Evening star., 1918-02-25
RUSSIAN SITUATION
LIKE TURK HISTORY
Very Simple Parallel Taking
Place Today in Opinion of
Frank H. Simonds.
EXPLAINS GERMAN OBJECT
By FRANK H. SIMONDS.

Copyright. 1918, by the Mcclure Newspape
Syndicate)
A very simple parallel for what i!
now taking place in Russia is supplied
by the history of the Turkish empire
in the last three centuries. In the
fourteenth century the Turk broke into
Europe and during the next 200 year:
pushed northward until his frontiers
included Hungary. and his armies be-
sieged Vienna. But in the next cen
turtles the power of the Turk ebbed
had conquered but could not assimi-
late began to reappear from the re-
ceding food.
Hungary, Serbia. Rumania. Bulgaria
and Greece, these countries slowly dis
engaged themselves from OsmanlI rule
until there was left on the margin OF
the retreating flood half a dizen states
once the conquest of the Turk. but
now mounting to an independent exist
ence such as most of them had en-
joyed before the Turk broke into Eu-
rope. For more than two centuries
Europe has been troubled by that east
ern question, which grew out of the
decline of Turkish power.
Russian Started Later.
Now. just as the Turk came north.
the Russian came west. but he started
much later. 1t was not until the be-
ginning of the eighteenth century, in
the reign of Peter the Great. that Eu-
rope became conscious of the growing
power of the Mocovite state. When
Peter the Great died the western from
tier of the state he had organized was
still marked roughly by the Dwina and
the Dnieper rivers. Only along the Gulf
of Finland and the Livonian shore of
out to the Baltic and occupied por-
ton of the lands of the Lithuanians.
but recently become the topic of world
comment.
of the eighteenth century was the
great state of Poland. :tself made up
of the regions inhabited by three races.
the Lithuanians, the Poles and the
or south Russians. But
in the next century the Russians moved
down at the congress of Vienna. Rus
sia had absorbed all of the Ukrainian
lands. save a corner of Galicia. the
greater part of the Polish, all of the
Rumanian lands along the lower
stretch of the Danube, and finally Fin
land, acquired only in 1915.
Fails to Assimilate Races.
In the century that lies between the
congress of Vienna and the treaty of
Brest-Litovsk, of recent date. Russia
has struggled to absorb and assimilate
these frontier races. the Firms, the
the Poles and the Ukrain-
ians, together with the Rumanians of
but in every instance she
has failed. Even the Ukrainians, close
" related in language and race. have
preserved some tradition Of older in
dependence and separate aspirations
This is exactly what happened in
Europe, in the case of the
Serbs, Hungarians. Greeks, Bulgarians
and Rumanians.
And now Russian power has begun
to ebb, precisely as did the Turkish.
We see reappearing the various races
which were engulfed by the Russian
tidal wave; we begin to hear, once
more. the pleas of the races. long sub
ject to the Slav, for independence and
for protection. A new eastern ques-
ton is being born. this time in Russia
instead of the Balkans. Unfortunately
for European peace, this new eastern
arises while the old one is
still as far from settlement as ever.