After descending the Balkans to the Valley of Roses, General Radetzki, together with General Skobelev, who had come to his assistance after the fall of Plevna, attacked on the 9th of January an army of 40,000 Turks at Kezanlik, who after a stubborn resistance were defeated and taken prisoners. After having devastated and scattered the Turkish army of Shipka and
[1878 a.d.]
accomplished the feat unexampled in history of the passage of the Balkans, the Russian army continued its victorious advance; Adrianople, the second capital of the Turkish empire, was taken without a struggle and the troops drew near to Constantinople itself. Then, on the 3rd of March, 1878, at a little place called San Stefano, at ten versts from Constantinople, Turkey signed the conditions of peace offered her by Russia.
Meanwhile the great European powers required that three conditions of peace should be submitted to their consideration, and thus the treaty of San Stefano showed itself to be only a preliminary one; the great European powers ratified it only after considerable changes. These altered conditions of peace were signed in 1878 by the plenipotentiaries of all the great powers at the Congress of Berlin; after which on the 8th of February, 1879, a final treaty of peace, based on these same conditions, was signed at Constantinople between Russia and Turkey.
The emperor Alexander might certainly with full right have insisted on the ratification of the treaty of peace of San Stefano without any alterations; but then Russia would have incurred a fresh war with Europe, while the emperor deeply felt the necessity of peace. It was time to give the Russian people rest after they had made such sacrifices in the struggle for their Slavonian brethren! Pitying his people, the emperor decided—however painful it might be to him — not to insist on all that had been gained at the price of Russian blood and confirmed by the treaty of San Stefano with Turkey, but consented in Berlin to great concessions which did not, however, in any way interfere with the liberation of the Christian population of Turkey.
By the treaties of San Stefano and Berlin, that part of Bessarabia was returned to Russia which, by the Peace of Paris in 1856, had been ceded to her by Turkey after the Crimean campaign. Thanks to this, Russia again reached the mouths of the river Danube; in Asia she acquired a portion of the Turkish possessions, with the port of Batum and the fortress of Kars, which guaranteed her security and future development. Finally, in compensating for the military expenditure incurred by Russia, Turkey was bound to pay her an indemnity of 300 million rubles.
Thus terminated the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 — that decisive struggle for the liberation of the Slavonians of the Balkan peninsula, and although in consequence of the interference of Europe Russia was far from attaining what she had a right to expect after the enormous sacrifices she had made, and the glorious victories she had gained, nevertheless the great and sacred object of the war was attained; on the memorable day of the emancipation of the peasants in Russia, also the Slavonian nations of the Balkan peninsula were liberated, by the help of Russia and her great monarch, from the Turkish yoke which had oppressed them for ages. To the emperor Alexander II, who gave freedom to many millions of his own subjects, was allotted also the glorious role of liberator of the Balkan Christians, by whom he was a second time named the Czar Liberator!
SPREAD OF EDUCATION AND CIVILISATION
The new order of things established in Russia, thanks to the great reforms of Emperor Alexander II, called forth a particular want of educated, enlightened men. They were necessary to the wise interpretation and execution of the luminous ideas of the czar-liberator.
Recognising that the spread of education amongst the people is an indispensable condition of its prosperity, the emperor Alexander II, who hadbecome convinced by a personal survey of Russia, that one of the chief obstacles to her progress lay in the ignorance of the people, wished to give to his subjects the means for the highest degree of enlightenment. This solicitude was expressed in a radical reform of all the educational establishments of the empire, beginning with the university and finishing with the national schools. Properly speaking, it may be asserted that the primary national schools and village schools were created during the reign of Alexander II, for until his reign the primary education of the people was in a sad condition, and amongst them ,
an almost total ignorance prevailed.
His legislation for the education of the masses should justly be numbered amongst the most important works of the Czar Liberator. But many were the other reforms accomplished by him that also had a great and beneficent signification for the Russian people. During the reign of the emperor Alexander II the country which had until then but few means of intercommunication, became covered with a network of railways. In conjunction with the extraordinarily rapid development of railway communication, the postal service was perfected, the telegraph made its appearance, while commerce and trade acquired wide development. Finally, essential changes and improvements were introduced into the financial administration of the empire; the police was reorganised and certain modifications were granted to the press, in consequence of which there was a powerful awakening in the intellectual life of the people.
THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER II
In studying the wars which took place during the reign of Alexander II, it is impossible not to remark that they were all entered upon and carried on, not under the influence of ambition, not with the thirst
for conquest, but exclusively out of a feeling of humanity, in order to preserve those living on the frontiers of the Russian empire from the plundering incursions of half savage Asiatic tribes (as was the case in the subjection of the Caucasus, of Khokand, Bokhara, and Khiva), or for the deliverance of the oppressed coreligionists of Russia (as, for example, the deliverance of the Slavonians of the Balkans).
A Winter Costume
The emperor Alexander II was actively solicitous for the welfare of his subjects during the twenty-six years of his glorious reign, never losing sight of the exaltation of the country and the consolidation of the prosperity of the nation. But in spite of the indefatigable labours and fatherly care of the emperor Alexander II, in spite of the enormous services he rendered to the country, of his boundless goodness of heart, his great clemency and unusual humanity — amongst the Russian people were to be found those who hadmore than once tried by violence to shake the existing state and social organisation of Russia and who did not stop at any crime for the attainment of their ends. Their boundless audacity finally reached the last limits, and they dared more than once to make attempts on the life of the Czar-Liberator.
On the 2nd of March, 1880, the 25th year of the reign of the emperor Alexander II was accomplished, and this memorable day was celebrated with heartfelt enthusiasm in both capitals and throughout the whole Russian Empire. But amongst the millions of joyous Russian hearts, for one man alone in Russia the festivity was not a festivity. That man was the czar himself, the creator of the happiness of many millions of Russians and the cause of the rejoicings. The emperor did not doubt the sincere affection of the people towards him; he knew and felt that Russia loved her czar with all her soul; but at the same time he knew and felt, that in spite of all the glory of his reign, in spite of the great measures he had accomplished, the Russian land bore a handful of malcontents, whose designs it was beyond the power of anyone to arrest.
The fatal 13th of March, 1881, came. About one o'clock in the afternoon the emperor drove in a carriage from the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, accompanied by his usual escort, to the Michael riding school to assist at a grand military parade, appointed to take place that day. Coming out of the riding school at the end of the parade, at about a quarter to three, and learning that the grand duke Michael Nikolaivitch, who was present at the parade intended to visit the grand duchess Catherine Mikhailovna at the Mikhailovski palace, the emperor proposed to his brother that they should go together. After spending about half an hour at the Mikhailovski palace the emperor came out alone, without the grand duke and told the coachman to " drive home by the same way." The carriage set off along the Catherine canal, in the direction of the Theatre bridge.