The Circassian Genocide

2. A Pawn in the Great Game

32 The destruction of Kabardia remained hidden from the world. When Ermolov conducted the raids that nearly annihilated the Kabardians, not a single European newspaper took notice. As the European powers were vying for supremacy in a post-Napoleonic world, there was little interest in an obscure corner of the Russian Empire, far away from any strategic resources or shipping routes. Western Circassia was another matter. The Black Sea had been an arena of international competition for centuries, and while in the eighteenth century it was for all intents and purposes an Ottoman lake, Russia continually pressed for control of the northern shore. The first foothold was the Crimean peninsula, which the Russians annexed in 1784. The Circassians occupied two hundred miles of the Black Sea coastline east of the Crimea, and Russia was determined to take this strategic region as well. Once the Black Sea Cossacks settled the north bank of the Kuban River, St. Petersburg looked for an opportunity to expand southward into Circassia. At first the other major powers took no notice, but the Ottomans quickly realized the potentially mortal threat Russia posed to their troubled empire. They had been manipulating the Circassians themselves for decades in the vain hope that they could one day exercise genuine authority over Circassia , but by 1829 they realized this was never going to happen. In an 2 A Pawn in the Great Game Having established contact with the Slavs, I have decided to place them in contact with the Circassians and Chechens as well, in order to give Prince Adam Czartoryski greater leverage with England. . . . The Circassians and the Asiatic peoples living between the Black and Caspian Seas are a tool in their hands through which they distress and frighten the Russians. —Mihail Czaikowski A PAWN IN THE GREAT GAME 33 effort to cut their losses they relinquished their claims to Circassia in the Treaty of Adrianople. Even this failed to draw much attention, but when Russia quickly exploited the weak position of the Porte (as the Ottoman government was known) to gain special rights in the Dardanelles, Great Britain saw its own interests in the Black Sea threatened. Suddenly European newspapers and politicians took up the Circassian cause, and some even called for military intervention. The issue was debated in Parliament, and it looked at one point as though Britain would go to war with Russia in order to establish a protectorate over the struggling nation. Agents lived among the Circassians, promising international support and urging them to escalate their war against the Russians. Ultimately, however, the British deserted Circassia. A few politicians continued to press for action, but Parliament wasn’t in the mood for a major war. All that British intervention accomplished was to make the Russians determined to conquer Circassia as quickly as possible. The Fiction of Adrianople Between1768 and1829 the Russian and Ottoman Empires fought four wars. The immediate causes differed, but Russia used each one to extend its authority to the northeastern shores of the Black Sea. Catherine the Great first expressed this vision while discussing the goals of the first of these wars in November 1768: “On conclusion of peace we must demand free navigation on the Black Sea and in order to accomplish this we must try to establish ports and fortresses even before the conclusion of the war.”1 In each successive conflict, the western Circassians were used as pawns by both sides: Ottoman agents persuaded the Ubykhs, Shapsugs, and Natuhays to fight the Russians (and burned their auls when they refused) while the Russians demanded pledges of loyalty from the Hamysh, Mahosh, Bjedukhs, and other tribes on their borders (and burned their auls when they refused). By the war of 1828–1829, the Russians and Ottomans were fighting in the heart of Circassia, bringing devastation not seen since the raids of Tamerlane in the late fourteenth century. On September14,1829, Russia and Turkey signed the Treaty of Adrianople . Article 4 contained the following stipulation: “All the coast of the Black Sea from the mouth of the Kuban to the wharf of Saint Nikolai inclusive 34 THE CIRCASSIAN GENOCIDE shall enter into the permanent possession of the Russian Empire.” Circassia was never mentioned by name in the treaty, although in the preface Emperor Nicholas I is described, among many other titles, as “the hereditary ruler and possessor of the Circassian and mountain princes.”2 This, of course, was nonsense...