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.