The qualified rule of the Turk

The habit of five centuries and the hope of ultimate triumph lead all of them to submit, with continual out-breaks and outcries, to the qualified rule of the Turk. But place any one of this motley throng of nationalities in the place of the Sultan, and a general confusion would arise. The Greek would not accept the Bulgarian as his master, nor the Bulgarian the Greek; the Albanians would submit to neither; the Armenians would seize the first moment of striking in for themselves; and the Italian and Levantine Catholics would certainly assert their claims. No one of all those rival nationalities, creeds, and populations could for a moment maintain their ascendency. No one of them has the smallest title either from tradition, numbers, or proved capacity, to pretend to the sceptre of the Bosphorus—and not one of them could hold it for a day against Russia, if she chose to take it.

Assume that Russia has succeeded Turkey in possession of Constantinople, the Bosphorus, and the Hellespont. What is’the result? She would immediately make her southern capital impregnable, as Colonel Greene says, ‘with a line of defence such as no other capital in the world possesses.’ She would make it stronger than Cron- stadt or Sebastopol, and place there one of the most powerful arsenals in the world. With a great navy in sole command of the Euxine, the Bosphorus, the Marmora, and the Hellespont, with a vast expanse of inland waters within which she could be neither invested nor approached — for nothing would be easier than to make the Hellespont absolutely impassable — Russia would possess a marine base such as nothing else in Europe presents, such as nothing in European history records, except in the days of the Basilian dynasty and the Ottoman Caliphs of the sixteenth century.

Marine arsenal in the Archipelago

With such an unequalled naval base she would certainly require and easily secure a further marine arsenal in the Archipelago. It is of no consequence whether this was found on the Greek or on the Asiatic side. There are a score of suitable points. An island or a port situated somewhere in the ALgeaxi Sea between Besika Bay and the Cyclades would be a necessary adjunct and an easy acquisition guided turkey tours. With Russia having the sole command of the seas that wash South-Eastern Europe, dominating the whole south-eastern seaboard from a chain of arsenals stretching from Sebastopol to the Greek Archipelago, the entire condition of the Mediterranean would be transformed — let us say at once — the entire condition of Europe would be transformed.

Has the British public fully realised the enormous change in the political conditions of the whole Levant and of Europe involved in the installation of Russia on the Bosphorus? We are accustomed to treat the settlement of the Ottoman in Stamboul as a matter which is now of very minor importance. Why so? Because the Turk is powerless for anything but precarious defence, under the preponderant menace of Russia on the north, whilst he is hemmed in by ambitious and restless neighbours in his last ditch in the Balkan peninsula. He cannot fortify the Bosphorus without Russian interference; he cannot maintain his government in Crete without a roar of indignation from Greece. He is constantly harried by Bulgarians, Servians, Albanians, Montenegrins, and Epi- rots. He lives for ever on the defensive, he menaces no one; and no one is afraid of him in Europe—because he has nothing in Europe but a shrunken province, and practically no fleet.