The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 Part 21

In the main, however, the freedom of Bulgaria from Russian control was due to events transpiring in Central Europe. As will appear in Chapter XII. of this work, the Czar and de Giers became convinced, early in the year 1887, that Bismarck was preparing for war against France, and they determined to hold aloof from other questions, in order to be free to checkmate the designs of the war party at Berlin. The organ usually inspired by de Giers, the _Nord_, uttered an unmistakable warning on February 20, 1887, and even stated that, with this aim in view, Russia would let matters take their course in Bulgaria.

Thus, once again, the complexities of the general situation promoted the cause of freedom in the Balkans; and the way was cleared for a resolute man to mount the throne at Sofia. In the course of a tour to the European capitals, a Bulgarian delegation found that man. The envoys were informed that Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, a grandson of Louis Philippe on the spindle-side, would welcome the dangerous honour. He was young, ambitious, and, as events were to prove, equally tactful and forceful according to circ.u.mstances. In vain did Russia seek to prevent his election by pushing on the Sultan to intervene. Abdul Hamid was not the man to let himself long be the catspaw of Russia, and now invited the Powers to name one or two candidates for the throne of Bulgaria.

Stambuloff worked hard for the election of Prince Ferdinand; and on July 7, 1887, he was unanimously elected by the Sobranje. Alone among the Great Powers, Russia protested against his election and threw many difficulties in his path. In order to please the Czar, the Sultan added his protest; but this act was soon seen to be merely a move in the diplomatic game.

Limits of s.p.a.ce, however, preclude the possibility of noting later events in the history of Bulgaria, such as the coolness that clouded the relations of the Prince to Stambuloff, the murder of the latter, and the final recognition of the Prince by the Russian Government after the "conversion" of his little son, Boris, to the Greek Church (Feb. 1896).

In this curious way was fulfilled the prophetic advice given by Bismarck to the Prince not long after his acceptance of the crown of Bulgaria: "Play the dead (_faire mort_). . . . Let yourself be driven gently by the stream, and keep yourself, as. .h.i.therto, above water. Your greatest ally is time--force of habit. Avoid everything that might irritate your enemies. Unless you give them provocation, they cannot do you much harm, and in course of time the world will become accustomed to see you on the throne of Bulgaria[219]."

[Footnote 219: _Personal Reminiscences of Prince Bismarck_, by S.

Whitman, p. 179.]

Time has worked on behalf of Bulgaria, and has helped to strengthen this Benjamin of the European family. Among the events which have made the chief States of to-day, none are more remarkable than those which endowed a population of downtrodden peasants with a pa.s.sionate desire for national existence. Thanks to the liberating armies of Russia, to the prowess of Bulgarians themselves, to the inspiring personality of Prince Alexander and the stubborn tenacity of Stambuloff, the young State gained a firm grip on life. But other and stranger influences were at work compelling that people to act for itself; these are to be found in the perverse conduct of Alexander III. and of his agents. The policy of Russia towards Bulgaria may be characterised by a remark made by Sir Robert Morier to Sir M. Grant Duff in 1888: "Russia is a great bicephalic creature, having one head European, and the other Asiatic, but with the persistent habit of turning its European face to the East, and its Asiatic face to the West[220]." Asiatic methods, put in force against Slavised Tartars, have certainly played no small part in the upbuilding of this youngest of the European States.

[Footnote 220: Sir M. Grant Duff, _Notes from a Diary (1886-88)_, vol.

ii. p. 139.]

In taking leave of the Balkan peoples, we may note the strange tendency of events towards equipoise in the Europe of the present age. Thirty years ago the Turkish Empire seemed at the point of dissolution. To-day it is stronger than ever; and this cause is to be found, not so much in the watchful cunning of Abdul Hamid, as in the vivifying principle of nationality, which has made of Bulgaria and Roumania two strong barriers against Russian aggression in that quarter. The feuds of those States have been replaced by something like friendship, which in its turn will probably ripen into alliance. Together they could put 250,000 good troops in the field--that is, a larger force than that which the Turks had in Europe during the war with Russia. Turkey is therefore fully as safe as she was under Abdul Aziz.

An enlightened ruler could consolidate her position still further. Just as Austria has gained in strength by having Venetia as a friendly and allied land, rather than a subject province heaving with discontent, so, too, it is open to the Porte to secure the alliance of the Balkan States by treating them in an honourable way, and by according good government to Macedonia.

Possibly the future may see the formation of a federation of all the States of European Turkey. If so, Russia will lose all foothold in a quarter where she formerly had the active support of three-fourths of the population. However that may be, it is certain that her mistakes in and after the year 1878 have profoundly modified the Eastern Question.

They have served to cancel those which, as it seems to the present writer, Lord Beaconsfield committed in the years 1876-77; and the skilful diplomacy of Lord Salisbury and Sir William White has regained for England the prestige which she then lost among the rising peoples of the Peninsula.

The final solution of the tangled racial problems of Mace donia cannot be long deferred, in spite of the timorous selfishness of the Powers who incurred treaty obligations for the welfare of that land; and, when that question can be no longer postponed or explained away, it is to be hoped that the British people, taking heed of the lessons of the past, will insist on a solution that will conform to the claims of humanity, which have been proved to be those of enlightened statesmanship[221].

[Footnote 221: For the recent developments of the Macedonian Question, see _Turkey in Europe_, by "Odysseus" (1900); _the Middle Eastern Question_, by V. Chirol, 18s. net (Murray); _A Tour in Macedonia_, by G.F. Abbot (1903); _The Burden of the Balkans_, by Miss Edith Durham (1904); _The Balkans from Within_, by R. Wyon (1904); _The Balkan Question_, edited by L. Villari (1904); _Critical Times in Turkey_, by G. King-Lewis (1904); _Pro Macedonia_, by V. Berard (Paris, 1904); _La Peninsule balkanique_, by Capitaine Lamouche (Paris, 1899).]

CHAPTER XI

NIHILISM AND ABSOLUTISM IN RUSSIA

THE HOUSE OF ROMANOFF

Catharine II.

(1762-1796.) | | Paul.

(1796-1801.) | ___________________ | | Alexander I. Nicholas I.

(1801-1825.) (1825-1855.) | ________________________________________ | | | | Alexander II. Constantine. Nicholas. Michael.

(1855-1881.) | ___________________________________________________________ | | | | | | Nicholas. Alexander III. Alexis. Marie. Sergius. Paul.

(Died in (1881-1894.) (d.u.c.h.ess of (a.s.sa.s.sinated 1865.) | Edinburgh.) Feb. 17, 1905.) | Nicholas II.

(1894--.)

The Whig statesman, Charles James Fox, once made the profound though seemingly paradoxical a.s.sertion that the most dangerous part of a Revolution was the Restoration that ended it. In a similar way we may hazard the statement that the greatest danger brought about by war lies in the period of peace immediately following. Just as the strain involved by any physical effort is most felt when the muscles and nerves resume their normal action, so, too, the body politic is liable to depression when once the time of excitement is over and the artificial activities of war give place to the tiresome work of paying the bill.

England after Waterloo, France and Germany after the war of 1870, afford examples of this truth; but never perhaps has it been more signally ill.u.s.trated than in the Russia of 1878-82.

There were several reasons why the reaction should be especially sharp in Russia. The Slav peoples that form the great bulk of her population are notoriously sensitive. Shut up for nearly half the year by the rigours of winter, they naturally develop habits of brooding introspection or coa.r.s.e animalism--witness the plaintive strains of their folk-songs, the pessimism that haunts their literature, and the dram-drinking habits of the peasantry. The Muscovite temperament and the Muscovite climate naturally lead to idealist strivings against the hardships of life or a dull grovelling amongst them. Melancholy or vodka is the outcome of it all.

The giant of the East was first aroused to a consciousness of his strength by the invasion of Napoleon the Great. The comparative ease with which the Grand Army was engulfed left on the national mind of Russia a consciousness of pride never to be lost even amidst the cruel disappointments of the Crimean War. Holy Russia had once beaten back the forces of Europe marshalled by the greatest captain of all time. She was therefore a match for the rest of the Continent. Such was the belief of every patriotic Muscovite. As for the Turks, they were not worthy of entering the lists against the soldiers of the Czar. Did not every decade bring further proofs of the decline of the Ottomans in governing capacity and military prowess? They might harry Bulgarian peasants and win laurels over the Servian militia. But how could that bankrupt State and its undisciplined hordes hold up against the might of Russia and the fervour of her liberating legions?

After the indulgence of these day dreams the disillusionment caused by the events at Plevna came the more cruelly. One general after another became the scapegoat for the popular indignation. Then the General Staff was freely censured, and whispers went round that the Grand Duke Nicholas, brother of the Czar, was not only incompetent to conduct a great war, but guilty of underhand dealings with the contractors who defrauded the troops and battened on the public funds. Letters from the rank and file showed that the bread was bad, the shoes were rotten, the rifles outcla.s.sed by those of the Turks, and that trenching-tools were lacking for many precious weeks[222]. Then, too, the Bulgarian peasants were found to be in a state of comfort superior to that of the bulk of their liberators--a discovery which aroused in the Russian soldiery feelings like those of the troops of the old French monarchy when they fought side by side with the soldiers of Washington for the triumph of democracy in the New World. In both cases the lessons were stored up, to be used when the champions of liberty returned home and found the old order of things clanking on as slowly and rustily as ever.

[Footnote 222: _Russia Before and After the War_, translated by E.F.

Taylor (London, 1880), chap. xvi.: "We have been cheated by blockheads, robbed by people whose incapacity was even greater than their villainy."]

Finally, there came the crushing blow of the Treaty of Berlin. The Russian people had fought for an ideal: they longed to see the cross take the place of the crescent which for five centuries had flashed defiance to Christendom from the summit of St. Sofia at Constantinople.

But Britain's ironclads, Austria's legions, and German diplomacy barred the way in the very hour of triumph; and Russia drew back. To the Slav enthusiasts of Moscow even the Treaty of San Stefano had seemed a dereliction of a sacred duty; that of Berlin seemed the most cowardly of betrayals. As the Princess Radziwill confesses in her _Recollections_--that event made Nihilism possible.

As usual, the populace, whether reactionary Slavophils or Liberals of the type of Western Europe, vented its spleen on the Government. For a time the strongest bureaucracy in Europe was driven to act on the defensive. The Czar returned stricken with asthma and prematurely aged by the privations and cares of the campaign. The Grand Duke Nicholas was recalled from his command, and, after bearing the signs of studied hostility of the Czarevitch, was exiled to his estates in February 1879.

The Government inspired contempt rather than fear; and a new spirit of independence pervaded all cla.s.ses. This was seen even as far back as February 1878, in the acquittal of Vera Zazulich, a lady who had shot the Chief of the Police at St. Petersburg, by a jury consisting of n.o.bles and high officials; and the verdict, given in the face of d.a.m.ning evidence, was generally approved. Similar crimes occurred nearly every week[223]. Everything therefore, favoured the designs of those who sought to overthrow all government. In a word, the outcome of the war was Nihilism.

[Footnote 223: _Ibid_. chap. xvii. The Government thereafter dispensed with the ordinary forms of justice for political crimes and judged them by special Commissions.]

The father of this sombre creed was a wealthy Russian landlord named Bakunin; or rather, he shares this doubtful honour with the Frenchman Prudhon. Bakunin, who was born in 1814, entered on active life in the time of soulless repression inaugurated by the Czar Nicholas I.

(1825-1855). Disgusted by Russian bureaucracy, the youth eagerly drank in the philosophy of Western Europe, especially that of Hegel. During a residence at Paris, he embraced and developed Prudhon's creed that "property is theft," and sought to prepare the way for a crusade against all Governments by forming the Alliance of Social Democracy (1869), which speedily became merged in the famous "Internationale." Driven successively from France and Central Europe, he was finally handed over to the Russians and sent to Siberia; thence he escaped to j.a.pan and came to England, finally settling in Switzerland. His writings and speeches did much to rouse the Slavs of Austria, Poland, and Russia to a sense of their national importance, and of the duty of overthrowing the Governments that cramped their energies.

As in the case of Prudhon his zeal for the non-existent and hatred of the actual bordered on madness, as when he included most of the results of art, literature, and science in his comprehensive anathemas.

Nevertheless his crusade for destruction appealed to no small part of the sensitive peoples of the Slavonic race, who, differing in many details, yet all have a dislike of repression and a longing to have their "fling[224]." A union in a Panslavonic League for the overthrow of the Houses of Romanoff, Hapsburg, and Hohenzollern promised to satisfy the vague longings of that much-baffled race, whose name, denoting "glorious," had become the synonym for servitude of the lowest type.

Such was the creed that disturbed Eastern and Central Europe throughout the period 1847-78, now and again developing a kind of iconoclastic frenzy among its votaries.

[Footnote 224: For this peculiarity and a consequent tendency to extremes, see Prof. G. Brandes _Impressions of Russia_, p. 22.]

This revolutionary creed absorbed another of a different kind. The second creed was scientific and self-centred; it had its origin in the Liberal movement of the sixties, when reforms set in, even in governmental circles. The Czar, Alexander II., in 1861 freed the serfs from the control of their lords, and allotted to them part of the plots which they had hitherto worked on a servile tenure. For various reasons, which we cannot here detail, the peasants were far from satisfied with this change, weighted, as it was, by somewhat onerous terms, irksome restrictions, and warped sometimes by dishonest or hostile officials.

Limited powers of local government were also granted in 1864 to the local Zemstvos or land-organisations; but these again failed to satisfy the new cravings for a real system of self-government; and the Czar, seeing that his work produced more ferment than grat.i.tude, began at the close of the sixties to fall back into the old absolutist ways[225].

[Footnote 225: See Wallace's _Russia_, 2 vols.; _Russia under the Tzars_, by "Stepniak," vol. ii. chap. xxix.; also two lectures on Russian affairs by Prof. Vinogradoff, in _Lectures on the History of the Nineteenth Century_ (Camb. 1902).]

At that time, too, a band of writers, of whom the novelist Turgenieff is the best known, were extolling the triumphs of scientific research and the benefits of Western democracy. He it was who adapted to scientific or ethical use the word "Nihilism" (already in use in France to designate Prudhon's theories), so as to represent the revolt of the individual against the religious creed and patriarchal customs of old Russia. "The fundamental principle of Nihilism," says "Stepniak," "was absolute individualism. It was the negation, in the name of individual liberty, of all the obligations imposed upon the individual by society, by family life, and by religion[226]."

[Footnote 226: _Underground Russia_, by "Stepniak," Introduction, p. 4.

Or, as Turgenieff phrased it in one of his novels: "a Nihilist is a man who submits to no authority, who accepts not a single principle upon faith merely, however high such a principle may stand in the eyes of men." In short, a Nihilist was an extreme individualist and rationalist.]

For a time these disciples of Darwin and Herbert Spencer were satisfied with academic protests against autocracy; but the uselessness of such methods soon became manifest; the influence of professors and philosophic Epicureans could never permeate the ma.s.ses of Russia and stir them to their dull depths. What "the intellectuals" needed was a creed which would appeal to the many.

This they gained mainly from Bakunin. He had pointed the way to what seemed a practical policy, the ownership of the soil of Russia by the Mirs, the communes of her myriad villages. As to methods, he advocated a propaganda of violence. "Go among the people," he said, and convert them to your aims. The example of the Paris Communists in 1871 enforced his pleas; and in the subsequent years thousands of students, many of them of the highest families, quietly left their homes, donned the peasants'

garb, smirched their faces, tarred their hands, and went into the villages or the factories in the hope of stirring up the thick sedimentary deposit of the Russian system[227]. In many cases their utmost efforts ended in failure, the tragi-comedy of which is finely set forth in Turgenieff's _Virgin Soil_. Still more frequently their goal proved to be--Siberia. But these young men and women did not toil for nought. Their efforts hastened the absorption of philosophic Nihilism in the creed of Prudhon and Bakunin. The Nihilist of Turgenieff's day had been a hedonist of the clubs, or a harmless weaver of scientific Utopias; the Nihilist of the new age was that most dangerous of men, a desperado girt with a fighting creed.

[Footnote 227: _Russia in Revolution_, by G.H. Perriss, pp. 204-206, 210-214; Arnaudo, _I Nihilismo_ (Turin, 1879). See, too, the chapters added by Sir D.M. Wallace to the new edition of his work _Russia_ (1905).]

The fusing of these two diverse elements was powerfully helped on by the white heat of indignation that glowed throughout Russia when details of the official peculation and mismanagement of the war with Turkey became known. Everything combined to discredit the Government; and enthusiasts of all kinds felt that the days for scientific propaganda and stealthy agitation were past. Voltaire must give way to Marat. It was time for the bomb and the dagger to do their work.

The new Nihilists organised an executive committee for the removal of the most obnoxious officials. Its success was startling. To name only a few of their chief deeds: on August 15, 1878, a Chief of the Police was slain near one of the Imperial Palaces at the capital; and, in February 1879, the Governor of Kharkov was shot, the Nihilists succeeding in announcing his condemnation by placards mysteriously posted up in every large town. In vain did the Government intervene and subst.i.tute a military Commission in place of trial by jury. Exile and hanging only made the Nihilists more daring, and on more than one occasion the Czar nearly fell a victim to their desperadoes.

The most astounding of these attempts was the explosion of a mine under the banqueting-hall of the Winter Palace at St. Petersburg on the evening of February 17, 1880, when the Imperial family escaped owing to a delay in the arrival of the Grand Duke of Hesse. Ten soldiers were killed and forty-eight wounded in and near the guard-room.

The Czar answered outrage by terrorism. A week after this outrage he issued a ukase suspending the few remaining rights of local self-government hitherto spared by the reaction, and vesting practically all executive powers in a special Commission, presided over by General Loris Melikoff. This man was an Armenian by descent, and had distinguished himself as commander in the recent war in Asia, the capture of Kars being largely due to his dispositions. To these warlike gifts, uncommon in the Armenians of to-day, he added administrative abilities of a high order. Enjoying in a peculiar degree the confidence of Alexander II., he was charged with the supervision of all political trials and a virtual control of all the Governors-General of the Empire.