HOW THE SULTAN COULD BE COERCED

West Coast Times, Issue 10438, 17 December 1896, Page 4

HOW THE SULTAN COULD BE COERCED

Mr W. T. Stead, ina|pamphlet recently published by him, argues that in the event of an agreement among the Powers to secure reforms in Turkey, the Kultan could be forced to submit without any necessity of shelliug 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 bad 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?"

41 Yes, without an army. The fact was I had the Russians in a trap, and, what is more, they knew it. I found it out accidentally. As soon as I arrived at the anchorage of Ptickipo I made enquiries as to where I could get fresh beef for my men. Then I found that the Russian army was being victualled from over-sea. In the long winter campaign in the Balkans they had eaten up all v 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 che Russian soldiers from starving, a constant commissariat service had been organised to feed them from Odessa and the Black Sea ports. As soon as I had verified this statement, I saw that I had the whiphand, and felt perfectly at ease.

" How ?" asked Mr Stead

"Why," continued Admiral Hornby, •' the moment the Russians 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, except 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 as Ear as Adrianople.

Constantinople, that is to say, is not a city that feeds itself. It draws its supplies from Asia, from the Black Sea, aud the Balkan Peninsula. The Russian fleet in the Black Sea, co-operating with the international fleet which would force the Dardanelles, would cut off communication with Constantinople, and soon starve the Sultan into submission. " The only military operation that might be necessary would be the landing of a small force to occupy the railway ani the high road by which supplies might be poured into the city from Adrianople."