[60]For fuller details we refer our readers to the Travels of M. Taitbout de Marigny and of the English agent Bell, and to the works recently published by MM. Fonton and Dubois. There exists also another narrative by Mr. Spencer, which has had the honour of a long analysis in theRevue des Deux Mondes; but we know most positively that the honourable gentleman only made a military promenade along the coasts of the Black Sea, in company with Count Woronzof, and that he never undertook that perilous excursion into Circassia, with which he has filled a whole volume.
[60]For fuller details we refer our readers to the Travels of M. Taitbout de Marigny and of the English agent Bell, and to the works recently published by MM. Fonton and Dubois. There exists also another narrative by Mr. Spencer, which has had the honour of a long analysis in theRevue des Deux Mondes; but we know most positively that the honourable gentleman only made a military promenade along the coasts of the Black Sea, in company with Count Woronzof, and that he never undertook that perilous excursion into Circassia, with which he has filled a whole volume.
RETROSPECTIVE VIEW OF THE WAR IN THE CAUCASUS—VITAL IMPORTANCE OF THE CAUCASUS TO RUSSIA—DESIGNS ON INDIA, CENTRAL ASIA, BOKHARA, KHIVA, &c.—RUSSIAN AND ENGLISH COMMERCE IN PERSIA.
RETROSPECTIVE VIEW OF THE WAR IN THE CAUCASUS—VITAL IMPORTANCE OF THE CAUCASUS TO RUSSIA—DESIGNS ON INDIA, CENTRAL ASIA, BOKHARA, KHIVA, &c.—RUSSIAN AND ENGLISH COMMERCE IN PERSIA.
The treaty of Adrianople was in a manner the opening of a new era in the relations of Russia with the mountaineers; for it was by virtue of that treaty that the present tzar, already master of Anapa and Soudjouk Kaleh, pretended to the sovereignty of Circassia and of the whole seaboard of the Black Sea. True to the invariable principles of its foreign policy, the government at first employed means of corruption, and strove to seduce the various chiefs of the country by pensions, decorations, and military appointments. But the mountaineers, who had the example of the Persian provinces before their eyes, sternly rejected all the overtures of Russia, and repudiated the clauses of the convention of Adrianople; the political and commercial independence of their country became their rallying cry, and they would not treat on any other condition. All such ideas were totally at variance with Nicholas's schemes of absolutedominion; therefore he had recourse to arms to obtain by force what he had been unable to accomplish by other means.
Abkhasia, situated on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, and easily accessible, was the first invaded. A Russian force occupied the country in 1839, under the ordinary pretence of supporting one of its princes, and putting an end to anarchy. In the same year General Paskevitch, then governor-general of the Caucasus, for the first time made an armed exploration of the country of the Tcherkesses beyond the Kouban; but he effected absolutely nothing, and his expedition only resulted in a great loss of men and stores. In the following year war broke out in Daghestan with the Lesghis and the Tchetchenzes. The celebrated Kadi Moulah, giving himself out for a prophet, gathered together a considerable number of partisans; but unfortunately for him there was no unanimity among the tribes, and the princes were continually counteracting each other. Kadi Moulah never was able to bring more than 3000 or 4000 men together; nevertheless, he maintained the struggle with a courage worthy of a better fate, and Russia knows what it cost her to put down the revolt of Daghestan. As for any real progress in that part of the Caucasus, the Russians made none; they did no more than replace things on the old footing. Daghestan soon became again more hostile than ever, and the Tchetchenzes and Lesghis continued in separate detachments to plunder and ravage the adjacent provinces up to the time when the ascendency of the celebrated Shamihl, the worthy successor of Kadi Moulah, gave a fresh impulse to the warlike tribes of the mountain, and rendered them more formidable than ever.
After taking possession of Anapa and Soudjouk Kaleh, the Russians thought of seizing the whole seaboard of Circassia, and especially the various points suitable for the establishment of military posts. They made themselves masters of Guelendchik and the important position of Gagra, which commands the pass between Circassia and Abkhasia. The Tcherkesses heroically defended their territory, but how could they have withstood the guns of the ships of war that mowed them down whilst the soldiers were landing and constructing their redoubts? The blockade of the coasts was declared in 1838, and all foreign communication with the Caucasus ostensibly intercepted. During the four following years Russia suffered heavy losses; and all her successes were limited to the establishment of some small isolated forts on the sea-coast. She then increased her army, laid down the military road from the Kouban to Guelendchik, across the last western offshoot of the Caucasus, set on foot an exploration of the enemy's whole coast, and prepared to push the war with renewed vigour.
In 1837 the Emperor Nicholas visited the Caucasus. He would see for himself the theatre of a war so disastrous for his arms, and try what impression his imperial presence could make on the mountaineers. The chiefs of the country were invited to various conferences, to which they boldly repaired on the faith of the Russianparole; but instead of conciliating them by words of peace and moderation, the emperor only exasperated them by his threatening and haughty language. "Do you know," said he to them, "that I have powder enough to blow up all your mountains?"
During the three following years there was an incessant succession of expeditions. Golovin, on the frontiers of Georgia, Grabe on the north, and Racifsky on the Circassian seaboard, left nothing untried to accomplish their master's orders. The sacrifices incurred by Russia were enormous; the greater part of her fleet was destroyed by a storm, but all efforts failed against the intrepidity and tactics of the mountaineers. Some new forts erected under cover of the ships were all that resulted from these disastrous campaigns. I was in the Caucasus in 1839, when Lieutenant-General Grabe returned from his famous expedition against Shamihl. When the army marched it had numbered 6000 men, 1000 of whom, and 120 officers, were cut off in three months. But as the general had advanced further into the country than any of his predecessors, Russia sang pœans, and Grabe became the hero of the day, although the imperial troops had been forced to retreat and entirely evacuate the country they had invaded. All the other expeditions were similar to this one, and achieved in reality nothing but the burning and destruction of a few villages. It is true the mountaineers are far from being victorious in all their encounters with the Russians, whose artillery they cannot easily withstand; but if they are obliged to give way to numbers or to engineering, nevertheless, they remain in the end masters of the ground, and annul all the momentary advantages gained by their enemies.
The year 1840 was still more fatal to the arms of Nicholas. Almost all the new forts on the seaboard were taken by the Circassians, who bravely attacked and carried the best fortified posts without artillery. The military road from the Kouban to Guelendchik was intercepted, Fort St. Nicholas, which commanded it, was stormed and the garrison massacred. Never yet had Russia endured such heavy blows. The disasters were such that the official journals themselves, after many months' silence, were at last obliged to speak of them, and to try to gloss them over by publishing turgid eulogiums on the heroism of the unfortunate Black Sea garrisons. The following is the bulletin published in the RussianInvalideof the 7th of August, 1840:[61]
"The annals of the Russian army present a multitude of glorious deeds of arms and heroic actions, the memory of which will be for ever preserved among posterity. The detached corps of the Caucasus has from its special destination more frequent opportunities than the other troops to gather new laurels; but there had not yet been seen in its ranks examples of so brilliant a valour as that recently manifested by the garrisons of several campaigningfortifications erected on the unsubjugated territory of the Cossacks of the eastern shores of the Black Sea. Erected with a view to curb the brigandages of those semi-barbarous hordes, and particularly their favourite occupation, the shameful trade in slaves, these fortifications were during the spring of this year the constant objects of their attacks. In hopes to destroy the obstacles raised against them, at a period when by reason of their position, and the insurmountable difficulty of communication, the forts on the seaboard could not receive any aid from without, they united against them all their forces and all their means. And indeed three of these forts fell, but fell with a glory that won for their defenders the admiration and even the respect of their fierce enemies. The valiant efforts of the other garrisons were crowned with better success. They have all withstood the desperate and often-repeated attacks of the mountaineers, and held out unsubdued until it was possible to send them succours.
"In this struggle between a handful of Russian soldiers and a determined and enterprising enemy, ten and even twenty times their superiors in number, the high deeds of the garrisons of the Veliaminof and Michael redoubts, and the defence of forts Navaguinsky and Abinsky, merit particular attention. The first of these redoubts was taken by the mountaineers on the 29th of last February. At daybreak, taking advantage of the localities, and concealed by the morning mist, their bands, more than 7000 strong, approached the entrenchments unperceived, and rushed impetuously to the assault. Repeatedly overthrown, they returned each time furiously to the charge, and after a long conflict finally remained masters of the rampart. The garrison, rejecting all proposals to surrender, continued with invincible courage a combat thenceforth without hope, preferring to find in it a glorious death; and all fell with the exception of some invalid soldiers, who were made prisoners by the mountaineers. The latter, in token of respect for the defenders of the redoubt, took home with them some of them whom there still appeared a chance of saving. The garrison of the Veliaminof redoubt consisted of 400 men of all ranks. The loss of the mountaineers amounted, in killed alone, to 900 men.
"On the morning of the 22nd of March, the mountaineers, to the number of more than 11,000 men, attacked the Michael redoubt, the garrison of which counted but 480 men under arms. Its brave commander, Second-captain Lico, of the battalion No. 5 of the Cossacks of the frontier line of the Black Sea, having learned the intentions of the enemy, had made preparations for vigorously resisting his attempts. Seeing the impossibility of receiving timely succour, he had nails prepared to spike his cannons, in case the rampart should be carried, and had aréduitconstructed in the interior of the redoubt, with planks, tubs, and other suitable materials. Then collecting his whole garrison, officers and soldiers, he proposed tothem to blow up the powder magazine, if they did not succeed in repulsing the enemy. The proposal was received with an enthusiasm which the subsequent conduct of the garrison proved to be genuine. The mountaineers were received with a most destructive fire by the artillery of the fort, and could not make themselves masters of the rampart until after an hour and half of fighting, in which they suffered considerable loss. The heroic efforts of the garrison having forced them back into the ditch, they took to flight; but the mountain horsemen, who had remained on the watch at a certain distance, fell with their sabres on the fugitives; and the latter, seeing inevitable death on either hand, returned to the assault, drove the garrison from the rampart, and forced it to retire into theréduit, after it had set fire to all the stores and provisions of every kind that were in the redoubt. Sharp-shooting went on for half an hour; the firing then ceased, and the mountaineers were beginning to congratulate themselves on their victory, when the powder magazine blew up.[62]The garrison perished in accomplishing this act, memorable in military annals; but with it perished all the mountaineers who were in the redoubt. The details of the defence of the Veliaminof and Michael redoubts have been divulged by the mountaineers themselves, and by some soldiers who have escaped from slavery among them. The services of the heroes who died thus on the field of honour, have been honoured by his majesty the emperor, in the persons of their families; whose livelihood has been insured, and whose children will be brought up at the expense of the state. These redoubts are now once more occupied by the detachment of troops operating on the eastern coasts of the Black Sea.
"The Navaguinsky fort has often been subjected to the attacks of the mountaineers; but they have always been repulsed with the same valour and steadiness. In one of these attacks, the mountaineers, availing themselves of the darkness of night, and the noise of a tempest, approached the fort without being perceived by the sentinels, surrounded it on all sides, sprang suddenly to the assault with ladders and hooks, made themselves masters of part of the rampart, and got into the fort. Captain Podgoursky, its brave commandant, and Lieutenant Jacovlev, then advanced against them with a part of the garrison. Both were killed on the spot, but their death in no degree checked the ardour of the soldiers, who fell upon the enemy with the bayonet, and drove them into the ditch. The fight was maintained with the same enthusiasm on all the other points of the fortifications, and the invalids themselves voluntarily turned out from the hospital and took part in it. At daybreak, after three hours hard fighting, the fort was clearedof the enemy, who left in it a considerable number of killed and wounded.
"On the 26th of May, the Abinsky fort, situated between the Kouban and the shore of the Black Sea, was surrounded at two in the morning by a body of mountaineers 12,000 strong, who had assembled in the vicinity, and suddenly assaulted the fort with loud shouts, and discharges from their rifles. The hail of bullets, hand-grenades, and grape-shot with which they were received did not check their ardour. Full of temerity and contempt of death, they descended with marvellous promptitude and agility into the ditch, and began to scale the rampart, thus blindly seeking sure destruction. The warriors, clad in coats of mail, penetrated repeatedly into the entrenchment, but were each time killed or driven back. At last, in spite of all the efforts of the garrison, a numerous party found their way into the interior of a bastion, and flung themselves with flags unfurled into the interior of the fort. Colonel Vecelofsky, the commandant, retaining all his presence of mind at this critical moment, charged the enemy at the bayonet point, with a reserve he had kept, of 40 men, and drove them out of the entrenchment, after capturing two of their flags. This brilliant feat checked the audacity of the assailants, and inflamed the courage of the garrison to the highest pitch. The enemy, beaten on all points, took flight, carrying off their dead, according to the custom of the Asiatics. Ten of their wounded remained in the hands of the garrison, who found 685 dead in the interior of the fort and in the ditches. The number of those whom the mountaineers carried off to bury at home, was doubtless still more considerable. The loss on our side was nine killed and eighteen wounded.
"At the time of the attack, the garrison of the Abinsky fort consisted of a superior officer, fifteen officers, and 676 soldiers. The numerical weakness of this force, proves of itself the extraordinary intrepidity of all comprised in it, officers and soldiers, and their unanimous resolution to defend with unswerving firmness the ramparts confided to their courage."
It seems to us superfluous to offer any comment on this heroic bulletin. We shall merely observe, that the most serious losses, the destruction of the new road from the Kouban, the taking of fort St. Nicholas, and that of several other forts, have been entirely forgotten in the official statement, and no facts mentioned, but those which might be interpreted in favour of Russia's military glory.
On the eastern side of the mountain the war was fully as disastrous for the invaders. The imperial army lost 400 petty officers and soldiers, and twenty-nine officers in the battle of Valrik against the Tchetchenzes. The military colonies of the Terek were attacked and plundered, and when General Golovin retired to his winter quarters at the end of the campaign, he had lost more than three-fourths of his men.
The Great Kabarda did not remain an indifferent spectator of the offensive league formed by the tribes of the Caucasus; and when Russia, suspecting with reason the unfriendly disposition of some tribes, made an armed exploration on the banks of the Laba in order to construct redoubts, and thus cut off the subjugated tribes from the others, the general found the country, wherever he advanced, but a desert. All the inhabitants had already retired to the other side of the Laba to join their warlike neighbours.
Since that time fresh defeats have been made known through the press, and in spite of all the mystery in which the war of the Caucasus is sought to be wrapt, the truth has, nevertheless, transpired. The last military operations of Russia have been as unproductive as those that preceded them, and prove that no change has taken place in the belligerents respectively. Thus we see that in despite of the resources of the empire, and of the indomitable obstinacy of the emperor, the position of Russia in the Caucasus has been quite stationary for sixty years.
In considering this long series of disasters and unavailing efforts, we are naturally led to inquire what have been the causes of this want of success? We have already mentioned the topographical character of the country, and the difficulties encountered by an invading army in regions not accessible by the valleys, and we have given such details of the manners and character of the mountaineers as may enable the reader to conceive the obstinate and formidable nature of their resistance. Nevertheless, seeing the absolute power of Nicholas, and the intense importance he attaches to the conquest of the Caucasus, it is difficult to admit that obstacles arising out of the nature of the ground and the character of the population could not have been overcome in a region so limited, if there were not other and more potent causes continually at work to impede the military operations of Russia. These causes reside chiefly in the deplorable state and constitution of the imperial armies.
In Russia there is no distinct commissariat department under disinterested control, whether of the government or of superior officers. It is the colonel himself of each regiment who provides the rations, and as he is subject to no control, but acts really with despotic authority, both he and his contractors have the amplest possible opportunity to cheat the government and enrich themselves at the expense of the troops. There are regiments in the Caucasus that bring in from 80,000 to 100,000 francs to the colonel. As for the subaltern officers, military submission on the one hand, and the scantiness of their pay on the other, make them always ready to participate in their commander's infamous speculations. What is the result of this wretched corruption? It is that, notwithstanding the high prices paid by the government, the contractors continue to send to the Caucasus the most unwholesome stores, and grains almost always heated or quite spoiled; for it is only in this way they can realise sufficient profits to be able to satisfy the cupidity of theirconfederates, the officers. I knew several merchants of Theodosia in the Crimea, men of honour, who refused to have any thing to do with military supplies, because they found it impossible to make the colonels and generals accept sound articles.
This official robbery is nowhere carried on in a more scandalous manner than in the Caucasus. It is there regularly established, and one may conjecture the hardships and privations of the soldier from seeing the luxurious tables of the lowest officers, most of whom have but from 1000 or 1200 rubles yearly pay. Certainly there are few sovereigns who take more heed than Nicholas to the physical welfare of their soldiers, and we must give full credit to his generous intentions in this respect; but these are completely defeated by the corruption of his officers and civil servants, by the total want of publicity, and by that base servility which will always hinder an inferior from accusing his superior. I have been present at several military inspections made by general officers in the Caucasus, but never heard the least complaint made by the soldiers; and when the general, calling them by companies round him in a circle, questioned them respecting their victuals, they all invariably replied in chorus, that they had nothing to complain of, and were as well treated as possible. Their colonel's eye was upon them, and they knew what the least word of complaint would have cost them; yet they were dying by hundreds of scurvy, and other diseases engendered by unwholesome food.
The government usually makes large purchases of butter in Siberia for the army of the Caucasus; but this butter which would be of such great utility in the military hospitals, and which costs as much as sixty-five francs the twenty kilogrammes, very seldom passes further than Taganrok, where it is sold in retail, and its place supplied with the worst substitute that can be had. Nor does the robbery end there. The butter fabricated in Taganrok is again made matter of speculation in the Caucasus, and finally not a particle reaches the sick and drooping soldiers. The other good provisions undergo nearly the same course.
When I was at Theodosia in 1840, there were in the military hospital of the town 15,000 invalids, who were all dying for want of attendance and good medicine. A Courland general (whom I could name) justly incensed at these abuses, sent in a strong report of them directly to the emperor; and twenty days afterwards, a superior officer, despatched by the emperor himself, arrived on the spot. But the people about the hospital were rich; they had taken their measures, and the result of this mission, which looked so threatening at first, was a report extremely satisfactory as to the zeal of the managers and the sanatory condition of the establishment. The general was severely reprimanded, almost disgraced, and the robbers continued to merit official encomiums. I did not hear that they were rewarded by the government.
The most frightful mortality prevails among the troops in theCaucasus; whole divisions disappear in the space of a few months, and the army is used up and wholly renewed every three or four years. It is especially in the small forts on the seaboard, where the mischiefs of bad food are increased by almost total isolation, that diseases make frightful havoc, particularly scurvy. In the spring of 1840, the twelfth division marched to occupy the redoubts on the coasts of Circassia, and its effective number was 12,000 men, quite an extraordinary circumstance. Four months afterwards it was recalled to take part in the expedition at that time projected against the Viceroy of Egypt. When it landed at Sevastopol it was reduced to 1500 men. In the same year the commander-in-chief, in visiting the forts of the seaboard, found but nine men fit for service out of 300 that composed the garrison of Soukhoum Kaleh. According to official returns, the average deaths on the seaboard of Circassia in 1841 and 1842, were 17,000 in each year.
Is it to be wondered that with such a military administration, Russia makes no progress in the Caucasus? What can be expected of armies in which want of all necessaries and total disregard for the lives of men are the order of the day? The divisions and regiments in the Caucasus are in a state of permanent disorganisation, and the courage and activity of the troops sink altogether under the influence of the diseases by which they are incessantly mowed down. It needs all the force of discipline, all the stoic self-denial of the soldier, and, above all, the incessant renovation of the garrisons, to hinder the Russians from being driven out of all their positions.
People often ask with surprise why Russia does not take the field with 200,000 or even 300,000 men at once. We have already given sufficiently circumstantial details on the topography of the Caucasus, to enable every one to perceive immediately how difficult it is to employ large armies in regions so inaccessible, and so wonderfully defended by nature. Nor, on the other hand, must it be forgotten that the official strength of the army of the Caucasus is always at least 160,000 men. Its real strength, indeed, very seldom exceeds 80,000; but its proportion to the grand total of the imperial forces, paid as if they were at the full, still remains the same, and it is impossible, under existing circumstances, that the government should augment the number of its troops without most seriously increasing the already embarrassed condition of the finances. Another consideration of still greater weight is, that the movements of large armies are attended with extreme difficulty in Russia, to a degree unknown in any other country of Europe. In all the discussions that are held on the subject of the war in the Caucasus, the immense difficulties of the transport of men, military stores, and provisions, have never been taken into account, and people have always reasoned as if the Caucasus was situated in the midst of the tzar's dominions. A glance at the map of Russia will suffice to show, that those mountains lying on the most southern verge of the empire, are separated by real deserts from the great centres of theRussian population, and that to repair to the banks of the Kouban from the first governments where troops are recruited, they must traverse more than 150 leagues of country inhabited by Cossacks and Kalmucks, in which the nature of the soil and of the inhabitants forbids any cantonment of reserves.
Moreover we must not forget the difficulties of the climate. The fine season barely lasts four months in Russia. The roads are impassable for pedestrians in spring and autumn, and during the winter the cold is too severe, the days too short, the snow-storms often too prolonged to allow of putting regiments on the march, not to say sending them to the Caucasus across the uncultivated and desert plains that stretch between the Sea of Azof and the Caspian. The route by sea is equally impracticable. No use can be made of the Caspian on account of the arid and unproductive steppes that belt it on the Russian side. Astrakhan, the only town situated on that part of the coast, is obliged to fetch its provisions from a distance of 200 leagues. The Black Sea is, indeed, more favourably circumstanced; but it only affords communication with the forts on the Circassian side; and the mountaineers always wait to make their attacks in the season of rough weather, during which navigation is usually suspended, and it is exceedingly difficult to reinforce and victual the garrisons. The tediousness and difficulty of conveying stores is the same by land. With the exception of the forts of Circassia, supplied directly from the ports of Odessa, Theodosia, and Kertch, all the garrisons of the Caucasus receive their supplies from the nearly central provinces of the empire. Thus the materials destined for the army of the Terek and of Daghestan arrive first in Astrakhan, after a voyage of more than 200 leagues down the Volga; and then they are forwarded by sea for the most part to Koumskaia, on the mouth of the Kouma, where they are taken up by the Turcomans on their little ox-carts, impressed for the service, and reach their final destination after fifteen or twenty days' travelling. The mode of proceeding is still more tedious and expensive for the implements andmatérielof war which arrive from Siberia only once a year, during the spring floods of the Volga, the Don, and the Dniepr. Such obstacles render it impossible to augment the forces employed on the Caucasus. France is infinitely better circumstanced with regard to Algeria. We have nothing to prevent our keeping up strong military stations on the Mediterranean shore. We can at any moment command the means of rapidly transporting to Africa whatever forces may be required by ordinary or unforeseen circumstances. We will by and by return to the war in Algeria, as compared with that which the Russians are carrying on in the Caucasus.
We have yet to speak of another cause of weakness to the Russian arms, and one which is the more serious as it operates exclusively on themoralof the soldiers. Russia has made the Caucasus a place of transportation, a regular Botany Bay for all the rogues in the empire, and for those who by their acts or their political opinions,have incurred the wrath of the tzar. In reference to this subject, we will mention a fact which may seem hard to believe, but which I attest as an eye-witness. In 1840, the fifteenth division, commanded by Lieutenant-General S——, received orders to march to the Caucasus. On leaving Taganrok, it was about 1200 short of its complement, and its deficiency was supplied from the prisons of southern Russia. Robbers, pickpockets, vagabonds, and soldiers that had been flogged and degraded, were marched into Taganrok, and incorporated with the regiments which were about to begin the campaign. These singular recruits were put under the keeping of the soldiers, and each of them, according to his supposed degree of rascality, was guarded by two, three, or four men. Surely themoralof the Russian troops is sufficiently jeopardised by the social and military institutions of the empire, and it cannot be prudent so deeply to debase the soldier by associating him with thieves and highway robbers, and to change the toilsome wars of the Caucasus into a means of punishment, I may say of destruction, for political offenders and real criminals. Furthermore, a conflict so prolonged, so disastrous, and that for so many years has been without any tangible result, must inevitably have the worst effect on the minds of troops who are not actuated either by the sense of glory or honour, or by the feeling that they are defending the right. We have visited the Caucasus at various times, and never did we meet one officer who was heartily attached to the service in which he was engaged. Despondency is universal, and many expeditions against the mountaineers have been marked by a total absence of discipline. The soldiers have often refused to march, and have suffered themselves to be massacred by their officers, rather than advance a foot.
The Caucasus has also become a place of exile for a great number of Poles. After the revolution of 1831, the Russian government committed the blunder of sending to the Kouban most of the regiments compromised in that ill-fated effort. The result was very easy to foresee; desertion soon began in the ranks of the outlaws, and it is now known beyond a doubt that the Tcherkesses have Poles among them, who instruct them in the art of war, endeavour to create an artillery for them with the pieces captured from the Russians, and labour actively to allay the dissensions between the various tribes. General Grabe himself assured me that he had seen in several places fortifications which he recognised as quite modern. He had also in his campaign of 1840 remarked a more compact and better concerted resistance on the part of the Circassians, and often a remarkable degree of combined action in their attacks.
We have not much to say about the military tactics employed by Russia in this war; in point of science it presents no very striking features, but on the contrary, cannot but give a very low idea of the merit of the imperial generals. At first it was expected that the conquest would be effected by hemming in the mountaineers with military lines, and gradually encroaching on their territory;but this very costly system seems to me quite impracticable in a country in which the forts are always solitary, and cannot protect each other, or cross their fires. I do not know, however, whether it has been quite given up.
Attempts were made in 1837 to set fire to the forests of the Caucasus by means of pitch. Three years afterwards it was hoped to effect their destruction by arming the men of the 15th division with axes; but these strange expedients only produced useless expenditure. I know a general of the highest personal courage, who calls in the aid of natural philosophy to beguile or awe the mountaineers. Whenever he receives a visit from chiefs whose fidelity he is inclined to suspect, he sets an electrical machine in play. His visitors feel violent shocks, they know not how, their beards and hair stand on end, and in the bewilderment caused by these mysterious visitations, they sometimes let out an important secret, and betray themselves to their enemy.
An officer of engineers told me an anecdote of this same general which is worth recording. A mosque which the Russian government had built at its own expense for a tribe of Little Kabarda was to be inaugurated, and as usual there was a grand military parade in honour of the occasion. When the Kabardians had displayed all their address in horsemanship and shooting, the Russian general proceeded to give a sample of what he could do, and to strike the assembled tribes with amazement. He called for his double-barrelled gun, and having himself charged one of the barrels with ball, he ordered a pigeon to be let loose, which he instantly brought down, to the astonishment of the beholders. "That is not all," said he to the chiefs near him; "to shoot a pigeon flying is no very extraordinary feat; but to cut off his head with the ball is what I call good shooting." Then turning to his servant, he said something to him in German. The man went and picked up the bird, and when he held it out to view, it was seen to be beheaded just as the general had said. Unbounded was the admiration of the simple mountaineers; they looked on the general as a supernatural being, and nothing was talked of for many a day in the aouls, but the beheaded pigeon and the wonderful Russian marksman.
Now to explain the enigma. The inhabitants of the Caucasus are ignorant of the use of small shot, and it was with this the general had accomplished his surprising exploit, having previously loaded one barrel with it. As for the pigeon's head, it was adroitly whipped off by the servant, who had received his orders to that effect in German.
But it would be idle to expect that the shrewd good sense of the mountaineers will long be imposed on by the scientific accomplishments of the Russian generals; on the contrary, these curious expedients only give them increased confidence in their own strength. Yermoloff appears to us to have been the only governor who understood the nature of the war in the Caucasus, and who conducted affairs withthe dignified and inflexible vigour which were fitted to make an impression on the tribes. Several commanders-in-chief have succeeded him in turns: Rosen, Golovin, Grabe, Raiefsky, Anrep, Neughart; but the government has gained nothing by all these changes.
After the details we have given, comments and arguments would be almost superfluous: it is easy to conceive how critical is the situation of the Russians in the Caucasian regions. For twenty years the Emperor Nicholas has expended all the military genius of his empire, shrinking from no sacrifice of men or money, and employing generals of the highest reputation, and yet the might of his sovereign will has broken down before the difficulties we have pointed out. The tribes of the mountain are, on the contrary, growing stronger every day. They are making progress in the art of war; success fires their zeal; the old intestine discords are gradually disappearing, and the various tribes seem to feel the necessity of acting in concert, and uniting under one banner. Now can Russia, under existing circumstances, increase her chances of success? We think not, and the facts sufficiently corroborate our opinion. With his system of war and absolute dominion, the tzar has entangled himself in a hopeless maze, and the Caucasus will long remain a running sore to the empire, a bottomless pit to swallow up many an army and much treasure. It has often been proposed to renounce the present system, but the emperor's vanity will not admit of any pacific counsels. Besides, even if Russia were now willing to change the nature of her relations with the independent tribes, she could not do so. Her overtures would be regarded as tokens of weakness, and the mountaineers would only become so much the more enterprising.
In Alexander's time, when warlike ideas were less in favour, it was proposed to establish a commercial intercourse with the Tcherkesses, and bring them gradually by pacific means to acknowledge the supremacy of Russia. A Genoese, named Scassi, proposed in 1813 to the Duc de Richelieu, governor of Odessa, a plan for a commercial settlement on the coasts of Circassia. His scheme was adopted, and a merchant vessel touched soon afterwards at Guelendchik and Pchiat, without meeting with any hindrance on the part of the inhabitants. A trade was soon established, but the disorderly conduct of the Russians aroused the jealousy of the Circassians, who soon burned and destroyed the factory at Pchiat, and the government, whether justly or not, treated Scassi as a culprit. Since that time there has been no thought of commerce or pacification, and the tribes of the Caucasus have been regarded only as rebels to be put down, not as a free people justly jealous of their privileges. Frequent conferences have taken place between the Russian generals and the mountain chiefs; but as the one party talked only of liberty and independence, and the other of nothing but submission and implicit obedience, hostilities always broke out again with fresh vehemence. It appears, however, from factsrecently communicated to me, that the emperor is at last disposed to give up his warlike system, and that his generals have at last received orders to act only on the defensive.[63]But as the government, whilst adopting these new measures, still loudly proclaims its rights of sovereignty over the Caucasus, it follows that this change of policy is quite illusory, and cannot effect any kind of reconciliation between the Russians and the mountaineers.
We now come to the point at which we may advert to a question which set the whole English press in a blaze in 1837; namely, the blockade of the Circassian coasts, and the pretensions of Russia as to that part of the Caucasus. It is evident that the tzar's government being at open war with the mountaineers, may at its pleasure intercept the foreign trade with the enemy's country. This is an incontestible right recognised by all nations, and the capture of theVixenwas not worth the noise that was made about it. As to the proprietary right to the country which Russia affects to have received from Turkey, through the treaty of Adrianople, it is totally fallacious, and is unsupported by any historical document or positive fact. It is fully demonstrated that Turkey never possessed any right over Circassia; she had merely erected on the seaboard, with the consent of the inhabitants, the two fortresses of Anapa and Soudjouk Kaleh, for the protection of the trade between the two countries. Russia herself, in the beginning, publicly acknowledged this state of things; and the evidence of her having done so is to be found in the general depôt of the maps of the empire. Chance threw into my hands a map of the Caucasus, drawn up by the Russian engineers, long prior to the treaty of Adrianople. The Turkish possessions are distinctly marked on it, and defined by a red boundary line; they consist solely, as we have just stated, of the two fortresses on the coast. This map, the existence of which one day sorely surprised Count Voronzof (governor-general of New Russia), was sent to England, and deposited in the Foreign Office during Lord Palmerston's administration. After all, I hardly know why Russia tries to avail herself of the treaty of Adrianople as a justification in the eyes of Europe of her schemes of conquest in the Caucasus. She is doing there only what we are doing in Algeria, and the English in India, and indeed with still greater reason; for, as we shall presently see, the possession of the Caucasus is a question vitally affecting her interests in her trans-Caucasian provinces, and her ulterior projects respecting the regions dependent on Persia and Central Asia.
Here are the terms in which this subject is handled in a report printed at St. Petersburg, and addressed to the emperor after the expedition of General Emmanuel towards the Elbrouz, in 1829:
"The Tcherkesses bar out Russia from the South, and may at their pleasure open or close the passage to the nations of Asia.At present their intestine dissensions, fostered by Russia, hinder them from uniting under one leader; but it must not be forgotten that according to traditions religiously preserved among them, the sway of their ancestors extended as far as to the Black Sea. They believe that a mighty people, descended from their ancestors, and whose existence is corroborated by the ruins of Madjar, has once already overrun the fine plains adjacent to the Danube, and finally settled in Pannonia. Add to this consideration their superiority in arms. Perfect horsemen, extremely well armed, inured to war by the continual freebooting they exercise against their neighbours, courageous, and disdaining the advantages of our civilisation, the imagination is appalled at the consequences which their union under one leader might have for Russia, which has no other bulwark against their ravages than a military line, too extensive to be very strong."
Reflections like these, printed in St. Petersburg, can leave no doubt as to the dangers to which the southern provinces are exposed. They are not to be mistaken, and the government sees them clearly: the aggressive independence of the Caucasus is perilous to all Russia. Armed, courageous, and enterprising as they are, the mountaineers need only some degree of union among their chiefs, to carry the flames of revolt over a vast portion of the tzar's dominions.
Let any one look fairly and impartially at the immense region comprised between the Danube and the Caspian, and what will he behold? To the east 40,000 tents of Khirghis, Turcomans, and Kalmucks, robbed of all their ancient rights, or threatened with the loss of the remnant yet left them of their independence; in the centre 800,000 Cossacks bound to the most onerous military service, tormented by the recollection of their suppressed constitutions, and detesting a government whose efforts tend to extinguish every trace of their nationality; in the south and west the Tatars of the Crimea and the Sea of Azof, and the Bessarabians, who are far from being favourable to Russia; and lastly, beyond the Caucasus, in Asia, restless populations, ill-broken as yet to the Russian yoke, and possessions with which there exists no overland communication except that by way of Mozdok, a dangerous route, which cannot be traversed without an escort of infantry and artillery, and which the mountaineers may at any moment intercept.[64]Here, assuredly, are causes enough of disorganisation and ruin, that want only a man of genius to set them in action. What wonder is it that with such contingencies to apprehend, the empire recoils from no sacrifice!
No one, we believe, will deny the schemes of conquest which the Muscovite government entertains regarding Turkey, Persia, andeven certain regions of India: these schemes are incontestible, and have long been matter of history. The fact being admitted, what is the position most favourable for these vast plans of aggrandisement? We have but to glance at the map to answer immediately: the regions beyond the Caucasus. There it is that Russia is in contact at once with the Caspian and the Black Sea, with Persia and Turkey; from thence she can with the same army dictate laws to the Sultan of Constantinople, and to the Shah of Teheran; and there her diplomacy finds an ample field to work, and continual pretexts to justify fresh encroachments. But this formidable position will never be truly and securely possessed by the tzars until the tribes of the Caucasus shall have been subjugated.
When the empire acquired all those Asiatic provinces, its situation as to the Caucasus was far from being so critical as it now is. It is, in fact, only within the last fourteen or fifteen years that the fierce struggle has raged between Muscovite domination and the freedom of the mountain. I therefore much doubt that Russia would now venture to act towards Persia as she did in the time of Catherine II., and her successors. Her hostile attitude has been strikingly modified since she has had in her rear a foe so active and dangerous as the Caucasians. This is a consideration that may ease the minds of the English as to their possessions in India, for the road by Herat and Affghanistan will not be so very soon open to their rivals. There can be no question then respecting the great importance of the Caucasus to Russia. The independence of the mountaineers is perilous to her southern governments, compromises the safety and the future destiny of the trans-Caucasian provinces, and at the same time fetters and completely paralyses the ambition of the tzar. It is in this sense the question is likewise regarded by the court of Teheran, which now builds its whole hope of safety on the entanglements of Russia in the Caucasus.
And now let us ask what is the work which Russia is doing beyond the Caucasus for the advantage or detriment of mankind? What, independently of her ambition and her tendencies, is the influence she is called to exercise over the actual and future lot of the nations she has subjected to her sway? It must be admitted that when the imperial armies appeared for the first time on the confines of Asia, the trans-Caucasian provinces were abandoned without defence or hope for the future to all the sanguinary horrors of anarchy. Turkey, Persia, and the mountain tribes rioted in the plunder of Georgia and the adjacent states. The advent of the Russians put an end to this sad state of things, and introduced a condition of peace and quiet unknown for many centuries before. The imperial government, it is true, brought with it its vices, its abuses, its vexations, and its hosts of greedy and plundering functionaries; and then, when the first heyday of delight at the enjoyment of personal safety was past, the inhabitants had other hardships to deplore. Nevertheless, the depredations committed by itsfunctionaries will never prevent the inevitable tendency of the Muscovite occupation to bring about an intellectual development, which, soon or late, will act most favourably on the future condition of those Asiatic regions. Christian populations, so active and enterprising as are those of the trans-Caucasian provinces, will infallibly begin a career of social improvement from the moment they find themselves released from the engrossing care of defending their bodily existence. Of course it will need many years to mature a movement which derives no aid from the too superficial and corrupt civilisation of Russia; nor has any thing worth mentioning been done as yet to promote the industry, commerce, and agriculture of a country, which only needs some share of freedom to be productive. Tiflis is far from having fulfilled the prophecy of Count Gamba, in 1820, and become a second Palmyra or Alexandria; on the contrary, every measure has been adopted that could extinguish the very germs of the national wealth. But humanity, mysterious in its ways, and slow in its progress, seldom keeps pace with the impatience of nations; and notwithstanding the new evils that in our day afflict the trans-Caucasian populations, we are convinced that it was a grand step in advance for them to have been withdrawn from the anarchical sway of Persia and Turkey, and to have had the personal safety of their inhabitants secured by the intervention and authority of Russia.[65]
The conquest of India by the Russians has often been the theme of long discussions and elaborate hypotheses. England was very uneasy at the attempts on Khiva, and never meets with a single difficulty in Affghanistan without ascribing it to Muscovite agents. It is, therefore, worth while to consider what are the means and facilities at the command of Russia for the establishment of her dominion in the centre of Turkistan and on the banks of the Indus and the Ganges.
Three points of departure and three routes present themselves to Russia for the invasion of Central Asia. On the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea, Manghishlak, Tuk Karakhan, and the Bay of Balkhan, communicate with Khiva by caravan routes; Orenburg to the north is in pretty regular communication with Khiva and Bokhara; and to the south the Caspian provinces trade with Affghanistan either by way of Meshed, Bokhara, and Balkh, or by Meshed, Bokhara, and Candahar.
The first line that was taken by a Russian expedition was that from Tuk Kharakhan to Khiva. Prince Alexander Bekovitch was sent by Peter the Great to explore certain regions of the Khanat of Khiva, which were supposed to contain rich gold mines, and landed on the Caspian shore with about 3,000 men. The result wasdisastrous; but the details are too well known to need repetition here. No new demonstration has since been made in that direction, and it appears to have been with good reason abandoned entirely. The eastern shores of the Caspian have been sufficiently explored to make it clear that they cannot be made the starting point of military operations against Turkistan. From the mouth of the Emba to the vicinity of Astrabad, the shore is without a river; and the whole seaboard, as well as the regions between the Caspian and Khiva, with the exception of a very small tract occupied by the Balkhan mountains, presents only barren desert plains, without water, occupied by nomade Turcomans, and affording no resources to an invading army. "This country," says Mouravief, "exhibits the image of death, or rather of the desolation left behind by a mighty convulsion of nature. Neither birds nor quadrupeds are found in it; no verdure or vegetation cheers the sight, except here and there at long intervals some spots on which there grow a few sickly stunted shrubs." It is reckoned that on an average a caravan employs from twenty-eight to thirty-five days of camel-marching to complete the distance of about two hundred leagues that divides Tuk Karakhan from Khiva. The journey is not quite so long from the Bay of Balkhan. This was the route taken by Captain Mouravief when he was sent by Yermolof to the Khan of Khiva, to propose to him an alliance with Russia. It would certainly be hard to conceive any conditions more unfavourable for an expedition towards the interior than are presented by this part of the coast. On the one side is the Caspian Sea, the navigation of which is at all times difficult, and in winter impossible; on the other side more than a month's march through the desert; and then on the coast itself there is a total impossibility of cantoning a reserved force. Under these circumstances, all schemes of conquest in this direction must be chimerical. The Russians no doubt might, by a clevercoup-de-main, push forwards some thousands of men on Khiva, and take the town; but what would they gain thereby? How could they victual their troops; or how could they establish any safe line of transport across deserts traversed by flying hordes of warlike plunderers? Russia could not possibly dispense with a series of fortified posts to keep up a regular communication with her army of occupation, and how could she erect and maintain such posts in a naked and wholly unproductive country? The government has already tried to establish some small forts on the north-eastern shore of the Caspian, for the protection of its fisheries, against the Khirghis; but to this day it has effected nothing thereby, but the useless destruction of many thousands of its soldiers, who have perished under the most cruel hardships. Furthermore, the Khanat of Khiva, the state nearest the imperial frontiers, is but a very small part of Turkistan; nor would its occupation help in more than a very limited degree towards the conquest of Bokhara, anda fortioritowards that of Affghanistan.
After the line from the eastern coast of the Caspian, that from Orenburg to Khiva and Bokhara appears to have attracted the particular attention of the tzars. But General Perofsky's fruitless expedition against Khiva, in 1840, has demonstrated that this line is quite as perilous and difficult as the other. The steppes that lie between Russia and the two khanats are exactly similar to those situated north and east of the Caspian, presenting the same nakedness and sterility, an almost total want of fresh water, and nomade tribes perpetually engaged in rapine. When State Councillor Negri was sent on an embassy to the Khan of Bokhara, in 1820, he set out accompanied by 200 Cossacks, 200 infantry, twenty-five Bashkir horsemen, two pieces of artillery, 400 horses, and 358 camels. The government afforded him every possible facility and means of transport, and he took with him more than two months' rations for his men and cattle. Yet though he met with no obstruction on the part of the hordes whose steppes he traversed, he was not less than seventy-one days in completing the journey of 1600 kilometres (1000 miles) from Orenburg to Bokhara.
Perofsky, who marched at the head of 6000 infantry, with 10,000 baggage camels, could not even reach the territory of Khiva. The disasters suffered by his troops obliged him to retrace his steps without having advanced further than Ac Boulak, the last outpost erected by the Russians in 1839, at 180 kilometres from the Emba. The obstacles encountered by his small army were beyond all description. The cold was fearful, being 40 degrees below zero of the centigrade thermometer; the camels could scarcely advance through the snow; and the movements of the troops were constantly impeded by hurricanes of extraordinary violence. Such an expedition, undertaken in the depth of winter, solely for the purpose of having fresh water, may enable one to guess at the difficulties of a march over the same ground in summer. Spring is a season unknown in all those immense plains of southern Russia; intense frost is there succeeded abruptly by tropical heat, and a fortnight is generally sufficient to dry up the small streams and the stagnant waters produced by the melting of the snows, and to scorch up the thin coating of pasturage that for a brief while had covered the steppes. What chance then has Russia of successfully invading Turkistan from the north, and reigning supreme over Bokhara, which is separated from Orenburg by 400 leagues of desert? All that has been done, and all that has been observed up to this day, proves that the notion is preposterous. As for any compact and amity between Russia and the numerous Kirghis hordes, such as might favour the march of the imperial armies in Bokhara, no such thing is to be expected. A great deal has been said of the Emperor Alexander's journey to Orenburg in 1824, and the efforts then made by the government to conciliate the Kirghis; but these proceedings have been greatly exaggerated, and represented as much more important than they really were. They have not produced any substantialresult, and I know from my own experience how hostile to Russia are all the roving tribes of the Caspian, and how much they detest whatever menaces their freedom and independence.
We have now to consider in the last place the two great Persian routes, which coincide, or run parallel, with each other, as far as Meshed, where they branch off to Bokhara on the one hand, and on the other to Cabul by Herat and Candahar. The former of these routes, travelled over by Alexander Burnes, seems to us totally impracticable. The distance to Bokhara from Teheran (which we will assume for the starting point, though it is still the capital of Persia) is not less than 500 leagues; and it cannot reasonably be supposed possible to effect, and above all to preserve, a conquest so remote, when in order to reach the heart of the coveted country, it is necessary to traverse the vast deserts north of Meshed, occupied by nomade hordes, which are the more formidable, inasmuch as no kind of military tactics can be brought to bear on them. Moreover, it must not be forgotten that the occupation of Bokhara by no means infers that of Affghanistan. The distance from the former to Cabul is more than 250 leagues. The regions between the two towns are indeed less sterile and easier to traverse; but, on the other hand, an army marching towards India would have to penetrate the dangerous passes of the high mountain chain between Turkistan and Affghanistan, which are defended by the most indomitable tribes of Central Asia. Here would be repeated those struggles in which Russia has been vainly exhausting her strength for so many years in the Caucasus.[66]In truth, in presence of such obstacles, of ground, climate, population, and distance, all discussion becomes superfluous, and the question must appear decided in the negative by every impartial man who possesses any precise notions as to the regions of Western Asia.
There remains the route by Meshed, Herat, and Candahar. This is incontestably the one which presents fewest difficulties; yet we doubt that it can ever serve the ambitious views attributed to Russia. Along the line from Teheran to Herat lie important centres of agricultural populations; villages are found on it surrounded by a fertile and productive soil. But these advantages, besides being very limited, are largely counterbalanced by uncultivated plains destitute of water which must be traversed in passing from one inhabited spot to another, and by the obstacles of all kinds which would be subsequently encountered in a march through the deserts of Affghanistan, the warlike tribes of which are much more formidable even than the Turcomans who infest the route from Teheran to Herat. Besides, as it is nearly 600 leagues from the capital of Persia to the centre of Affghanistan, it is exceedingly unlikely that Russia willever succeed in subjugating a country in which its armies could only arrive by a military road maintained and defended through so huge a space.
No doubt the way would be considerably smoothed for Russia along both the Candahar and the Bokhara lines, if by gradually extending the circle of her conquests she had brought the inhabitants of Khorasan and Turkistan to obey her. But there are obstacles to the achievement of this preliminary task which the empire is not by any means competent to surmount, nor will it be so for a very long time to come. To say nothing of climate, soil, and distance, all the tribes in question are animated with a hatred and aversion for Russia, which will long neutralise the projects of the tzars. We often hear of the great influence exercised by the cabinet of St. Petersburg at Khiva, Bokhara, and Cabul; but we believe it to be greatly exaggerated, and the history of the various Muscovite embassies proves most palpably that it is so. What did Negri and Mouravief effect at Khiva and Bokhara? They were both received with the most insulting distrust, prevented from holding any communication with the natives, and watched with a strictness which is only employed against an enemy. Mouravief even went near to pay for his embassy with his head. Was Russia more fortunate at Cabul? We think not. The remoteness of her dominions may cause her agents to be received with some degree of favour, especially at a time when the sovereign of Cabul finds himself exposed to the hostility of England. Yet it is not the less true that any serious attempt of Russia on Turkistan and the eastern regions of Persia would suddenly arouse the animosity of the Affghans and all their neighbours. We readily admit that the imperial government has it in its power, by its advice and its intrigues, to exercise a certain influence at Cabul, to the detriment of England; but that this influence can ever serve the extension of the Muscovite sway is what we utterly deny, knowing as we do the intense and unmitigable aversion to Russia which is felt by all the natives of Asia.
The conquests of Alexander the Great and of Genghis Khan have often been appealed to as proving how easy it would be for the tzars to follow in the footsteps of those great captains. Such language bespeaks on the part of the writers who have put it forth the most profound ignorance of the actual condition of the places and the inhabitants. When Alexander marched towards Bactriana to subjugate the last possessions of Persia, he left behind him rich and fertile countries, important Greek colonies, and nations entirely subdued; moreover, he marched at the head of an army consisting of natives of the south, possessing all the qualifications necessary for warfare in the latitudes of Central Asia. Furthermore, at that period the provinces of the Oxus contained numerous rich and flourishing towns, with inhabitants living in luxury, and little capable of resistance. Nevertheless, in spite of all the facilities and all the supplies which the country then offered to an invading army, its physicalconformation, broken and bounded by deserts both on the north and on the south, seems to have aided the efforts of its defenders to a remarkable degree. It was in fact in this remote part of Persia that the conqueror of Darius had to fight many a battle for the establishment of his transient sway. The same circumstances marked his march to India. Invasions have become still more difficult since his day, for all those regions once occupied by wealthy and agricultural nations have been ravaged and turned into deserts; scarcely do there exist a few traces of the ancient towns, and the populations subdued by Alexander have been succeeded by hordes of Khirgis, Turcomans, and Affghans, who would be for the Russians what the Scythians were for the King of Macedon and the other conquerors who tried to enslave their country.
The Mongol invasions can no more than Alexander's be regarded as a precedent for Russia. Inured to the fatigues of emigration, carrying all their ordinary habits into the camp, changing their country without changing their ways of life, unburdened by anymatérielof war, and never retarded by the slow and painful march of a body of infantry, the hordes of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane were singularly fitted for occupying and retaining possession of the immense plains of Turkistan, and realising the conquest of India.
Russia, on the contrary, is totally devoid of those grand means of sway which Alexander and the Mongols enjoyed. The Russians have nothing in common with the soldiers of antiquity and of the middle ages, and are placed in very different circumstances: they are natives of the coldest regions of the globe; they have no possible opportunity of previous acclimation, and they are separated from the frontiers of India by more than 500 leagues of almost desert country, in which the employment of infantry, wherein alone consists the real superiority of Europeans over Orientals, is impracticable.
And now, if we look to India, and to the people from whom the tzars propose to wrest its empire, we see Great Britain occupying all the towns on the coast and in the interior, mistress of the great rivers of the country, controlling millions of inhabitants by her irresistible political ascendency, having the richest and most productive countries of the world for the basis of her military operations, commanding acclimated European troops, and a powerful native army habituated to follow her banners; in a word, we see Great Britain placed in the most admirable position for defending her conquests, and repulsing any aggression of the northern nations, foreign to the soil of Hindustan and Central Asia. The fears of the English and the schemes of the Russians appear to us, therefore, alike chimerical. Undoubtedly, as we have already said, the intrigues of the government of St. Petersburg, may, like those of any other influential power, create difficulties and annoyances in Affghanistan and elsewhere; but the English rule will never be really in danger, until the time shall come when national ambitionand a desire of resistance shall have been kindled in the Hindu populations themselves.
Let us turn back to the Caucasus, of which we have not spoken in this discussion, though the independence of its tribes is in our opinion one of the most important obstacles to the aggrandisement of Russia in Asia; and let us imagine what are the immediate palpable interests which are at stake in the Trans-Caucasian regions for certain powers of Europe. Every one knows that Persia is become of late years the point of contact between England and Russia, the scene of competition between the two nations for the disposal of their merchandise. Our readers are aware, that since the suppression of the transit trade and free commerce of the Caucasian provinces, the English have established a vast depôt for their manufactures at Trebisond, whence they have not only acquired a monopoly in the supply of Armenia, Eastern Turkey, and the greater part of Persia, but also supply the Russian provinces themselves by contraband. Hence it may be conceived with what wakeful jealousy England must watch the proceedings of Russia beyond the Caucasus, and what an interest she has in impeding any conquest that would close against her the great commercial route she has pursued by way of Erzeroum and Tauris. She cannot, therefore, be indifferent to the independence of the Caucasus, which, while serving as a bulwark to the frontiers of Turkey and Persia, affords also a most effectual protection to her mercantile operations in Trebisond. It may perhaps be said that this is a merely English question, very interesting to the manufacturers of London and Manchester, but of little concern to France. But where our neighbours find means to dispose annually of more than 2,000,000l.sterling worth of manufactures, there also we think our own political and commercial interests are concerned. Have not we, too, an influence to keep up in Asia? Do not we, too, possess manufactories and a numerous working population, and is it not carrying indifference and apathy too far, to let other powers engross all those regions of Asia where we could find such ready and profitable markets? Whose fault is it if the French flag is so seldom seen on the Black Sea, if Trebisond is become an English town, and if the commerce of Asia is monopolised by our rivals? There is much to blame in the indifference of our country, and in the incapacity of some of our consular agents. But if our commercial policy is often vicious, if our trade is misdirected and mismanaged, and we are often outstripped by our neighbours across the channel, is that any reason why we should, in blind selfishness, express our approval of conquests which would only end in the destruction of all European commerce in the Black Sea? Certainly if Russia, modifying her prohibitive system, and frankly abandoning all further designs against Turkey and the coasts of the Black Sea, would seek to extend her dominions solely on the side of Persia, we think it would be good policy not to thwart such a movement; for in case of a struggle between that power andEngland, France would unquestionably be called on to act as a mediator, which would give her an admirable opportunity for dictating conditions favourable to her policy and her influence in the East.
The detailed considerations into which we have entered respecting the situation of the Russians, the war in the Caucasus, and the political importance of that region, clearly indicate the differences between the conflict in the Caucasus and that which we have been carrying on for fourteen years in Algeria. The aggressive policy of Russia once admitted, and her possessions north, south, and east of the Caucasus not allowing of contestation, the submission of the mountaineers becomes for her a vital question, with which is connected, not only the fate of her Asiatic provinces, but also that of all the governments that lie between the Danube and the Caspian. In Algeria, on the contrary, we are not urged by any imperious motive to extend our conquests. Our political influence in Europe, and our real strength could at present gain nothing thereby; and it is probably reserved to another generation to derive a grand and useful result from our African conquests.
Of late years some public writers, taking the defeats of Russia for their text, have founded on them an argument against the establishment of French supremacy in Algeria. This reasoning appears to us unsound, and it is even at variance with historical facts. In Asia, Russia has had to deal with two very distinct regions; the trans-Caucasian provinces, and the Caucasus proper. The former, easy of access, and comprising Georgia, Imeritia, Mingrelia, and the other provinces taken from Persia and Turkey, were occupied by disorganised nations, at variance within themselves, and differing from each other in race, manners, and religion; accordingly the Muscovite sway was established over them without difficulty, and without any conflict worth mentioning with the inhabitants. The case has not been the same in that immense mountain barrier erected between Europe and Asia, the inaccessible retreats of which extend from Anapa to the shores of the Caspian. The dwellers in those regions present no analogy with the inhabitants south of the chain. There has never been a moment's pause in the obstinate strife between them and Russia; and all the sacrifices, and all the efforts of the tzars against them, have for sixty years been wholly in vain.
Our situation in Algeria is evidently very different. We have there had for our portion neither the bootless strife of the Caucasus, though having most warlike tribes for adversaries, nor the easy conquests of the trans-Caucasian provinces. It is but fourteen years since our troops landed in Africa, and we possess, not only all the towns of the seaboard, but likewise all those of the interior; numerous bodies of natives share actively in our operations; we are masters of all the lines of communication; our forces command the country to a great distance from the coasts: and in the opinion ofall well-informed officers the pacification of the regency of Algiers would, perhaps, have by this time been accomplished, if the government had set its face against the passion for bulletins, and the too martial humour of most of our generals, and tried to pacify the tribes, not by arms and violence, but numerously ramified commercial relations which should call into play the natural cupidity of the Arabs.
Nor can the topographical difficulties of Algeria be compared with those that defend the country of the Lesghis, the Tchetchenzes, and the Tcherkesses. Intersected by vast plateaux, numerous rich and fertile valleys, and parallel mountain ranges, almost everywhere passable and flanked by long lines of coast of which we possess the principal points, and which present at Algiers, Oran, Philippeville, and Bona, wide openings affording admission into the interior, our possessions afford free course to our armies, and nowhere exhibit that strange and singular conformation in which has consisted from time immemorial the safety of the Caucasian tribes.
There are other circumstances likewise that facilitate our progress in Africa, and enable us to exercise a direct influence over all the tribes south of the Tel of Algiers. As has been very ably demonstrated by M. Carrette, captain of engineers, it is enough to occupy the extreme limits of the cultivated lands, and the markets in which the inhabitants of the oases exchange their produce for the corn and other indispensable commodities of the north, to oblige all the populations of the Sahara, fixed or nomade, immediately to acknowledge the sovereignty of France.
It is only in case our government, impelled by ill-directed vanity, should decide on the absolute conquest of the mountains of the Kabyles, that we might encounter in the country, and in the political constitution of those mountaineers, some of the obstacles that characterise the Caucasian regions. And again, what comparison can there be between Kabylia, the two portions of which east and west of Algiers comprise but 1000 or 1200 square leagues of surface, and the great chain of the Caucasus which extends with a mean breadth of fifty or sixty leagues, over a length of more than 250 leagues?
We say nothing of the superiority of our armies and our military system. It is enough to recall what we have said as to the deplorable situation of the troops in the Caucasus, to be aware how much France has the advantage over Russia in this respect.
The diseases and the frightful mortality incident to our armies have been also dwelt on; but here again all the statistical returns are in favour of France. Out of a force of 75,000 men, our mean annual loss is 7000 or 8000. In 1840, indeed, the most fatal year, it appears to have risen to 12,000; but in that same year, and likewise in the following year, Russia lost more than 17,000 on the coasts of Circassia alone. Thus physically, as well as politically, there is a total difference between the war in the Caucasus and that in Algeria; and instead of suffering ourselves to be disheartened by fourteen years of unproductive occupation, and despairing beforehand, because the actual results do not keep pace with our unreasonable impatience, we ought to take example by that indefatigable perseverance with which Russia, in spite of her disasters and the fruitlessness of her efforts, has gone on in the pursuit of her purpose for upwards of half a century.