Shall Turkey Live or Die?

BY

THOMAS CARLYLE, Esq.

LONDON:
THOMAS BOSWORTH, 215 REGENT STREET.
MDCCCLIV.

LONDON:
Printed by G. Barclay, Castle St. Leicester Sq.

SHALL TURKEY LIVE OR DIE?

The European war now impending differs from the last in every important feature,—in its theatre, its origin, and its issues. Never was a contest more mysterious and unexpected in its rise, more unwelcome to the majority of those engaged in it, and more pregnant with grave yet uncertain consequences. There are three classes of men whose minds it especially occupies. While the religious eschatologist expects a new phase of predicted fulfilment, and the speculative politician a new distribution of territory and influence, the practical man seeks a fuller explication and enforcement of existing interests and obligations. Although they who see in all things the guiding hand of God are warranted to expect that, in the communion of the faithful, there shall be a divine presentiment of His holy procedure, yet the attempt to map out the future is in too many very idle, and in some most presumptuous. On the other hand, those who try every fresh event by the mere letter of protocols, fail to apprehend its true moral importance, and would bind the God of Providence by the impotent will of man. He that would rightly estimate or improve the present juncture must avoid both of these errors. And while he regards it in its highest aspects, he must not be hurried into foregone conclusions as to its issues.

“Destiny” is the watchword of the day. One horn of the Crescent has long rested on Christendom by destiny. A child of destiny now rules for a second time in the West. And scarcely has he, by assuming, in professed zeal for divine reminiscences, the protectorate of holy places, excited men’s fears lest he should swell the number of those places and convert protectorate into possession, when a new protector of things sacred arises in the North, also pleading the call of destiny.

Why these two protectors have not yet come forth to assert their rights in single combat; and why the Pope, whose throne is upheld, and whose claims are asserted by the former, has acted in silence, when he might have been expected to utter in encyclical letters the Jeremiad of insulted authority; are questions yet to be solved. The religious and political champion of the Papacy is now allied to other powers on grounds with which Papal claims, religious or political, have nothing ostensibly, at least exclusively, to do. And we now see the northern protector opposed by all the great powers of Europe,—by the open protest of those who will and can withstand him,—by the tacit resistance of those who fear to be his friends, yet dare not be his foes.

Recent disclosures, however, warrant the conclusion that the Pope has, although covertly, been the prime mover in the present troubles. Using France as a cat’s-paw, he has revived in a stronger form his almost obsolete claims to such a protectorate of the Latin interest in the Holy Places as shall, at Jerusalem as elsewhere, swallow up every other. And the aggression of Russia against Turkey derives considerable excuse from the consideration that the Czar, in aiming a fleshly blow at the Sultan, is really aiming a spiritual blow at the Pope. If the Catholic Church or the Christian nations are not in a condition to lift one united testimony against this new assertion of Papal supremacy, we are hardly entitled to