p. 4 | A. G. DANIELLS by A. G. Daniells

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 19, 1914

A. G. DANIELLS

By A. G. Daniells

Does the History of Turkey and Egypt Since 1798 Fulfill the Prophecy of Dan. 11: 40-44?—No. 18

A. G. DANIELLS

"But tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him: therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many." Dan. 11:44.

No sooner had Turkey succeeded in reestablishing undisputed sovereignty in the south in 1825 than the battle ground was transferred to the east and the north.

"War between Russia and Turkey broke out in 1828, each accusing the other of not having observed the Treaty of Bukharest. . . . A careful plan of campaign had been prepared. Turkey was to be attacked on all sides, by land and sea. Immediately after the declaration of war, Prince Wittgenstein placed himself at the head of an army of 150,000 men, and, on the seventh of May, crossed the [River] Pruth in three columns."

"Paskevitch was instructed to make an incursion from the Caucasus into the Asiatic [eastern] dominions of Turkey, so as to draw away her forces from Europe. Prince Menshikoff, with a separate detachment, was to take Anapa, and Admiral Geig, with the Black Sea fleet, was to silence the forts on the Bulgarian and Roumelian and other eastern coasts; while Admiral Heyden, with the squadron which was in the archipelago, was to close the Dardanelles so as to prevent reenforcements coming from Egypt to Constantinople."—"A History of Russia From Peter the Great to Nicholas II," by W. R. Morfill, pages 367, 368.

Alarmed and angered by Russia's extensive plans for the invasion of her dominions, Turkey went "forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many."

"Acting as he did on the defensive in Europe, the sultan meant to strike a vigorous blow in Asia. At the very beginning of the war he ordered the seraskier of Erzerum with an army of 40,000 men to make incursions in various directions upon Russian territory beyond the Caucasus. . . . The Mussulman provinces, roused by the instructions sent by the sultan, only awaited the arrival of the Turks, their coreligionists, to rise against the Russians en masse. Everywhere was agitation and everywhere treason."

"We must not forget the kind of man of whom we are writing. One of the most sanguinary of Turkish sultans, Mahmud has left a terrible reputation for his recklessness of human life. . . . For Erzerum a new seraskier was appointed, with unlimited powers. Hahki Pasha, a commander of known skill and bravery, was also sent to assist him. He was commissioned to arm 200,000 men in Anatolia."—Id., pages 367-375.

Sir Edward Creasy, in an interesting and instructive account of this conflict between Russia and Turkey, says:—

"Though Russia was nominally at peace with all the world (her Persian war having ended by a convention in November), she was calling out new levies of conscripts, concentrating troops in Bessarabia, and collecting military stores and transports in her harbors in the Black Sea, in readiness for an invasion of the Ottoman dominion."

"Convinced that his great enemy intended to attack him in the spring [of 1828], the sultan took the bold step of being the first to declare war; . . . and he called on all Mussulmans to show again the determined valor with which the Ottomans had in ancient times established in the world the true religion, and to resist the foe whose object was to annihilate Islam and tread the people of Mohammed underfoot."

"In the ensuing war the vigor shown by Mahmud astonished both friends and foes. Russia employed in the first campaign about 100,000 of all arms in European [northern] Turkey. . . . A far less spirited resistance on the part of the Turks was expected than that which was actually encountered."

"The artillery force was numerous and loyal, and the armed Turkish inhabitants of the towns which the enemy assailed, showed as usual, the greatest spirit of self-defense, and contributed greatly to the prolongation of the war, which was (in its first campaign, at least) principally a war of sieges."

"At the close of the European campaign, the position of the combatants was such that, in the words of the ablest military critic of the war (Von Moltke), 'If we consider the enormous sacrifices the war cost the Russians in 1828, it is difficult to say whether they or the Turks won or lost. It remained for a second campaign to decide the value of the first.'"

"The general feeling (especially in Austria) was that Russia had been overrated, that the sultan was unexpectedly powerful, and that the war was likely to be prolonged without any heavy catastrophe to the Turkish Empire. Russia herself felt keenly the need of recovering her prestige by more signal success in another campaign, which she resolved to make a decisive one."

"Accordingly, in 1829, more numerous and better-appointed forces crossed the Danube, and they were led by Marshal Diebitsch. 'He besieged one fortress, and fought one battle [says Von Moltke]; but this brought him into the very heart of the hostile empire. He arrived there followed by the shadow of an army, but with the reputation of irresistible success.' . . . He continued to impose upon the terrified enemy by the appearance of strength, and by well-simulated confidence and rapidly increasing weakness, and the deepest and most serious alarm."

"The only alternatives for Diebitsch were to obtain a peace, or to be destroyed; and in order to obtain peace, it was necessary to keep up the boldest semblance of waging war."

"Even the European ambassadors of Pera [European quarter of Constantinople] believed that Diebitsch was at the head of 60,000 efficient troops; and they joined the sultan's ministers in urging him to save the empire from total destruction, by negotiating instantly with the Russian general, and obtaining peace at almost any sacrifice. Mahmud is said long to have resisted their pusillanimous advice; and well would it have been for him and his empire if a single friend had then been near him to support his sovereign with manly counsel. At length the sultan yielded to the importunities of all around him."

"The whole current of the world's history would have been changed . . . if a single messenger of truth from Adrianople could have been heard in the divan, or at Pera, in the August of 1829; or, if Sultan Mahmud, in happy obstinacy, had resisted a little longer the solicitations of those who urged on him 'Peace, Peace,' when there should have been no peace."—"History of the Ottoman Turks," by Sir Edward Creasy, pages 512, 521.

# Results

The Russian forces were in the end successful. Those prosecuting the attack on the European territory in the north succeeded in taking the city of Adrianople, only one hundred and twenty-five miles from the sultan's capital. The army sent to the Asiatic territory in the East extended their conquests from the Black Sea on the Caucasus to the city of Erzerum, the capital of Turkomania. With General Diebitsch in possession of Adrianople, and General Paskevitch in possession of Erzerum, Turkey was helpless; "the two generals would doubtless have joined hands in Constantinople but for the efforts of diplomacy and the fear of a general conflagration. . . . Austria was ready to send her troops to the help of the Turks, and the English also seemed likely to declare for the vanquished. It was therefore necessary to come to a halt." But Turkey, "once so formidable, was henceforth at the mercy of her northern neighbor, the principal instrument of her decay."—"Historian's History of the World," Vol. XVII, pages 541, 545.

"This war, the most disastrous in its consequences in which Turkey had yet been engaged, was terminated by the Treaty of Adrianople. . . . In the course of her hostilities with Turkey in Asia, Russia had developed new and extensive projects of future conquest. . . . Thus Russia, by a long series of hostilities and intrigues, had not only conquered a large extent of the European and Asiatic territories of Turkey, but brought about the actual separation of Greece, and attempted the virtual separation of Servia, Moldavia, and Wallachia from the Ottoman Empire; had contemplated the occupation of Bagdad, and extended her secret connections to that pashalic and to the mountain of Kurdistan."—"History of Russia," by A. W. Kelly, Vol. II, pages 352-354.

"Russia had everything to lose and nothing to gain by a European war. It had reduced Turkey to submission, and might fairly hope to maintain its ascendancy at Constantinople during coming years without making any of those great territorial changes which would have given its rivals a pretext for intervening on the sultan's behalf. Under the guise of a generous forbearance, the czar extricated himself from a dangerous position with credit and advantage. As much had been won as could be maintained without hazard; and on the fourteenth of September peace was concluded in Adrianople."—"History of Modern Europe," by C. A. Fyffe, page 343.

"By the Peace of Adrianople, Sept. 14, 1829, Turkey recovered Moldavia and Wallachia and all the towns which Russia had taken in Bulgaria and Roumelia. Moldavia was to have an independent administration and free trade; Russia was to have free commerce throughout the Ottoman Empire and with all nations at peace with Turkey, and free navigation of the Black Sea. Turkey also agreed to pay a war indemnity, besides an indemnification for the losses of Russian subjects, and to acknowledge the independence of Greece."—"Library of Universal History," Vol. IX, page 2777.

As stated by Kelly, this war was "the most disastrous in its consequences in which Turkey had yet been engaged." The victories gained by Russia in the Treaty of Adrianople were permanent. They placed her in a position to maintain an "ascendancy at Constantinople during coming years," and to develop "new and extensive projects of future conquest" in the Turkish Empire.

It was at this time and in this way that there began a series of invasions and conquests in the eastern and northern parts of the empire that have "troubled" the government of Turkey and caused it to "go forth with great fury to destroy" its enemies. But all the way along it has suffered defeat in battle, the loss of a large portion of its territory, and the loss of its independence as a world power. Gradual dissolution has been going on, and will continue until "he shall come to his end."