SECRET SOCIETIES AND THE WAR.¹

Lord Salisbury recently advised the victims of the baseless scare of a Russian invasion of India to buy large-sized maps and learn how insuperable are the obstacles which nature has placed between the land of the Tzar and the dominions of the Empress. Would it be too presumptuous in a Russian to express a wish that Englishmen would pay a little attention to the history of their own country in the days of the great Elizabeth, before attempting to pronounce an opinion upon the action of the Russian people in this war?² Perhaps the discovery that only three centuries ago the heroism and enthusiasm of the English Protestants anticipated in Holland and France the course taken last year by the newly-awakened enthusiasm of the Russian people in Bulgaria and Servia would moderate the vehemence of their censure, even if it did not secure for my countrymen the sympathy which Englishmen used to feel for those who are willing to sacrifice all, even life itself, in the cause of Liberty and Right.

Without sympathy understanding is impossible. Prejudice closes the door against all explanation. But no one who had entered into the spirit of the times when Sir Philip Sydney went forth to fight in the Low Countries, and Francis Drake swept the Spanish Main, could possibly have made so many grotesque blunders as those which are to be found in most articles professing to describe Pan-Slavists and the Slav Committees. It is not very difficult to understand the source of their inspiration. Instead of ascertaining the objects of the Slavophils from their own lips, they repeat all the stupid calumnies wherewith our enemies have vainly attempted to prejudice our Emperor against the Slav cause. That is not fair. If a Russian writer were to describe the operations of the Eastern Question Association and Mr. Gladstone from the slanders of the English Turkophiles, he would not err more from the truth than do those English writers who caricature the Slav Committees by repeating the calumnies of some of our official enemies,

‘The Slav Committees,’ it is said, ‘have brought about this war,’—an accusation of which I am proud, for the only alternative to war was a selfish abandonment of our Southern brethren to the merciless vengeance of the Turks.³ But when they say that we brought it about in order ‘to crush in Russia the present form of Government—the absolute rule of the Tzar,’ they state that which is not only untrue, but what is known to be an absurdity by every Slavophile in Russia. The statement is even more absurd than the assertion made by Lord Beaconsfield that the Servian war was made by the Secret Societies. The Slavonic Committees are not secret, and they are certainly not composed of Revolutionists. It used to be the reproach of the Slav party that it was in all things too Conservative. Now we are told that we are Radicals, who hate the present form of the Russian State. Both reproaches can hardly be true. As a matter of fact, both are false. Some writers charge Mr. Aksakoff with being, as President of the Moscow Committee, the head-centre of revolutionary Russia. As one of Mr. Aksakoff’s numerous friends, I may be permitted to say that there never was a more monstrous assertion. Mr. Aksakoff, although no courtier, is devotedly loyal. His wife was our Empress’s lady-­in-waiting, and governess to the Duchess of Edinburgh; and he himself, although abused in the Turkophile papers as a Russian Mazzini, is one of the last men in the world to undertake a crusade against the Tzardom. Simple, honest, enthusiastic, Mr. Aksakoff is no conspirator; he is simply the leading spokesman of the Russian Slavs, by whom he was elected to the post of President of the Moscow Slavonic Committee with only one dissentient voice. Much surprise was expressed that there should be even one vote against his appointment. But that surprise was succeeded by a smile when it was announced that the solitary dissentient was Mr. Aksakoff himself. So far from aiming at the destruction of the Russian State, they aim at the much less ambitious and more useful task of emancipating their Southern brethren from Turkish oppression. There is no mystery about the operations of our Committees. Their work is prosaic in the extreme. Brought into existence long ago by the operation of the same benevolent spirit which leads English people to send tracts to Fiji cannibals, these Committees laboured unnoticed and unseen until the close of 1875. At that time occurred the great revolt of the Southern Slavs against their Turkish despots; and it is the peculiar glory of the Slavonic Committees that they were able to give rapid effect to the enthusiasm kindled in Russia by the story of the sufferings of our brethren, and, by sustaining the struggle for emancipation, were able to keep the condition of the Slavs before the Powers, until at last the Russian Government stepped in to free them from bondage. All Russia—Emperor, Government and all—became but one vast Slavonic Committee for the liberation of the Southern Slavs; and we have far less reason for wishing to destroy a State which has so nobly undertaken the heroic task of liberating our brethren than Englishmen have for desiring to upset their Parliamentary system which has enabled a Lord Beaconsfield to balk the generous aspirations expressed by the nation during the autumn of 1876.

It is entirely false that to our Slav Committees belongs the honour of having originated the insurrection of the Herzegovina. After it began it attracted our attention, and we would have assisted it if we could, but, unfortunately, the Russian people were not aroused, and there were next to no funds at our disposal to assist the heroic insurgents whose desperate resolve to achieve liberty or death on their native hills first compelled the Powers to face what Europe calls the Eastern Question, but what we call the Emancipation of the Slavs. The utmost that we could do in the first year of the insurrection was to collect some 10,000l. for the relief of the refugees in the Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Ragusa. English sympathisers, notably Mr. Freeman, also collected contributions for the same cause. General Tchernayeff proposed in September to take fifty non-com­missioned officers to Montenegro, with arms for five hundred men; but he could not carry out his scheme because we had no funds. I state this as a matter of fact, which I regret.

Proof of this melancholy fact can be had, I regret to say, in only too great abundance, but it will be sufficient here to refer the sceptical to the most interesting account of the rising in the Herzegovina by Mr. W. J. Stillman, who was correspondent of the Times in that region during the insurrection, in which he will find ample confirmation of my confession that our Russian Committees could not claim the honour of having encouraged the Herzegovinese at the first to strike that blow for freedom which led to the ruin of the Ottoman Empire. Russian influence at first was an influence of constraint. It was not until December 1875, that the Slavonic sympathies of the Russians were felt in the Herzegovina.⁴

It is the duty of free Slavs to assist their enslaved brethren to throw off the yoke of bondage. Our war may be condemned, but the heroism of our volunteers is appreciated even by those who support the Turks. Can Englishmen wonder that we Russians, brethren in race and in religion to the Rayahs of Northern Turkey, should endeavour to assist them as the English of Elizabeth’s reign endeavoured to assist the Protestants of Holland and of France? But the fact that we would glory in assisting our enslaved brethren to throw off the yoke of the Turk should entitle us to be believed when we sorrowfully admit that, as a matter of fact, we have no claim to the credit of having fomented the insurrection which every one now can see was a death-blow to the domination of the Ottoman. It was not till after the insurrection had made considerable progress—not, in fact, until the atrocities in Bulgaria and the Servian war—that Russia awoke and assumed the liberating mission which, after great and terrible sacrifices, promises at last to be crowned with complete success.

It is a mistake to say, that our Russian volunteers in Servia were paid. It is also false that 9,000 Russians went to Servia. We could only find the travelling expenses of 4,000; none of whom received any other pay, but all of whom were eagerly ready to die for the cause. One-third of them perished as martyrs, but their blood has not been shed in vain.Their death sealed the doom of the Turks. The Emperor has undertaken the championship of the Slavonic cause, and the war will only end when the liberation of the Southern Slavs is complete. So far from desiring the war to destroy the Tzardom, we were never so proud of Russia as we are to-day; never were we so unanimously and enthusiastically united in support of our heroic Emperor, who, after liberating twenty-three millions of serfs at home, is now crowning his reign with glory by emancipating the Southern Slavs.

In the foregoing letter I have referred to Mr. Aksakoff. It is better that he should speak for himself. Here is a condensed translation of the speech which he delivered on November 6, 1876, before the Moscow Slavonic Committee, which I published in English in the same month. I may preface it with one sentence from Mr. Wallace’s ‘Russia,’ endorsing it heartily. ‘As to the authenticity of the testimony, I may add, that I have known Mr. Aksakoff, and have never in any country met a more honest and truthful man.’⁵ Mr. Aksakoff said:

It may be thought that the hour has at last arrived for Russia to resign into the hands of the State this great and important work, which during so many months the people have carried on with incredible exertion, without any help or co-operation from the Government. I do not speak here of the help afforded to the sick and the wounded, the famished and the destitute Bulgarians and Servians of different denominations. I do not speak of the help in the shape of money and clothes, but the help of the nation’s blood, the toilsome work of deliverance—in one word, the active share the Russian people took in the Servian war for Slavonic independence. The armistice lately signed by the Porte does not insure with certainty the conclusion of such a peace as would satisfy the lawful claims of our brethren, the honour of our people, and repay the bloody sacrifices made by Russia. The temporary cessation of the war cannot be a reason for relaxing the exertions which have signalised the last few months of our public life. This is not the moment to send in our resignation. The time has not yet come for our Society to lay aside the heavy burden of this uncommon, unforeseen and unexpected activity.

I have said ‘uncommon, unforeseen and unexpected,’ because what has been done lately in Russia is indeed un­paralleled, not only in the history of Russia, but in that of any other nation. The Society, or rather the people, without the help of the Government (which is unconditionally true to its diplomatic obligations), and without the help of any official organisation, carry on a war in the person of some thousands of her sons (I say sons, not hireling), at their own expense, in a country which, though bound to ours by strong ties of relationship, is little known to the masses, and has been up till now rarely spoken of. And this is done neither for the sake of gain, nor in view of selfishly practical or material interests, but for interests apparently foreign and abstract.

The war is carried on, not stealthily or secretly, but openly, in sight of all, with full conviction of the lawfulness, right and holiness of the cause. This plain and spontaneous movement cannot be understood by Western Europe, where most public movements appear to be the result of a prepared conspiracy, and can only take place under the direction and through the medium of regularly organised secret societies. It is therefore not to be wondered at that some persons like Lord Beaconsfield, and not he alone, but even some Russians, ignorant of their own country, and mostly of the highest rank, find secret societies even in Russia, so that all the ‘shame,’ or, as we think, all the honour, of the Russian popular interference in the Servian war is to be ascribed to the Slavonic Committee.

One cannot read without a smile such strange ideas of the power of our Society. You, gentlemen, know better than any how little our Society deserves the honour attributed to it. Such is the nature of this popular movement that it could never have been invented by the Committee, nor could it have shrunk into the narrow moulds which the Society could have formed for it. In reality it has far over­ stepped its borders, and bas nearly crushed by its force our modest organisation. At present it is not the concern of the Slavonic Committee, but of the whole of Russia; and it is the greatest honour of our Society to become the simple instrument of the popular idea and the popular will—an instrument, to our regret, very feeble and insufficient.

That there was no premeditation in the action of the Committee can be best seen in the fact that the Society was not prepared for the immense activity which fell to its lot. Our Committee of management, composed only of three or four persons without any regular office, continued for a long time to work in its usual way, though with great difficulty. In July they engaged a paid secretary, and, thereafter yielding by degrees to necessity, they enlarged the number of officials, and accepted at the same time the zealous and efficient co-operation spontaneously offered by many members of the Slavonic Committee, and of nearly the whole staff of the Mutual Credit Society, of which I have the honour to be the President. If this frank acknowledgment of ours can draw upon us the reproach of want of foresight, it can on the other hand serve as amost eloquent answer to the calumnies of foreign newspapers. The English Premier, I suppose, would be very much astonished if he verified his notions of our Committee by an examination of our ledgers and accounts. But even the reproach of shortsightedness would be unjust. The popular movement has surprised not only the whole of Europe, but also Russian society (that is, the educated reflecting part of Russia), precisely because it was popular, not in the rhetorical, but in the plain literal meaning of the word. For scores of years the preaching of the so-called Slavophils resounded, and was, it seemed, as the voice ‘of one crying in the wilderness.’

Twenty-two years ago the Crimean war broke out also as a result of the Eastern, or, more strictly speaking, the Slavonic, Question, and evoked a powerful expression of patriotism. It did not, however, awaken the historical self­-consciousness in those classes of the people in which are the roots of the Russian power, both spiritual and external. Unseen by us and invisible is the secret process of the popular ripening and the working of the popular organism.

We could certainly assume that with the abolition of serfdom, and of many legal class distinctions, together with the spread of elementary education, the intellectual view of the people must expand and their mind acquire greater freedom of action. But the events which have occurred have surpassed the most sanguine expectations. I confess frankly that every new appearance of popular sympathy came upon me as a delightful surprise, until at last it was manifested in its full power and truth. Not less astonished was I by the gradual change in the thoughts and expressions of our so­called intelligent circles and in our press.

All the literary parties and factions intermingled, and found themselves, to their mutual surprise, in agreement and unity on this question. The opponents of yesterday found themselves friends, as if they had broken their stilts, come down to the ground, thrown off the disguise of harlequins, and shown themselves—what they are in truth—Russians, and nothing else.

There was, in all this, enough to surprise any one who remembered the past of our social life. It was cleared up not at once, but gradually, by the current of events.

When the rising in the Herzegovina began, rather more than a year ago, and the Slavonic Committee of Moscow, as well as the St. Petersburg branch, published the appeals of the Servian and Montenegrin Metropolitans, and these appeals from the ecclesiastical personages were made known (only made known and nothing else), the donations assumed un­heard-of dimensions.

The limits of the Orthodox world began to widen before the eyes of the people; new vistas of fraternity were opened up to them; but all was still in confusion. Not less confused were the ideas of the higher classes. When General Tchernayeff arrived in Moscow in September last year, and proposed to take with him to Montenegro fifty non-commissioned officers, and arms for 500 persons, his plan could not be put into execution because the Committee had no funds, and private persons did not show any readiness to supply them.

The subsequent activity of the Committee was for some time, in appearance and reality, of a charitable nature. The volunteers who started for the Herzegovina were all South Slavonians, Servians and Bulgarians living in Russia. The only exceptions were two Russian officers, who had expressly come to Moscow, after having been refused assistance in St. Petersburg.

When on the Slavonic horizon appeared the dawn of a new, and in the political sense a more important, struggle—the struggle between the Servian Principalities and the Porte for the freedom of the Slavonic territories tributary to the Turks—and when at the end of last March General Tchernayeff announced to the Committee his intention of going to Servia, the Committee could but perceive the great significance of such an event as the appearance of Tchernayeff at the head of the Servian army. But neither the Committee nor Tchernayeff could then foresee what would happen to the Russian people. It was clear to the Committee that the act of self-sacrifice on the part of Tchernayeff could not but raise among the Slavonians the honour of the Russian name, greatly compromised by diplomacy, and could not fail at the same time to raise the moral level of Russian society by increasing its self-respect. It was necessary to remove some pecuniary difficulties which prevented the departure of Tchernayeff. A sum of 6,000 roubles was needed, and the Committee did not hesitate to advance it.

Soon after Tchemayeff’s arrival in Servia began the Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria.⁶ No special efforts were required to awaken Russian sympathy and compassion. For the Russians there is no enemy more popular than the Turk. Donations of money and effects flowed in in torrents. The Servian war began. With breathless anxiety Russia followed the uneven struggle of the little Orthodox country—smaller than the province of Tamboff—with the vast army, gathered together from Asiatic hordes dispersed over three quarters of the globe. But when the Servian army suffered the first defeat; when on the soil of the awakened popular feeling fell, so to speak, the first drop of Russian blood; when the first deed of love was completed; when the first pure victim was sacrificed for the faith, and on behalf of the brethren of Russia, in the person of one of her own sons, then the conscience of all Russia shuddered.

As from the first, so afterwards, the Muscovite Slavonic Committee offered no invitations nor allurements to secure volunteers. One after another came, retired officers requesting advice and directions how to go to Servia, and enter the ranks of the army under the command of Tchernayeff. The news of the death of Kireeff, the first Russian who fell in this war, at once stimulated hundreds to become volunteers,—an event which repeated itself when the news was received of other deaths among the Russian volunteers. Death did not frighten, but, as it were, attracted, them. At the beginning of the movement the volunteers were men who had belonged to the army, and chiefly from among the nobles. I remember the feeling of real emotion which I experienced when the first sergeant came, requesting me to send him to Servia—so new was to me the existence of such a feeling in the ranks of the people. This feeling soon grew in intensity when not only old soldiers, but even peasants, came to me with the same request And how humbly did they persevere in their petition, as if begging alms! With tears they begged me, on their knees, to send them to the field of battle.

Such petitions of the peasants were mostly granted, and you should have seen their joy at the announcement of the decision!

However, those scenes became so frequent, and business increased to such an extent, that it was quite impossible to watch the expression of popular feeling, or to inquire into particulars from the volunteers as to their motives. ‘I have resolved to die for my faith.’ ‘My heart burns.’ ‘I want to help our brethren.’ ‘Our people are being killed.’ Such were the brief answers which were given with quiet sincerity. I repeat there was not, and couldnot be, any mercenary motive on the part of the volunteers. I, at least, conscientiously warned every one of the hard lot awaiting him, and, indeed, even at first sight, no particular advantage could appear. Each one received only fifty roubles, out of which thirty-five went to pay the fare through Roumania, and the rest was for food and other expenses. The movement assumed at last such dimensions that we had to establish a special section for the reception of the volunteers and the examination of their requests and depositions.

All parts of Russia were desirous of having branches of the Slavonic Committee. From every town propositions were sent to us, but, to our regret, we were unable to satisfy their urgent demands. The permission to establish fresh sections did not depend upon us, but upon the Minister of the Interior. Fortunately there is a society in Odessa called the Benevolent Society of Cyril and Methodius, which rendered great services to the general cause. Fortunately also, in some of our provincial towns, there were governors who took a part in the popular feeling, and who allowed the inhabitants to organise small societies for the reception of donations. These latter became afterwards centres for local activity. But when a movement embraces tens of millions of people, scattered over an extent equal to nearly a quarter of the globe, it is impossible to arrange and regulate the expression of feeling, and particularly without the requisite publicity. Those who imagine that it is easy to subordinate such a movement to any Committee or organisation, do not know the nature of popular movements, especially in Russia. The donations became special, according to the wish of the donor. Many towns, villages, and private persons, without communicating with the Committees, wrote direct to Tchernayeff, Prince Milan, Princess Nathalie, Prince Nicholas of Montenegro, or the Metropolitan Michael. They even sent deputations, volunteers, money, and clothes, minutely explaining the purpose for which each article was intended, expressing at the same time their sympathies and hopes. All this irregularity was quite natural, for the thing itself was most unusual and unprecedented.

Yes, gentlemen, there was no precedent, no experience, either in Russian society in general, or in our Committee in particular. The Committee had not only to distribute help in money, but also to take the duties of superintendence, inspection, providing medicine, arms, provisions, and, one might even add, duties of the general staff. There is not theleast doubt that such an unaccustomed work, organised so suddenly, was fraught with many mistakes, and sometimes, notwithstanding all our efforts, did not obtain the desired results. But one must also bear in mind that there was a total absence of any sort of organisation in Servia herself. Be this as it may, the Slavonic Committee worked bard and conscientiously. I come now to the question of the accounts. We cannot give, however, at present very detailed or precise ones, for from various places we have as yet not received them ourselves.

I foresee that the amount of our receipts will greatly disappoint the public. We have heard and read daily that Russia has sent to the Slavs millions of money; and the stern question arises, ‘What became of these millions?’ The rumours set afloat about these millions have as much truth as those concerning the numbers of volunteers, of whom it is said we sent 20,000, when in fact only a fifth part of that number—perhaps less—were sent. The truth is, at Moscow and St. Petersburg we received a little more than a million and half of roubles. It must be borne in mind that we had to give help to the Herzegovina, Montenegro, Bosnia, Bulgaria, and Servia. During the last months, many small Committees were formed over the whole of Russia, and sent out their donations independently of us. But these sums were comparatively small. Nearly all Western Russia dispensed with the co-operation of our Slavonic Committee. Some societies and commercial establishments—as, for instance, the St. Petersburg Municipal Credit Co., which had remitted to Tchernayeff 100,000 roubles, and had given also the same amount to the St. Petersburg Committee—likewise sent out help themselves. It is therefore still impossible to state the precise amount of the donations; but it may be said that, including the money spent by the chief Society for the tending of the sick and wounded soldiers, the total sum would be scarcely more than three millions of roubles. The value of the articles given may amount to half a million more.

The sum is enormous, and yet it is small—that is to say, in comparison with the requirements; for upwards of three millions of our Orthodox brethren of the Balkan Peninsula are in want of the most important and essential things—food, clothing, and shelter. It is small compared to the size of Russia, with her 80,000,000 of inhabitants and her power—small in comparison with the scores of millions reported. It is enormous, if you consider the source from which it came, our social condition, and the impediments which came in the way—enormous, because two-thirds of the donations were given by our poor peasants, much oppressed by want; and every copper coin they gave will weigh undoubtedly heavier in the scale of history than hundreds of ducats. One may remark, in general, that the amount of the donations decreased according to the exalted position of the donor in the social scale. There were a few exceptions to this rule, and we must also consider the bad harvests of the last years. It is an undoubted fact, however, that the eminently wealthy took no share in the movement, probably from a lack of sympathy. Finally, the sum is enormous, considering the novelty of the matter, the inability of working together, the difficulty of intercourse between the different parts of Russia, and the impossibility of using freely the help of the press.

I shall not stop now to explain the particulars of our receipts, though they are of great interest. But because they are so full of interest they demand a minute exposition; and our honourable Secretary, who is also a professor of history, is now engaged on that work. The letters, which came with the donations, are now assorted; and many of them, being the simple expressions of the popular feeling, bear witness to the truth of the present historical movement.

Mr. Aksakoff then gave a detailed statement of expenditure, of which the following are the leading features:—’Herzegovina, Bosnia, and Montenegro, 185,000 roubles; General Tchernayeff and his staff—none of the volunteers were paid by the Servian Government—79,000 roubles; General Novosseloff and the Russian volunteers on the Ibar, 21,000 roubles; sick and wounded in Servia, 31,000 roubles; army and telegraph, 9,000 roubles; movable churches and volunteers’ clothes, 10,000 roubles; and 159,000 roubles were still on hand.’

Mr. Aksakoff continued: —

The expenses, as you perceive, are not so great after all, considering the importance of the matter and the multitude of urgent wants. We have still to face unavoidable expenses imposed upon us by the national conscience; we have to provide for the Russian volunteers who are still in Servia, for the wounded, and for the families of those who have fallen, and we must give to the surviving volunteers the means for returning home. We now have taken measures to form a regular system of paying salary to the volunteers in the service of Servia (which we had not done before), and this will be continued as long as we have the means of doing so.

The Russian people will not abandon the work which it has begun; of that we may be sure.

One cannot but remark that in the last few days, under the influence of the newspaper correspondence, the public sympathy for the Servians has cooled. Whatever may have been the faults of some Servians towards some Russians, on the whole we are to blame—not the Servians. Yes, we, as a community, as Russia. The Servians cannot be expected to know, and cannot understand, that the help offered to them is merely the result of private efforts. Nor can they understand the peculiar conditions in which we are placed. They write, print, and talk about the help from Russia, ‘the millions of Russia.’ Under the name of Russia, the Servians and all Trans-Danubian Slavonians do not under­stand a certain class of society, but the Russian Empire in its entirety. In a word, they are not accustomed to distinguish in Russia between the people and the Government; and, trusting to Russia, they began a struggle above their strength.

The results of this mistaken belief are known to everybody. Towns in flames, hundreds of villages destroyed, the occupation of the third part of their land by the Turks, exhaustion of means, and general ruin. Are we to punish them for their ruin? We must also not forget that the Servians of the Principality have fought not only for their country, but for the deliverance of all the Slavonians who are suffering and dying under the yoke of the Turk, and whose fate is just as near to the heart of the Russian people. We are in debt to the Servians! But we shall not long remain so. The Russian people will not allow the Russian name to be disgraced; and the blessed hour so much hoped for by all is near, when this work, which belongs properly to the State, will pass into the hands of our strong organised Government. Being led and aided by the popular force, the Government will take into its powerful hands the defence of the Slavs. So let it be!

The reference which Mr. Aksakoff makes to the death of my brother will be better understood by reading the following extract from the brilliant pages of Mr. Kinglake, the historian of the Crimean War, who writes as follows, in the Preface to the sixth edition of his great work:—

The Russians are a warmhearted, enthusiastic people, with an element of poetry in them, which derives perhaps fromthe memory of subjection undergone in old times and the days of Tartar yoke, for if Shelley speaks truly—

Most wretched men

Are cradled into poetry by wrong,

They learn in sorrow what they reach is song.

…. They can be honestly and beyond measure vehement in favour of an idealised cause which demands their active sympathy. That the voice of the nation, when eagerly expressing these feelings, is commonly genuine and spontaneous, there seems no reason to doubt. Far from having been inspired by the rulers, an outburst of the fraternising enthusiasm, which tends towards State quarrels and war, is often unwelcome at first in the precincts of the Government offices.

After referring to the Servian War and to the presence of a few Russian volunteers in the Servian camp, Mr. Kinglake says:—

This armed emigration at first was upon a small scale, and the Servian cause stood in peril of suffering a not distant collapse, when the incident I am going to mention began to exert its strange sway over the course of events.

The young Colonel Nicholai Kireeff was a noble, whose birth and possessions connected him with the districts affected by Moscow’s fiery aspirations; and being by nature a man of an enthusiastic disposition, he had accustomed himself to the idea of self-sacrifice. Upon the outbreak of Prince Milan’s insurrection, he went off to Servia with the design of acting simply under the banner of the Red Cross, and had already entered upon his humane task, when he found himself called upon by General Tchernayeff to accept the command of what we may call a brigade—a force of some five thousand infantry, consisting of volunteers and militiamen, supported, it seems, by five guns; and before long, he not only had to take his brigade into action, but to use it as the means of assailing an entrenched position at Rokowitz. Kireeff very well understood that the irregular force entrusted to him was far from being one that could be commanded in the hour of battle by taking a look with a field-glass and uttering a few words to an aide-de-camp; so he determined to carry forward his men by the simple and primitive expedient of personally advancing in front of them. He was a man of great stature, with extraordinary beauty of features; and, whether owing to the midsummer heat, or from any wild, martyr-like impulse, be chose, as he had done from the first, to be clothed altogether in white. Whilst advancing in front of his troops against the Turkish battery, he was struck—first by a shot passing through his left arm, then presently by another one which struck him in the neck, and then again by yet another one which shattered his right hand and forced him to drop his sword; but, despite all these wounds, be was still continuing his resolute advance, when a fourth shot passed through his lungs, and brought him, at length, to the ground, yet did not prevent him from uttering—although with great effort—the cry of ‘Forward! Forward!’ A fifth shot, however, fired low, passed through the fallen chief’s heart and quenched his gallant spirit. The brigade he had commanded fell back, and his body—vainly asked for soon afterwards by General Tchernayeff—remained in the hand of the Turks.

These are the bare facts upon which a huge superstructure was speedily raised. It may be that the grandeur of the young Colonel’s form and stature, and the sight of the blood, showing vividly on his white attire, added something extraneous and weird to the sentiment which might well be inspired by witnessing his personal heroism. But, be that as it may, the actual result was that accounts of the incident—accounts growing every day more and more marvellous—flew so swiftly from city to city, from village to village, that before seven days had passed, the smouldering fire of Russian enthusiasm leapt up into a dangerous flame. Under countless green domes, big and small, priests chanting the ‘Requiem’ for a young hero’s soul, and setting forth the glory of dying in defence of ‘syn-orthodox’ brethren, drew warlike responses from men who cried aloud that they, too, would go where the young Kireeff had gone; and so many of them hastened to keep their word, that before long a flood of volunteers from many parts of Russia was pouring fast into Belgrade. To sustain the once kindled enthusiasm apt means were taken. The simple photograph, representing the young Kireeff’s noble features, soon expanded to large-sized portraits; and Fable then springing forward in the path of Truth, but transcending it with the swiftness of our modern appliances, there was constituted, in a strangely short time, one of those stirring legends which used to be the growth of long years—a legend half-warlike, half-superstitious, which exalted its really tall hero to the dimensions of a giant, and showed him piling up hecatombs by a mighty slaughter of Turks.⁷

The mine—the charged mine of enthusiasm upon which this kindling spark fell—was the same in many respects that we saw giving warlike impulsion to the Russia of 1853; but then now was added the wrath, the just wrath at the thought of Bulgaria—which Russia shared with our people. . . . .

Thus the phantom of Kireeff, with the blood on his snowy-white clothing, gave an impulse which was scarce less romantic, and proved even perhaps more powerful than the sentiment for the Holy Shrines.

Mr. Kinglake concludes by declaring that ‘the impulse which has been stirring the Russian people was for the most part a genuine, honest enthusiasm.’⁸

Before concluding this chapter, permit me to quote the following testimony to the national character of our war, which, if viewed as a speculation, was mad enough, no doubt, but which in reality was one of the most heroic wars ever fought. The writer, the learned Dr. J. J. Overbeck, whose intimate acquaintance with Russia and the Russians entitles him to speak with authority, says:⁹—

It was not a political war, planned by statesmen; it was a national war, a holy war, and the first victim in it was Nicholas de Kireeff, a splendid pattern of a Christian soldier, whose name will for ever shine in the annals of history.

As we were personally acquainted with Colonel Nicholas de Kireeff, we cannot refrain from adding that his heroic death was only the legitimate crowning of an heroic life—a life of self-sacrifice for the benefit of his suffering brethren. Nicholas Kireeff was an upright and zealous Orthodox; and he did not only believe, but acted accordingly. If ever practical Christianity shone forth from the life of a man, we find it here. Never the poor applied in vain to him. Never the hungry passed his door unfed. His last roubles he shared with two poor Bulgarians. Such virtues could not fail conquering even his enemies. Russia, able to produce such a man, shows her own healthy and vigorous life, and may be sure of its final victory in the present momentous struggle.¹⁰

1. This letter was written at the beginning of November, 1877.
2. Lord Salisbury, in 1879, speaking at Hatfield, said Lord Beaconsfield’s Government had pursued a truly Elizabethan policy: a statement which probably was meant to be interpreted by the rule of contrary.
3. “It is when those Public Societies, which are called Governments fail in their duty and abdicate their proper functions, that Secret Societies find their opportunities of action.” (George Douglas Campbell Duke of Argyll, The Eastern Question: From the Treaty of Paris 1856 to the Treaty of Berlin 1878, and to the Second Afghan War, vol. 2 (London: Strahan, 1879), 273).
4. See Herzegovina and the late Uprising, p. 101.
5. Vol. ii. p. 452.
6. May, 1876.
7. The able correspondents of our English newspapers lately acting in Servia took care to mention the exploit and death of Colonel Kireeff with more or less of detail, and the information they furnished is for the most part consistent with the scrutinized accounts on which I found the above narrative. The corps in which the Colonel formerly served was that of the Cavalry of the Guards, but he had quitted the army long before the beginning of this year.
8. The year 1853 and the year 1876. A Preface to the sixth edition of the Invasion of the Crimea, vol. i. pp. vi-xv. See also Wallace’s Russia, vol. ii. p. 453. Salisbury’s Two Months with General Tchernayeff in Servia, pp. 104-7.
9. Orthodox Catholic Review, vol. vii. p. 10. Trübner & Co.
10. I cannot dismiss this subject without a passing reference to the influence which Mr. Gladstone’s pamphlet is supposed to have had in leading Russians to volunteer for service in Servia. The movement, as Mr. Aksakolf states, assumed national importance at the end of July, after my brother’s death. On page 16 I quote a despatch, the date of which is worth noting, for it shows that on August 16 the British Ambassador reported the state of feeling in Russia to be such that volunteering was going on everywhere. It was not till September 6 that Mr. Gladstone published his pamphlet, and it was not translated into Russian until the close of the month. To ascribe the departure of Russian volunteers to Servia as being due to Mr. Gladstone’s pamphlet is chronologically as absurd as, to a Russian, it is grotesquely ridiculous. The speech delivered by Sir William Harcourt in Parliament, August 11, and that of the Duke of Argyll at Glasgow were also translated into Russian. Unaccustomed as Russians are to bear impartial generous utterances in favour of the Eastern Christians from English sources, they were happy to point out these noble exceptions. But to imagine, as the Hon. R. Bourke appears to have done, ‘ever since October, 1876,’ that Russians needed to be taught their duty by an Englishman, and that the numbers of volunteers with General Tchernayeff were affected by Mr. Gladstone’s pamphlet, is one of the most curious illustrations of insular British delusions which ever excited the laughter of astonished Russians. We did not need English advices as to our duty towards the oppressed brethren, nor did Mr. Gladstone ever advise our intervention. On the contrary, he strongly deprecated it. He wrote: ‘Every circumstance of the most obvious prudence dictates to Russia for the present epoch what is called the waiting game. Her policy is, to preserve or to restore tranquillity for the present, and to take the chances of the future.’ The whole pamphlet was a plea for concerted, as opposed to isolated, action in the East.