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LUIGI VILLARI
944 N722
FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUCASUS
BY THE SAME AUTHOR. Oniform with this Volume.
RUSSIA UNDER THE GREAT SHADOW.
Tomput, NEAR NAKHITCHRVAM. ARMENIAN HoUSk PLUNDERED BY TARTARS. Photo by Grigoriants, of Tits,
viece,
FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUCASUS
BY
LUIGI VILLARI
AUTHOR OF “RUSSIA UNDER THE GREAT SHADOW ' “ GIOVANNI SEGANTINI,” ETC
ILLUSTRATED
LONDON T. FISHER UNWIN NEW YORK JAMES POTT AND COMPANY MCMVI
»
282946
(All rights reserved.)
PREFATORY NOTE
HE revolutionary outbreaks by which Russia has been disturbed from end to end during the last eighteen months, have assumed an exceptionally interesting aspect in the parts of the Empire inhabited by alien races. Old national ideals, which were believed to be buried and forgotten, others whose very existence few suspected, have sprung to life, armed and formidable. While the autocracy is fighting for its life against the onslaught of political and social revolution, its border provinces are seeth- ing with Nationalist discontent, and are a prey to violent uprisings. Poles, Finns, Letts, Georgians, Armenians, are all demanding the rights so long denied them, and their demands are backed by rifles, revolvers, and bombs.
No part of Russia at the present moment is more full of acute problems of great interest for the student of politics than the Caucasus. There, side by side with Nationalist claims and bitter racial and religious animosities, we see attempts to realize the conceptions of Social Democracy ; together with evi- dences of medizval barbarism we find men actually putting the theories of Marx into practice. For many months the country has been the theatre of a
6
6 PREFATORY NOTE
civil war, accompanied by every circumstance of horror. Thousands of people have been killed, hideous crimes have been and are still being perpe- trated, and a vast amount of property has been destroyed. The Russian authorities oscillate between brutal reaction and weak concession, with occasional lucid intervals of liberal statesmanship. Yet out of all this chaos of bloodshed and ruin some good may come, and, indeed, I am sure will come. For there will at last be a chance for the free development of those nationalities which have for so long been the step-children of a historic fatality. It seemed at one time as though these peoples, who have kept alight the torch of Christianity and civilization amidst the darkness of Oriental savagery for fifteen centuries, were destined to disappear, to be absorbed into those greater and more expansive races who are spreading their dominion all over the earth, or to be wiped out by more savage and less civilized fighting peoples. Such a state of things would have been in every way regrettable ; for while in all other parts of the world local patriotism and provincial ideals, which have given us so much in the way of political and social development, seem to be dying out, overwhelmed by the large, political units, it is only in such regions as the Mediterranean East that there are left, in the words of Mr. James Bryce, “nationalities with a capacity for developing into independent nations that may create new types of character and new forms of literary and artistic life.” * Moreover, some of these
* Introduction to ‘The Balkan Question,” by various writers, p. 13.
PREFATORY NOTE 7
nations have achieved enough in the past to warrant us in the conviction that under favourable conditions they may do more, much more in the future.
In writing the ensuing pages I have tried to present a sketch of this great Russian colony during what is perhaps the most critical period of its history. I spent several months, during the summer and autumn of 1905, visiting every important centre of political unrest in the Caucasus, and inquiring into the general conditions of the country ; for this pur- pose I consulted numbers of people of all classes, races, and religions, from the Russian Viceroy down to simple peasants, from the chief of the secret police to the Georgian revolutionary leaders, not to mention the editors of local papers, and the foreign residents and consuls; and I am bound to say that I found everybody, with rare exceptions, most anxious to assist me, and that I was treated with the greatest possible kindness and hospitality. It would be in- vidious to single out by name any of the people to whom I am so deeply indebted, while to include them all would fill several pages. I must, however, express my especial indebtedness to Mr. J. Gordon Browne, who was my travelling companion for the greater part of my trip, and by his thorough knowledge of Russia and of Russian was an invaluable and ungrudging helper.
If I succeed in calling the attention of the public to the state of things in the Caucasus and in arousing some little sympathy in the civilized West for these
8 PREFATORY NOTE
struggling and suffering peoples of the East, my object will have been gained. I may perhaps seem to be unduly partial towards the Armenians, but all I can say in explanation of my attitude is that I went out with an absolutely unbiassed mind, and that the conclusions at which I have arrived are the result of inquiries from all sources, including many which are decidedly unfavourable to that nationality. I have dwelt particularly on this point, as the Armenians are certainly one of the most unpopular races of the East, and they have been grossly libelled by ignorant and prejudiced critics, including some of English nationality.
The photographs, except when otherwise stated, are my own.
L. V. March, 1906.
CONTENTS
PAGE PREFATORY NOTE . . . . ; . §
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF RECENT EVENTS IN THE CAUCASUS 13
CHAPTER I
Tue Caucasus, 1TS PEOPLES, AND ITS HISTORY . . I5 CHAPTER II
EastwarRp Ho! ; . . ; . - 37 CHAPTER III
BaTUM . . ; . ’ : : » 46 CHAPTER IV
KUTAIS AND THE GEORGIAN MOVEMENT . . . 61 CHAPTER V
THE GURIAN “REPUBLIC” . . . . . 84 CHAPTER VI
TIFLIS : . . : ‘ . . 100° CHAPTER VII
PERSONS AND POLITICS IN THE CAUCASIAN CAPITAL . - 120 9
10 CONTENTS CHAPTER VIII
ARMENIANS, TARTARS, AND THE RussIAN GOVERNMENT
CHAPTER IX
BAKU AND THE ARMENO-TARTAR FEUD.
CHAPTER X
BLOODSHED AND FIRE IN THE OIL Clty
CHAPTER XI
THE LAND OF ARARAT .
CHAPTER XII
THE HEART OF ARMENIA
CHAPTER XIII
Russia’s New ROvUTE TO PERSIA
CHAPTER XIV
NAKHITCHEVAN AND THE May MASSACRES
CHAPTER XV
ALEXANDROPOL AND ANI
CHAPTER XVI
OVER THE Frosty CAUCASUS.
CHAPTER XVII
RECENT EVENTS IN THE CAUCASUS .
INDEX
PAGE
- 144
. 176
. IQ!
. 209
. 232
. 251
. 265
. 292
. 312
- 326
» 343
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
TUMBUL NEAR NAKHITCHEVAN. ARMENIAN HOUSE PLUNDERED BY
TARTARS ; . . . . Frontispiece WEST CAUCASIAN TYPES, NEAR BATUM . , . Facing p. 32 ARDILER ON THE BLACK SEA COAST . . . ” 37 GAGRY ON THE BLACK SEA . . . . . o 37 MINGRELIAN CARTS . . . : ” 45 ‘*THE LAND OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE.” THE MOUTH OF
THE RION. ‘ . . . . ” 45 THE ‘* TZESAREVICH GEORGII " . . . ” 47 BATUM. MOHAMMEDANS RETURNING FROM THE MOSQUE
AFTER PRAYERS . ” 47 BATUM. COSSACKS ON GUARD AT THE BLACK AND CASPIAN
NAPHTHA AND TRADING COMPANY'S CASE OIL WORKS ” 54 CHAKVA, NEAR BATUM. DRYING TEA-LEAVES ON THE
IMPERIAL ESTATE . . . ; . ” 59 MOHAMMEDAN AT PRAYER . . . . . ” 9 KUTAIS. GEORGIAN TYPES . . . . ” 2
’” HOUSES AND GARDENS ON THE RION . ; ” 64 ” PRIMITIVE NATIVE CARTS . . . ” 64 MONASTERY OF GHELATI, NEAR KUTAIS . . . ” 69 A GEORGIAN PRIEST . . . . . » 69 OZURGETY. GURIAN TYPES AT THE POPULAR TRIBUNAL. ” 93
- THE POPULAR TRIBUNAL . ‘ - 93
” A VOTER AT THE POPULAR TRIBUNAL ; . ” 97
” THE DESERTED COURT-HOUSE. . . ” 98 MONASTERY OF MOTZAMETY, NEAR KUTAIS. . . ” 98 TIFLIS. A COSSACK ON THE VORONTZOFF BRIDGE . ” 102
» GROUP OF HIGHLANDERS . ° . . ” 102
‘ THE MAIDAN, OR TARTAR QUARTER, AND CITADEL ” 107
” TARTAR TYPES . . . : . ” 119
1 NATIVE CART, WITH BUFFALOES . . . ” 112
” MARTIAL LAW: THE SEARCH FOR ARMS . - 120
” ” » AN ARREST. . ” 129
” »» PEOPLE SEARCHED FOR ARMS . ” 129 IN THE KARABAGH STEPPE. A SLEEPING TOWER . . ” 177 CAMELS IN THE CAUCASUS . . . . . ” 177 BAKU. GENERAL VIEW OF THE HARBOUR : . ‘ ” 184 »» THE BIBI EYBAT OIL-FIELDS . ” 184
" THE OFFICIAL RESIDENCE OF THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL ” 19!
” COSSACK PATROL ON THE QUAY . . om 19!
»» A QUIET DRIVE, WITH A SOLDIER ON THE BOX . ” 193
” BIBI EYBAT OIL-FIELDS. THE RUINS . . . " 193
” RUINED DERRICKS AT BIBI EYBAT. . . ” 197
” AFTER THE FIRES AT BIBI EYBAT . . ” 197
” CORPSES IN THE CEMETERY AT BALAKHANY . » 202
»» TARTAR WORKMEN ° . . . . i” 206 ARMENIAN WORKMEN . . . . - 206
MOUNT ARARAT , . . . . . . ” 209 ll
12 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ARMENIAN TYPES. . . . . Facing p. 212 ERIVAN. CARTS IN THE BAZAR . . . . ” 217 ” SHOPS . . . . . . ” 217 ” IN THE BAZAR : . . . . » 220 ” TARTARS IN THE BAZAR . : ” 220
” IN THE COURTYARD OF THE MOSQUE CALLED GOK DJAMI. . . . . . ‘ 224 ETCHMIADZIN. OUTSIDE THE WALLS . . ° - 233 ” THE RESERVOIR : ” 233 ” CATHEDRAL OF ST. GREGORY THE ILLUMINATOR rr) 237 ” ARMENIAN BOYS AT THE ACADEMY . ” 240
” ARMENIAN BOYS; ARCHIMANDRITE IN THE CENTRE . . ; ” 240 COSSACK TYPES IN THE TRAIN BN DESHABILLE . . ” 25! ON THE ROAD TO PERSIA. WAYSIDE STATION . . ” 256 ” ” SOLDIERS AT NURASHEN . ” 256 ” a TARTAR PASSENGERS FORAGING . ” 266
‘9 ”” THE OLD METHOD OF CONVEYANCE
AND THE NEW . : " 263 ” ” NAKHITCHEVAN STATION . : s 263 NAKHITCHEVAN. GUARDIANS OF LAW AND ORDER . ” 265 ” SOLDIERS IN THE BAZAR. . . ” 265 ” TARTAR TYPES IN THE BAZAR . . » 267 an ARMENIAN SHOPS PLUNDERED BY TARTARS ” 267 ” CORPSES OF ARMENIANS AFTER THE MAY
MASSACRE. . . . . ” 270 ” A SHIAH MULLAH . - . ” 271 ” THE TOWER OF THE KHANS . . ” 273 ARMENIAN VILLAGE PRIEST’S HOUSE . ’” 273 ARMENIAN VILLAGE GUARD AT ALAGOZ-MAZRA . ‘ ” 277 GROUP OF ARMENIAN VILLAGERS AT NAZARABAD . . ” 278 NURASHEN. ARMENIAN CHURCH SACKED BY TARTARS . ’ 282 DJAGRY. GENERAL VIEW. . , ” 283 - HOUSE OF A RICH ARMENIAN BURNT BY TARTARS. ” 28
” TARTARS AT THE INN. : . . ” 2 GYAZ. ARMENIAN CHURCH PLUNDERED BY TARTARS . . ” 290 VILLAGE GUARD AT KHAL-KHAL . . ‘ . ” 292 ANI CAVE DWELLINGS . . . . . ‘ 292 ANI. WALLS VIEWED FROM WITHIN . . . - 297 »» WALLS VIEWED FROM OUTSIDE . : . . ” 297 » THE CATHEDRAL . . . . . ” 298 »» CHURCH OF ST. GREGORY . . : . » 303 »» THE CASTLE . . . . . ” 305 »» GROUP OF TARTAR CHILDREN . : . . ” 310 THE GEORGIAN ROAD. VIEW OF MTZKHET . . - 313 ” ” VIEW OF DUSHET . . . ” 313 "9 ” GUDAUR AND THE SEVEN BROTHERS ” 315 ” ” NATIVE CARTS AT KAZBEK , ” 317 ” ” PUBLIC DILIGENCE. . . ”» 317 ” " KOBI . . . " 318 ” ” VIEW OF THE KAZBEK . . " 320 ” DARIAL PASS . . . ” 322 ROSTOFF-ON-THE-DON. BURNT JEWISH HOUSES . ” 322
» ¢ INTERIOR OF THE SYNAGOGUE AFTER
THE POGROM . ” 325 KUTAIS. SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC DEMONSTRATION IN OCTOBER. ” 331
” COSSACKS ON GUARD . . . . » ~~ «331
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF RECENT EVENTS IN THE CAUCASUS
June 12, 1903.
July ” Aug. ” Oct. %9 Jan. 1904. July ” Dec. ” Jan. 14, 1905. Feb. 19 _ +s, Feb. 22 __—is March » May 18 _is,, May 24 _ ‘=F; May 25; June 5-6 ,, Aug. 29 to Sept.2 ,,
Prince Golytzin confiscates property of Armenian Church.
Strikes at Baku and on the Transcaucasian Railway.
General Von Wahl goes from St. Petersburg to Baku to inquire into the condition of the town, where General Odintzoff is Governor.
Armenians attempt the life of Golytzin.
Prince Nakashidze appointed Governor of Baku.
Golytzin departs from the Caucasus on leave, never to return.
General Freze appointed acting Governor-General afterwards General Malama.
Prince Nakashidze goes to St. Petersburg to confer with Golytzin, and returns soon after.
Golytzin relieved of his functions.
First outbreak of the Tartars against the Armenians at Baku (400 to 500 killed and wounded).
Order restored.
Small outbreak at Erivan.
Count Vorontzoff-Dashkoff (appointed Viceroy in February) arrives at Tiflis.
Prince Nakashidze murdered at Baku.
Outbreak at Nakhitchevan (300 killed and wounded in town and district).
General Alikhanoff sent to restore order.
Second outbreak at Erivan (52 killed and wounded).
Prince Napoleon appointed Governor-General of Erivan. Recalls Alikhanoff.
Outbreak at Shusha (300 killed and wounded, damages estimated at 5,000,000 roubles).
18
14 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
Sept. 2-6, 1905. Second outbreak at Baku (600 to 700 killed and wounded, damages 25,000,000 roubles.
Sept. 11 ,, Massacre of Georgian Social Democrats by Cossacks in the Tiflis Town Hall.
Oct. 1 ,, Third outbreak at Erivan.
Oct. 9 ,, Bombs thrown at the Cossacks at Tiflis.
Oct. 28 ,, Railway strike begins.
Oct. 30 ,, Constitutional Manifesto.
Oct. 31 ~+,, Social Democratic and Armenian Demonstration at Baku.
Nov. 1-4 ,, Third outbreak at Baku.
Nov. 4-10,, | Demonstration and riots at Tiflis.
Nov. 29 to Outbreak between Tartars and Armenians at
Dec. 3 » Elizavetpol.
Dec. 1-4 ,, Armeno-Tartar outbreak at Tiflis. Tartars from the country try to come into Tiflis. Fight with Armenians and Socialists. ‘Troops intervene.
Dec. 28 ,, ( Political strike at Tiflis. Bombs thrown. Troops to bombard houses. Fierce reaction. Massacre of
Jan. 6, 1906 railwaymen by troops.
Jan. »» Serious revolt in Georgia; ferocious repression by
Cossacks and soldiers.
CHAPTER |! THE CAUCASUS, ITS PEOPLES, AND ITS HISTORY
HE history of Russia has been a series of
expansions to the west, the south, and the east, towards the open sea. Each territory occupied was, sooner or later, absorbed into the Empire of which it became in every way an integral part. The fact that Russia was not separated from her colonial possessions by the sea made the process of absorption easier, and the line of demarcation between the mother-country and her colonies is therefore less definite than in the case of Britain or France. Moreover, the fact that the Empire has hitherto been governed despotically made the question of the forms of government to be adopted in the various provinces less important than it is in constitutionally governed States. The general aim of the ruling classes has been to assimilate as far as possible every part of the Empire, from Poland to the Pacific Ocean and from the Arctic Sea to Mount Ararat. Yet as a matter of fact the conditions are very different, and while we have a central mass of Russian-speaking peoples, numbering more than half the entire popula- tion of the Empire and inhabiting a vast, monotonous
16
16 FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUCASUS
zone of plains, on the borders there are provinces as different from Russia proper and from each other as any in the dominions of England. Of all these border-lands, none exceeds in interest that region known as the Caucasus. Its giant mountains, its magnificent scenery, its rich and varied vegetation, its extraordinary collection of different races, speaking countless languages, and representing almost every branch of the human family, its strange history and the beautiful monuments of its art, make of it a wonderland of romance, exercising a fascination on all who visit it.
Caucasia is a broad isthmus between the Black Sea and the Caspian, traversed by a great chain of moun- tains rising toa height of 18,000 feet. Northof the range is a region of interminable plains, known as the Northern Caucasus, or Ciscaucasia, merging imperceptibly into the steppes of the Don and the Volga. Southwards is Transcaucasia, a semi-tropical country intersected by many smaller ranges of mountains, of which the most important are the so-called Anti-Caucasus and the Armenian group. The Caucasus divides Europe from Asia as by a great barrier of ice and snow and rock; at no other point are the two continents so sharply separated. Yet historically and ethnographi- cally the separation is not so absolute as it appears. The barrier, like other mountain chains, has not proved an insuperable one, and Asiatics have poured across it into Europe from time immemorial, and Europeans have entered Asia by the same route; at the same time some Western elements have come to the Caucasus by sea or overland through Asia Minor,
ot THE CAUCASUS AND ITS PEOPLES 17
and Eastern peoples uave penetrated from the north to the south. The two continents overlap, as it were, and we find Christian races of Indo-European stock south of the mountains, and Moslem Turanians in the northern steppes; sedentary and civilized peoples in Asia, barbarian nomads in Europe. But geogra- phically the character of the two regions is quite distinct; the Northern Caucasus is a continuation of the great plains of Russia, while the fertile valleys of western Transcaucasia and the arid deserts of the eastern provinces are redolent of the Asiatic East. In the north the chief rivers are the Terek and the Kuban, while in Transcaucasia the principal streams flowing into the Black Sea are the Rion (the ancient Phasis) and the Ingur, and into the Caspian flows the Kura, with its tributary the Araxes. The watershed separating the tributaries of these two streams marks the division of Transcaucasia into a western and an eastern province.
The natural resources of the Caucasus are enor- mous, and hitherto little more than tapped; under an orderly and progressive government it would be one of the richest countries in the world, and as it is it offers a striking contrast to the blighted lands beyond the Turkish frontier. Every kind of cereal and vineyards flourish on both sides of the range, and Transcaucasia—the Colchis of the ancients—produces, in addition, fruit of all sorts, tobacco, cotton, tea, and other tropical plants in abundance. Immense tracts of virgin forest cover a large part of Georgia, as well as the slopes of the Caucasus, ill-preserved and neg- lected, but still of immense value. Besides agricul-
2
18 FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUCASUS
tural wealth, the mountains teem with precious minerals ; coal exists in Georgia and in the Kuban territory, and the manganese mines of Chiatury, near Kutais, produce half the world’s supply of that mineral ; the Elizavetpol mountains are rich in copper, and those of Armenia in salt. Most im- portant of all are the vast oil-fields of Baku, pro- ducing 600,000,000 puds of naphtha per annum, and other smaller fields are beginning to be developed. But the political disorders to which the country has been a prey since the earliest beginnings of history— wars, revolutions, and brigandage—have impeded its development. Even under the zgis of Russian rule, when the land should have developed at all events as much as Poland or Central Russia, the troubles continued and progress has been slow. Nor has the administration done all that it might have done to promote the welfare of the country. The few roads are ill-kept and allowed to fall into disrepair; there are only two or three lines of railway, badly managed and insufficient ; the public services are disorganized ; public safety is a thing unknown. Trade has been hampered by vexatious fiscal regulations, and the influx of foreign capital is discouraged. Education has been neglected, and where the natives provided their own, actually hindered, so that the ignorance of large parts of the country is greater even than in Russia. In fact, in spite of certain elements of civilization, the Caucasus has remained for the most part a very barbarous land. Its mountainous nature and the savage character of many of the peoples inhabiting it are in part, no doubt, responsible for
THE CAUCASUS AND ITS PEOPLES 19
this state of things ; but Russia’s efforts to dominate rebellious nature and rebellious man have not proved adequate to the task.
More interesting than its geographical features and material resources are the peoples of the Caucasus. In no other region of its size in the world are there so many different races and languages. Macedonia contains seven or eight nationalities, but in com- parison with the Caucasus, with its fifty or sixty, it is but a poorly-stocked ethnographical museum. Since the earliest times this country has been famous as a meeting-place of many races and many tongues. Strabo tells us that there were seventy different peoples in the Caucasus; Pliny, with greater exag- geration, says that three hundred languages were spoken in the markets of Colchis. For over two thousand years the Caucasus has been in the path- way of numberless migrations of peoples; but the nature of the land was such that each people that passed left some of its members behind, some fragment which survived unchanged in_ secluded valleys and rocky fastnesses. Once a community was settled here it was very difficult for a new invader to expel it totally ; some small part was sure to remain behind resisting all assaults, until the second invader in his turn was forced to defend himself against a third.
I shall not attempt to enter into the thorny path of Caucasian ethnography—one which has not really been properly explored even by those who are really com- petent, and many problems remain yet unsolved. But it is necessary to say a few words on the distribution
20 FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUCASUS
of the chief races in order to make certain aspects of the political situation clear. The question of the Caucasian races and their division may be regarded from several points of view. If we consider it purely in its scientific bearings, we must divide them into white races and yellow or Mongol races ; the white must then be subdivided into Indo-Europeans, Semites, and pure Caucasians, and the Mongolians into Turkish peoples and pure Mongols. This is, of course, only one method ; others may adopt a different though equally scientific system. But from a political point of view divisions of this kind are apt to be confusing, for we find Russians, Armenians, Kurds, Persians, and Tates bracketed together as Indo- Europeans ; Georgians, Lezghins, and Abkhazians united among the pure Caucasians; and Turks and Tartars treated as a single family. From a political point of view Tartars and Tates should be bracketed together, for although of widely different racial origin, they are both Shiah Moslems and practically form one nationality. Also Russians and Armenians, although both labelled as Indo-European, are widely separated by political considerations. Moreover, certain isolated ' fragments of peoples, perhaps not more than a few thousand strong, may have an immense scientific im- portance, and yet politically be a negligible quantity. For instance, the Ossets, inhabiting the western part of the Central Caucasus, offer many interesting pro- blems to the ethnographer and the philologist; but they have never come to the fore in the recent political history of the country. The people of Daghestan, who are split up into several dozen different races and
THE CAUCASUS AND ITS PEOPLES 21
countless tribes, many of them as yet unclassed and of unknown origin, although they played a great part in former times, and under Shamy] resisted the Russian advance with desperate valour, their name is seldom even mentioned in the accounts of recent events. Politically we may divide the Caucasian peoples into the following groups: Khartvels or Georgians, Ar- menians, Tartars, Russians, Eastern mountaineers, and Western mountaineers; the mountaineers, how- ever, have practically no political importance at the present time. |
The Khartvel or Georgian group occupies the whole of Western Transcaucasia, spreading as far east as the Alazan valley and as far south as the Turkish frontier, but its chief centres are the valleys of the Rion and the Ingur. The Georgian population numbers about. 1,800,000, and they are all Orthodox Christians, except the Adjars in the mountains near Batum, who were converted to Islam. They belong to the Aryan family, but form part of a group of peoples more or less autochthonous to the land, and having very little connection with other Aryan races. Their language, although Aryan, has peculiarities which distinguish it from all other tongues, even those of other autochthonous Caucasian races, to whom, how- ever, it is probably allied ; in the course of time it has been modified by infiltration of Persian, Armenian, Turkish, Greek, and Arabic elements. The Georgians are subdivided into Georgians proper, or Khartvels (Khartlins), inhabiting the central part of the country ; Kakhetins, east of Tiflis; Imeretins, round Kutais; Mingrelians, between Kutais and the sea; Gurians,
22 FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUCASUS
in the district of Ozurgety ; Pshavs, Khevsurs, and other highlanders, in the mountains north of Tiflis and along the Georgian road; Svanets, in the moun- tains north of Kutais. Each of these branches has its own dialect, but of late years the various local patois have been tending to disappear and a single literary language has been universally adopted. They form the largest and most compact racial mass in the whole of Transcaucasia.
Eastern Transcaucasia is inhabited chiefly by Armenians and Tartars. The Armenians or Haiks, number 1,200,000 in Russian territory, but the greater part of this people is still in Turkey. They are apparently of the Iranian branch of the Indo- European group, and their language seems to have considerable affinity with Zend, but it contains im- portant Semitic elements, and many Georgian, Turkish, and Persian words. The Armenians are found mostly in the Governments of Erivan, Tiflis, Elizavetpol, and Baku, but that of Erivan is the only one in which they are a majority. By religion they belong to the Gregorian Church. *
The Tartars are a Mongol people closely allied to the Ottoman Turks, and their language is a patois of Turkish. They originally came from Central Asia, and invaded the Caucasus from Azerbajan (North- Western Persia); they are, in fact, described as Azer- bajan Tartars, to distinguish them from the Kazan and the Crimean Tartars. Their habitats are the govern- ments of Baku, Elizavetpol, Erivan, and certain
* Further details concerning the Armenians and the Tartars will be given in Chapter VIII.
THE CAUCASUS AND ITS PEOPLES 23
districts of that of Tiflis, and they number 1,200,000. They are divided into a number of tribes or clans; to them are allied the 50,000 Nogai Tartars in the Kuban and Daghestan provinces, and 100,000 Kumiks. In the Government of Baku there are also some 180,000 Tates, who, although of Iranian stock, and speaking a Persian dialect, are Shiah Mohammedans like the Tartars, and are gradually adopting Tartar ways and even the Tartar language. Here, as in other parts of the East, religion is a stronger tie than race or nationality, and practically all the Shiahs of the Eastern Caucasus are, for practical purposes, Tartars. On the other hand, the Sunni Mohammedans, whether Tartars, Turks, Lezghins, Kurds, or others, form a separate com- munity, who, save in certain cases, have taken no part in the Armeno-Tartar feud.
Other Moslem peoples are the Turks and the Kurds, both of them Sunnis. The former number 30,000 in the province of Batum, where they are more or less assimilated to the Adjars (70,000), and 50,000, or 60,000 in the province of Kars. The Kurds are mostly nomad shepherds of the Govern- ments of Erivan and Elizavetpol and the province of Kars. |
Next we come to the highlanders. In the Western Caucasus and along the Black Sea coast are the remnants of two autochthonous peoples, of great interest to ethnographers, who once played a large véée in these lands, viz., the Circassians, to whom are allied the Kabardins, and the Abkhazians. The Circassians resisted the Russian advance with
24 FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUCASUS
desperate valour, and when the country was finally subjugated the great majority preferred to emigrate into Turkish territory. At present there are only a few thousand Circassians left out of a gallant nation of half a million. The Abkhazians who dwell in the mountains behind Sukhum Kalé are reduced to about 60,000, and the Kabardins on the north-east slopes of the range are 190,000. The prevailing religion of these people is Islam. The Eastern mountaineers dwelling in Daghestan and part of the Terek province, are an extraordinary medley of several dozen different branches, mostly autoch- thonous, but many of them undetermined, and speaking numbers of different languages, whose connections with each other are not always estab- lished. The Chechens (280,000) are warlike high- landers living in the mountains south and east of Vladikavkaz. Then come the Lezghins, Andians, and Avars, the Dargo, the Kyurins, the Udins, and many others. There is one mountain in Daghestan on the slopes of which are seven villages each speaking a different language; to communicate with each other they use the Avar tongue, which is a sort of fimgua franca of the district. Besides the native dialects Turkish and Arabic are also spoken. The Eastern highlanders are nearly all Sunni Moham- medans, and were almost welded into a single nation under the leadership of Shamyl, who held out against Russia in a long series of wars. The story of the Russian campaigns of Daghestan and Cir- cassia is among the most romantic episodes of Muscovite history. They are still warlike and brave,
THE CAUCASUS AND ITS PEOPLES 25
but have remained quiet during the last thirty years.
Another highland people, who cannot, however, be classed as autochthonous, are the Ossets, occupying the mountains between the Georgian road and the Adai Khokh. Their language is Iranian, and, in fact, they call themselves Iron, and many of their customs are very similar to those of the primitive peoples of Western Europe, which gave rise to curious but un- tenable theories as to their relationship with the Germans. They number 120,000, spread over the governments of Tiflis and Kutais and the Terek province; one half of them are nominal Christians, and the other half nominal Mohammedans, but both sections practise pagan rites.
Finally, we come to the Russians, who, although not an absolute majority, are the largest element of the population, and are, of course, the ruling race. They number about 3,000,000, but with the exception of some 150,000 they are all in the Northern Caucasus. In Transcaucasia they are merely soldiers, officials, small peasant colonies (chiefly sectarians) and a certain number of workmen at Baku, Tiflis, and Batum. In the Northern Caucasus the majority of them are in the Cossack colonies of the Terek andthe Kuban. Other races are: Greeks (55,000), some of them descended from the ancient Greek colonies on the Black Sea, a few thousand German colonists, Jews, Poles, &c.
To sum up, we may divide the peoples of the Caucasus as follows :—
26 FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUCASUS
Russians... eos 3,000,000, Or 30 per cent. Georgians ... ose 1,800,000, Or 20_—s—=»—»
Shiah Moslems _... 1,300,000, OF 1345 approx. Sunni Moslems __... 1,500,000, Or 15,
Gregorian Armenians =§ 1,200,000, Or 124‘,
Total wee 9,248,695
To attempt to write the history of the Caucasus would not only be very difficult, but hardly profitable. Until the Russian occupation the Caucasus had no unity. Geographically it 1s divided into two distinct parts by the great range. Ethnographically it is but a collection of miscellaneous samples. Historically it has always been split up between a number of different foreign States, and more or less independent princi- palities and tribes. Alexander the Great, the East Roman Empire, and the Arabs at various times laid claim to rule the whole country, but in practice they never actually did so. Russia is the first Power which has succeeded in uniting these scattered frag- ments. At the time of the Russian conquest Western Transcaucasia was divided into the kingdoms of Georgia, Imeretia, and Mingrelia, which had at an earlier period formed a single State. The Eastern provinces (Baku, Elizavetpol, and Erivan) were under Persian supremacy; Batum and Kars_ belonged to Turkey, who also had a nominal suzerainty over the Circassians. The mountain ranges were divided among a number of practically independent clans. This state of things had existed in a more or less modified form for several centuries, and in the wildly chaotic conditions of the country frontiers were un-
THE CAUCASUS AND ITS PEOPLES a7
certain and sovereign rights but vain things. The only part of the Caucasus which had a more or less consecutive national history was the kingdom of Georgia. ,
A Georgian or Iberian State had existed long before the Christian era, but very little is known of its history. The country received its first lessons in civilization from the Greek traders who established commercial colonies in Colchis, the fabled land of the Golden Fleece. In the III. century s.c., Alexander the Great conquered Iberia and established a Mace- donian administration. But a national hero, Pharna- bazes, led the people to revolt, expelled the Macedonian Governor, and founded a Georgian dynasty. Subse- quently the rights of his successors were disputed by the Armenian Arsakid dynasty, and in the IV. century King Mirian founded the Sasanid house. During his reign Georgia was converted to Christianity by St., Nina. The Greek Emperor sent a bishop and priests to Georgia and the king and people were baptized in 332. Christianity was not, however, firmly established for some time, and in the V. century there was a religious war between the Christians and the fire- worshippers supported by the Persians. King Vakh- tang Gorgoslan (446-499) completed the conversion of Georgia and expelled the fire-worshippers ; in spite of frequent inroads by the Persians and the high- landers, Georgia now became a considerable Power in the Middle East. In 458 the first Georgian bishopric was founded, that of Mtzkhet, and in 542 the Emperor Justinian recognized the independence of the Iberian Church, whose primate was henceforth
28 FIRE AND SWORD IN THE OAUCASUS
styled Katholikos. In the VII. century the Arabs invaded Georgia, and the ancient kingdom was split up into several principalities. Kakhetia seceded in the east, Imeretia, Mingrelia, and Abkhazia in the west, so that the then reigning dynasty of the Bagratids only ruled the country round Tiflis, under Arab auspices, and Tiflis itself was held by the Arabs. Under David (1001) and Bagrat III. Georgia was reunited once more into an independent kingdom, but soon after it was invaded by the Seljuk Turks, who laid it waste.
David III. (1080), the Renovator, at last succeeded in expelling the Mohammedans and creating a new and greater Georgian kingdom, extending from the Black Sea to the Caspian, and from the Caucasus to Kars. He reorganized the country, suppressed brigandage and heresy, built churches, opened schools, and made Georgia a centre of culture and civilization. In 1184 the celebrated Queen Thamara came to the throne—a name still venerated as a glorious if half- legendary tradition wherever the Georgian tongue is spoken. Almost every church and every castle is attributed to her, and a whole host of legends has gathered about her personality. She does seem to have been a great woman, and to have raised her country to a high place among nations. She waged war successfully against both the Turks and the Greeks, and after the fall of the Byzantine Empire at the hands of the Crusaders she helped to form the Empire of Trebizond. But at her death in 1212 the edifice, laboriously raised, crumbled once more. Her incapable successors were unable to resist the
THE CAUCASUS AND ITS PEOPLES 29
ever-recurring onslaughts of the Moslems from the south and the highlanders from the north. First Genghis Khan’s Mongol hordes, ‘then the Persians, then again in 1236, the Mongols raided Georgia and made themselves for a time masters of the country. For the next three hundred years it is a prey to invasion, civil war, and Mongol oppression. In 1387 and 1393 it suffered at the hands of Timur the Tartar, who desolated the land with fire and sword. The XV. and XVI. centuries are one long record of Turkish and Persian invasions and occupa- tions, as a result of which several of the native - princes became Moslems, and Oriental customs penetrated into the country. Massacre, bloodshed, treachery, and cruelty are the staple elements of Georgian history during this period, lit up at rare intervals by flashes of heroism and sublime patriotism. The Persians were now the real rulers of Georgia, but they usually delegated their authority to native kings of proven fidelity. Some of these honestly tried to better the conditions of the people, and aspired to ultimate independence. One of them, Vakhtang VI. (1675-1737), although outwardly pro- fessing Islam—to which fact he owed his nomination as King of Georgia by the Persians—managed to re-establish a measure of order in the land, to unite the scattered provinces, and to promote an intellectual revival. It was in his reign that relations with Russia were first established, for with the help of the Muscovite Tzars he hoped to shake himself free of Persia and obtain protection from his various dangerous neighbours. The Moslem Powers, by
30 FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUCASUS
their perpetual incursions and their savage oppres- sion, threw the Christians of the Caucasus into the arms of Russia and led to their own eventual down- fall. In 1722 Peter the Great concluded an alliance with Vakhtang, with a view to the expedition to Derbent and Baku. In the following year the Georgian king openly declared himself independent of Persia, and sent an army of 30,000 to assist the Russians. But to his surprise and dismay Peter concluded a separate peace treaty with Persia in 1724, acknowledging the latter's suzerainty over Georgia. Thus left to herself Georgia was overrun by hordes of Turks and Persians who came to wreak their vengeance on her for having helped their enemy. The highlanders profited by the enfeebled state of the country to pour down into the valleys and plunder the inhabitants. Revolts broke out, and Vakhtang was deposed and died in exile in 1737. The object of Russia was so to weaken Georgia that its absorption into the Empire should become in- evitable, and this policy was consistently followed for nearly a century, and with ultimate success. Catherine II. instructed her agents and generals in the Caucasus “to do nothing likely to strengthen Georgia.”
In 1736 Nadir Shah had succeeded to the Persian throne, and was friendly to the Georgians. He freed the country from the Turks, and eventually placed Irakli II. on the throne. Irakli (1744-1798) was one of the most remarkable men of his time, and excited the admiration of all Europe; under him Georgia revived and prospered, and became for the last time
THE CAUCASUS AND ITS PEOPLES 31
a powerful and independent State. Culture and civilization spread, order and unity were achieved, and the neighbouring Tartar khanates reduced to vassalage; Imeretia, however, remained a separate kingdom under King Solomon. On the death of Nadir Shah Persia fell into a state of anarchy and civil war, and Irakli declared himself independent. But the Turkish danger became menacing once more, and the two Georgian missions to Joseph II. of Austria, asking for help against the Sultan, having failed, Irakli was persuaded to ally himself with Russia in 1769, as that Power was meditating a new Turkish campaign in which Austria promised to take part. War was declared, and the Russo-Georgian armies met the Turks near Akhaltzykh, but Irakli, like Vakhtang, was left in the lurch by his treacherous allies, who retired from the field of battle. By a superhuman effort he succeeded in defeating the Turks single-handed; but they soon returned in greater force, and Persian hordes, under the ferocious Aga Mohammed Khan, also poured into the unhappy land. Again Georgia was fearfully devastated, and in 1795 the capital Tiflis was burnt and captured by the Persians. Irakli managed to recapture the city a short time afterwards and expel the Persians from the country, but he was weakened and broken, and in 1798 he died. His son and successor, George XIII., entered into negotiations with Persia, but the Tzar Paul outbid the Shah, and in 1799 a Russo-Georgian treaty was concluded and confirmed in the following year. By its provisions King George, the magnates, the clergy, and the people of Georgia declared that
32 FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUCASUS
they wished to become Russian subjects; but the crown was to be vested in George and his heirs, who were to retain the chief authority in the country but without legislative powers; the people were to enjoy immunity from taxation for twelve years ; the number of Russian troops in Georgia was not to exceed 6,000, and military service for the Georgians was to take the form of a national militia; the Georgian Church was to be independent ; and Georgian was to remain the official and educational language. This is how the treaty was observed. On the death of George his son, Prince David, succeeded, and was waiting to be confirmed; but in the spring of 1802 General Knorring entered Tiflis with a Russianarmy. On May 8th he summoned the nobles to hear the Tzar's manifesto read in the Sion Cathedral. Every one expected merely that the treaty of 1800 would be confirmed; but the manifesto declared instead that the Russian administration was to be introduced “for the good of the country,” and that an oath of alle- giance was expected of the Georgian magnates. This they indignantly refused, and they were about to return to their homes when they found themselves surrounded by troops outside the church. A great uproar followed, and some rioting; David was de- posed, and a number of prominent Georgians were arrested. The Russians treated Georgia like a con- quered country, the officials and officers beat and ill- used the natives, and outraged their women. The result was that risings broke out in various districts, the people refused to pay taxes, and David was approached by a deputation of Georgians and Armenians who
*B8 bpd sonf of,
‘MOLVG AVN ‘SEIAL, NVISVOOYD I55M
THE CAUCASUS AND ITS PEOPLES 33
offered to organize a general revolution ; but he refused, from fear of the Russians, and was eventually sent to live in Russia. The state of the country, however, became so alarming that the Government decided on a more conciliatory policy. Prince Tsitsiani, a Georgian noble of high rank related to the Royal house, was appointed Governor-General, and com- missioned to introduce an aristocratic constitution on a national basis. This was done, and for some years Georgia enjoyed a more or less native and moderately liberal government. Freed from the danger of Mo- hammedan and highland raids, the people developed, commerce prospered, and literature and culture re- vived. It seemed as though the country would be- come one of the most loyal and peaceful as well as one of the most progressive provinces of the Empire.
But under Nicholas I. reaction set in, the censor- ship became more severe, and the Government tended to curtail the privileges of the people. This produced discontent, and led to the conspiracy of 1832, which was discovered before it had time to achieve anything, and numbers of Georgians of the best families were imprisoned or exiled. Gradually every vestige of constitutional government was suppressed, even the Church was placed under the control of the Russian Holy Synod and a Russian appointed Exarch, and the country reduced to the status of a conquered province once more. -Universal military service was introduced, and although it was never applied in its full rigour throughout the Caucasus, Georgians were sent to serve in Russian regiments in Europe and Siberia, while Russian army corps were quartered in
3
34 FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUCASUS
Georgia. Russian became theofficial language, every- thing was done to expel the Georgian tongue from the schools, and an attempt made to Russify the country still further by settling Russian colonies in Transcaucasia.
To-day the Caucasus forms a Viceroyalty divided into twelve provinces (seven guderniz, or governments, and five odéas¢z, or military territories) governed like any other part of the Russian Empire, with the same type of administration and the same _ bureaucratic machinery. But as in certain other frontier regions, the Governor-General or Viceroy has authority over the provincial governors, and even wider powers than those of ordinary Russian governors, and the zemstva, or elective provincial councils, have not been intro- duced, although there are elective municipal councils. A further difference is that the personnel of the bureau- cracy is even worse than that of European Russia. According to a secret document of the police depart- ment, which was shown to me, during the period 1894— 1898 the following officials were convicted of robbery, peculation, murder, and other crimes, and punished: 19 district governors (Uyezduye Nachalntkt), 9 assis- tant governors, 83 frtstavz (police commissioners), and two town chiefs of police! If these were actually punished one may be quite sure that a far larger number committed crimes which remained unpunished.
Russia does not distinguish between the various levels of civilization, nor between racial and re- ligious differences. In theory the Empire is one and indivisible, and every one has the same rights (or absence of rights) and the same duties, except in the case of the Poles and the Jews who are in
THE CAUCASUS AND ITS PEOPLES 35
a position of exceptional disability, and of the Finns who, until a few years back, enjoyed a wide measure of autonomy which they have recently regained. The Russians have none of that feeling of racial superiority over their non-Russian subjects, even when the latter are of a different religion and colour, such as the English feel with regard to the natives of India. A Georgian, an Armenian, an Osset, even a Tartar or a Persian may aspire to the highest ranks in the army or the bureaucracy. Russian soldiers, officers, and officials have no repugnance to serving under a non-Russian chief, whether he be white, brown, or yellow, Christian or Mohammedan. Thus we find Georgian generals like Prince Chavchavadze and Prince Orbeliani, Armenian generals like Lazareff, Loris Melikoff, Argutinsky, and Tergukassoff, Tartar generals like Alikhanoff Avarsky, Georgian governors like Tsitsiani and Nakashidze, not to mention many officers and civil servants of lower rank. Nor is there even any objection to non- Russians receiving appoint- ments among peoples of their own race. Socially, too, they are treated as equals, and Georgian, Tartar, and Armenian magnates are received in the highest circles of Russian society, and even intermarry with the Russian aristocracy, although intermarriage does not occur between Christians and Mohammedans. But in order to obtain these advantages, a native of the Caucasus must conform with Russian ideas and become more or less Russified, and almost forget his own nationality, not because the Russian is a chau- vinist, but because he suspects the loyalty of every one who is not a Russian in sentiment if not by race.
36 FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUCASUS
Consequently, efforts are made to introduce Russian as the general language of the Caucasus, and to dis- courage non-Russian schools in every way. Nor do the Russian officials ever trouble to learn the native languages of the provinces they are sent to govern. With regard to religion, the Georgian Church has been incorporated in that of Russia; the Armenian Church has remained independent, but has been placed under strict Government tutelage, and the Mussulman re- ligion is also controlled by Government's right of nominating the higher clergy.
Yet after a century of Russian rule, with more or less strongly accentuated Russifying tendencies, in spite of the spread of the Russian tongue and of Russian ideas and customs, and the supremacy of Russian bureaucratic methods, the Caucasus, or at least Trans- caucasia, has certainly not become Russian. The Georgians, the Armenians, the Tartars, and many of the minor nationalities, civilized or barbarous, Christian or Mohammedan, peaceful or warlike, have preserved their languages and their racial character- istics intact, and in many cases are imbued with strong nationalist feelings. There is no hatred of the Russians such as there is in Poland, or such as there was in Italy against Austria, but there ts a grim resolution to preserve language, nationality, and religion against all attacks, and at all events among the more civilized elements, a determination to put an end once and for all to Muscovite autocracy and bureaucracy. If the Caucasus is to continue to form part of the Russian Empire—and for the present it is impossible to see how it can be anything else— it can only be governed on a basis of popular autonomy.
Gacry on THE Buack Sea. Horet anv VILLA oF THe Puince ov OLDENBURG.
ARDILER Ox THR BLAck Sea Coast.
face page 37.
CHAPTER II EASTWARD HO!
HAD left Russia in November, 1904; I recrossed
the frontier at Alexandrovo in August, 1905. When I quitted the country nine months pre- viously the war in the Far East was at its height, the Russian Government, although shaken and weakened in its prestige, still controlled the situation, and despotism held almost undisputed sway. But Von Plehve was no longer Minister of the Interior, and his successor, Prince Svyatopolk-Mirsky took the first tentative steps on the path of reform. Yet no one suspected that revolution was so near, and that Russia was soon to be a prey to anarchy. The next few months witnessed many startling changes. In the Far East things went from bad to worse; defeat followed defeat, the Baltic fleet had ceased to exist, and the Manchurian army was weakened by disease and demoralized by failure. At home, the various progressive groups, from the mildest constitutionalists to the reddest revolutionists were growing daily bolder and more exacting in their demands; many concessions had been extorted from an unwilling autocracy, the press enjoyed a certain measure of
ST
38 FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUCASUS
freedom, riots and strikes were becoming more and more frequent, and from one end of the Empire to the other the cry for liberty was increasing in volume and insistence.
One of the most startling aspects of the Russian situation at that time was the uprising of the subject peoples, and the revival of nationalism in Poland, in Finland, in the Caucasus. The policy of the Russi- fying steam-roller had failed, and the oppressed nations who had been ordered by w#kaz to become Russians, whose Churches had been persecuted, whose languages had been proscribed, were now taking advantage of the weakness of the Government to claim their rights.
Otherwise the conditions were somewhat quieter, and tens of thousands of Russians who had fled the country in a panic were now beginning to return. The Friedrichstrasse Station at Berlin was crowded with Russians, and on the Warsaw train one heard nearly as much Russian spoken as German. On reaching the frontier the Customs examination was of the most cursory nature; the vast piles of luggage were looked at by the douanzers as though it were no concern of theirs, and we were hurried back to our cars. In the restaurant I noticed a typical sign of the times, viz., that the attendants professed to understand no Russian, and only replied when addressed either in Polish, French, or German. A language strike on the Warsaw-Vienna railway was then in progress to protest against the old ordinance making Russian compulsory for all State officials.
At Warsaw, the first sight to greet my eyes was a police cart bearing the body of a murdered
EASTWARD HO! 38
gendarme. The assassinations of policemen were then matters of daily occurrence to which no one paid much attention. The streets were patrolled ceaselessly, day and night, and the famous, or in- famous, Don Cossacks were most conspicuous. Other- wise Warsaw had little that was of interest to offer, so after a few days’ stay I continued my eastward journey.
From Warsaw to Odessa is a 26 hours’ run by the excellent trains of the South-Western Railway. One of my travelling companions is a young landed proprietor from the government of Kherson; we have hardly exchanged half a dozen words before he plunges into politics—a thing which would certainly not have occurred at this time last year. He is an enthusiastic Liberal, and the new Constitution just promulgated by the Tzar he regards as a mere farce. ‘‘We want something much wider than that, much more democratic. We want no ‘German’ Constitution which will leave all real power in the hands of the Tzar.” But he is also an ardent chauvinist, and although he disapproves of the war in the Far East, he is convinced that fifty years of liberalism will make Russia the first nation in the world. ‘‘We must have an exit from the Black Sea; we shall annex Con- stantinople and all the Balkan States, and perhaps India. If Germany opposes us we shall destroy her.”
As we travel southwards the heat increases, and the single small window admits very little air. At Odessa all is quiet, and there are hardly any visible traces of the June riots, for all the damage has been quickly repaired. Although further disturbances were not
40 FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUCASUS
generally expected, a foreign resident told me that he regarded an outburst of anti-Semitism as inevitable at no distant date. The air was full of peace and rumours of peace, and the conclusion of the war was momentarily awaited.
In the evening I boarded the steamer Zzesarevich Georgzt of the Russian Company, and at 7 p.m. we set sail for Batum. The journey is one of the most beautiful coasting trips in the world. The steamer is a large, comfortable, well-appointed boat with spacious cabins, a wide promenade deck, and a first-rate cuisine. We are fairly crowded as far as Yalta, for it is the height of the season in that smart watering-place. At ten the next morning after a smooth crossing we reach Sevastopol, where the famous Black Sea fleet rides at anchor. The Aznyaz Potemkin is in the inner harbour, almost dismantled. No one then imagined that a second and more serious mutiny would break out so soon, which was to reduce the whole fleet to a state of impotence. Many more passengers come on board, all of them bound for Yalta, and for the next few hours the ship is quite a “congested district.” The lovely coast-line is looking its very best in the perfect summer weather, and Yalta is brilliant. The quays and public gardens are thronged with gay crowds of fashionably dressed people, the hotels and restaurants are full, smart equipages are dashing up and down, and brass bands are playing, for all the world as though wars and revolutions were forgotten. The charming villas are all occupied, and as night falls the whole scene is lit up by the blaze of myriads of electric lights, like a city of fairy-
EASTWARD HO! 41
land. Yet even Yalta has had its dus/,* not so very long ago, when houses and shops were pillaged and burnt and several people killed or wounded. But all that is long past, and for a few weeks the country was enjoying the sense of relief and the hope of better times.
At nine we steam out of the harbour, almost all the passengers having landed. We follow the Crimean coast through the night, and the next morning spend a few hours at Feodosia; then across the bay to Novorossiisk, which we reach late at night. The weather continues perfect; the sea is as calm as a lake, and although the sun is hot, soft breezes waft across the deck and keep us cool even in the middle of the day. At night we are lulled to sleep by the gentle lapping of the water against the vessel's side. The few passengers are fairly representative of Cau- casian travel. There is a Russian lady of German extraction, who speaks several languages excellently, has considerable culture and a most agreeable conver- sation, and although she has only been out of Russia once in her life, she is in touch with the intellectual movements of Western Europe ; she proves to be the headmistress of a girl’s high school at Tiflis, and is altogether a type of the best class of Russian intel- lectual. Then there is an Armenian lady, also from Tiflis ; she, too, is a very good linguist, and has been educated in Germany. She is returning home after a short summer outing, but hopes to leave for Europe soon, for the terrible times which the Armenians of the Caucasus are passing through make her wish to
* Revolutionary outbreak,
42 FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUCASUS
get away from the scenes of horror. Her cousin, a little boy of twelve, is a characteristic Armenian type, and his white sailor suit brings out the dark- ness of his complexion. There is a young Russian officer just returned from Manchuria, a tall, sad-faced man, bearing traces of sickness; he is now on his way to Abbas Tuman, where he hopes that the high air and the waters will restore his shattered health. Some other officers on board (who have not been to Manchuria) object to the peace negotiations and are all for continuing the war, confident in the inevitable triumph of Russian arms. A Danish man of business, a Jewish commercial traveller on his way from Odessa to Baku, a couple of Orthodox priests, and two or three other people make up the list of cabin pas- sengers.
In the third class there is a still more varied mis- cellany of types and costumes: Greeks, Turks, Armenians, Georgians, Russians, Jews, and almost every other race of the Near and Middle East are represented. The sailors, too, are of many nation- alities, but the language of the ship is Russian ; curiously enough one can detect in the maritime jargon a number of Italian nautical expressions, such as vira, maina, tssa, bandiera, &c.; they are sur- vivals of the days when the sea-borne trade of the Euxine was wholly in the hands of the Genoese and Venetians, when the proud triremes of the Italian sea republics made annual voyages to Kaffa (Feodosia) and Tana (Azoff), and flourishing Italian settlements arose in all the most favoured spots of the coast.
From Novorossiisk to Batum we are almost always
EASTWARD HO! 43
in sight of land, a voyage of some thirty-eight hours, broken by many stoppages. It is a marvellous coast, grander and more beautiful than that of the Crimea, and far wilder. Range upon range of mountains rise up from the water’s edge, clothed with rich tropical vegetation and magnificent forests. Here and there, on clear days, some snowy peak of the western spurs of the Caucasus appears among the masses of cloud. This coast-land, fenced off from Europe by the giant barrier of the Caucasus, is one of the most beautiful and fertile regions of the earth’s surface. But for the past forty years it has been almost deserted. A territory of some 7,350 square kilometres contains barely 65,000 inhabitants, of whom 25,000 are in the town of Novorossiisk and 8,000 in Sukhum. Before 1864 the country was populated by several hundred thousand Circassians, formerly an independent com- munity under a vague Turkish protectorate. They were the last people to hold out against the Russians, and were famed as a most warlike, vigorous, chival- rous, and handsome race. Mohammedans by reli- gion, although preserving many pagan practices, they fought with desperate valour against the invaders. When at last the Russian troops had occupied the whole country, the Circassians could not reconcile themselves to the new conditions, and emigrated into Turkish territory. The story of that emigration isa terrible one, for nearly half of the 400,000 Circassians died of privation ; those who finally reached Turkey became one of the most turbulent elements of the population. The efforts of the Russian Government to resettle the country have proved almost fruitless,
44 FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUCASUS
and malaria devastates the whole coast, which is one of the unhealthiest regions in the world. Russia conquered the country after a series of desperate struggles and sacrifices, “but Nature,” in the words of a French traveller, ‘‘has got the upper hand over the Russians.” Some 30,000 Circassians remained behind ; a few thousand Russian peasants and officials have been planted in isolated settlements along the coast—miserable villages in the midst of nature's wealth and beauty—to die of fever. Only a small part of the territory is cultivated; a couple of Grand Dukes and some wealthy nobles have undertaken agricultural experiments with moderate success, the great monastic establishment of Novy Afon (New Athos) has cultivated a large estate, and at Gagry the Prince of Oldenburg has founded a new seaside resort, with hotels and gardens. From the steamer this place looks very beautiful and attractive, nestling amidst splendid forests coming down to the water's edge, while a deep, mysterious valley penetrates far inland ; but hitherto the venture has not been success- ful, for malaria and bad communications keep away intending travellers. The great coast road from Novo- rossiisk to Sukhum, which has been built at vast expense through virgin forests and across a thousand torrents, is always in need of repair. The absence of bridges makes it impassable for a great part of the year, and engineers and workmen die by hundreds of fever. The exiled Circassians have indeed been revenged by the fever, which keeps watch and ward over their ancient homes and deals death to the foreign intruder,
“Tu Lanp or tHe Gotpgn Fuegce.” Tux Mouts or THe Rion,
a = a as
‘Mincrauian Carts at Port.
16 page 45.
EASTWARD HO! 45
On the morning of the fourth day we are off the coast of the land of Colchis, and the mountains now recede some distance from the sea. We soon reach Poti, at the mouth of the Rion (the Phasis of the ancients), which here forms a marshy estuary. Poti was fairly important before the Russian occupation of Batum, and the Transcaucasian railway had its terminus there. But the harbour was a bad one, and the large steamers only touched at Batum, so that passengers from the interior had to travel by a small steamer from the railway terminus to the Turkish port. Since 1878 trade has gradually shifted to Batum, which is now in railway connection with Tiflis, and Poti, on account of its great unhealthiness, was almost abandoned. But within the last few years the town has been reviving; it is still a God-forsaken, poisonous place, surrounded by mosquito-ridden swamps and stinking pools, but owing to the energy of the mayor, M. Nikoladze, great harbour works have been undertaken, and the marshes are being slowly drained. In a few years’ time it will rival Batum, and already the improvements have been so successful that a great deal of the traffic which left Batum on account of the strikes and disorders has been transferred to Poti once more.
CHAPTER III BATUM
ARLY in the afternoon we are in sight of Batum, which offers a most beautiful prospect. The magnificent bay is surrounded by an amphitheatre of hills clad with rich vegetation of the most exquisite velvety green. Northwards stretches the marshy plain of the Rion, beyond which we may catch a glimpse of the Caucasus ; to the south and east are the wild Adjar mountains, purple, blue, and pink, extending to the Turkish border and beyond, while the Anatolian mountains jut out into the sea in numerous rocky headlands, hazy and _ indistinct. Batum itself is on the flat and built round the harbour. Seen from the ship it is a cluster of white and brown houses alternated with masses of tropical plants. A few ships are in the port, very few, for the town has been in an almost continual state of unrest ever since March, and trade is almost dead. The bay is naturally the finest port on this coast, and the great works carried out by the Russians have made it a really fine harbour. The territory of Batum, together with that of Kars, constitutes the last acquisitions made by Russia in the 46
Tue “Tzesarevicn Grorct” at Port.
To face page 47.
BATUM 47
Caucasus, having been assigned to her at the Berlin Treaty of 1878 as some reward for her victorious, but otherwise sterile, campaign. The Russian attack on Batum during the war had failed, while the operations in European Turkey were successful; at Berlin what she had gained in the Balkans was taken from her and Batum given to her instead. But it was only handed over under certain restrictive conditions ; it was to remain a free port outside the Russian Customs barrier, and it was not to be fortified. The object of these limitations was to safeguard foreign commercial interests in the Black Sea, and to ward off the danger that Russia should make a formidable naval base on the very borders of Turkey. The importance of Batum for Russia lay in the fact that it was then the only good harbour in Transcaucasia.
The conditions imposed by the Powers were of an unnatural kind, and such as could not bear the strain of circumstances. It was unnatural that Russia should not want to fortify such an important frontier position as Batum, and it was not in the least likely that either Turkey or the other Powers would go to war with her for doing so. Consequently, in the early ‘eighties Russia beyan to erect forts in the neighbourhood of the town, but outside the free port zone. Then other forts were built, but not armed, even within that zone. Finally, just as the Government had de- clared in 1870 that it no longer held itself bound by the provision of the Treaty of Paris forbidding it to have a war fleet in the Black Sea, so now it issued a note to the Powers in defiance of the Berlin Treaty, stating that Batum would be fortified,
48 FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUCASUS
and that as a fortress it could not continue to be a free port. The inner forts were thereupon armed, and the town became a stronghold of the first rank, which would serve as a base of operations in case of war in the Black Sea.
My first impression on landing at Batum was that I was really in Turkey, not in Russia. There are Russian buildings no doubt, Russian inscriptions, Russian uniforms. There is the dirt and the untidiness and the unfinished appearance of things, which is a characteristic common both to Russia and Turkey. But there is something more than all this; the feeling in the air is Turkish, the strange collection of swarthy Oriental faces, the picturesque rags, and the scarlet fezzes recall the harbours of the Turkish Levant. Russian disorder consists in not finishing things, and in neglecting essentials while devoting attention to externals ; Turkish disorder does not even begin things, and neglects externals quite as much as essentials. The noise and confusion of the crowd of porters, all picturesque and all villainous- looking, are also thoroughly Turkish, for in Russia proper they manage these things better, and pas- sengers are landed from trains or steamers more comfortably and with less fuss. The cab which con- veys me to the hotel is Russian, for it is far less dilapidated than a Turkish vehicle would be, and it has the supreme glory of rubber tires. The rubber tire is a form of civilization which has penetrated deep into the Caucasus. In the remotest towns of Transcaucasia, where clean hotels, insectless beds, decent food, schools, roads, security, and every
BATUM 49
other necessity or luxury of modern life are lacking, the rubber tire flourishes. My hotel plunges me again into Turkey. The French-speaking inter- preter of doubtful antecedents, the gaily-coloured Oriental rugs, the bedsteads of painted iron, and the broken-down furniture might have belonged to a hostelry at Uskiib or Salonika.
The great feature of Batum is the boulevard. Every Russian town of any size has some sort of public garden or park, called the boulevard, or the Alexandrovsky Sad (Alexander Garden), or the Gorodskoy Sad (Town Garden), where the band plays and people walk up and down. Most of these places of recreation in provincial cities are dreary, ill- kept, unattractive enclosures, with untidy flowerless beds and consumptive-looking trees. But at Batum the boulevard is a thing of beauty and wonderment. It is a broad avenue flanked by acacias, palms, cactus, bananas, and other tropical plants, as well as trees of the temperate zone, and one enjoys from it a fine view of the waters of the Euxine, deep-hued as indigo, cut by ranges of fairy head- lands and promontories. The gorgeous colouring, rich green, deep blue, and glowing purple, the steamy, oppressive air compose a thoroughly Eastern atmosphere. Beyond the avenue the boulevard ex- pands into a more elaborate garden, with rare trees, strange tropical flowers, and masses of heathery, waving grasses. At the end isa little lake cut off from the open sea by a narrow strip of land. At sunset its waters are of the most exquisite shimmering gold and rose red, over which thickly-leaved trees
4
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50 FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUCASUS
bend down, casting deep shadows on the metallic surface which they seem to kiss; reeds of every form and colour rise up to meet them; tall, slender palm-trees stand out black against the sky-line in the background, and along the dividing strip of sand figures of mounted Cossacks are seen riding in single file to water their horses. The whole spectacle re- calls pictures of India or of Egypt, no less brilliant in hue, no less intense in atmosphere. The air is heavy and reeking with damp. Everything is wet and clammy to the touch; steamy vapours exude from plants and pools, and one feels weary, exhausted, and lacking in energy. There ride the Cossacks, symbols of Russian power, while its deadliest enemy in the Caucasus is buzzing over the water—the fever-breeding mosquito.
The Russian Government has done much to improve the climate of Batum, to drain the marshes, to make the town healthy. Health stations have been established at Zeliony Muis and other spots above the marsh zone, and quinine has been imported by the ton, but Batum is still feverish, and all the inhabitants are sooner or later affected by the poison. By the port one breathes in all the foul smells of the East, and open sewers pursue their slimy course from the houses to the sea.
Before the Russian occupation Batum was a wretched village, inhabited chiefly by Turks, with an admixture of Greeks and other Levantines. Now it is a town of 30,000 souls, still more mixed as to race and religion. Some 10,000 Turks have remained behind, the greater part of whom are subjects of the
BATUM 51
Sultan ; there are some 10,000 Georgians—Gurians, Mingrelians, Imeretins, Mohammedan Adjars; 7,000 Russians (chiefly soldiers and officials), and 3,000 to 5,000 Persians, Greeks, Armenians, Tartars, &c. But a large part of the population is fluctuating. Gurian peasants come into town when there is a demand for labour and obtain employment in various industries, which they abandon and return to their fields in the harvest season, or when work is slack. Few towns present such a collection of different specimens of humanity, from the swarthy Persian to the blond Russian. [In all seaports of the Levant the ruffianly element is conspicuous, but Batum almost takes the palm for rascality of all descriptions. Murders, robbery, incendiarism have always been common occur- rences here ; the most extraordinary stories are told of crimes committed even by persons of the upper classes, and not a square mile of the country round is really free from brigandage. To maintain order among such people is no easy task, but Russia has certainly failed in it signally. In Turkish times the disorders were due to an insufficiency of troops and police, and the inefficiency of the administration; but now the number of troops is large, for Batum is a first-class fortress with batteries in the middle of the town, the police is numerous and well armed, the administration, if corrupt and incapable, is certainly an improvement on that of Turkey; yet public order has been going steadily from bad to worse, until the recent political disturbances reduced the town and district to a state of absolute chaos—an expression to which I shall have to resort frequently.
52 FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUCASUS
The prosperity of Batum is based on its position as an emporium for the export trade from the Caucasus, and on its industries. The latter are an offshoot of the Baku oil trade, and consist in a number of large case oil works. The oil is transported from Baku by rail or by means of a pipe line; and at Batum it is either shipped on to tank steamers or put into cases for export. The manufacture of these cases is a very elaborate undertaking, and constitutes an important trade. The largest works are those of Messrs. Rothschild, who, as owners of large oil-fields at Baku, are of course greatly interested in the export business. Their factory, situated outside Batum, employed several thousand men.
The workmen, as I said before, were mostly Gurians, from the district of Ozurgety, and also other groups of Georgians. Of late years the Social Democratic party has been pursuing its propaganda most actively and made many converts among the Batum working classes. Since the general state of unrest in Russia spread to the Caucasus, Batum has been a perfect hotbed of revolt. Early in the spring of 1905 the workmen of the port and of the factories went out on strike, demanding higher wages and shorter hours. But as a matter of fact, the wages in the case oil works are exceptionally high, the men earning as much as from two to three roubles a day, which is higher than the salary of any other class of workmen in Russia. Messrs. Rothschild’s manager said to me, in connection with this question: ‘ Le caractére de cette gréve c'est qu'elle n’en est pas une.”
BATUM 53
Like the first St. Petersburg strikes it was purely a manifestation of the general state of unrest of the country, and the demands of the strikers had political aspirations in the background. But unlike the strikers in St. Petersburg, those of Batum at once proceeded to violent measures, and from that day to this the town has not had a moment’s real quiet. When I arrived things were peaceable enough in appear- ance ; although the state of siege was in force there were no patrols, and hardly any policemen. Yet not a day passed without murders being committed in the streets, and no murderer was ever arrested. A terrorist committee existed, not ascribed to any definite party, but more or less connected both with the Socialists and the Social Revolutionists, recruited from the dregs of the people, which enforced its rule by means of assassination. In one of the suburbs of Batum, where a number of the most disorderly elements live, there was a man described as the real Governor of Batum, as distinguished from the official Russian Governor: his authority seemed to be considerable, and his word was obeyed as law. The methods by which the terrorists act are ex- tremely simple. Orders will suddenly be issued that the workmen of such and such a factory must strike ; the men obey without a murmur, and any manager or employee who attempts to stop the movement is assassinated. In some cases rufhans went on board steamers in the port and ordered the dock labourers to cease work at 3 p.m., and although the ruffians in question were absolutely unauthorized no one dared disobey them. In the town itself the terror
te eee)
54 FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUCASUS
was so great that the least sound or appearance of disturbance caused an immediate panic.
One afternoon I was taken to see the Rothschild case oil works outside Batum. We went by petro- leum launch across the bay, that way being safer than the carriage road. The works had been lying idle for months, and there was no prospect of their being started again in the near future. All the latest machinery and the most perfect plant had been set up, but was silent and useless. A guard of Cossacks was encamped in the enclosure, but even this was not considered sufficient protection, and a private guard had been organized and armed by the firm— with the full permission of the Russian Government. This concession, the manager informed me, was in itself a proof of the utter impotence of the bureaucracy, for unless they had felt their authority to have completely gone they would never have granted what even the French Government refused when, at the time of the Anarchist outrages in Paris, Baron Rothschild’s life had been threatened, and he wished to form a private bodyguard for his own protection. Tall natives, mostly Adjar Mohammedans, armed with revolvers and &zjaés (Caucasian knives) were standing about at all the entrances, and a group of Cossacks in very untidy a@éshkabille were squatting on the ground playing cards outside the stable where their horses were quartered. Here and there a few workmen were seen looking after the machinery and the stores. But in spite of all these precautions no less than eighteen employees of the firm had been assassinated during the last few months, and the lives of all the
“SNLOML UO BSVD SANVANOD OMIGVUL, NV VHLNAVN, NVLUSVD GXV VES XOVIG FHL LV GUVND NO SNDVSSOQ “NAIVE
BATUM 55
others had been threatened and often attempted. The ex-workmen either did not wish to return to work or did not dare, for the terrorist committee would not have hesitated to burn or blow up the establishment with dynamite.
It is not easy to understand what the object of the revolutionary parties is, unless it be that of making the government of the country impossible ‘until re- forms are granted. But while the leaders, especially in the great towns of Russia proper, may have more or less precise ideas on the subject, the masses understand nothing save the fear of the terrorists, and the possibility of plunder. All discipline has become relaxed, all authority is flouted. The Govern- ment did absolutely nothing save occasionally ex- asperate the people by some act of monstrous stupidity or bad faith. It seemed incredible that in a town fortified like Batum, surrounded by batteries bristling with guns, and garrisoned by large bodies of troops, murder and outrage should be so easy. No attempt was made to arrest the guilty, and in fact the word seemed to have been passed that the revolu- tionists should be left alone.
A curious instance of the Government's attitude is afforded by the story of the vicissitudes of the local paper (the Zchernomorsky Viesintk). This organ, under the editorship of a certain M. Palm, had been thoroughly reactionary ; but when the troubles broke out the revolutionists got control of it, obliged the editor to fly for his life, and supplied a staff of their own. Since then it has advocated ultra-Radical, not to say terrorist, views.
56 FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUCASUS
Last year a largely attended Socialist Congress was held in the town, with the express permission of Genera] Orbeliani, the military Governor-General, who assured the chairman that he would not be held responsible for any but his own actions and utterances. But as speeches against the Government were delivered—it was hardly to be expected that such a meeting should have been summoned for the purpose of blessing the autocracy and the bureaucracy —the said chairman was promptly arrested and kept in prison for several months. On being set at liberty he was appointed veterinary surgeon to the Tiflis municipal slaughter-house. In the meanwhile the really dangerous anarchists were undisturbed.
But behind all this movement of anarchy and terrorism there were the Georgian Nationalists of various shades, largely backed up by the aristocracy. The treatment of this class at the hands of the Russian Government has not strengthened their loyalty, and they have seized the opportunity of the general unrest to press forward their claims in favour of Georgian nationalism. They make use of the terrorists, secretly support them, and even supply funds for the work of agitation and strikes. These nobles are often outwardly on good terms with the Russian officials, and meet them as comrades and friends. The Vice-Governor said to one of the foreign consuls, while discussing some recent out-
rages: “If we could only arrest the few really important leaders, all the trouble would be at an end; but we have no notion where to find them.” ‘ You
must seek them,” the consul replied, “in the club,
BATUM 57
among your companions at cards, or among your guests at your own dinner-table.” The only show of activity on the part of the authorities was made on the day before the Peace of Portsmouth was officially proclaimed, when its conclusion was already a certainty; the local military commandant gave orders that the forts should be put in a state of defence with a view to the possibility of a Japanese naval attack !
A further element of uncertainty is provided by the Turks and Mohammedan Adjars. The latter are of Georgian race, but like the Pomaks and other converts to Islam, they are particularly fanatical, and hate the Christian Georgians very bitterly. They took no part in the strikes, for, like the Tartars, they were anxious to be on good terms with the powers that be, but awaited the opportunity of pouring into Batum, and, with the help of the local Mohammedans, of indulging in a general massacre of Christians. The Adjars are fairly well armed, for many of them have been formed into a sort of irregular local militia or frontier police. It is said that the Government has been trying to egg them on against the Gurians and other Christians, just as it encouraged the Tartars against the Armenians in the eastern provinces, but hitherto no general Christian-Mohammedan outbreak has _ occurred. The Adjars offered to undertake all the work of the case oil industries and of the docks, but the authorities hesitated before assenting to a measure which would certainly have converted Batum into a shambles. There are many foreign interests in
58 FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUCASUS
the town, and the Government was anxious to avoid the international complications which would certainly ensue.
At Batum I had my first interview with a Caucasian revolutionist in his own land. This was a certain Dr. V., who, although not a Georgian by birth, was thoroughly identified with the Georgian Nationalist movement; he was opposed to the Social Demo- crats, who disregarded the national aspirations of the Georgians. Besides being a doctor he was a prominent member of the town council, and the right-hand man of Prince Andronikoff, the mayor. Being anxious to have a talk with him, I obtained an introduction through a friend. Not that an intro- duction was necessary, for every one in the Caucasus is only too ready to welcome a foreigner, especially if he is a journalist or writer, for each person wishes to make his own views known to the European public ; but I was new to the country at the time, and thought that without introductions I should be regarded with suspicion. Dr. V. is a short, keen- eyed, middle-aged man, very nervous, but intelligent and enthusiastic. As he spoke no German or French, and as my Russian was very rusty, he produced an interpreter, a dark-skinned, dark-eyed Italian-Greek- Levantine-Turk, a ship-chandler by trade. He is (or was at that time) a Turkish subject, but called himself an Italian, and spoke the very oddest Italian I have ever heard. He was dressed with a sort of Levantine sham smartness, had _ well-oiled black hair and moustache, a flaming tie, and a diminutive silver-tipped walking-stick. Dr. V. and the inter-
MoHAMMEDAN AT PRAYER.
Cuaxva, wear Batum. Davinc Tea Luavas on tHe Inrantat Estate, To face page 59.
BATUM | 59
preter called on me at the hotel, and on my asking a few questions as to the revolutionary movement and aspirations, the doctor burst forth into a torrent of eloquence in which he set forth the history of Georgia from the earliest times, with a wealth of ethnological, geographical, and philosophical digres- sions. It was a considerable time before he reached even the Russian conquest, and doubtless if he could have stayed all night he might have come down to the present situation. But he had barely time to sketch it out in a few words without going into details, for he had another engagement. It was my first experience of that love of abstractions and theories which is so common in the Caucasus, and that habit of always going back to the dim origins of things before coming to the point. I cannot pretend that I was much illumined by my interview, for Dr. V. talked so fast and for so long without stopping that by the time he paused the poor interpreter could not remember a quarter of the discourse, and what he did remember his Italian was too uncertain to enable him to translate. In fact I understood or guessed more from Dr. V.’s Russian and from his gestures than from the worthy ship-chandler's Italian. How- ever, it gave me an insight into the Georgian mind, and the scraps of information I gathered helped to supplement others I was to get in the course of my travels.
I spent my days at Batum pleasantly enough visiting the town and its beautiful surroundings, not omitting the Imperial estate of Chakva, where there is a large tea plantation under the management of a
ne
60 FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUCASUS
Chinaman. Every morning I had a delicious bath in the warm sea, from a very primitive bathing es- tablishment. In the evening the military band played on the boulevard, and in spite of murders and the general feeling of unrest, and the uneasy suspicion that a bomb might burst at any moment, the people walked up and down listening to the strains of “Carmen” and “Il Trovatore.” They were a motley crowd of Georgians in the long ¢cherkesska* (a sort of frock-coat, tight at the waist, adorned with cartridge pockets) and dask/yk (a hood-turban), dark Persians in tall, black fezzes, blue-coated gendarmes, wild-looking Cossacks, handsome Adjars in tight- fitting costumes of an indigo hue, with a sprinkling of men and women in European attire, Russians or foreigners. All these divers elements were outwardly on friendly terms with each other, and quite ready to chat peaceably to-day—and to cut each other's throats to-morrow.
* The word is a Russian one, and means Circassian ; although the costume was originally that of the real Circassians, it is now commonly adopted by many other Caucasian peoples.
CHAPTER IV KUTAIS AND THE GEORGIAN MOVEMENT
HE line from Batum to Kutais follows the sea-
coast for a few miles, and then turns inland into the rich alluvial plains of Mingrelia—a soil burst- ing with fertility but cursed by the everlasting malaria. Transcaucasian railways leave much to be desired as regards comfort, speed, and cleanliness, but the curious sights along the line more than make up for other drawbacks. At every station is the usual variegated crowd of picturesque natives, with their many racial types, and the usual confusion of goods and untidy parcels on the platforms. Small boys and girls come to the carriage windows to sell fruit, of which there is a marvellous abundance. For five kopecks (1}d.) you can get a large basket of figs or a huge bunch of grapes; but alas! the Caucasus deserves its fame as the land of unripe fruit and the luscious-looking products of the soil prove to be hard, sour, and indigestible. Why the peasants do not wait a little longer and pick them only when really ripe, I
cannot conceive. At Samtredy, there is a branch line 61
62 FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUCASUS
to Poti, the original terminus of the Transcaucasian railway before the Russian occupation of Batum. This station is celebrated as being one of the chief resorts of thieves and cut-throats in the Caucasus; you cannot leave your compartment unwatched while having lunch, and it is necessary to summon a nosstlshtchtk (porter) to look after it. Most Russian railway stations are infested with thieves, and it is always advisable to have your carriage locked by the guard when leaving it for more than a few minutes; but in the Caucasus, as in some large Russian stations, this is not enough, for the thieves are provided with keys, so that personal supervision is necessary. A peculiarity of the Transcaucasian lines is the enormous number of ticketless passengers. As soon as a train starts numbers of well-armed barbarians rush into the carriages, cling on to the platforms—they often jump in when the train is already moving at its mad career of twelve or thirteen miles an hour. The guard comes round for tickets and difficulties arise ; this sort of Ollendorfian con- versation ensues: “‘ Have you a ticket?” ‘No, but I have a large revolver and a large knife, and my brother has a large revolver and large knife, and so have my cousins and my friends.” The guard takes in the situation at a glance and passes by on the other side. It has been calculated that some 30 per cent. of the passengers on the Caucasian lines were innocent of tickets. I need hardly add that the line does not pay, but as it is guaranteed by the State and gets a subvention, the shareholders receive dividends, so
that everybody is happy.
Kutats. Grorcian Tyres.
sce page 62.
KUTAIS AND THE GEORGIAN MOVEMENT 68
A four hours’ run brought me to Kutais, which is on a short branch line from Rion Junction on the Batum-Baku line to the important coal mines of Tkvibuli. Kutais is a quaint, attractive old town built on both banks of the Rion river and dominated by a steep, wooded hill, on the summit of which are the ruins of a castle and of a large church. The streets are irregular and unpaved, so that in dry weather they are buried in clouds of dust, and when it rains the mud is several inches deep and expands at frequent intervals into large lakes. The houses are of a curious Oriental style, not like those of Turkey, but with marked peculiarities of their own. They have large wooden balconies and projecting eaves, and their dominant feature is the glass-covered veranda, on to which many of the rooms look. It is a most incon- venient arrangement from the point of view of comfort, especially in hot weather, when it effectually excludes fresh air. In the hotel, which is otherwise quite decent, nearly all the rooms have both window and door opening on to the veranda, so that there is no means of ventilation, and the atmosphere is indescribable. From the bridge over the Rion one enjoys a charming view, both up and down stream, of the quaint old houses overhanging the banks of the surging torrent, and the masses of trees and luxuriant vegetation add a charm of freshness.
The population of Kutais numbers some 30,000 souls, nearly all of them of the Georgian race —Khartvels, Mingrelians, Imeretins, Svanets, and other varieties—and there are small settlements of Russians, Armenians, Mohammedans, and Jews. It
64 FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUCASUS
is the capital of a government with a population of over a million. The town is the centre of the Georgian movement, and may be regarded in a sense as the capital of Georgia, for now that Tiflis is becoming more and more Armenian the Georgians are shifting westward, and Kutais is the largest purely Georgian town. A walk through the bazars offers a sight of many picturesque types; handsome, dignified men attired in the usual ¢écherkesska, tall Astrakhan cap, gaily-coloured tunic, trousers tucked into high heel-less boots, and long knives attached to the leather belt. Nominally, no one is supposed to carry arms, but as a matter of fact nearly every Georgian does. The women are less picturesque than the men ; the most striking detail of their costume is the little flat embroidered cap, whence a long, white veil hangs down ; artificial curls are usually attached to it. The members of the aristocracy generally wear the native costume, but of course richer and more splendid than that worn by the peasants. A white ¢cherkesska, adorned with gold braid, is particularly becoming. I remember one old Georgian, who had served in the Russian army and had been wounded in the last Turkish war; his ¢écherkesska was of a rich reddish brown, his breast was covered with decorations, and he wore a beautifully chased £zmza/ and an elaborate revolver. Another Georgian prince I met—there are princes by the hundred in Kutais—indulged in a most peculiar head-dress ; when I first saw him I thought he was wearing a particularly large lamb’s-wool papakh (native cap), but on closer inspection it proved to be his own very ample and curly hair! He was a fairly
Kerals. Houses axp Garbexs ox tHE Rion.
|P
Koras Prnutive Native Carts with Soin Wumets.
Te face page 6+
KUTAIS AND THE GEORGIAN MOVEMENT 65
well-educated man, and had travelled even as far as London a few years before. That huge head of hair in Piccadilly is a thing imagination boggles at.
Kutais has few of the resources of civilization. There is, as I have said, a fair hotel kept by an old Swiss lady and her daughter, the boulevard (a square garden in the middle of the town with large trees and no flowers), a theatre where performances are given in Russian and Georgian, and a few unambitious shops. It has been left out of the march of progress, and is materially far behind most Russian towns, and even many Caucasian towns such as Tiflis, Baku, Batum, or Vladikavkaz. But the scenery of the neighbourhood is very beautiful and mountainous, and there are some interesting old buildings to be visited. On the hill above the town are the ruins of what must have been a really fine church of red sandstone. It is an oblong in form with rounded apse and transepts, and narrow, round-arched windows somewhat suggestive of Norman architecture. In fact the Georgian style, like the Armenian, to which it is closely allied, is an outcome of the Byzantine, and there is little doubt that Greek architects or natives educated at Constantinople built many of the churches. Even Russian architecture is derived from the Byzantine, but it has greatly exaggerated all the features of its models and made them awkward and ridiculous, whereas the Georgian- Armenian churches, if without the wealth and splen- dour of those of Constantinople, preserved a genuine purity of design which appears even in comparatively modern buildings. Another more interesting church is the monastery of Ghelati, about two hours’ ride from
5
\
66 FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUCASUS
Kutais. There is 4 broad, grass-covered enclosure, surrounded by a stone wall, on the side of a hill over the valley of the Tzkhal-Tzitheli, embracing a splendid panorama of forest-clad heights and rocky peaks, with fresh, green valleys and plains extending in every direction. The cathedral of St. Mary, in the middle of the enclosure, is an imposing structure built of colossal blocks of red sandstone. The exterior is a rectangle, but the roof indicates the cruciform plan. At the crossing of the nave and the transept is a polygonal drum supporting a conical dome. Several projections and additions have been built round it, such as three porches, which somewhat obscure the general shape of the edifice. The interior is im- pressive, for its unusual proportions, combining great height with a comparatively small area, produce an effect of vast size and dim distances. There are frescoes and mosaics of no great artistic merit on the walls, but decorative and attractive ; some are said to be the work of Genoese artists in the Renaissance, for that nation had intimate connection with the land of Colchis. Besides the cathedral there is a little chapel containing the tomb of David, King of Georgia (1089- 1125), and the iron gates of the Persian city of Ghanja (the modern Elizavetpol) captured by him. To-day both the tomb of the conqueror and the city he cap- tured are under the rule of the same alien people. The monks have the reputation of being somewhat inhospitable and disinclined to show strangers the treasures of the church. But my experience was different. After I had been taken round all the sights by a courteous monk and was waiting until the
KUTAIS AND THE GEORGIAN MOVEMENT 67
heavy storm, which had broken after months of heat and drought, should cease, the zgumen, or abbot, sent to fetch me, and received me in a most friendly manner in his own apartment. He was a handsome, grey-bearded old man, and spoke Russian slowly so that I should understand, and once when he thought I had not grasped his meaning he translated his remarks into ancient Greek! He asked me if in my country there was freedom of speech and of conscience, and on my replying in the affirmative, he sighed and said, ‘Alas! here we are slaves of a tyrannical Government ; but better times are coming, and we too shall soon have a revolution.”
When the rain stopped my guide and I remounted our horses and turned homewards. The former was an immensely fat Mingrelian; like all Caucasians he knew how to ride, but his vast proportions made it impossible for him to mount on to the high native saddle without a step or a heap of stones. Once he was mounted he would start off at a gallop down the most impossible tracks and through deep pools of mud. For some reason or other he did not wear the picturesque native dress, but rigged himself out in a very rusty, ill-fitting black suit, pointed yellow boots, a stiff shirt and collar of bright pink, a black tie and a cycling cap; a more incongruous figure could hardly be conceived. This was my first experience of a Caucasian saddle, and I shall not easily forget it. It consists of a large leather cushion placed on the wooden framework, and attached to it by means of the belt which keeps the whole affair on the horse’s back. Thestirrups are so placed that you cannot lean
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back but are obliged to sit perfectly straight, and as they are very short your legs are crumpled up at an angle of thirty degrees. Bridle and saddle are in the most dilapidated condition, and kept together with bits of string ; there are quantities of little straps and buckles and other oddments for which I could find no conceivable use. The horses themselves are wiry little mountain ponies, with a distant touch of the Arab in them, and if you are fortunate you may get one which really has some go; but as a rule hired animals are most unsatisfactory, and any one intending to ride a great deal should buy his steeds, for they are very cheap.
There are many cultivated and intelligent men among the Georgians, and indeed the government of Kutais has one of the lowest percentages of illiteracy in the Empire. The Georgians are an essentially literary people, and most members of the upper class write in the newspapers and reviews. Georgian papers are published at Tiflis only, and hitherto permission to issue a Georgian paper at Kutais has always been refused by the Russian authorities. There are quite a number of Georgian poets of distinction both ancient and modern, of whom the best known are Rustaveli among the older ones (the author of ‘‘ The Man in the Leopard’s Skin’’), and Prince Ilya Chavchavadze among the moderns ; there is also a Georgian national drama, and a host of translators from foreign languages, novelists, and journalists. Literary activity has gone hand in hand with the political movement, and the chief writers are also the leaders of Georgian Nationalism. One finds Prince Chavchavadze’s portrait
susaiig NVIDNOTD Y
CMVLAY AVEN LVTEHD 40 AMEUSVNOTY
KUTAIS AND THE GEORGIAN MOVEMENT 69
_ in many a country inn and peasant cottage, as well as in the houses of the better class. The Georgian theatre is quite a flourishing institution, and some of the actors are excellent, although the majority of the plays are translations.
This love of literature is common to many races who, although civilized, have been denied political freedom, and books are the only outlet for exuberant and cultivated intellects. But if literature has kept alive national sentiment, it has in the case of the Georgians militated against a development of a practical spirit like that of the Armenians. Con- sequently, in spite of their cleverness, the Georgians are a weaker element than their capabilities would lead us to believe, and they are everywhere giving way before the more “ pushful ” Armenian.
The Georgian is sympathetic, handsome, very friendly and _ hospitable, well-mannered, but un- practical, happy-go-lucky and extravagant. Few of the Georgian nobles have remained even moderately wealthy ; there are immense numbers of impoverished ‘princes ” all over the Caucasus, although they have not lost their pride with their wealth. At the same time they have given proof of a devoted attach- ment to ideals and a readiness to undergo great sacrifices for the sake of their nationality and freedom which are wholly admirable.
I had occasion to visit some Georgian interiors at Kutais, and in all I found a warm welcome and friendly hospitality. A Georgian home, even of the better class, is a simple establishment, and the people’s way of life primitive and unostentatious. The chief
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furniture consists of broad, hard. sofas called ¢akstas covered with handsome Oriental carpets, other rugs hung up on the walls, and a few chairs and tables of Russian and German make. All the men of the upper class speak Russian as well as Georgian, although it is not always the case with the women. Some speak French and German too, and a few even English.
The fascinations of the Georgians have attracted many foreigners to visit the land and study the people, and the latest addition to the little band of Georgian scholars is an enterprising English lady whose acquaintance I made while at Kutais, An excellent linguist, she determined to add Georgian to her many other tongues, and indeed proposed to learn Armenian and Tartar as well, so as to be able to study the Caucasus de fond en comble. Undeterred by weak health and the discomforts which life in the Caucasus entails, she made up her mind to settle down in Georgia for many months, giving English, French, and German lessons in exchange for instruc- tion in Georgian. Already in a couple of months she had made one hundred and twenty-five acquaintances, and by this time no doubt she knows half the Georgian people.
The political situation at Kutais, and the aspirations of the Georgians were reaching an acute stage at the time of my visit. I described in a previous Chapter how the Russian Government, in spite of its treaties and formal promises, destroyed every vestige of Georgian autonomy, and treated Georgia as an integral part of Russia; it did everything in its
KUTAIS AND THE GEORGIAN MOVEMENT 71
power to Russify the inhabitants by means of Rus- sian officials, Russian schools, and Russian bureau- cratic methods. But nevertheless the old patriotic feelings were by no means dead, and the greater proportion of Georgians remained attached to their language and nationality. At Tiflis the process of Russification was more successful, and many Geor- gians of the upper classes took to speaking Russian even among themselves. But at Kutais, and of course in the remote districts, the native tongue continued to hold its own, in spite of the fact that the Russian officials make a point of never learning the vernacular tongues of the provinces they are sent to govern, thus obliging the natives to learn Russian. During the reigns of Alexander III. and Nicholas II., especially while Prince Golytzin was Governor-General of the Caucasus, the policy of the Government was one of extreme reaction and Russification; the Georgians, having no longer an independent Church, were deprived of one focus of national life and activity. Prince Golytzin’s espe- cial bugbear was the Armenians and the Armenian Church, but even the Georgians found little favour in his eyes, and every attempt was made to pro- scribe the Georgian language. Any movement that savoured of nationalism was sternly repressed, and the Georgian zntel/igentza, consisting of nobles and literary and professional men, were objects of pro- found distrust. In spite of this policy the move- ment continued to progress in an underhand way, and, although there was no possibility of organization, the leaders of Georgian public opinion secretly hoped for
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the time when their old supremacy would be restored. Their aspirations were vague and their discontent latent, but the national sentiment was very real. When the war in the Far East broke out, and Russian disasters followed one another in quick succession, the Georgians, like all the other subject races of the Empire, as well as the Russian Liberals, began to advance their demands for freedom and autonomy more openly than they had ever dared to do before, several recognized parties came to be formed, and there was a great and unexpected revival of the Georgian idea. Talk of autonomy, freedom, nationality, self-government, was on every- body’s lips. But by the side of the national movement, another very active agitation made its appearance—that of the Social Democrats. The conditions of the peasantry in Georgia had long been very unsatisfactory. The nobles, hospitable, extravagant, and unpractical, like Irish landlords, had squandered away their fortunes, and could only exist by squeezing their dependents. The land is held on the méfatrie plan, which, as in Tuscany, where it is worked equitably, results in better relations be- tween landlord and peasant than any other, but where it is abused leads to the most bitter hatred; the peasant has always the feeling of being part pro- prietor of the land, so that any act of injustice committed by the landlord has far more the aspect of robbery than where the peasant is merely the hired labourer or the tenant farmer. In many parts of the country there are also peasant proprietors, but as a rule they have not enough land to keep them,
KUTAIS AND THE GEORGIAN MOVEMENT 73
as the methods of agriculture are extremely primitive. Moreover, within the last few years a certain amount of industry has been developed in the Western Caucasus. The manganese mines of Chiatury, the coal-pits of Tkvibuly, the large case oil works of Batum, the harbours of that town and of Poti, and of course the railways, gave occupation to numbers of Georgians. There was not a permanent industrial working class, but, as was the case in Russia until quite recent times, the peasants of certain districts were in the habit of going periodically to the industrial centres to work for a few months, returning to their fields at harvest-time. All this provided a most fertile soil for the growth of Socialism, and the newly-formed Socialist party in Russia sent emissaries to the Caucasus in consider- able numbers. The Georgian peasantry, as well as some of the students and other “intellectuals,” were quickly attracted by the propaganda, and, as M. Staroselsky, the Governor of Kutais, told me, they have now no further need of outside agitators, but are quite capable of providing their own leaders. Curiously enough, the Russian authorities did not altogether disapprove of the Socialist agitation, and we find in Georgia the same tendency to encourage Socialism as an antidote to middle-class Constitu- tionalism and Liberalism as in Russia itself, where the famous Zubatoff movement of the Moscow work- men was actually organized under the auspices of the secret police. Prince Golytzin and the bureaucrats of the Plehve school were far less afraid of Social Democracy than of the Nationalism of the Georgian
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nobles and intellectuals, whose aims were in the direction of constitutional government, and there- fore incompatible with autocracy, of national autonomy which might lead to separation and the break-up of the Empire, and of an autocephalous Church, which naturally aroused the fears of M. Pobiedonostzeff. Consequently, Social Democracy, which was in its beginnings a purely economic movement, and at all times essentially anti-national, was not opposed with the vigour which might have been expected, and if not actually countenanced, neither was it actively repressed. Prince Golytzin hoped to create a breach between the Georgian Nationalist upper classes and the peasantry, and to introduce a mild milk-and-water Socialism, sufficient to weaken the autonomists, but docile and friendly to the authorities.
But when, after Prince Golytzin’s departure and the outburst of the war, the bonds of discipline were loosened, the revolutionary movement spread like wildfire throughout the land, and it soon became evident that the Social Democrats, who had been slowly and efficiently organizing themselves, had become a real power, and were anything but favourably disposed towards the Government. The Nationalists had been unable to organize, and were therefore less formidable, whereas the Socialist movement had penetrated deep into the minds of the people, so that large districts were almost solidly Socialist. The various groups of Nationalists tried to organize themselves, and having more money were able to achieve something, but it was very little
KUTAIS AND THE GEORGIAN MOVEMENT 75
as compared with what the Social Democrats had done. There was a certain amount of agrarian anti-landlord agitation, and several influential land- lords like Prince Eristavi and Prince Guriely were assassinated by their own peasants. The districts of Gory, Dushet, Kutais, and Ozurgety were hotbeds of disturbance, and the peasants began to refuse to pay the landlord his share of the produce of the soil, or at all events to pay only a small part of it. In some cases they quietly gave him notice that his presence was no longer required on his estates, and they provided him with a cart with which to remove himself and his belongings. Over large districts the peasants, on the exhortation of agitators who told them that either God or the Tzar had decreed that the land was theirs, annexed first the property of the Church and the State, and next that of private landlords.
But there was not always great antagonism between landlords and peasants, or between Nationalists and Socialists. The hatred of the Government was so intense that other differences were, if not forgotten, at all events shelved. The nobles had hoped, no doubt, for a return to the old times, when they ruled the land, for the revival of an autonomous Georgia governed by an oligarchy. But seeing that this was impossible, they were ready to ally themselves with the Socialists, or at least to avoid friction with them.
Wishing to learn something of aspirations of the various parties, I applied to Prince M., a pleasant, intelligent old nobleman who had practically given up
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his lands as there was no possibility of cultivating them successfully during the present agitation, and was devoting himself to industrial pursuits. He was employed in the Manganese Institute at Kutais—a sort of Chamber of Mines—where he introduced me to representatives of several Liberal groups, and one revolutionist, a certain M. Z. (of whom more anon), sketched out the various aspirations in a most synthetic and clear way. A common feature to all these programmes, which came as a surprise to me, was the fact that every one of them had as its first article the abolition of the Monarchy and the establishment of a republic. I asked my informer if there were no Constitutionalists among the Geor- gians. He replied, “Only a few mouchards (spies) and officials. We have no use for Tzars in the Caucasus.” Asa matter of fact, I do not think that this was entirely the case, and although republican feeling, as is natural among such a doctrinaire people, is much more general than in Russia proper, there is a considerable proportion of Geor- gians—probably the majority—who would be satisfied with a Liberal Monarchical Constitution, accom- panied by a wide measure of economic reforms. Another common feature was the desire for agrarian reform on semi-Socialistic lines. A third was the large amount of ill-digested abstract theories im- ported from Europe, regardless of the conditions of ignorance and backwardness prevailing in Russia, and the easy confidence with which the solution of every problem by means of paper reforms was predicted.
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I shall begin with the programme of the Federailists. This party desires a sort of Home Rule for the Caucasus, whereby delegates are to be sent to a federal parliament in St. Petersburg for international and general questions, while the local affairs of the country are to be administered by a local assembly. But there must be also a sort of sub-Home Rule for the various Caucasian races—Georgians, Armenians, Tartars, &c.—each of whom are to have a special council. Thus Russia will come to form a federal republic on the basis of the United States of America, and not a centralized republic like France. The Federalists are also Socialists, and recognize the necessity of class warfare. But at present the national problem is so urgent that it obscures the class struggle, and must be solved before social reform and the abolition of capital can be tackled. Once it is settled it will be possible to set to work to develop the ‘Socialist conscience” of the working classes. In the economic field the Federalists believe that land nationalization will result from the revolution. The domains of the State, of the Church, and of the nobles must be expropriated and handed over to the rural communes, which are to be so organized that every man shall have just as much land as he can work him- self without the help of hired labour. The Federalists do not think that society is sufficiently developed at present for the socialization of capital in the towns (personal and house property and industry). Further demands are for an eight hours’ day, a minimum salary, and the rest of the general Socialist programme. For the present the Federalist party
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is allied with the Social Revolutionists, who believe in the necessity for violent measures to achieve reform. This explains how it is that one finds Georgian nobles and terrorists working more or less hand in hand.
The Georgian Social Democrats are in close touch with that party in Russia, their views being indeed of a more general and universal character than those of any other group. They aspire to a_ centralized republic, one and indivisible, with no local govern- ment beyond that of town and provincial councils, uniform all over the country. They disregard diffe- rences of race, nationality, and religion, believing that there would be no racial antagonism if it were not for the iniquities of the capitalists and the nobles. Their ideas of agrarian reform are based on a policy of land nationalization, but they propose to begin by depriving the peasant proprietors of their land so as to make the struggle more acute—“ the proletarization of the peasantry,” as they call it. In practice, however, their proposals are much less sweeping, and they would limit themselves to giving back to the peasants the land which has been annexed by the nobles and the State since the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. The Social Democrats also claim a large number of political reforms, such as universal suffrage (including that of women), the suppression of the standing army, the election of judges, and a wide measure of self- government for the inhabitants of each district. In theory they are opposed to all violent measures and desire to effect their reforms by means of passive resistance to the authorities, and it was thus that the
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Ozurgety experiment,* was begun. But latterly they have adopted a more resolute attitude; they have armed themselves and had frequent encounters with the troops in various parts of the country. Their strength lies in the desire for agrarian reform and their practical attempts to put an end to the existing administrative misgovernment. But their weakness in the Caucasus is due to their disregard of the exist- ing and very real racial and religious antagonisms, which cannot be swept away by merely saying that they are not there.
Besides these two parties there are other smaller groups. The Anarchists, merely aim at the destruc- tion of the existing order of the State and society, without troubling about what is to replace it. Then there are the Progressive Democrats and the Party of Independence; both desire the complete independence of the Caucasus, which is to be divided into a number of autonomous federated States. They do not wish to destroy the rights of property, but demand wide social legislation. The idea of render- ing the Caucasus, with its hopeless medley of rival peoples, wholly independent is too extravagant to be seriously contemplated. But I have met several Caucasians who hankered after some such solution, and even suggested that England should intervene to bring it about!
What has been the attitude of the Russian Govern- ment towards these various movements? Its natural tendency was to repress them unmercifully, but partly owing to its weakened prestige and partly on account
* See next Chapter.
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of the growth of progressive ideas in European Russia it attempted at first to avoid violent methods. But its weakness was so manifest that the Georgians were encouraged to flout its authority, and things reached such a pitch that the Russian officials were incapable of enforcing their orders. The impossibility of coercing the Georgians and a desire to conciliate them led to the appointment of a very liberal, almost socialistic Governor of Kutais, M. Staroselsky. M. Staroselsky is the son of a Russian father and a Georgian mother ; he has lived nearly all his life in Georgia, where he held the position of agronome, or agricultural specialist—a profession usually associated with liberal ideas. Until about a year ago he was regarded with great suspicion by the authorities, and @ perquisition in his house was actually carried out by the police. He was in sympathy and close touch with the local Socialists, who indeed regarded him as one of themselves. But when he was appointed Governor in August, 1905, he found himself in a very difficult position. His Socialist friends abandoned him because he had accepted the appointment ; his own official staff and the Russian colony were opposed to him for his liberalism and his Georgian sympathies ; and he had not the resource of military power to back him up, for, apart from the smallness of the garrison in Georgia, it was against his principles to make use of force. He hoped, however, to pacify the country by conciliation. ‘‘The Government,” he said to me, ‘has given up all idea of coercing the Georgians by violence.” He seemed to me a sympathetic, cultivated man, of high ideals and strong principles, very
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different from the average type of Russian échinounth. He was one of the only high Russian functionaries | have ever met who was not in uniform, and he was quite free from all taint of bureaucracy. He believed that in three months the country would be pacified, and if his predictions have not been borne out, it is certain that things would not have reached such a pass had there been more Staroselskys in the Caucasus. *
When I was in Kutais the fullest freedom of meet- ing and of speech obtained. The very day I arrived I went up to the Arkhiereiskaya Gora to see the ruins of the old church and enjoy the view; there on a grassy plateau I came upon a largely attended poli- tical gathering. The scene was almost theatrically picturesque ; the people were collected among grey ruins and broken arches, with a hazy background formed by range upon range of blue mountains. Many varieties of strange costumes were there. | could not appreciate the eloquence of the orators nor the force of their arguments, for they spoke in Georgian, but the ever-recurring allusions to Sotzzad- Demokratzia, revolutzia, biurokratzia, left little doubt as to the subjects under discussion. Later on I was present at a performance given in the theatre to collect funds for the revolutionary propaganda, and many violent speeches and political allusions were made, the proceedings ending with the A/arsezllatse, sung by the chorus in its Georgian version, of which the air is very tame and emasculated, but the words, I am told, are extremely violent. Even in the streets and in the
* He is now on his trial for high treason. See Chapter XVII. 6
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public garden daily meetings were held, in which the Government was roundly abused, and at every turn one came upon knots of people discussing politics with great heat.
Instances of more violent forms of lawlessness were not wanting, and a few days before I arrived a Russian colonel was murdered in peculiar circum- stances. A student had been killed in an ¢mente some time before, and at his funeral several soldiers had brought a wreath to the grave. The colonel, who was well known for his brutality, punished the men severely. A few days later he himself was stabbed in the back in the boulevard in the afternoon. He fell mortally wounded, and though numbers of people were present, including several soldiers, the assassin got off scot-free, and no one came to the colonel’s assistance. He remained untended for some time, and when at last help arrived he died on the way home. The funeral was held as quietly as possible, as demonstrations were feared, but the soldiers, who alone were present, could hardly restrain their joy. Every one in Kutais knew who the assassin was, but he was never arrested.
The people were living in a state of excitement, as risings and repressions were feared at any moment, and almost every day news came in from the outlying district of encounters between troops and peasants, of Cossacks being quartered in villages, of murders of landlords and officials, of massacres by soldiers. But in spite of the panic people led their usual lives, chatting, laughing, singing, and discussing politics. It is curious to note that hardly ever was the Japanese
KUTAIS AND THE GEORGIAN MOVEMENT 83
war, then just over, even alluded to, so little was the interest it aroused among the peoples of the Caucasus. The same thing was observable even in Russia, when the great struggle played a far smaller part in the lives of the people than it would have done in any other country. But to the Caucasians the war meant nothing at all.
CHAPTER V THE GURIAN “REPUBLIC”
NATURAL complement to a stay at Kutais is
a visit to Ozurgety. Kutais is the centre of the Georgian movement, where ideas are discussed and plans matured. But there the Government, in spite of its weakness, still exercised a semblance of authority. At Ozurgety the ideas and plans were being put into execution and a practical experiment in peasant autonomy of a very interesting nature was made. Guria, of which Ozurgety is the capital, is a district of the government of Kutais, where all the peculiarities of the Georgian character are seen in their most intense expression. The Gurians are the bravest and most warlike, most chivalrous, most handsome, most hospitable, most educated, although not the most unpractical of the Georgians. Every village has its own library, and even those furthest from the Govern- ment post stations provide their own mail service so as to receive the daily papers from Tiflis, Batum, and Russia. For the past two years they have been putting the theories of Social Democracy into practice, defying the Russian Government and refusing to recognize any authority but their own.
Ly
THE GURIAN “REPUBLIC” 85
The experiment is to a large extent in accordance with Tolstoy's theories of government, and last spring the great novelist wrote to a friend on the subject as follows :—
“What is happening in Guria is an event of immense importance. Although I am aware that the Gurians have not even heard of my existence, I have nevertheless a great desire to express to them the ideas and sentiments which they have awakened in me by their admirable movement. Tell them, ‘ There is an old man who for twenty years has been cease- lessly repeating that all the evils of humanity are due to the fact that men are always expecting to find some external aid with which to organize their lives; and when they see that the authorities do not aid them and do not create order, they begin to accuse them, to condemn them, to revolt against them.’ What should be done is exactly what the Gurians are doing, viz., to organize life in such a manner that there should be no need for any authority. .. .
‘Tf it is possible, tell them how great was this old man’s joy when he learned that what he had been thinking and writing for so many years, what the wise and those who think themselves wise did not under- stand and would not admit, is just what is understood, and not understood only but realized, by thousands of men on their own initiative, on their own reasoning, and according to their own consciences, and that they are carrying out this task so well and with such firm- ness that their neighbours are joining them. Tell them that not | alone, but many others rejoice in their
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work and are ready to help them if it is necessary and possible, and that we are all convinced that, having undertaken this great task for which they have done so much, they will not abandon it, but will continue in the same road giving an example to the world.”
The Gurians themselves, however, reject Tolstoy's theory of non-resistance, and declare that they are ready to fight for their rights if necessary, as indeed they have done recently when the authorities attempted to stamp out the movement by force.
I was naturally very anxious to see this district, the first part of the Tzar’s dominions to enjoy freedom even if only for a short time, and I applied to some friends at Kutais. From them I learned that a large meeting was to be held at Ozurgety the following Sunday, at which delegates of all parties and all districts were to be present to discuss a course of action in connection with the zemstva which were being introduced into the Caucasus for the first time, and also with a view to further resistance against the Government. The three Kutais delegates asked me to travel with them, and I naturally accepted the invita- tion most gladly. The visit to Ozurgety caused me to miss the Baku fighting, at which I was much annoyed, but the experience was so interesting as to be some compensation for the disappointment.
It was arranged that I should meet the delegates at the Kutais station, and they would then take charge of me. The train was to start at 2 p.m. on a very hot September day. The station was crowded, for being Saturday numbers of people, in spite of the
THE GURIAN “REPUBLIC” 87
unsettled state of the country, were going out of town for the Sunday to enjoy themselves. Only two of the delegates turned up, the third, M. Z. before alluded to, had been obliged to follow a more circuitous route as he was ‘‘wanted” by the police. Of the other two, one was a pale-faced, bearded, Gurian, a professional man living in Kutais, the other a short, keen-eyed, dark-haired youth attired in a black tcherkesska and black fur cap—hardly the costume for this burning weather. Both had travelled in Europe (the former spoke excellent French), both belonged to the extreme revolutionary wing of the Federalist party. I had taken a first-class ticket, but I found that my companions were travelling in a third-class car, as they wished to avoid observation. At Rion junction again an enormous crowd of passengers and idlers, for at this hour the trains from Batum, Tiflis, and Kutais meet. At Samtredy more crowds, and during the stop my companions keep very much in the background, for the authorities have heard of the Ozurgety meeting and there are gendarmes and soldiers on the platform. In the meanwhile Z. has joined us. He is a peculiarly interesting character, and although under thirty has led a very stormy existence. He is a Georgian, and has been exiled from the Russian Empire on account of his political ideas. He had gone to Europe and studied science in Geneva, Paris, and London. But even there he got into trouble with the authorities, for he always consorted with Anarchists, Socialists, and other persons of extreme views. On many a platform in many a European city he had been heard denouncing
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the iniquities of governments, the wickedness of capitalists and the bourgeoisie, and advocating the social revolution. He speaks French, English, German, Italian, besides Georgian and Russian, and he is in close touch with the revolutionary leaders of every European country. Now that his own land was in a state of rebellion, he had returned under an assumed name to take his share in the rising. He was said to be a very eloquent speaker and in great demand at revolutionary gatherings. Young, hand- some, attractive, enthusiastic to the verge of fanaticism, cultured and intellectual if somewhat unpractical and visionary, he should play a prominent part in the destinies of Georgia. He had been staying at Kutais for some time without being disturbed by the police ; but the very day before his departure for Ozurgety he had been denounced. He was aware of being shadowed, and knew that if he went to the station with the others they would probably all be arrested. So he let them know that he would join them later, and walked out of Kutais alone to a neighbouring village. There he obtained a vehicle, and drove to a wayside station some distance down the line, where our train picked him up.
At Notaneby we got out, hired a carriage, and set off for Ozurgety. Once we had left the railway behind us all anxiety as to the danger of arrest was at an end, for we were now in free Guria where the Russian writ no longer runs, and gendarmes, politzmetsters, pristavs, and suchlike gentry are but vain things. It is already night, and we have a long drive before us. The road is a Russian road, therefore bad; on each
THE GURIAN “REPUBLIC” 89
side are fields of grain and tall grasses, with groups of trees and small woods every now and again looming out in the darkness. We meet a few native carts, and some peasants on foot or on horseback at rare intervals, but we frequently stop at wayside inns or cottages to rest the horses and enable our Jehu to refresh himself with spirits. ‘‘ Have you got some- thing on you?” one of my fellow-travellers asks me. The “something ” was a revolver, and the fact that I had not got one caused some surprise. However, I managed to travel all through the Caucasus with no weapons except a walking-stick and an umbrella, and I lost the walking-stick. But I was never in need of arms the whole time. When people are so busy cutting each other's throats, they have little time to devote to strangers, and what they have they expend in trying to convert him to their own particular views, so that he may “tell Europe the truth about the Situation.”
It is past eleven by the time we reach Ozurgety. Mysterious figures in ¢cherkesskas, or in Russian students’ blouses, emerge from the darkness, and enter into whispered conversations with my companions. We are distributed among several houses, I myself finding hospitality in that of a Georgian merchant, whose sons are ardent revolutionists. Although my visit was unannounced the welcome I received was of the heartiest, and I shall always have a most pleasant recollection of the kindly unaffected hospi- tality of these Georgians. The houses at Ozurgety are small and very simple. Few of them are more than one storey high, built of wood and plaster, and
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raised on piles above the ground. Each house stands in its own garden or orchard, and has several wide verandas. The one in which I was lodged contained a fairly large drawing-room, a dining-room, and two or three bedrooms. The furniture, if not zsthetic, was good of its kind and everything was spotlessly clean—a detail which one appreciates after staying in Caucasian inns. There were the usual éaéhéas with their handsome Eastern carpets, a German piano, and large collections of photographs and postcards on the walls. There being no spare room, beds were rigged up for me and Z. in the drawing-room. Making the bed is a simple operation: you remove the rug from the ¢akhéa put one sheet and a quilt in its place, and there you are. In the morning my host's son brought in a basin and ewer, and poured water over my hands while I washed them, the whole operation being conducted on the veranda. Five minutes after our getting up the apartment was rearranged as a salon without a trace of bedroom about it. Life under such conditions is indeed simple. Meals in a Georgian house also differ considerably from those in Western Europe. In the morning, as soon as the samovar is alight, the family gathers round the breakfast-table for a light refection of steaming tea, @ la Russe (with jam in it instead of milk), eggs, and bread. At eleven we had a sort of second breakfast of coffee and bread. At 3 p.m. dinner, which begins with a glass of vodka and a zakuska, consisting of bits of egg, tomatoes, corn, anchovies, salt fish, &c., followed by soup, trout, roast meat, and fruit, the whole washed down with unlimited quantities of light
THE GURIAN “REPUBLIC” , 91
red wine. After that there is no more food—and you certainly do not want any—save some grapes, until about 10 p.m. or even later, when a supper of tea, bread and cheese, fish or cold meat, and wine is served. At intervals during the dinner my host's two sons, both of whom had excellent voices, sang snatches of Georgian drinking songs. The con- versation was carried on almost entirely in Geor- gian, but one of the young men who had studied in France and travelled extensively, translated for my benefit.
Ozurgety is a pleasant little town of some, 8,000 inhabitants, by the Notaneby river, built on - wooded hills a few hundred feet above the sea-level. It has broad, unpaved streets, flanked by small houses mostly of wood, each in its own enclosure where there are trees and grass, but no flower-beds, for flowers are rarely grown systematically in Transcaucasia. There is a bazar with the usual open booths of the East, and a boulevard, or public garden, where the band sometimes plays and meetings are held. Peasants in a variety of costumes are grouped about, a few of them on horseback, others with carts. The whole place has a most peaceful and rural appearance, and one would never suspect what fierce passions are burning beneath these idyllic exteriors nor what bitter hatred of Tzardom a hundred years of misgovernment have instilled into the people.
But to return to the serious business of my visit. The Gurian movement arose about two years ago as a result of the steady propaganda of the Social Democrats combined with the Nationalist feelings of
92 FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUCASUS the people fostered by the Georgian press. It began with a series of demands for reduction of rent, and with protests against the usurpation of peasant land by the State. The Gurians who went to Batum to work in the case oil industry came in contact with the revolutionary agitators, and they themselves soon carried the propaganda to the villages when they returned home. Then came the refusal to pay taxes to the Government, because they had not been imposed with the consent of the people. ‘“ Why should Guria,” one of my friends said to me, ‘with its 100,000 inhabitants, continue to pay 250,000 to 300,000 roubles a year to the Russians who barely spend 20,000 on the district, most of which sum is devoted to the police and officials whom we do not want?”
The Russian officials were practically boycotted, and no Gurian would think of applying to a Govern- ment official for anything. The Uyezdny Nachalnik (district governor), the chief of police, the magistrates, and all the paraphernalia of Muscovite bureaucracy are there, but they have no more work to do. There are some soldiers in the barracks, but in the early days of the movement the peasants avoided collisions with them, so as to give no excuse for violent measures of repression; more recently, however, there have been bloody encounters. The administration was carried on by the inhabitants themselves in the most communistic manner, each man contributing his share of money or labour for the common good. They worked in shifts to maintain the roads and bridges, and one sometimes saw nobles, priests, peasants, and shopkeepers all
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THE GURIAN “REPUBLIC” 93
manfully doing their turn of work. Native schools have taken the place of Russian ones, and the children are taught the three R’s combined with Socialist principles in the Georgian tongue.
But perhaps the most curious and interesting mani- festation of the Gurian experiment is the administration of justice as conducted by the peasants. It is in some ways a return to the most primitive forms of human institutions, and is probably unique in modern times. Thecorruption and inefficiency of the Russian courts of justice in Georgia was a byword among the people, and constituted one of the chief grievances of the inhabitants, who constantly but fruitlessly de- manded that they should be reformed. When the Gurians initiated their autonomy, they immediately boycotted the Russian tribunals and set up courts of justice of their own. These quickly acquired so much prestige and respect that soon not a single Gurian applied to the official courts for redress. The criminal courts were likewise abandoned, because the police no longer dared to arrest any one, and ‘State prosecutions could not be conducted. Both civil and criminal actions were brought before the Narodny Sud (popular tribunal), which also exercised an important function in composing quarrels. When a crime is committed the whole community feel it their duty to co-operate in helping to apprehend the criminal, and brigandage and robbery have greatly decreased in consequence; under Russian régime these offences were very common, and their authors rarely discovered or punished. But the Navrodny Sxd goes further, and inquires into the private morals
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of the inhabitants. Any man committing adultery or living with a mistress is liable to prosecution and punishment. This is a sort of protest against the loose morals of the Russian officials. The old forms of punishment have been abolished; no one can be legally put to death, nor even imprisoned. The usual penalty is boycotting for a longer or shorter period, and as the community is practically unanimous it can be carried out very effectively.’ Other curious forms of punishment have also been introduced, such as the following: a peasant of the district of Sharopany having committed adultery with a woman of the place, he and his paramour were summoned before the Narodny Sud. They pleaded guilty, and were condemned to ride through the village stark-naked on the back of a donkey; during their progress they proclaimed their sin before all the assembled villagers, declared their contrition, and vowed to lead a pure life in future.
The method of procedure before the Narodny Sud is best described by an account of an actual trial. We started out at 11 a.m., a party of about twenty, including my companions of the journey. The court was being held at some distance from Ozurgety, and we had a hot walk across the valley and up a steep hill to the little church of Ekhadia. Here was a wide greensward under the shade of a group of tall oaks, Opposite a grey stone chapel. From this spot | enjoyed an extensive and beautiful view of the purple mountains of Guria and of Adjaria extending to the Turkish border, and of the pleasant green valley of the meandering Notaneby. An assembly
THE GURIAN “REPUBLIC” 95
of some two hundred people were gathered here to administer justice, mostly peasants of all ages and both sexes in native attire, but also a few “intelligents” in kharki-coloured cotton ‘suits or students’ ungainly uniforms, always conspicuous at revolutionary gatherings. The court is composed in a very. simple way. There are no judges, no jury, no. public prosecutor, no counsel; but every person present, whether man, woman or child, native or foreign, has the right to act in any or all of these capacities, and verdict and sentence are decided by the vote of the majority. One man is elected chair- man, but merely for the sake of convenience, and he has no official authority beyond what is derived from the fact that he is old and has studied in a university. Every one, according to this communistic theory, who has an opinion on the matter under discussion has the right to express it, and each vote affects the ultimate decision. |
The case to be heard on this particular occasion was an appeal: a certain merchant of Ozurgety had committed adultery, and in consequence of his offence two homes had been brokenup. He had been sum- moned before the Narodny Sud some time ago and condemned to perpetual boycott—the highest penalty it could inflict; now, after undergoing the boycott for several weeks, he was appealing to his judges to have it withdrawn. He was a tall man about forty years of age, his expression very sad and melancholy, his hair and beard just tinged with grey. ‘I admit my sin,” he declared, ‘‘ and the justice of your punish- ment ; but I am deeply penitent, and swear in future
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to lead a reformed and virtuous life. The sufferings I have undergone since you boycotted me have been so great, so unbearable, that it would have been better if you had killed me outright. I am lost, ruined beyond hope, unless you relent, and I have come to ask you to forgive me and withdraw the boycott.” His words had a genuine ring of emotion and con- trition which created a deep impression on the audience. Then followed an animated discussion on the merits of the case. One after another a number of speakers rose and expressed their opinions for or against the appeal for clemency. Those who were in favour of it dwelt on the apparent sincerity of the man’s repentance, on the failure of punishment to effect reform if pushed too far; some with that cha- racteristic love of abstract reasoning, even alluded to “the latest results of science,” and quoted obscure German philosophers and Socialist writers. The opponents stated that the man was an old offender in this respect, that at his age his reformation was not likely to be lasting, and that as he had caused the break-up of two homes an example should be made of him. For over an hour the speeches followed each other, illustrated by more or less appropriate argu- ments, until finally the chairman moved a resolution that the boycott should be withdrawn. On a show of hands those in favour of it were obviously in a majority; but the opposition demanded a formal counting of votes. After some discussion as to ways and means, it was decided to use the church as a “polling station.” One of the peasants sat down before a table near the altar to record the votes,
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while a priest stood by to give a religious sanction to the proceedings. Then each person present at the assembly entered the church by the south door singly, declared for or against the resolution, and made his exit by the west door. The counting of the votes confirmed the result of the show of hands, the boycott was withdrawn, and the penitent was forgiven and admitted once more into the community.
‘“‘Is not this,” one of my acquaintances exclaimed, who had acted as interpreter, ‘‘a far more humane and expeditious method of administering justice than that of the ‘properly constituted tribunals’? Is it not better to be tried in this way than by three scoundrels in black robes?”
The meeting then broke up, and I returned home with my hosts. On the way back a small building, shut up and deserted, was pointed out to me; it was the official court-house which had been closed for some time as business was no longer transacted there. The district governor tried to make himself popular by calling himself a Social Democrat ; it had indeed begun to be the fashion among the Russian officials in revolution-ridden districts—so long as there are not enough soldiers and gendarmes—to declare that they held democratic views. A little further on | was shown the other Government offices, where the Russian officials were whiling away their idle days drinking tea and smoking cigarettes. At the end of the village are the barracks in which a company of infantry were then quartered. Here of course the real danger to the “republic” lay, but the troops were almost powerless, for every Gurian was armed. My
7
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Ozurgety friends expressed the utmost confidence in the final outcome. I was told of frequent gather- ings of thousands of armed Gurians who practised military manceuvres, shooting, and other war- like exercises, including ambulance service. Gun- running is carried on extensively both over the Turkish frontier and by sea, and the Gurians have even sometimes got hold of Government stores of arms,
What is peculiarly remarkable about the movement is the unanimity with which it has been carried out, all classes agreeing in the necessity for getting rid of the Russian authorities. The various parties were quar- relling among themselves as to the future form of government to be established, and in fact the grand assembly to which I had been invited never came off, as the Socialists and Federalists would not listen to each other; but that the Gurians must administer their own country was unanimously recognized. Even most of the landlords, who have lost income by the new arrangement, acquiesce in it fully. ‘If they (the Russians) wish to restore the old form of govern- ment,” a Gurian declared, “they must kill us to the last man ; till then we shall go on resisting.” A high Russian official at Tiflis admitted to me that the movement was most difficult to deal with, “for it is not,” he said, “merely the work of outside agitators ; it is backed up by the whole population.” Count Vorontzoff-Dashkoff himself told me that the only way of pacifying Guria was by wide and liberal con- cessions, and that he meant to regularize and legalize the Narodny Sud, “which administers justice far
Ozercery, Tue Desexten Count House.
To face page 98. Monastexv or Motcamary, Sear Kerais.
THE GURIAN “REPUBLIC” 99
more honestly and efficiently than do the State tribunals.”
Since my departure from Ozurgety the situation has become even more acute. The policy of the Russian Government has alternated between conces- sions and coercion. While it sent a liberal university professor from St. Petersburg to study the Narodny Sud, and the method of communistic administration, it inaugurated a series of exehkutztz, 2.e., it quartered troops in villages at the expense of the villagers, and sent detachments of Cossacks and infantry to reduce the people to order. Desperate fighting has taken place in and around Ozurgety. The railway has been cut again and again, and several military trains have been derailed with heavy loss of life, and every day troops along the line have been attacked. When the troops have been successful they have shot down the Gurians without mercy, and the whole province is drenched in blood. What has become of my kind hosts at Ozurgety I have not heard, for hardly any letters get through to or from that disturbed land. I shall never forget their warm hospitality, and I can only hope that a happier fate is in store for that gallant and independent little community.
CHAPTER VI TIFLIS
HE journey from Kutais to Tiflis takes about eight hours, through fine but not magnifi-
cent scenery. The green, fertile valleys of Western Georgia reminded me somewhat of Bosnia, although occasionally one has glimpses of far higher peaks than any in the “Occupied Provinces.” The railway climbs painfully up the valley of the Rion, and then of the Kvirili over the Suram Pass to Mikhailovo, the watershed between the tributaries of the Rion and those of the Kura; it is the highest station on the line, and just before it is a long tunnel. A conduit pipe for the transport of naphtha has been laid between Batum and Baku; but a considerable part of the traffic is still carried on by rail, and endless trains of naphtha tanks, like large grey boilers with- out funnels, are met with the whole way. Once the watershed is passed and the train begins to descend into the basin of the Kura, the landscape changes character. Instead of forest-clad hills and well- watered valleys, we are between bare rocky mountains, the bottom of the valleys alone being partly cultivated.
100
ay ty 0 | (|) It is nightfall by the time the handsome station of Tiflis is reached.
Tiflis is said to have been founded in the V. century by Vakhtang Gorgoslan, King of Georgia, and early in the VI. century it became the capital of the kingdom. It was captured and pillaged many times, and was held alternately by the Georgians and the Persians. Timur the Tartar sacked it in 1395, and the Persians razed it to the ground exactly four hundred years later. In 1801 it was occupied by the Russians. Its name is derived from the Georgian Tézlzs, which means hot, on account of the warm sulphur springs near the citadel.
It is one of those towns which, without being a real capital of an independent or even semi-inde- pendent State, is the centre of a large, well-defined region, and regarded by the inhabitants of the sur- rounding country as the centre of the world, the ultimate goal of all their travels. Situated on both banks of the river Kura, it lies in a narrow valley enclosed by parallel ranges of bare, stony hills. In summer it is one of the hottest places in the Russian Empire, for the naked rocks reflect the sun’s burning rays, and at the same time keep out the breeze. The climate is very agreeable in the autumn, when fine, hot days are followed by cool nights for many weeks on end. But in winter, although the cold is never very great, there are sharp winds which render the town unpleasant and not too healthy. The dust is also a great drawback, and the streets are seldom watered. The right, or western, bank of the Kura rises up sharply so that that part of the city is built on
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a slope, and the suburbs clamber up the steep sides of St. David’s Mount. Eastward the town descends into a depression until suddenly cut short by a pre- cipitous crag with the extensive ruins of an ancient citadel on its summit. A narrow shelf creeps round this rock following the river to other suburbs and a pleasant valley on the opposite side, which has been turned into a beautiful botanical garden. The left bank of the river is flatter, but rises slightly towards the east, and more abruptly at the southern end, where another rocky eminence, crowned by the ancient palace of the Georgian kings, now a prison, is a sort of endant to the citadel.
The north end on both banks is built in the European, or rather Russian, style, with large houses, some of them quite handsome, modern shops, electric light and trams; here are the residential quarters of the Russian colony and officials, of the wealthiest natives, the hotels and restaurants, and the public offices ; at the extreme north end of the right bank, however, is a poor Georgian suburb, while on the left is a small German colony called Alexandersdorf. In the southern part of the town are the bazars and the poorer quarters, which are thoroughly Asiatic. But Asia penetrates even into the fashionable streets, for the brilliant costumes of the various Caucasian peoples are to be seen in the elegant Golovinsky Prospekt jostling against men and women in European clothes and smart Russian uniforms. The Golovinsky Pros- pekt is the finest street in modern Tiflis. Here the Viceroy’s palace and several other Government build- ings are situated, the museum, the two theatres, the
Tiruis, Grour or Hicutanvens,
Tiruis. A Cossack on THe Vorontzor¥ Brivce,
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TIFLIS 108
best shops, and some imposing private residences. At its southern end the Golovinsky narrows down to the Dvortzovaya, a street which debouches into the Erivan square. Here is the handsome town hall, and opposite it the Caravansarai—a large building devoted entirely to business, from the offices of rich Armenian merchants to tiny fruit-stalls. South of the Golovinsky a large square public garden descends the slope down to the river just opposite the Voront- zoff bridge. At the bridge’s head stands the Hotel de Londres, not only the first hotel in the Caucasus but one of the best in Russia, especially as regards the essentially non-Russian virtue of cleanliness. Apart from its other advantages its situation near the bridge is an exceptionally good one, and from my window I could watch the perpetual stream of traffic constantly passing to and fro, the wonderful collection of types from all parts of the Caucasus, Russia, Persia, and Turkey; Herculean porters carrying furniture, Cossack patrols, soldiers going out to the exercise ground, water-carriers, and quaint carts of every description. The Vorontzoff bridge is the most important of the three which cross the Kura. It first spans a narrow, muddy branch of the river to an island occupied by a number of small shops, and then crosses the main current to the small Vorontzoff square. If we wish to leave civilization and plunge into the East, we need only walk from the Hoétel de Londres to the Erivan square through the Soldatsky Bazar. An electric tram runs through it, but there are shops, booths, and duksans (inns) as queer as any in the Tartar or Armenian quarters.
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strangest shapes and produce the weirdest sounds imaginable. Among others I may mention the earthenware drums painted red and yellow, and the chianury, a sort of guitar-violin, consisting of an oval case with a straight handle and a sharp steel point at the end. It is played with a bow, but seemed to me to be suitable for warlike purposes as well. You could hold it by the handle’ and brain your enemy with the case, then you run him through the body with the spike, and finally you give him the coup de gréce by playing on the instrument.
The animation of the streets is extraordinary. There are always crowds of people rushing about madly, as though they were in Cheapside or Cornhill, but without policemen to regulate their movements. Men, women, children, horses, donkeys, carts, cabs, rush and clatter about in apparently inextricable con- fusion, shouting in many languages. You creep down a gloomy passage to escape from the throng, and emerge into a courtyard in which four or five huge shapeless masses are reposing; on closer inspection they prove to be camels. The camel still plays a leading vé/e in the trade of Transcaucasia, and is even found on the north side of the mountains, although railways are tending more and more to drive him eastward and southward.
The actual “lions” of the native quarters are not very exciting. There is the Shiah mechet, or mosque, an unimposing modern edifice, the Orbeliani baths, which, although one is told not to miss them, have little that is especially curious, and the church of the Metekh near the old Royal Palace, from the
‘LOT end oo0f o7,
stNavitg ONY unLAvA AVIAVY, HO NVGIV]C AMY, “stuary
TIFLIS — 107
terrace below which one enjoys a splendid view of the town, the river, and the mountains all round. On clear days the snowy peak of the Kazbek may even be seen. The most interesting feature of the bazar, and indeed of the whole of Tiflis, is the population. I have alluded to the number of different races which inhabit the Caucasus, and the forty-five languages spoken by them. At Tiflis you find specimens of all these races, and in the bazars you can hear all their languages spoken, with the addition of such extraneous tongues as Polish, German, French, Italian, Hindustani, Sart, and sometimes even Chinese. The observant stranger soon learns to recognize the main types—Georgians, Tartars, Armenians, Russians—but it takes long before he can distinguish the minor subdivisions of the human species here exhibited.
To attempt to describe all the costumes would fill a small volume, and require countless illustrations in the three-colour process. The Georgians and the mountaineers in ¢cherXesskas of sundry colours and tall fur caps; the Tartars in long cotton or woollen tunics, usually dark blue or black, with shaven heads and tiny white skull caps; Persians in caftams of some sombre hue, their hair, beard, and nails stained dark red ; Mohammedan mz//ahs in flowing robes and green or white turbans; mountaineers of many types, some in the écherkesska, others attired in indescribable rags and tatters that are kept together goodness knows how ; Armenians sometimes dressed rather like Tartars but more usually in European clothes ; porters carrying enormous burdens—a huge wardrobe, or an iron
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bedstead, or even a piano. Then there are the vehicles of all sorts and descriptions—Russian cabs, with handsome, long-tailed horses and rubber tires, native arbas of the most antediluvian type, carts with hooded awning for fruit and vegetables, carts with solid wheels drawn by buffaloes.
Tiflis owes its importance to its geographical position, for it is here that four great lines of traffic converge. There is the railway to Batum which places Tiflis in communication with the Black Sea and the west, the line to Baku for Russia, Central Asia, and Persia, now a third to Erivan and North- Western Persia, and the military high-road over the “frosty Caucasus” to Vladikavkaz and European Russia. It has therefore always been an important centre of traffic for a large part of the Middle East. No longer the capital of a kingdom, it is still a commercial centre of the first rank. All the people of the Transcaucasia come to Tiflis to make their purchases and transact their more important affairs, and most of the business of Government is concen- trated here.
The whole town is pervaded by this atmosphere of mixed races, languages, and ideas, and the Russifying methods of the bureaucracy has done little to unite these discordant elements. Tiflis was once, as I said, the capital of the Georgian kingdom, and to this day a considerable part of the population is Georgian, perhaps 35 per cent. But other elements were always numerous, and within the last hundred years the Armenians have been increasing rapidly owing to their migration from all parts of Russia and from
TIFLIS a 109
Turkish Armenia. They are certainly a most enter- prising race, and here at Tiflis where they constitute but a minority of the population (40 per cent.) they are gradually getting everything into their hands. The Georgians, being extravagant and careless of money, have become poorer and poorer, and have had to sell their houses and land, which the Armenians are only to ready to snap up, and borrow money which they cannot pay back. On the Duma, or town council, over three-quarters of the members are Armenians, and they control all the commercial activity of the town. One has but to walk down the chief streets to see that the names over all the chief shops and of the most important firms are Armenian. They may end in -off or in -eff—Kalan- taroff,, Oganjanoff, Mantasheff, Gukassoff, &c.—but they are merely Russified forms of Kalantarian, Ogandjanian, Mantashiantz, Gukassiantz. Armenian ideas are expressed not only in such papers as the Mshak and the Arsha/uts printed in Armenian, but in Russian newspapers like the Movoze Obozrenie, of which the staff is almost wholly Armenian. The case is paralleled by that of certain Bond organs in South Africa printed in English. The fact that the Russian officials do not learn the native language has obliged the natives to learn Russian ; consequently Russian is very much commoner in the Caucasus than is English in many British colonies, and numbers of quite uneducated people speak it fluently. All the names of the streets, and by far the greater part of the notices on the shops and the advertisements, even in the poorer quarters, are in Russian, although of course 4
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signs are conspicuous for the benefit of the large proportion of illiterates. In many private families both Armenian and Georgian, Russian is ordinarily spoken. Yet the native languages show no tendency to disappear, but are religiously preserved by means of the press, books, schools, and societies of all sorts.
The Armenians are certainly the most conspicuous element of the population, and one comes across them in every walk of life. If you go to a bank, to a money-changer, to a merchant's counting-house, the proprietors, directors, and most of the employees will probably prove to be Armenians. If you see any particularly large and handsome house and ask to whom it belongs, in nine cases out of ten “a rich Armenian” will be the answer. The best lawyers, doctors, and journalists are Armenians, and until lately one found them even in the Government offices, The Georgians, on the other hand, have lost much of their wealth; I only know of one at Tiflis who has amassed a large fortune in recent times. Tiflis has thus come to be one of the most important centres of Armenian nationalism, although quite outside the real Armenia ; after Constantinople which is also outside Armenia, it contains a larger Armenian population than any other city in the world. Here, too, were several important educational establishments, until their closure under the Golytzin régime ; lately they have been reopened since his policy was rescinded in August, 1905. Even the Russian schools of Tiflis are largely frequented by Armenians. The head-mistress of one of the girls’ gymnasia told me that 90 per cent. of her pupils were Armenians.
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TIFLIS ill
The Georgians of Tiflis are not very different in character from those of Kutais, save that they are slightly more Russified. One finds the same super- abundance of princes, the same handsome, dark-featured men and women, with keen, black eyes, and charming manners, and, it must be added, the same want of practical qualities. But whereas in the Western Caucasus the Georgians are a compact mass with definite national ideals, at Tiflis they are confronted by the Armenians as well as by the Russian Govern- ment, and are steadily losing ground. Some of the greatest Georgian families, such as the Gruzinskys, the Orbelianis, the Ratieffs, the Chavchavadzes, still live in Tiflis, but their influence is declining, and the ancient capital of Georgia is becoming every day less Georgian. There are some very delightful person- alities among these Georgian nobles. One of the most interesting members of the Georgian aristocracy died while I was in Tiflis—the aged Princess Chav- chavadze. The story of her capture by Shamy]l in 1856 is one of the most romantic episodes in the history of the Caucasus. Her daughter who, at the age of four, shared her mother’s wonderful adventures, is still alive, and is the widow of the Prince of Georgia (Gruzinsky).
Of the other races represented in Tiflis, none play an important part in the town. There are some ten to fifteen thousand Tartars, but they are neither influential nor wealthy. The head of their religion is Ahund-Zadé, the Sheikh-ul-Islam, who, as the official chief of the community, resides there. But Tiflis is in nowise a Tartar or Mohammedan
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city; the real Moslem centres ‘of Trans¢aucasia are elsewhere. Representatives of all the mountain peoples are to be met in the bazar, but their numbers and importance are even smaller than those of the Tartars. They are picturesque additions to the city’s streets and market-places, and no doubt add to the tale of murders and robbery for which Tiflis is famous, but otherwise they do not count. The Russian element is of course much more influential, although it is not numerous. There is a host of Russian officials and a large body of troops, of whom a certain proportion are not Russians, besides a number of Russian shopkeepers and workmen. But owing to their position as rulers of the country, they are bound to influence the aspect and life of the town. The architecture of the modern houses is essentially Russian, and Russian manners and customs are becoming more and more prevalent. All public business is carried on in the Russian language, and the majority of private affairs as well. The schools are nearly all Russian, four out of nine daily newspapers are printed in Russian, and the perform- ances at the two principal theatres are also in Russian. Still the Russians do not feel themselves at home in Tiflis; they are strangers in a strange land which they regard as a place of exile. Many of the higher Government officials have been sent to the Caucasus more or less in disgrace, and are conse- quently anything but the pick of a class of persons who at best are not the most estimable members of Russian society. It has been said that if Siberia and Central Asia are the hells of the Russian functionary,
BIT bod vanf og,
‘smoTvadng HIM Lav SALLVN ‘STAI,
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the Caucasus is his purgatory. Within quite recent times, however, the Government has attempted to send some of its best representatives to Tiflis, in view of the extremely difficult situation which has arisen.
Social life in Tiflis is of course gayer than that of any other town of the Caucasus, but it cannot exactly be described as brilliant. While I was there things were in an exceptionally disturbed condition, and people lived more quietly than usual, but even in normal times, according to all accounts, the city is not a very lively one. There are one or two big official functions at the Viceroy’s palace, and some families do a little entertaining in a quiet way, while every year there is a season at the opera where a series of performances are given by indifferent artists. One of the centres of Tiflis social life is the Krujok, a large club, run chiefly by Armenians. In the winter dances are given, and in the summer there are al fresco entertainments in the pleasant garden, where the band plays and ¢out 72ffts may be seen promenading up and down, supping or playing cards, from 9 p.m. until the small hours of the morning.
The people of Tiflis, especially the Armenians, are most hospitable. On arriving I had only two letters of introduction, which, owing to the absence of the persons to whom they were addressed, were of no use until nearly the end of my stay. But I went to call at the offices of the various papers, and the editors vied with one another in helping me to obtain infor- mation, and in introducing me to persons likely to be of use. Also in a private way they and the persons to whom they introduced me were most friendly. I
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found n 1e of that suspicion which I had been led to expect, aid even the Government officials on whom le vere most courteous. 1 was constantly being invited out to dinner; and excellent dinners they were. The only fault which the Western stranger has to find with these entertainments is the hour at which
they take place. y 3 pm., as it was in England not so o, and a heavy meal at that hour us both lunch and supper, However,Is m \ it, and found that even when not dini € most convenient time, as nearly alltne »a I wished to see were visible between ww id hree. Unfortunately it
was not the case with everybody, and I have dined out in Tiflis at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 p.m. and supped at 9 and 10—not on the same day, let me hasten to add.
The private houses of Tiflis, although handsomer and larger than those of Batum or Kutais, are by no means magnificent or luxurious. As usual, the one zsthetic feature is the carpets, which are always beautiful ; one also occasionally comes on collections of fine old Circassian weapons, silver and gold inlay, and Persian curiosities. One house which I saw was all decorated in the latest ar¢ nouveau or ‘“ secessionist style,” which was certainly unexpected in Trans- caucasia. It belonged to a rich Armenian engineer who visited Europe every year, and returned with the dernier cri in novelties for the house.
There are not many places of interest round Tiflis, and indeed the environs of the city are bare and deso- late. One goes through various unattractive suburbs
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and places where rubbish is shot, past a few factories and melancholy-looking inns, and once the town is left behind one is in a poorly cultivated, broad, almost deserted valley between bare, rocky mountains. Occasionally one meets with encampments of gipsies or nomad mountaineers living in tents; unkempt men and women of the strangest types, attired in rags and patches of bright colour—survivals of the earliest stages of human development—squat on the ground attending to domestic duties; they are protected by shaggy dogs of enormous size and unparalleled ferocity, which no stranger can approach with impunity. Nearer to the town, just beyond the citadel rock, is the botanic garden. It occupies a very large area, comprising hills, valleys, woods, and streams. It ts intersected by a torrent forming quite a respectable waterfall, as well as by numerous runlets. There is a wonderful show of Caucasian flora, every variety of plant growing in the country, as well as numerous rare exotics, being represented. Another favourite excursion of the people of Tiflis is the hill of St. David, which is now reached by a funicular railway. As usual in Russia, the enterprise has not been properly finished, and the railway, instead of start- ing from some convenient point, starts from the extreme edge of the town at a great distance from the residential quarters, at a point which can only be approached by a long drive up a very steep ascent. From the summit one enjoys a superb view of the town, the valley, and the surrounding mountains ; Tiflis covers an immense area, and every year it extends its tentacles. One is struck by the great
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number and extent of green spaces and gardens; almost every house has a garden of some sort, although, as I said with regard to other towns, laid-out flower-beds, or indeed flowers at all, are rare. All around the town are the pitiless heat-giving stony mountains, only broken here and there by vine-clad slopes. Beyond the near hills one has occa- sionally a view of the glistening snow-clad peaks. The foreign colonies of Tiflis are fairly numerous ; there are Germans, Italians, Frenchmen, Austrians, many Persians and Turks; I do not think there are any British subjects save, perhaps, a few Indians, nor is there a British Consul. The most important member of the consular body is the Persian Consul- General. He holds the rank of Minister in the Diplomatic Service, and enjoys a position of great dignity. There are several hundred thousand Persians in the Caucasus, some of them permanent residents, but the majority temporary immigrants who come for a year or two, or a few months, to work in different capacities, chiefly on the Baku oil-fields. The present Consul-General, Faradjollah Khan, is one of the most cultivated Orientals I have ever come across. He speaks the most perfect French, dresses and looks like a European gentleman, and has an extraordinary knowledge of all the political questions of the Middle East. It is largely to his tact that the Persians have taken practically no part in the recent Tartar-Armenian troubles. Another dis- tinguished and charming member of the Consular body is M. Uermenyi, the Austro-Hungarian Consul, from whom, although I called on him without any
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introduction, J] received much hospitality and kind- ness.
But the general appearance of Tiflis, in spite of its modern improvements and not inconsiderable wealth, is not that of a really prosperous or modern city. It has remained essentially Oriental, and backward, for the new civilization engrafted by Russian officialdom is in itself vitiated with Oriental characteristics of an un- desirable kind. The administration is neither honest nor efficient, and after a residence of many months in the Caucasus, including a long stay in Tiflis, I could not help feeling that the country is almost stagnant. Nothing runs smoothly ; no service, whether public or private, works efficiently or satisfactorily ; everywhere there are obstacles to progress, and the population, taken as a whole, is not business-like. Even the shops are unattractive and ill-stocked. Apart from Oriental curios it is difficult to buy anything in Tiflis. The goods are of poor quality, but dear in price. With the exception of fruit and other eatables, every- thing is ridiculously expensive. There is not one really good restaurant in the town, although there is, as I said before, an excellent hotel.
The weakness and incapacity of the Government has, of course, been more noticeable since the country has been in such a disturbed state. While things were quiet it managed to rub along fant bien gue mal, and an outward appearance of order was maintained. But the increasing centralization of the administration in the hands of St. Petersburg bureau- crats, the corruption of most of the local officials, the fatuous and disastrous Russifying policy of Prince
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Golytzin, undermined the whole structure of society, and as soon as the defeats in the Far East shook Russian prestige all the latent forces of disorder, discontent, and revolt sprang to life and reduced the country to its present state of chaos.
Apart from politics, which will be dealt with else- where, the Government has committed many sins of omission and commission. Good roads hardly exist in Transcaucasia ; railways have been built, but there are no roads to feed them. Everywhere else one must travel along awful tracks of. stony or muddy ground, which takes the place of roads. Nor is public safety in the least assured. Even in normal . times brigandage, murder, and robbery are rife throughout the country; and in Tiflis itself there is no attempt to secure life and property; in fact, it has been justly remarked that everything is dear in Caucasus except human life.
In every respect Russia’s work in the Caucasus compares unfavourably with that of Austria-Hungary in Bosnia and the Herzegovina. In those provinces the Austrian Government, although it has undoubtedly . committed errors in attempting to develop the country much too fast, and has failed to awaken the sym- pathy and loyalty of the population, has at least secured the most perfect order and completely abo- lished brigandage; it has established absolute religious freedom, introduced a bureaucracy, which, if slow in moving, and inclined to red tape, is perfectly honest and far from inefficient; it has covered the country with a network of excellent roads and railways, and built numerous well-appointed schools. Of course
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Austria’s task was much smaller—the country is smaller, the population less numerous, and _ less divided into hostile races. But her resources are also smaller, the potential wealth of Bosnia is much less, the population was infinitely more backward than the Armenians or the Georgians, and the time has been shorter. Austria, in twenty-five years, has converted Bosnia and the Herzegovina from a state of absolute anarchy into one of perfect peace. Russia in a hundred years reduced the anarchy of the Cau- casus to a state of unstable equilibrium, which is now . relapsing into a chaos hardly less terrible than that of the old days before the Russian conquest. We must, however, not judge the administration too harshly. We should remember that there is Turkey just over the border, where things are infinitely worse. Outward improvements such as railways, trams, electric light, a certain measure of domestic comfort, even if not sufficient to introduce real civilization, do make for progress and help to render life more possible. One is apt to criticize Russian methods because they are so much worse than they at first appear to be, but in spite of their imperfections one may say of the Empire ‘‘efpur st muove.”
CHAPTER VII PERSONS AND POLITICS IN THE CAUCASIAN CAPITAL
IFLIS in September, 1905, was literally bristling
with politics. The conditions of the town were anything but peaceful. Everywhere soldiers were patrolling the streets; every important building was guarded by soldiers; the white coats of infantry and cavalry, and the papakks and tcherkesskas of the Cossacks were conspicuous at every turn. Passers-by, whether on foot or in cabs, were repeatedly searched for arms, especially at the bridges, where sentinels with fixed bayonets were always posted. One of the advantages of staying at the Hétel de Londres is that besides the ordinary sights of the Vorontzoff bridge you witness amusing scenes as people are being searched for concealed weapons. Once while “snapping” an incident of this sort I was accosted by a soldier who asked me severely what I was photo- graphing. I innocently replied that | was immor- talizing Tiflis street views, and added that I should be much obliged to him if he would tell me the quickest way to the post-office, which after some hesitation he did. 1 myself was repeatedly searched, but in vain, as my revolver, on the strong advice of a friend who
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had lived fifteen years in the Caucasus, had been left behind at Batum. At Tiflis, however, every native who has a permit carries arms, besides many who have not. A story is told of a gentleman who had obtained a revolver-permit from the authorities and always carried both the weapon and the permit with him. One evening, as he was returning home he was stopped at the bridge and searched. The revolver being found on him, he triumphantly exhibited his vazrieshente (permit). The soldier looked at the document with a puzzled expression, and then said, “It may be all right, but I cannot read. You must come with me to the frzstav” (district police com- missioner). Off they went to the przstav, who saw that everything was ex régle and let the man depart. On reaching the bridge a second time, another soldier was on guard, and exactly the same thing happened. Again he was escorted to the srzstav, dismissed by him, and allowed to go in peace; but for a third time the same thing happened. It was not until the fourth time of asking that the unfortunate man was able to get home. Other stories were told of soldiers who, while professing to search for arms, took the oppor- tunity of relieving people of their purses and valuables; although I never met any one who had had such an experience, it did not sound by any means an impossibility in Russia.
The state of affairs in Tiflis was one of constant unrest. There have been many serious disturb- ances in the town since the beginning of 1905, and it is here that most of the revolutionary com- mittees have their headquarters and many of the
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revolutionary plots are hatched In the early part of the year the Armenians were the element of disorder, for the Troshakist society was on the warpath avenging the confiscation of the Church property. But since the Government restored what it had taken away, it has ceased to conspire against the authorities. The Georgian parties, although most numerous and strongest in the west, have been very active at Tiflis, and many disturbances and strikes. were due to their initiative. There is a certain amount of antagonism between the Georgians and the Armenians, largely based on economic grounds, the Georgians accusing the Armenians of gradually ousting them from the Tiflis, while the Armenians sometimes accuse the Georgians of being too friendly with the Tartars. The Social Democrats are also annoyed with the Armenians because the latter are too practical to accept the Social Democratic pro- gramme, and demand nothing but a moderate measure of constitutional reform, and the right to practise their religion and their business in peace. But two events brought about a partial reconciliation of Armenians and Georgians as a protest against the brutality of the authorities. In the month of Maya meeting of Georgian priests and bishops was held at Tiflis to discuss the question of an autocephalous Georgian Church. At the instance of the Exarch, who is a Russian, troops and police invaded the premises, forcibly broke up the meeting, and beat and maltreated the priests there assembled. This was regarded as guch a flagrant act of despotism that it made both
amunities realize the necessity for co-operation
; the Government.
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On September 11th a second occurrence took place which united Georgians and Armenians, Socialists and Constitutionalists in their execration of Russian methods of government; it is a deed which for unprovoked and stupid brutality is hardly equalled in all the annals of Russian rule in the Caucasus. For some time past, especially since the xkaz of August granting a certain measure of freedom, meetings had been held repeatedly at Tiflis, in which political matters were discussed, and the authorities never attempted to interfere with them. The meet- ings were usually held in the municipal building, with the permission of the mayor and council. On the above-mentioned day a group of Georgian Social Democrats organized a meeting for that evening, to discuss the question whether the party was to take part in the elections for the newly introduced zemstva, and proceeded to the town-hall as usual. But being a holiday the council was not sitting, and the large hall was closed. The Socialists, however, forced their way in, followed by a crowd of some two thousand people, mostly Georgians. Various speeches were delivered and all went quietly for atime. But suddenly a Zvzstav and some police- men made their appearance, and ordered the meeting to break up. The Socialists refused and hooted the pristav. The latter communicated with General Yatzkievich, temporary Governor-General of Tiflis, who telephoned to M. Vermischeff, the mayor. The mayor replied that he had nothing to do with the meeting as it had assembled independently of him, and that he could not now stop it. General
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Yatzkievich thereupon went in person to the town-hall with a few hundred Cossacks and infantry, whom he posted at the exits from the building, in the court, on the stairs, and in the rooms adjoining the assembly- room. The fristav said that he would attempt once more to dissolve the meeting peaceably, but General Yatzkievich replied that the matter was no longer in the hands of the police, and that he himself would deal with it. He sent some Cossacks into the hall and ordered the crowd to disperse. There were shouts and hoots, and the Cossacks opened fire on the assembly both from the platform and through the windows from the courtyard. One of the shots from outside killed an orator who was standing up to speak. A sauve qui peut followed, every one trying to get out of the building. But at every turn on the stairs, in the passages, in the municipal offices there were more Cossacks and soldiers shooting indiscriminately on all comers. Men, women, and children were massacred by the dozen. A few succeeded in getting out, but even in the street they were pursued, one man being shot dead several hundred yards from the town-hall in a back street. A ghastly incident was that of a lady doctor who, having come to the meeting out of curiosity, was wounded by a shot, but in spite of her injuries she tended others whose injuries were more serious. She was in the act of bandaging a wounded man with some strips of her own clothing, when a Cossack came up and brained her with the butt of his rifle. About a hundred persons were killed, most of whom were buried at the dead of night in a common grave without any religious
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ceremony, permission being refused to the relatives to carry the bodies away. The wounded were at least two hundred. It was said that a few revolver shots had been fired from the crowd, which in itself would not be surprising in a country where most people carry arms; but as a matter of fact the only Cossack who was wounded had been hit by a rifle bullet from one of his comrades and not by a revolver shot.
I visited the town hall some days after the occurrence (which took place while I was at Baku); the building was riddled with bullets; broken glass, smashed electric lamps, doors burst in, shattered woodwork, bore witness to the violent scenes enacted. I interviewed several members of the xzfrava, or administrative council, who, although they were Armenians, and had not been on too friendly terms with the Social Democrats, took the affair as much to heart as though their own people had been the victims. The whole of the Duma resigned, the upvava alone remaining in office to carry on the administration until new elections were held.
Not long after, General Yatzkievich was removed from the position of Governor-General of Tiflis, as a sort of punishment for his brutality, but, with the usual tergiversations of the Russian bureaucracy, he was subsequently sent to succeed Prince Napoleon as Governor-General of Erivan.
On the fortieth day after the massacre, when the pantkhida of the dead was held (a funeral ceremony of the Orthodox Church), nine bombs burst in different parts of the town—all in the vicinity of Cossack barracks. It was the answer of the Social
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ruled —_a succession of military governors, of whom the first was General Knorring. Subsequently the custom was introduced of appointing a member of the Imperial family as Viceroy, and, under Grand Ducal rule, the Caucasus enjoyed a certain measure of administrative authority. But in 1882 the Vice-
royalty was abolish ssian noblemen of high rank were appointe e sith the title of Governor- General. 17 was Prince Golytzin, whose unwise f tting one race against another, and of ¢ lass hatred, resulted in such disastrous‘ isequ On his departure, the government was hi tin e by General Malama, a
Cossack of Greek extraction, who, although he speaks nothing but Russian, and is not a man of great genius, seems to have been not unpopular. Finally, in February, 1905, Count Vorontzoff-Dashkoff was appointed, with the revived title of Viceroy, and granted very full powers. He is a general of cavalry and atde-de-camp to the Tzar, and had served in the Caucasus in his youth, but for many years he held the position of Minister of the Imperial Court. After resigning that very dignified appointment he had retired into private life, but continued to hold a high social position in the capital. He is a man of immense wealth, of very noble family, and has received almost every honour which the Tzar can confer. He is a thorough man of the world, speaks many languages, knows half the crowned heads in Europe, and is altogether a very favourable specimen of the Russian grand seigneur, He was sent to the Caucasus, where his name should have proved a popular one, for his
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relative, Prince Vorontzoff, was one of the most successful rulers the country has ever had. At the same time, his career at Court was not exactly the best preparation for the task of putting this anarchic land in order, restoring Russian prestige, and reconciling bitter racial and religious animosities.
On my arrival at Tiflis his Excellency was away at the baths of Kislovodsk, where he had been spending the summer; on his return, G. B: and I asked for an interview with him, which was readily granted. The Viceroy’s position is superior to that of a mere governor, for he is the direct representative of the Tzar, and is surrounded by all the pomp and panoply of power. To approach him it is necessary to make a formal request for an audience through the Chief of Police, or some other high dignitary, as in the case of Royalty. The chief objection to a visit of this kind is the necessity for donning dress-clothes at 3 p.m, but one must, of course, conform with the customs of the country. His Excellency lives in a huge palace on the Golovinsky Prospekt, painted bright pink, like all Government residences in Russia, containing seventy rooms ; it is, in spite of its ugly colour, an imposing edifice, and very handsome inside. The doors are guarded by the Cossacks of the Viceroy’s convoy, or bodyguard, with drawn swords; a fine set of men, in magnificent red ¢cherkesskas and a variety of silver ornaments. Other Cossacks are at the head of the stairs, waiting to relieve us of our coats and hats. We were first admitted into the ball-room, a beautiful apartment, decorated in white stucco, with a few portraits of Tzars and rows of gilded chairs against
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the walls, where about a score of other people were waiting. Most of them were in military or civil uniform ; others, who were Georgian nobles, wore the traditional native costume ; one or two were, like ourselves, in evening clothes. From the ball-room one enjoys a splendid view of the town and the mountains beyond. On the other side you have a glimpse into an apartment decorated in the Persian style. After about half an hour, a polite young azde-de-camp ushered us into the presence of the Mamzestnik. His Excellency is an oldish but well-preserved man, with a dignified bearing and a pleasant manner. His attitude was very friendly, and he talked openly on many subjects. The burning question of the moment was the Tartar-Armenian struggle, then in full swing throughout the Eastern Caucasus. He frankly admitted the errors of the Russian Government in its treatment of the Armenians, and spoke of cette désastreuse politique de Golytzin. n his opinion the Armenians were really a very peaceful and industrious race, and, once the property of their Church was restored to them, and permission to reopen their schools granted, they would, he believed, settle down quietly to their business occupations. “They are too good business men,” he added, “not to wish to be on good terms with the Government.”
Speaking of the Tartars, he expressed a great personal liking for them, but added that they all had “the instinct of brigandage,” and that they needed to be kept in order with a firm hand. “It will be necessary, however,” he said, ‘to grant them liberties and rights, for all men ought to have them equally,
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whatever their race or their religion.” Such a state- ment, in: the mouth of a Russian Viceroy, even if it were merely a Platonic profession, shows how much progress had been achieved by liberalism at that time. ‘‘The Tartars,” he continued, ‘“‘ must be edu- cated, for they are among the most backward races of the Empire, and they themselves desire schools, although, unlike the Armenians, they do not want to pay for them ; but the Government is quite willing to defray the cost.”
On the Georgian question, Count Vorontzoff- Dashkoff's sentiments seemed to be no less liberal. He waxed quite enthusiastic in his praise of the Gurian popular tribunals, and said that the revolutionary movement was poing to be “killed by kindness.” ‘‘With concessions of a sort which is called liberal, but is in reality nothing more than justice, we shall satisfy all the better part of the population; while, as for the others, we can easily deal with them.” The Viceroy admitted that the chief evil of the Caucasus was its bad administration. ‘‘We have a few good officials, no doubt; but the great majority are dishonest. We require a far superior staff of men to that hitherto appointed, and they must be better paid. We give the functionaries great power and very small salaries. Is it surprising that they make use of the former to augment the latter?” How often has this been admitted by Russians in high and responsible positions, yet how seldom has any serious attempt been made to remedy it!
We discussed many other questions, and the impres- sion conveyed on me was that the Viceroy was a man
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of excellent intentions and full of goodwill, but far too much of a courtier to deal with the situation. The conditions of the Caucasus required then and require still statesmanlike qualities of the highest order, and great tenacity of purpose, and I much doubted whether Count Vorontzoff- Dashkoff possessed them. Ferocious racial and religious antagonism and the spirit of revolt born of generations of oppres- sion cannot be soothed with pleasant speeches and comfortable optimism. Had Count Vorontzoff-Dash- koff’s predecessors been like him possibly things would never have reached such a pitch, but to repair the errors of men of the Golytzin stamp, and do away with the demoralization produced by an incapable and corrupt bureaucracy requires a far stronger man. Subsequent events have borne out the impressions which I received at my interview, and Russian policy in the Caucasus has followed now one course, now another, the acts of one day being rescinded the next. The Viceroy is much influenced by the more impor- tant of his subordinate officials, among whom there is the widest divergence of views.
With the advent of Count Vorontzoff-Dashkoff to the Caucasus, several of the higher functionaries were changed. The civil assistant to the Viceroy, General Freze, was succeeded by Sultan Krym-Ghirei, a gentleman of Tartar blood descended from the here- ditary khans of the Crimea, but being the son of an English mother he has been brought up a Protestant. He is one of the most honest and respected of the Russian officials of the Caucasus, and has always used his influence with the Viceroy in favour of
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liberalism. In Guria, where he conducted an inquiry into the condition of the peasantry, his is a name to conjure with. Most of the provincial governors were changed, and whenever serious disorders had broken out special military governors-general were appointed. Also the Viceroy’s own staff was largely changed, a new Ober-Politzmetster (General Shirinkin) was appointed, who also brought several new officials in his train. Curiously enough, the police department professed to be the most liberally disposed of all sections of the administration, and one official, M. G., expressed quite democratic opinions, which are said to have influenced both General Shirinkin and Count Vorontzoff-Dashkoff. I was told by an Armenian journalist that his Excellency made the appointment of M. G. a sene gua non of his own acceptance of the Caucasian Viceroyalty. M. G. isa tall, dark man with black hair and beard, about forty or fifty years of age; he has keen, intelligent eyes, and a glance that seems to take in everything around him. He wears no uniform, which is perhaps in keeping with his position as chief of the secret police. He seems unemotional, cold, and exceedingly astute. One of his most curious peculiarities, for a Russian police functionary, was his outspokenness. Unlike the typical Russian bureaucrat of fiction, or even of fact, he made no secret of his opinions nor of his official methods. On many occasions when G. B. and I went to call on him, he confided his proposals to us, gave us a great deal of interesting information con- cerning the affairs of the Caucasus and of the revo- lutionary movement, and even showed us certain
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confidential papers concerning the business of his department, papers of a kind which I very much doubt if any British official would have shown to a stranger. Nor were we his only confidants; several correspondents and editors of local papers were treated in the same way, and the latter, although not usually permitted to print the documents in question, were allowed to make use of them for their articles. His ideas, although not untainted with the traditional Russian bureaucratic system, were certainly not those of Prince Golytzin, and he expressed the belief that the Government should look for support to the Armenians as being the most orderly element of the population. He had certain definite views as to how the administration of the country should be carried on, and he was anxious to make them known. One evening he asked G. B., myself, and an Armenian journalist to his office in order to expound them to us. We were there two hours, and a most interesting visit it was. He read out a doklad, or report, on the situation in the Caucasus, which he had drawn up especially for the Tzar, suggesting a number of reforms. The document was a very careful and im- partial exposé of the history of the country during the last three months. M. G.’s views of the affair of the Tiflis town hall were characteristically instructive. He said that once the Cossacks were in the building, and the meeting refused to obey the order to disperse, they were obliged to fire—a somewhat doubtful contention —but that the mistake was to send them there at all. “Tt would have been better to allow even an irregular and illegal meeting to continue unimpeded, than to
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fire on the people. In the first case, no serious harm would have been done, whereas, in the second, a great deal of bitterness has been aroused.” He was no believer in the application of martial law, especially in the half-hearted, farcical way in which it was enforced in Tiflis. ‘‘ Either you have martial law, in which case you apply it in all its rigour—you disarm the population, you allow no one to be in the streets after nine o'clock, and you place the town under a real military dictatorship ; or you abolish it altogether. The present system merely annoys peaceful citizens, and interferes with business without being of the least use in maintaining order.”
He was by no means well-disposed towards the military governors appointed to enforce martial law in the outlying districts. ‘‘ They may be good generals,” he said, ‘‘ but they are very bad administrators.” He was particularly opposed to the Georgian General Takaishvili, who was in command at Shusha, and he showed me the drafts of several letters, calling that officer over the coals for various sins of omission, especially for failing to restore order, and to protect the lives of the Armenians from the Tartar bands. Even towards Prince Louis Napoleon, who was then Governor-General of Erivan, he was not too tender, for he believed him to have shown insufficient energy in dealing with the Tartar-Armenian disturbances, although my impression was that the Prince was a shining exception among the host of incapable nonen- tities governing the various provinces of the Caucasus. It is said that it is due to the opposition of the police department, that his Imperial Highness eventually re-
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signed the position, and a member of his suite stated that he was perpetually being interfered with by officials whose interest it was to keep things in a disturbed state. It is quite possible, though | have no proof of it, that while M. G. was following one line of policy, other officials of the police department were following an opposite one.
On another occasion he showed me a letter from the police department, addressed to the commandant of the district of Gory concerning that official’s inten- tion of arresting sundry persons accused of political offences, and exiling them to the north of Russia ‘by administrative order” (z.e., without trial). The com- mandant was advised not to carry out this proposal, ‘for, on the one hand, the persons in question, being guilty of serious political and even common offences, deserve a more severe punishment than mere exile; while, on the other hand, punishment by administrative order will cause great dissatisfaction among the in- habitants of the district who see friends and relatives removed without any reason being given. As con- clusive proofs of their guilt exist, it is useless to resort to a system of punishment whzch should be reserved for cases in which there 1s not sufficient evidence for the purpose of an ordinary trial.” These docu- ments which M. G. showed to me and to others were all marked sovtershenno sekretno (extra confidential). M. G. seemed to be no believer in the censorship of the Press, and often declared that in his opinion the Press could by free criticism greatly assist the Government, and was perpetually using his influence
» obtain a reduction of the absurd restrictions of the
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censorship. The foreign Press was then completely immune from the interference, and the black smears on the English, French, and German dailies, had become a thing of the past in the Caucasus, although in Russia proper they still continued to some extent. On the whole, it appeared to me that M. G. merely wished to see order restored in the way least calcu- lated to arouse the opposition or offend the suscepti- bilities of the inhabitants. If he sympathized more with the Armenians it was because he saw in them the most peaceful element of the population, and also no doubt because it was the policy of the Govern- ment to reverse the Golytzin methods.
About his past record there is some mystery.. His opponents declare that he was once a revolutionist, and connected with the Russian political exiles in Paris, although this was denied by his friends; he did belong to the secret police of Russia, and is mentioned in Father Gapon’s memoirs as a member of Zuba- toffs association of working men organized under police auspices. All I can say for certain is that I experienced unfailing courtesy, assistance, and hos- pitality from him, and that to judge by what 1 saw he was a really capable official.
Towards General Shirinkin, the chief of police, public opinion was not very favourable. Although he too professed liberal opinions and did some liberal acts at the time, he was regarded with the deepest suspicion. ‘When you have lived in Russia a long time,” a Baku friend said to me, ‘‘you realize what the methods of the gendarmerie are, and you can never believe in any member of that force.” The recent
188 FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUOASUS return to reaction in the Caucasus is believed to be largely the work of the Ober-Politsmeister, although of course the movement has its origin in St. Peters- burg. The tergiversations of the Caucasian adminis- tration, which now follows liberal tendencies, and now reactionary ones, are said to be due to the fact that the Viceroy is sometimes influenced by such men as Sultan Krym-Ghirei and M. Staroselsky, and at others by General Shirinkin and the reactionary officers.
One thing which was absolutely clear to me from my conversations with official and non-official per- sonages was the general inefficiency and impotence of the Government. In many districts of the west all authority was in the hands of the revolutionary com- mittees, although here and there the troops might hold a town or district. In the south and east the country was a prey to the Tartar-Armenian feud, which the Government was unable to control. In Tiflis itself order could be maintained for just so long as the various revolutionary committees thought de- sirable. Every Government official complained of the lack of troops, and indeed it was very curious to see a country apparently swarming with soldiers, and yet to hear that they were absolutely insufficient to maintain order. In the course of my tour I visited all the more important centres of the country, and everywhere I saw soldiers, gendarmes, and police ; yet nowhere was order fully assured. It might be said of the Government of the Caucasus as was said of the British Government in South Africa at one period of the war, that its authority extended no further than
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the range of the rifles of the army. Of course the absence of large bodies of men in Manchuria accounted to some extent for the shortage at home, but as a matter of fact the actual numbers of the Russian army must have been enormously overestimated, and a large part of it evidently existed only on paper.
Daily existence in Tiflis was frequently enlivened by riots and assassinations, and by news of similar occurrences, often absurdly exaggerated, from other parts of the country. Yet life went on much as usual in spite of the unrest. Reading about events in Russia, in foreign newspapers, one is apt to imagine that everybody is in a perpetual state of wild excite- ment and terror. Relatives and friends abroad saw me in imagination swimming in pools of blood with bombs bursting on all sides; whereas as a matter of fact I was at the time probably eating my dinner in a restaurant to the sound of a band, or expostu- lating with a railway porter for not having secured the best place for me in the train.
Nevertheless, politics monopolized conversation, and one could talk of nothing else, especially in Armenian circles. But to obtain information about any particular event was not easy, for accuracy is far