Thoughts on Daniel by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 22, 1882

Thoughts on Daniel.

By Uriah Smith

BY ELDER U. SMITH.

CHAPTER XI.—A LITERAL PROPHECY.

THE ostensible reason urged by Russia, for her movements in this direction, was that she might have a sea-front and harbors in a warmer climate than the shores of the Baltic; but the real design was against Turkey. Thus the Churchman, of Hartford, Ct., in an able article on the present "European Medley," states that Russia in her encroachments upon Turkey, is not merely seeking a sea frontier, and harbors lying on the great highways of commerce, unclosed by arctic winters, but that, with a feeling akin to that which inspired the Crusades, she is "actuated by an intense desire to drive the Crescent from the soil of Europe."

This desire on the part of Russia, has been cherished as a sacred legacy since the days of Peter the Great. That famous prince, becoming sole emperor of Russia in 1688, at the age of 16, enjoyed a prosperous reign of thirty-seven years, to 1725, and left to his successors a celebrated "last will and testament," imparting certain important instructions for their constant observance. The 9th article of that will enjoined the following policy:—

"To take every possible means of gaining Constantinople and the Indies (for he who rules there will be the true sovereign of the world); excite war continually in Turkey and Persia; establish fortresses in the Black Sea; get control of the sea by degrees, and also of the Baltic, which is a double point, necessary to the realization of our project; accelerate as much as possible the decay of Persia; penetrate the Persian Gulf; re-establish, if possible, by the way of Syria, the ancient commerce of the Levant; advance to the Indies, which are the great depot of the world. Once there, we can do without the gold of England."

The 11th article reads: "Interest the House of Austria in the expulsion of the Turks from Europe, and quiet their dissensions at the moment of the conquest of Constantinople (having excited war among the old States of Europe), by giving to Austria a portion of the conquest, which afterward will or can be reclaimed."

The following facts in Russian history will show how persistently this line of policy has been followed: "In 1696, Peter the Great wrested the Sea of Azov from the Turks and kept it. Next, Catherine the Great won the Crimea. In 1812, by the peace of Bucharest, Alexander I. obtained Moldavia, and the prettily-named province of Bessarabia, with its apples, peaches, and cherries. Then came the great Nicholas, who won the right of the free navigation of the Black Sea, the Dardanelles, and the Danube, but whose inordinate greed led him into the Crimean war, by which he lost Moldavia, and the right of navigating the Danube, and the unrestricted navigation of the Black Sea. This was no doubt a severe repulse to Russia, but it did not extinguish the designs upon the Ottoman power, nor did it contribute in any essential degree to the stability of the Ottoman empire. Patiently biding her time, Russia has been watching and waiting, and in 1870, when all the western nations were watching the Franco-Prussian war, she announced to the Powers that she would be no longer bound by the treaty of 1856, which restricted her use of the Black Sea, and since that time that sea has been, as it was one thousand years ago, to all intents and purposes, a mare Russicum."

Napoleon Bonaparte well understood the designs of Russia, and the importance of her contemplated movements. While a prisoner on the island of St. Helena, he spoke to Governor Hudson as follows:—

"In the course of a few years, Russia will have Constantinople, part of Turkey, and all Greece. This I hold to be as certain as if it had already taken place. I would not give it, foreseeing that the equilibrium of Europe would be destroyed. Once mistress of Constantinople, Russia gets all the commerce of the Mediterranean, becomes a naval power, and then God knows what may happen. The object of my invasion of Russia was to prevent this, by the interposition between her and Turkey of a new State which I meant to call into existence as a barrier to her eastern encroachments."

Kossuth, also, took the same view of the political board, when he said: "In Turkey will be decided the fate of the world."

The words of Bonaparte quoted above in reference to the destruction of "the equilibrium of Europe," reveal the motive which has induced the great powers to tolerate so long the existence on the continent of a nation which is false in religion, destitute of humanity, and a disgrace to modern civilization. Constantinople is regarded, by general consent, as the grand strategic point of Europe, and the powers have each sagacity or jealousy enough to see, or think they see, the fact that if any one of the European powers gains permanent possession of that point, that power will be able to dictate terms to the rest of Europe. This position none of the powers are willing that any other power should possess; and the only apparent way to prevent it is for them all to combine, by tacit or express agreement, to keep each other out, and suffer the unspeakable Turk to drag along his sickly Asiatic existence on the soil of Europe. This is preserving that "balance of power" over which they are all so sensitive. But this cannot always continue. "He shall come to his end and none shall help him." The sick man seems determined to reduce himself most speedily to that degree of putrefaction, that Europe will be obliged to drive him into Asia, as a matter of safety to its own civilization.

When Russia in 1870 announced her intention to disregard the treaty of 1856, the other powers, though incapable of doing anything, nevertheless, as was becoming their ideas of their own importance, made quite a show of offended dignity. A congress of nations was demanded, and the demand was granted. The congress was held, and proved, as everybody expected it would prove, simply a farce, so far as restraining Russia was concerned. The San Francisco Chronicle of March, 1871, had this paragraph touching "The Eastern-Question Congress":—

"It is quite evident that, as far as directing or controlling the action of the Muscovite government is concerned, the Congress is little better than a farce. England originated the idea of the Congress, simply because it afforded her an opportunity of abandoning, without actual dishonor, a position she had assumed rather too hastily, and Russia was complacent enough to join in the 'little game,' feeling satisfied that she would lose nothing by her courtesy. Turkey is the only aggrieved party in this dextrous arrangement. She is left face to face with her hereditary and implacable enemy; for the nations that previously assisted her, ostensibly through friendship and love of justice, but really through motives of self-interest, have evaded the challenge so openly flung into the arena by the Northern Collossus. It is easy to foresee the end of this Conference. Russia will get all she requires, another step will be taken toward the realization of Peter the Great's will, and the Sultan will receive a foretaste of his apparently inevitable doom—expulsion from Europe."

From that point, the smouldering fires of the "Eastern Question" continued to agitate and alarm the nations of Europe till in 1877 the flames burst forth anew. On the 24th of April in that year, Russia declared war against Turkey—ostensibly to defend the Christians against the inhuman barbarity of the Turks—really, to make another trial to carry out her long-cherished determination, to drive the Turk from Europe. The events and the results of that war of 1877-78, the general reader will at this writing (1881) distinctly remember. It was evident from the first that Turkey was overmatched. Russia pushed her approaches till the very outposts of Constantinople were occupied by her forces. But diplomacy on the part of the alarmed nations of Europe again stepped in to suspend for awhile the contest. The Berlin Congress was held, Jan. 25, 1878. The key agreed to sign conditions to peace. The conditions should be that the straits of the Dardanelles should be open to Russian ships; that Russians should occupy Batoum, Kars, and Erzeroum; that Turkey should pay Russia £20,000,000 sterling, as a war indemnity; and that the treaty should be signed at Constantinople. In making this announcement, the Allgemeine Zeitung added, "The eventual entry of the Russians into Constantinople cannot longer be regarded as impracticable."

The Detroit Evening News of Feb. 20, 1878, said; "According to the latest version of the peace conditions, Turkey—besides her territorial losses, and the surrender of a few iron-clads, the re-imbursement of Russian capital invested in Turkish securities, the indemnity to Russian subjects in Constantinople for war losses, and the maintenance of about 100,000 prisoners of war—will have to pay to Russia in round figures a sum equivalent to about $552,000,000 in our money. The unestimated items will easily increase this to six hundred millions. With her taxable territory reduced almost to poverty-stricken Asia Minor, and with her finances at present in a condition of absolute chaos, it is difficult to see where she is going to get the money, however ready her present rulers may be to sign the contract."

"The proposition amounts to giving the Czar a permanent mortgage on the whole empire, and contains an implied threat that he may foreclose at any time, by the seizure of the remainder of European Turkey. In this last aspect, all Europe has a vital interest in the matter, and particularly England, even if the conditions were not in themselves calculated to drive English creditors crazy, by destroying their last hope of ever getting a cent of their large investments in Turkish bonds. It makes Russia a preferred creditor of the bankrupt Porte, with the additional advantage of being assignee in possession, leaving creditors with prior claims out in the cold."

The following paragraph taken from the Philadelphia Public Ledger, August, 1878, sets forth an instructive and very suggestive exhibit of the shrinkage of Turkish territory within the past sixty years, and especially as the result of the late war:—

"Any one who will take the trouble to look at a map of Turkey in Europe dating back about sixty years, and compare that with the new map sketched by the treaty of San Stefano as modified by the Berlin Congress, will be able to form a judgment of a march of progress that is pressing the Ottoman power out of Europe. Then, the northern boundary of Turkey extended to the Carpathian Mountains, and eastward of the river Sereth it embraced Moldavia as far north nearly as the 47th degree of north latitude. That map embraced also what is now the kingdom of Greece. It covered all of Servia and Bosnia. But by the year 1830, the northern frontier of Turkey was driven back from the Carpathians to the south bank of the Danube, the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia being emancipated from Turkish domination, and subject only to the payment of an annual tribute in money to the Porte. South of the Danube, the Servians had won a similar emancipation for their country. Greece also had been enabled to establish her independence. Then, as recently, the Turk was truculent and obstinate. Russia and Great Britain proposed to make Greece a tributary State, retaining the sovereignty of the Porte. This was refused, and the result was the utter destruction of the powerful Turkish fleet at Navarino, and the erection of the independent kingdom of Greece. Thus Turkey in Europe was pressed back on all sides. Now, the northern boundary, which was so recently at the Danube, has been driven south to the Balkans. Roumania and Servia have ceased even to be tributary, and have taken their place among independent States. Bosnia has gone under the protection of Austria, as Roumania did under that of Russia, in 1829. 'Rectified' boundaries give Turkish territory to Servia, Montenegro, and Greece. Bulgaria takes the place of Roumania as the self-governing principality, having no dependence on the Porte, and paying only an annual tribute. Even south of the Balkans the power of the Turk is crippled, for Roumelia is to have 'home rule' under a Christian governor. And so again the frontier of Turkey in Europe is pressed back on all sides, until the territory left is but the shadow of what it was sixty years ago. To produce this result has been the policy and the battle of Russia for more than half a century; for nearly that space of time it has been the struggle of some of the other 'powers' to maintain the 'integrity' of the Turkish empire. Which policy has succeeded, and which failed, the comparison of maps at intervals of twenty-five years will show. Turkey in Europe has been shriveled up in the last half century. It is shrinking back and back toward Asia, and, though all the 'powers' but Russia should unite their forces to maintain the Ottoman system in Europe, there is a manifest destiny visible in the history of the last fifty years that must defeat them."

A correspondent of the Christian Union, writing from Constantinople under date of Oct. 8, 1878, said:—

"When we consider the difficulties which now beset this feeble and tottering government, the only wonder is that it can stand for a day. Asid from the funded debt of $1,000,000,000 upon which it pays no interest, it has an enormous floating debt representing all the expenses of the war, its employes are unpaid, its army has not been disbanded or even reduced, and its paper money has become almost worthless. The people have lost heart, and expect every day some new revolution or a renewal of the war. The government does not know which to distrust most, its friends or its enemies."

Thus all evidence goes to show that the Turk must soon leave Europe. Where will he then plant the tabernacles of his palace? In Jerusalem? That certainly is the most probable point. Newton on the Prophecies, p. 318, says:

"Between the seas in the glorious holy mountain, must denote, as we have shown, some part of the Holy Land. There the Turk shall encamp with all his power, yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him'—shall help him effectually, or deliver him."

Time will soon determine this matter; and it may be but a few months. And when this takes place, what follows? Events of the most momentous interest to all the inhabitants of this world, as the next chapter immediately shows.