Russia and the Western Powers, BQR for January 1855
RUSSIA AND THE WESTERN POWERS.
[From Brownson's Quarterly Review for January, 1855.]
A DISTINGUISHED Scottish gentleman, with an historical name, and for whose character, intelligence, and noble purposes we entertain the highest respect, has written us a long letter, complaining of our supposed Russian partialities, and endeavoring to convince us that, as a Catholic in religion and a conservative in politics, we ought to sympathize with France and in England in their efforts to resist
Russian aggression. We attach so much importance to his communication, and are so willing to listen to all that can said against Russia from the Catholic and conservative
point of view, that we most cheerfully comply with his request, so modestly and respectfully presented, to lay the copy of communication made to Cardinal Antonelli, which he incloses, and the more important passages of his letter, before our readers.
"LA RUSSIE UNE PUISSANCE REVOLUTIONNAIRE.
"Le sous-signe ne doute pas que plusieurs des considérations suivantes n'aient deja fixe l'attention de ceux qui occupent des places eminentes dans les différents états de l'Europe. Malgre cela il coït remplir un devoir en venant exposer brièvement ses convictions sur ce sujet.
"Il commencera par faire mention de ses propres expériences.
"Il y a environ 15 ans que l'Angleterre fut ouvertement menacée d'un mouvement révolutionnaire dans les villes manufacturières, dans le pays de Galles, dans d'autres districts qui abondent en minéraux, et. a Londres meme. Le mouvement eut lieu de part des Chartistes, c'est a dire des ultra libéraux parmi la classe ouvrière. Subtiment partout les préparatifs cessèrent sans arriver a aucun résultant excepte dans quel-
ques parties du pays de Galles. La conspiration fut rendue vaine par l'influence d'un très petit nombre de messieurs qui s'étaient familiarises avec la nature de l'action Russe en Grece et en Orient. Ils étaient favorables vaincus que non seulement les troubles de l"Occident étaient favorables a la Russie, mais qu'ils étaient fomentes par elle, et ils soupçonnaient meme que dans ce cas-ci il fallait reconnaitre un exemple de son activite.
"Pleins d'inquiétude ces individus mirent de cote toute répugnance personnelle et visitèrent les principaux chefs Chartistes. Ils leur parlerends franchement du caractère et de l'étendue de l'ambition Russe, et réussirent a intéresser leur patriotisme et leur intelligence. Le chef des Chartistes de Londres fut le premier a partager leurs sentiments. -quelques autres du Nord suivirent son exemple, et c'est ainsi que toute
la conspiration se trouvait paralysée. En un mot plusieurs d'entre eux remirent a ces messieurs quelques portion de leur correspondance secrete, leur chiffre, et sa clef.
"L'origine Russe de ce mouvement était ainsi bien claire. Le chiffre etoit le meme que celui dont s'étaient servis les agents Russes en Grece, et celui qui avait fourni le chiffre avait été quelques anness auparavant un agent Russe en Grece, en Egypte, et en Pologne.
"Ces messieurs n'ont pas cesse de suivre le sujet afin de le connaitre plus a fond. Le sous-signe présente quelques uns des résultats de leurs études, de leurs voyages, de leurs depenses, et de leurs travaux.
"Il affirme que la révolution de la Hongrie fut fomentée par la Russie avec l'intention d'affaiblir l'Autriche afin de la mettre ensuite sous le joug d'obligations imaginaires, et avec d'autres vues qu'il serait impossible de détailler ici.
"On tient aussi les preuves que les agitations politiques de l'Italie sous le regne de Gregoire XVI. furent fomentées par les instruments de la Russie, et qu'a une date antérieure elle avait les Carbonari a sa disposition, au moins depuis 1813-14.
"L'alliance de l'Angleterre et la France meme apres 1830 a été rendue-rapport a son but principal qui était d'arrêter la Russie-presque nulle. L'attention de ces nations fut attirée a des objets erronément choisis, la Russie ayant prepare d'avance des tentations suffisantes. En Europe le principal de ces champs d'action fut la Peninsule. La France et l'Angleterre tantôt séparément, tantôt ensemble, furent engagées dans
l'Intervention et en chaque cas-comme prevu-le resultat fut la dissension mutuelle.
"Or une telle chose n'était possible que par un grand développement de certains elemens de discorde dans l'Espagne et le Portugal. Ce s'est effectue par un principal événement, c'est a dire, par le soulèvement militaire et libéral de l'Il de Leon en 1819. Il y a des preuves suffisantes que ce commencement des troubles de l'Espagne fut entièrement le fruit des intrigues et des depenses de la Russie.
"L'Occident étant ainsi occupe de lui-même et ses gouvernements affaires et affaiblis, tout ce qui concernait les buts de l'ambition Russe fut laisse libre pour elle, et, pire encore, fut abandonne entre ses mains par ceux qui étaient en connivence avec elle.
"Le sous-signe pourrait bien faire mention d'une autre serie de resultas, mais il n'en parlera maintenant. Il se contente de diriger l'attention……..Il n'entrera dans des explications sur le rôle de plusieurs. Anglais qui, généralement supposes d'être stimules par le zele libéral, n'ont été en vérité que les instruments du Cabinet Russe.
"Il n'est donc pas de péril plus grand pour un gouvernment que celui de croire la Russie une puissance qui craint l'esprit révolutionnaire dans les autres états. Dans son action extérieure le contraire la caracterise aussi décidément que l'autocratie le fait dans son système intérieur. L'emphase de ses déclarations dans un zend oppose est simplement un voile jusqu'à présent impénétrable du moins pou l'Angleterre. Par ce double caractère son profit est en meme temps grand et facile. En secondant les factions, en organisant les conspirations elle occupe les peuples, et en meme temps rend les cours ses clientes par ses professions amicales et conservatives.
"On prend facilement en bonne foi ces professions, puis qu'on la voit elle meme despotique. Mais elle a bien calcule son jeu, elle connait bien sa race, differant tant des autres peuples de l'Europe en langage, en religion, en degrees de culture, et en espoir de demonation. Les serfs ne sont pas susceptibles des influences qu'elle emploie pour agiter l'Europe, et c'est dans sons calcul qu'ils resteront ainsi jusqu'à ce que l'Occident sera devenu, non un exemple qui attire, mais une leçon qui detourne,
c'est a dire, corrompu, epuise, et vassal.
"Le sous signe ne prétend pas donner des conseils. Il vient simplement déposer ses expériences et ses convictions aux pieds de……..
"Il n'est pousse que par la connaissance qu'il a de cette conspiration dirigée contre la vie des nations et par la certitude qu'il a que tant que le pouvoir Russe ne sera rompu il n'y aura ni paix pour les sujets ni sécurité pour les trônes.
"(Signed,) _____ _____
"Juin, 1854."
"Sept. 8, 1854.
"SIR,-On my return from a lengthened tour on the continent, I have addressed myself to a hasty review of some portions of the Catholic literature produced during my absence. You will not, I trust, think that I flatter, when I say that your Review was turned to by me with eagerness.
"It is seldom indeed that I find any occasion for hesitating to follow the path chosen by you. On one matter only do I venture to do so,-and that is a subject to which I happen to have devoted many years, and in connection with which I have made many sacrifices.
" A conservative in politics, and, by God's good grace, a Catholic in religion, and personally acquainted with many eminent persons in various states, I trust you will listen to me with more patience than it is in general very easy to accord to the representations of a stranger. I put forward, however, my acquaintance(I might almost say more than acquaintance) with Dr. Newman as a claim to consideration more likely
to tell with you than the intercourse which has been allowed to me with many statesman,-from the late Sir Robert Peel and others in England, to Cardinal Antonelli and various diplomatists, either at this moment or lately in important office in England or on the continent. Finally, as an English University man, you will perhaps allow to my few words that tentative acceptance which you might possibly refuse to an unknown
person speaking on a class of subjects beyond the, as yet, familiar matter of politics.
"I allude to your estimate of the character of Russia.
"You, like the majority of my countrymen, think her conservative, an element among the nations of obedience, -of permanence,-of respect between man and man, -of faith and worship, and all that is warred against by revolution.
"I know her to have laboured in the opposite sense.
"Schisms, heresies, false and wild speculation civil and religious, discontents, conspiracies, outbreaks, revolutions,-these have been the familiar weapons for her use and profit, for at least twenty years previous to the great French revolution down to the present hour. I repeat with confidence that the corruption of Europe has, more than any other department of activity, been pursued without cessation, and with scientific judgement, by the power to which we were complacently condescending to impart what we thought a boon,-our polish, out 'civilization.'
"By sufficient research you will find that she it was who ripened the seeds(certainly of themselves sufficiently vigorous) of 'the' French revolution. I am myself personally cognizant of some portion of her share in various subsequent convulsions. But it is vain to enter into such a subject by any ordinary correspondence.
"Permit me to send you a miserably meagre outline of some only of its branches. It is a paper very slightly modified and curtailed from one which drew up for Cardinal Antonelli some time ago. From him I received in return the most positive confirmation of its accuracy so far as concerns Russia's share in several of the great conspiracies against religion and order in Italy during the last twenty years….
"This, sir, is a very serious and weighty subject. It lies at the very root of modern events, and is the key of history for many years. If I am wrong, how greatly and perversely so! If right, how fatal to Europe and to more than Europe the error that interior despotism and a high tone of absolutism are a guaranty that the great Russian power is a de-
fence to us of order and traditions? If we think so, while she is in reality industrious and inventive on the other side,-while she is in reality laboring for the dissolution and mutual collision of the state,-she is mistress of the game, and can scarcely fail to work out of it her objects of national ambition.
"There is, sir, only one element tending to mould events which Russia has not taken thoroughly and justly into calculation. She has not believed in, and therefore not appreciated as an element, the Church of God. She has not believed in the supernatural working for the chair of Peter,-using insignificant instruments,-turning the moments of the church's apparent defeat into the occasions of her success.
"But for this, were it only the human material of opinions, passions, forms of government, conspiracies, armies, the press, and the rest, Russia would be right in all her hopes, her immense designs would be very far from insanity. And it is not that Catholics any more than others see and understand her; it is simply that God's good providence must be in the ecclesiastical field secure her defeat, though whether before or after the further downfall of nations, I in no degree pretend to calculate.
"I will not enter into the question of the justice or injustice of her present attack on Turkey. Most sure I am that it is unjust, but it must rest undiscussed. Nor will I touch on the question whether the Turk is at present the power against who the church and the state of Christendom have to be specially on the alert, or whether his past and present
sins directly concern us in the same way, and to the same degree, with those of Russia, whether it is the Turk or the Russian who is braced to deeply laid designs against the independence of states,-against the security of Rome,-against the order and the strength which would oppose vast aspirations for dominion; for I know that the most perfect exposition of these topics would give but a barren result in the way of
convincing a mind which had honestly set itself to the contest with revolution, and at the same time fancied that Russia has hitherto been a fellow laborer in the same cause. The erroneous sympathy would practically prevail over all logic and the facts.
"Allow me to suggest one consideration. The line upon which you have entered is in opposition to what I know of the thoughts of many of the best Catholics and wisest men. It is in opposition to that of the most worth naming in Rome, I may almost venture to say of the Holy Father himself. It is in opposition to that of the majority of the French bishops and a vast number of the clergy,-I should suppose of far the greater
number. It is thoroughly in opposition to that of the bishops of Austria and Prussia. But you are in the same line with the ultra Protestant and ultra Russian organ of Berlin, the Kreuz-zeilung-with that of the pre-wisely similar organ in Holland,-with that of the extreme revolutionists of Italy, France and Spain. That all these should take the line which they take is no surprise to me. That the true leader of the Greek schism
should stir heaven and earth agains 'the Latins' is natural,-that he should try to weaken and corrupt that Europe which otherwise would be tenfold too strong and too clear-sighted and upright for him, all this is natural; it is natural, too, that the other enemies of 'the Latins' and of the existing order of states should be his instruments and allies.
"Russia would not enter Constantinople to-morrow if the Turk wished him. She knows that Europe would not bear it. Europe therefore must be brought to the condition where she will bear it, that is, after more wars, more revolutions, more exhaustion, more dreams, and more despair. This is the simple key to Russian policy.
"It would oblige me if you would read the enclosed paper. It, or a nearly similar document, has been received with interest by more than one personage of some experience in European affairs. I would almost ask you to print it in your Review as a fair tribute to opposite views, and as a a paper which, as a fact, has been respectfully acknowledged in high quarters. Any passages in further illustration of this side of the
question from my letter are also very much at your service……..
"I remain, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant."
We think our Scottish correspondent has not quite understood our position with regard to Russia. We are not, and never have been, the partisan of the autocrat, and whoever will do us the honor to read the article on "Christianity and Heathenism" published in our Review for January, 1852, will perceive that resistance to the further advance of Russia was a leading feature of the policy we ventured to recommend to the Catholic statesmen of Europe.
That article, we may remark by the way, was written and in type before Louis Napoleon's coup d'etat of December, 1851, when the more immediate danger seemed to be from the temporary triumph of demagogy, of which France was the
focus. The policy we recommended had for its object to resist, on the one hand, the advance of the demagogic despotism, or centralized democracy,-what in this country we call radicalism,-and on the other, centralized royalism, or the monarchial absolutism represented by Russia. This end, we contended them, and contend now, can be secured only by strengthening Austria as the great central power,
so as to render her able always to mediate between Russia and the western powers.
We made Austria-we should have said Germany, if German unity has not been lost-
the pivot of our European policy, and not Turkey, an infidel and barbarous power. We are, then, Austrian, rather than Russian. But we are Austrian only in the respect
that Austria happens to occupy a central position in Europe, and is for that reason fit to mediate between the East and West; not because we prefer Austrians to Frenchmen or
Englishmen, or have any partiality for what has been the general policy of Austria for the last hundred years.
We have never relied on Russia as a conservative power in Europe, or as a bulwark against the demagogical party; for she inherits the old Byzantine politics, and carries with her that imperial despotism or caesarism, wherever she goes, which we hardly prefer, perhaps which we do not prefer, to Jacobinism itself. WE have always been aware that Russia is a schismatic and strongly anti- Catholic power; but we have never regarded the Greek schism as worse than English or Scottish heresy, or Russian as more decidedly anti-Catholic that Great Britain, or than even the French government has often proved itself. Every absolute of despotic government is hostile to Catholicity, and in regard to religion even the English government, through its intense nationalism, is despotic. Indeed, we hope nothing for Catholicity from any European government, for secular courts have long since ceased to be governed in regard to religion by any other views than those of state policy, and religion suffers nearly as much from those whose policy leads them to protect it, as from those whose policy leads them to oppose it. They will all sustain the church so far as they can use her ; none of them will do it any further, if they can help it, or hesitate to oppose her if they find her in their way. Catholicity , we therefore considered, could gain nothing in the struggle, whichever party might triumph, and would suffer about equally whether the western powers or Russian were defeated.
We, of course, treat with great respect the opinion of the bishops and clergy of Europe, which our correspondent cities against us, but we suppose the question is one which we are free to form our own opinion. What the opinion of the Holy Father is, we do not think is known by any one, and till it is officially expressed, we can make no use of it one way or another. His position is a delicate one. There are Catholic interests to be looked after in Russian as well as in France and Great Britain, and it is not the part of good Catholics to do or say any thing that might embarrass him in regard to them anywhere. We have no understood that a crusade has been preached against Russian, and we do not think Great Britain likely to enlist in a war for the promotion of Catholic interests ; we agree, however, that at the present moment Russian is a more formidable enemy of the church than Turkey, but whether she is more so than Turkey would be under the tutelage of the British government, and administered by the British minister resident at Constantinople, may well be a question. The worst enemies of the Catholics in the East are the Protestant missionaries, and these are under the special protection of the British government. The policy of the British government in the East is to protestantize it, or, what is nearly the same thing, to render it indifferent to all religion, whether Christian or Mahometan. The civilization it is urging upon the Turks places the Bible and the Koran in the same category, and rejects both as of no more value than the last year's almanac. The French government, through fear of disturbing the entente cordiale between England and France, will favor the same policy. We have yet to find an instance in which the French government ever supported Catholic interests at the hazard of political interests. It sacrificed the Jesuits and their missions among our North American Indians to its political policy, as it favored them only as a means of extending French influence with the Indian tribes.
Our correspondent gives us some evidence of Russian intrigues with the revolutionary party in Europe, which has not reached us before ; but in so doing her only proves that Russian is in this respect no better than England or France, which we are not disposed to dispute. If Russian intrigue has produced many of the troubles in Italy during the last twenty years, English and French intrigue has probably produced many of the troubles in Italy during the last twenty years, English and French intrigue has probably produced many more of them. Our correspondent should not forget Lord Minto's mission to Italy in 1847, designed, by appeals to the revolutionary party, to thwart the efforts of France under Guizot to introduce the political reforms needed in the continental states through the legitimate and orderly action of the sovereigns, nor that England is the home of Kossuth and Mazzini, whence they organize their revolutionary plans against the peace of Europe. Ever since 1882, Great Britain has been the well-known ally of the revolutionary party on the continent. The Russian interference in Spain was doubtless intended to disturb the union of France and England, formed, avowedly, in an interest adverse to Russia. Why she attempted the Quixotic enterprise of revolutionizing England through a contemptible Chartist insurrection, we do not know. If she did any such thing, she acted without her usual shrewdness. if she interfered in Belgium, and induced the Belgians to revolt again William I., she did what we as a Catholic dare say was a good act. Our correspondent cannot approve the act of the congress of Vienna that annexed Belgium to the Dutch Netherlands, or really think that the Catholic interests of Belgium have suffered by being emancipated from the oppressions of the bigoted Calvinistic king of the Netherlands. For our part, we think the Belgians needed very little urging from Russia to seek to throw off an oppressive rule, which had been imposed upon them without a shadow of right, by a most arbitrary exercise of power.
Indeed, we cannot but suspect that our correspondent attributes to Russian too large a share in the revolutions of Europe, and has seen her hand sometimes where it was not. We would as soon believe that she induced the British ministry to adopt the policy of raising a revenue from the colonies, and then stirred up the colonies to resist, and thus brought about our independence and the establishment of American republicanism, as that she by her intrigues brought about the French revolution of 1789. The French revolutionists were no more moved by the instigation of France. In both cases there were internal causes operating adequate to the effect produced.
That Russia has at the present moment a good understanding with the ultra revolutionists of Italy, France, and Spain is very probable, as it is equally probably that the western powers have a good understanding with the revolutionary party in Germany, and the disaffected among the Poles ; but in the beginning of the struggle, the sympathies of the revolutionist s were everywhere with the Turk. If not, why did they flock to his support, and seek service in his armies? That, since liberty is crushed in France, and there is some prospect that Austria, whom the liberals hate far more than they do Russia, will make common cause with the western powers, the revolutionists have been willing to communicate with Russian agents, we can believe, and that Russia should seek through them to impede the operations of the allies against her, is not at all unlikely. It is no more than is customary in the time of war, and no more than the allies themselves would do, were they in her place, and that in which nearly all Italians agreed, is to drive the Austrians out of Italy, and to reserve Italy for the Italians as an independent state. This is a patriotic aim, and could we see any prospect of a united Italy under native rulers, competent to protect Italian interests against France and Austria, and, above all, against the anti-Catholic demagogues of the peninsula, we should approve it with all our heart. But such an Italy is an impracticable dream. Italian unity has no existence. But that Italians should be impatient of foreign rule is not strange, and in the present aspect of affairs Russia is the only power to which they can looks for sympathy. France, anxious to be on good terms just now with Austria, will not interfere in their behalf, and if she did, it would only be to supplant Austrian by French caesarism, not to liberate the Italians.
Thus much we have said, to show, even conceding all that is alleged against her in the communication sent us, that Russia, if not much better, is not much worse than her neighbors. It must not be forgotten that there has been among the western powers, since Russia advanced to the Black Sea, much intriguing against her, and therefore that it is natural that she should intrigue against them ; and the only difference we can see between them is, that she has for the most part been more successful in her diplomacy that they in theirs. That she has something to do with the insurrection is on which we cannot condemn. And we believe England also had something to do with it. Her ships took part in the destruction of the Turkish fleet at Navarino. That Russia has long contemplated the destruction of the Ottoman empire may be true ; but France, in 1824, agreed with her on a plan for the division of a large portion of its territory between themselves an Austria, and it is well known now that Russian and England has, in 1844, a mutual understanding that, when the time should come, there should be a friendly and peaceful agreement between them as to the division of Turkey. That an end ought to be put to the Ottoman empire we fully believe in, and we have no fault to find with Russia for seeking to do it. That Turkey is not to-day a formidable power to Christian Europe in allowing Russia to annex the principal parts of the Turkish dominions to her already overgrown empire.
In the present war, the western powers, as between them and Russia, appear to us to be in the wrong. They may have sufficient reasons for desiring the power of Russia to be weakened, but they have not, as far as we can judge, alleged a justifiable cause of war against her. They profess to be at war with her as the allies of Turkey, for the maintenance of the independence and integrity of the Ottoman empire. But the maintenance of the independence and integrity of that empire is not, of itself, an object that Christian powers may lawfully undertake ; for Turkey is the common enemy of Christendom, and can be supported only as a means of accomplishing an end that may be lawfully sought independently of her. The allies cannot plead her quarrel in their justification. They may use her, if they think proper, but only against an enemy with whom on their own account they would have just cause of war. The merits of the dispute between Turkey and Russia cannot enter into the question between them and Russia. Even if they could, it would no avail them nothing, for both France and England have acknowledged that Turkey played false, and that Russia had just cause of complaint against her. But, aside from that dispute, the allies have no legitimate cause of complaint. Russia has done them no injustice, violated non of their rights, broken no obligations contracted with them, and shown no hostile disposition towards them. They are really fighting her, not to redress injuries received, but to prevent injuries which she has the power to do them on some future occasion, although she has shown no intention of doing them. They are acting on the principle of the Connecticut deacon, who called up his sons one Sunday morning and flogged them, not because they had bromine the Sabbath, but because he foresaw that they might break it during the course of the day.
The fact is, that in the race for empire Russia threatens to come in ahead of the western powers, or to be too strong for their interests or policy. But we have no more right to go to war with a nation because it is too strong, than because it is too weak. However formidable may be the power of Russia, the western powers cannot lawfully declare war against her, unless she abuses her power in regard to them, breaks her obligations to them, and invades their rights, or proves her conduct that she disregards international law, and will be bound by no faith of treaties. Mere power, however great it may be, cannot outlaw a nation. Russia may have displayed on various occasions an aggressive spirit, but not more so than the western powers themselves ; and since the accession of the present emperor she has manifested very little disposition to extend her territory at the expense of her neighbors,-far less than has been manifested by either France or England. If Nicholas aims to be supreme on the land, Great Britain aims to be supreme on the sea, and we know not why it is not as lawful form him to extend his possessions in Turkey and Persia, as it is for her to extend hers in India, or for France to colonize Africa. Few acts of Russia can be alleged more in violation of the laws of nations that the destruction of the Danish fleet at Copenhagen by England when professedly at peace with Denmark, or the part she took in the destruction of the Turkish fleet, at Navarino, when she was professedly the ally of the Turk. If the past acts of Russia are to be cited, the past acts of France and Great Britain must also be cited ; and the aggressions on the land of the former, especially under Napoleon I., and the aggressions of the latter on the sea for a hundred and fifty years, will fully offset those of the Muscovite.
That Russia has attained to an enormous growth, and threatens to exercise a dangerous influence on the internal and external affairs of the rest of Europe, we have no disposition to deny ; we are neither her admirer nor her apologist. But we think this is less her fault than the natural result of her advantageous position, and the divisions, political and religious dissensions, and national and commercial rivalries, of the other European powers. We see not how, without a self-restraint, and a chivalric sense of justice, which no nation has the right by its own practice to exact of her, she could help acquiring a preponderating influence in European affairs. Great Britain is strong enough on the sea, but not on the land, and France is too remote to form a sufficient counterpoise to her power. We regret it, for Russia couples with her temporal ambition a fanatical zeal for the Greek schism, and is apparently determined to carry it with her wherever she goes, and to make her national church universal. The czar aims to be pope as well as autocrat, and supreme in spirituals as well as in temporals, and hence his influence is and cannot but be inimical to religious liberty, the first of all liberties, and the basis and guaranty of all others.
Since Ivan III., wiped out all the last traces of the Tartar conquest, and Ivan the Terrible completed the subjugation of the church, in his dominions to the state, Russia has been steadily developing her internal resources and extending her power and influence abroad. She now embraces, we are told, one-seventh of the whole territory of the globe, and a population of sixty millions,-the great bulk of whom are of one and the same race, and speak, with slight variations of dialect, one and the same language. One the North, her empire very nearly belts the globe ; on the West, she touches Norway, Sweden, and Denmark ; on the East she touches China, and from Khiva is supposed to menace British India ; on the South, she borders on Germany and Austria, and menaces the Bosphorus and the Persian Gulf. She lies, so to speak, in the rear of both Europe and Asia, and may assail either, without being liable to be assailed in return, save at a fearful disadvantage. She has, or threatens to have, by means of the Baltic, the Euxine, the Caspian, the Aral, the Persian Gulf, and the rivers flowing into them, command of the shortest and most desirable routes of commerce of Europe and Asia. Already has she reduced Sweden and Denmark to mere ciphers, absorbing Poland, broken the Ottoman power, humbled Persia, and almost obtained the tutelage of Germany. Hitherto she has advanced uninterruptedly, and every effort made to check her progress has turned to her advantage, as in the case of the advance of ancient Rome to the empire of the world.
A glance at the map of Europe and Asia will show once how advantageous is the position of Russia, and how menacing her attitude. Let her become, as she has since Peter I. been laboring to become, a great maritime power, as formidable by sea as by land, and she governs the politics, the commerce, and, aside from the Catholic Church, which she persecutes, the religion of the world. She would be what Charles V., and Phillip II. wished to make Spain, and Louis XIV. and Napoleon I. aimed to make France, and what Great Britain has for nearly a century been and is as to the sea. WE are strongly opposed to this, not because this mighty power would be more dangerous in her hands than in those of France, Austria, Prussia, or Great Britain, but because it cannot but be dangerous, in whose hands soever it may be. We are opposed to the maritime supremacy of Great Britain, and we have always hailed with pleasure the growth of the French and Russian navies, as a counterpoise to her. The actual maritime preponderance of Great Britain is really as hostile to the best interests of the human race, as the threatened preponderance of Russia. The British mercantile system, sustained by her naval power, is more hostile to the freedom and independence of nations, than any preponderating influence that can be long exercised by Russia. It enslaves the world to Mammon, the meanest of the angels that fell, and is more corrupting to the soul, and more perilous to its salvation, than any system of secular despotism ever devised. Though, therefore, we have in this contest no sympathy with Russia, we have just as little with Great Britain, fighting simply to maintain her mercantile system, and to keep the world enslaved to her low and groveling system of materialism, threatened by the advance of Russia to a command of the great routes of commerce. We like not the attitude of Russia, and for religious rather than political or commercial reason we wish her permanently humbled, and are as unwilling as our Scottish friend and correspondent to see her influence extended.
But we cannot regard the attitude of Russia as the result of any extraordinary fault of hers. Aggressive she may have been ; but the other powers of Europe are more to blame than she, for she has but availed herself, for her own aggrandizement, of their crimes and blunders. It was their national rivalries, schisms, heresies, and wars with one another, that gave her the opportunity, and invited her to become what she is. They abandons the defense of Christendom against the Turk, quarreled with the pope, despoiled the church, made war on religion or on one another, and left Russia to fight the battles of Christian civilization against Mahometan barbarism, and to strengthen herself by so doing. England, under pretense of protecting the Protestant heresy, joined with her in preparing the way for the partition and suppression of Poland, that great crime as well as great political blunder ; France, by an alliance with the Turk first, and afterwards with Gustavus Adolphus and the Protestant princes of the empire, prevented the reiteration of German unity, broken by Luther's reformation, and thus destroyed the only European power that could impose an effectual restraint on Russian ambition in the West. These powers, therefore, must blame themselves, not her, if she avails herself of the advantages they have afforded her, and leaves them to reap the fruits of their own madness and folly.
The real object of the allies in the present way is, no doubt, to restrain the power of Russia, and to prevent her from obtaining those commercial advantages over them, which seems to be all but within her reach. Are they likely to gain this object? We think not, for they cannot strike an effectual blow at the heart of her power, and we can conceive no practicable political combinations by which they can render permanent any advantages they may obtain by the fortune of war. We would not exaggerate her military strength, or underrate theirs. The allies may gain the victory in battle, they may take Sebastopol, the whole of the Crimea, Finland, the Caucasian and Transcaucasian provinces, and for a time close to Russian ships the commerce of the Baltic and the Euxine, but Russia will not even then be essentially weakened. She may be thrown back upon herself for a time, but that will not harm her. She will turn her attention to the development of her internal resources, to the construction of roads and railways, and to completing a system of internal communications, which will prepare her for carrying on any future way with greater ease and expedition. No arrangement that will me made will prevent her from ultimately recovering the provinces that may be wrested from her, and standing before Europe, after a brief delay, stronger than ever.
If no territory be taken from Russia, and if she at the conclusion of peace retain all her present territorial advantages, nothing have been gained by the war. If she is to be dismembered of a certain number of her provinces, the grave question comes up, What is to be done with them? The allies cannot annex them to their own respective states, because they are not contiguous, and their defense would cost more than they are worth. They could be retained only by keeping their fleets and armies all the time on the way footing, and rendering war the permanent state of Europe. They cannot, or will not, annex them to any adjoining state strong enough of itself to retain them, They may restore to Turkey the provinces taken from her by Russian arms, but this would not form a bulwark against the future advances of Russia. The allies cannot expect to reduce Russia lower than she was the accession of Peter the Great, or to render the Ottoman empire stronger than it was at the same period. Turkey will therefor be no more able to retain them, than she was to prevent their original loss. Besides, if Turkey, a Mussulman power, were rendered strong enough to stand alone against her northern neighbor, she would herself be, as she was but recently, a more formidable enemy to Christian civilization is infinitely superior to the highest Mahometan. France and England might, indeed, guaranty the possession of the restored provinces, but such a guaranty would be vexations to them, and would after all prove ineffectual. Russia might seize the opportunity, when they were at war with one another, or otherwise sufficiently employed, to recover those provinces. Finland, Livonia, and Esthonia might be given to Sweden, but Sweden would not be strong enough to keep them, any more than she was formerly to prevent Russia from taking them.
The allies, supposing the fortune of war favorable to them, might reconstruct the kingdom of Poland, provided they could, which is not likely, gain the consent of Prussia and Austria ; but they cannot reconstruct a Poland strong enough to stand alone even against the Russia that would remain. You cannot reconstruct a Poland that will be stronger or more united than was the Poland of the beginning of the last century, certainly not strong enough for the purpose, as experience has proved. There is no Poland now, except with the Poles abroad. Russianized, prussianized, and austrianized as the Polish people now are, they cannot form a united and independent kingdom, able to stand alone. If Russian Poland is detached from the czar, it must be annexed to some German power. But this would be a source of weakness rather than of strength, because the Poles, though they love not Russian empire to being a part of a German state, alien to them both in blood and language. it would always be a field for Russian intrigue, and afford an opening not only for Russia to recover it, but also to subject the German power to which it was annexed.
Even if the allies should succeed in arms, which it is possible they may do, it would be next to impossible so to reconstruct a map of Europe as to prevent Russia from speedily recovering the provinces taken from her, and repairing her losses ; for she is an agricultural rather than maritime power, and has her strength are not an accidental result, due to a temporary policy or to brute violence. They are less the result of violin than of the natural course of events. No doubts she could and even ought to have resisted that course, but that she has not done so is no more to censured, than that the absorption of India by the British East India Company was not resisted by Great Britain. In modern times, at least, nations consult their interests, not what a hight sense of justice or a nice sense of honor would dictate. Few, if any, of the wars which have resulted in the aggrandizement Russia have been begun by her, or if so, without as plausible pretexts as conquering or growing nations usually have. Most of her acquisitions have been either the recovery of old territory possessed by her before the Tartar conquest, or made from barbarian-tribes with whom peace was impossible. She is the natural centre to which gravitate all the members of the great Sclavonic family, and has been for a long time in a position in which she could hardly help profiting by the divisions, wars, and rivalries of the other European nations. Her growth being in the natural course of European and Asiatic events, a natural, not a forced growth, it is no easy matter for the rest of Europe, by any new political or territorial combinations, to prevent her from recovering whatever she may lose by the fortune of war, or from ultimately obtaining those commercial advantages which would enable her to reduce France and Great Britain, especially Great Britain, to the rand of second and third rate powers, leaving for the first rank only herself and the United States. She is a vast centralized power, animated by a single spirit and moved by a single will ; they are divided into separate nations and states, distracted by diversities of race, religion, and interests, and led on by various and conflicting counsels and policies. In the actual state of things, she is stronger than any one of them, and it its out of their power to form themselves into a single federative state, and each give up its autonomy. They can never agree among themselves to do any thing of the sort.
The attempt to resist effectually the natural progress of any great living national power by leagues, coalitions, or alliances between feebler states, has never yet succeeded. Where the end is to overturn a dynasty, or to dethrone a pinnace, no longer national, or to effect a purpose which can be gained by a battle or a campaign, coalitions may answer. They answered in the long run against Napoleon I., for though he attracted the admiration of the French people ; he was not rooted in the national heart, and could count on being supported only so long as he was successful. He became nationalized, so to speak, only after his death, by the contrast of his reign with that of the effete Bourbons. But where the force needs to be constant and permanent, it must, in order to be effectual, be that of a single nation, strong enough to stand alone. If Great Britain were as strong by and as she is by sea, and if her dominions lay alongside of Russia, or if Russia were merely a commercial power, she would, perhaps, be able single-handed to cope with her. If France adjoined Russia, she would also, we think, be able to cope with her. But neither is the case, and no single power contiguous to Russia is or can be made strong enough to stand alone against her, unless it be Austria.
The danger from Russian to the West is only as by her advance in the East she deprived the western powers of the commerce of Asia. She cannot advance with advantage to herself any further westward than she has already done. Germany prevents Russia from laying her empire alongside of the French, as much as Germany prevents France from laying her alongside of Russia. The two empires cannot, even by the conquest of Germany, become contiguous. Napoleon I. had the command of all Germany, but France did not leap the Rhine, as he found to his bitter discomfiture on his retreat from Moscow. The autocrat of the Russias, were he to command all Germany, would find that Russia would not leap the German frontiers. Germany would be in his way as much as she was in Napoleon's. THe great danger is to Austria, regarded as separate from Germany. The German element is not the strongest in her empire, and she lacks unity and compactness. Half of her population have more sympathy of race with Russia than with her, and it would bot be difficult to detach from her Bohemia, Galicia, Hungary, Croatia, and her Italian possessions, leaving her only the Tyrol and her hereditary duchy. Through the disjointed nature of the Austrian dominions, and the heterogeneous character of her population, she is not able to stand alone against Russia, who can in spite of her continue to advance in the East, swallow up Armenia, Anatolia, and Persia in Asia, and the whole of Turkey in Europe, and the greater part of her own empire, in case she attempts resistance. Here is the danger.
Now it is idle to think of galvanizing the dead carcass of the Ottoman empire into sufficient life and activity to afford a safeguard to Europe. The only power to be relied on is Austria ; and the true policy for the western powers is to strengthen her, and render her powerful enough to check Russian advance in the East. If any thing effectual is to be done, she must be permitted to extend her territory through to the Black Sea, by annexing to her empire Moldavia, Wallachia, and the greater part of Bessarabia. To pacify Italy, and soothe the jealousy of France, she might be required to exchange her Italian possessions, which should become independent under native princes, for Servia, Montenegro, and all the Turkey north of the Balkan. As a large portion of the population she would thus receive would by religion and race sympathize with Russia more than with her, she must, in addition, enter the German diet with her non-Germanic provinces. Since Turkey must fall, transfer the Hellenic kingdom to Constantinople, and annex to it all that would remain of Turkey in Europe and Asia, to the borders of Syria and Palestine, which last might be formed into the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, in the house of Savoy, the heir, we believe, of the title.
Something like this would raise up a barrier to Russia without reconstructing the map of western or northern Europe, or creating in the East a power strong enough to harm the legitimate commerce of the western powers. But we are not so silly as to suppose that European statesmen will entertain such a project for a moment. They would fear the predominance of Austria. We therefore see no prospect of the war terminating to the advantage of Europe. One thing is certain, that Russia will not yield without an obstinate struggle. If Austria and Germany do not engage in it, the western powers will be worsted, and if they do, they will have to bear the brunt of the war, and all western and central Europe will become in addition the scene of a civil strife with the revolutionary party, encouraged and sustained by Russia, from which Italy and Austria will be the chief sufferers. In the former case Russia gains the victory, and resumes with redoubled ardor her policy of getting the control of the East, and of hostility to the church. In the latter, Germany will be ruined, and Austria disabled, and both will fall a prey to Napoleon III. or his successor, and France will become once more the terror of Europe on the land, while England will continue with more insolence that ever to sing,-
"Britannia rules the wave."
We do not wish to see Austria and the Germanic states under the tutelage of Russia,-
a tutelage as incompatible with their true interests as with their dignity, and we should be most happy to see them escaping from it, and reconstructing a united and independent Germany, so essential to their own well being and to European society. But, alas! it is impossible revocare defunctos. German unity becomes every day more and more difficult, and is well-nigh as impracticable as Italian unity. The sovereigns do not wish it, Russia is opposed to it, France and England will protest against it, and the German people, separated by political and religious differences, have no power to effect it. It is possible that an alliance with France and Great Britain would emancipate them from Russia, but it could only be by making of her an eternal enemy,--in a critical moment more dangerous as an enemy that she is a friend. It does not do to overlook the internal state of Germany, or to forget that there is a powerful and increasing revolutionary party in her bosom, holding the most frightful principles of socialism and atheism.-a party almost strong enough in 1848 to overthrow all authority, and introduce the saturnalia of Jacobinism. Only by the utmost vigilance of the governments and by strong repressive measures are the prevented from open insurrection. The danger from them is not over, and we have not seen or heard the last of them. Though Russia may appeal to the revolutionary element against powers hostile to her, we know not where but to her the German governments could for aid in case of a revolutionary outbreak. Great Britain could not be relied on ; she is half a democracy already, and her government must obey popular opinion, and popular opinion is and will be on the side of the revolutionists. France would render no aid, because she would hope to find in the revolution the means of reestablishing the empire of Charlemagne, the dream of the founder of the Napoleonic dynasty,-a dynasty that establishes itself by professing liberal ideas and practicing despotism.
Looking at the subject from this distance, and as impartially as we can, we see nothing hopeful for Old Europe. She has thrown away her opportunities, and we see no happy issue for her. Let the present war terminate as it may, we see no good likely to result from it. Indeed, wars undertaken from policy never end well, and there is no country that politicians will not sooner or later ruin, if abandoned to their lead. It is long since the European courts abandoned principle, justice, good faith, and religion, for simple state policy, and order is now nowhere maintained on the continent but by armed force. There is hatred between nation and nation, and war between the ruled and the rulers. There is no reliance to be placed on the courts, none to be placed on the people. The courts became corrupt, and have corrupted the people, as the demagogues are corrupting them here, and there is only one point in which they people and their sovereigns agree, and that is in hostility to the church, and the only source of help for either. The one shows its hostility in trying to make her a tool of their despotism, and the other in seeking to crush her, and to substitute for the worship of God the worship of humanity.
Nevertheless, we may take too desponding a view of European affairs. Who knows the designs of Providence, whose prerogative it is to bring light out of darkness, and order out of confusion? Who knows but the celestial Spouse of the church is about to interpose for the joy and glory of his bride? It may be that Providence has suffered Russia to grow up and to become strong as an instrument for punishing the nations of central and western Europe for having abandoned him and betrayed the trust he confided to them. If so, we can only say the judgments of God are just, and his chastisements salutary. He may use Russia as the instrument of his justice, and dash her in pieces when he served his purpose with her. She may cause much suffering to Europe, much injury to religion, but she will never realize the dream of universal monarchy. If she should overrun western and central Europe, she could not hold it in subjection, and her triumph would probably be as short-lived as was that of France under her great Napoleon. She may plant herself on the Bosphorus, and command for a time the Mediterranean Sea, and the Indian Ocean, the commerce of India and China, but she will not be able to hold all Asia under sway for many generations. Her power, unlike ours, is weakened by expansion, and she will have enemies enough rising up in every quarter to compel a division of her territories. Moreover, her advance southward and westward may operate through the grace of God her conversion, and thus what forebodes only ruin become the means of infusing fresh blood, young and vigorous, into the veins of those old populations that have so long proved themselves unworthy of the privileges bestowed upon them. It may be, that Almighty God intends visiting these old nations in mercy, and that he intends to use Great Britain, so long the bulwark of the Protestant heresy, to break the head of the Greek schism, and to deliver his spouse. Perhaps he remembers her hospitality to his bishops and priests, exiled from France by his Jacobinical enemies,-a noble hospitality, hardly ever equalled in the annals of any nation, well-nigh devoured by materialism,-and is determined to lead her by a way she knows not back to Catholic unity, and to make her once more an insula sanctorum. Who can tell what may be the effect of her alliance with France, and the union of their arms in that old mystic East? Man proposes but God disposes ; and as the union of these two powers against the crescent failed, so their union to uphold it may also fail, and result in the restoration of the cross. We are shortsighted mortals. We see but a little way before us, and that but dimly. What we are ready to exclaim is against us, may, as in the case of the patriarch, turn out to be for us. Spera in Deo. We have always this consolation in the worst of times, that the Lord God reigneth, and can make the wrath of man praise him, while if we are faithful to him, no evil can befall us, for the only real evil in God's universe is sin.
Our correspondent will perceive that we are not the strong partisan of Russian he supposes, and that we do not regard her as a peculiarly conservative power. But he must bear in mind that we are American, and as much attached to our country as he is to his. Now his country, Great Britain, is the one whose supremacy is likely to prove the most offensive to Americans. We trust we have no uncatholic feelings towards his country, the land of our ancestors, and with which through our literary recollections, we have so many and so dear associations, but we must tell him that we Americans are as much disturbed to see Great Britain mistress of the seas, subordinating every thing to her commercial and manufacturing interests, as he can be to see Russia mistress on the land. We have more to apprehend from Great Britain than from Russia, and we have looking to our own interests, no wish to see Russia weakened as a maritime power. Great Britain will no more suffer, if she can help it, a great maritime power to grow up to dispute her naval supremacy, than Russia will a great empire by the side of her own, able to interfere with her projects in the East. Great Britain is our rival, and now that she and France act as one, Russia is our natural ally, and the only first-class power in Europe that is. Naturally, then, should we Americans incline to the side of Russia in the contest now going on. We wish no harm to England or France, but we wish, for our own sakes, just as little to Russia.
We cannot hope that what we have said will satisfy our highly esteemed correspondent, but it will prove to him and our friends in the United Kingdom, who we hope are many, that we are willing to let those who think differently from us be heard, and that it is not rashly that we differ from many excellent Catholics and intelligent gentlemen on the Eastern Question. In point of fact, we are on neither side, and we dread the success of either party, of one just as much as of the other, unless it be that, if one side must get the better, we would rather it should be the western powers than Russia, especially just now, when the odds seem to be against them, and their army is struggling so bravely against superior force.