Danubian Principalities

“ About a century before his time the Slavs, whose oldest home was in Poland, had begun to cross the Danube, and about 578 had actually appeared before Salonika. Herakleios, occupied with the war against the Persians in the East, could not defend the Western Balkans. So he made a virtue of necessity, just as, in our own day, governments have granted autonomy to lost provinces which they could no longer protect. The Danubian principalities, Bulgaria, Eastern Roumelia, Crete, and the Lebanon are examples. ”

“ The identity of the Servians and Bulgarians with the Slavic race has been the excuse, if not the reason, for the repeated attempts of Russia to unite Servia, Bulgaria, and the other Danubian principalities [Pg 95] with the grand Empire. The union of the Slavic people under one government has been the dream of the emperors of Russia for a long time, and what could be a better union, they argue, than their absorption into our own nation? ”

“ On January 29, 1834, Austrian mediation bore fruit in a definite treaty for the evacuation of the Danubian principalities. Russia merely reserved to herself the appointment of the first hospodar of each principality. The first act, however, of Alexander Ghika, the new hospodar of Wallachia, was to forbid any change of statute without the consent of Russia. Silistria alone remained in Russian hands till a third part of the indemnity should be paid. The remaining two-thirds Russia consented to abandon. ”

“ When the title of barbarian immigration was ebbing in the Danubian Principalities, it is natural to suppose that there must have remained a very mixed population; and that, owing to the necessity for defence against such ruthless invaders as we have described in our last chapter, the inhabitants would congregate in various places under their ablest leaders, and would fortify themselves in the best manner possible. ”

“ If any one thing is more apparent than another, on the face of all the documents furnished to the House by the Government of which the noble Lord is a Member, it is this, that the Turkish Empire is falling, or has fallen, into a state of decay, and into anarchy so permanent as to have assumed a chronic character. The noble Lord surely has not forgotten that Turkey has lost the Crimea and Bessarabia, and its control over the Danubian Principalities; that the Kingdom of Greece has been carved out of it ”

“ As a compromise the Czar therefore determined that the Danubian Principalities should be occupied by his troops, and held till Turkey guaranteed to Russia “the rights and privileges of all kinds which have been granted by the Sultan to his Greek subjects.” [114] On the 31st of May Nesselrode wrote to Reschid Pasha that Russian troops would cross the Pruth, and on the 2nd of June Admiral Dundas was ordered to proceed with the Mediterranean squadron to Besika Bay. The French fleet was ordered to go there also, and the allied squadrons made their appearance in Turkish waters about the same time. ”

“ Being more learned, or at least better instructed, than the people amongst whom they resided, and moreover well acquainted with trade, they assumed similar functions to those performed by the Jews of the west of Europe, and like the latter they at once became the objects of cordial dislike, and indispensable factors in society. Not content with settling in Constantinople, they spread themselves into the Turkish pashaliks and dependencies, amongst others into the Danubian Principalities, where, too, owing to their extortionate practices, they became thoroughly detested ”

“ To settle the question of the Principalities is to settle the question of the East; for it is well known that it is mostly on their account that Russia mixes itself with the affairs of Turkey, and finds means to make a quarrel with her, and that it is not by sea, but always through their territory that her armies march towards the conquest of Constantinople. ”

“ In a few weeks, I dare answer for it, the Principalities will furnish the vanguard of the Turkish army, with a hundred thousand combatants well skilled in the management of arms, and animated with all the ardour and strength which they will draw from the wish to defend the liberties and independence of their country, and from the glorious memories of their history; for if Europe is ignorant of it, yet the Roumanians all know, that no other people has deserved more from humanity, or defended with more of heroism than they, the cause of Christianity and civilisation. ”

“ Turkey then disappearing, the Principalities will remain what they are. Their condition will be in no way changed, unless it be that they will find themselves, in fact and in right, freed from their actual obligation to pay tribute, and that very probably by putting themselves under the united protection of the great powers, they will thereby replace with a protection much more efficacious, the Turkish protection which they lose. ”

“ It is, therefore, to be hoped that the inhabitants of the Principalities, and the Christian population of the Turkish Empire generally, will continue deaf to the persuasions of the agents of Russia, who endeavour to seduce them from their fealty to the Sultan, by representing the advantage of being ruled by a sovereign of their own faith. ”

“ Public- opinion is, after all, not wholly without weight in the world ; and if it cannot always check the ambition and schemes of princes and cabinets, it yet often stimulates governments to the discharge of their duty in opposing and preventing them. How much less would public opinion be outraged by any attempt on the part of Russia to occupy or get possession of the Principalities, if it were the prevailing idea that the inhabitants were dissatisfied with the Turkish government, and therefore not averse to such a change ! ”

“ When on the contrary he wishes to obtain some concession in the Principalities, he proclaims Turkey their sovereign and absolute mistress, who may dispose of them as she pleases; and Turkey, partly from vanity, but more from lack of faith in her own strength, easily lets herself be persuaded that she really is not only their suzeraine, but their veritable sovereign, and seems not to perceive that the sovereignty with which the Czar invests her tends only to her own destruction. ”

“ In October, 1820, the leading Hetærists met in council at Ismail to decide whether the insurrection against the Turk should begin in Greece itself or in the Danubian provinces. Most of the Greek officers in the service of Sutsos, the Hospodar of Moldavia, were ready to join the revolt. With the exception of a few companies serving as police, there were no Turkish soldiers north of the Danube, the Sultan having bound himself by the Treaty of Bucharest to send no troops into the Principalities without the Czar's consent. ”

“ Whenever any event (as, for instance, the Herzegovinian rebellion) occurs to vivify this bugbear of the Eastern question, the position and probable action of the Principalities of the Danube become prominent subjects of speculation and discussion. They hold peculiar relations with the Turkish Empire and with Russia. Their geographical position gives them special importance in view of a probable war; and fostered and protected as they have been in their practical independence by the great states, they may be regarded in some sort both as belonging to Turkey and as wards of Christian Europe. ”

“ The English Government has never taken an interest in the Danube Principalities nor in the fortunes of your Highness personally, and the attitude of its representatives abroad does not at present appear to inspire confidence. ”

“ Our first step over the boundaries of the Austro-Hungarian empire, proceeding south-east beyond the Danube and the Carpathian mountains, brings us into the various principalities and provinces that were once under the dominion of the Ottoman empire, though almost all of them are now independent of it. Nearly all of them lie in the region south of the Danube, which is usually known as the Balkan Peninsula. Here the complexities of race and religion are abundantly manifest, and these archaic divisions of political society surround us everywhere. ”

“ The ruins of the castle which once proudly dominated the hill-top speak of a past when the lords of Bogen were possessors of the country north of the Danube from the Regen to the Ilz and far up into Bohemia; when they were welcomed as allies, and feared as enemies, by the monarchs of near-by principalities. In the Middle Ages there seem to have been periods of terrible lawlessness in the various German states, and the nobles whose castled homes were perched on the crags bordering the great rivers, the Rhine and the Danube, appear to have been some of the most lawless people of the time. ”

“ Austria naturally felt considerable interest in the movements of a formidable neighbour, whose troops were now winding round her frontier, who, by overrunning Turkey, would enclose some of her provinces, and who, at the next step in advance, would control the Lower Danube. She therefore, in conjunction with Prussia, made common cause with the Western Powers, so far as to offer a strong remonstrance against the occupation of the Danubian provinces, and to join in their efforts to preserve peace. ”

“ If we inquire into the present state of those countries, we shall find that, on the left hand of the Danube, Temeswar and Transylvania have been annexed, after many revolutions, to the crown of Hungary; whilst the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia acknowledge the supremacy of the Ottoman Porte. On the right hand of the Danube, Mæsia, which, during the middle ages, was broken into the barbarian kingdoms of Servia and Bulgaria, is again united in Turkish slavery. ”

“ Straubing is an interesting old place on the right bank of a right arm of the Danube, which some distance before reaching the town forks round a large island. It is said of the people that they “ploughed the [Pg 51] Danube,” because they dammed up the old bed of the river and so diverted the stream so that it should flow directly by their walls—in proof of which the town arms are decorated with a plough. It is, as has been said, an old town—it has indeed been identified by some historians as Castra Augustana one of the many Danubian stations of the Romans. ”

“ The other guarantees they talk of are further cessions in Asia, specifically Batoum, or the occupation of Varna, or Silistria, instead of the Principalities. The latter is worse, and the Turks will probably consent to neither. They do not value the Principalities, and they know Europe does. [Footnote: The Principalities, as commanding the lower course of the Danube, were all important to Austria especially. Thus, occupation by Russia, while it would have been felt as a menace to Central Europe, would have left Turkey a compact state beyond the Danube.] ”

“ Finland's history since 1900 shows that the day for the national existence of small peoples is passing.304 The fragmentary political geography of the Danube basin gives the geographer the impression of an artist's crayon studies of details, destined later to be incorporated in a finished picture. Their small areas promise short-lived autonomy. The recent absorption of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria indicates the destiny of these Danubian states as fixed by the law of increasing territorial aggregates. ”

“ The respect for municipal institutions is so deeply rooted in the minds of the Turks, that at the time when they became masters of the Danubian provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia, they voluntarily excluded themselves from all political rights in the newly acquired provinces; and up to the present day, they do not allow that a mosque should be built, or that a Turk should dwell and own landed property across the Danube. ”

“ What the future of these interesting peoples will be it is impossible to predict. They may form a portion of a revived Sclavian Empire, like that which flourished under the Servian Grand Zupans; they may fall finally to the lot of Austria on one side, and of Russia on the other; they may linger for generations in the precarious situation of nominal vassalage to the Sultan, and of real wardship under the protection of the power ”

“ To-day, the man who thirty-three years ago came down the Danube as a perfect stranger—practically alone, without tried councillors or adherents—is to all intents and purposes the omnipotent ruler of a country which owes its independence and present position entirely to his statesmanship. Nor can there be much doubt that but for him Roumania and the Lower Danube might be now little more than a name to the rest of Europe—as, indeed, they were in the past. ”

“ Augustus, it was, who made the Danube the northern boundary of the Roman Empire. It extended like a broad and impassable moat from the Schwartzwald to the Euxine, and, like the Rhine on the East of Gaul, served to keep the barbarians of the north confined within their primeval forests. All along the Danube from its source to its delta are still found countless traces of what were once important military outposts, flourishing towns and centers of advancing civilization and culture. ”

“ It was a smart saying, but it was not a thing accomplished when the Prince wrote his Travels, nor is it now; for though the "Danube Steam Navigation Company" have been running their boats for nearly half a century, they are in difficulties, "chiefly," says Mr Révy, [1] "from the neglect of all river improvements between Vienna and Buda-Pest, and between Basiash and Turn-Severin." He goes on to say that the dearest interests of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy are involved in the rectification of the course of the Danube, recommending a Royal Commission to be appointed. ”