The Sultan and the Powers.

Opunake Times, Volume V, Issue 240, 22 December 1896, Page 3

The Sultan and the Powers.

Mr W. T. Stead, in a pamphlet recently published by him, argues that in the event of an agreement among the Powers to secure reforms in Turkey, the Sultan could be forced to submit without any necessity of shelling Constantinople. The Sultan and his city could, without the firing of a shot, be starved into submission. In this connection Mr Stead records an interesting conversation he had with Admiral Hornby some six years after he had forced the Dardanelles, and carried the British ironclads up to the mouth. The Admiral said that, so far as any opposition from Russia was concerned, the undertaking had been quite safe. " They might have gone into Constantinople, but we should have driven them out." " What," asked Mr Stead, " without an army ? " " Yes, without an army. The fact was I had the Russians in a trap, and what is more, they knew it. .1 found it out almost accidentally. As soon as I arrived at the anchorage at Prinkipo I made enquiries as to where I could get fresh beef for my men. Then 1 found that the Russian army was beiug victualled from over-sea. In the long winter campaign in the Balkans they had eaten up all their supplies, and the exhausted and ravaged country was in no condition to provide for the daily needs of the army of occupation. Hence, in order to keep the Russian soldiers from starving a constant commissariat service had been organised to feed them from Odessa and Black Sea ports. As soon as I had verified this statement I saw that I had the whip hand, and felt perfectly at ease." " How ? " asked Mr Stead.

"Why," continued Admiral Hornby, " the moment the Russian moved into Constantinople I should have forced the Bosphorus, and cut off their food supply. There was nothing behind them in the Balkans but a province covered with snow and wasted by war. They could have got nothing, whether through Russia or from Asia, excepting by water, and if I had been there they would not have got a biscuit. Hence, without firing a shot, but merely by putting my finger and thumb upon the throat of the Russian army, I should have compelled it to fall back at least as far as Adrianople." Constantinople, that is to say, is not a city that feeds itself. It draws its supplies from Asia, the Black Sea, and the Balkan Peninsula. The Russian fleet in the Black Sea, co-operat-ing with the international fleet which would force the Dardanelles, would cut off communicatioh with Constantinople, and soon starve the Sultan into submission. "The only millitary operation that might be necessary would be the landing of a small force to occupy the railway and the high road by which supplies might be poured into the city from Adrianople."