RUSSIA MOVING by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 2, 1876

RUSSIA MOVING.

By Uriah Smith

SEPT. 20. The daily papers of the 19th contain exciting dispatches from the seat of war in the East. The Evening News contains an article, headed, “The War. Russia Cuts the Gordian Knot with the Sword, and Proposes to March her Armies into Bulgaria and Armenia. The Announcement Startles Europe.” We quote from the dispatch the following:—

“Cable to the National Press Association.

“London, Oct. 19.—The announcement yesterday that Russia had issued a circular note announcing that in the interests of humanity she feels bound to march troops into Bulgaria and Armenia, created the most intense excitement, and the subsequent intelligence that all Russians visiting abroad had been ordered home, and that the Russian fleet had been ordered from Cronstadt to the Mediterranean, only added to the agitation. There are 82,000 men at Bender, in Bessarabia, and 64,000 at Tiflis, in Georgian Caucasus; and both forces are ready to be hurled over the frontier. All diplomacy, it is now conceded, is useless. Ristics, the Servian premier, says that a resumption of the war, with Russia as one of the actors, is certain. There is some talk at Belgrade for an armistice until New Years; but whether it prevails or not will matter very little, for it is now the manifest purpose of Russia to carry on the war until she has opened a clear road to Constantinople.”

“London, Oct. 18.—An intense excitement prevails here, but it is greatest in commercial and business circles. The prospects of peace are regarded as almost infinitesimal, and there is a feeling that Europe is entering upon the most stupendous struggle that has happened since the wars with Napoleon.”

A NEW ELEMENT IN THE CONTEST.

Editorially the News speaks as follows of a new element to be introduced into the war in Europe:—

“If Russia pushes her plans, and the war in Europe becomes general, a new element, not known to a great extent in European contests for many years, will come to the front. The leading Mohammedans of Arabia, at a meeting at Mecca, have resolved that it is the duty of the members of the faith in all parts of the world to go to the defense of Turkey. Already large sums of money have been forwarded from Mecca to Constantinople, to aid the cause of the Turks. A formal declaration has been made that it is the solemn duty of the Mohammedans to contribute for the support of the Crescent. The declaration issues from the orthodox leaders of the faith, and has all the sanction that can come from the city of the prophet.”

In reading the foregoing, one can hardly help thinking of the words of the prophet, “Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat.” Joel 3:12. If Mohammedans from all parts of the world rally to the support of the Crescent, and Roman Catholics in all parts of the world make a strike, as multitudes of them are very desirous of doing, and are threatening to do, to re-instate the pope in his temporal dominions, this world will present such scenes of warlike activities and efforts as it has never witnessed.

CONDITION OF EUROPEAN POWERS.

An interesting item also appears in the same paper respecting the recent preparations and present condition of the great powers of Europe. It does not look much like learning war no more. It is as follows:—

“The exciting war news from the East lends additional interest to the reports just received in our foreign mails of the condition of the military preparations of the great powers. It is stated that France has completely re-organized her military system, re-armed both infantry and artillery, improved her cavalry, shortened her time for mobilization, enforced discipline among her troops, decentralized her stores, and studied tactics day and night.”

“As for Germany, the authority from which we borrow these facts states that she has quickened her mobilization by several days, and improved and codified the system of tactics forced upon her by the sufferings her legions felt from the fire of the French. She has re-armed both her infantry and artillery, developed the use of railways in war, and added to her numerical strength by practically changing part of her landsturm into landwehr, a measure much the same as if we should turn our militia into regular troops.”

“Austria, it is stated, has impressed the study of tactics on her officers as the one thing needful, and has so developed her organization that she can put nearly double the number of men in the field that fought at Koniggratz and Custozza. She has, moreover, re-armed her infantry long ago, and is now re-arming her artillery—not before it was needed.”

“Russia has not yet completed her new military organization. She has made great improvements in her system of tactics, and has adopted the latest and most approved ones. British authorities do not believe that Russia has reached anything like the maximum of excellence in her military organization, but her arrangements and preparations are rapidly pushed. The British authorities, and especially the British army officers, look on with no small degree of interest while all these preparations are being perfected.”

A good general view of the nature of the contest, and the long-cherished designs of Russia, is set forth in the following article. It will be of great interest in connection with the present aspect of affairs in that quarter.

“Although Russia, as a well-defined and coherent power, dates no further back, in the estimation of historians, than the days of Peter the Great, and, therefore, is considerably less than two centuries old, the war she has now, according to the day’s dispatches, undertaken against Turkey, is the heritage of many centuries. At least one thousand years ago that aggressive little Slavonic band known as Russians, although residing far in the interior, amid the frosty fogs of Kiev and Novgorod, had its fleets on the Euxine Sea, and aided by the Scandinavians even ventured to attack Constantinople, the capital of the great Byzantine Empire. Even at this early day the Euxine was known as the Mare Russicum, the Russian Sea.”

“Shortly after (in 955, as nearly as we can fix it) they became Christians of the Eastern church, and although this necessarily put a stop to the assaults upon Byzantium, it only increased their efforts to gain a permanent foothold upon the waters of the Azof and the Euxine, and contributed to inflame their lust for southern conquest; for Constantinople henceforth was to them, not only the fountain of religious authority, but served them as the sole representative of civilized life and the synonym for a degree of splendor which could hardly be grasped by their rude imaginations.”

“In 1453 Constantinople fell into the hands of the Turks, and the last Byzantine emperor was Constantine Palæologus, whose niece Sophia was sought in 1472 by the Russian Ivan III., who had previously wrought wonders for his dukedom on the battle field, and now proved in many and more peaceful ways his right to the surname of ‘the Great.’ He imported many of the arts of civilization among his people, and (what is especially to our purpose in this article) introduced into his court the splendor of Byzantium, adopted the arms of the Greek Empire, and assumed the name of Czar of all the Russias—Czar being, as commonly held, quite the same as Cæsar. His adoption of this title carried out the affectation of the eastern emperors, who, although long divorced from Rome, liked to regard themselves as Cæsars; and, furthermore, it humored the notion, which then began to be entertained by the Russians, that their country was the heir and avenger of the Byzantine Empire, and the special protector of the Greek Christians of Turkey.”

“Then some one (most likely one of the few poets of that period) introduced the fashion of calling Constantinople the Tsarigrad, or city of the Czar, and this also was a very pleasing idea to the people of that ice-locked land. From that time forth, this is the golden thread that binds the whole policy of the empire. Inflamed by Byzantine traditions, surrounded by arts, appliances and luxuries drawn from Constantinople and the South, and inspired by the notion that the imperial residence would some day be transferred from the moldy marshes of the Neva to the softer skies of Stamboul, Russia has steadfastly pursued her uniform way, and her progress, if slow and silent like the wool-shod footsteps of the gods, has been tolerably sure.”

“In 1696, Peter the Great wrested the sea of Azof from the Turks, and kept it. Next, Catharine 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.”

A dispatch from London, dated Oct. 20, speaking of the interference of England in Turkish affairs, says:—

“England has never undertaken to interfere in the concerns of the continent without continental allies. There is no good ground for believing that we should have real support from any power in a war for the defense of the Turkish state.”

“Special Dispatch to the Evening News.

“New York, Oct. 19.—A Graphic special from Washington, D. C., says the real cause of the panic in England over the Turkish question is the announcement of the Czar that he proposes to take possession of Armenia, which would bring the Russian forces on the flank of Turkey, and within striking distance of Syria, the Holy Land, and the Mediterranean Sea. By this road Russia eventually expects to reach Egypt and the Suez Canal. The occupation of Armenia also means eventually the total destruction of the Ottoman power. It is also surmised that Germany has similar designs upon Denmark and Holland, or she would never have consented to this enormous possible aggrandizement of Russia.”

“The coming war in Europe is regarded in Washington as being probably the most gigantic which has ever been waged. England will be compelled to fight, and, if she does, she exposes herself to the incursions of American privateers.”

U. S.