Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1877-04-21
TnE EASTERN QUESTION.

and those who desire to be informed
want us to go thoroughly into the
matter beginning at the beginning
They know not what they ask
there has always been an Eastern
question in Europe; before history
began there was one dating back
into those fabulous ages where gods
and men mingle together in the
strife and turmoil which is the ma
terial Of history-for when HerodO-
tus, the father of history, under
takes to elucidate the great Eastern
question of his day, the recent Per-
sian invasion of Greece, when he
enquiries after the
aCausa teterrima belli,'
does he not go back to the quarrels
of Greece with Asia Minor about
Helen ofTroy and with Egypt about
10?
No, we cannot go back to the begin
ming of things, for the real cause of
the antagOnism of East and West is
the essential antagOnism Of Eastern
and Western ideas, the radical con-
trasts in clinical character between
the Aryan and Semitic families of
man, and these will never cease
while both races exist. These pre-
cipitated on the shores of Greece a
vast wave of Persian invasion in
the days of Darius and XerXes, to
be repealed in the immortal conflicts
of Marathon and ThermOpyl@ and
Salamis-these hurled back on Asia
the rehux of European invasion in
the days of Alexander-these pre-
cipitated on all the coasts of the
Mediterranean the forces of Islam in
the days of Mahomet and his fol-
lowers, rendering it a doubtful ques-
ton whether Greece, Italy, and Spain
were to figure in History as Chris
tian or MahOmmedan pOwers-theSe
again swept back the tide of inVas-
ion towards the East when all the
chivalry of Europe rushed to the
shores of Palestine to rescue Christs'
Sepulchre from the infidels-and
finally, as the last effort of expiring
chivalry, these undying animosities
drove the MoOrs of Spain from the
plains of Andalusia and Granada TO
the coasts of Northern Africa,
where their descendants still re-
main the truest representatives of
the Semitic type which the revOlu-
lions of Europe and Asia have left
unmixed and unmodified by foreign
admiXture. And this would have
expelled from Europe all the mate
rails for an Eastern question, and
thrown it back far into the interior
of Asia, but that, on the Southeast
ern confines Of Europe, the cOnquests
of Othman and his Osmanli in the
thirteenth century fixed the Turkish
Mahomedans permanently at Con-
stantinOple, surrounded by such con-
quests of neighbOring States as they
have been enabled to conquer and
retain.
Chivalry and the crusading spirit
finally persisted, as we have said,
in the days of Ferdinand and Isa-
bella in eXpelling the Arabian MOOrs
from Spain, and in doing so expelled
all there was of art science and re-
fined civilization in Europe; they
would have done much better could
they have left them there and
driven the barbarOuS Turks from
their military occupation of the old
Grecian empire-fOr a military Oc-
cupatiOn and nothing else it has
been from the days of Gilman I'M
tilnow. Anything like government
in the European sense of tine term
has never been there. Fortified
points have been occupied by mill
tary pachas, and tribute thereby
drawn from them, and in tribute
begins and ends all the interest that
the Ottoman government takes in
them; petty chieftains are allowed
to rule the tributary populations,
responsible TO the government at
Cunstantinople only for the amount
of tribute assessed against them.
Not feature of this system differs
from that of the Persian empire as
described in HerodOtus; the modern
pacha is the ancient satrap, the diff
ference being in name only. Europe
we say would have gained much
more by the expulsion of this armed
occupation from its limits than it
did by that of the enlightened MOors
of Spain-but twas not possible nor
was any effort made to do it. On
the contrary, in the struggles be-
tween France, Spain and Germany
for the acquisition of territory in It
ally, which Immediately preceded
the reformation, each of these pow
ers ut one time or another, courted
the alliance of the Sublime Porte.
And 50 Turkey was established as a
power in Europe and the spirit of
the Crusaders was ue;ld.
Though this power had some Sc
we're struggles with the German en-
pirc, atone time threatening Vienna
itself, it did not assume its prepon-
dcrating interest until after the rap
id growth of the Russian empire,
which commenced under Peter the
great, nor even then until Poland
had been partitioned between Rus
Sia, Austria and Prussia. PreNi-
ously To this the extension westward
of the Russian empire was the dread
of European powers, and there
was one period in the days of
Frederick the Great, when it threat
end to absorb large portion of
Prussia itself, but this transaction
brought it square against the solid
fronts of Austria and Prussia, the
two great militarypOwers ofEurope,
and no further fear of her extension