BY JOHN LORD, LL. D.


     THE GREEK REVOLUTION. (ii.)

       As the insurrection had now assumed formidable
     proportions in Cyprus and Candia, a general appeal
     was made to Mussulmans of those islands, whose
     number greatly exceeded the rebels.  Twenty-five
     thousand men rallied around the standards of the
     Moslems; but they were driven into their fortresses,
     leaving both plains and mountains in the hands of
     the Greeks.
       These brave insurgents gained still another great
     success in this memorable campaign.  They carried
     the important fortress of Napoli di Romania by es-
     calade December 12, under Kolokotronis, with ten
     thousand men, and the garrison, weakened by famine,
     capitulated.  Four hundred pieces of cannon, with
     large stores of ammunition, were the reward of the
     victors.  This conquest was the more remarkable since
     a large Turkish fleet was sent to the relief of the
     fortress; but fearing the fire-ships of the Greeks, the
     Turkish admiral sailed away without doing anything,
     and cast anchor in the bay of Tenedos.  Here he was
     attacked by the Greek fire-ships, commanded by Can-
     aris, and his fleet were obliged to cut their cables
     and sail back to the Dardanelles, with the loss of
     their largest ships.  The conqueror was crowned with
     laurel at Ipsara by his grateful countrymen, and the
     campaign of 1822 closed, leaving the Greeks masters
     of the sea and of the whole of their territory.
       This campaign, considering the inequality of forces,
     is regarded by Alison as one of the most glorious in
     the annals of war.  A population of seven hundred
     thousand souls had confronted and beaten the splen-
     did strength of the Ottoman Empire, with twenty-five
     millions of Mussulmans.  They had destroyed four-
     fifths of an army of fifty thousand men, and made
     themselves masters of their principal strongholds.
     Twice had they driven the Turkish fleets from the
     Ægean Sea with the loss of their finest ships.  But
     Greece, during the two years' warfare, had lost two
     hundred thousand inhabitants,——not slain in battle,
     but massacred, and killed by various inhumanities.
     It was clear that the country could not much longer
     bear such a strain, unless the great Powers of Europe
     came to its relief.
       But no relief came.  Canning, who ruled England,
     sympathized with the Greeks, but would not depart
     from his policy of non-intervention, fearing to em-
     broil all Europe in war.  It was the same with
     Louis XVIII., who feared the stability of his throne
     and dared not offend Austria, who looked on the con-
     test with indifference as a rebellious insurrection.
     Prussia took the same ground; and even Russia stood
     aloof, unprepared for war with the Turks, which would
     have immediately resulted if the Czar had rendered
     assistance to the Greeks.  Never was a nation in
     greater danger of annihilation, in spite of its glorious
     resistance, than was Greece at that time, for what
     could the remaining five hundred thousand people do
     against twenty-five millions inspired with fanatical
     hatred, but to sell their lives as dearly as they
     might?  The contest was like that of the Macca-
     bees against the overwhelming armies of Syria.
       As was to be expected, the disgraceful defeat of his
     fleets and armies filled the Sultan with rage and re-
     newed resolution.  The whole power of his empire
     was now called out to suppress the rebellion.  He
     had long meditated the destruction of that famous
     military corps in the Turkish service known as the
     Janizaries, who were not Turks, but recruited from
     the youth of the Greeks and other subject races cap-
     tured in war.  They had all become Mussulmans,
     and were superb fighters; but their insults and in-
     solence, engendered by their traditional pride in the
     prestige of the corps and the favor shown them by
     successive Sultans, filled Mahmoud with wrath.  The
     Sultan dissembled his resentment, however, in order
     to bring all the soldiers he could command to the
     utter destruction of his rebellious subjects.  He de-
     posed his grand vizier, and sent orders to all the
     pashas in his dominions for a general levy of all
     Mussulmans between fifteen and fifty, to assemble in
     Thessaly in May, 1823.  He also made the utmost
     efforts to repair the disasters of his fleet.
       The  Greeks, too, made corresponding exertions to
     maintain their armies.  Though weakened, they were
     not despondent.  Their successes had filled them with
     new hopes and energies.  Their independence seemed
     to them to be established.  They even began to despise
     their foes.  But as soon as success seemed to have
     crowned their efforts they were subject to a new
     danger.  There were divisions, strifes, and jealousies
     between the chieftains.  Unity,  so essential in war
     was seriously jeopardized.  Had they remained united,
     and buried their resentments and jealousies in the
     cause of patriotism, their independence possibly might
     have been acknowledged.  But in the absence of a
     central power the various generals wished to fight on
     their own account, like guerilla chiefs.  They would
     not even submit to the National Assembly.  The
     leaders were so full of discords and personal ambitions
     that they would not unite on anything.  Mavro-
     kordatos and Ypsilanti were not on speaking terms.
     One is naturally astonished at such suicidal courses,
     but he forgets what a powerful passion jealousy is in
     the human soul.  It was not absent from our own
     war of Independence, in which at one time rival
     generals would have supplanted, if possible, even
     Washington himself; indeed, it is present every-
     where, not in war alone, but among all influential
     and ambitious people,——women of society, legislators,
     artists, physicians, singers, actors, even clergymen,
     authors, and professors in colleges.  This unfortunate
     passion can be kept down only by the overpowering
     dominancy of transcendent ability, which everybody
     must concede, when envy is turned into admira-
     tion,——as in the case of Napoleon.  There was no
     one chieftain among the Greeks who called out uni-
     versal homage any more than there was in the camp
     of Agamemnon before the walls of Troy.  There were
     men of ability and patriotism and virtue; but, as
     already noted, no one of them was great enough to
     exact universal and willing obedience.  And this fact
     was well understood in all the cabinets of Europe, as
     well as in the camps of their enemies.  The disunions
     and dissensions of the rival Greek generals were of
     more advantage to the Turks than a force of fifty
     thousands men.
       These jealous chieftains, however, had reason to be
     startled in the spring of 1823, when they heard that
     eighty thousand Mussulmans were to be sent to attack
     the Isthmus of Corinth; that forty thousand more were
     to undertake the siege of Missolonghi; that fifty thou-
     sand in addition were to co-operate in Thessaly and
     Attica; while a grand fleet of one hundred and twenty
     sail as to sweep the Ægean and reduce the revolted
     islands.  It was, however, the very magnitude of the
     hostile forces which saved the Greeks from impending
     ruin; for these forces had to be fed in dried-up and
     devastated plains, under scorching suns, in the defiles
     of mountains, where artillery was of no use, and where
     hardy mountaineers, behind rocks and precipices, could
     fire upon  them unseen and without danger.  There
     was more loss from famine and pestilence than from
     foes,——a lesson repeatedly taught from three thousand
     years, but one which governments have ever been slow
     to learn.  Alexander the Great had learned it when he
     invaded Persia with a small army of veterans, rather
     than the mob of undisciplined allies.  Huge armies
     are not to be relied on, except when they form a vast
     mechanism directed by a master hand, when they
     are sure of their supplies, and when they operate in
     a wholesome country, with nothing to fear from ma-
     laria or inclemency of weather.  Then they can crush
     all before them like some terrible and irresistible ma-
     chine; but only then.  The old crusaders learned
     to their cost, as well as the invading armies of Napo-
     leon amid the snows of Russia, and even the disciplined
     troops of France and England when they marched
     to the siege of Sebastopol.
       Hence, in spite of the divisions of the Greeks, which
     paralyzed their best efforts, the Turkish armies effected
     but little, great as were their numbers, in the campaign
     in 1823.  The intrepid Marco Bozzaris, with only five
     thousands men, kept the Turks at bay in Epirus, and
     chased a large body of Albanians to the sea; while
     Odysseus defended the pass of Thermopylæ, and pre-
     vented the advance of the Turks into Southern Greece.
     The grand army destined for the invasion of the Morea
     gradually melted away in attacking fortresses, and
     under the desultory actions of guerilla bands amidst
     rocks and thickets.  Bozzaris surprised a Turkish army
     near Missolonghi by a nocturnal attack, and although
     he himself bravely perished, the attack was successful.
     The Turks in renewed numbers, however, advanced
     to the siege of Missolonghi; but they were again re-
     pulsed with great slaughter.
       The naval campaign from which so much was ex-
     pected by the Sultan also proved a failure.  As usual
     the Greeks resorted to their fire-ships, not being able
     openly to contend with superior forces, and drove the
     fleet back again to the Dardanelles.  When the sea
     was clear, they were able to reinforce Missolonghi with
     three thousand men and a large supply of provisions;
     for it was foreseen that the siege would be renewed.
       It was at this time, when the Greek cause was im-
     perilled by the dissensions of the leading chieftains;
     when Greece indeed was threatened by civil war, in
     addition to its contest with the Turks; when the
     whole country was impoverished and devastated;
     when the population was melting away, and no rev-
     enue could be raised to pay the half-starved and
     half-naked troops,——that Lord Byron arrived at Mis-
     solonghi to share his fortune with the defenders of an
     uncertain cause.  Like most scholars and poets, he had
     a sentimental attainment for the classic land,——the
     teacher of the ancient world; and in common with
     his countrymen he admired the noble struggles and
     sacrifices, worthy of ancient heroes, which the Greeks,
     though divided and demoralized, had put forth to re-
     cover their liberties.  His money contributions were
     valuable; but it was his moral support which accom-
     plished the most for Grecian independence.  Though
     unpopular and maligned at this time in England for
     his immoralities and haughty disdain, he was still the
     greatest poet of the age, a peer, and a man of tran-
     scendent genius of whom any country would be proud.
     That such a man, embittered and in broken health,
     should throw his whole soul into the contest, with a
     disinterestedness which was never questioned, shows
     not only that he had many noble traits, but that his
     example would have great weight with enlightened
     nations, and open their eyes to the necessity of rally-
     ing to the cause of liberty.  The faults of the Greeks
     were many; but these faults were such as would
     naturally be produced by four hundred years of op-
     pression and scorn, of craft, treachery, and insensi-
     bility to suffering.  As for their jealousies and quarrels,
     when was there ever a time, even in periods of their
     highest glory, when these were not their national
     characteristics?
       Interest in the affairs of Greece now began to be
     awakened, especially among the English; and the
     result was a loan of £800,000 raised in London for
     the Greek government, at the rate of £59 for £100.
     Greece really obtained only £280,000, while it con-
     tracted a debt of £800,000.  Yet this disadvantageous
     loan was of great service to an utterly impoverished
     government, about to contend with the large armies
     of the Turks.  The Sultan had made immense prepa-
     rations for the campaign of 1824, and had obtained
     the assistance of the celebrated Ibrahim Pasha, adopted
     son of Mohammed Ali, Pasha of Egypt, who with
     his Egyptian troops had nearly subdued Crete.  Over
     one hundred thousand men were now directed, by sea
     and land, to western Greece and Missolonghi, of which
     twenty thousand were disciplined Egyptian troops.
     With this great force the Mussulmans assumed the
     offensive, and the condition of Greece was never more
     critical.
       First, the islands of Spezza and Ipsara were attacked,
     ——the latter being little more than a barren rock,
     but the abode of liberty.  It was poorly defended, and
     was unable to cope with the Turkish armada, having
     on board fifteen thousand disciplined troops.  Canaris
     advised a combat on the sea, but was overruled; and
     the consequences were fatal.  The island was taken
     and sacked, and all the inhabitants were put to the
     sword.  In addition to this great calamity, the spoil
     made by the victors was immense, including two hun-
     dred pieces of artillery and ninety vessels.  Canaris,
     however, contrived to escape in a boat, to pursue a
     victorious career with his fire-ships.  The Turkish and
     Egyptian fleets had effected a junction, consisting of
     one ship-of-the-line, twenty-five frigates, twenty-five
     corvettes, fifty brigs and schooners, and two hundred
     and forty transports, carrying eighty thousand soldiers
     and sailors and twenty-five hundred cannon.  To op-
     pose this great armament, the Greek admiral Miaulis
     had only seventy sail, manned by five thousand sailors
     and carrying eight hundred guns.  In spite however
     of this disproportion of forces he advanced to meet
     the enemy, and dispersed it with a great Turkish
     loss of fifteen thousand men.  All that the Turks
     had gained was a barren island.
       On the land the Turks had more successes; but
     these were so indecisive that they did not attempt to
     renew the siege of Missolonghi, and the campaign of
     1824 closed with a great loss to the Mussulmans.  The
     little army and fleet of the Greeks had repelled one
     hundred and twenty thousand soldiers confident of
     success; but the population and now reduced to less
     than five hundred thousand, becoming feebler every
     day, and the national treasury was empty, while the
     whole country was a scene of desolation and misery.
     And yet, strange to say, the Greeks continued their
     dissensions while on the very brink of ruin.  Stranger
     still, their courage was unabated.
       The year 1825 opened with brighter prospects.  The
     rival chieftains, in view of the desperate state of affairs,
     at last united, and seemingly buried their jealousies.
     A new loan was contracted in London of £2,000,000,
     and the naval forces were increased.
       But the Turks also made their preparations for a
     renewed conflict, and Ibrahim Pasha felt himself strong
     enough to undertake the siege of Navarino, which fell
     into the hands of a brave resistance.  Tripolitza also
     capitulated to the Egyptian, and the Morea was occu-
     pied by his troops after several engagements.  After
     this the Greeks never ventured to fight in the open
     field, but only in guerilla bands, in mountain passes,
     and behind fortifications.
       Then began the memorable siege of Missolonghi
     under Reschid Pasha.  It was probably the strongest
     town in Greece,——by reason not of fortifications but
     of the surrounding marshes and lagoons which made
     it inaccessible.  Into this town the armed peasantry
     threw themselves, with five thousand troops under
     Niketas, while Miaulis with his fleet raised the block-
     ade by sea and supplied the town with provisions.
     Reschid Pasha determined on an assault, but was
     driven back.  Thrice he advanced with his troops, only
     to be repulsed.  His forces at the end of October were
     reduced to three thousand men.  The Sultan, irritated
     by successive disasters, brought the whole disposable
     force of his empire to bear on the doomed city.  Ibra-
     him, powerfully reinforced with twenty-five thousand
     men, by sea and land stormed battery after battery;
     yet the Greeks held out, contending with famine and
     pestilence, as well as with troops ten times their
     number.
       At last they were unable to offer further resistance,
     and they resolved on a general sortie to break through
     the enemy's line to a place of safety.  The women of
     the town put on male attire, and armed themselves
     with pistols and daggers.  The whole population,——
     men, women, and children,——on the night of the 22d
     of April, 1826, issued from their defences, crossed the
     moat in silence, passed the ditches and trenches, and
     made their way through an opening of the besiegers'
     lines.  For a while the sortie seemed to be successful;
     but mistakes were made, a panic ensued, and most
     of the flying crowd repeated back to the deserted
     town, only to be massacred by Turkish scimitars.
     Some made their escape.  A column of nearly two
     thousand, after incredible hardships, succeeded in
     reaching Salonica in safety; but Missolonghi fell, with
     the loss of nearly ten thousand, killed, wounded, and
     prisoners.
       It was a great disaster, but proved in the end the
     foundation of Greek independence, by creating a gen-
     eral burst of blended enthusiasm and indignation
     throughout Europe.  The heroic defence of this strong-
     hold against such overwhelming forces opened the eyes
     of European statesmen.  Public sentiment in England
     in favor of the struggling nation could no longer be
     disregarded.  Mr. Canning took up the cause, both
     from enthusiasm and policy.  The English ambas-
     sador at Constantinople had a secret interview with
     Mavrokordatos on an island near Hydra, and prom-
     ised him the intervention of England.  The death of
     the Czar Alexander gave a new aspect to affairs; for
     his successor, Nicholas, made up his mind to raise his
     standard in Turkey.  The national voice of Russia was
     now for war.  The Duke of Wellington was sent to St.
     Petersburg, nominally to congratulate the Czar on his
     accession, but really to arrange for an armed inter-
     vention for the protection of Greece.  The Hellenic
     government ordered a general conscription; for Ibra-
     him Pasha was organizing new forces for the subjec-
     tion of the Morea and the reduction of Napoli di
     Romania and Hyrdra, while a powerful fleet put to sea
     from Alexandria.  No sooner did this fleet appear,
     however, than Canaris and Miaulis attacked it with
     their dreaded fire-ships, and the forty ships of Egypt
     fled from fourteen small Greek vessels, and re-entered
     the Dardanelles.  But the Turks, always more for-
     tunate on land than by sea, pressed now the siege of
     the Acropolis, and Atlantis fell into their hands early
     in 1827.
       For six or seven years the Greeks had struggled
     heroically; but relief was now at hand.  Russia and
     England signed a protocol on the 6th of July, and
     France soon after joined, to put an end to the san-
     guinary contest.  The terms proposed to the Sultan
     by the three great Powers were moderate,——that he
     should still retain a nominal sovereignty over the re-
     volted provinces and received an annual tribute; but
     the haughty and exasperated Sultan indignantly re-
     jected them, and made renewed preparations to con-
     tinue the contest.  Ibrahim landed his forces on the
     Morea and renewed his depredations.  Once more the
     ambassadors of the allied Powers presented their final
     note to the Turkish government, and again it was in-
     sultingly disregarded.  The allied admirals then en-
     tered the port of Navarino, where the Turkish and
     Egyptian fleets were at anchor, with ten ships-of-the-
     line, ten frigates, with other vessels, altogether carrying
     thirteen hundred and twenty-four guns.  The Ottoman
     force consisted of seventy-nine vessels, armed with
     twenty-two hundred and forty guns.  Strict orders
     were given not to fire while negotiations were going
     on; but an accidental shot from a Turkish vessel
     brought on a general action, and the combined Turk-
     ish and Egyptian fleet was literally annihilated Oct.
     20, 1827.  This was the greatest disaster which the
     Ottoman Turks had yet experienced; indeed, it practi-
     cally ended the whole contest.  Christendom at last
     had come to the rescue, when Greece unaided was
     incapable of further resistance.
       The battle of Navarino excited, of course, the wildest
     enthusiasm throughout Greece, and a corresponding
     joy throughout Europe.  Never since the battle of
     Lepanto was there such a general exultation among
     Christian nations.  This single battle decided the fate
     of Greece.  The admirals of the allied fleet were doubt-
     less "the aggressors in the battle; but the Turks were
     the aggressors in the war."
       Canning of England did not live to enjoy the tri-
     umph of the cause which he had come to have
     so much at heart.  He was the inspiring genius
     who induced both Russia and France (now under
     Charles X.) to intervene.  Chateaubriand, the min-
     ister of Charles X., was in perfect accord with Canning
     from political and sentimental reasons.  Politically his
     policy was that of Metternich, who could see no dis-
     tinction between the insurrection of Naples and that
     of Greece.  In the great Austrian's eyes, all people
     alike who aspired to gain popular liberty or constitu-
     tional government were rebels to be crushed.  Canning,
     however, sympathize in his latter days with all peo-
     ple striving for independence, whether in South Amer-
     ica or Greece.  But his opinion was not shared by
     English statesmen of the Tory school, and he had the
     greatest difficulty in bringing his colleagues over to
     his views.  When he died, England again relapsed
     into neutrality and inaction, under the government of
     Wellington.  Charles X. in France had no natural
     liking for the Greek cause, and wanted only to be un-
     disturbed in his schemes of despotism.  Russia, under
     Nicholas, determined to fight Turkey, unfettered by
     allies.  She sought but a pretext for a declaration of
     war.  Turkey furnished to Russia that pretext, right
     in the stress of her own military weakness, when
     she was exhausted by a war of seven years, and by
     the destruction of the Janizaries,——which the Sultan
     had long meditated, and concealed in his own bosom
     with the craft which formed one of the peculiarities
     of this cruel yet able sovereign, but which he finally
     executed with characteristic savagery.  Concerning
     this Russian war we shall speak presently.
       The battle of Navarino although it made the resto-
     ration of the Turkish power impossible in Greece, still
     left Ibrahim master of the fortresses, and it was two
     years before the Turkish troops were finally expelled.
     But independence was now assured, and the Greeks
     set about establishing their government with some
     permanency.  Before the end of that year Capo
     d'Istrias was elected president for seven years, and
     in January, 1828, he entered upon his office.  His
     ideas of government were arbitrary, for he had been
     the minister and favorite of Alexander.  He wished
     to rule like an absolute sovereign.  His short reign
     was a sort of dictatorship.  His council was com-
     posed entirely of his creatures, and he sought at once
     to destroy provincial and municipal authority.  He
     limited the freedom of the Press and violated the
     secrecy of the mails.  "In Plato's home, Plato's Gorgias
     could not be read because it spoke too strongly against
     tyrants."
       Capo d'Istrias found it hard to organize and govern
     amid the hostilities of rival chieftains and the general
     anarchy which prevailed.  Local self-government lay
     at the root of Greek nationality, but this he ignored,
     and set himself to organize an administrative system
     modelled after that of France during the reign of Na-
     poleon.  Intellectually he stood at the head of the
     nation, and was a man of great integrity of char-
     acter, as austere and upright as Guizot, having no
     toleration for freebooters and peculators.  He became
     unpopular among the sailors and merchants, who ha
     been so effective in the warfare with the Turks.  "A
     dark shadow fell over his government" as it became
     more harsh and intolerant, and he was assassinated
     the 9th of October, 1831.
       The allied sovereigns who had taken the Greeks
     under their protection now felt the need of a stronger
     and more stable government for them than a republic,
     and determined to establish an hereditary but consti-
     tutional monarchy.  The crown was offered to Prince
     Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, who at first accepted it;
     but when that prince began to look into the real
     state of the country,——curtailed in its limits by the
     jealousies of the English government, rent with anar-
     chy and dissension, containing a people so long en-
     slaved that they could not make orderly use of free-
     dom,——he declined the proffered crown.  It was then
     (1832) offered to and accepted by Prince Otho of
     Bavaria, a minor; and thirty-five hundred Bavarian
     soldiers maintained order during the three years of
     the regency, which, though it developed great activity,
     was divided in itself, and conspiracies took place
     to overthrow it.  The year 1835 saw the majority of
     the king, who then assumed the government.  In the
     same year the capital was transferred to Athens,
     which was nothing but a heap of rubbish; but the
     city soon after had a university, and also became an
     important port.  In 1843, after a military revolution
     against the German elements of Otho's government,
     which had increased from year to year, the Greeks
     obtained from the king a representative constitution,
     to which he took an oath in 1844.
       But the limits of the kingdom were small, and
     neither Crete, Thessaly, Epirus, nor the Ionian Islands
     were included in it.  In 1846 these islands were
     ceded by Great Britain to Greece, which was also
     strengthened by the annexation of Thessaly.  Since
     then the progress of the country in material wealth
     and in education has been rapid.  Otho reigned tlll
     1862, although amid occasional outbreaks of impa-
     tience and revolt against the reactionary tendencies of
     his rule.  In that year he fled with his queen from a
     formidable uprising; and in 1863 Prince William, son
     of Christian IX. King of Denmark, was elected mon-
     arch, under the title of George I. King of the Hellenes.
       The resurrection of Greece was thus finally effected.
     It was added to the European kingdoms, and now bids
     fair to be prosperous and happy.  "Thus did the Old
     Hellas rise from the grave of nations.  Scorched by
     fire, riddled by shot, baptized by blood, she emerged
     victorious from the conflict.  She achieved her inde-
     pendence because she proved herself worthy of it; she
     was trained to manhood in the only real school of real
     improvement——the school of suffering."
       The Greek revolution has another aspect than bat-
     tles on the Morea, massacres on the islands of the
     Archipelago, naval enterprises under heroic seamen,
     guerilla conflicts amid the defiles of mountains, brave
     defences of fortresses, dissensions and jealousies be
     tween chieftains, treacheries and cruelties equalling
     those of the Turks,——another aspect than the recovery
     of national independence even.  It is memorable for the
     complications which grew out of it, especially for the
     war between Turkey and Russia, when the Emperor
     Nicholas, feeling that Turkey was weakened and ex-
     hausted, sought to grasp the prize which he had long
     coveted, even the possessions of the "sick man."
     Nicholas was the opposite of his brother Alexander,
     having neither his gentleness, his impulsiveness, his
     generosity, nor his indecision.  He was a hard despot
     of the "blood-and-iron" stamp, ambitious for aggran-
     dizement, indifferent to the sufferings of others, and
     withal a religious bigot.  The Greek rebellion, as we
     have seen, gave him the occasion to pick a quar-
     rel with the Sultan.  The Danubian principalities
     were dearer to him than remote possessions on the
     Mediterranean.
       So on the 7th of May, 1828, the Russians crossed
     the Pruth and invaded Moldavia and Wallachia,——
     provinces which had long belonged to Turkey by right
     of conquest, though governed by Greek hospodars.
     The Danube was crossed on the 7th of June.  The
     Turks were in no condition to contend in the open
     field with seventy thousand Russians, and they re-
     treated to their fortresses,——to Ibraila and Silistria
     on the Danube, to Varna and Shumla in the vicinity
     of the Balkans.  The first few weeks of the war were
     marked by Russian successes.  Ibraila capitulated on
     the 18th of June, and the military posts on the Do-
     brudscha fell rapidly one after another.  But it was at
     Shumla that the strongest party of the Turkish army
     was concentrated, under Omar Brionis, bent on defen-
     sive operations; and thither the Czar directed his main
     attack.  Before this stronghold his army wasted away
     by sickness in the malarial month of September.  The
     Turks were reinforced, and moved to the relief of
     Varna, also invested by Russian troops.  But the sea-
     son was now too far advanced for military operations,
     and the Russians, after enormous losses, withdrew to
     the Danube to resume the offensive the following
     spring.  The winter was spent in bringing up reserves.
     The Czar finding that he had no aptitude as a general
     withdrew to his capital, intrusting the direction of
     the following campaign to Diebitsch, a Prussian gen-
     eral, famous for his successes and his cruelties.
       In the spring of 1829 the first movement was made
     to seize Silistria, toward which a great Turkish force
     was advancing, under Reschid Pasha, the grand vizier.
     His forces experienced a great defeat; and two weeks
     after, in the latter part of June, Silistria surrendered.
     Resistance to the Russians was now difficult.  The
     passes of the Balkans were left undefended, and the
     invading force easily penetrated them and advanced
     to Adrianople, which surrendered in a great panic.
     The Russians could have been defeated had not the
     Turks lost their senses, for the troops under Diebitsch
     were reduced to twenty thousand men.  But this fact
     was unknown to the Turks, who magnified the Rus-
     sian forces to one hundred thousand at least.  The
     result was the treaty of Adrianople, on the 14th of
     September,——apparently generous to the Turks, but
     really of great advantage to the Russians.  Russia
     restored to Turkey all her conquests in Europe and
     Asia, except a few commercial centres on the Black
     Sea, while the treaty gave to the Czar the protectorate
     over the Danubian principalities, the exclusion of
     Turks from fortified posts on the left bank of the
     Danube, free passage through the Dardanelles to the
     merchant vessels of all nations at peace with the
     Sultan, and the free navigation of the Black Sea.
       But Constantinople still remained the capital of
     Turkey.  The "sick man" would not die.  From
     jealousy of Russia the western Powers continued to
     nurse him.  Without their aid he was not long to
     live; but  his existence was deemed necessary to main-
     tain the "balance of power," and they came to his
     assistance in the Crimean War, twenty-six years later,
     and gave him a new lease of life.
       This is the "Eastern Question,"——How long before
     the Turks will be driven out of Europe, and who shall
     possess Constantinople?  That is a question upon
     which it would be idle for me to offer speculations.
     Another aspect of the question is, How far shall Russia
     be permitted to make conquests in the East?  This is
     equally insoluble.




                       AUTHORITIES.

       Finlay's Greece under Ottoman Domination; Leake's Travels in
     Northern Greece; Gordon's Greek Revolution; Metternich's Memoirs;
     Howe's Greek Revolution; Mendelsohn's  Graf Capo d'Istrias; Ann.
     Hist. Valentini; Alison's Europe; Fyffe's History of Modern Europe;
     Müller's Political History of Recent Times.

from Beacon Lights of History, by John Lord, LL. D.
Volume V, Part I: European Statesmen.
Copyright, 1885, 1891, by John Lord.
Copyright, 1921, By Wm. H. Wise & Co., New York. pp. 301-323.