Littell's Living Age/Volume 126/Issue 1632/The Rising of the Herzegovina

From The Economist.

THE RISING IN THE HERZEGOVINA.

We need not, perhaps, be too gravely apprehensive of the evil consequences which may flow from the renewal of disturbances in the East. The insurrection of the people of the Herzegovina against the Turkish rule is a movement towards which our sympathies naturally turn, yet we cannot help feeling that we must qualify those sympathies with a cautious distrust. The Turkish power is so weak and so vicious, so ill-managed, and so unstable that if the peace of Europe was not likely to be disturbed by its overthrow, we should not easily find anything to regret in its fall. It does not even tranquillize men's minds by an appearance of permanence; every one knows that the arrangements in which Europe acquiesces for the maintenance of the sultan's authority are merely provisional, and that whenever it suits the great powers to re-open the questions that were formally closed by the Treaty of Paris, the settlement of 1856 will not stand for a moment against a general conviction that it is not expedient any longer to keep the "sick man " alive. But though Turkey has now few friends who believe in her vitality, or would be willing to risk anything in her cause, there is equally little confidence inspired by the character of the Christian populations who are struggling by alternating revolts and intrigues for the autonomy they regard as their inheritance. The truth is that we have been disillusioned both as to the character of the Turk and of his subject the Rayah. The former does not reveal himself to us as the simple-minded, sober, brave, pure-lived Mussulman, that it became the fashion to consider him when we went to war with Russia on his behalf, more than twenty years ago. Nor, on the other hand, do we look either among Greeks, or Slavs, or Roumanians for the type of the Christian hero in whose virtues we trusted, once upon a time, to find a cure for all the misfortunes of the East. Whatever the form of government ultimately set up among the Christian populations of Turkey, there will be anarchy, corruption, weakness, and insolvency until the people learn to be steady and honest. The recent history of Roumania and Servia, not to speak of Greece, does not encourage us to hope much from the concession of self-government to the populations who are now rising against the authority of the Porte. We look, therefore, on the strife between the government at Constantinople and the rebels in Bosnia, without sympathy on the one hand, or encouragement on the other. We do not doubt that the people of the Herzegovina and of Turkish Croatia have been grievously oppressed, for, at all times, under the Turkish rule there are abuses enough, both of violence and of corruption, to justify a resort to arms. But that other influences have been at work is, at least, highly probable. There are organizations of Slavonic "patriotism" and of Christian zeal, that can turn popular passions into the direction of rebellion whenever it is convenient so to do; and the only difficult question is to discover whose interest it was to stir up a revolt in the Herzegovina, precisely at the present juncture.

The centre of the propagandist influences that have fanned the flame in Bosnia is Trieste, and the Austrian government might, therefore, be supposed to have had some share in fostering the agitation on its southern frontier. But this presumption has been negatived by the subsequent action of the court of Vienna. The Servian prince, Milan Obrenovitch, has been in close relations with the Austrian government for some time, and has lately visited Vienna, with the special object of taking his instructions as to his conduct towards the movement in Bosnia. The Servians are very "patriotic," and their patriotism includes the notion of annexing the neighbouring provinces of Turkey. They make the cruel treatment of the Herzegovinians, and the disaffection against Turkish rule throughout the whole of Bosnia a pretext for reviving their national claims at the present time, and they have been pressing Prince Milan to assert their claims by sending a force into the Herzegovina to assist the insurgents. The prince may very probably be doubtful whether the annexation of the Bosnian provinces would enhance the comfort of his dynastic position, or the stability of Servia as an independent state, and at any rate, he has returned from Vienna with orders from the Austrian court to avoid a rupture if it be possible. But the Obrenovitch dynasty has no strong hold on the affections of the Servian people. The descendants of Kara George claim the throne, and are prepared to promise anything that the national feeling may demand; and if the Kara Georgevitch party should be lukewarm in the Christian cause, the partisans of Prince Wikita of Montenegro are ready to put him forward as the champion of Slavonic union and independence. These dangers seriously threaten Prince Milan's position if he should persist in maintaining the attitude of neutrality which, apparently, he was instructed to occupy when he was at Vienna. The recent elections to the Servian Scuptschina shows that the conservative party, on whom Prince Milan might have relied for the support of his neutral policy, has been reduced to a contemptible minority, while the partisans of Prince Wikita and of the Kara Georgevitch faction have both been largely reinforced. Of course, the dread of Austria and Russia combined — for Russia has laboured to influence Prince Wikita in the direction of peace, as Austria has Prince Milan — may keep the Slavs quiet. Yet it is not clear that the advice of the two great powers who are directly interested in the Eastern question will prevail. The people of Servia, the ignorant and passionate Montenegrins, and the Dalmatian subjects of the house of Hapsburg, may believe that both Vienna and St. Petersburg would gladly seem to be coerced. Servians, Montenegrins, and Dalmatians may insist upon joining in the war that the Herzegovinians have commenced, and may not be restrained by anything less than the interference of the Austrian and Russian armies. But if the Austrian and Russian armies interfere, the objects of the revolutionary party are gained; for whatever the great empires may do, they cannot march merely to maintain the status quo in Bosnia. They will be compelled, by the force of events, to suggest a modus vivendi, and that means the breaking up of the Turkish power.

The interest of Prince Milan of Servia is no longer to keep the peace unless he is quite assured that Austria will keep it for him. He is beset by watchful enemies, and his failure to do credit to his Servian name would at once lose him the support of his people. Of course Austria may promise him that she will support him on the throne against his own unruly subjects; but it is hardly likely that she can do so while her own Dalmatians are not only clamouring that she should interfere on behalf of the Herzegovinian rebels, but are actually thronging over the frontier to fight against the Turks. We do not believe that either Austria or Russia would be well pleased to have the Eastern question opened for final settlement just now, and certainly Germany would be ill pleased; but if the flame breaks out in Servia and Dalmatia, there must be an intervention to settle it. Our only business in the matter is to recognize the plain fact, that we have no interest, political or financial, to serve, in maintaining the integrity of the Turkish empire in its present form, and that we certainly shall not enter into any new guarantees for its preservation.