"Scratch a Russian."

The town of Reading, as it exists, offers few opportunities for piracy on the high seas; yet it was the camp of the pirates in Alfred’s days.  I should think it hard to call the people of Berkshire half Danish merely because they drove out the Danes.  In short, some temporary submergence under the savage flood was the fate of many of the most civilized States of Christendom, and it is quite ridiculous to argue that Russia, which wrestled hardest, must have recovered least.  Everywhere, doubtless, the East spread a sort of enamel over the conquered countries; but everywhere the enamel cracked.  Actual history, in fact, is exactly opposite to the cheap proverb invented against the Muscovite.  It is not true to say, “Scratch a Russian and you find a Tartar.”  In the darkest hour of the barbaric dominion it was truer to say, “Scratch a Tartar and you find a Russian.”  It was the civilization that survived under all the barbarism.  This vital romance of Russia, this revolution against Asia, can be proved in pure fact; not only from the almost superhuman activity of Russia during the struggle, but also (which is much rarer as human history goes) by her quite consistent conduct since.  She is the only great nation which has really expelled the Mongol from her country and continued to protest against presence of the Mongol in her continent.  Knowing what he had been in Russia, she knew what he would be in Europe.  In this she pursued a logical line of thought, which was, if anything, too unsympathetic with the energies and religions of the East.  Every other country, one may say, has been an ally of the Turk—­that is, of the Mongol and the Moslem.  The French played them as pieces against Austria; the English warmly supported them under the Palmerston regime; even the young Italians sent troops to the Crimea; and of Russia and her Austrian vassal it is nowadays needless to speak.  For good or evil, it is the fact of history that Russia is the only power in Europe that has never supported the Crescent against the Cross.

That doubtless will appear an unimportant matter, but it may become important under certain peculiar conditions.  Suppose, for the sake of argument, that there were a powerful Prince in Europe who had gone ostentatiously out of his way to pay reverence to the remains of the Tartar, Mongol, and Moslem left as an outpost in Europe.  Suppose there were a Christian Emperor who could not even go to the tomb of the crucified without pausing to congratulate the last and living crucifier.  If there were an Emperor who gave guns and guides and maps and drill instructors to defend the remains of the Mongol in Christendom, what would we say to him?  I think at least we might ask him what he meant by his impudence when he talked about supporting a semi-Oriental power.  That we support a semi-Oriental power we deny.  That he has supported an entirely Oriental power cannot be denied, no, not even by the man who did it.