Blavatsky Blogger
Taking Theosophical
ideas
into the 21st
century
H
P Blavatsky Defends the Czar
After
1875 H P Blavatsky spent most of
her
time promoting Theosophy.
However,
during the 1877- 78 Russo – Turkish War
in
the Balkans, the anti-Russian mood of the American
press
prompted her to make a public defence
of
the Czar’s foreign policy.
Posted
H P
Blavatsky wrote this letter giving background to the war in the Balkans and
explaining the Russian position. H P Blavatsky came from a prominent military
family and it is clear that she had high level contacts in the Russian military
and a good grasp of the political situation.
The
reigning Czar at the time was Alexander II (1818-81) who reigned from 1855
until his assassination in 1881. He was known as a reforming Czar but believed
in reform from above and his opposition to the establishment of an elected
parliament led to his assassination.
Czar
Alexander II
Reigned
1855-81
Here is H
P Blavatsky’s defence of Russian foreign policy in the Balkans
[From the
THE
Sublime Porte has had the sublime effrontery to ask the American people to
execrate Russian barbarity. It appeals for sympathy on behalf of helpless
Turkish subjects at the seat of war. With the memories of Bulgaria and Servia still
fresh, this seems the climax of daring hypocrisy. Barely a few months ago the
reports of Mr. Schuyler and other impartial observers of the atrocities of
Bashi-Bazouks
sent a thrill of horror through the world. Perpetrated under official sanction,
they aroused the indignation of all who had hearts to feel.
In
to-day’s paper I read another account of pretended Russian cruelties, and your
able and just editorial comments upon the same. Permit one who is, perhaps, in
a better position than any other private person here to know what is taking
place at the front, to inform you of certain facts derived from authentic
sources. Besides receiving daily papers from St. Petersburg, Moscow, Tiflis and
Odessa, I
have an uncle, a cousin and a nephew on active service, and every steamer
brings me accounts of military movements from eye-witnesses.
My cousin
and nephew have taken part in all bloody engagements in Turkish Armenia up to
the present time, and were at the siege and capture of Ardahan. Newspapers may
suppress, colour or exaggerate facts; the private letters of brave soldiers to
their families rarely do.
Let me
say, then, that during this campaign the Turkish troops have been guilty of
such fiendish acts as to make me pray that my relatives may be killed rather
than fall into their hands. In a letter from the Danube, corroborated by
several
correspondents
of German and Austrian papers, the writer says:
On June
20th we entered Kozlovetz, a Bulgarian town of about two hundred houses, which
lies three or four hours distant from Sistova. The sight which
met our
eyes made the blood of every Russian soldier run cold, hardened though he is to
such scenes. On the principal street of the deserted town were placed in rows
140 beheaded bodies of men, women, and children. The heads of these
unfortunates were tastefully piled in a pyramid in the middle of the street.
Among the
smoking ruins of every house we found half-burned corpses, fearfully mutilated.
We caught a Turkish soldier, and to our questions he reluctantly confessed that
their chiefs had given orders not to leave a Christian place, however small,
before burning it and putting to death every man, woman, and child.
On the
first day that the Danube was crossed some foreign correspondents, among them that
of the Cologne Gazette, saw several bodies of Russian soldiers whose noses,
ears, hands, etc., had been cut off, while the genital organs had been stuffed
into the mouths of the corpses. Later, three bodies of Christian women were
found—a mother and two daughters—whose condition makes one almost drop the pen
in horror at the thought. Entirely nude, split open from below to the navel,
their heads cut off; the wrists of each corpse were tied together with strips
of skin and flesh flayed from the shoulder down; and the corpses of the three
martyrs were similarly bound to each other by long ribbons of flesh dissected
from their thighs.
A
correspondent writes from Sistova:
The
Emperor continues his daily visits to the hospitals and passes whole hours with
the wounded. A few days ago His Majesty, accompanied by Colonel Wellesley, the
British military attaché, visited two unfortunate Bulgarians who died on the
night following. The skull of one of them was split open both
laterally
and vertically, by two sword-cuts, an eye was torn out, and he was otherwise
mutilated. He explained, as well as he could, that several Turks
seeing
him, demanded his money. As he had none, four of the party held him fast while
the fifth, brandishing his sword, and repeating all the time, time, you
Christian dog, there’s your cross for you! " first split his skull from
the forehead to the back of the head, and then crosswise from ear to ear.
While the
Emperor was listening to these details the greatest agony was depicted upon his
face. Taking Colonel Wellesley by the arm, and pointing to the Bulgarian, he
said to him in French: "See the work of your protégés!" The British
officer blushed and was much confused.
The
special correspondent of the London Standard, describing his audience with the
Grand Duke Nicholas, Commander-in-Chief, on July 7th, says that the Grand Duke
communicated to him the most horrifying details about the cruelties
committed
at Dobroudga. A Christian whose hands were tied with strips of his own skin cut
from the length of both his arms, and his tongue cut down from the root, was
laid at the feet of the Emperor and died there before the eyes of the Czar and
the British agent, the same Colonel Wellesley, who was in attendance.
Turning to
the latter, His Majesty, with a stern expression, asked him to inform his
Government of what he had just seen for himself. Says the correspondent:
From the
beginning of the war I have heard of quite a number of such cases, but never
witnessed one myself. After the personal assurances given to me by the Grand
Duke, it is no longer possible to doubt that the Turkish officers are unable to
control their irregular troops.
The
correspondent of The Northern Messenger had gone the rounds of the hospitals to
question the wounded soldiers. Four of them, belonging to the Second Battalion
of Minsk Rifles, testified with the most solemn asseverations that they had
seen the Turks approach the wounded, rob them, mutilate their bodies in the
most cruel way, finish them with the bayonet. They themselves had avoided this
fate only by feigning death. It is a common thing for wounded Turks to allure
Russian soldiers and members of the sanitary corps to their assistance, and, as
they bend over them, to kill with a revolver or dagger those who would relieve
them. A case like this occurred under the eye of one of my
correspondents
in Turkish
thereupon
a soldier standing by killed the assassin.
My cousin,
Major Alexander U. White—of the Sixteenth Nijegorodsk Dragoons, one of the most
gallant soldiers in the army of Loris Melikof, and who has just been decorated
by the Grand Duke, under the authority of the Emperor, with a golden sword
inscribed, "For Bravery"—says that it is becoming positively
dangerous to relieve a wounded Turk. The people who robbed and killed the
wounded in the hospital at Ardahan upon the entry of the Russian troops were
the Karapapahs, Mussulmans and the supposed allies of the Turks. During the
siege they prudently awaited the issue from a safe distance. As soon as the
Russians conquered, the Karapapahs flew like so many tigers into the town,
slaying the wounded Turks, robbing the dead, pillaging houses, bringing the
horses and mules of the fleeing enemy into the Russian camp, and swearing
allegiance to the Commander-in-Chief.
The
Cossacks had all the trouble in the world to prevent their new allies from
continuing the greatest excesses. To charge, therefore, upon the Russians the
atrocities of these cowardly jackals (a nomadic tribe of brigands) is an
impudent lie of Mukhtar Pasha, whose falsifications have become so notorious
that some Parisian papers have nicknamed him "Blaguer Pasha." His
despatches are only matched in mendacity by those of the Spanish commanders in
Cuba.
The
stupidity of charging such excesses upon the Russian army becomes apparent when
we remember that the policy of the Government from the first has been to pay
liberally for supplies, and win the goodwill of the people of the invaded
provinces by kindness. So marked and successful has this policy proved in
General Loris Melikof’s field of operations, that the anti-Russian papers of
England, Austria and other countries have denounced it as Russian
"craft." With the Danubian forces is the Emperor in person, liberator
of millions of serfs, and the mildest and justest sovereign who has ever
occupied the throne of any country.
As he won
the love of his whole people and the adoration of his army by his sense of
justice and benevolent regard, I ask you if he is likely to
countenance
any cruel excesses? While the cowardly Abdul-Hamid hides in the alcoves of his
harem, and of the imperial princes none have taken the field, the Czar follows
his army, step by step, submits to comparatively severe and
unaccustomed
hardships, and exposes his health and life against all the remonstrances and
prayers of Prince Gortschakof. His four sons are all in active service, and the
son of the Grand Duke Nicholas was decorated at the crossing of the
I only ask
the American people to do justice to their long-tried and unfaltering friends,
the Russians. However politicians may have planned, the Russian people have
entered this war as a holy crusade to rescue millions of helpless
Slavonians—their
brothers—of the
This is
the view of the Catholic Czecks of
Respectfully,
H. P.
BLAVATSKY.
The
Russo – Turkish War 1877 -78
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