[Prince Wassiltchikoff, President of the Slavonic Committee at St. Petersburg, published in the “Sévernoy Vestnik” an article on the compensation which in his own private opinion Russia had a right to demand at the end of the war; the importance ascribed to his suggestions in England called forth the following letter.]

 

“It is utterly impossible,” said a friend of mine, “to make Englishmen believe that any nation is capable of doing anything from unselfish motives. If you tell them so they think at once that you are humbugging them!”

“Could you not persuade them that it is possible for a nation to go mad?” I asked.

“Yes,” said he; “in that case it is possible that they may believe you—not otherwise!”

Well, I thought, if to perform an act of heroic self-sacrifice is to be mad, the Russian nation is mad,—and I am proud of it! This is undoubtedly a mad war, if it is viewed as a speculation. It is evidently either a folly or a heroism!

“Do you believe that Russia is levying an unselfish war?” I have been asked incredulously, “Is it for the Southern Slavs she is fighting? Not for Kars, Batoum, and the free passage of the Dardanelles?”

“Answer me,” I replied. “You English are great financiers. Will the war pay as a speculation? What possible compensation would repay us for our losses? Will the killed come to life again, or would we feel their death less keenly if we annexed Armenia?”

“No,” he objected, “but Governments pay scant heed to the agonies inflicted upon the tools of their ambition.”

“The Government, then; is it a good speculation for it? How much is the war costing us? We have lost 70,000 men already, and every man, your economists say, has a money value. The campaign is costing about £250,000 per day, or more. Take the smaller sum, and ask yourself whether all the territory which we can possibly gain is worth the cost?”

“Why, then,” he rejoined, “do you go on fighting—for prestige?”

“Listen,” I said; “your child is attacked by a wolf. At the peril of your life you rush to the rescue, and kill the animal. What would you feel if a neighbour asked with a sneer why you could take so much trouble when the skin of a wolf is worth so little? It is our duty, and duty is the first of ‘Russian interests.’ As for prestige, there are moments in national, as in private, life when such trivial considerations are out of the question.”

Apropos of compensation, Prince Wassiltchikoff’s article in the Sévernoy Vestnick deals with that very subject. The word is badly chosen. There can be no compensation for sacrifices such as ours but the complete deliverance of the Slavs. Prince Wassiltchikoff fears that in a moment of impulsive magnanimity we may refuse all compensation for the labours and the blood which the war has cost us. Compensation is impossible. He demands a war fine as a matter of duty. But what fine can we exact from the bankrupt Ottoman?

Prince Wassiltchikoff, who, however, speaks solely in his own name, suggests that, not being able to pay in cash, the Turk might surrender his fleet. The suggestion has created some little stir—perhaps needlessly. Before the war is over not only the fleet, but even Turkey in Europe, may have ceased to exist. As the Moscow Gazette graphically remarked—“When a man dies the soul disappears, but the body remains. With the Russian navy the case is reversed. In the Black Sea the fleet exists no more; but its spirit survives to animate our heroic sailors, whose torpedoes have already diminished the number of Turkish ironclads.” The gallantry of Dubassoff, Shistakoff, Prince Galitzine, and many others, encourages the hope that other men-of-war may share the fate of the monitors sunk in the Matchin Canal.

Prince Wassiltchikoff’s innocent suggestion has raised quite a little storm in the English papers. “This is Russia’s magnanimity,” cry the Turkophiles. “Her crusade of emancipation was a mere pretext to cover her design on Turkish ironclads!”

Remarks of this kind could easily be foreseen. But Turkish ironclads are not the best representatives of European fleets.¹ Many of them are already out of repair, and they are getting worse daily. There are not twenty-five of them altogether. Yet Russia, if disengaged now, would be purchasing them at two millions per ship. A pretty bargain, is it not? Let us stick to our arithmetic. Russia, they say, has gone to war on the chance of gaining the Turkish fleet. Well, let us see what Russia is paying for her bargain. The war will not cost a penny less than £50,000,000. How much more money will be spent before we can demand the fleet as an indemnity is unknown. But the Turkish navy, even when new, surely did not cost so much. What does a sea-going ironclad of the latest fashion cost? About half a million—is it not so? Then with the money spent already we could have bought a hundred first-class ironclads. I am not quick at figures, but that is simple enough. The Turks have not even ten first-class vessels. But, then, say the timid Englishmen who are always pretending to be afraid of Russia, it is the sudden increase of Russian naval power that is the danger we dread. You might have bought a better fleet, but not all at once. It would need four or five years. Well, suppose it would! But do you think that, after such a tremendous war as the present, we shall be anxious—even if we were ever so aggressive—to attack any one else for at least that time? We would need longer to heal our wounds and to repair our losses; and in that time England and the other Powers could proportionately increase their navies.

Germany took five milliards from France without English objections. If we could take half of that sum from the Turks, England probably would not object neither. But, with one quarter of that money, we could build twice as good a fleet as the Turks have now, and have it ready—with the assistance of the English and American ship-builders—as soon as we could possibly be in a position to use the Turkish fleet, if it passed into our hands.

If we got the Turkish fleet, who knows but that we might sell it in order to pay part—a very small part—of our war expenses?

The Times, I see, suggests that after we Russians have beaten the Turks the fleet should be sold by auction for the benefit of the Turkish bondholders! How very kind and considerate in the Times! I do enjoy that proposal! We Russians have such strong reasons for sympathising with the English holders of Ottoman bonds! But for them and the money which they poured into the pocket of the Sultan this war would long since have been over. Every thousand pounds lent to the Turk by England has cost Russia perhaps more than one precious life. Should the fleet of the Turk ever come into our hands we certainly shall not use it to raise money for the distressed bondholders. Better burn it! But the suggestion is probably only une mauvaise plaisanterie—a bad little joke on the part of the Times.

Yet I hear the City people accept the suggestion as a very happy one, and almost fancy that it will greatly delight Turkey if her navy becomes the prey of her generous protector. It seems to me, however, that, although the Turks have had plenty of words of sympathy and promises of help from England, they have little cause for gratitude for so platonic a devotion, which only had the effect of irritating Russia. The worst friends of the Turks, from the first, have been those men who are now speaking as if they had deserved the fleet as a reward for counsels which lured their friends to ruin.

Prince Wassiltchikoff is a man of high character and position. I never met anybody who did not esteem the straightforwardness of his views; but with all that I fail to understand why the Times should treat his theory about the Dardanelles question as if his letter were written by Prince Gortschakoff.² Russians are not sent to Siberia for having an opinion of their own about affairs in the East. Prince Gortschakoff, in his despatch to Lord Derby, in May, expressly disclaimed any intention of settling the Dardanelles question, except in accordance with the views of the Powers of Europe. Of course our Imperial Chancellor knows all about these things better than I do; but I express an opinion, shared by many of my countrymen, that, in giving so many assurances, and making so many concessions to the Powers, Russia displays too great a condescension. Europe does not help us in our battle. Why should she interfere with the fruits of our victory?

1. Since the above was written I am glad to find my observations confirmed by no less an authority than Lord Eustace Cecil, Under Secretary of the English War Office, whose Turkish sympathies are undisguised. Speaking at Hereford on December 1st, he said that the Turkish fleet, having been built at least a dozen years ago, as a power of offence was almost useless, for its armour plates were only constructed to resist guns of a very inferior calibre. He did not believe there was one Turkish ironclad that would resist either a 38 or a 35-ton gun.
2. It turns out that the Prince never put forward as his own the view imputed to him, but introduced it for the purpose of refutation. It is to the credit of the Manchester Guardian that it discovered the blunder before the appearance of the authorized contradiction.