The Appetite of Tyranny - Page 2

Tartar and you find a
Russian." It was the civilisation that survived under all the barbarism.
This vital romance of Russia, this revolution against Asia, can be proved
in pure fact: not only from the almost superhuman activity of Russia during
the struggle, but also (which is much rarer as human history goes) by her
quite consistent conduct since. She is the only great nation which has
really expelled the Mongol from her country, and continued to protest
against the presence of the Mongol in her continent. Knowing what he had
been in Russia, she knew what he would be in Europe. In this she pursued a
logical line of thought which was, if anything, too unsympathetic with the
energies and religions of the East. Every other country, one may say, has
been an ally of the Turk; that is, of the Mongol and the Moslem. The French
played them as pieces against Austria; the English warmly supported them
under the Palmerston régime; even the young Italians sent troops to the
Crimea; and of Prussia and her Austrian vassal it is nowadays needless to
speak. For good or evil, it is the fact of history that Russia is the only
Power in Europe that has never supported the Crescent against the Cross.

That, doubtless, will appear an unimportant matter; but it may become
important under certain peculiar conditions. Suppose, for the sake of
argument, that there were a powerful prince in Europe who had gone
ostentatiously out of his way to pay reverence to the remains of the
Tartar, Mongol and Moslem, left as an outpost in Europe. Suppose there were
a Christian Emperor who could not even go to the tomb of the Crucified,
without pausing to congratulate the last and living crucifier. If there
were an Emperor who gave guns and guides and maps and drill instructors to
defend the remains of the Mongol in Christendom, what should we say to him?
I think at least we might ask him what he meant by his impudence, when he
talked about supporting a semi-oriental power. That we support a
semi-oriental power, we deny. That he has supported an entirely oriental
power cannot be denied--no, not even by the man who did it.

But here is to be noted the essential difference between Russia and
Prussia; especially by those who use the ordinary Liberal arguments against
the latter. Russia has a policy which she pursues, if you will, through
evil and good; but at least so as to produce good as well as evil. Let it
be granted that the policy has made her oppressive to the Finns and the
Poles--though the Russian Poles feel far less oppressed than do the
Prussian Poles. But it is a mere historic fact, that if Russia has been a
despot to some small nations, she has been a deliverer to others. She did,
so far as in her lay, emancipate the Servians or the