The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1879-09-19
A Murdered Nation.


A Murdered Nation.
In 1881, when the Empress Catherine
stopped at Axov on visit to the southern
part of her domains, she was struck by
the majestic aspect of the Daghestan
mountains which interpose their snow
capped ramparts between the Russian
steppes and the garden lands OF Tiftis and
Georgia; and on that day the conquest
was first resolved upon which has since
been accomplished at the cost OF three
million human lives. AS early as l7S3,
General Lazareff made raid into the valley
of the Terek, but was driven back with
the loss of 5000 men, and had to recruit
his forces in the Ukraine till the spring
of the following year, when he landed ut
Anapa, and attempted the same region
from the south side. He was again re-
pulsed, but fortified the village or Rcdout
Kaleh on the sea-coast; and thus estab-
lished base of operations, for all future
expeditions, which year after year were
sent forth, and as often vanquished,
though with greater and greater difficulty,
by that heroic resistance which mere
butchers arithmetic could foresee must
cease at last. Lazareff and his successor,
General Godolitsch, gratified the Czarina
by monthly bulletin of raids and mas
sacres; and there's something
which seems inexpressibly revolving in
their cynic admission of the superior
strategy and valor of an enemy whom
they hoped to subdue by starvation and
ralse-that is, treacLery, and the mas
sacre of hostages and non-combatants.
The passes of Western Caucasus were
| defended by the Lesghians and Ossetes,
who, in 1875, could still muster force of
| 10000 warriors in the Spartan sense OF
the word but with the return of every
| Spring a fresh swarm of Cossacks, Cal
| mucks and Muscovite serfs fell upon that
devoted band standing at bay like wild
animal against pack OF butcher dogs.
/ The valleys were devastated, domestic
animals were slain the auls, or mountain
villages of Western Lesghia, were burned
| and their defenseless inhabitants butch
cred and in innumerable encounters
! the passes were strewn with the bones,
! and the mountuin streams of Circassla
| dyed with the blood of her native sons,
| who, though almost victorious, found no
time to repair their losses before an inn
| perial ukase sent a new horde of blood
| hounds against them. Yet in 1921, more
then forty years after the commencement
| of hostilities which had already cost the
| lives of nearly half a million of his sub
| iects, the Czar could not yet call square
| yard of the Caucasus his own. unless he
| kept within cannon range of his forts.
| Shamyl Ben Haddyn, man whose
name is almost unknown to America and
| Western Europe; has left record in the
memory of his countrymen about which
coming generations may kindle into wor-
! ship. Unless ultimate success alone be
criterion of merit, the exploits of Hanni-
| bal of Cromwell, of Koscesco and Carl
baldi appear trifing in comparison with
the feats of the Lesghian prophet-chief-
tain. There is a somewhat doubtful
tradition about Gothic knight, named
Pelagius or Pelayo, whose father had been
| slain with King Roderic, in the battle of
Xeres de la Frontera, and who, when
Spain was overrun by the Saracens, en-
| listed corps of volunteers from the
| Christian tugitives with their aid..defended
| himself year after year in the Businesses
of the Pyrenees, till the power of the
Moors was broken in the seven days fight
at Tours, and the little band of patriots re-
ceived succor from their brethren in
Southern France. If the story of Pelayo
| should be authentic, the achievements of
| Shamyl Ben Haddin are hardly equalled !;
otherwise they stand altogether unap-
preached by anything the history of the
| world could adduce from the records of
| the last 1000 years. The Pass of Their
mopylse, though defended against greater
| odds, was only defended for twenty four
hours, while the followers of Shamyl
maintained their ground, for more than
| twenty four years. Mithridates, King of
| Pontus and Asyria, resisted the powers of
| Rome for even longer period; but his
resources were almost as vast as those of
| the Orbis Ronaanus, while the Circassian
| patriot, with never more than 10000
| fighting men, defied the legions of the
| Russian Empire, which were increased
| under Prince Baryantnski to ninety-fve
of Regiments, forty of artillery, 1900 polks
| of mounted Cossacks together almost
| third of million. Frederic the Great, in
| the Seven Years War, showed the same
manful self-reliance, fortitude and heroic
| scorn of compromise but would he not
| have surrendered Brandenburg and Ber-
| lin as well as Silesia, if the four-fold nu-
merical superiority of his enemies had
been increased forty-fold, the seven years
| protracted to twenty-seven, and his regi--
ment restricted to diet of beechnuts and
| water? Or, to take an illustration from
| the history of our own country, would the
resistance of General Lee have been pro-
| longed for. we will not say twenty seven
years. but that number of weeks, if Vir-
| ginia had been attacked by combina-
| tion of the "Solid South" with the solid
North, East and West if all the artillery,
all the horses, all the cooking stoves,
medicine chests, tents, shoes, blankets,
| uOuS, sugar dlu COASsC, do VIGIL ao ilA tIC
cash had been monopolized by General
Grant and Lees own commissary supplies
| reduced to hickorynuts and wild berries
of the Blue Ridge? How few of our hardy
ancestors would have undertaken for any
| for any temporal or eternal reward what
| the Lesghian chieftain had done, and
| done in vain. His followers diminished
from year to year and at last
succumed, worn out, in the most brutal
| sense of the term, by an ungenerous
enemy, who increased the terror of his
| superior force by atrocities which make
| the conquest of Caucasus the blacklist
page in the history of the world.
| But to the Circassian themselves their
untimely grave has, perhaps, been a
refuge from worse evils, since the doom
of Poland would have been the penalty
of submission and in thus far, at least,
they have still been the arbiters of their
own destiny. Five successive generations
have been called upon to decide between
death and Muscovite citizenship. and
they have deliberately chosen death as
the less horrible alternative. By hum
dred years war, and the sacrifice of
million human lives the Russians have
thus become the undisputed master of
graveyard, but they will hardly find it a
renumeratiye acquisition. The tendency
a., <,ro,,,af;o fiono 30 oluorco ~