Kabanata Kabanata 2 · RUSSIANS AND TARTARS

. RUSSIANS AND TARTARS

THE Czar had not so suddenly left the ball-room of the New Palace,

when the fête he was giving to the civil and military authorities and

principal people of Moscow was at the height of its brilliancy, without

ample cause; for he had just received information that serious events

were taking place beyond the frontiers of the Ural. It had become

evident that a formidable rebellion threatened to wrest the Siberian

provinces from the Russian crown.

Asiatic Russia, or Siberia, covers a superficial area of 1,790,208

square miles, and contains nearly two millions of inhabitants. Extending

from the Ural Mountains, which separate it from Russia in Europe, to the

shores of the Pacific Ocean, it is bounded on the south by Turkestan and

the Chinese Empire; on the north by the Arctic Ocean, from the Sea of

Kara to Behring’s Straits. It is divided into several governments or

provinces, those of Tobolsk, Yeniseisk, Irkutsk, Omsk, and Yakutsk;

contains two districts, Okhotsk and Kamtschatka; and possesses two

countries, now under the Muscovite dominion--that of the Kirghiz and

that of the Tshouktshes. This immense extent of steppes, which includes

more than one hundred and ten degrees from west to east, is a land to

which criminals and political offenders are banished.

Two governor-generals represent the supreme authority of the Czar over

this vast country. The higher one resides at Irkutsk, the far capital of

Eastern Siberia. The River Tchouna separates the two Siberias.

No rail yet furrows these wide plains, some of which are in reality

extremely fertile. No iron ways lead from those precious mines which

make the Siberian soil far richer below than above its surface. The

traveler journeys in summer in a kibick or telga; in winter, in a

sledge.

An electric telegraph, with a single wire more than eight thousand

versts in length, alone affords communication between the western

and eastern frontiers of Siberia. On issuing from the Ural, it passes

through Ekaterenburg, Kasirnov, Tioumen, Ishim, Omsk, Elamsk, Kolyvan,

Tomsk, Krasnoiarsk, Nijni-Udinsk, Irkutsk, Verkne-Nertschink, Strelink,

Albazine, Blagowstenks, Radde, Orlomskaya, Alexandrowskoe, and

Nikolaevsk; and six roubles and nineteen copecks are paid for every

word sent from one end to the other. From Irkutsk there is a branch to

Kiatka, on the Mongolian frontier; and from thence, for thirty copecks a

word, the post conveys the dispatches to Pekin in a fortnight.

It was this wire, extending from Ekaterenburg to Nikolaevsk, which had

been cut, first beyond Tomsk, and then between Tomsk and Kolyvan.

This was why the Czar, to the communication made to him for the second

time by General Kissoff, had answered by the words, “A courier this

moment!”

The Czar remained motionless at the window for a few moments, when the

door was again opened. The chief of police appeared on the threshold.

“Enter, General,” said the Czar briefly, “and tell me all you know of

Ivan Ogareff.”

“He is an extremely dangerous man, sire,” replied the chief of police.

“He ranked as colonel, did he not?”

“Yes, sire.”

“Was he an intelligent officer?”

“Very intelligent, but a man whose spirit it was impossible to subdue;

and possessing an ambition which stopped at nothing, he became involved

in secret intrigues, and was degraded from his rank by his Highness the

Grand Duke, and exiled to Siberia.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Two years since. Pardoned after six months of exile by your majesty’s

favor, he returned to Russia.”

“And since that time, has he not revisited Siberia?”

“Yes, sire; but he voluntarily returned there,” replied the chief of

police, adding, and slightly lowering his voice, “there was a time,

sire, when NONE returned from Siberia.”

“Well, whilst I live, Siberia is and shall be a country whence men CAN

return.”

The Czar had the right to utter these words with some pride, for often,

by his clemency, he had shown that Russian justice knew how to pardon.

The head of the police did not reply to this observation, but it was

evident that he did not approve of such half-measures. According to

his idea, a man who had once passed the Ural Mountains in charge of

policemen, ought never again to cross them. Now, it was not thus under

the new reign, and the chief of police sincerely deplored it. What! no

banishment for life for other crimes than those against social order!

What! political exiles returning from Tobolsk, from Yakutsk, from

Irkutsk! In truth, the chief of police, accustomed to the despotic

sentences of the ukase which formerly never pardoned, could not

understand this mode of governing. But he was silent, waiting until

the Czar should interrogate him further. The questions were not long in

coming.

“Did not Ivan Ogareff,” asked the Czar, “return to Russia a second time,

after that journey through the Siberian provinces, the object of which

remains unknown?”

“He did.”

“And have the police lost trace of him since?”

“No, sire; for an offender only becomes really dangerous from the day he

has received his pardon.”

The Czar frowned. Perhaps the chief of police feared that he had gone

rather too far, though the stubbornness of his ideas was at least

equal to the boundless devotion he felt for his master. But the Czar,

disdaining to reply to these indirect reproaches cast on his policy,

continued his questions. “Where was Ogareff last heard of?”

“In the province of Perm.”

“In what town?”

“At Perm itself.”

“What was he doing?”

“He appeared unoccupied, and there was nothing suspicious in his

conduct.”

“Then he was not under the surveillance of the secret police?”

“No, sire.”

“When did he leave Perm?”

“About the month of March?”

“To go...?”

“Where, is unknown.”

“And it is not known what has become of him?”

“No, sire; it is not known.”

“Well, then, I myself know,” answered the Czar. “I have received

anonymous communications which did not pass through the police

department; and, in the face of events now taking place beyond the

frontier, I have every reason to believe that they are correct.”

“Do you mean, sire,” cried the chief of police, “that Ivan Ogareff has a

hand in this Tartar rebellion?”

“Indeed I do; and I will now tell you something which you are ignorant

of. After leaving Perm, Ivan Ogareff crossed the Ural mountains, entered

Siberia, and penetrated the Kirghiz steppes, and there endeavored, not

without success, to foment rebellion amongst their nomadic population.

He then went so far south as free Turkestan; there, in the provinces of

Bokhara, Khokhand, and Koondooz, he found chiefs willing to pour their

Tartar hordes into Siberia, and excite a general rising in Asiatic

Russia. The storm has been silently gathering, but it has at last burst

like a thunderclap, and now all means of communication between Eastern

and Western Siberia have been stopped. Moreover, Ivan Ogareff, thirsting

for vengeance, aims at the life of my brother!”

The Czar had become excited whilst speaking, and now paced up and down

with hurried steps. The chief of police said nothing, but he thought to

himself that, during the time when the emperors of Russia never pardoned

an exile, schemes such as those of Ivan Ogareff could never have been

realized. Approaching the Czar, who had thrown himself into an armchair,

he asked, “Your majesty has of course given orders so that this

rebellion may be suppressed as soon as possible?”

“Yes,” answered the Czar. “The last telegram which reached Nijni-Udinsk

would set in motion the troops in the governments of Yenisei, Irkutsk,

Yakutsk, as well as those in the provinces of the Amoor and Lake Baikal.

At the same time, the regiments from Perm and Nijni-Novgorod, and the

Cossacks from the frontier, are advancing by forced marches towards

the Ural Mountains; but some weeks must pass before they can attack the

Tartars.”

“And your majesty’s brother, his Highness the Grand Duke, is now

isolated in the government of Irkutsk, and is no longer in direct

communication with Moscow?”

“That is so.”

“But by the last dispatches, he must know what measures have been

taken by your majesty, and what help he may expect from the governments

nearest Irkutsk?”

“He knows that,” answered the Czar; “but what he does not know is, that

Ivan Ogareff, as well as being a rebel, is also playing the part of a

traitor, and that in him he has a personal and bitter enemy. It is to

the Grand Duke that Ogareff owes his first disgrace; and what is

more serious is, that this man is not known to him. Ogareff’s plan,

therefore, is to go to Irkutsk, and, under an assumed name, offer his

services to the Grand Duke. Then, after gaining his confidence, when the

Tartars have invested Irkutsk, he will betray the town, and with it my

brother, whose life he seeks. This is what I have learned from my secret

intelligence; this is what the Grand Duke does not know; and this is

what he must know!”

“Well, sire, an intelligent, courageous courier...”

“I momentarily expect one.”

“And it is to be hoped he will be expeditious,” added the chief of

police; “for, allow me to add, sire, that Siberia is a favorable land

for rebellions.”

“Do you mean to say. General, that the exiles would make common cause

with the rebels?” exclaimed the Czar.

“Excuse me, your majesty,” stammered the chief of police, for that was

really the idea suggested to him by his uneasy and suspicious mind.

“I believe in their patriotism,” returned the Czar.

“There are other offenders besides political exiles in Siberia,” said

the chief of police.

“The criminals? Oh, General, I give those up to you! They are the

vilest, I grant, of the human race. They belong to no country. But the

insurrection, or rather, the rebellion, is not to oppose the emperor; it

is raised against Russia, against the country which the exiles have

not lost all hope of again seeing--and which they will see again. No, a

Russian would never unite with a Tartar, to weaken, were it only for an

hour, the Muscovite power!”

The Czar was right in trusting to the patriotism of those whom his

policy kept, for a time, at a distance. Clemency, which was the

foundation of his justice, when he could himself direct its effects,

the modifications he had adopted with regard to applications for the

formerly terrible ukases, warranted the belief that he was not mistaken.

But even without this powerful element of success in regard to the

Tartar rebellion, circumstances were not the less very serious; for it

was to be feared that a large part of the Kirghiz population would join

the rebels.

The Kirghiz are divided into three hordes, the greater, the lesser,

and the middle, and number nearly four hundred thousand “tents,” or two

million souls. Of the different tribes some are independent and others

recognize either the sovereignty of Russia or that of the Khans of

Khiva, Khokhand, and Bokhara, the most formidable chiefs of Turkestan.

The middle horde, the richest, is also the largest, and its encampments

occupy all the space between the rivers Sara Sou, Irtish, and the Upper

Ishim, Lake Saisang and Lake Aksakal. The greater horde, occupying the

countries situated to the east of the middle one, extends as far as the

governments of Omsk and Tobolsk. Therefore, if the Kirghiz population

should rise, it would be the rebellion of Asiatic Russia, and the first

thing would be the separation of Siberia, to the east of the Yenisei.

It is true that these Kirghiz, mere novices in the art of war, are

rather nocturnal thieves and plunderers of caravans than regular

soldiers. As M. Levchine says, “a firm front or a square of good

infantry could repel ten times the number of Kirghiz; and a single

cannon might destroy a frightful number.”

That may be; but to do this it is necessary for the square of good

infantry to reach the rebellious country, and the cannon to leave the

arsenals of the Russian provinces, perhaps two or three thousand versts

distant. Now, except by the direct route from Ekaterenburg to Irkutsk,

the often marshy steppes are not easily practicable, and some weeks must

certainly pass before the Russian troops could reach the Tartar hordes.

Omsk is the center of that military organization of Western Siberia

which is intended to overawe the Kirghiz population. Here are the

bounds, more than once infringed by the half-subdued nomads, and there

was every reason to believe that Omsk was already in danger. The line of

military stations, that is to say, those Cossack posts which are ranged

in echelon from Omsk to Semipolatinsk, must have been broken in several

places. Now, it was to be feared that the “Grand Sultans,” who govern

the Kirghiz districts would either voluntarily accept, or involuntarily

submit to, the dominion of Tartars, Mussulmen like themselves, and

that to the hate caused by slavery was not united the hate due to the

antagonism of the Greek and Mussulman religions. For some time, indeed,

the Tartars of Turkestan had endeavored, both by force and persuasion,

to subdue the Kirghiz hordes.

A few words only with respect to these Tartars. The Tartars belong more

especially to two distinct races, the Caucasian and the Mongolian. The

Caucasian race, which, as Abel de Remusat says, “is regarded in Europe

as the type of beauty in our species, because all the nations in this

part of the world have sprung from it,” includes also the Turks and the

Persians. The purely Mongolian race comprises the Mongols, Manchoux, and

Thibetans.

The Tartars who now threatened the Russian Empire, belonged to the

Caucasian race, and occupied Turkestan. This immense country is divided

into different states, governed by Khans, and hence termed Khanats. The

principal khanats are those of Bokhara, Khokhand, Koondooz, etc. At this

period, the most important and the most formidable khanat was that of

Bokhara. Russia had already been several times at war with its chiefs,

who, for their own interests, had supported the independence of the

Kirghiz against the Muscovite dominion. The present chief, Feofar-Khan,

followed in the steps of his predecessors.

The khanat of Bokhara has a population of two million five hundred

thousand inhabitants, an army of sixty thousand men, trebled in time

of war, and thirty thousand horsemen. It is a rich country, with varied

animal, vegetable, and mineral products, and has been increased by the

accession of the territories of Balkh, Aukoi, and Meimaneh. It possesses

nineteen large towns. Bokhara, surrounded by a wall measuring more than

eight English miles, and flanked with towers, a glorious city, made

illustrious by Avicenna and other learned men of the tenth century, is

regarded as the center of Mussulman science, and ranks among the most

celebrated cities of Central Asia. Samarcand, which contains the tomb

of Tamerlane and the famous palace where the blue stone is kept on which

each new khan must seat himself on his accession, is defended by a very

strong citadel. Karschi, with its triple cordon, situated in an oasis,

surrounded by a marsh peopled with tortoises and lizards, is almost

impregnable, Is-chardjoui is defended by a population of twenty thousand

souls. Protected by its mountains, and isolated by its steppes, the

khanat of Bokhara is a most formidable state; and Russia would need a

large force to subdue it.

The fierce and ambitious Feofar now governed this corner of Tartary.

Relying on the other khans--principally those of Khokhand and Koondooz,

cruel and rapacious warriors, all ready to join an enterprise so dear

to Tartar instincts--aided by the chiefs who ruled all the hordes of

Central Asia, he had placed himself at the head of the rebellion of

which Ivan Ogareff was the instigator. This traitor, impelled by insane

ambition as much as by hate, had ordered the movement so as to attack

Siberia. Mad indeed he was, if he hoped to rupture the Muscovite Empire.

Acting under his suggestion, the Emir--which is the title taken by the

khans of Bokhara--had poured his hordes over the Russian frontier. He

invaded the government of Semipolatinsk, and the Cossacks, who were

only in small force there, had been obliged to retire before him. He had

advanced farther than Lake Balkhash, gaining over the Kirghiz population

on his way. Pillaging, ravaging, enrolling those who submitted, taking

prisoners those who resisted, he marched from one town to another,

followed by those impedimenta of Oriental sovereignty which may be

called his household, his wives and his slaves--all with the cool

audacity of a modern Ghengis-Khan. It was impossible to ascertain where

he now was; how far his soldiers had marched before the news of the

rebellion reached Moscow; or to what part of Siberia the Russian troops

had been forced to retire. All communication was interrupted. Had the

wire between Kolyvan and Tomsk been cut by Tartar scouts, or had the

Emir himself arrived at the Yeniseisk provinces? Was all the lower part

of Western Siberia in a ferment? Had the rebellion already spread to the

eastern regions? No one could say. The only agent which fears neither

cold nor heat, which can neither be stopped by the rigors of winter nor

the heat of summer, and which flies with the rapidity of lightning--the

electric current--was prevented from traversing the steppes, and it was

no longer possible to warn the Grand Duke, shut up in Irkutsk, of the

danger threatening him from the treason of Ivan Ogareff.

A courier only could supply the place of the interrupted current. It

would take this man some time to traverse the five thousand two hundred

versts between Moscow and Irkutsk. To pass the ranks of the rebels and

invaders he must display almost superhuman courage and intelligence. But

with a clear head and a firm heart much can be done.

“Shall I be able to find this head and heart?” thought the Czar.