"Verba volant, scripta manent" / "Spoken words fly away, written words remain" Latin Proverb
Under the Shadow of War
After the 24 years rest on the Eastern Question table, it was time to order the desserts. It was one of the most conflicted era of the world history, was one of the sharpest cornerings where the Empires were collapsed, the National States were risen and the first modern warfare was practised. The year 1853, Europe was totally irritated by Russian marches towards Ottoman Empire aka sick-man of the Europe. France claimed its own "sovereign authority" over the Christian population in the Ottoman Empire while UK was worrying about its colonies in the near-east from Russian domination. Austria was struggling with Russian bait - Hungarian Revolution of 1848-. And a chain of uprisings in Thessaly, Epirus, Macedonia, Greece and Albania. Then the war burst in Crimea where the Great Powers has a very big confliction.Russia was alone against the Ottomans-UK-France and the French assistant - Kingdom of Sardinia-. The war was just a rehearsal, there were no any absolute victories but many "casus belli"s for another(World War I). In 1877 Russia was firm about Bulgarians to give their independence like Serbia.End of 1877-78 Turkish-Russo wars as all war's end, the winner should have its award which was decided in Congress of Berlin, 13 July 1878. Like today the Great powers are talking about re-organising the Middle-east according to "New World Order", it was just the same what they did in Berlin, they drew the new borders of Balkans according to those times' "New World Order".According to this; with the Treaty of San Stefano, 3 March 1878 Bulgaria became a autonomous principality of the Ottoman Empire, on the territories of the Second Bulgarian Empire,(In Belin Congress the territories of Bulgaria were made smaller complying with Great Power's interests) Then in 5 October 1908 Tsar Ferdinand proclaimed the independence in (Veliko)Tarnovo.
Compiled and Written By Kigarian
Copyright © 2013-Varna1444 All Rights Reserved
Compiled and Written By Kigarian
Copyright © 2013-Varna1444 All Rights Reserved
From Constantinople to Varna
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Those inhabitants of Varna who call it home can freely say with bitter discontent that there is no place like it. Squalid, hard, dusty, and glaring, it might be built of sun dried mud from its general appearance. The houses are roofed with tiles, and have very few windows, especially in the lower story.Those they have are small, and are stuck in anywhere. There is a dingy-looking mosque and a Greek church with one arm of the cross on its dome bent crooked. The number of inhabitants is variously stated at from 6,000 to 20,000. The number of brown long haired, wolfish or foxy looking eastern dogs seems to far surpass the human population.These animals have the same shabby look as the Constantinople dogs; they slink along the same way, with their eyes fixed on the ground, never looking up to a human face, and as usual in the East, a man walking in the street must make a way for a dog. We wend our way to Varna's dilapidated but well-meaning "Hotel d'Angleterre" along the sea cliffs, which are being banked up and levelled to form -as we were afterwards told- an esplanade and fashionable walking place. If the poor Bulgarians think anyone will believe this "esplanade"***** story, they show a disheartening lack of humour. The most guileless member of the Peace Society would easily see that this esplanade will be gun carriages, and the chief promenaders on it artillerymen and sentries. All round here the town is walled. There is a hardly any beach, the sea washing almost to the foot of the cliffs, and we may be sure that if the Russians occupy Varna this so-called esplanade will become a place more formidable than inviting. Beyond the town, looking north, further up towards the Romanian and the Russian coast, the country gets prettier. The hills rise to a considerable height, and are softened by a covering of timber, which at a distance has very much of the brownish-green appearance of the Australian she-oak. On these heights, too, you can see with a glass heaps of earth which can hardly have been dug up for amusement, but look surprisingly like entrenchments. At the time of which I write, about three years ago, there is no doubt that the Bulgarians were strengthening the fortifications of Varna as quietly and mysteriously as possible. Just at the same time Russia-of course with the "the most peaceable intentions"- was doing a thing she was legally bound not to do, fortifying and deepening the Kilia(Chilia) mouth of the Danube. The Times and other acute correspondents pointed out the grave importance of this work. As usual, then the English Government sneered at them as sensational newspaper alarmists. But now the connection between Kilia and Varna, far apart as they are, is apperant, and Russia's action has been wiser even than was foreseen. Command of Varna and Bulgarians means command of the railway to Rustchuk(Ruse)-which is strongly fortified- at one end, and the Kilia forts at the mouth, Russia has the practical command of the Danube between the two places. She can now ship men at Odessa or the Crimea, or she can dodge them round a back way, as it were, by the Danube, run them down by rail to Varna, and ship them there. Her recent action in Bulgaria is really meant to give her another route to Constantinople. Whether, if Russia did take Constantinople, anything very dreadful need be apprehended by other powers this is not the place to argue. At any rate Bulgaria is valuable step towards Stamboul(Istanbul). Varna has a bad harbour for ships to come into, but its shores, properly fortified and manned, supply excellent points of vantage for driving any attacking ships out.
At midday all Varna goes to sleep for about two hours.The very dogs stop prowling, and lie across the middle of the roads. There is no danger of any wheeled traffic of Varna running over them. During the afternoon we take a walk through the better part of the town, to pay our respects to the British consul, who has certainly as dull a post as can be found in the European diplomatic service. here the streets wind in the most eccentric way, describing a semi-circle in about 60 yards. The houses were without almost any gardens, and have walls round them about 15 ft. high. None of them are built fearlessly and directly facing the street.This tells a tale in itself of Varna's liability to war's alarms. Defence rather than privacy is the object of these walls. For it is obviously harder to shoot into your house and at yourself in it over a high wall than over a low one or non at all. The brightest part of Varna is an oblong Place in the middle of the town. Here there are several Greek cafés, but not a single shop that invites a second look. The roads of Varna are the ne plus vitra of impassability. Imagine twenty or thirty bullock-drivers starting a race with very heavily-laden drays in a muddy winter road alone to dry, and it will be almost as bad as the important one which leads to the railway station of Varna. And yet from this modest little terminus, with its short platform, you can step into the train and get out at Paris, Vienna, Berlin or St.Petersburg. The railway station forms a sort of cheap club for Varna society. Everyone goes there to hear the news and stare at the passengers. There is a complete absence of the barrier system, and peasant children, with marvellous brown eyes, roam about the station selling fruit and sticky Turkish confectionery. Strange to say , nearly all the drivers and stokers on this Varna-Bucharest line, which really connects Turkey with the rest of Europe, are English. They manage to preserve a healthy contempt for all foreign mechanics. One of them told us he always knew when "a foreigner was driving the mail train" the "lightning" train "by his feeble whistle".
Old Ruse Train Station, built in 1863-1866 during the Ottoman Rule.It is one of the well preserved old stations in Bulgaria and it is now a museum.It was a link between Istanbul-Varna-London.Today's Varna Station was built in 1908-1925 for renovating.Probably Old Varna Train Station(built in 1866) would look alike this one.
I believe the inhabitants of Varna are supposed to speak Turkish. Anyone we came across might be said to speak all languages and none.What I know is that we interviewed our landlord as to our dinner. Our party consisted of two English, the Greek bishop, an Austrian cavalry officer of a very fashionable regiment, a Russian commercial traveller, and a young Greek, who may not have been what he looked- an awful rascal. Dinner was ordered between us all in the languages of English, French, German and Russian. The result of this polygot direction was that the dinner itself(for which a Greek grace one and a half minutes long was said by the Metropolitan), consisted of English roast reef and veritable plum pudding; for wines, Bass's beer. I merely mention this insignificant and undignitied fact to show that British influence and consideration for British taste are not so extinct in Eastern Europe as many ruling Continental journals would wish us to believe.
Uninteresting as Varna may be, anyone who has been there cannot help having a feeling of sympathy for the town in its present critical and undeserved position. The occupation of Bulgaria by Russia will be one of the blackest cases of murder of a tree state in existence. The bombardement of Varna would not be an operation of war, but a slaughter to be written in blood-red characters in the military calendar of Russia, and rivalling her glorious achievement of the massacre at Sinope. But if Varna does become a Russian seaport, the only practical difference the ordinary traveller will notice is that the amount of his bribe inducing Russian officials to refrain from ransacking his luggage and picking absurd technical objections in his passport will have to be doubled. BY A RAMBLING VICTORIAN THIS ARTICLE BORROWED FROM http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/11579042 |
FootNotes
*attaché 1835, from French attaché "junior officer attached to the staff of an ambassador
** Giaour 1560s, Turkish term of contempt for non-Muslims, from Persian gaur, variant of gabr "fire-worshipper," originally applied to the adherents of the Zoroastrian religion.
***Glenelg at Adelaide, was established in 1836 by English colonies in Southern Australia.
****John Ruskin (1819-1900) was an English writer and art critic.
supposed to be Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) was an American novelist and short story writer.
*****esplanade, large level area.
*attaché 1835, from French attaché "junior officer attached to the staff of an ambassador
** Giaour 1560s, Turkish term of contempt for non-Muslims, from Persian gaur, variant of gabr "fire-worshipper," originally applied to the adherents of the Zoroastrian religion.
***Glenelg at Adelaide, was established in 1836 by English colonies in Southern Australia.
****John Ruskin (1819-1900) was an English writer and art critic.
supposed to be Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) was an American novelist and short story writer.
*****esplanade, large level area.