Providence Morning Star

It is not surprising that there was no place for the singular diplomacy of Europe this winter, because the season was not favorable for military operations. As soon as troops can be moved with advantage, sulphurous canopies of smoke will begin to hang over the Danube, unless perchance Russia sees a bloodless way of overturning the Sublime Porte. All winter Turkey has endured all exhaustive consequences of war except the loss of men and the ghastly business of the hospitals. Russia has also borne her share, but she is far better able to stand the drain. By putting armies on the frontiers of Circassia and Moldavia, and by stirring up the Persians, and by protracting the settlement of peace with Servia and Montenegro, Russia has compelled penniless Turkey to draw large bodies of recruits from every province and place them in the field on a war footing, to supply them with arms and equipments and to sustain them in ruinous idleness for months. Active hostilities would have been better for Turkey as the fanatical Osmanlis perceive, for these would serve to strengthen the government and put an end to palace revolutions. The suspense is only weakness to the Sublime Porte at home, and nearly every element of population is in discontent. The army is angry at its long inaction; the Sostis and Ulemas are angry at the subserviency of the court to Christian dictation; the Asiatic provinces are angry because they are drained of their young men, and the fields go untilled, while the tax gatherer is more extortionate than ever. The only part of the population that wishes peace is, singularly enough, the Christian peoples of the European provinces, who dread the process of deliverance from a yoke odious to them. Meanwhile, couriers go from St. Petersburg to Berlin, London and Paris; extraordinary ministers pass from court to court; protocols and conventions are debated, modified and juggled into insignificance, every scheme falling just short of a treaty; and after all not a single proposition appears which the Sultan can accept. The key to the situation is at Constantinople, and yet negotiations go on as if the Porte could only acquiesce in the agreement of the other powers. What is the use of all this diplomacy? Is it not Russia's great weapon, whereby she does her adversary far more harm than her cohorts could do in Bulgaria and Servia? War would end in a treaty and a rehabilitation of Turkey in Europe. Now Turkey is going to pieces, the victim of suspense, faction, administrative impotence, debt, and a miserable system of plunder called government. There are only three things possible: first, to let Turkey utterly alone to do as she pleases in her own territory, just as is done with Spain or Italy. But that all Europe agrees is out of the question. Turkey is a scandal and an offence to civilization. Either that, or Europe has no business to interfere with her. The second thing is to establish a surveillance over the Turkish government, as Russia first proposed. That, Turkey utterly rejected as against her dignity and peace. No Ottoman court could survive a year under such humiliating patronage. The third thing is to get Turkey to reform herself, which is also impossible. She is a military fanaticism. Her organic law is fatally opposed to all equality of subjects. A Christian cannot give evidence in court against a Moslem; constitutional representation is impracticable, for the Koran is the fundamental law, and its so-thought divine sanctions over-ride all legitimacy in the monarch, all compacts and treaties. The Turk in Europe is a soldier in permanent cantonments, bound by his religion to stay such, and his government is simply the rapacity of the vandal. To make Turkish impotence plain, to show the world her incapacity not merely to do justice, but even to maintain a government of her own, is the astute part Russia is playing. It is to be suspected that her intrigues led to the dismissal of Midhat Pasha, the only Vizier Turkey has had in years able to rule or reform; in the constant palace revolutions, in the factious disturbances of the people. When this feebleness and degradation of Turkey is completely manifest, if there is anything left to fight, Russia will enter the field, we believe, and complete the destruction of that state.