Page:Wallachia and Moldavia - Correspondence of D. Bratiano whit Lord Dudley C. Stuart, M.P. on the Danubian Principalities.djvu/7

 prophecy of the Emperor Napoleon must be fulfilled, that “ In fifty years Europe will be Republican or Cossack,” and that period having expired without its becoming republican, it must be, and soon will be Cossack ?

But let them be re-assured ! The Emperor Nicholas and the Emperor Francis Joseph have no more wish to go to war with Turkey, than this last has to make war against Russia and Austria. Their majesties have been for some time aware—and had they forgotten it, the recent events at Milan would have recalled it to their remembrance—in what manner their faithful subjects would be ready to testily their devotion to the thrones which crash them, if they saw their majesties engaged in a foreign war. They are not ignorant that in hastening to divide the possessions of their brother, they would leave behind them domestic dividers, quite prepared to divide amongst themselves their majesties' own estates; and when the Poles began to cry, “Poland for us!” the Italians, “ Italy for us!” the Hungarians, “ Hungary for us!” the Roumanians, “ Roumania for us!” and so on—their majesties would doubtless esteem themselves happy, to have for a refuge that same Turkey which they now seek to divide between them; for they know that the infidel Turks have some honor and some faith, and that they never deliver up political refugees.

Those who believe in the approaching partition of Turkey, will not have their fears or their hopes fulfilled; for there will be no partition. Empires may be dismembered; sooner or later they will dismember themselves of their own accord, but the time of partitions is past.

And if the Ottoman Empire is of the number of the condemned, those who know what rents the earthquake of 1848 made in that scaffolding called the Austrian Empire, can have no doubt but that Austria will go first. Truly if Austria desires the partition of Turkey, the memory of the ungrateful is short. She has then forgotten that she would have ceased to exist four years ago if Omer Pacha, who was then in the principalities, had lent a helping hand to the heroic Bern. She has forgotten that she still exists, not in virtue of her own vital forces, but of