CAUCASUS AND THE COSSACKS
Der Kaukasus und das Land der Kosaken in den Jahren 1843 bis 1846. Von Moritz Wagner. 2 vols. Dresden und Leipzig, 1848.
A handful of men, frugal, hardy, and valiant, successfully defending their barren mountains and dearly-won independence against the reiterated assaults of a mighty neighbour, offer, apart from political considerations, a deeply interesting spectacle. When, upon a map of the world's eastern hemisphere, we behold, not far from its centre, on the confines of barbarism and civilisation, a spot, black with mountains, and marked "Circassia;" when we contrast this petty nook with the vast territory stretching from the Black Sea to the Northern Ocean, from the Baltic to Behring's Straits, we admire and wonder at the inflexible resolution and determined gallantry that have so long borne up against the aggressive ambition, iron will, and immense resources of a czar. Sixty millions against six hundred thousand – a hundred to one, a whole squadron against a single cavalier, a colossus opposed to a pigmy – these are the odds at issue. It seems impossible that such a contest can long endure. Yet it has lasted twenty years, and still the dwarf resists subjugation, and contrives, at intervals, to inflict severe punishment upon his gigantic adversary. There is something strangely exciting in the contemplation of so brave a struggle. Its interest is far superior to that of any of the "little wars" in which Europe, since 1815, has evaporated her superabundant pugnacity. African raids and Spanish skirmishes are pale affairs contrasted with the dashing onslaughts of the intrepid Circassians. And, in other respects than its heroism, this contest merits attention. As an important section of the huge mountain-dyke, opposed by nature to the south-eastern extension of the Russian empire, Circassia is not to be overlooked. On the rugged peaks and in the deep valleys of the Caucasus, her fearless warriors stand, the vedettes of southern Asia, a living barrier to the forward flight of the double eagle.
Matters of pressing interest, nearer home, have diverted public attention from the warlike Circassians, whose independent spirit and unflinching bravery deserves better than even temporary oblivion. Not in our day only have they distinguished themselves in freedom's fight. Surrounded by powerful and encroaching potentates, their history, for the last five hundred years, records constant struggles against oppression. Often conquered, they never were fully subdued. Their obscure chronicles are illumined by flashes of patriotism and heroic courage. Early in the fifteenth century, they conquered their freedom from the Georgian yoke. Then came long wars with the Tartars, who could hardly, perhaps, be considered the aggressors, the Circassians having overstepped their mountain limits, and spread over the plains adjacent to the Sea of Azov. In 1555, the Russian grand-duke, Ivan Vasilivitch, pressed forward to Tarki upon the Caspian, where he placed a garrison. A Circassian tribe submitted to him; he married the daughter of one of their princes, and assisted them against the Tartars. But after a while the Russians withdrew their succour; and the Circassians, driven back to the river Kuban, their natural boundary to the north-west, paid tribute to the Tartars, till the commencement of the eighteenth century, when a decisive victory liberated them. Meanwhile Russia strode steadily southwards, reached the Kuban in the west, whilst, in the east, Tarki and Derbent fell, in 1722, into the hands of Peter the Great. The fort of Swiatoi-Krest, built by the conqueror, was soon afterwards retaken by a swarm of fanatical mountaineers from the eastern Caucasus. It is now about seventy years since Russian and Circassian first crossed swords in serious warfare. A fanatic dervise, who called himself Sheikh Mansour, preached a religious war against the Muscovites; but, although followed with enthusiasm, his success was not great, and at last he was captured and sent prisoner into the interior of Russia. With his fall the furious zeal of the Caucasians subsided for a while. But the Turks, who viewed Circassia as their main bulwark against the rapidly increasing power of their dangerous northern neighbour, made friends of the mountaineers, and stirred them up against Russia. The fortified town of Anapa, on the north-west coast of Circassia, became the focus of the intercourse between the Porte and its new allies. The creed of Mahomet was actively propagated amongst the Circassians, whose relations with Turkey grew more and more intimate, and in the year 1824 several tribes took oath of allegiance to the sultan. In 1829, during the war between Russia and Turkey, Anapa, which had more than once changed hands in the course of previous contests, was taken by the former power, to whom, by the treaty of Adrianople, its possession, and that of the other Turkish posts on the same coast, was finally conceded. Hence the chief claim of Russia upon Circassia – although Circassia had never belonged to the Turks, nor been occupied by them; and from that period dates the war that has elicited from Russia so great a display of force against an apparently feeble, but in reality formidable antagonist – an antagonist who has hitherto baffled her best generals, and picked troops, and most skilful strategists.
The tribes of the Caucasus may be comprehended, for the sake of simplicity, under two denominations: the Tcherkesses or Circassians, in the west, and the Tshetshens in the east. In loose newspaper statements, and in the garbled reports of the war which remote position, Russian jealousy, and the peculiarly inaccessible character of the Caucasians, suffer to reach us, even this broad distinction is frequently disregarded.[A] It is nevertheless important, at least in a physiological point of view; and, even as regards the resistance offered to Russia, there are differences between the Eastern and the Western Caucasians. The military tactics of both are much alike, but the character of the war varies. On the banks of the Kuban, and on the Euxine shores, the strife has never been so desperate, and so dangerous for the Russians, as in Daghestan, Lesghistan, and the land of the Tshetshens. The Abchasians, Mingrelians, and other Circassian tribes, dwelling on the southern slopes of Caucasus, and on the margin of the Black Sea, are of more peaceable and passive character than their brethren to the North and East. The Tshetshens, by far the most warlike and enterprising of the Caucasians, have had the ablest leaders, and have at all times been stimulated by fierce religious zeal. As far back as 1745, Russian missionaries were sent to the tribe of the Osseti, who had relapsed from Christianity to the heathen creed of their forefathers. Every Osset who presented himself at the baptismal font received a silver cross and a new shirt. The bait brought thousands of the mountaineers to the Russian priests, who contented themselves with the outward and visible sign of conversion. These propagandist attempts enraged the Mahomedan tribes, and then it was that they thronged around Sheikh Mansour, as they have done in our day (in 1830) around that strange fanatic Chasi-Mollah, when in his turn he preached a holy war against the Russian. In the latter year, General Paskewitch had just been called away to Poland, and his successor, Baron Rosen, found all Daghestan in an uproar. He immediately opened the campaign, but met a strenuous resistance, and suffered heavy loss. The defence of the village of Hermentschuk, held against him, in the year 1832, by 3000 Tshetshens, was an extraordinary example of heroism. When the Russian infantry forced their way into the place with the bayonet, a portion of the garrison shut themselves up in a fortified house, and made it good against overwhelming numbers, singing passages from the Koran amidst a storm of bombs and grapeshot. At last the building took fire, and its undaunted defenders, the sacred verses still upon their lips, found death in the flames. In an equally desperate defence of the fortified village of Himri, Chasi-Mollah met his death, falling in the very breach, bleeding from many wounds. The chief who succeeded him was less venerated and less energetic, and for a few years the Tshetshens remained tolerably quiet, but without a thought of submission. Nevertheless the Russians flattered themselves that the worst was past; that the death of the mad dervish was an irreparable loss to the mountaineers. They were mistaken. Out of his most ardent adherents Chasi-Mollah had formed a sort of sacred band, whom he called Murides, gloomy fanatics, half warriors, half priests. They composed his body-guard, were unwearied in preaching up the fight for the Prophet's faith, and in battle devoted themselves to death with a heroism that has never been surpassed. From these, within a short time of their first leader's death, Chamyl, the present renowned chief of the Tshetshens, soon stood forth pre-eminent, and the Murides followed him to the field with the same enthusiasm and valour they had shown under his predecessor. He did not prove less worthy of guiding them; and the Russians were compelled to confess, that it was easier for the Tshetshens to find an able leader than for them to find a general able to beat him. And victories over the restless and enterprising Caucasians were of little profit, even when obtained. For the most part, they only served to fill the Russian hospitals, and to procure the officers those ribbons and distinctions they so greedily covet, and which, in that service, are