RUSSIAN WARS WITH TURKEY. 3 INTRODUCTION. Ir is a common saying that history repeats itself; perhaps B On RUSSIAN WARS WITH TURKEY. INTRODUCTION. Ir is a common saying that history repeats itself; perhaps it might be said with greater truth that, as in the common occurrences of life, so also in history, similar causes produce similar results. It now seems as if there is to be another of the many successive conflicts that have taken place between Russia and Turkey within the last hundred years. The same causes are at work, the same symptoms are visible. On the one side the misgovernment and tyranny of the oppressor, coupled with lamentation and cries for aid on the part of the oppressed: on the other side sympathy for suffering brethren of the same race and religion, and indignation against their taskmasters. the one hand a rapidly decaying and bankrupt power, existing, as it were, on the sufferance of its neighbours, but possessed of, perhaps, the most fertile and highly favoured territories of the earth, whose fertility they turn B On to no account, and whose advantages they neglect; and these highly favoured lands inhabited by people antagonistic in religion, in habits, in feelings, the dominant race far inferior in numbers, receding in civilisation, intolerant, unyielding; the subject race rapidly increasing in numbers, advancing in prosperity, and daily more and more ambitious for the sovereign power, for which they are still unfitted. On the other hand a gigantic and powerful empire, with great resources still undeveloped, with territories whose sterility is their bane, and whose vast extent is their weakness, peopled by races but half civilised and more than half fanatic-races obedient to the dictates of a single man, but with prejudices so strong and feelings so deep, that this man, great as is his power, sacred as is his person, if he values his life cannot afford to disregard them. And as it were within the grasp of this mighty nation, there is a land flowing with milk and honey, which would supply all that in their own land is wanting, whose conquest would alike coincide with the tenets of their religion, with the dictates of their feelings, and with the consideration of their material advantage. In truth, one may say, however sincere be expressions of peace-loving rulers, however earnest the endeavours of highly skilled diplomatists, it may be possible to postpone but it is wholly impossible to prevent these wars between Russia and Turkey, that are as natural in their origin as they are historic in their recurrence. Whether the year 1877 will or will not see another campaign on the banks |