Of course the ignorant Turk is wrong,
and his suspicions are unfounded.
With a mutual want of confidence in the integrity of an alliance, it
would hardly be surprising should the Sultan attach more importance to
the practical force of Russia than to the moral rectitude and high
political principles of England. The power of Russia has been felt, and
the position of European Turkey is that of a dislocated and dismembered
Empire, which upon the next explosion will reduce the Sultan to the
small extremity on the Bosphorus between Constantinople and the lines of
Tchataldja. Turkey will cease to be a European Power, and upon the
outbreak of the next Russian war she will be discovered as represented
by Asia Minor, in which the claws of the Eagle are already fixed in the
vital points--Batoum, Kars, and Ardahan. A Russian advance from those
positions will, according to the terms of the alliance, compel Great
Britain to exhibit herself as the champion of Turkish rights in armed
defence of Asia Minor.
When we reflect upon the prodigious responsibility of such an alliance
with a crippled Power that has been completely subdued, the victorious
army of the Czar retired from the gates of the capital, the nation
bankrupt beyond all hopes of liquidation, the various states in chronic
discontent both in Europe and in Asia, and the claims of Greece
threatening to explode the combustible materials, we may well appreciate
the back-door that has so frequently afforded a retreat from an
untenable position.
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