- light had succeeded sunset, and their white bark g-limmered pale and ghostly. The cuckoo's note rose and fell ; a heavy-winged crow flapped his solitary homeward way overhead, and in the coppice the nightingale began with his first few broken notes to prepare his even-song. Before us in the moist glades of the forest the Count's daughters skipped from side to side, graceful as young deer, and as much at home in the woods as they. Further on, the workmen, finishing their evening meal, entered into friendly converse with the Count, while we warmed our hands at the fire on which water was boiling for their tea. What a change from the crowded streets of St. Petersburg, the Nevski, noisy with droschkies even at two and three in the morning, and all the artificialities of high society ! And now, after being here for two or three days, I begin to collect my ideas, and will attempt to present as clearly and as succinctly as I can the conclusions at which I have arrived as to the prospects of war or peace in Europe and in Asia, and more especially as to the future relations between England and Russia. Before discussing what are the immediate prospects of peace or war in Europe, it is well to ask ourselves, What is this Peace which exists — what this War which men fear? Both are new phenomena in the world's history. We have a peace which is like no peace that has existed before. We stand face to face with a possible war like to none that in our time has ever deso- lated the world. It is worth while to look for a moment at these phenomena. First, then, as to the peace. Peace implies rest, and in Europe there is no rest. Peace supposes security and confidence, but in Europe everywhere is insecurity and suspicion. Peace 54 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. days the mustering" of half a million of soldiers was regarded as a mig-hty feat. To-day Prince Bismarck adds to the ranks of the army of the Fatherland, with one stroke of his pen, 700,000 fathers of families, and not a single voice is raised even in pass- ing protest. Germany in the centre of Europe fronts east and west with an available host of three million trained soldiers. France will have between two and three millions ready to hand. Russia before long will be able to put five millions into line. Austria and Italy we need not count. The blast of the trumpets that proclaims the beg-inning* of war will summon the manhood of Europe to the work of slaug-hter. Not only will the number of the combatants be far beyond those which were raised even in the days of the First Napoleon — the Grand Army with which he crossed the frontier on his march to Moscow only consisted of the same number of men that have been added this year to the German army — but the spirit in which it will be fought out will differ for the worse. Prince Bismarck has frankly told us what kind of war it will be. We shall fight, he said, if we do fight, until we are bled as white as veal. It will be a duel to the death — a war in which the avowed object of the combatants is the utter destruction of their adver- sary. "De saigner h blanc,''' to drain the very life-blood out of your enemy until you leave his carcase as white as that of the calf from which the butcher seeks to drain every ruddy drop of gore — that is the declared ideal of the foremost nations of the Continent in the year of g-race 1888. The imagination refuses to picture what it means. All our recent wars were short. The longest was that of the Crimea, which was little more than the siege and the defence of a single fortress by professional soldiers. The Franco-Italian war was almost an affair of weeks. The Danish war was over almost before it began. The Austro- Prussian-Italian war lasted just six weeks. The Franco-German war was over in six months. The conquest of Turkey was com- pleted in about the same time. But the next war will not be over in six weeks or in six months. To bleed each other white, when both combatants are pretty well matched, and when there are millions of men in reserve, is an affair of years. But when all business is suspended, and the reapers have been summoned from the farms to the battle-fields, it will be impossible to carry on war on this scale for years without utter collapse and ghastly WAR OR PEACE? 55 famine. Hence the embattled millions will figlit with the grim and desperate energy of men who know that, like Judas, what they do they must do quickly. They will strike terror. All the tourney rules of civilised war will be in danger of going by the board. It will be a contest of Titans waged with the ruthlessness of fiends. The next war will be in danger of degenerating- into a nineteenth-century version of the horrors of the Thirty Years^ War, on a scale far more gig*antic, and therefore characterised by crimes far more colossal. Apart from the certainty of horrors to which the burning of Bazeilles and even the sack of Magdeburg would be but as interludes in the infernal tragedy, there is another aspect of the struggle which is too often overlooked. The new style of Avarfare, in which battles are fought, not by a professional class set ajjart from the nation, governed by strict codes of military laws, and remaining apart from the activities of national existence, but by the nation itself, threatens to have most alarm- ing results for humanity and civilisation. We are able to see something of what it involves in the criminal statistics of Germany since the war. The conquest of France was one of the most expeditious and in many respects one of the least objection- able wars ever waged. But it brutalised the Germans to an extent difficult to realise outside Germany. The citizen, plunged for six months into all the licence and savagery of war, acquired a taint from which he did not purge himself for years. War is the unloosing of all crimes, the sanctioning of all violence, the negation of the sanctity of property and of life. To accustom men to war is to accustom them to live in a world where the ordinary moral code is suspended. That code does not easily re- establish its authority when peace is concluded. The criminal sta- tistics of Germany since 1871 show a terrible increase in all kinds of violent crime — murder, highway robbery, theft by violence, burglary, assaults on women and children — which after ten or fifteen years has only now begun to decline. The violence put in practice against the enemy in France left its poison in the blood of the Germans. What will be the effect iipon civilisation and humanity of accustoming ten millions of citizens to make murder their daily passion throughout a long war, in which every evil dormant in the human animal would be given free rein, no one can foresee. One thing only is certain, that the consequences 66 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. would be far more hideous and deadly than auy one has yet ventured to coiiceive. In face of such portentous possibilities it is difficult to find v/ords adequate to condemn the amazing and reckless criminality of those who, in the press and elsewhere, are continually flinging- the firebrands of taunts, and sneers, and recriminations between the nations. When the avalanches tremble overhead, even the fool might cease to whistle ; but these gentry, with this measure- less catastrophe impending, go shouting and hallooing like a very Tom of Bedlam escaped from his keepers. It is sport to the fool to do mischief, and the madman loves to scatter firebrands and death ; but surely those journalists in London and elsewhere wdio " love to swell the warwhoop passionate for war " might at least reflect on the responsibilities of provoking a conflict which would have as its watchword " De sai^ner a blanc" all round. CHAPTER II. HOW ENGLAND DOES NOT DO HER DUTY. I HAD just finished the last chapter and had gone out for a stroll with Count Tolstoi in the bright sunlight of the Sunday morning, when we saw a dense column of black smoke rising above the trees. Running down the avenue to the brow of the hill we saw that a fire had broken out in the village on the other side of the valley. The great column of smoke gave way to tierce crackling flames that, fanned by the southern wind, leapt ever and anon in vast sheets of dazzling tire towards the nearest cottage. We plunged down the valley, and before we climbed the hill on the other side the tire had seized the thatch of a peasant^s house, and from it also were rising flames and smoke. Four other houses, timber-built and thatched, stood between the fire and the brow of the hill. Unless the wind changed, every one of them was doomed. And the wind did not change, but freshened rather; BOW ENGLAND DOES NOT DO BEE. DUTY. 57 and the great flames, that roared and flapped and crackled in the breeze, as if they had been the standards of the Fire Fiend, leaped from house to house. We rushed from one to another, seeking what household goods could be saved. The cottages were un- tenanted. An empty cradle lay in one, from another I carried out a table. Count Tolstoi was nearly burnt alive in the rush : for the flames followed faster and faster, and before we could see where he was, the whole thatched roof was blazing overhead. The blinding smoke and the scorching heat of the burning houses drove all of us far away. Each burnt-out family gathered weep- ing and disconsolate round the slender remnant of their rescued possessions, and watched with streaming eyes the roof-tree go up in flame and smoke into the blue depths of the placid sky. How the flames roared, as if rejoicing over their prey ! Each snug interior became a blazing fiery furnace, the ruddy glare showed red against the golden splendour of the noonday sun. It was a cruel sight. The savings of a lifetime, the carefully cherished homes, were eaten up ruthlessly in a moment ; and there was no remedy. The nearest water was nearly half a mile off, and if it had been close at hand no fire brigade could have checked the fire when driven by such a wind. The cottages burned like dried brushwood, and in less than five minutes from the outbi'eak of the fire the whole row was ablaze from end to end. Never shall I forget the piteous and tragic picture presented by that burning village. It was a brilliantly beautiful day. The blue sky flecked here and there with fleecy white clouds; the green meadow starred with spring flowers, in which within a hundred yards of the fire the young foals were sleeping stretched full length in the sun; the groups of peasant women and children, with their picturesque costume and comely, sun- burnt faces — formed the setting to the fiercely flaming destruction that blazed and smoked and devoured while we stood helpless by. A man who saw his lifers work vanishing in smoke bent over his cart and sobbed aloud, unheeded, and here and there a woman kneeling on the grass wailed and wept, chanting amid her tears a weird and melancholy prayer. After a period of agonising suspense, when it was rumoured that two children, a boy of four and a twelve-months baby, had been burned alive in one of the huts, it was discovered that they were alive and well. Some of the little children wept aloud, wringing their hands ; others sat 58 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. wondering at tlie commotion^ and one little lad seemed quite happy nursing a hairy little pig which had been saved from the last of the burning houses. What a picture of desolation it seemed ! how bitter the grief, how unavailing the efforts which the best intentioned could make to stem the onward rush of the fire as the wind flung the flames in fierce haste from roof to roof ! It burned itself into my mind as, half-choking with smoke, I turned away from a sorrow which I could not alleviate and distress which I could not re- lieve. And as I hurried through the cool glades of the woods, where only the odour of the burning village could be dimly felt, and which soon hid even the whity-grey smoke which lay heavy on the hillside, I could not help feeling what a terribly vivid illustration the burning of these huts in Yasnaia Poliana had afforded at once of the incidents of war and of the perils of the European situation. The fire had begun, it seemed, in a barn, where it was be- lieved some boys had been playing with matches. The flame caught the straw, and in a moment five of the cottages were doomed. Had the wind been in the other direction twenty houses would have perished instead of five. But even as it was it was horrible enough. Five houses, insured perhaps to one- lifth of their value, were consumed ; five families were homeless, and the fire made havoc of all their household gods. The burning of villages — what is that but one of the ordi- nary and most familiar incidents of war? Not an army moves that does not leave in its wake devastation a thousand times more terrible than this. Those weeping peasants, those terrified children, those smouldering heaps of ashes where once stood homes and households, enable us, if multiplied a thousandfold, to image forth something of what war means. It is necessary for us to be reminded of the fact, for we English of all nations are most apt to forget the meaning of war. To us war is a thing to read about in the newspapers, as a kind of piquant sauce at breakfast, or, at the worst, to pay for in our income- tax. " War and bloodshed " are still to us, as in Coleridge-'s time, " animating sports, the which we pay for as a thing to talk of, spectators and not combatants.^-' But to the others fire-visaged war is a grim presence whose hot dun breath is to Europe what the simoom is to the traveller in the desert. And HOW ENGLAND DOES NOT DO HEB DUTY. 59 this dread and terrible visitation can be let loose to scourg-e the world almost as easily as the barn in Yasnaia Poliana was fired by the match of a reckless boy. And the boys with the matches — who are they ? Alas ! if the truth must be said^ they are too often journalists, men of my own profession, who seem to imagine that the supreme duty of the editor is to exasperate national animosities and inflame pre- judices that can only be slaked in blood. Said Baron de Jomiui to me one day in St. Petersburg-, in his pleasant way, " Peace ! 'J'he Governments would have no difficulty in keeping peace if only the journalists were well hanged. It is the newspapers that excite the passions which hurry Governments against their will into acts of war."""" A wholesale holocaust of the editors of Europe might not be too dear a sacrifice as a peaee-ofi^eriug, but such a method of inaugurating the millennium is, for the pre- sent, beyond the pale of practical politics. I did, indeed, draw u]) a provisional list of the half a dozen most hangworthy of my confferes, Avith the assistance of a distinguished Ambassador, but the list is at present a mere counsel of perfection. We cannot string up our journalistic boys with matches; nay, we cannot even rap their knuckles ; they must, if it please them, be free to strike as many lights as they please in the powder maga- zine of Europe. All that can be done is to implore them, from Mr. Buckle downwards, to remember their responsibility, and to endeavour to make them see the lurid glare of the peasant^s burning homestead behind the glitter of their rhetorical inci- tations, and to hear the agonised wail of the homeless child as the echo of their bellicose rhetoric. We in England are apt to forget, snugly ensconced in our coign of vantage be- hind the silver streak, that others are more sensitive than our- selves, and that the small boy who halloos his comrades on to fight by alternate gibes and encouragement, while he stays out of harm^s way up a tree, is not exactly the exemplar who should be followed by those who essay to speak in the name of England for civilisation and for peace. When the fire was blazing at Yasnaia Poliana there were many inquiries as to where was the fire-engine, where were the pails, where the apparatus which, if ready at hand at the first, might have prevented the conflagration. The peasants said that the commune had paid the money for an engine some time ago, but 60 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. the starosta^ or village mayor, had pocketed it ; and as the star- shiua, or mayor of the district, was his relative, nothing could be done. This, again, seemed to me an only too exact repre- sentation of the position of Europe. England, like the dishonest starosta, has received from Providence wealth, position, influence, eveiything that marks her out as bound in duty to play a great and useful role as the head of the Fire Brigade of the Continent. But, alas ! like this cursed starosta, she pockets all and does nothing. Nay, she is even worse than he. His conduct was only negative. He was said to have employed the money given him for the fire-engine to improve his own house. To make the parallel exact he ought to have spent it in fireworks or lucifer matches, and endangered the safety of the village by the aid of the money given him to secure its safety. In looking over the condition of Europe it is impossible not to be reminded of the rdle which England might play in securing the maintenance of peace. And in looking over Russia it is equally impossible not to be reminded of the ro/e which England has played for the ])romotion of war. Eleven years ago this January the present Prime Minister saw his way to the pre- vention of a great and bloody war. So did Mr. Gladstone. So did the then Bussian Emperor. If England had in January, 1877, risen superior to her ancient prejudices and decided that her deed must be as good as her word, the Turks would have bowed before the decision of Europe, and Bulgaria would have been freed without the sacrifice of a solitary soldier. It would not have cost England a single ship nor Russia a single regiment. All that was required was hearty, loyal co-operation between the two Empires. England had undertaken great responsibilities. Englishmen had made the world ring with their denunciation of the atrocities which had defiled the rose-gardens and corn-fields of Bulgaria with heaps of outraged dead. The English Government, making itself the mouthpiece of the offended conscience of Europe, had solemnly summoned the oppressor to liberate his victims and to redress their wrongs. England had assembled a great international court, and Lord Salisbury had found no difficulty in securing from united Europe the unanimous acceptance of his programme of reform. From no Power did England receive more hearty and more loyal support than from Russia. But when the HOW ENGLAND DOES NOT 1)0 HEB DUTY. 61 crowning moment came, and the Turks waited to know whether England meant what she said, then, to our everlasting shame and dishonour, Lord Salisbury's master, whom we had placed in possession of the right to speak in the name and with the authority of England, thrust his tongue in his cheek, laid his finger on one side of his nose, and winked significantly at the Grand Turk. Instantly all that the Powers had done was un- done. Sir Henry Elliot and Lord Beaconsfield neutralised the effect of Lord Salisbury's diplomacy, and instead of taking a great onward stride in the direction of peace and the federation of Europe the Continent was plunged into a long and horrible war. For all the blood shed in torrents at Plevna and the Balkans England was responsible. A single resolute movement of our fleet upon Constantinople, and Turkish resistance would instantly have collapsed. But that movement was not made. When the Turks were told by half our newspapers that if they stood firm England would hasten to their assistance, the die was cast. There is hardly a Russian village, from the Oural to the Vistula, from Archangel to the Crimea, but mourns to-day some son or brother who went but who returned not in the last great war. A hundred and twenty thousand Russians — brave, simple, kindly- hearted, as these good fellows whom I saw helping their burnt- out comrades, and giving of their scanty store of bread and kwas to those who had lost their all — died horrible deaths on the battle-field and in the hospital because Russia was left alone to do the work which Europe might have done without strain or danger if England had but been true. And this vast, frugal, industrious peasantry, whose only ambition is to be allowed to toil in peace from sunrise to sunset for lOd. a day, has been saddled with a war debt of a hundred millions sterling for the liberation of Bulgaria, not one penny of which would have needed to be spent but for England's crime. The case is a signal illustration of the power of England for weal or for woe as the peacemaker of the world. For it so happens that if we had been indifferent enough to considerations of humanity and of liberty boldly to have ranged ourselves on the side of the Turks, and energetically organised for their de- fence, the peace might also have been preserved, although Bul- garia would not have been freed. We could have kept the peace with or without liberty for Bulgaria, whichever side we took, if 62 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. we bad only stuck to it. What we did was to stick to one side just long enough to make it impossible for Eussia to draw back, and then to desert it just at the moment when our desertion rendered it impossible for Turkey to submit. If we had deliber- ately played our cards in order to expose Turkey to invasion, and to force the Russians to face the sacrifices of war, we could not, by the most malevolent ingenuity, have adopted a policy better adapted to secure that end. If we can do no better than this, then a policy of absolute non- intervention is defensible, if only because it is better to be a corpse and a cipher than to be a madman and a fiend. But I am loath to believe that England is shut up to either of these alternatives. If noblesse oblige, then not less have position, wealth, tradition, and opportunity for usefulness, also their obligations. And do not let us deceive ourselves by dreaming of the impossible. Even if we wished it, there is no party in Illngland, there are not fifty men in the House of Commons, who would deliberately and seriously propose to withdraw from the European Concert, and to abandon all claim to a voice in the settlement of inter- national questions, in which at any moment we may take a deep and passionate interest. Mr. Labouchere may regret this, but he would not deny it. And as such is the case, all that remains to be done is to make the best of it, and to decide definitely upon using England's position in the counsels of Europe, not for any purposes of aggrandisement or of self-interest, but for the maintenance of the public peace. Even if we were not called to this work by considerations of our own interests, we are bound at least to attempt it, if only to endeavour to repair, however tardily, the injuries which we have inflicted upon our neighbours. If there be such a thing as retri- bution for nations, as for individuals, then, indeed, we shall do well to make such atonement as may be possible for our mani- fold sins and offences — sins not committed from any deliberate criminality or desire to bring about war on our part, but chiefly from a reckless self-indulgence in the bellicose mood of the moment, without regard to the necessities of statesmanship or the responsibilities of our position. Coleridge's solemn and pro- phetic warning has seldom been absent from my mind since I left England on this journey : — HOW ENGLAND DOES NOT BO EEB BUTY. 63 Thankless too for peace (Peace long preserved by fleets and perilous seas) Secure from actual warfare, we have loved To swell the war-whoop passionate for war ! Alas ! for ages ignorant of all Its ghastlier workings (famine or blue plague, Battle or siege, or flight through wintry snows). . . . . Therefore Evil days Are coming on us, O my countrymen ! And what if all-avenging Providence Strong and retributive should make us know The meaning of our words, force us to feel The desolation and the agony Of our fierce doings ? Not that of late we have heen doing" ourselves anything very fierce. We have not been doers of anything but mischief ; all our fierceness has been in words that exposed us to no risk of broken bones, while they set our neighbours by the ears. We are in European politics very much like idle pleasure-seekers on the deck of a fragile craft that is threading its way through a narrow, crowded, and stormy sea. As the fancy seizes us, we rush from side to side, with supreme indifference to the effect which the sudden transfer of so much weight from larboard to starboard may have upon the steering or the stability of the vessel. If we were actually on boai'd such a craft we should for- tunately have all been drowned long ago, but the misfortune of our political situation is that we are, as it were, all supplied, with patent safety life-belts, by which we can escape the fate to which our reckless plunging from side to side exposes our less fortunate fellow-passengers. What then, must be the policy of England ? That is the real question in discussing the problem of peace or war. All the other powers have their policy more or less marked out for them by circumstances. England holds the balance weight. England may not be able to put a single army corps into the field. But she can excite those who can put twenty army corps in motion, and she can at least refrain from encouraging, from provoking, from inciting, the masters of many legions to give the signal for war. It is not so much that England should at present learn to do well. The first thing is that she should learn to cease to do evil — to cease, that is, to excite, with hopes of 64 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. ultimate support, the one State of Europe whose internal position and external designs constitute a peril to European peace. If England undertakes the role of heading' the fire-brigade of Europe for the prevention of war, she cannot act alone. Co- operation, not alliance, must be the key-note of her policy. The secret of our influence consists in our maintaining a position of independence. The moment we are allied with one Power we become instantly the more or less declared enemy of some other Power. Priends of all, allies of none, is our watchword, and it is fortunately one that is imposed upon us as imperatively by our party politics and our parliamentary system as by the obvious considerations of duty and interest. But the moment that England sets before herself the maintenance of peace based on the existing status quo she is practically driven to co-operate more or less closely with one set of Powers in order to restrain the actions of another set of Powers, who might, if unrestrained, bring about a war which would be of a magnitude and a nature so unprecedented and so ghastly as to justify the employment of almost any means to avert it. And here let me observe, in passing, in order that I may not be misunderstood, that in defining the policy of England as the maintenance of peace on the basis of the status qtw, I am fully mindful of the necessity which exists fi'om time to time of modifying the status quo. No policy is so fatal to statxis quo as a dogged refusal to readjust it to altered conditions. Any such policy as that which we are discussing presupposes that the powers which agree to maintain peace will also agree to sanction and enforce such changes as are necessary to prevent the dis- turbance of peace. That is to say, all modifications in the existing status quo must be decided, not on the battlefield, but by the Concert of Europe; and Europe, when it has wisdom to decide what change should be made, must also have the reso- lution to enforce its decision. 65 CHAPTER III. AUSTRIA AS DISTURBER OF THE PEACE. The development and strengthening of the principle of the European Concert is the true road along which civilisation must progress; but the question more immediately before us is, which are the Powers with whom it is possible to co-operate for the maintenance of peace, or, to reverse the order, which are the Powers whose avowed policy is to disturb the peace and vio- lently to alter the status quo to their own advantage ? These powers are two. France is obviously the first, Austria the second. France has no other foreign policy than one — the recovery of her lost provinces. France therefore stands avowed as the de- termined disturber of the peace at whatever moment may seem propitious. Any policy that has as its end the maintenance of peace must have as its first object the postponement indefinitely of that propitious moment. Without for a moment departing from the entente cor dial e with France, and indeed acting really from a very sincere desire for the true interests of France, it ought to be a settled object of any effective peace policy to dis- courage any attack upon Germany for the purposes of revenge, and to prevent the formation of such groups on the Continent as might tempt France into a war for the lost pi'ovinces. Lead us not into temptation ! When France says her Paternoster it is by such a policy that her prayer can best be answered. There will of course be an outcry against this, on the ground that it seems to amount to a European guarantee of Elsass- Lothringen to Germany, and that it practically places England at the head of a Continental league against the French. Not against but rather in favour of the French. For, if those who make this objection were to take the trouble to ascertain the views of the French themselves, they would not be so confident in denouncing this peace policy as anti-French. The ablest and most influential Frenchmen to-day disclaim with unanim- ity any desire to attack Germany. A!sace and Lorraine, they say, will come back to France as certainly as the sun will rise to-morrow in the east, but apparently they expect them to come back by the operation of causes as much beyond their control 66 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. as the revolution of the phmets. Every reasonable French- man knows perfectly well that France has not at present the slightest chance of success in an offensive war against Germany, although they are quite well able to take care of themselves if they are attacked by Germany. Their policy is to wait upon Providence^ watching the course of events, hoping much more from internal decomposition or disintegration in Germany than from any violent attack from without. \Vhen a politician of the standing of M. Clemenceau is not afraid to say that he would oppose a French attack upon Germany even if Germany had a Russian war on her hands, it is evident that France would not vehemently resent a policy which saved at once her amour propre and preserved the peace. France does not want to begin the next German war, like the last, under the malediction of the civilised world. She wants the approval of the moral sense of mankind, and she wants a certainty of success. She can secure neither if she is hurried into taking any premature step, and a policy that restrains her from yielding to the temptation of passion and the incitement of ignorance until at last her time has fully come will be the greatest benefit which Europe can confer upon the Republic. There is another aspect of the question which should not be lost sight of. There may be — in Russia I am persistently assured that there has been — a possibility that the war on the Rhine may be begun by Germany. The possibility is, I think, remote. Germany asks only to be left abne. In 1875 there seems to be little doubt that the military party at Berlin had almost arranged for a renewal of the war, on the ground that France was recovering too rapidly, and in 1887 the Schnaebele incident might have brought matters to a crisis but for the menacing reserve of Russia. But, whether the initiative be taken by Germany or by France, the true peace policy is to seek to array an overwhelming preponderance of force against what- ever Power is tempted to disturb the peace. If such an array be forthcoming there will be no war. Its mere existence will rob the situation of its venom. The danger of war at this moment does not arise from the relations between France and Germany. The idea that the French may suddenly make a raid on London can only be enter- tained by those who are dominated by the traditions of the AUSTRIA AS DISTUBBEB OF THE PEACE. 67 Napoleonic Empire. As long- as France was in the hands o£ an adventurer who depended for his power on the bayonets of his Praetorians, anything was possible. But if war is made to-day it will be made, not by mercenaries and professional soldiers, but by the manhood of France. And, so far as I can judge, the manhood of France is much more pacific than the manhood of England. Among no people, I regret to say, is there such readiness, if not to go to war, at least to talk about it, as among Englishmen. It is a dangerous thing for the peace of the world that the most loudly vocal person in the inter- national market-place should be one who from his position is insured against ever being called upon to realise the con- sequences of his own words. The French electors have no such immunity and no such irresponsibility. They may elect General Boulanger or they may not, but if General Boulanger were to be demented enough to endeavour to launch them into war with England his fall would be as rapid as his rise. The strength of the French sentiment against war is curiously shown in the loathing that is excited by the name of M. Ferry. The French peasantry and artisans detest the author of the Tonkin campaign as much as the Gladstonians detested Lord Beaconsfield in 1880. If M. Ferry had been elected President, it is stoutly asserted by those who ought to know, that the streets of Paris would have run with blood before the capital submitted to the Presidency of the Tonkinois. The internal condition of France, therefore, instead of tending towards foreign war, operates in the opposite direction. For the present the Republic is peace, and peaceful it seems likely to remain whatever may be the fate which fortune has in store for General Boulanger. It is far different with the other State whose policy menaces Europe with war. The one danger-point visible on the European horizon is not France, is not Russia, it is Austria. If there is a war in Europe in the next twelve months there is little doubt but that it will be provoked by Austria. Austria is the only danger. Austria is at this moment the only Power whose position is contrary to European treaties. Austria is the only Power which is pursuing a policy that may make war inevitable. Austria is the only State that is making military prepara- tions altogether in excess of its financial resources. And at the same time that Austria's foreign policy is so directly provocative h 2 63 TBUril ABOUT RUSSIA. of war, her internal condition is such that no one can predict what a day may bring- forth. In the composite cong-lomerate of heterog-eneous nationalities which make up the Austrian State there is only one compact and important element. There are only five million Magyars in Austria-Hungary, but they are more powerful than the thirty millions of their fellow-subjects. The Germans look to Berlin, the Slavs to St. Petersburg or to Moscow. The Magyars look to themselves. They are a brave and reckless race, full of martial fire, inspired by the memory of their past, and accustomed from of old to all the arts which give men power and place in political life. In Hungary there are but five millions of them out of fifteen and a half millions, but the five millions rule the ten ; nay, the ten hardly count against the five. They are in the position of an ascendant nationality, threatened with reduction to the level of the masses which at present ai'e but as the pedestal of its power. The artificiality of their position makes them reckless. The memory of their disappointment in 1849, when the Russians crushed their rebellion, and restored the Hapsburg- in the name of law, order, and the peace of Europe, has filled them with inextinguishable hatred of the Russian, whom they dread as much for what he may do in the future as they hate him for what he has done in the past. It is these Magyars who will make war if they can, and make it now. They are the only people in Europe who do not conceal their desire for war. They are animated at once by race-hatred and by the dread which ever haunts an oligarchy when it sees the stirring- of the democratic depths beneath the whispers of the Northern wind. All this is true, it may be said, but it was not less true last year and the year before. Why are the Magyars more dangerous now than they were then ? The answer is simple. The Magyars are more dangerous to-day because they believe that they are in a position in which they can force the hand of Germany, and secure for their attack upon Russia the support of the strongest military Power in Europe. That is a chance which does not occur every day. The Magyars calculate that by throwing all their strength in one direction they may drag after them Austria, that Austria will drag Germany, and Germany Italy, and Italy perhaps Eng- land. It is something like the milkmaid's calculation as to the fortune she would make when she sold her milk, but nevertheless AVSTBIA AS BISTUBBEE OF THE PEACE. 69 it dominates the imag-ination of the Magyars. It may be a delusion, but it is a delusion which they may act upon as if it were a reality. Nor are the Magyars greatly to blame for believing that for once they have at last got the whip-hand of the situation. The Germans have used them so long- as bogeys with which to menace Russia that the bogeys feel inclined to do a little business on their own account. And then we must never leave out of account the reckless encouragement given to these g'entry by the insensate folly of our English newspapers. Every one in London knows that if the Magyars attacked Russia Lord Salisbury would leave Austria to her fate with an imperturbable nonchalance tempered only by many crocodile tears of regret over the suicide of so high-spirited and chivalrous a State. But not a single "blue-jacket would be risked for all the Magyars in Hungary. The Mag-yars, however, do not understand that, and the incitations of the Times and the Standard — el hoc genus ornne — operate upon them like brandy. " Strike when the iron is hot,""^ say they. " Now is our chance. We have the game in our own hands, for every one will have to help us if we can only by hook or by crook provoke Russia into war.^^ This line of argument is powerfully reinforced by the finan- cial difficulties in which Austria-Hungary is placed. Under pressure from Germany she has been incurring fresh military ex- penditure, and ever fresh military expenditure, and all for what? A Power within an ace of bankruptcy does not spend extra millions on armaments without hoping at least to have something to show for its sacrifices. The King of France, who with twice ten thousand men marched up a hill and then marched down ag-ain, might do as he pleased, for he was King of France. But to move troops towards the frontier, to build great camps, to make all preparations for a struggle for life and death, merely in order to do nothing and sit still when all the money is spent — that is hardly possible for Austria- Hungary. The financial malaise, the longing to escape from suspense even by plunging into the deadly fever of war, all tell in the same evil direction as that in which the whole force of the Magyars is already impelling the State. Even if we do not look at the Balkans, but confine our attention to the interior of Austria- Hungary, we shall see enough to convince us that the danger point is to be found in Pestb. 70 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. Austria, like a drunken man, is in a state of unstable equilibrium, and the action of the Mag-yars may at any moment throw her ofp her balance unless she is held up and restrained by the iron hand of an international policeman. The need for such restraint is shown veiy forcibly in the ex- tent to which Austria has pushed herself already in the Balkan Peninsula. It is the fashion to speak in England of the Berlin Treaty as the charter of European peace. It was a great inter- national compact imposed by Europe upon Russia, with the distinct and explicit declai*ation that its strict and literal fulfil- ment was indispensable to the tranquillity of the East. What has happened ? Every provision in that treaty for the fulfilment of which Russia was responsible has been fulfilled. But the rest of the treaty ? It practically does not exist. All the clauses which depend for their execution upon the Turks are of course null and void. The reforms stipulated for the protection of the Armenians have never been executed. The organic statute that was to have given contentment to Macedonia and the other Turkish provinces has been framed by an International Commis- sion, and left exactly where it was, with the result that at any moment insurrections may break out in jNIacedonia or elsewhere with what is virtually a European certificate in ad- vance of the justice of the insurgents' demands. In this there is nothing new. Turkey has never kept a treaty or executed a reform. Her neglect to execute the provisions of the Berlin Treaty is therefore but coiisistent with her neglect to execute every treaty to which she has ever affixed her signature. Austria, however, is a civilised Power; Austria is supposed to be the avani-garde of German culture : Austria has a healing, an educational mission in these lands. Has Austria, then, shown herself any more regardful of the letter or the spirit of the Berlin Treaty than her barbarous neigh- bour ? By the Berlin Treaty Austria was authorised to occupy and administer for the restoration of order Bosnia and the Herzegovina, which were to remain Turkish provinces. I do not wish to labour this point, although it is one to which most Russians attach great importance. Austria, they say, according to the authority of her own officials, has restored order in Bosnia and the Herzegovina. Her mission is accomplished ; her mandate AUSTRIA AS DISTUBBEB OF THE PEACE. 71 has expired. Why does she not retire ? Instead of retiring she is organising these provinces as if they were integral portions of the Dual Monarchy. She is filling them with soldiers and with Jesuits, and asserting on every occasion and in every way, direct and indirect, that in Bosnia she means to remain till the crack of doom. This may be natural ; it may be politic, and it may be right ; but is it in accordance with the spirit of the Berlin Treaty ? The whole history of Austria's connection with Bosnia and the Herzegovina is calculated to fill the observer with suspicion and distrust of Austrian policy. The Eastern Question was raised in 1875, not by Russia, but by Austria, not by the Russian propaganda ia Bulgaria, but by the Austrian agents in the Herzegovina. Austria, which fomented the disturbance by which she hoped to profit, never lifted a finger to save her un- fortunate joroft^/^ from being crushed by the Turks whom they had provoked. She contented herself with protesting before the world that she had nothing to do with the insurrection which she had excited, and had no designs upon the provinces, at the very time when she was negotiating with Russia by secret compacts for their appropriation. Again and again, in the most public and solemn fashion. Count Andrassy protested before the representatives of Austria- Hungary that he had never contem- plated, and would never contemplate, the addition of Bosnia and the Herzegovina to the Empire Kingdom, at the same time that he had all but signed, sealed, and delivered to Prince Gort- schakoff an agreement giving Russia a free hand in the Eastern Balkan in return for the promised occupation of Bosnia and the Herzegovina. Then when the time came, when Russia was compelled to submit her treaty with Turkey to be cut to pieces by a European Congress, Austria, which had sacrificed nothing, which had spent nothing, and which had done nothing — but lie ■ — was furnished with a European mandate for the occupation and administration of the provinces which she had declared she would not accept as a gift, and which she no sooner occupied than she d.e facto annexed. Her action in the past is certainly not calculated to encourage confidence in the future in her protestations of disinterestedness or her assurances of good faith. About the actual condition of things in Bosnia and the Herzegovina I cannot, of course, speak at first hand. I can 72 TBVTH ABOUT la'SSIA. only repeat what I heard in St. Petersburg from those who take a keen interest in the Slavs of the Balkan. Their story is always the same. The Bosniacs detest their new rulers, and only wait a sig-nal from Russia to hurl the Austrians out of their province. " When the Turks got angry they occasionally cut off the head of one of us in each ten/^ said a Bosniac peasant : " but these Austrian fellows take the stomach and the heart of every single one.^' The Jesuit propaganda reacts against its Austrian patrons; and it is an article of faith held implicitly by every good Slavophil, that if Austria and Russia should ever come to blows, Russia can count upon the active assistance of every Slav in the occupied provinces. From a military point of view the occupation is likely to be equivalent to the paralysis of at least one corps d'armce. For her position in Bosnia and the Herzegovina Austria has at least a qua si-sanction, although she has made perma- nent that which w^as temporary, and has converted an occupa- tion for the restoration of order into a practical annexation. But in Servia she has not even the semblance of an international sanction for her encroachments. King Milan, by the Berlin Treaty, had to be king of an independent Servia. He is now merely the satrap of the Haj>sburg. Francis Joseph has put Milan in his pocket. As Viennese policy is dictated from Berlin, so Belgrade politics are controlled from Vienna. I was emphatically assured by a diplomatist, who declared that he had himself a copy of the document, that Austria has concluded a military convention with Servia which places the Servian army on the footing of an Austrian army corps, and provides that in case of war the Servian troops shall be placed under the command of the Austrian Commander-in-Chief. If this story be true, Servia is not technically annexed. It is simply en- gulfed. The independence of a State which places its troops under the command of a neighbouring Sovereign whenever he pleases to go to war is a phrase rather than a fact. The fact is that in spite of the wishes of the population, which if not Russian is at least not Austrian, King Milan has practically annexed Servia to Austria-Hungary. The position is irregular. It may bring the Government into sharp collision with the people, and if the Servians should evict their King, there is too much reason to believe that he would attempt to return HOW AUSTRIA DOES NOT DO HER DUTY. 73 supported by Austrian bayonets. In that ease it would be difficult to prevent war. But bad as Austrian 'policy may be in Servia, it is in Eulsraria that the bad faith of the Dual Monarchy is most conspicuously displayed. Russia acquiesced — reluctantly, no (]oubt, but nevertheless loyally — in the surrender of Bosnia and the Herzeg-ovina to Austrian ascendency. It was the price which she had to pay, and which she did pay, honestly though wrudg^ing^ly, for the privileg^e of org^anisino- Bulg'aria as an inde- pendent principality. Russia kept her part of the bargain. Austria did not keep hers. Russia has never raised a tinger against Austria, even in Servia. But in Bulgaria Austria has interfered, and is interfering, to such an extent that she has practically established her own agent on the throne of Sophia. It is this which gives such deadly offence in Ru>sia, and which at the present moment constitutes a live coal kept aglow in the midst of the Eastern tinder-box. Ferdinand of Coburg is an officer in the Hungarian army. He is a German by birth, an Austrian by allegiance, and a Roman Catholic by conviction. He represents everything that is most inimical to Russia and her Slavonic Orthodox proteges. Yet he was allowed to go to Sophia, and is supported there to this hour by Austria. Russians believe that it was Austria that made war against Bulgaria through Servia when the Bulgarians, in defiance of Russian counsel, realised the Russian ideal of the imion of the Bulgarians. And when the valour of the Bulgarians, the personal qualities of Prince Alexander, and the discipline which Russia had imparted to the Bulgarian levies, enabled them to triumph over the Servian invaders, it was an Austrian ultimatum and a direct threat of Austrian intervention which arrested the victorious Bulgarians in their triumphant progress towards Belgrade. These matters belong to the domain of accomplished fact. If Austria has done all this already, it is easy to imagine how obvious to the Slavonic patriot appears the assumption that Austria is pressing or being pressed downwards to the ^Egean, and that before long the Balkan peninsula, which Russia has watered with the blood of so many of her heroes, will have passed from under the sway of the Sultan to that of the Hapsburg. 74 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. Austria, therefore, is the one point of danger in the European horizon. She is dangerous because she is dominated by a reek- less oligarchy passionate for war, and confident that they can force the hand of their allies if they fire but a single rifle across the Russian frontier. She is dangerous because her finances are so rickety and her political equilibrium so unsteady that she can with difficulty draw back from her present position after incurring so much expenditure without having anything to show for it. In her external policy she is dangerous be- cause she has violated the spirit of the Berlin Treaty in Bosnia, has practically annexed Servia, has established her protege on the throne of Bulgaria, and is pursuing a policy of .Drang nach Osten^ which will inevitably bring her into collision with Russia, who imposes an irrevocable veto on the Austrian advance to the Bosphorus. She is the one civilised power that has broken the Berlin Treaty, and which is obviously and avowedly moving eastwards on a mission of absorption, if not of conquest. What she has done may not result in war, but if she goes on war is inevitable. Hence the condition of peace is an imperative Halt ! addressed to Austria. CHAPTER IV. CONCERNING REPTILES AND WORMS. ]Mr. Gladstone said " Hands off ! " but that imperative Halt ! can best come from Berlin. This brings me to the policy of Germany — a theme full of interest not unmixed with mystery. What is the policy of Germany ? It is the policy of Prince Bismarck. And what is Prince Bismarck ? Is Prince Bismarck to be judged by his words or the words of his creatures on the press ? If the former, then he is one of the most straight- forward and honest of statesmen. If the latter, then he is a very Machiavelli under the mask of an honest broker. " The true Bismarck,^^ said one who knows him well, "is the Bismarck who speaks in the Reichstag, not the Jews who write in the German papers. ^^ Unfortunately it is difficult to separate the COXCERNIKG EEP TILES AND WORMS. 75 one from the other. Judg-ed by his public form as he appears in the German Parliament, the Great Chancellor seems almost an ideal politician. But when we turn from his speeches to his inspired papers, the eminent Dr. Jekyll disappears, and we have only the loathsome features of Mr. Hyde. I am aware that most Englishmen will ridicule the idea of weighing- the utterances of unknown and more or less dis- reputable journalistic hacks against the public speeches of the Chancellor. And these Englishmen would be right but for the fact that Prince Bismarck, who neglects nothing and presses everything into his service, has converted, the German press into a vulg-ar and blatant speaking-trumpet of the German Adminis- tration. What with the Reptile fund for corruption and the immense power which the Administration has over the press for means of intimidation, the Chancellor has converted German journalism into the most effective and most disreputable of the instruments by which he g-overns Germany. It is a new and horrible kind of State Church, the temporal power taking possession of the spiritual, and using it for its own ends. If all be true that I heard repeatedly from those who ought to know, as Queen Elizabeth used to tune her pulpits, so Prince Bismarck tunes his newspapers. He keeps them in good order by tips, by menaces, and by punishment. It would almost seem that the German journalists should all wear the 2nckelhanbe, so absolutely are they under the thumb of the Administration. The clumsy nobbling of the press practised by less experienced statesmen has been by Prince Bismarck reduced to a system. Public opinion is an article manufactured to order. As a dyer will turn you out cloth red, green, or blue, to suit, so the great master at Varzin will produce a jiublic opinion according- to his needs. Prince Bismarck familiarised Europe with the phrase as to the importance of seizing the psycho- logical moment. But it is only in Germany men understand that he not only seizes the psychological moment, he also manu- factui-es it. And in the manufacture, I regret to hear it asserted on every side, lies seem to play almost as important a part as truth. Not, of course, that Prince Bismarck lies. But some- how or other, in the most persistent and systematic way, some convenient falsehood has the habit of getting into his papers when its circulation is calculated to facilitate his designs. 76 TBVTH ABOUT RUSSIA. Where tlie lie comes from, no one, of course, knows. It is, perhaps, evolved in some mysterious manner from the depths of the inner consciousness of the fallen spirits who minister to him and do his pleasure. But whatever may be its genesis, it appears, and the Chancellor profits by it. " Non olet/' he thinks. Why should he be squeamish ? The Reptile fund — so called because of Prince Bismarck^s own phrase — consists of the confiscated fortune of the King of Hanover, together with an unknown grant from the war indemnity. Speaking of the attacks made upon the Government by the press, the Chancellor exclaimed on a memorable occasion that as his Administration was so exposed to malignant misre- presentations at the hands of its adversaries, he did not think it tolerable that he should be left unarmed against so powerful and so unscrupulous a foe. " I must have means," he said, " with which to hunt those reptiles to their holes and destroy them there. ^' Hence the so-called Reptile fund, which is simply an indefinite amount of secret service money at the disposal of Prince Bismarck for controlling the press. With its aid, he is said to have organised a news service for the benefit of the German Government, the like of which exists nowhere out of the pages of the French novels which describe the spy system of Fouche. At its head stands Herr Holstein, the dme damnee of Prince Bismarck, who has at his command a disciplined host of confidential reporters, who enable him to follow unseen the movements of all his adversaries. The great Chancellor never neglects any foe, no matter how insignificant. The famous Third Section of the Russian police w^as mere child's play com- pared with the ubiquitous engine of observation which the Chancellor has established for the collection of information. "Power,'^ said Lord Beaconsfield, "belongs to the best, in- formed ; " and there is no newspaper editor in Europe who organises so systematically the collection and tabulation of information as the German Chancellor, What kind of information ? All kinds of information, but chiefly that which concerns the doings and sayings, the move- ments and the writings, of those whom it may be necessary for him to crush. At the Chancellery of the Secret Intelligence Bureau at Berlin, under Herr Holstein, are kept the dossiers of every man or woman whom from time to time it thinks necessary CGXCEBXIXa BEFTILES AND WORMS. 77 to Prince Bismarck to watch with a view to ulterior develop- ments. The minuteness of the information thus stored up for future use is very extraordinary, and suggests many uneomfort- al>le reflections. A friend of mine resident in Germany once had an opportunity of seeing" a copy of his own dossier. Therein be found set down all particulars of himself and his family and his relations. A list was given of all the people whom he was in the habit of receiving, and a detailed report as to all the correspondents to whom he was in the habit of writing-. To this man, it was written, he sends letters every week, to the other every day, to a third he writes sometimes twice a week, and then ceases to write for a week or a month. The skeletons that we all try to keep concealed in the shadiest recesses of our secret charabers are thus kept as ready for mobilisation as a Prussian army corps. " Krieg, mobil,^^ telegraphed Von Moltke along the wires from Ems in 1870, and instantly all the parts of the huge military machine fitted themselves together and descended upon France. So in case it is necessary to crush or to em- barrass any opponent at home or abroad, Herr Holstein has but to press a button and the private records of that opponenf's lite are ready to hand, to be served up with such piquant sauce as may suit the public taste in any of the journals by which the inoculation of the public mind is arranged for in the interest of the Administration. It is not stated that Prince Bismarck has abused the power which this collection of facts has given him. All that I say is that, unless universal report is a universal liar, he has grasped this power, and holds it like other thunderbolts in reserve. I need hardly point out that the man who sprung the Benedetti treaty upon the world at a critical moment is not likely to be too squeamish about employing the information accumulated by his police for the discrediting or for the destruction of his opponents. But the possession of an indefinite amount of secret service money for purposes of corruption, and the accumulation from all the unseen channels of a ubiquitous secret police of a va^t reservoir of information for use if required, are by no means the only instruments by which Prince Bismarck keeps his press in good order. " How is it done ? " exclaimed a witty victim of the Chancellor's surveillance. " It is very simple. Some fine 78 TRUTH ABOUT UUSSIA. day all the editors of Berlin are summoued to the office of the oracle. They are told that the Government is in possession of such and such an important piece of information which is com- municated to them, not for publication, but in confidence, in order that when the opportune moment arrives they may be well informed. A nod is as g-ood as a wink to a blind h(n'se, and before very long* one or other of the editors discovers in some mysterious way that the time has arrived when the cat must be let out of the bag. He lets it out accordingly, and. all his brethren follow suit, and the news, true or false, is launched in due form.^^ " But what,^' I asked, " if an editor refuses to take the hint, and obstinately abstains from circulating the official communique ? " " Then,^'' was the reply, " it does not go well with that exceptional newspaper. Misfortunes always attend the journal which is foolhardy enough to ignore a hint from above.'"'' "What kind, of misfortunes?^^ "Oh, all kinds of misfortune. Dormant lawsuits mysteriously reappear ; official advertisements are withdrawn ; privileges of sale or of display, which depend upon the goodwill of the Administration, are suspended. But perhaps the most efficient allies of the Chan- cellor and his myrmidons are the vendors of quack medicines for the cure of unmentionable diseases.''^ " How, in the name of wonder, can that be ? " " It is very simple. In the Fatherland the Government charges itself with watchful solicitude for the morals of its subjects. But as even Homer sometimes nods, so the most vigilant of Administrations sometimes fails to discover that the columns of German newspapers are defiled by the insertion of advertisements of immoral pills or by the addresses of unclean doctors. When, however, any newspai)er continuously opposes itself to the will of the authorities, the custodian of public morals yjuts on his spectacles, and woe betide the unfor- tunate journal if in the obscurest corner of his badly-printed page there should be discovered lurking an allusion to the objectionable pill or the disreputable physician. The Adminis- tration is down upon him at once, and punishment is heaped on punishment until the editor consents to dance to the piping of Power. Then the custodian of public morals once more slum- bers and sleeps, and the quack advertises his pills in peace. ^^ Add to this that press prosecutions for press offences are as plentiful as blackberries, that editors are sent to gaol as felons for CONCEBNIXG BEP TILES AND WORMS. 79 what W(mlt] be regarded in England as perfectly justifiable criti- cisms upon the Chancellor, that half the cities in Germany are under a state of siege, and you can form some idea of the facili- ties which Prince Bismarck possesses for manipulating the journals of the Fatherland. To him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he seemeth to have. To a central Press Bureau thus subsidised, served, and terrorised, it is easy to see what strength will accrete quite naturally by the voluntary and unsuspecting co-operation of other journals. In the economy of Nature Darwin has taught us the important part which is played by the humble earthworm. All that it does is to eat dirt and to void the same, but to that operation we chiefly owe the creation of the mould of our earth. In the journalism of Europe it is the lot of some English correspondents abroad to fulfil with automatic and unfailing regularity the useful and, from Bismarck^s point of view, the necessary functions of the earthworm. There are, for instance, some supreme types of the species on the Times, whose despatches, telegraphed daily to the leading newspaper of the world, are little more than ill-digested reproductions of the inventions and the calumnies of the Reptile press — their " news " is merely the secretion of the Reptile passed through the alimentary canal of the Worm. But it helps to form the compost on which public opinion is based, and thus from the great central bureau at Berlin are fed all the newspapers of the world. When the Norse gods seized malignant Loki after he had slain the beautiful Balder, they bound him to a rock and fixed above him a poisonous snake, from whose jaws venom dripped constantly into Loki^s face. When I listened to the descriptions of the working of the Reptile fund which I have reproduced above, Europe seemed to me to have taken the place of Loki, and Bismarck played the part of the vengeful gods. The most marvellous example of the results which can be attained under the German system of press nobbling at home and of journalistic idiotcy abroad was the European scare produced by the alleged concentration of Russian troops on the German frontier. As a matter of fact, there was no such concentration. The Russian Government had moved 4,00 U troops from Moscow to Warsaw. That was the solitary and slender substratum of 80 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. fact, which was of course perfectly well known to the German War Office. 13 ut it so happened that at that time Prince Bismarck, for reasons best known to himself, was anxious to secure, with the moral sanction of Europe and the unanimous vote of the Reichstag, the addition of 700,000 men to the German army, and also to compel Austria to add several millions to her military expenditure. As Europe was in a condition of profound peace, the operation did not seem easy. To genius, however, all things are possible, especially to genius that has no scruples and that has a Reptile press. So it came to pass one tine day, nearly a month after the 4,000 troops had been moved up, that one of the Reptiles in some obscure corner of Germany discovered that the Russians were pouring troops westward towards the German frontier. Instantly all the other Reptiles discovered this menacing announcement, and reprinted it for the edification of the German public. The Englisii corre- spondents of course telegraphed it to London. The news goes the round of the Continent, growing of course as it goes. To the excited imagination of nervous Europe the Russian frontier seems bursting with armed men. All day long the phlegmatic German seems to hear the rumble of batteries thundering up from unknown depths of Muscovy to concentrate on the frontier of Posen or the boundaries of Galicia. When the sun rose in the east its rays were obscured by the lances of Cossack hordes swarming to the plunder of the Fatherland. Every day brings news of fresh concentration, of the departure or arrival of new reinforcements for the fiontier. Innocent bystanders imagine that all this thunder is real. Those behind the scenes know that it is produced by artifice, and is sheer illusion. But it is wonder- fully realistic. Everything seems so natural, and of course so true. If it were not true, would a paternal Government, with all the facts at its finger-ends, allow such alarming statements to harrow up the soul of every Teuton ? So every one said, and even the Russians, who knew that the only movement that had taken place was the despatch of 4,000 men from Moscow to Warsaw— 4,000 out of 850,000— were not a little puzzled to understand what it could mean. The Bourses of Europe were disturbed. The rouble, which had been steadily going down- ward until it sank to exactly one-half of its nominal value, took a further plunge towards zero. Russian securities declined. CONGEBNIXG REFTILES AND WORMS. 81 Business transactions all over Europe were cheeked, from dread of approaching" war. Still was kept up the rolling o£ the Ger- man tomtoms, and a thousand sheets echoed the reverberations of the heavy tread of marching- millions of menacing Muscovites. At last the psychological moment had fully come. As in the opera the advent of the hero is heralded by long flourishes of premonitory music in which all the skill of the orchestra is employed in leading up to his entrance, so when the public mind was strained to the utmost, and all the Continent rang with the clangour of steel and the thud of the Cossacks^ hoofs. Prince Bismarck appeared in the tribune and demanded the g-rant necessary to add 700,000 fathers of families to the effective strength of the German army. It was perhaps the most tremendous blood tax ever imposed in a single speech. But so marvellously had the m/'se en scene been managed, so dexterously had the great Reptilian orchestra played upon the nerves of the nations, that it seemed the most natural thing in the world. All the fractions of the German Parliament un- animously and enthusiastically acceded to his demand, and the press of Europe declared that the last inroad of militarism upon industrialism was forced upon the German Government by im- perious necessity. Great are the resources of a stage manag-er when he has an Empire for his theatre and all the newspapers as his claque j but was there ever a thaumaturg'ist so wonderful as the Chancellor of Germany ? Who but he, with such slender materials to work upon, could have raised so gigantic a Brocken spectre on the German frontier ? Four thousand men are moved from the former capital of Russia to the capital of the former kingdom of Poland, and a month later, when not a single soldier is being moved anywhere near the frontier, he so employs his magic art that a whole invading* army of horse, foot, and artillery, seemed to be pouring down from Russia upon Europe. Like the secrets hidden in the mystic book which William of Deloraine bore from the tomb of Michael Scott, '' All was illusion, nought was truth.-'^ But that illusion was real enough while it lasted to deceive almost every newspaper in Europe, to conjure millions from the closely-buttoned pocket of the German farmer and the German artisan, to add nearly three-quarters of a million of soldiers to the German standards, and to convulse almost to G 82 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. frenzy the excitable Magyars with visions of impending war. And then when the money had been voted and the men added to the standards, the deception, having served its turn, was unceremoniously discarded, without even dropping the curtain to conceal the scene-shifters from the dupes of the great illusion. In the "Lady of the Lake,'^ when Roderick Dhu waved his hand, the hillside, which had suddenly been covered with an armed and eager throng of martial mountaineers, as suddenly resumed its mountain solitude : — Sliort space lie stood — then waved his hand. Down sunk the disappearing band ; Each warrior vanished Avhere he stood In broom or bracken, heath or wood ; Sunk brand and spear and bended bow In osiers pale and cop«es low ; It seemed as if their mother Earth Had swallowed up her warlike birth. The wind's last breath had tossed in air Pennon and plaid and plumage fair, — The next but swept a lone hill side, Where heath and fern were waving wide. So was it with the Master at Berlin, and the mustering squadi'ons of Russian cavalry with which he has appalled the imagination of the Fatherland. The transformation was, of course, very easily effected, for Roderick had really raised his warriors from the bracken, but in Bismarck^s case the array was merely an optical delusion, a cunning phantasmagoria which A'hen it had served its purpose was allowed to disappear. The incident, however, was not without its uses. It showed how completely the man who commands the newspapers com- mands the situation, and how impotent are the unorganised forces of truth when pitted against the tremendous park of journalistic artillery under Prince Bismarck's command. The Russian Government, after considerable delay, published an official statement showing how unfounded was the German alarm. It was too late. In journalism, as in catching a train, everything depends upon being in time. It was the case of the needle-gun against the muzzle-loader over again — a journalistic Sadowa in which Prince Bismarck and his new Model Reptile legion were victorious all alons- the line. 83 CHAPTER V. BISMARCK THE PEACEMAKEE. Even to this day Europe, looking- over a perfectly peaceful East, can, like Scott^s hero in the " Lady of the Lake,^"* scarce believe the witness that her sig-ht receives as to the utter unreality of the great German scare : — Sucli apparition well might seem Delusion of a dreadful dream. It is therefore small wonder that, with this incident before our eyes, we ask, How far can we rely upon Prince Bismarck as the keeper of the peace of Europe ? The episode sheds a disagreeable light upon various matters. A man capable of deliberately working up a misleading sensation on this gigantic scale is hardly worth}^ of our implicit confidence as an honest broker. If he can jockey public opinion in this cynical fashion, is he proof against the temptation of packing the cards when it suits his purpose in other directions ? Take, for instance, the belief, which is almost universal, that he is constantly and strenuously thrusting Austria southward and eastward. The Drang nach Osten is regarded as distinctly Bismarck's policy, and his journals applaud every fresh development of Austrian activity in the Balkan peninsula. It is obvious that this is absolutely inconsistent with his public utterances. He poses before the world as the faithful friend of Russia who has been reluctantly driven to seek other alliances because of unfortunate misunder- standings at St. Petersburg. But such a role is utterly incon- sistent with any active backing of Austria in her adventurous career in the East. Is he then provoking the caper which he seems to chide, and encouraging Austrian aggression at the same time that he is advocating the Russian alliance and professing to take his stand on the. Treaty of Berlin? These questions are natural even to those who, like myself, have cheerfully recognised the justice of the German claim to the hegemony of Europe. How much more natural, then, must they seem to those who see their own interests threatened by the Austrian conquests ! Not until I had stayed some time in St. G 2 84 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. Petersburg' was I able to realise the extent to which the spectacle of the cynical Colossus at Berlin lias impressed, and to a certain extent depraved, the public mind. It is only possible for Eng-lishmen to form some idea of the effect by recalling- the deep-rooted horror and dread with which Protestant children were imbued as to the infernal machinations and absolute ruth- lessness of the Order of Loyola. Imagine Prince Bismarck a great personification of the Society of Jesus, as despotic, as un- scrupulous, and as false as the Jesuits as pictured in the Orange Lodges, and you have some idea of the way in which the German Chancellor is regarded beyond his frontiers. There is some excuse for this. Never outside the disciples of Loyola has despotism been so scientifically organised as in Germany. Russia, compared with her next-door neig-hbour, is a Republican anarchy. " How many Germans are there,'" recently asked Mr. Gladstone, " who believe in freedom ? " They may believe in it, but if so they walk by faith and not by sight, for faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, and there is very little freedom to be seen in Germany to-day. The idea of the State omni- potent, omnipresent, and omniscient, has never been worked out so thoroughly. Germans have disappeared. Only Germany remains — a gigantic fig-ure which has only one brain, and the grey matter of that brain is Prince Bismarck. To build up that Frankenstein the once independent, headstrong Germans have been mashed into a kind of bloater paste of humanity — the individual unit has disappeared, only the amalgam remains. That which makes the German State so dread a portent in the eyes of its neighbours is that, rightly or wrongly, they conceive that in the evolution of its intellig-ence it has eliminated its conscience. Prince Bismarck recently boasted that the Germans feared God, but that they feared no one else. Excepting on his authority Europe would have been incredulous, for to other nations the Germans seem not to fear God so much as Prince Bismarck, and unless he is cruelly maligned there is very little fear of God before his eyes. What is said in many quarters is that the Man of Blood and Iron sticks at nothing in order to secure his ends. Falsehood, force, intrigue, treacher}-, war, are alike instruments in his hand, and are judged by him BISMARCK TEE PEACEMAKER, 85 exclusively from the point of view of their relative efficiency. He will not lie if truth will serve him better, but if not, then for him, they say, falsehood is better than truth. It is painful even to repeat the kind of talk which goes on about Bismarck, and it is more painful because it is as often as not eulog'istic rather than condemnatory. " Prince Bismarck,^^ it was often said to me, " has no scruples. He sees his end, and he makes for it across every obstacle. Why not? The safety of the commonwealth is the supreme law. The Ten Commandments do not apply to States which are all founded on the negation of morality, and maintained by a systematic disregard of the prohibition of homicide. Why should he be squeamish? As Henri Quatre said that Paris was well worth a mass, do you think that the safety of Germany is not worth a lie ? Empires cannot afford to have consciences, neither can statesmen. Strict veracity is a prejudice like consistency. Expediency is the only rule. So Prince Bismarck sees, and I only regret that in Russia we have no statesman so frankly, so cynically courageous as he.'' The extent to which this conscienceless cynicism — that, rightly or wrongly, is attributed to Prince Bismarck — has impressed the public mind was brought home to me in very startling fashion when persons presumably sane, and certainly not under restraint, talked of "■ the poisoning of Skobeleff " as if it were as much the direct act of Prince Bismarck as the signing of the Treaty of Frankfort. The deaths of both Skobeleff and of Gambetta, the two chief antagonists of Prince Bismarck, unquestionably relieved Germany from much disquiet; but their decease was brought about not by the malignity of the Demon Omnipotens at Berlin, but by their own lamentable weakness. That, however, is ignored. Bismarck, it is stoutly asserted, had them both poisoned. And why not ? they ask, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for Prince Bismarck to do. I do not wish it to be implied that this kind of talk is general in Russia, It is not ; but that even a single individual should credit such a horrible suspicion, and that the feeling of foul play at German instigation should have been widespread in IMoscow at the time of the death of Skobeleff, shows what bad fruit the cynical adoption of a policy of blood and iron has borne in the minds of men. The moralist may perhaps be puzzled to explain why it should be so much 86 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. more heinous to remove a single enemy by poison than to cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war upon a whole nation, hut the popular instinct brands the assassin and the poisoner with criminality so deep that I cannot for a moment even con- ceive the possibility of a European statesman resorting to the methods of Borgia or of Brinvilliers in order to dispose of his opponents. That such a thing should be believed to be possible is only a shade less revolting than that it should actually occur, and there are Russians who refuse to admit that in "the poisoning of Skobeleff " M. de Bismarck would see anything whatever inconsistent with his working theory of ethics. This is the shadow which the success of Blood and Iron has cast over the human heart. Prince Bismarck, all agree, is at present working for peace. Is it, then, the first duty of all who work for peace to say ditto to Prince Bismarck ? That is a practical question which Lord Salisbury seems for the moment to have answered in the affirmative. He is perhaps right if we can regard the peace of Germany as absolutely identical and conterminous with the peace of Europe and the peace of Asia. He is certainly wrong if the peace of Germany, so far from being identical with the peace of Europe and of Asia, should at any time happen to be inconsistent therewith. I have no prejudices against Germany or its Chancellor. I have, I think, on the whole, been more constantly and con- sistently " German " in ray views of our foreign policy than any English journalist or statesman. In season and out of season I have maintained that both for England and Russia the true watchword of their policy is, " Sine Germania nulla salus.'" But although holding this view very strongly, I am unable to consider that the whole duty of England as a peace Power is fulfilled when our proxy is handed over to Prince Bismarck, and England's influence is simply so much plus to Germany's strength. Our position, to be useful, must be far other than that. Prince Bismarck has never made the least secret about the sole principle of his policy. His one concern is the peace and security of Germany. So far as the peace and security of Germany can be secured by working for the peace and security of the world, to that extent, but no further, will he be willing BISMABGK THE PEACE3IAEEB. 87 to work foi' the peace and security o£ the world. But if the peace and security o£ Germany should be best served by sacrificing- the peace and security of the rest of the world, then unquestionably he will sacrifice the rest of the world without scruple and without remorse. As we happen to be part of the rest of the world, we cannot exactly '' go it blind " as the friend and ally of such a peacemaker as this. It may be argued of England that, as her commerce and her colonies are practically as wide as the world, the general peace is practically England's peace, and any Power that says ditto to England will be pretty sure that in serving England's interests it will be serving its own interests so far as they are peaceful. But this cannot be asserted of Germany. Wars could rage in three continents without materially affecting a single German interest other perhaps than beneficially. There are, therefore, contingencies in which it may be, and has been, Germany's interest to promote war rather than peace, and when her policy has been distinctly hostile to the general welfare, and especially hostile to the interests of England. The first preoccupation of Germany is to prevent an attack upon her Rhine frontier by France, her second to prevent Russia attacking her on the Vistula, and the third, and very subsidiary, object of her policy is to keep Austria from attempting to avenge the catastrophe of Sadowa. The task is so difficult that Prince Bismarck, in his extreme solicitude for the Fatherland, has not hesitated to encourage almost any enterprise on the part of his neighbours which would divert their attention from the Fatherland. France has been encouraged to take Tunis, to seize Tonkin, to make war on China, to attempt to conquer Madagascar, in the hopes that colonial extension would drown the desire for revenge. I have no wish to blame Germany for our difficulties in Egypt, which were chiefly of our own making, but there will be no protest from Berlin if I say that Prince Bismarck smiled grimly when we settled ourselves at Cairo, reflecting with satisfaction upon the fact that England in Egypt diverted from the Germans in Alsace a certain measurable quantity of French hostility. To embroil France with Italy in Tunis, with England in Egypt, with China in Tonkin, all this appeared to Prince Bismarck excellent policy for Germany, as tending to the isolation and to the weakening of France ; and 88 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. whether it was good policy for Eng-land, for Italy, or for China, that was not his look-out. German policy is self-regarding first and last. In like manner, in Prince Bismarck^s dealings witli Russia, German policy has been by no means calculated to maintain the peace. When Lord Beaconsfield in 1877 refused to support the ultimatum of the Constantinople Conference by the coercive action of the fleet, Prince Bismarck encouraged him in a policy of absten- tion. When General Ignatieff visited him at Berlin just before war broke out, he found the Prince resolute to thrust Russia across the Danube. By every incitement and taunt he strove to force Russia single-handed into the Turkish war, instead of co- operating with the Russians in settling the question on a European basis. It suited Germany to let the Russian bear break his teeth on the bones of Turkey. The pressure of the Russian flood on the German dam was perceptibly lessened by cutting a sluice in the Eastern banks. When the war was over and there were 120,000 fewer Russian soldiers to count with, and £100,000,000 had been added to the Russian debt, and the whole Russian State had been strained and disorganised. Prince Bismarck saw in the result the justification of his policy. He could sleep easier of nights, knowing that Russia was so much weaker. Only when the war threatened to become general, and involve Germany, did he bestir himself in the interests of peace. After the war he has been true to the same general principle. To relieve Germany from Russian pressure he has gladly welcomed everything which diverted Russian attention to Central Asia and the East. " If you must quarrel with somebody, for heaven^s sake qviarrel with England, not with us,^' has been the note of his policy. It is natural enough under the circumstances, but its author can hardly be taken as a safe guide for the peace policy of Great Britain. The same characteristics distinguish his policy in Austria. He has thrust Austria southward, hanging round her neck the mill-stone of the Bosnian provinces, distracting the Magyar heart with dreams of vengeance, and the Austrians with visions of a new empire in the East. Every- where and at all times he has been eager to help his neighbours to go anywhere, even to the devil, and to run into anything, even into his best friends, so long as they do not endanger the peace of Germany. War is dangerous, for no one knows how it BISMARCK THE TEAGEMAKEE. 89 may spread. Hence he is apt to deprecate war, excepting in Asia or Africa. But, if he can set his neighbours by the ears, so that without cutting each other^s throats, they are absolutely unable to join hands, that appears to him an almost ideal policy. This policy of setting everybody by the ears so that the German may rub his hands in peace over his own cup of coffee may be excellent from the exclusively German point of view, but from the English standpoint it can hardly be regarded as worthy of admiration, much less of blind acceptance. We have our own interests and our own duties, which we ought not to sacrifice even for the beaux yeux of Prince Bismarck, and the more resolutely we look after our affairs the more respect shall we command at Berlin. German policy is a resultant of many forces. Its objectionable features are as much due to the pre- iudices and the stupidity of its neighbours as to any inherent depravity on the part of Prince Bismarck. If the nature of any one of the forces with which Prince Bismarck has to deal were to be changed he would readjust his policy to the altered circum- stances with alacrity. For Prince Bismarck is a real politician. He deals with actual forces as a chemist deals with grases or an engineer with steam. If he has played Russia off against England and England off against Hussia, that is because Russia and England have led him into temptations which he was not strong enough to resist. He takes the line of least resistance, without arguing much as to its ethical fitness, and if we, by our insensate prejudices and traditional antipathies, play into his hands, we cannot wonder that he has made his game at our expense. That, however, in no way proves that he would not be very glad to change his play if we offered him a better and easier alternative. If we merely hold ourselves at his bidding, we shall receive as much consideration at his hands as an upper servant — no more and no less. If, on the other hand, we pursue a resolute, an independent, and a pacific policy of our own, we shall be able to depend upon his co-operation, which indeed is indispensable to any peace policy, without having to pay for it by acquiescing in the sacrifice of English interests to German security. What, then, must be the policy, and what the understanding on which England must seek to secure the peace of the world ? Leaving out of consideration the remoter developments due to 90 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. the natural growth of such Empires as E/Ussia and England, the peace of the world is only threatened at present by French designs on Alsace-Lorraine, by Austria's position and Austrian designs on the Balkan Peninsula. To keep the peace it is neces- sary to restrain both France and Austria within the limits of the status quo, and to impose an irresistible veto upon any appeal to the sword. These conditions, simple and precise, indicate clearly the lines along which we must work and the Powers with whom we must co-operate. Germany remains as at present the key- stone of the arch of Eui'opean peace. But in order to make that peace secure she must be supported by England on her right and Russia on her left. England, Germany, and Russia — if these three hold together, the peace of the world is secure. CHAPTER VI. RUSSIA : WHAT IS EUSSIA ? This brings me to the heart and kernel of my subject. Is it possible for England and Germany to enter into a hearty entente with Russia for the furtherance of the general interests and the maintenance of the general peace? That is a question upon which, after prolonged consideration and after exhaustive discus- sion with the directors of Russian policy, I have arrived at clear and definite conclusions. It is not often that the solution of a complicated political problem is so clear as that which lies before us in relation to Russia. Every consideration alike of duty and of interest points in one direction, and that direction would be taken to-morrow if English statesmen did not block the way. It is in London, not in St. Petersburg or in Berlin, where the difficulty lies. England is the chief obstacle to the estab- lishment of those cordial relations between the three northern capitals which would enable Europe and Asia to remain at peace. England, and England alone, by persistence in an archaic anachronism which is neither a policy nor a principle, but only a moulting and mangy prejudice, perpetuates the antagonism and unrest which keep two continents trembling on the verge of RUSSIA: WHAT IS RUSSIA f 91 war. I am not without hope that by placing" the question of our policy de novo before the eyes of my countrymen I may lead to a reconsideration of their position and the adoption with open eyes of a policy more worthy of a Christian, a civilised, and a rational State than the practice of incessant bullyragging without sense, or aim, or object, which appears to be adopted by both parties as the only duty which we owe to the great Empire upon whose shoulders jointly with our own lies the responsibility of the civilisation of Asia. It may be that my conclusions will be rejected, and that my countrymen may decide upon a policy not of friendship, but of antagonism. If so, let them courage- ously face the consequences and prepare to carry out consistently, in a practical, business-like spirit, the policy which they deter- mine to adopt, counting the cost before they embark upon it, and carrying it through when adopted with unfaltering will and steady purpose. But in any case, whether the decision be for peace or for war, I trust that henceforth we may at least recognise that we have to act like rational men face to face with a serious problem, instead of jabbering and spitting and snarling like a parcel of monkeys in a bamboo tope. The time has now arrived when we can take a new departure, and begin alike in Europe and in A^ia to co-operate loyally to remove misunder- standings, to promote mutual intercourse, and to maintain the general peace. Russia, what is Russia? Russia, in effect, replies the Russophobist, is the Devil. In the imagination of the disciples of David Urquhart, the man whose apostolate of hate and distrust has yielded a terrible harvest of death, Russia is incar- nate Evil of all but irresistible strength, which with the intellect of a fiend and the appetite of an ogre is driven by the law of its being to torture and to oppress its subjects, to rend and to devour its neighbours. This abstraction, hideous as the loathiiest phan- tom dreamed of by the poets of Hell, is for ever tramping with its hundi'ed million pairs of legs towards two distant goals, and with a hundred million voices cries incessant "To India ! '^ and " To Constantinople ! " Conscience it has not, truth it knows not, mercy it recks not. Immeasurably huge, and ever growing huger with the years, it threatens Europe with an embrace of death, and it is stifling Asia. Confronted by so portentous a phenomenon is it not natural that they 92 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. should fill the air with shrieks of alarm and call on all men to flee betimes from this terrific embodiment of the wrath to come ? So they ask, and to them I reply : " Shriek by all means ; but, if you believe what you say, for Heaven's sake do something more than shriek, and whatever you do, at least desist from spitting- in the monster's face, twitching stray hairs from his beard, and running little pins into his hide/' If Europe is confronted with a menace as appalling as that which crushed the Byzantine Empire, the situation is one which calls for more active measures, more grimly serious work than the mere drawing of long noses and the putting out the tongue at the advancing Colossus. What ! You ask us to believe that the greatest and most homogeneous mass of mobile humanity existing on this planet is bearing down like a tidal wave driven by the tempest upon our Empire and upon the Bosphorus, and you have nothing better to do than to relieve your feelings by calling it foul names and idly discussing the point at which at some future date, if your hypothesis be correct, you will be dashed into irremedi- able ruin ! It is time to cease this fooling, and to adjust your policy to your theories, or else consent to adjust your theories to the facts. If Russia be, as yon suppose, the Devil incarnate of mundane politics, then as you hope for salvation prepare to meet her as befits brave and stalwai't men. The only League of which England can then be the soul would be a League of War, the only work to which our Imperial resources could be dedicated would be the making of a crusade against Russia, and we should devote ourselves seriously and with fixed resolve, to create an army and a navy which would enable us to do battle on some- thing like equal terms with our foe. This would involve us first in the conscription, secondly, in a permanent shilling income tax, and, thirdly, in the subordination of every domestic and Imperial consideration to the furtherance of the objects of the Anti-Russian league. There would have to be no cutting down of the Navy Estimates by .£800,001) for fear of Lord Randolph Churchill, no blowing alternately hot and cold in the policy of the War Office. Our parliamentary system would have to be revolutionised in order to permit of the conclusion of secret alliances and the continuous prosecution of an undeviatiug policy. RUSSIA: WHAT IS RUSSIA? 93 Subsidies o£ millions would be required by the Turks, for all of whose misdeeds we should make ourselves responsible, and we should be at the mercy of every ally who chose to precipitate the war for which we had offered up our liberty, our wealth, our independence, and our Empire. Still, if Russia be the infernal portent of Russophobist dreams, that policy with all its sacrifices, is inevitable. It is true that even if we did all that we could do we should not be much better off at the end. For in one respect Russia is really as formidable as her enemies pretend. She is indestructible. You may singe the Emperor of Riissia's beard at Sebastopol and at the Baltic, but there will only be the smell of burning for a moment in the air, which the spring- wind will carry away, while the Empire will live on. You may even carve a red, corse-paven way, like Napoleon, to the heart of Russia, and just as the returning wave obliterates your footprints in the sand, so the tide of Russian life will silently sweep away all vestige of your victories, save perhaps where, as in the Temple of our Saviour at Moscow, the Russian himself erects a pious trophy on the scene of his deliverance, whose glittering cvipolas flame resplendent in the noonday sun. The innumerable village republics which, united, make up the Empire of the Tzars, contain in every commune the heart and the head of Russia. Above all, the Russian cradle is never empty. Compared with this all other facts are as if they were not. On the 31st December there will be at least a million more mortals lisping Russian than there were on the 1st of January. From a million to a million and a quarter is the annual excess of Russian births over Russian deaths. There are now nearly ten million more Russians in the world than there were when the present reign began. Against that increase all allies will fight in vain. That is the solid fact which dominates the situation. When Lord Elgin was endeavouring to browbeat the man- darins in 1860 by threats of what the Western nations would do if the Emperor was obdurate. General Ignatieff told me he was much amused by the reply of a mandarin to the British represen- tative. " How many soldiers/^ he asked, " will the Western Powers send to China? '' " Oh," said Lord Elgin, with heroic 94 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. disreg-ard of the possibilities of transport, " we will send 100,000 men." " All right/^ said the mandarin, '^suppose they come, and each kills twenty Chinamen, what difference will it make ? Two millions or three millions more or less ; it is bnt as a bucket out of the sea, a handful of sand from the seashore, compared with the three hundred millions that will remain." Whatever we do, Russia will remain, and Russians will continue to inhabit the whole of Northern Asia and Eastern Europe. That we cannot prevent, though we bleed ourselves like veal in endeavouring to slaughter them into impotence, and though we double our National Debt in the effort to ruin the Tzar. What we can do is this. We can hammer this great human mass, as Napoleon hammered Prussia, into a really formidable weapon. We can give a force and a direction to this great glacier of humanity which it would otherwise never have acquired, and convert two hundred millions of men who might have been friends and customers into bitter, revengeful, and determined foes. But what we are doing is to provoke resentment without taking any steps to defend ourselves against the irritation which we set ourselves to create. Mere bullyragging is not a policy worthy of a great Empire, even when it can be indulged in with safety. When bullyragging exposes ns to an aggravation of every evil the thought of which set us snarling, it is not statesmanship ; it is insanity. But, short of bullyragging, and insult, and an eager schadenfreude which seizes every oppor- tunity for inflicting small inconveniences upon Russia, what is our policy to-day in relation to this Empire ? If we do not prepare seriously to fight, we surely might in common decency try and keep a civil tongue in our heads. Russia — what is Russia? I must guard myself against idealising the country where I have received so hospitable a wel- come, and in which I have spent two of the happiest months in my life. There is a natural tendency for any one in my position to see things very much couleur de rose, but solid facts cannot be mistaken by either optimist or pessimist. Russia is the nearest counterpart to the British Empire to be found in the world to-day. It is a world in itsalf, full of vast RUSSIA: WHAT 18 RUSSIA? 95 and unrealised potentialities of wealth and life. It contains a population of 130,000,000, increasin^s^ at the rate of 1,250,000 every year, in possession of the back-garden of Europe and of Asia. This population — for the most part ignorant, unso- phisticated, and simple — is peaceful, laborious, and fraternal to an extent unrealised in the West. Since the Napoleonic Em- pire received its death-wound amid the flames of Moscow, the Rus- sian people, as distinguished from the army and the Government, have never made war, excepting under the pressure of religious enthusiasm and humanitarian sympathy for their co-religionists in the Balkan. Before 1876 the English did not understand this; but now we understand it. The normal temperature of a Russian peasant is that registered in England when Mr. Gladstone discoursed on Bulgarian atrocities at Blackheath and at St. James's Hall. At any moment that religious and humanitarian feeling may be roused so as to precipitate another war in the East ; but, except- ing as against Turkey, the Russian masses have no deep and passionate sentiments endangering peace. The Russian peasant, although one of the most excitable and enthusiastic, is the least bellicose human being extant, unless it be the Chinese. His one ambition is to cultivate his field in peace, to mai-ry a wife, and to bring up his children. He is no politician, and the Govern- ment interferes but little in his life beyond levying taxes and en- forcing the conscription. The life of Russia is not in the Senate, in the country house, or the barracks — the life of Russia is in the peasant^ s hut. With this ])easant-Russia England can have no quarrel, save in so far as she identifies herself with the misbelievers who defile the Holy Places and oppress the Orthodox brethren, in Europe and in Asia. Since 1878, when we signed the Berlin Treaty and extorted the Anglo-Turkish Convention from the Govern- ment of the Porte, England has accepted the standpoint of the moujik as to the necessity of rescuing the subject populations from the tender mercies of the Turks. But out of the bosom of this population, which is pacific, kindly-affectioned, and contented beyond all the other popu- lations of Europe, there is evolved by the dire enchantment of the consci'iption an army which in time of peace numbers 850,000 men, and in time of war can even now put 3,500,000 96 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA soldiers into the field. This vast body of men is the nearest approach to a definite organism on an Imperial scale that is to be found in Russia ; but even this army is too widely scattered to have much cohesion or significance in a political sense. An army on a peace footing of 850,000 men sounds imposing, but when we compare the muster-roll with the acreage from which it is drawn, we discover that Russia has fewer soldiers per square mile than Great Britain and Ireland. The proportion to popu- lation is not half that which exists in Germany and in France. Nothing strikes you more on arriving in Russia, after pass- ing through Paris and Berlin, than the absence of the military display which offends the eye at every town in France and Germany. The sabre is always clanking in Berlin, and the soldiers meet you in every street in Paris; but in St. Petersburg it is quite different. Militarismus there must be, no doubt, in the baiTacks among the officers, but it does not flaunt itself abroad, even in the capital. At Moscow and at Toula it was as invisible as in Birmingham or in Sheffield. The barracks may be bursting with troops, but in the streets there is no display of martial pomp. Still, although Russia is agricultural and not military, the army, no doubt, must be reckoned with in estimating the Riissia with which we have to deal. The Central Asian advances were chiefly due to the military Russia — the Russia of the army. The officers there had every- thing their own way, and they used their opportunity, as officers will, to bring their frontier up to the line at which the control of affairs passed from the hands of the General Staff to that of the Foreign Office. The army, so far as it is a political force at all, is like all armies — inclined to prefer active service to the piping times of peace; but I question whether the officers^ quarters in St. Petersburg are more bellicose than our mess-rooms, or whether General Obrutcheff, at the headquarters of the General Staff, talks any more warlike nonsense than may be heard any day in the AVar Office or at the Horse Guards. So far as the army gives a bias to Russian policy, which it does not in ordinary times, it is a bias against Germany, as the most formidable, and therefore the most dreaded, antagonist beyond the fn^itier. In that matter all armies are alike ; but I did not find any one. 1 RUSSIA : WHAT IS RUSSIA ? ' 97 whether Eng-lish, Russian, or German, who questioned the ability of the Emperor to hold his army in hand. In Central Asia the generals may have got out of hand, especially when they had behind them the inexorable forces that drove ns from Calcutta to the Punjaub ; but in Europe the army is in the hands of the Tzar. General Obrutcheif is powerful, no doubt, but the Tzar has but to sio-u a paper, and General Obrutcheff will disappear as General Tehernayeff and Loris Melikoff have disappeared be- fore him. The army as an independent factor with an initiative and a policy of its own does not exist. When a policy has been initiated it g-ives it, no doubt, a forward impetus, and renders retreat difficult or impossible ; but that is all. The Tzar will no more make war because his generals wish to measure their swords against the Germans than the British elector will vote for declaring war against France because Lord Wolseley thinks that the French may some fine day capture London Avith 100,000 men. There remain besides the peasantry and the army, the two great permanent forces in Russia — the handful of cultivated and intelligent persons who take an interest in politics, and the official hierarchy that begins with the humblest tchinovnik and terminates at the throne. Of Russian newspapers I have not much to say. They are capable of being used to excite feeling for or against particular policies, but in themselves they hardly con- stitute an independent force in Russian polity. "When we speak of public opinion in Russia I am reminded of the Church of Humanity in Loudon, the members of which went down to worship in one cab, and in returning found their differences, but not their numbers, required the use of two. There are so few who take an interest in politics in Russia, but these few there ai-e in two camps. These are the Liberal Eui'opeans and the National Russians or Pan Slavonic party. The former may be dismissed satis ceremonie. They are interesting and intelligent ; but except so far as their ideas are shared by the Emperor, they do not count. The other, the Nationalists, are the only party in Russia, excepting for their most un- fortunate religious intolerance, to which an Englishman could belong if he were Russian born. They are Russians before all, and they are not ashamed of it. Their policy, as defined to me by their leaders, is clear, consistent, and courageous. It is in H 93 TBUTE ABOUT EFSSIA. harmony with their traditions and the laws of their historical development, and in the long run it is tolerably certain to make itself felt in the direction of Russian policy. Of its main out- lines I will speak hereafter. The important point to note is that although inclined to coquet with France in the belief that Ger- many has sold her sword to Austria, there is no antagonism to Germany as such. If Germany will be German, and not Austrian, Russian Nationalists will have no objection to the German alliance. Neither is there any antagonism betw^een this party and England per se. On the contrary, there are many strono- bonds of sympathy between them and ourselves. I will now proceed to examine in detail the questions at issue between us with the view of ascertaining whether or not it is reasonable to hope that a practical working modus vivendi can be arrived at. CHAPTER VII. THE CRUX IN BULGAKIA. DuEiNG my stay in Russia I had frequent opportunities of ascer- taining at first hand the views of the Russian Foreign Office. M. de Giers, M, Vlangali, Baron Jomini, and M. Zinovieff, all received me courteously; and the exceeding frankness of their conversation filled me only with one regret — that the etiquette of Ministries rendered interviewing impossible. A verbatim re- production of the interesting discussions which I held with the directors of Russian foreign policy would be more useful for reassuring the public mind and convincing Europe that Russia is determinedly pacific than anything that I can say. But, alas ! the " interview " is tabooed by M. de Giers as absolutely as by M. Floquet, and I must content myself, therefore, with a hearty expression of my indebtedness to those Ministers who so readily and so frankly consented to answer my questions on all branches of their foreign policy. At the same time, I was given distinctly to understand that, although I was not at liberty to say "M. de Giers told me THE CUUX IX DULGAEIA. 99 this " or " M. Vlangali replied as follows," I was at full liberty to embody in my articles, as the fruit of my observation and in- quiry, the statements 'which they furnished me in reply to my questions ; nor would any objection be raised, even if I textually reproduced any declarations that mig-ht be made to me as repre- senting- the views and objects of the E,ussian Government, so lono- as I did not offend against the inviolable law which forbids the reporting of private conversations. With this preface, there- fore, I proceed to discuss seriatim the questions which are at issue between Russia and England. The only point of difference now outstanding between Russia and England relates to Bulgaria. It was natural that the future of the Bulgarians should be the constant topic of conversation during my stay in St. Petersburg. The Russians are very sore about Bulgaria, and not without cause. They spent 120,000 men and J 100,000, 000 of treasure in order to liberate a nationality which, ten years after its creation, is in the hands of an avowedly an ti- Russian Adminis- tration. If we could bring ourselves to see a French prefect established at Cairo as the net result of Tel-el-Kebir and all our millions, we mig-ht form some idea as to the sentiment which the spectacle of " Mr. Ferdinand of Coburg " inspires in the Russian heart. That they have themselves largely to blame for the awkward turn which affairs have taken is an aggravation rather than an alleviation of the pain of the situation. It is never well to allow a nation to feel that it has been swindled. Russia feels that she has been choused out of her rightful position in the principality which she has created, and that Austria has run off with the oyster after Russia had opened the shell. I do not pi'opose here to enter into a discussion of the causes which brought about the present extraordinary eclipse of Russian influence in Bulgaria. Briefly stated, the ingratitude of the Bulgarians is nothing to be wondered at. Gratitude in politics is a lively sense of favours to come. If the Bulgarians had anything to expect from Russia in the future they would not have so speedily forgotten what they received from them in the past. But, apart from the operation of that invariable law, it was certain that unless Russia had driven Bulgaria with a very light hand the Bulgarians would turn restive. No British colony H 2 lOU TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. would stand much interference from London, and the Bulgarians, not even being Russians, were quick to resent orders from St. Petersburg. During the war it was said that " Russia had bought her Bulgar pigs, and that she intended to drive them.''' But the Bulgar pigs proved to be too much for their Russian driver. The English art of winning the loyalty of dependencies by letting them do exactly what they please is not suited to the meridian of St. Petersburg. The attempt to control the affairs of Bulgaria, not in the interests of the Emperor_, but of the Russo- Jewish ring which had set its heart on the exploitation of the country, provoked the stubborn resistance of these Scotch- men of the East. Russia was somewhat unfortunate in the choice of her agents. Bulgaria was made the dumping-ground for Russian faihires, and the result is what we see. England sent her Lanyons and her Shepstones to the Transvaal with similar results. The situation was such that some disappointment on both sides was inevitable. But if Prince Alexander had been honest, straightforward, and free from complicity in financial affairs, and if Russia had been represented at Sophia by an agent wise enough to see that in order to secure the reality of power it is sometimes necessary to dispense with its semblance, the disap- pointment might have been minimised. As it was, with Prince Alexander's faults on one side and the shortcomings of the Russians on the other, the breach became so wide that no one could heal it. Prince Alexander disappeared, and in his place came an even more objectionable person in the shape of Prince Ferdinand of Coburg. The English point of view is too well known for me to need to recapitulate it hei-e. It will be more useful to set forth as clearly as possible what I was told by almost every Russian with whom I spoke. Russia is not going to Bulgaria. Russia has no intention of making Bulgaria a Russian province. Russia asks nothing from Bulgaria. She is quite willing to allow Bul- garians to manage their own affairs. Only, if Russia keeps her hands off, Austria must do the same. At present Bulgaria is in the hands of an Austrian agent. Prince Ferdinand of Coburg is an Austrian and a Roman Catholic. He is expressly excluded from occu|)ying the Bulgarian throne by the Berlin Treaty, which declares that the Prince of Bulgaria must belong to the TEE CRUX IN BULGARIA. 101 Orthodox Eastern Church. Prince Ferdinand is not only an Austrian, but he is the agent of the Jesuit propaganda, the tool of the high personages who surround Francis Joseph. His position is illegal. He must go. As long as he remains at Sophia Russia cannot enter into anj relations with Bulgaria. But how, if Prince Ferdinand refuses to go ? The Russian Government persists in denying the possibility of such obstinacy on his part. I was assured most emphatically that when the Powers were asked to declare collectively and jointly that Prince Ferdinand's position was illegal, and that it was his duty to disappear, he would have bowed at once to the joint collective Note of Europe, and made way for his successor. But, unfortu- nately for the peace and tranquillity of the East, Austria, backed by Lord Salisbury, refused to do jointly what every Government in Europe had already done separately ; and Prince Ferdinand, seeing that the Powers were not agreed, snajjped his fingers in the face of Russia, of Germany, and of France, and continued to hold on to his precarious position at Sophia. The continuance of the open sore in Bulgaria is therefore due to Austria and to Lord Salisbury. But for this the only difficulty in the way of satisfying Russian amour propre would have vanished, and it is because we have refused the Emperor even the small satisfaction of one diplomatic success that the whole Balkan is kept simmer- ing in unrest. There is no axiom in diplomacy more elementary than that you should, whenever you can, oblige your opponent by con- ceding trifles. The more determined you are to oppose his demands in vital matters the more expedient is it to humour him in small affairs. Granting that Lord Salisbury is right in de- termining to oppose the establishment of the direct authority of Russia in Bulgaria, is it not his obvious policy to concede every point of form the better to enable him to resist in matters of substance ? Never was there a more trivial matter of form than the modest Russian request to embody in a formal collective document six protests against an illegality which had already been presented in six separate representations. If England had been sincere in her protest she could not possibly have objected to uniting in a collective remonstrance against the breach of the Treaty, By refusing to do so, she not only exposed her previous 102 TRUTH ABOUT BUSSIA. protest to suspicion as to its lack of sincerity, she also took upon herself the g-rave responsibility of keeping- the question open with all its vast possibilities of mischief. The action of onr Government shows, indeed, a sinister resemblance to the summary rejection of the Berlin Memo- randum in 1876, which was the first act by which Lord Beaconsfield broke up the European Concert and rendered the subsequent war inevitable. As Lord Beaconsfield concurred in the Andrassy Note and dissented from the Berlin Memorandum, which was simply intended to make th^ former effective, so Lord Salisbury, while protesting independently against the illegality of the position of Prince Ferdinand, refused to follow up that independent protest by the collective action which alone could relieve Europe of a pressing difficulty. I only hope that the future may not continue the bodeful parallel between English Tory policy in Bulgaria in 1876 and 1888. It is important to dwell upon the matter because the prin- ciple which it involves covers the whole of our future action in Bulgaria. Russia assures us in the most emphatic fashion, and without the slightest reservation, that she will not send an army into Bulgaria. If Austria will keep her hands off Bul- g"aria, not a Russian regiment will enter the principality. But Prince Ferdinand must disappear, and the Bulgarians must return to the way of leg-ality and abide by the stipulations of the Bei-lin Treaty. Now, so long as the Russians do not occupy Bulg-aria in force, we need not concern ourselves about the Bul- g-arians. These stubborn Scotchmen will take very good care of themselves, no matter who is on their throne and no matter what ascendency Russia exerts over their Government. Having secured from the Russians an absolute assurance that they will not employ military force to coerce the Bulgarians into obedience, it should be at once both our duty and our interest to heartily assist them in any minor satisfaction for their amour propre that they can suggest. Whether it is a collective protest against the Coburger or the acceptance of the candidate put forward by Russia as his successor, it is the same. So long as no Russian troops appear south of the Danube we can afford to help the Russians to whatever they ask for in Bulgaria, for in the absence of an army of occupation they can only get what they seek by consent of the Bulgarians, who, as experience has proved, are THE CRUX m BULGARIA. 103 abundantly able to take care of themselves without our inter- vention. We have got to let Russia down quietly in the Balkan Peninsula. She is willing* enough to get down if we will only enable her to do so with dignity. Why should we insist that she must also consent to be kicked downstairs in the presence of all her servants ? Such insistence is the one thing that is likely to rouse a determination not to get down, but to force her way further up, even by military expeditions and the risk of war. i It seems to me that in this, as in most other things, we have to choose between securing the substance by helping Russia to the shadow, or sacrificing the substance for the sake of denying her the shadow also. The latter policy seems to be the present policy of England in Bulgaria. For the sake of everything which that policy was adopted in order to secure, I hope that it may be reversed before it is too late. I have, however, strayed into a digression, and have interpo- lated a discussion of English policy in the midst of a statement of the Russian view of the Bulgarian question, which I will now resume. The Russian Ministers stoutly deny that the Bulo^arians are hostile to Russia or in favour of the Coburo* Prince. The Russian official view is that the Bulgarian popu- lation is tyrannised over by a usurping Camerilla. The junta at Sophia, over whom M. Stambouloff reigns supreme, control the army and the police, and through the army and the police terrorise the peasantry, who are beaten if they show their real proclivities, and who therefore stay away from the polls, giving the Camerilla a semblance of support which in reality they do not possess. Russia, however, does not insist upon the disappearance of any one but Prince Ferdinand, and this she declares will be accomplished without difficulty the moment the Powers show themselves united in opposition to his stay in Bulgaria. What then ? On this point the Russian idea seems to be that a Turkish and Russian Commissioner must proceed to Sophia to superintend the election of a new, Sobranje that will be charged with the election of a Prince who will be acceptable to the great Powers. If the elections are free, the Russians profess the utmost confidence in the result. They may be mistaken, but they express unhesitating readiness to put their opinion to the test. 104 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. The Russians are putting- forward no candidate for the throne at present. They sug-g-ested some time ago that the Prince of Mingrelia should be invited to succeed Prince Ferdinand. The nomination was, no doubt, an admirable one from the point of view of peace. The Mingrelski is a Parisian, with an unpre- sentable wife, who loathes war, knows nothing about armies, and, if he had been elected, would have been the bourgeois Prince of a peasant population. He has no ambitions, and would only take the place if ordered by the Tzar. That order, however, is not likely to be given. The more advanced party, who wish to see Bulgaria organised from a Russian military point of view, were so hostile to the candidature of the Mingrelski that it will not be revived. From a European point of view we might easily go farther and fare worse. The Russians profess to be ready to accept any Prince who is Greek Orthodox, and who is not allied to any of the reigning families of Europe. These limitations are imposed by the Berlin Treaty, and they shut out the Duke of Edinburgh, whose wife is the Tzar^s sister, and whose children might have founded a new dynasty representing both Empires, and spring-ing directly from the Anglo-Russian entente. Russian subjects are not by treaty excluded from the Bulgarian throne, but a Russian General would probably fail to meet with unanimous accept- ance. There might be other difficulties. A story is current in St. Petersburg that when the Tzar asked the Prince of Oldenburg- to accept the post he begged to be excused. " In six months I should have to choose whether I broke faith with my subjects or violated my allegiance to your Majesty."" Prince Alexander, of course, is tabooed ; so is Prince Ferdinand. The talk among- the diplomatists is of one of the princes of Sweden, who it is thought might be open to persuasion as to the respective merits of the Lutheran and Eastern Churches. It would seem an unfortunate thing to begin what mig-ht be only a temporary reig-n by an act of religious apostasy. The candidate who most nearly complies with the necessities of the situation is Bozo Petrovitch, the first Montenegrin in the principality after the Prince. He is Slav, Orthodox, and a natural king of men. Of all the Balkan races, the Montenegrins alone preserved their independence during the centuries of Turkish domination. Everywhere else the Turks killed out the THE CBUX IN BJJLGABIA. 105 ruling families, or converted them, leaving a dead level of peasants to occupy the land. Hence there is, excepting in Monteneo-ro, no vestige left of an aristocratic or monarchical stock. Nor are there any Orthodox Slavs in the Balkan outside the Black Mountain who have been accustomed to command. Prince Nicholas of Montenegro — whose daughters, stately moun- taineers, with queenly presence, deep lustrous eyes, and magnifi- cent physique, are now being educated in St. Petersburg — would perhaps be the best choice, but he has Montenegro to govern, and his selection would probably irritate Austria and alarm Servia. As a concession to Austrian prejudice, the choice of the Bulgarians and of the Powers might well fall upon Bozo Petrovitch, who is in some respects a better man for the post than Prince Nicholas. His selection would soothe Russian amour propre, it would probably be acceptable to the Emperor, and when the Montenegrin Prince found himself in the saddle, his independence and capacity would secure Europe more effec- tively than any treaty arrangement against any attempt to exploit Bulgaria either in the interest of Russia or of Austria. If, therefore, as is not improbable, any attempt be made to put forward Bozo Petrovitch as the successor of Prince Ferdinand, I sincerely hope that England will raise no objection. Suitable candidates are too few to justify a veto upon any competent person merely because it may suit Austria to declare that "no Montenegrin need apply. ^•' Austria has made enough trouble in Bulgaria already, without attempting to enforce a veto which would sacrifice Bulgarian interests to Austrian susceptibilities. What, then, does Russia want in Bulgaria ? First and fore- most, she wants to see Prince Ferdinand sent about his business. Secondly, she wants free elections for a new Sobranje, by which a prince could be chosen. Thirdly, she would like to see a Montenegrin on the throne. Fourthly, she wishes the union of the Bulgarias legalised by the assent of Europe. That is all. Considering what Russia has spent and suffered for the creation of Bulgaria, who can say that she is exigent in her demands ? "Which of these proposals conflicts with English interests or in any way sacrifices the freedom or the independence of Bulgaria to Russian ambition ? Yet it is precisely because we haggle and higgle and keep thrusting our finger into Russians eye over this paltry business, that the chief, if not the only, immediate 106 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. difficulty arises to the establishment of an entente between ourselves and Russia. Prince Bismarck has to all appearance energ-etically, and certainly in public, supported the Russian proposals ; and although the Montenegrin nomination has never come before Europe, the Chancellor is not likely to hesitate about a personal question of that kind, if by its concession he can smooth the ruffled dignity of Russia and definitely banish the possibility of a Russian occupation of Bulgaria. I heard some talk — not in official quarters — of establishing a military convention between the Bulgarian Government and Russia, similar to that which is said to exist between the Servian Government and Austria. If the Servian Convention be a reality, and it passes without protest, no exception need be taken to a similar Bulgarian Convention, although technically, of course, King Milan, being independent, is more free to conclude mili- tary conventions with his neighbours than the vassal Prince of •Bulgaria, whose territory is not even conterminous with Russia. Fact is, however, often at variance with diplomatic fiction. The fatal Convention by which Prince Alexander bound himself to employ the Bulgarian army as a Turkish contingent was diplomatically correct enough ; but in reality it was such an outrage on the fundamental principle of Bulgarian existence as to render his deposition inevitable. A military Convention with Russia on the other hand, while totally inconsistent with diplomatic fiction, might on the whole not be out of harmony with the necessities of the situation. " Russia,"*' said one of her Ministers to me, " refuses to be angry with the Bulgarians. "We regard them as naughty child- ren, who need only to be left severely alone for a time in order to secure their return in penitence. When that happens, Russia will astonish the world by her forbearance and by her forgive- ness. Till that happens Russia will wait. Time is on her side, for the situation is so false that it cannot last."" " ^\xi," I asked, '' how long will your patience last ? Is it eternal ? " To which he replied, with a smile, '' It will last longer than the duration of the Cobura-." 107 CHAPTER YIII. WHO IS TO KEEP THE KEYS OF THE TZAK^S HOUSE? The Bulgarian question is the only matter in dispute between Russia and England ; but it would be a mistake to imagine that a stable entente can be built up on a temporary compromise as to the selection of an occupant for the Bulgarian throne. That is possible, but if there be an arriere perisee on either side the entente is as far off as ever. For the moment there is — outside Bulgaria — a temporary lull in the East. The outbreak in Bouniania, at first attributed to the malignant agency of the Russian rouble, is now better understood to have been agrarian in its origin. Absentee landlordism provokes agrarian discontent elsewhere than in Ireland, and the liberality with which Russia dealt with her peasants in the matter of land is a more powerful stimulant to agrarian agitation on her borders than any secret funds which may be at the service of M. Hitrovo. Every Roumanian peasant, I am told, received under the Roumanian Land Act as much land per family as every Russian peasant on the other side of the frontier received per head. Hence the moment that the pressure of population on the means of subsis- tence became severe, there arose a demand on the part of the Roumanians for Russian terms. It is many years since Cavour observed that *' the equal right to the soil given by the Russians to all their peasants was more dangerous, to Western Europe than all the armies of Muscovy.''^ It is only to-day that people are beginning to discover how prescient was the remark of the Italian statesman. Roumania, however, is neither here nor there. No one in Russia, so far as I can discover, proposes to lay a finger upon King Karl. His subjects may upset him some fine day, in which case Prince Bibesco might succeed to the throne. But as long as the military effects of the upset are confined within the limits of Roumania, it will not disturb the general peace. War on a great scale would only ensue if Austria on the one hand, or Russia on the other, were to occupy, on any pretext whatever^ any one of these principalities. Macedonia is the most serious danger-point in Turkish territory. A rising in Macedonia, with 108 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. consequent massacres or contingent complications in Eastern Roumelia; might task to the uttermost the energies of the European fire brigade, and give the Great Powers bitter cause to regret that they had aUowed Turkey to violate with impunity the twenty-third clause of the Berlin Treaty. Behind all Balkan questions, however, there ever arises the one question which dominates the whole situation — Constan- tinople and the Bosphorus. Who is to hold the keys of the Straits ? who is to keep the keys of the Tzar's " house '' ? Unless an agreement can be arrived at on that point, the antagonism between England and Russia is likely to continue, and even to grow more acute. Is such an agreement possible ? I venture to believe that it is, and for this reason. The question is not a pressing one. It is nearly a hundred years since the Tzar and the First Napoleon discussed whether or not Russia could be trusted with " the keys of her own house,''' and still the Grand Turk slumbers by the Golden Horn. It is nearly fifty years since the Tzar Nicholas in his frank straightforward way told Sir Hamilton Seymour that we had a Sick Man on our hands who might die at any moment ; but NichoJas and Sir Hamilton are dead, and the Sick Man still lives. " Those old empires,'' as M. Thiers said to Nassau Senior, " are very tough. They creak and creak as if they were going to pieces next minute, but although they may lose a limb now and then, or shed a province, they contrive to exist." The Sick Man seemed nigh unto death in 1878, when the Russian armies were streaming through the Balkan passes, and SkobelefP stood sword in hand before the lines of Stamboul. But the crisis passed, and the Sick Man survived and survives. That is why an agreement is possible between Russia and England. If the Sick Man were suddenly to give up the ghost to-morrow, the chances of an arrangement would be very slight ; but if the Sick Man lingers long enough to enable us to realise how disadvantageous the sialics quo is to us, an agreement Avill not be difficult. Every day the Sultan continues to reign on the Bosphorus tells in favour of an understanding between England and Russia as to the future custody of the Straits, because it in- creases the odds in favour of Russia and tends to make England regard with continually diminishing favour the status quo. There can only be one settlement of the question of the Bosphorus. THE KEYS OF THE TZAR'S HOUSE. 109 Russia will some day own the keys of her own house. If she may not grasp them when she is 120 millions strong, or when she is 150 millions, she will take them when she is 200 millions. It is only a question of time. Hence, as there can only be one settlement, it is important to consider what Eng-land should do when that inevitable settlement arrives. Time, which increases the strength by multiplying the sub- jects of Russia, operates in the opposite direction on the strength and the resources of Turkey. Of these two States, one must in- crease, the other decrease ; and the greater the disproportion between the greater and the less, the more certainly -rt^ill the less be drawn submissively into the orbit of the greater. This suits Russia very well. Russia has not at present the slightest intention of bringing about the general overturn in the East by making a descent upon Constantinople. Her policy is to preserve the Sick Man as carefully as the Prince of Wales preserves his game at Sandringham until close-time expires, and the birds are ready for the gun. Russia is not ready to bag the Bosphorus, and until she can do so safely she naturally prefers to maintain the sfMus quo. And for this reason : next to being herself in custody of the Straits, she prefers a custodian who is practically in her pocket. The Turks are the custodians of the Straits ; but if we ask, Quis custodiet custodes ? the answer is the Tzar. One of the oddest customs in St. Petersburg is that of keep- ing a dvornik or hall-porter to watch or to sleep, as the case may be, outside the door of every important building in the city. Pass along the Nevski Prospect at any hour of the night or early morning and you will see these dvorniks sitting outside the doors of the respective mansions, wrapped in their sheepskins, keeping watch in deep slumber over the house. Now, the status quo at Constantinople is simply a political adaptation of this Russian custom. The Sultan is the Tzar^s dvornik ; or, as we should say in England, the Turk is Russians hall-porter. That is an arrange- ment that suits Russia well enough; but just because it suits Russia, it does not suit England, if, as some say, our interests are necessarily antagonistic to those of Russia. For what does it mean ? It means that Russia has all the convenience of having the key of the Straits in her own pocket, while all the incon- veniences and the responsibility are thrown upon the Turk. When England was threatening to go to war with Russia about 110 . TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA Peni-deh, the Turk intimated that lie would close the Black Sea against the entry of an English fleet. Had he done so then, we should have had to make war upon a neutral Power or consent to be shut out of the only Meld of offensive operations against Russia. The Black Sea is the Achilles" heel of the Russian Empire. If we are to regard ourselves as hereditary and eternal foes, it is a matter of absolute necessity that we should be able to get into that sea whenever we ai'e in strained relations with Russia. But in order to enjoy that liberty of ingress and of egress, it is indis- pensable that the doorkeeper on the Bosphorus should not be so much under the thumb of our enemy that when the critical moment comes he may be compelled to bar the gate in our face. That is what he threatened to do in 1885 ; it is what he will be driven to do at the next crisis. For Russia has means of exerting pressure upon Turkey — financial, political, military, and naval — which tend to render the Sultan more and more the subservient puppet of the Tzar. Under cover of the Turkish mask the Russians will be more secure than if they themselves held Con- stantinople. At Constantinople they would, at least, be open to attack and to blockade. With the Turks doing their work for them, we should be powerless. This situation will become more and more clearly manifest everv year; every year the Russians will be growing stronger and more numerous ; every year the Turks will be growing weaker and more dependent. For the moment the real facts of the situation are somewhat veiled by the presence at Constanti- nople as our representative of "the English Ignatieff''" in the form of Sir William White, while Russia has her Sir Henry Elliot in the person of M. ]N"elidoff. But no personal ascendency on the part of the English Ambassador can obscure more than temporarily the relative positions of Russia and Turkey. The Russians know that well enough, and they do not propose to alter the status quo. When I tried to discuss it with those high in authority, their replies showed clearly enough that for them the question of the Straits was far beyond the range of practical politics. " Why speak about it ? "" I was asked. " There is no such question before us."^ But sooner or later the question will be raised, and the chief hope of a pacific settlement lies in the fact that the slow and steady operation of natural forces tends to make the Turkish THE KEYS OF THE TZAR'S HOUSE. Ill ownership of Constantinople far more disag-reeable to Eno-land than it has hitherto been to Russia. It is possible that it may not be Russia, but England, which will make the first move towards putting the guardianship of the Bosphorus into other hands than those of the Turk. This contingency, as yet but dimly perceived bv the few, will before long become obvious to all. When that time comes, the question of the Straits will be ripe for settlement, and the long-expected demise of the Sick Man will leave the o-round clear for his successor. However remote that succession may be, it is well to consider it before it arrives, in order that it may not take us unawares, and that we may be prepared with a solu- tion that will harmonise our respective interests. The first thing to know is what the Russians want, and as to that there is no concealment. When their Turkish dvornik dies, Russia will take the keys of her own gate into her own keeping. That is to say. as we have our Gibraltar at the entrance to the Mediterranean, and our Aden and Perim at the exit from the Red Sea, so Russia will insist upon having her fortress o-ates on the entrance to the Black Sea. The Russians do not care about Constantinople so much. Its importance is traditional and legendary rather than actual and political. They disclaim any designs on the Balkan Peninsula or in Asia Minor. " Hands off" all round is their demand, but a Russian lock and key on the entrance to the Black Sea. When I asked them why they were so anxious to have the keys of the Bosphorus in their own hands, the}- replied bysaj-ino- that the possession of the Straits would make for them the difference of 200,000 men; 10,000 troops in a couple of forts on either side of the Bosphorus would enable them to leave the Black Sea coast as undefended as the shores of the Caspian. It would cover their one vulnerable point, and enable them for the first time to feel safe in the Black Sea. " That is all very well,^-" I replied, " but do you want the keys of the Bosphorus in order to exclude the Black Sea from the arena of war, or do you want to shut us out in order to convert the Black Sea into an immense arsenal, from which at a given moment, a new Armada might issue forth and ioin hands with the French to sweep the British flag from the Mediterranean ? '' 112 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. Nothing of that, I was always assured, was dreamed of by the Russians. Defence, not offence, was their ideal. They were much more likely to dismantle the Black Sea fleet if they held the keys of the Bosphorus than to fill the Euxine with pre- parations for naval war. " If so,^' I asked, " would you have any objection to our having a lock at the other end of the corridor? If Russia had her forts on the Bosphorus, might England have her forts on the Dardanelles ? '' " Yes,"^ was the reply, " if you want war in six months or six weeks. Otherwise not. Surely it would be the very acme of madness to plant a Russian General on the Bosphorus and an English General on the Dardanelles, with all the Turks and Levantines in Constantinople between them. Every one knows what would happen. The Russian General on one side, and the English General on the other, would be perpetually stirring np the Turks with a long pole. There would be encroachments, intrigues, violations of understandings, trespasses on frontiers, and what not, until even war would be a relief. In principle we have no objection to the counter-check in the Dardanelles, but as a matter of practical politics it is out of the question. Constantinople may be a free city or not, as you please. The forts of the Dardanelles may be dismantled, and the navigation of the Straits inter-nationalised and neutralised, as you inter- nationalise the Suez Canal. The only sine qua non upon which we shall insist, when the Turk goes, is the establishment of Russian forts on the Bosphorus, which will enable us to shut out hostile fleets from the Black Sea.'' There is force in this objection. The near proximity of Russian and English garrisons, with such a Devil's Caldron as Stamboul lying between them, would not be a solution for peace. For England I should deplore so fatal an extension of our responsibilities as that of garrisoning the Dardanelles, in- volving as it would do the holding of territory with land frontiers both in Europe and in Asia. When we have cast big guns sufficient to supply the fortifications of our own seaports, we may begin to dream of establishing a new Gibraltar at Gallipoli. But this is a matter of opinion. What is more to the point is the fact that when the break-up comes, Russia will not accept as a possible solution of the question of the Straits any settlement which establishes an English bolt and bar upon the outside gate OUB BEAL DANGEB IN GENTBAL ASIA. 113 of the Black Sea. Regulations mig-ht be made for navigation ; the waterway up to Constantinople might be freed from forls^ and a British naval station might be established at Mitylene — all that might be arranged. But England at Gallipoli — never ! It is well to know where we stand, to know what is possible and what is not. Certain solutions may be preferred by us to other solutions, provided they can be obtained without dispro- portionate sacrifices. If, however, the difference between the English occupation of Mitylene and the English occupation of Gallipoli involves the difference, not only between war and peace with Russia in the remote future when the Sick Man dies, but, what to us who are living now is much more im- portant, the diiference between cordial and strained relations with Russia in the immediate present, then indeed there are very few who would not decide for Mitylene. Mitylene is possible ; Gallipoli is not. But, as Mitylene would serve us better and cost us less, the Russians do us good service by putting an imperative veto betimes upon the suggested alternative of a British fort on the Dardanelles. With Egypt, English, and a naval station within a few hours^ steam from the mouth of the Dardanelles, we can await with composure the inevitable moment when the Russian Emperor takes over from his dvornik the keys of his own house. CHAPTER IX. England's real danger in central asia. There remains one last question to be disposed of — the question of Central Asia and of Afghanistan. The idea that the Russians, either as a people or as a Government, contemplate the design of the invasion and conquest of India is one of those delusions which are to nations what evil spirits were to individuals in the days of " possession.^' The Russians no more contemplate the conquest of India than our Jingoes contemplate the conquest of Poland ; but both Russians and Jingoes agree in believing that, if ne- cessity should arise, they can make a good deal of trouble each I 114 TEUril ABOUT RUSSIA. for the other— tlie one in India, the other in Poland. The more clearly it is recognised that there is no more question of an in- vasion of India in force by the Russian army than there is of the entry of Lord Wolseley into Warsaw at the head of a British army corps, the more likely is it that we shall see where our real danger lies ; for that there is real danger of some kind from the proximity of Russia and England in Asia is indubitable. It is hopeless attempting to face the real danger until we have definitely dismissed the imaginary peril from our minds. What is the real danger ? Tlie real danger is largely self- created, but still it exists. It consists in the idea, with which our own writers and officials have so diligently inoculated the Asiatic mind, that every advance of Russia in the direction of Afghanistan endangers our position in India. The strength of the Russians for mischief is not material but moral. It is based, not upon the proximity of their cannons, but upon the ubiquity of our alarmists. Lord Lytton was probably the most effective agent who ever served the Russians in Asia. He and his troupe of panic-mongers could not have done the Tzar^'s work better if they had been salaried with roubles as advertising agents of Muscovy. By their fuss and their fidget and their reckless expenditure of life and money in order to conjure away the mere shadow of a Cossack on the far side of Afghanistan they convinced our fellow-subjects in India that Russia possessed a capacity for upsetting our Empire, which in reality she lacks. While the Germans and the Jews between them have been steadily co-operating in Europe to depreciate the rouble and im- pair Russian credit, our Jingoes and Anglo-Indians have in the most reckless fashion set themselves to raise Russian credit as much above par in Asia as the rouble is below par in Europe. Lord Salisbury once remarked to Greneral Ignatieff that, unless rumour lied, Russia had many agents in India. " Thousands of agents,^^ coollj^ replied the ablest Russian in the diplomatic service — " we have literally thousands of most useful agents in India.^^ " What do you mean ? " asked Lord Salisbury, in some amazement at the cynical avowal. " Our agents,''' replied General Ignatieff, '' are headed by your own Viceroy, and they include almost every official in your service and every newspaper writer in India. They occupy themselves constantly in doing, far more effectively than any one else could do it, the kind of OUR EEAL DANGER IN CENTRAL ASIA. 115 work for wliicli we are supposed to employ agents in other coun- tries. They disquiet the minds of the well-disposed by spreading fears of a Russian advance ; they encourage the hopes of the ill- disposed by simulating alarm at our approach ; they fill the bazaars with stories of our irresistible prowess, and, in short, they do everything that we could wish to magnify our repu- tation, and prepare every maiivais siijet, every native who is dis- contented with your Government, to turn with longing ana hopeful gaze towards the great white Tzar." General Ignatieff was right. There is no room for Russian agents in Russian pay in India. The ground is covered, from the Himalayas to Ceylon, with far more effective auxiliaries who draw British pay, but do the Russian's work. Now that the actual Russian has come alongside the Afghan frontier, it is to be hoped that this reckless " bulling •" of Rus- sian prestige in Asia will be abandoned by our people. But it is too late to undo the mischief which fifty years of hysterical and morbid alarmism have worked in India. It has given the Rus- sians a vantage ground which all their artillery could not have secured them ; and it is a vantage ground which they would be more than human if they did not use to their profit and to our inconvenience. Their railway enables them to deliver troops on the Afghan frontier a couple of days after they are landed from their base on the Caspian. Although this single line of rail- way drawn across the desert is of little use for the transport of an invading army, it is all that is required to furnish the sem- blance of danger. The delusion, although as unreal as Pepper's Ghost, is quite as stai'tling to those wlio do not know the trick. Unless there is a complete change in our relations with the Russians, unless cordiality succeeds distrust, and loyal co-opei"a- tion in Asia and in Europe replaces the present tension of hos- tility and intrigue, the Russians have us at an immense disad- vantage on the Afghan border, not because they are in a position to do us any injury whatever, but because they can so practise on our idiotic, self-created fears as to drive us almost to the verge of Imperial suicile. They cannot do us any harm, but they can make us do immense harm to ourselves. Up to the present moment no Russian soldier has ever come within range of our Indian outposts. But the presence in Af- ghanistan of a wandering- Polish adventurer in 1846, and the 116 TRUTH ABOUT BUSSTA. arrival of a Russian envoy at Cahnl in 1878, provoked spasms of delirium, which cost us tens of thousands of brave men and tens of millions of treasure. Every penny squandered on the Afghan campaigus, every life sacrificed in those dreadful defiles, was sacrificed to exorcise a phantom conjured up by our own nervousness. It did not exorcise the phantom ; it weakened India, it intensified the hatred with which we are regarded in Afghanistan, and above all it taught the Russians the enormous value of that kind of phantasmagoria in the great game of Central Asian politics. As we continued to make ourselves dis- agreeable in Eastern Europe, the Russians determined, and very wisely determined from their own point of view, to exploit our fears in the direction of Afghanistan. The extension of their frontier beyond Merv, the construction of the railway, and the whole of their recent policy in those regions, indicate with absolute unreserve their intention to profit by oiir folly. If that folly is not succeeded by sober sense, I confess I look forward with some alarm to the future of India. If the present craze continues, the Tzar has only to stretch his finger in menacing fashion in the direction of Herat to plunge the Indian finances into confusion, and to secure the disorganisation of the whole Indian military system, by compelling a concentration of troops at Pishin and Quetta. He has but to order the Russian drums to beat in the neighbourhood of Zulfikar, or to suggest that a company of Cossacks should pursue some bandits across the border near Maruchak, for the Indian Government to stop furloughs, to telegraph for reinforcements, and to prepare to plunge headlong for a third time into the death-trap of Af- ghanistan. That is an advantage which as an English patriot I grudge to my Russian friends. There is, however, some hope that the very awkwardness of the position into which we have forced our way may lead to a tardy discovery that the Russians can, after all, make it worth our while to be on friendly terms. When Russia acquired the mouth of the Amoor and her Pacific ports, Lord Elgin asked the Russian plenipotentiary why Russia was so anxious for a naval base in the Pacific. His reply was frank and characteristic, " We do not want them for their own sake, but chiefly in order that we may be in a position to compel the English to recognise that it IS worth their while being friends with us rather thaa OUB REAL DANGER IN CENTRAL ASIA. 117 iocs." Precisely the same reason dominated the acquisition of strategical points on the Afghan border. But for the necessity of being able to convince England that her real interests are not inextricably bound up with the maintenance of Tui'kish power ia Europe, the Central Asian fleece would not, as Skobeleff remarked, have been worth the tanning. This is useful for England. The fatal sense of being " in the air/^ of being able to do what we pleased without exposing ourselves to reprisals, has been responsible for much of the criminality of our policy in relation to Russia. We would never have dared to act in any such fashion to France, with whom we made the entente cordiale quite as much from fear as from love. So it may be that the entente with Russia, which we have scouted with scorn as long as Russia was too far off to make us realise the conse- quences of our own acts, may be brought about, not by the prompting of morality, but simply under the pressure of the sordid but permanent forces of interest and fear. The position in which we have by our alarmist propaganda and our Afghan superstition voluntarily jilaced Russia is as follows : — We have drawn a frontier line across the north of Afghanis- tan, beyond which the Russians admit that they have no interest at present, and up to which we may, if we choose, with their hearty goodwill advance our frontier. On the north of that fron- tier line the Russians are at home. They have garrisons stationed there connected by railway within a couple of da^'s of their base on the Caspian. They answer for order, they police their fron- tier, and they are by telegraph within a few hours of St. Peters- buro;. On the other side of that frontier line we are not at home. Our nearest outpost is nearly 600 miles off on the road to Pishin. A territory as large as France, as mountainous as Switzerland, as poor as the highlands of Scotland, and inhabited by fierce and fanatical tribes, stretches between our furthest point and the Russian lines. We have no warden of the marches at Zulfikar or at Maruchak. We have no Englishmen in all Afghanistan to tell us what is going on, to say nothing of undertaking to keep the peace of the border. We cannot answer for order on our side, neither can we undertake that the surges of the civil war that are chronic in Afghan may never dash over the clearly- marked line that has been drawn from the Oxus to the Murghab. 118 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. "What is more^ we cannot even attempt to exercise any effective control of the AfjJ-han borderers without thrusting an army throug-h their country, thereby rousing the deadly animosity of the Afghan tribes. What is the natural and necessary result of such a condition of affairs when it is superimposed upon a kind of nervous frenzy among our own people, which causes them to rush into Afghan- istan, as the bull plunges at the cloak of a matador, whenever a Cossack lance shows itself on the Afghan frontier ? This. The moment the Russians think that we are worrying them unneces- sarily in Europe, they wil^ discover ways and means of worrying us in Asia. Their power to do this depends not on their strength, but on our nervousness, and they need not move a man, or fire a rifle. They will discover that some tribes just within the Afghan frontier have raided some tribes within Russian territory. They will ask us to punish the marauders. As we are 600 miles off, and have not even agents who could tell us so much as whether there had been any such raid on Russian territory, we can do nothing but promise to make representations at Cabul. Before these representations can reach the Ameer, we shall hear by telegraph that the raids have been repeated, and that Colonel Alikhanoff has been ordered up to the scene of the foray " with instructions/'' What these instructions are will depend upon the extent of pressure which it is necessary to employ to convince Lord Salisbury that the British Empire is after all of more value than Austrian interests in Bulgaria. If we were sensible and not nervous, we should sit still and let Alikhanoff deal with the marauders as best he could, following them, if need be. across the frontier, and defiling the sacred soil of the Ameer with the hoof of the Infidel. As we are not sensible, but are very nervous, we shall fly into a rage, bluster about making the infraction of Afghan territory a casus belli, order troops out to India, and begin to prepare for a countermove in Afghanistan. Meanwhile the wily Muscovite will rub his hands and chortle in his joy to see how admirably the charm works, and how com- pletely the shadow of an advance across the Afghan frontier convulses England with preparations for war. That is not a position which is endurable by sensible people. The Russians do not want to conquer Afghanistan. But if we are hostile they will do their level best to tempt us into it ; and if we are no OUB REAL BANGER IN CENTRAL ASIA. 119 wiser in the future than we have been in the past, we shall inevitably fall into the snare which has been set before our eyes. What, then, is our true policy in Afghanistan ? Obviously, in the first place, to cultivate friendly relations with Russia, and, in the second, not to be too fidgetty about infractions of the frontier. We have no right to expect any frontier to be kept sacro-sauct aud intact whi.;h we refuse to police. If we will not or cannot shoot the rascals who raid the Russian's cows, the Russian will shoot them himself, not caring whether to do so he has or has not to cross the boundary line which Sir Peter Lumsden has marked out. If he is wise, he will for his own sake return to his own side when the robbers have been disposed of ; but if, as is probable, he is not wise, and tries to annex Afghan territory, so much the worse for him and the better for us. The first Infidel who enters Afghanistan makes his opponent a present of the alliance of all the Afghan tribes, for the Afghans are ever the friends of the second comer. If England and Russia are to be enemies, then the first move in the game of each is to lure the other into the defiles of the Afghan moun- tains. The Russians understand that perfectly, and will act upon it. If they advance they will not go further than Herat, and the watershed of the Heri-Rud. Unfortunately the English have no other idea as to Afghanistan than that of keeping the Russians out — the very thing that suits them best and us least. There remains the question of the civil war which will ensue when the present Ameer dies. A civil war is the Afghan mode of conducting a general election, and the best thing for every one would be to let the various candidates fight it out among them- selves. But unless the entente is established, there will be a Russian candidate — strictly unofficial, of course — at Herat, and a British candidate, not unofficial, at Cabul. It will be almost miraculous if we escape being dragged into the vortex of Afghan feuds if the Ameer should die before we have arranged matters amicably with the Russians. The Russians disclaim all intention of interfering in Afghanistan. They desire nothing more than that we should take possession of the whole country, and govern it as we govern the Punjaub, The Emperor has repeatedly expressed himself in the strongest terms in this sense. But if i:0 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. Ave have to fight the Russian bear, the British lion had bettei' not begin by fiUing his belly with that bag o£ stones. For the Russians an Euglish conquest of Afghanistan would be quite the most convenient arrangement that could be devised. But to make India bankrupt, and to intern an army of 50,000 men ia the Switzerland of Asia, merely in order to give the Russians the advantage of meeting us a thousand miles from our base, with millions of fanatical highlanders in our rear, that is a sacrifice which, with all my desire to oblige my Russian friends, I must respectfully decline to make. In Asia, the alarmists say, every- thing depends upon the issue of the first battle. If so, I prefer to choose my own ground near my own base, which I can fortify at my leisure, and where the population surrounding my camp, and from which I have to draw my supplies, would not be as hostile as the Russian invader. If we have to fight Russia in Asia we must resolutely make up our minds that it is better for us and worse for them that we should fight them on the Indian not on the Russian side of Afghanistan. Every mile we advance to meet them from our present base weakens us and strengthens them. Every mile which they advance to meet us weakens them and strengthens us. If we but realised that, and acted on it steadily and with- out flinching, Russians capacity to injure us in Asia would dis- appear. But as we shall do no such thing, the very reality of the danger to which Russia can expose us by playing upon our fears affords a solid hope for the establishment of future peace. CHAPTER X. THE TZAR AS PEACE-KEEPER OF EUROPE. I HAVE now passed in review almost all the questions of foreign politics which would have to be considered in any serious attempt to establish good relations between England and Russia. I hope that in my survey of the situation, although it is made from the meridian of St. Petersburg, there is nothing that cannot be accepted by observers in the latitude of Downing Street. What will be saiel doubtless is that the great question is not this or that THE PEACE-KEEPER OF EUROPE. 121 or the other possible solution of specific details in dispute between the two countries, but whether there is any reasonable prospect of making- any arrangement with Russia that will be permanent. Is the ground solid enough on the Russian side of the stream on which to rear the solid piers on which such a bridge between the nations would have to rest ? On this point I have only to say that I wish I were as sure of the solidity and stabihty of the foundation on the English side as I am of that on the Russian, and I would feel more safe in answering for the resolution and good faith of the Emperor than I would for continuity of pur- ])ose and straightforward integrity on the part of the shifting and shifty party politicians of my own country. In mailing such an agreement with Russia, everything of course depends upon the Emperor, When there was a Nessel- rode or a Gortschakoff at the Foreign Oftice this might not have been the case, for the personal convictions of the Emperor were liable to be swayed by the strongly entrenched authority of an experienced Chancellor. But that is not the case to-day. Alexander III. is his own Foreign Minister. When I remarked to M. de Giers that his policy had inspired even the English with confidence in the honesty and sincerity of his desire for peace and good relations, he hastened to interrupt me in order to declare that in everything he had done he only represented the Emperor. Hence the immense importance which attaches to the personality of the Tzar. As long as he reigns, it will be his convictions, his ideas, which will influence the course of Russian foreign policy ; and it is with him that we have to do. " Of all the Russians,'''' said to me M. Suvorine, the editor of the Novoe Vremya, '' the Emperor is by far the most dis- tinctively Russian. •'■' '' That is interesting," I replied ; " be- cause of all the Russians he seems to me most to resemble an English gentleman.'' Alexander III., from the point of view of the entente between England and Russia, is almost an ideal Emperor. If you could imagine a human being who was aai fond Lord Hartington, and at the same time imbued with the religious temperament of Mr. Bright, and the intense domes- ticity of Lord Granville, you would conjure up a concep- tion which is as nearly as possible the English equivalent of the Russian Emperor. There is in him a deep natural piet}'. 122 TBVTH ABOUT RUSSIA. such as that which forms the background of the Quaker soul ; he is devoted to his wife and children, but his intellectual type most closely resembles that of Lord Harting-ton. That is to say, his is a mind not viewy — not given to speculation — a mind solid and sure, practical and sound — which brings to the con- sideration of every question when it arises, but not before, the business-like common-sense and strict integrity of purpose which characterise the leader of oiir Liberal Unionists. It is the mind of a man who is capable both of inspiring and of reposing con- fidence — an honest man, who endea/ours to see things from the standpoint of justice, and then who automatically sans phrase tries to do right. In the Russian Windsor at Gatschina, by the seaside at Peterhof, or in the Danish home at Copenhagen, the Emperor delights for a time to forget the cares of State in the society of his wife and children. He is perfectly idolised by his family, and all those who serve him in any way are overflowing in praise of his kindly unassuming disposition. A devoted husband, whom not even his worst enemies have ever accused of a single fault against his wife, he is a most affectionate father, the companion and friend of his boys. Few more pleasant scenes were described to me during my stay in Russia than that of the Tzar of All the Russias officiating as master of the children's revels in the happy family party that assembled last autumn at Copenhagen, superintending all their games and participating in all the boyish sport. There was no romp so great as he. There were the English children, and the Greeks, and his own ; and a Royal time they seem to have had of it. To these Princes and Princesses his Imperial Majesty was merely " Uncle Sasha," and it was " Uncle Sasha ! Uncle Sasha ! '' all over the place. Sometimes he would stand up in the midst of the merry throng and challenge the youngsters to pull him down. One after another, and then altogether, the bevy of Princes and Princesses, grand-children of the King of Denmark, would wrestle with the Tzar and try to throw him over. But although the struggle lasted until the whole party streamed Avith perspiration, and the gardens rang with merry laughter, the Emperor never was thrown. The Greek Princes are as sons of Anak, but the Tznr IS as Hercules for strength and muscle, and " Uncle Sasha '' always stood his ground. THE FEACE-KEEFER OF EUBOFE. 123 And as it was in tlie pleasant playground in Denmark^ so it is in the great affairs of State in Russia. Alexander III. stands his ground. All agree in declaring that although he is slow to move, deliberate in the extreme in making up his mind, when his resolution is once taken, and his foot is once put down, no consideration on earth will induce him to take it up. Only on one condition will he re-consider a decision once formed. If it can be proved to him that he has been misinformed, if he is con- vinced that what he believed to be a fact, and which was allowed to influence his policy as such, was no fact, but a fiction, then, with the honesty and sense of justice which are his pre-eminent characteristics, he will frankly and publicly own himself in the wrong. Of this the most signal illustration was afforded the world last year, when Prince Bismarck convinced him that he had been deceived by the forged despatches from Bulgaria. It was rather a painful confession, which a weak man would have made grudgingly, and after which he would have modified as little as possible the policy based upon his mistake. Not so Alexander III. He felt that he had unwittingly been unjust to Prince Bismarck, and he acknowledged it, and frankly re- adjusted his policy in favour of Germany. The full extent to which this re-adjustment has gone is only beginning to be per- ceived in Europe. The Emperor is a strong man who takes short views. He sees what he believes to be his duty from day to day, and he does it honestly to the best of his ability, in the spirit of the maxim that " sufficient to the day is the evil thereof, ^^ and iu the faith that strength sufficient for the day will be given him from on Hig-h. It is a different feeling from that which ])rompted Metternich's saying, " Jpres moi le deluge,'' for the Emperor feels that he and his are in the hands of God — who alone sees the end from the beginning, and will fiud tools to carry on His work when the day comes for that work to be done. That deep, silent, but abiding conviction has grown much upon the Emperor of late years. In his youth, when he never expected to ascend the throne, for which his elder brother, to whom he was passionately attached, was carefully trained and educated, while his own education was comparatively neglected, he was full of high and buoyant spirits, headstrong and vehement. But since his brother's death, and the shadows of 1L>4 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. the great responsibilities which overhang the throne darkened over him, he has become more and more deeply impressed with a sense of the invisible and eternal world into which at any moment he may be hurled, Europe has watched with admira- tion and sympathy by the bedside of the Emperor at Char- lottenburg, where a ruler in the visible presence of Death, whose g-risly hand was already clutching his throat, calmly and man- fully did his appointed task from day to day, and left the rest in the hands of God. But Europe has forgotten that other Emperor who was summoned to the throne by dynamite, and also lives and reigns in the constant shadow of the fate which overtook his beloved father. People do not speak about it, but the shadow is there, and the Emperor knows it, but he goes about his daily work cheerful and unperturbed. When last year the Nihilist attempt of March 13 came within a hair's- breadth of success, the Emperor displayed the most absolute self-command. The whole Imperial family was to have been blown up on their way to the fortress of St. Peter and Paul. When they went to the service in commemoration of the death of Alexander II., it was at the station that the Emperor was informed that he had just escaped by the skin of his teeth from a catastrophe similar to that which had destroyed his father. He went down to Gatschina with his wife and children, laughing and talking in the carriage as if nothing had hap- pened. Not until the children had left for the Palace, and the Emperor and his wife were driving alone through the Park, did he break the news to the Empress. She, poor thing, of less iron nerve than her husband, broke down utterly and wept. Small wonder that a woman to whom thus suddenly has been revealed the charged mine over which she has so lightly passed, shuddered with horror. Not so her husband. " I am ready, ''•' he said simply ; " I will do my duty at any cost.""^ The Emperor does not seem bowed down or crushed beneath the Imperial load, the full weight of which neither he nor any one can adequately realise. He stands erect and joyous ; cheer- ful, without bravado, with the simple open face of a man who has preserved amid all the affairs of State "the heart of a little child. Those who know him well say that he is totally free from that worrying fretfulness, that wearing anxiety, which is incompatible with sincere faith in the providence of God. Not THE PEACE-KEEPER OF EUROPE. 125 l)y his own will or of liis own choice was he called to this perilous post, from which he can only he relieved by death. Until he is relieved he will hold it, often painfully conscious of his own shortcomings, but nevertheless doing* his duty as best he can, according to his lights, and leaving the rest to God. As for Nihilist plots and foreign intrigues, and all the endless coil of Imperial business, it is all in the day's work, which he dis- charges, so far as he can see it is his to do, with the composure of a philosoplier and the serenity of a Christian. The Emperor has a horror of war. He commanded, as Tzarewitch, the army of the Lom in the Bulgarian campaign, and he saw enough of the realities of campaigning to recoil with his whole soul from the thought of war. The kindly human affections of a goodpere de famille, which are so strong in him, intensify the repugnance with which he contemplates any and every disturbance of the peace. It is his ambition, one of his Ministers remarked to me, not to be a great Sovereign, but to be the Sovereign of a great people, whose reign was unstained by a single war. He is not for peace at any price, but for peace at almost any price compatible with national honour and the defence of the interests of Russia, which have been committed to his care. Since he came to the throne, his voice, his influence, his authority have constantly been directed to prevent war. He is the natural ally, alike by constitution and by conviction, of any Power that honestly seeks to maintain the peace. Hence the Emperor's desire for a good understanding with the two Powers in Europe which have everything to lose by war and nothing to gain. At the very beginning of his reio-n he met the German Emperor at Skiernewieze, to renew those ties which had for nearly a hundred years bound Germany and Russia in a natural but informal alliance. By that understand- ing he remained until the forged " proofs " of Bismarck's duplicity alienated him from his German friends. But after the demonstration of the forgery, the Emperor has gladly sought to renew the former intimacy with his next-door neighbour, and to link Russian with German influence in the maintenance of the status quo. His hope is that Russia and Germany may o>et back to the position in which they stood at the Skiernewieze interview; and unless Bismarck is more hopelessly committed to the Austrian alliance than is probable, considering his 126 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. shrewdness, the Russian-German entente ought not to be far off. The Emperor is notoriously desirous of coming to a good understanding and a hearty working agreement with England. Russia, Germany, and England — if these three hold together, they will, he is convinced, maintain the peace of the world. Whether these three Powers will hold together depends of course primarily upon England. If England were to make friends with Russia, Germany would probably follow suit, for the recent policy of Bismarck has been based upon his calculations as to his ability to keep Russia played off against England, and Eno-land played off against Russia. The force of such a peace leao-ue would be enormous. Austria dare not stir without Germany. France is impotent without Russia. A triple league, in which both Germany and Russia united with England for th( maintenance of the peace, would render war impossible. That is- the object of the Emperor. Whether he will succeed or not depends not upon him, but upon us. There is one danger arising out of the character of the Emperor which it is necessary to state frankly and recognise without reserve. At present, notwithstanding the policy which England has pursued both in Central Asia and in Bulgaria, he has not lost faith in the possibility of coming to terms with us. Open hostility, frank and resolute opposition, he can understand ; but trickiness, bad faith, and falsehood, with these he has no patience. Once let him be convinced that England's word is false as a dicer's oath, and that England is capable of accepting, let us say, the ideal of the Cyprus Convention and living up to it, and he will sorrowfully but resolutely turn his back upon the hope of an English entente. When once this takes place, wik, horses will not bring him back to his present position. When the Emperor is satisfied that he has been wilfully deceived, he is done with the deceiver once for all. No considerations, even of Imperial interests, can induce him to palliate a lie, or to condone a fraud. Whatever we have to do with this man, it will be well to deal with him straightforwardly, speaking the truth, and acting honestly and above-board, as be will certainly deal with us. Otherwise we shall make shipwreck of everything. This is, however, by the way. The Emperor is too familiar with the trouble caused to central guvernments by the licence of THE PEACE-KEEPER OF EUROPE. 127 distant subordinates to cherish any ill-will against England for the scurvy part which we played .in attempting to steal a march upon Russia in thrusting the Afghans forward to Penj-deh. At St. Petersburg there is only one opinion on the subject, which, of course, the Emperor fully shares — namely, that our Com- missioners wished to bring about war. Captain Yate, I was told, had frankly confessed this to Russian officers, and whether it is true or false, it is an article of faith in Russia. There is little doubt that the Emperor had not the least desire to go to war with England about Penj-deh, and nothing but the most hope- less perversity on the part of our Commissioners, both in what they did and in what they did not do, brought us so near to the verge of war. The Emperor thought war was being forced upon him, and he made ready for it, deciding, it was said at the time, that he would, if need be, surrender the whole private fortune of his family to relieve the finances, as an example to his subjects ; but no one was better pleased than he when the difficulty was arranged and the frontier delimited. How Mr. Gladstone, of all men, could ever have forced him so near to a collision is one of those abysmal mysteries which are beyond the plumb-line of the Russian mind. More serious is the difficulty about Bulgaria. The Emperor's action in relation to Prince Alexander is so striking an illustra- tion of the idiosyncrasy of his strongly-marked chai'acter as to justify my referring to it, even after what I have said of Russian policy in Bulgaria. The Emperor^s breach with Prince Alexander was due to two causes, either of which was fatal. He is convinced that the Battenberg lied to him, lied deliberately and of set purpose to deceive. From his childhood the Emperor, like his sister the Duchess of Edinburgh, has had an almost physical horror of a lie. When he detects any of his Ministers in deceit, that man ceases to be jNIinister, and no ability or genius is allowed to atone for that one cardinal crime. When Prince Alexander, who had already excited prejudice against himself by placing Nihilists in office, was caught out in a lie, the Emperor would have no more to do with him. Over and over again Russians have told me how much they regretted this exceeding severity on the part of their Tzar. Why could he not make terms with Alexander when he grovelled at his feet ? they ask, and then they say, with a sigh : " We would have done it at 128 TRUTH ABOUT BUSSIA. once, and it would have T^een a good thing for every one, but of course it was no use thinking of such a thing with our Emperor. When once a man has deceived him he never trusts him again/' The fact is that the Emperor regards such conduct as Prince Alexander's as men in society regard cheating at cards, a kind of sin against the Holy Ghost, which, once committed, can never be forgiven or atoned for, either in this world or in that which is to come. Apart, however, from this revolt at the duplicity of the Prince, the Emperor felt that his conduct in condoning the revolution of Philippopolis, which united Eastern Roumelia and Bulgaria, touched his honour. There is something almost Quixotic in the Emperor's sentiment of honour. He wished, like every Russian, to see Eastern Roumelia united to the Principality; but he had undertaken that there should be no alteration in the status quo in the Balkan. Suddenly the status quo is revolutionised in the direction of his wishes, and the revolution is approved by the Prince whom Russia placed on the throne. Instantly in Vienna and Pesth voices were heard accusing the Emperor of bad faith, of connivance in the insur- rectionary movement. These accusations fell upon the Emperor like a sword-cut. If there is one thing more than any other to which he attaches supreme importance, it is the maintenance of an absolute truthfulness ; if there is one point on which he is sensitive, it is a reflection upon his honour. Prince Alexander's conduct in accepting the union of the Bulgarias gave colour to the doubt east upon his word and the suspicions of his good faith to his neighbours. That was decisive, and, to wipe off this reproach, the Emperor painfully set himself to oppose the very political consummation which he most desired, and broke irrevocably with the Prince whose conduct had exposed him to suspicion. This action of Alexander the Third in opposing the union of the Bulgarians because to have approved of it would have implied acquiescence in a breach of faith is very characteristic of the just man who sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not. As he acted in this question, so he will act in others. He will sacrifice his interests to his honour, and oppose the realisation of a cherished object of Russian poUcy rather than consent to it at the price of a stain upon his fair fame as a man of honour and a THE PEACEKEEPER OF EUROPE. 129 g-entleman. It is Quixotic if you please ; but to the Emperor it is simple duty. He distrusts long views. He is dominated ever by the practical duty which lies ready to his hand. When any particular act seems to him clearly wrong- he will not do it, be it never so convenient. The conscience o£ the Emperor, and his conviction that the future is in the hand of God, who will set him his task and show him His will from day to day, are factors of the first importance in estimating the future course of European politics. The Emperor is eminently a healthy man. He is the mer/s Sana in corpore sano. " He has a good head,^^ I remarked to an Ambassador in St. Petersburg. " And what is of even more importance,^^ was the reply, " he has got a good stomach. ^^ He is not nervous, and does not get into fidgets. All his habits are regular. In the morning he reads his letters and meets his Ministers — M. de Giers on Tuesday, Count Tolstoi on Thursday; M. Wischnegradsky on Friday. At one he lunches with his wife and children. Then at four or half-past, after transacting other business, he goes out for a stroll in the woods with his boys. Sometimes he fells trees, but, unlike Mr. Gladstone, he equally enjoys sawing them into lengths. In winter-time he helps in clearing away snow from the ice-hills. In the evening he dines. No one in all Russia leads a simpler, healthier, more natural life. And this is the man whom our newspapers vie with each other in representing as if he were the embodiment of every vice but one ! He is a level-headed, conscientious, sure-footed Sovereign, conscious of such responsibilities as he has realised, and only afraid of doing that which seems to him to be wrong. For the good relations of England and Russia, and for the peace of the world, it is simply of inestimable importance that a monarch so steady and self-possessed should be directing the policy of Russia. If only a hand as strong and a head as cool directed the policy of England, the entente between the two empires would no longer be a thing to wish for, it would be an ac- complished fact. 33ook iH. NEW FIELDS FOR BRITISH ENTERPRISE. CHAPTER I. A TREATY OF COMMERCE WITH RUSSIA. " Good relations between England and Russia ? " said General Ignatieff to me one day ; " there is nothing which I desire more heartily ; and not only good relations political and diplomatic, but commercial and industrial. Why, for instance, should we not have a treaty of commerce with England, based on intelli- gible principles ?" I pricked up my ears. " For the last ten years,'^ he continued, " I have never ceased to advocate the alteration of our commercial treaties on a basis which would have tended directly to draw us closer to England.'^ I said at once that I was naturally all attention, and that the great precedent of Cobden^s commercial treaty with France illustrated the fact that nothing tended more to establish a good political entente than improved business relations. But what hope was there that with Russia anything of the kind was possible ? " Not only possible, but easy,^^ he said, " provided that you once grasp the right principle, and that we are friends instead of foes. The wrong principle is that of the most-favoured-nation clause, which finds a place in all our commercial treaties, and which secures to every nation, regardless of its commercial policy in relation to us, the maximum advantages secured to the nation which from motives of policy or of trade we wish to favour most. As President of the Society of Trade and Commerce I have repeatedly protested against this. The right principle is the principle of discrimination, by which we should treat those nations well which treat us well, and vice versa.'" The idea which General Ignatieff thus let fall in the course of a long conversation seemed to me to promise to bear excellent fruit. I discussed it everywhere; I found that in the very highest quarters it was regarded with favour. The Minister of J 2 132 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. Finance, M. Wischnegradsky, even discovered in General Igna- tieff's suggestion an original idea oi: his own. M. Wischne- gradsky IS a very smart man, who somewhat resembles in appearance a mixture of Mr. Waddy and Mr. Bright. The Minister told me that his opinion was dead against the most- favoured-nation clause, as in his view every treaty ought to be specially drawn to suit the special circumstances of the trade of the negotiating country. He had been, he said, for some time engaged in conducting- an exhaustive study of the whole question of the existing commercial treaties, and he expected that his Report would be ready in four or five months — that is to say, about the time when the Government Departments in St. Petersburg resume activity after their summer hibernation, to perpetrate a bull. When that Report w^as complete, a decision would be come to as to the direction in which action would be taken, and M. Wischnegradsky assured me most emphatically that he was entirely in favour of the idea of discrimination, and was most anxious to do everything in his power to promote the development of closer commercial relations between England and Russia. I also met a very intelligent member of the Finance Administration. He said at once that the idea in theory was excellent, but the difficulties of its application were considerable. The whole question, he pointed out, was domi- nated by the political relations of the different Powers. " The adoption of General Ignatieff's policy might be possible, pro- vided that we were friends with England ; but not otherwise. For what vi^ould it practically come to if it were adopted ? AVe should have to denounce all our existing treaties and begin, de novo, to construct a new commercial system, which would, broadly speaking, admit English goods into Russia at a lower rate of duty than that levied on imports from Germany. Now, I do not want to say anything hostile to anybody, but if you think that such a change would not be very keenly resented at Berlin you must have studied with very little advantag-e the histor}^ of the last fifteen years of German politico-commercial policy. To put it bluntly, it would put a strain on our relations with Germany, and that we cannot afford to do unless we are assured beforehand of a stable working entente with England. It would be very pleasant, no doubt ; but it is well to be on A TREATY OF COMMERCE WITH RUSSIA. 133 with the new love before you are off with the old, and unless you can get your dear countrymen to adopt a less antagonistic policy to Russia I fear you may whistle for your commercial treaty/' Therein I think my friend spoke the simple trutli. We are, by our insane and insensate indulgence in the cult of an archaic and obsolete prejudice, deliberately barring* against ourselves the gates of what might be our best market in Europe. Said a foreig-n resident in Russia with whom I discussed the question, '' You are perfectly right ; the commercial question is dominated by the political. You in England have to choose whether you prefer to be doing* good business with the Russian or to be per- petually sticking pins into his hide. You can do either one or the other ; you cannot do both. The more I see of this country the more I am lost in amazement and indignation at the spec- tacle which it presents. With Siberia and the Caucasus it is almost as vast a mine of undeveloped wealth as the United States of America. It literally teems with all the raw material, the undeveloped potentialities, of wealth. Its population is barely sufficient to till the soil, but it can produce grain enough to feed all Europe. The country, however, has at present neither the men nor the money for the development of its enormous resources. England is bursting with capital seek- ing in vain for profitable employment, and every profession is overrun with men who might find ample opportunity for employing their energies in opening up Russia. The two empires supplement each other. Each has every- thing the other wants. But because of this cursed habit of snapping and snarling at each other^s heels, this religious or irreligious cult of the devil of national prejudice and animosity, the relations between them dwindle, and they are gradually drifting into an attitude of increasing isolation. The Russian peasant cannot feed the London artisan, nor can the Sheffield cutlers sell their knives to the Russian peasant, because why ? Because a set of God-forsaken wretches with pens in their hands in Petersburg and in London keep on day after day gibing at each other, maligning each other, and imputing all manner of evil against England or against Russia, until on each side it begins to be believed that their first duty to each other is not to exchange products for manufactures, and establish good relations 134 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. based upon mutual interchange of surplus commodities, but to exehang-e insults and to prepare to interchange shots. If Jomini would hang all the editors in the interests of peace, I would offer them all up as a burnt offering upon the altar of Trade/' But, I have been asked, must there be a political quid for the commercial quo ? What concession must we make to Russia politically in order to secure lower tariffs on British goods ? I do not think that any idea of any such bargain has entered the Russian mind. Russia wants nothing, particularly from Eng- land ; only friendship must be substituted for enmity, and a loyal desire to help each other take the place of a persistent and pertinacious policy of nagging and playing at cross purposes, which is the distinguishing note of our traditional policy in relation to Russia. We have taken so little by it. Our gain, to perpetrate another bull, has been all loss. Why, then, can we not re-consider our position ? There is no country in the world, except the United States, where we could do a bigger business than with Russia. It would be mutually advantageous, and that which blocks the way is the demented determination which prevails in Downing Street to be more Austrian than Prince Bismarck himself. Our relations with Russia, thanks largely to the fact that we have the good fortune to have at Petersburg an Ambassador who has his head screwed straight on his shoulders, and who clearly sees the altered condition of Euro- pean policy, have seldom been better. But not even the presence of Sir Robert Morier at the British Embassy can quite counter- balance Lord Salisbury's persistence in supporting a Bulgarian policy which is condemned by Prince Bismarck quite as much as by M. de Giers. If we would do to Russia in Bulgaria as we would that Russia should do to us in Egypt, a change would come over the relations of the two countries which would open the way for a modification of tariffs that might have the same happy results which followed the conclusion of the Anglo- French Treaty of Commerce in 1860. The more I reflect upon what I heard and saw in Russia the more convinced I am of the immense opening there is for British manufactures in Russia. That great continent is almost un- developed. At present it is practically stationary. It is one of those periods of hibernation which precede a sudden access of unusual activity. There is some reason to believe that the A TREATY OF COMMERCE WITH RUSSIA. 135 slumber stage is passing. Everywhere in Russia I heard, especially from English manufacturers and merchants, that this is a year that promises to be of unequalled prosperity. First and foremost, the harvest, especially in the south, is far above the average. Never in the memory of man has there been such a hay crop as that of this year in the southern provinces. And then wheat and rye and oats and barley promise to make the Russian^s barns burst out with plenty. Prices are low, it is true, but food is plentiful, and the prospect of a bumper harvest is stimulating business all over the Empire. Everywhere, espe- cially in the South, there is lamentation for want of roads, for want of coal, for want of machines to garner and to move the crops. Up to May this year the exports of grain were double those of the first five months of 1887. The Novoe Vremya calculates that Russia may send abroad forty millions' worth of corn, as against twenty-one millions exported last year; and although this is an extreme estimate, it serves to indicate the expectations which prevail in Russia as to the nature of this year's harvest ; and on the harvest everything depends in Russia. The Tzar's dominions are little more than one vast farm. The difference between a poor harvest and a rich one is the difference between comfort and poverty over three-fourths of Russia. The prospect of the harvest has had a wonderful effect upon business of all kinds. Mills are running night and day, without being able to overtake their orders. A cotton manufacturer told me that he had orders to keep him going till Christmas, and that all his neighbours were in a like condition. Woollen mills are as busy as cotton, and iron works are enjoying a period of great prosperity. Peace is now regarded as secure, and business of all kinds is expanding in consequence. One of the first results of this revival of business will be the demand for fresh railways. Russia in the matter of railway communication has practically retrograded in the present reign. She has not built on an average more than 300 miles of railway per annum since 1880. She had 14,073 in 1880; she had only 15,934 in 1885. Yet in these six years her jDopulation has increased seven millions. What a contrast this presents to the United States ! Russia in Europe has two million square miles. 136 TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA. with a population of forty-two to the square mile, and one mile of railway to every 5,000 persons. The United States, with a population of 50,000,000, an area of nearly three million square miles, has a mile of railway for every 400 inhabitants. The Americans have little more than half the population and eight times as many miles of railway. They had 92,971 miles open in 1880, and 123,320 in 1885. That is to say, the Americans added to their railway system in these six years twice the whole railway system of Russia ! The imports of rails have fallen off, and that of engines and machinery is not one-third of what it was. Partly this may be due to her protective tariff, which has fostered Russian iron and steel works; but if Russia were to waken up to any serious extent, and set about railway building* on any large scale, she would have to buy abroad, and if we are wise we shall take care that the Russian orders come to the English firms. We can buy more of their grain than any other nation, and we can supply them more cheaply than any other with the manufactured articles which they require. The foreign trade of Russia is comparatively small. A former Minister of Ways and Communications told me that he estimated her internal trade as fifty times as great as the external. Russia is in this respect like the United States. Both are worlds in themselves ; the only difference being that the United States has free trade within its own boundaries, whereas Russia imposes a Customs duty on imports from Finland, which is an integral part of the Empire. Nothing would please Moscow manufacturers better than to see the Finnish precedent extended to Poland, and the possibility that such a result might follow the concession of Home Rule to Poland might create a sentiment on the part of the Muscovite manufacturers in favour of conceding: some measure of autonomy to the ancient kingdom. Of the foreign trade of Russia nearly one-third is done with England. It is almost hopeless attempting to reconcile the dis- crepancies between the official figures published in St. Petersburg and London, but both agree in showing that the exports to the United Kingdom amount to at least 30 per cent, of the total ex- ports from Russia. The percentage of imports is not so high, but it amounts to 25 per cent, of the total. Germany is our only important rival. She sells more goods to Russia than we do, but A TREATY OF COMMEBGE WITH RUSSIA. 137 she takes fewer Russian goods in exchang-e. The comparison of the figures of imports and exports into European Russia of the two countries brings out the fact that whereas Germany has ex- ported to Russia on an average goods worth ^620^000,000 per annum for the last ten years, the annual average of British im- ports into Russia was £12,500,000. The two countries account for £32,500,000 out of a total of 47 milhons. Of exports from Russia England has taken an annual average of about £17,000,000, while Germany has only taken £16,500,000, making a total of £34,500,000 out of 53 millions total. The fio-ures as sriven in our Statistical Abstract are as follows : — TOTAL IMPORTS. From England. From Germany. To Russia in Europe. 1877 1878 1879 9,281,000 16,156,000 14,629,000 15,485,000 10,844,000 12,467,000 13,359,000 12,311,000 9,459,000 10,800,000 14,847,000 26,313,000 26,686,000 27,426,000 21,990,000 21,418,000 16,866,000 17,583,000 14,391,000 13,516,000 29,146,000 55,771,000 54,821,000 57,833,000 47,613,000 51,836,000 51,370,000 48,625,000 38.140,000 37,391,000 1880 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 Total for 10 ) years \ Avera.