Friedrich Engels 
The Real Issue in Turkey 

New-York Daily Tribune. 
Nr. 3740, 12. April 1853 

The Real Issue in Turkey. 

We are astonished that in the current discussion of the Oriental Question 
the English journals have not more boldly demonstrated the vital interests 
which should render Great Britain the earnest and unyielding opponent of 
the Russian projects of annexation and aggrandizement. England cannot 
afford to allow Russia to become the possessor of the Dardanelles and 
Bosphorus. Both commercially and politically such an event would be a deep 
if not a deadly blow at British power. This will appear from a simple state- 
ment of facts as to her trade with Turkey. 

Before the discovery of the direct route to India, Constantinople was the 
mart of an extensive commerce. And now, though the products of India find 
their way into Europe by the overland route through Persia, Turan and 
Turkey, yet the Turkish ports carry on a very important and rapidly in- 
creasing traffic both with Europe and the interior of Asia. To understand 

this, it is only necessary to look at the map. From the Black Forest to the 
sandy hights of Novgorod Veliki, the whole inland country is drained by 
rivers flowing into the Black or Caspian Sea. The Danube and the Volga, 
the two giant-rivers of Europe, the Dniester, Dnieper and Don, all form so 
many natural channels for the carriage of inland produce to the Black Sea— 
for the Caspian itself is only accessible through the Black Sea. Two-thirds 
of Europe—that is, a part of Germany and Poland, all Hungary, and the most 
fertile parts of Russia, besides Turkey in Europe, are thus naturally referred 
to the Euxine for the export and exchange of their produce; and the more 
so, as all these countries are essentially agricultural, and the great bulk of 
their products must always make water-carriage the predominant means of 
transport. The corn of Hungary, Poland, Southern Russia, the wool and the 
hides of the same countries appear in yearly increasing quantities in our 
Western markets, and they all are shipped at Galatz, Odessa, Taganrog, and 

Friedrich Engels 

other Euxine ports. Then there is another important branch of trade carried 
on in the Black Sea. Constantinople, and particularly Trapezunt, in Asiatic 
Turkey, are the chief marts of the caravan trade to the interior of Asia, to 
the valley of the Euphrates and Tigris, to Persia, and Turkestan. This trade, 
too, is rapidly increasing. The Greek and Armenian merchants of the two 
towns just named import large quantities of English manufactured goods, 
the low price of which is rapidly superseding the domestic industry of the 
Asiatic harems. Trapezunt is better situated for such a trade than any other 
point. It has in its rear the hills of Armenia, which are far less impassable 
than the Syrian desert, and it lies at a convenient proximity to Bagdad, 
Schiraz, and Teheran, which latter place serves as an intermediate mart for 
the caravans from Khiwa and Bokhara. How important this trade, and the 
Black Sea trade generally is becoming, may be seen at the Manchester 
Exchange, where dark-complexioned Greek buyers are increasing in 
numbers and importance, and where Greek and South-Slavonian dialects are 
heard along with German and English. 

The trade of Trapezunt is also becoming a matter of most serious political 
consideration, as it has been the means of bringing the interests of Russia 
and England anew into conflict in Inner Asia. The Russians had, up to 1840, 
an almost exclusive monopoly of the trade in foreign manufactured goods 
to that region. Russian goods were found to have made their way, and in some 
instances even to be preferred to English goods, as far down as the Indus. 
Up to the time of the Affghan war, the conquest of Scinde and the Punjaub, 
it may be safely asserted that the trade of England with Inner Asia was nearly 
null. The fact is now different. The supreme necessity of a never-ceasing 
expansion of trade—this fatum which, specter-like, haunts modern England, 
and, if not appeased at once, brings on those terrible revulsions which vibrate 
from New-York to Canton, and from St. Petersburg to Sidney—this inflexible 
necessity has caused the interior of Asia to be attacked from two sides by 
English trade: from the Indus and from the Black Sea; and although we know 
very little of the exports of Russia to that part of the world, we may safely 
conclude from the increase of English exports to that quarter, that the 
Russian trade in that direction must have sensibly fallen off. The commercial 
battle-field between England and Russia has been removed from the Indus 
to Trapezunt, and the Russian trade, formerly venturing out as far as the 
limits of England's Eastern Empire, is now reduced to the defensive on the 
very verge of its own line of custom-houses. The importance of this fact with 
regard to any future solution of the Eastern question, and to the part which 
both England and Russia may take init, is evident. They are, and always must 
be, antagonists in the East. 

But let us come to a more definite estimate of this Black Sea trade. 

The Real Issue in Turkey 

According to The London Economist, the British exports to the Turkish 
dominions, including Egypt and the Danubian Principalities, were: 

In 1840 £1,440,592 
In 1842 £2,068,842 
In 1844 £3,271,333 
In 1846 £2,707,571 
In 1848 £3,626,241 
In 1850 £3,762,480 
In 1851 £3,548,959 

Of these amounts, at least two-thirds must have gone to ports in the Black 
Sea, including Constantinople. And all this rapidly increasing trade depends 
upon the confidence that may be placed in the power which rules the Darda- 
nelles and the Bosphorus, the keys to the Black Sea. Whoever holds these 
can open and shut at his pleasure the passage into this last recess of the 

Mediterranean. Let Russia once come into possession of Constantinople, 
who will expect her to keep open the door by which England has invaded 
her commercial domain? 

So much for the commercial importance of Turkey, and especially the 
Dardanelles. It is evident that not only a very large trade, but the principal 
intercourse of Europe with Central Asia, and consequently the principal 
means of re-civilizing that vast region, depends upon the uninterrupted 
liberty of trading through these gates to the Black Sea. 

Now for the military considerations. The commercial importance of the 
Dardanelles and Bosphorus at once make them first-rate military positions, 
that is, positions of decisive influence in any war. Such a point is Gibraltar, 
and such is Helsingör in the Sound. But the Dardanelles are, from the nature 
of their locality, even more important. The cannon of Gibraltar or Helsingör 
cannot command the whole of the straits on which they are situated, and they 
require the assistance of a fleet in order to close them; while the narrowness 
of the strait at the Dardanelles and of the Bosphorus is such that a few 
properly-erected and well-armed fortifications, such as Russia, once in 
possession, would not tarry an hour to erect, might defy the combined fleets 
of the world if they attempted a passage. In that case, the Black Sea would 
be more properly a Russian lake than even the Lake of Ladoga, situated in 

35 its very heart. The resistance of the Caucasians would be starved out at once ; 

Trapezunt would be a Russian port; the Danube a Russian river. Besides, 
when Constantinople is taken, the Turkish Empire is cut in two; Asiatic and 
European Turkey have no means of communicating with or supporting each 
other, and while the strength of the Turkish army, repulsed into Asia, is 
utterly harmless, Macedonia, Thessaly, Albania, outflanked and cut off from 
the main body, will not put the conqueror to the trouble of subduing them; 

Friedrich Engels 

they will have nothing left but to beg for mercy and for an army to maintain 
internal order. 

But having come thus far on the way to universal empire, is it probable 
that this gigantic and swollen power will pause in the career? Circumstances, 
if not her own will, forbid it. With the annexation of Turkey and Greece she 
has excellent seaports, while the Greeks furnish skillful sailors for her navy. 
With Constantinople, she stands on the threshold of the Mediterranean; with 
Durazzo and the Albanian coast from Antivari to Arta, she is in the very 
center of the Adriatic, within sight of the British Ionian islands, and within 
36 hours’ steaming of Malta. Flanking the Austrian dominions on the North, 
East and South, Russia will already count the Hapsburgs among her vassals. 
And then, another question is possible, is even probable. The broken and 
undulating western frontier of the Empire, ill-defined in respect of natural 
boundaries, would call for rectification, and it would appear that the natural 
frontier of Russia runs from Dantzic or perhaps Stettin to Trieste. And as 
sure as conquest follows conquest, and annexation follows annexation, so 
sure would the conquest of Turkey by Russia be only the prelude for the 
annexation of Hungary, Prussia, Galicia, and for the ultimate realization of 
the Slavonic Empire which certain fanatical Panslavistic philosophers have 
dreamed of. 

Russia is decidedly a conquering nation, and was so for a century, until 
the great movement of 1789 called into potent activity an antagonist of 
formidable nature. We mean the European Revolution, the explosive force 
of democratic ideas and man's native thirst for freedom. Since that epoch 
there have been in reality but two powers on the continent of Europe—Russia 
and Absolutism, the Revolution and Democracy. For the moment the Revo- 
lution seems to be suppressed, but it lives and is feared as deeply as ever. 
Witness the terror of the reaction at the news of the late rising at Milan. But 
let Russia get possession of Turkey, and her strength is increased nearly 
half, and she becomes superior to all the rest of Europe put together. Such 
an event would be an unspeakable calamity to the revolutionary cause. The 
maintenance of Turkish independence, or in case of a possible dissolution 
of the Ottoman Empire, the arrest of the Russian scheme of annexation is 
a matter of the highest moment. In this instance the interests of the revolu- 
tionary Democracy and of England go hand in hand. Neither can permit the 
Czar to make Constantinople one of his Capitals, and we shall find that when 
driven to the wall, the one will resist him as determinedly as the other. 

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