is not thoroughly versed in the language and learning of the skalds themselves. W. A. CRAIGIE. From The National Review. THE VALUE OF CONSTANTINOPLE. When Diocletian, at the end of the third century, found it necessary to concentrate his attention upon his eastern frontier, and upon the interior of Asia Minor, where the spread of Christianity was causing him deep anxiety, he establisued his residenc at Nicomedia, the modern Ismid, at the extreme eastern end of the Sea of Marmora. Nicomedia was and is the starting-point on the way into Asia Minor. The Roman road ran a few miles south to Nicæa, and then struck due east to Angora and Sebasteia (now Sivas), from which roads led eastward into Armenia, and south-eastward to the Euphrates at Samosata (Samsat). From Angora in ancient times, a road led straight to the great pass through the Taurus, known as the Gate of Cilicia, and thence to Tarsus and Adana and round the Gulf of Alexandretta to Antioch. In Turkey today there are no roads, but the chief caravan track still begins at Ismid and follows the direction of the old Roman road. There are two other routes leading from the Sea of Marmora to the Taurus. One of them goes from Ismid by Eskischehr to Iconium (Konia), and the other to the same place from Broussa by Kutaia and Afiun. From Ismid there is a direct inland route to Amasia and thence to Samsun on the coast, as well as a route which keeps near or follows the coast to Sinope and Trebizond. A line drawn from Broussa to Iconium, then to the pass through the Taurus, and thence to Sivas and Amasia, encloses the great central district of Asia Minor, which, being walled in by rugged hills on the south, has its natural communications with the Sea of Marmora. In the generation after Diocletian, Constantine the Great made his cap ital at Byzantium, about fifty miles farther west than Nicomedia and also on the Sea of Marmora. The new site had all the advantages of the old one. for the fifty miles of road connecting the two points (the only paved road in the present Turkish Empire) brought it near to the land routes to the east, while its sea communications gave it an importance without parallel. For a hundred miles the Sea of Marmora is separated from the Black Sea by a strip of hilly ground from twenty-five to thirty miles across. This land belt is pierced at its centre by the Channel of the Bosphorus, a zigzag loch or fiord eighteen miles long from sea to sea, varying in width from half a mile to a mile. Immediately beyond the entrance from the Sea of Marmora, on the west or left hand side of the strait, a small, deep loch runs up into the land for about three miles, forming a safe and capacious harbor with an entrance some four hundred yards across. This is the Golden Horn, and Constantine built his city on the triangular spur between the harbor and the Sea. North of the harbor lies the suburb of Galata, and on a hill above it the suburb of Pera, while on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus opposite the Golden Horn is the suburb of Scutari. Constantinople in capable hands has unique advantages for its defence. So long as its owner has the superior fleet, the military attack, either from Europe or Asia, must proceed along a peninsula fifty miles long and only half as broad. The assailant, therefore, is tied to a narrow front of attack, with his flanks exposed to the operations of the defending fleet. On either peninsula are splendid defensive positions. On the European side, about fifteen miles from the Bosphorus, the width of the peninsula is reduced by the Bay of Buyuk Chekmedje on the south, and the lake and marshes of Derkos on the north, to about fifteen miles. This position has in recent years been strongly fortified, and if properly armed and manned could hardly be taken by a frontal at tack. It is computed, however, that the necessary garrison would be not less than seventy thousand men. The banks of the northern half of the Bosphorus bristle with batteries, which are said to mount between four hundred and five hundred guns. On the south the chief defence of the city is the Dardanelles, the passage which connects the Sea of Marmora with the Ægean. The Dardanelles are one hundred and twenty-five miles from Constantinople, forty-three miles long, and vary in width from thirteen hundred to four thousand yards. The strait is defended by works mounting something like six hundred and eighty guns. It will be evident that the defence of Constantinople involves the judicious co-operation of an army and navy, and that its attack by an army alone must be always a difficult enterprise. The length and narrowness of the two straits is such that modern artillery properly employed would render the attempt even of ironclads to pass through them against the will of the defenders a most hazardous operation. An investment of the city would be practicable only in case the defender were without a navy, and the assailant had succeeded in passing some of his ships into the Sea of Marmora. Constantine the Great, of course, intended his city to be the capital of the empire, which implies that it could dispose for its defence of an army and a navy on a level with the standard of the times. So long as that condition is fulfilled, Constantinople is probably more favorably situated for defence than any other city in the world. But a great capital implies much more than good local conditions of defence. It should be placed at some meeting point of necessary communications, so that it will always be a focus of intercourse. It is from this point of view that the importance of Constantinople is greatest. A magnificent safe harbor like the Golden Horn might well attract commerce even to some distance from its direct path, but Constantinople lies upon a route which must needs be followed by the whole trade of a vast region. The Black Sea has a coast line of more than two thousand miles, to which the Sea of Azov adds six hundred more. To the Black Sea goes all the trade of the great navigable rivers, the Danube, the Dniester, the Dnieper, and the Don, with som portion of the trade of the Volga, transhipped to the Don. All this great trading area communicates by sea with the outside world only through the Bosphorus. Every increase in the prosperity of any district lying beside the Black Sea, or penetrated by one of its rivers, must bring with it a corresponding increase of the trade and shipping that passes and probably calls at the Golden Horn. If we take a larger view, and look at the natural directions of traffic between East and West, and between North and South, we find that Constantinople is the centre of a circle, of which radii run along the Euphrates and the Persian Gulf, along the Suez Canal and the Red Sea, and along the Nile. All these are natural and necessary directions of trade, and if at the present day some of them are unused, it is only because the Ottoman Turks, wherever they have settled, have destroyed industry, ruined agriculture, and rendered communication so precarious as to drive away trade. The land trade of Constantinople has always been directed on the Asiatic side along the two groups of routes described above, and leading either to Armenia or to the Gulf of Alexandretta and the Upper Euphrates. In Europe there is one great natural route which can never lose its importance. It follows the line Adrianople, Philippopolis, Sofia, Nisch and the Valley of the Morava to the Danube, and into it branch the various roads crossing the Balkans from northern Bulgaria. In ancient times there was a Roman road from Constantinople along the northern shore of the Ægean to Saloniki, and thence across the mountains to the Adriatic at Durazzo. This was a strategical road, and can hardly be said to have followed a natural line; it has long ago passed into disuse, and is not likely to be re- ships can find shelter. Eastward of stored. Trade between civilized countries is never entirely stopped by frontiers and duties, and the land and sea routes of which Constantinople is the centre have here been surveyed in order to show that with the restoration of civilization to the region in which at present the sultan holds sway Constantinople must necessarily become one of the world's great centres for trade and shipping. A different question arises when we ask what is the district of which the natural and necessary capital lies by the Golden Horn. This region must hardly be sought in Europe beyond the immediate shores of the Dardanelles. At any rate, the basin of the Danube and the basin of the Vardar, with Saloniki, cannot be included in it, though a power strong enough to hold Constantinople by its own resources would probably maintain itself at Adrianople, and might very well dominate the Valley of the Maritza, and possibly the eastern part of the Rhodope Mountains. But the history of its foundation suggests, and a study of the map confirms, the belief that Constantinople looks rather to the east than to the west. South of the Dardanelles the west coast will always carry on its trade rather by sea than over the rugged hills which separate it from the remote interior. But the inland region north of the Taurus, and between the Sea of Marmora and Amasia and Samsun, seems by nature to belong to Constantinople. From this region the land routes, as we have seen, all lead to Broussa, Ismid, and the Bosphorus, while from the north coast such traffic as there is, would naturally go by sea to the same point. But the north coast of Asia Minor is by no means favored for navigation. Along its whole length the mountains fall almost straight into the sea, and it has not a single good harbor. In point of climate it is divided into an eastern and a western half, which meet at Sinope. Between S.nope and the Bosphorus the sea is usually cold and stormy, and there is no port in which Sinope the ports are still only open roads, but the temperature is higher, the wind and the waves are less threatening and there is more possibility of intercourse between sea and land. It is the forbidding aspect of the sea that gives so much importance to the inland communications in northwestern Asia Minor, which for this reason appears to be marked out by nature for the control of a ruler established on the Bosphorus. It is evident, however, that a state confined to this region alone could never be a first-rate power, and that to give to the ruler of Constantinople the control of resources sufficient to ensure his independence among the powers it would be necessary to add to his dominions the west and south-west coast of Asia Minor. In that case his country would be as large as Spain, and better endowed than the Spanish peninsula in respect of fertility and natural advan tages. The Gordian knot of the Eastern question is the problem of the future ownership of Constantinople. The subject is beset with SO many difficulties that no one who has thought seriously about it is tempted to offer a dogmatic solution. At any rate no harm can come of the attempt to explain the question by a brief review of some of the issues which are at stake. It is convenient to begin with the commercial interests, which fall under three heads according as they are Russian, Danubian, or British. Russia owns more than half of the coast of the Black Sea, and three of its principal rivers are hers. The whole of the maritime trade of her southern provinces, except in so far as it is a local Black Sea trade, must necessarily pass through the Bosphorus. The maritime trade of the Danubian countries, of Roumania, Bulgaria, Ser bia, and of Hungary and Austria in so far as it does not find a more convenient route by the Adriatic, is also necessarily compelled to pass through the straits. The recent completion of the works by which the rapids at the Iron Gates have oeen rendered navigable must greatly increase the importance of the Danubian trade both to Austria-Hungary and to her neighbors lower down the stream. The British interest arises from the fact that the imports and exports to and from both southern Russia and the Danubian countries are for the most part carried in British ships.1 But whereas the Russian and Danubian interests are necessary and permanent, the British interest may fairly be described as accidental and temporary. The principal maritime and commercial power will probably always be the principal customer in the trade both of southern Russia and of the Danubian countries; so long therefore as England retains her maritime and commercial greatness she may be expected to retain her share in the Black Sea trade. That share depends, however, not upon England's geographical position, but upon what may in a large sense be called the accident of her maritime pre-eminence. There would, perhaps, be some justification for putting these commercial interests into the foreground. Against that view may be cited the analogy of the Sound and the Baltic trade which makes it probable that the course of trade would not be greatly affected by the fate of Constantinople provided that the city passes into the hands of a civilized government. A very strong power might use its establishment on the straits for the purpose of acquiring a monopoly of the Black Sea navigation by means of preferential duties or one-sided regulations. In so far as this is probable it would be an argument against a Russian acquisition of Constantinople. A weightier factor in the problem is revealed by a consideration of the effect which the fate of Constantinople must have upon the distribution and application of force between the great powers. Perhaps the clearest way of discussing this part of the subject i to examine in turn each of a series of hypotheses. Suppose then, in the first instance, that Constantinople and th Dardanelles passed into the possession of Russia. It would, of course, not be difficult for a civilized power so to fortify the Dardanelles that their pas sage by a hostile fleet would be impracticable, and that the works covering them would form a first-class fortress, that is, a position not to be taken except after a protracted siege. In that case, Russia would be able to exclude from the Black Sea all ships of war but her own; the sea would be for purposes of military transport a Russian lake. Her armies could be moved across it without any possibility 1 The following figures are taken from the Board of Trade Returns for 1895: The trade of Russia mostly passes through the Northern Ports, as may be seen from the following return for 1894, which does not distinguish between Northern and Southern Ports : This gives a clue to the share of foreign (largely British) ships in Russia's trade. Asia of hostile interference with them, and as there is no means of preventing from the land the landing of an army moving freely by sea (because an army carried in steamers moves many times faster than an army upon land) there would be no possibility of successful resistance to Russian attack by any country bordering on that sea. Roumania, Bulgaria, and northern Minor would at once become in fact, if not in theory, portions of the Russian Empire. The frontier which Rus sia would thus acquire would place the eastern half of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy at her mercy. This solution then is incompatible with the preservation of Austria-Hungary as a great power, as a State strong enough to resist the dictation of any one of its neighbors. It may be assumed then that Austria-Hungary would prefer to this solution of the Eastern question a war in which her independent existence would be staked. But Russia in possession of the Dardanelles would secure a further advantage. Within the Black Sea she could keep in training a navy as large as she pleased, absolutely safe from hostile attack, and yet always at liberty to take the offensive against other navies. The great addition to Russia's resources of every kind and to her forces for attack and defence which she would acquire upon this hypothesis, make it the general interest of the European community to resist the acquisition of the straits by Russia. The present European system is bound up with the coexistence of a number of great powers, and implies that none of them shall be so much stronger than its neighbors as to overshadow and overawe them. In this European interest France is undoubtedly a partner, although her present policy appears calculated to promote her own specific and immediate interests at the expense of those remoter interests which she shares with the rest of the European nations. The peculiar feature of the present situation is that it is doubtful whether any or all of the powers are in fact able to prevent Russia's seizing Constantinople and the Dardanelles by a coup de main. If she were to do so Germany and Austria would probably be compelled to invade Russia in order to force her to disgorge her prey. France would then certainly attack Germany, and the success of the central powers would depend upon the extent to which England was willing and able to help them. Lord Salisbury's declaration in 1886 that England would co-operate with Austria in resisting a Russian attempt upon the straits was not without effect. repetition in 1896, though it may perhaps not be appropriate at the Guildhall, would be no less effective. Its A second hypothesis is that of the acquisition of Constantinople by Austria. This would involve no menace to the western European powers nor to Germany. Indeed the extension of the Austrian Empire to the Taurus would probably lead to the absorption by Germany of the Western or German half of the present Austrian monarchy. The Black Sea would not become an Austrian lake, but there would sooner or later be a naval war between Austria and Russia for its command, in which, however, the cessation of her trade would paralyze the southern provinces of Russia, and an Austrian victory would be disastrous to the Northern Empire. For these reasons Russia is as strongly driven to resist an Austrian acquisition of Constantinople as Austria to oppose a Russian attempt upon that place. Neither Russia nor Austria is likely at present to take a step calculated to involve her in a great war; it is much more probable that the two governments have exchanged assurances to the effect that neither of them contemplates obtaining possession of the Bosphorus. No other great power can dream of acquiring the city. The third hypothesis then is that of Constantinople as the seat of government of a prince of European origin acting, either in his own name or under the nominal authority of the sultan, as administrator-general of the district, |