At The Gates Of Constantinople


From the days of Rurik down, a single desire--a single passion, we may

say--has had a strong hold upon the Russian heart, the desire to possess

Constantinople, that grand gate-city between Europe and Asia, with its

control of the avenue to the southern seas. While it continued the

capital of the Greek empire it was more than once assailed by Russian

armies. After it became the metropolis of the Turkish dominion renewed

attempts were made. But Greek and Turk alike valiantly held their own,

and the city of the straits defied its northern foes. Through the

centuries war after war with Turkey was fought, the possession of

Constantinople their main purpose, but the Moslem clung to his capital

with fierce pertinacity, and not until the year 1878 did he give way and

a Russian army set eyes on the city so long desired.



In 1875 an insurrection broke out in Bosnia and Herzegovina, two

Christian provinces under Turkish rule. The rebellious sentiment spread

to Bulgaria, and in 1876 Turkey began a policy of repression so cruel as

to make all Europe quiver with horror. Thousands of its most savage

soldiery were let loose upon the Christian populations south of the

Balkans, with full license to murder and burn, and a frightful carnival

of torture and massacre began. More than a hundred towns were destroyed,

and their inhabitants treated with revolting inhumanity. In the month of

June, 1876, about forty thousand Bulgarians, of all ages and sexes, were

put to death, many of the children being sold as slaves in the Turkish

cities.



Of all the powers of Europe, Russia was the only one that took arms to

avenge these slaughtered populations. England stood impassive, the other

nations held aloof, but Alexander II. called out his troops, and once

more the Russian battalions were set en route for the Danube, with

Constantinople as their ultimate goal.



In June, 1877, the Danube was crossed and the Russian host entered

Bulgaria, the Turks retiring as they advanced. But the march of invasion

was soon arrested. The Balkan Mountains, nature's line of defence for

Turkey, lay before the Russian troops, and on the high-road to its

passes stood the town of Plevna, a fortress which must be taken before

the mountains could safely be crossed. The works were very strong, and

behind them lay Osman Pacha, one of the boldest and bravest of the

Turkish soldiers, with a gallant little army under his command. The

defence of this city was the central event of the war. From July to

September the Russians sought its capture, making three desperate

assaults, all of which were repulsed. In October the city was invested

with an army of forty thousand men, under the intrepid General

Skobeleff, with a determination to win. But Osman held out with all his

old stubbornness, and continued his unflinching defence until

starvation forced him to yield. He had lost his city, but had held back

the Russian army for nearly half a year and won the admiration of the

world.



The fall of Plevna set free the large Russian army that had been tied up

by its siege. What should be done with these troops, more than one

hundred thousand strong? The Balkans, whose gateways Plevna had closed,

now lay open before them, but winter was at hand, winter with its frosts

and snows. An attempt to cross the mountains at this time, even if

successful, would bring them before strong Turkish fortresses in

midwinter, with a chain of mountains in the rear, over which it would be

impossible to maintain a line of supplies. The prudent course would have

been to put the men into winter quarters at the foot of the Balkans on

the north and wait for spring before venturing upon the mountain passes.



The Grand Duke Nicholas, however, was not governed by such

considerations of prudence, but determined, at all hazards, to strike

the Turks before they had time to reorganize and recuperate. The army

was, therefore, at once set in motion, General Gourko marching upon the

Araba-Konak, Radetzky upon the Shipka Pass. The story of these movements

is a long one, but must be given here in a few words. The bitter cold,

the deep snow, the natural difficulties of the passes, the efforts of

the enemy, all failed to check the Russian advance. Gourko forced his

way through all opposition, took the powerful fortress of Sophia without

a blow, and routed an army of fifty thousand men on his march to

Philippopolis. Radetzky did even better, since he captured the Turkish

army defending the Shipka Pass, thirty-six thousand strong. The whole

Turkish defence of the Balkans had gone down with a crash, and the

Russians found themselves on the south side of the mountains with the

enemy everywhere on the retreat, a broken and demoralized host.



Meanwhile what had become of the Turkish population of the Balkans and

Roumelia? There were none of them to be seen; no fugitives were passed;

not a Turk was visible in Sophia; the whole region traversed up to

Philippopolis seemed to have only a Christian population. But on leaving

the last-named city the situation changed, and a terrible scene of

bloodshed, death, and misery met the eyes of the marching hosts. It was

now easy to see what had become of the Turks: they were here in

multitudes in full flight for their lives. The Bulgarians had avenged

themselves bitterly on their late oppressors. Dead bodies of men and

animals, broken carts, heaps of abandoned household goods, and tatters

of clothing seemed to mark every step of the way. Fierce and terrible

had been the struggle, dreadful the result, Turks and Bulgarians lying

thickly side by side in death. Here appeared the bodies of Bulgarian

peasants horrible with gaping wounds and mutilations, the marks of

Turkish vengeance; there beside them lay corpses of dignified old Turks,

their white beards stained with their blood.



While the men had died from violence, the women and children had

perished from cold and hunger, many of them being frozen to death, the

faces and tiny hands of dead children visible through the shrouding

snows. The living were dragging their slow way onward through this

ghastly array of the dead, in a seemingly endless procession of wagons,

drawn by half starved oxen, and bearing sick and feeble human beings and

loads of household goods. Beside the laden vehicles the wretched,

famine-stricken, worn-out fugitives walked, pushing forward in unceasing

fear of their merciless Bulgarian foes.



Farther on the scene grew even more terrible. The road was strewn with

discarded bedding, carpets, and other household goods. In one village

were visible the bodies of some Turkish soldiers whom the Bulgarians had

stoned to death, the corpses half covered with the heaps of stones and

bricks which had been hurled at them.



Beyond this was reached a vast mass of closely packed wagons extending

widely over roads and fields, not fewer than twenty thousand in all. The

oxen were still in the yokes, but the people had vanished, and Bulgarian

plunderers were helping themselves unresisted to the spoil. The great

company, numbering fully two hundred thousand, had fled in terror to the

mountains from some Russian cavalry who had been fired upon by the

escort of the fugitives and were about to fire in return. Abandoning

their property, the able-bodied had fled in panic fear, leaving the old,

the sick, and the infants to perish in the snow, and their cherished

effects to the hands of Bulgarian pilferers.



In advance lay Adrianople, the ancient capital of Turkey and the second

city in the empire. Here, if anywhere, the Turks should have made a

stand. But news came that this stronghold had been abandoned by its

garrison, that the wildest panic prevailed, and that the Turkish

population of the city and the surrounding villages was in full flight.

At daylight of the 20th of January the city was entered by the cavalry,

and on the 22d Skobeleff marched in with his infantry, at once

despatching the cavalry in pursuit of the retreating enemy. The defence

of Adrianople had been well provided for by an extensive system of

earthworks, but not an effort was made to hold it, and an incredible

panic seemed everywhere to have seized the Turks.



Russia had almost accomplished the task for which it had been striving

during ten centuries. Constantinople at last lay at its mercy. The Turks

still had an army, still had strong positions for defence, but every

shred of courage seemed to have fled from their hearts, and their powers

of resistance to be at an end. They were in a state of utter

demoralization and ready to give way to Russia at all points and accept

almost any terms they could obtain. Had they decided to continue the

fight, they still possessed a position famous for its adaptation to

defence, behind which it was possible to hold at bay all the power of

Russia.



This was the celebrated position of Buyak-Tchek-medje, a defensive line

twenty-five miles from Constantinople and of remarkable military

strength. The peninsula between the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmora is

at this point only twenty miles wide, and twelve of these miles are

occupied by broad lakes which extend inland from either shore. Of the

remaining distance, about half is made up of swamps which are almost or

quite impassable, while dense and difficult thickets occupy the rest of

the line. Behind this stretch of lake, swamp, and thicket there extends

from sea to sea a ridge from four hundred to seven hundred feet in

height, the whole forming a most admirable position for defence. This

ridge had been fortified by the Turks with redoubts, trenches, and

rifle-pits, which, fully garrisoned and mounted with guns, might have

proved impregnable to the strongest force. The thirty thousand men

within them could have given great trouble to the whole Russian army,

and double that number might have completely arrested its march. Yet

this great natural stronghold was given up without a blow, signed away

with a stroke of the pen.






On January 31 an armistice was signed, one of whose terms was that this

formidable defensive line should be evacuated by the Turks, who were to

retire to an inner line, while the Russians were to occupy a position

about ten miles distant. It was no consideration for Turkey that now

kept the Russians outside the great capital, but dread of the powers of

Europe, which jealously distrusted an increase of the power of Russia,

and were bent on saving Turkey from the hands of the czar.



On February 12 an event took place that threatened ominous results. The

British fleet forced the passage of the Dardanelles and moved upon

Constantinople, on the pretence of protecting the lives of British

subjects in that city. As soon as news of this movement reached St.

Petersburg the emperor telegraphed to the Grand Duke Nicholas, giving

him authority to march a part of his army into Constantinople, on the

same plea that the British had made. In response the grand duke demanded

of the sultan the right to occupy a part of the environs of his capital

with Russian soldiers, the negotiations ending with the permission to

occupy the village of San Stefano, on the Sea of Marmora, about six

miles from the walls of the threatened city.



What would be the end of it all was difficult to foresee. On the waters

of the city floated the English iron-clads, with their mute threat of

war; around the walls Turkish troops were rapidly throwing up

earthworks; leading officers in the Russian army chafed at the thought

of stopping so near their longed-for goal, and burned with the desire to

make a final end of the empire of the Turks and add Constantinople to

the dominions of the czar. Yet though thus, as it were, on the edge of a

volcano, their ordinary policy of delay and hesitation was shown by the

Turkish diplomats, and the treaty of peace was not concluded and signed

until the 3d of March. The Russians had used their controlling position

with effect, and the treaty largely put an end to Turkish dominion in

Europe.



The news of the signing was received with cheers of enthusiasm by the

Russian army, drawn up on the shores of the inland sea, the

Preobrajensky, the famous regiment of Peter the Great, holding the post

of honor. Scarce a rifle-shot distant, crowding in groups the crests of

the neighboring hills, and deeply interested spectators of the scene,

appeared numbers of their late opponents. The news received, the

cheering battalions wheeled into column, and past the grand duke went

the army in rapid review, the march still continuing after darkness had

descended on the scene.



And thus ended the war, with the Russians within sight of the walls of

that city which for so many centuries they had longed and struggled to

possess. Only for the threatening aspect of the powers of Europe the

Ottoman empire would have ended then and there, and the Turk, "encamped

in Europe," would have ended forever his rule over Christian realms.



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