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