Many Past Plans To Divide Turkey.

New York Times 100 years ago today, December 15, 1912:
Catherine II. Wanted to Re-establish Byzantine Empire with Her Grandson as Emperor.
NAPOLEON'S REPLY TO CZAR
Refused to Let Alexander Have Constantinople Because It Would Make Him "Master of the World."
Special Correspondence The New York Times.
    LONDON, Nov. 23.— In an article on "War and Diplomacy," Lucien Wolf discusses in The Graphic the old problem that again confronts Europe as a result of the Balkan war and its amazing outcome.
    "A curious and interesting history," says Mr. Wolf, "might be written — and no doubt will be written one of these days — of the numerous schemes for partitioning Turkey which have agitated the Chancelleries and fascinated political dreamers for nearly a century and a half. The scheme which has now come to fruition, and which may be roughly described as the auto-emancipation of the Christian races, is, however, the Cinderella of these prodigious imaginings.
    It is not precisely of yesterday, for it was whimpered as far back as 1828, but it was long regarded as fantastical. Even when it was mooted by Prof. Komarovski of Moscow, during the great Oriental crisis of 1896, it was only tolerantly smiled upon as an amiable dream which had no place in the field of practical politics.
    "While most of these schemes started from the assumption that partition would have to come from outside the earliest and perhaps the most striking of all of them was not quite of that character. It was a combination of external partition and internal reconstruction, the one being the price paid for the other. It owed its inception to the riotous imagination of the Empress Catherine II., and it will be found set forth in her letter to the Emperor Joseph II. of Austria, dated Sept. 10, 1782. Her idea was to re-establish the Byzantine Empire on an independent basis, under the sceptre of her grandson, the Grand Duke Constantine, who was to don the Imperial purple in Constantinople. By way of purchasing the adhesion of Austria, she was content to allow that power to annex Servia, Bosnia, and a few other trifles of the same kind; but the negotiations came to nothing, owing to the exorbitant demands of Kaunitz. At a later period Nicholas I. conceived the same idea, but he abandoned it when the emancipated Greeks turned against him. Thereupon Metterních adopted it, but never went further with it than a conversation with Prokesch-Osten, which very much astonished that shrewd diplomatist.
    "Nothing more was heard of the restoration of the Byzantine Empire except now and again in the unheeded rhodomontade of the Athenian Press. For three-quarters of a century partition from outside was held to be the only practicable remedy, but the way was always barred by the difficulty of obtaining an agreement among the would-be partitioners. The first scheme of this kind was drafted by the Russian statesman Rastoptchine in a 'Mémorié' addressed to the Emperor Paul in 1800. Turkey was to be shared between Russia and Austria; Prussia was to be bribed with the Electorate of Hanover; France was to receive Egypt, and Greece was, to become a Republic under the protection of the Great Powers. A simpler scheme was that discussed by Napoleon and Alexander at Tilsit. When it came to nought at the Congress of Erfurt, Alexander turned again to Austria, but without success. Later on the Emperor Nicholas suggested another scheme of the same kind to Great Britain, in his famous conversation with Sir George Hamilton Seymour.
.    "Although the idea of 'the Balkans for the Balkan peoples' long belonged to the domain of political dreamland it was not altogether ignored by practical politicians. It was first seriously proposed by Capodistria in 1828, in an elaborate memorandum presented by him to the Secret Committee formed in that year by the Emperor Nicholas to study the Eastern question. He suggested the formation of five new States — Dacia, (consisting of Moldavia and Wallachia;) Servia, (comprising the present kingdom of that name, together with Bosnia and Bulgaria;) Macedonia, (to which would be added Thrace and some of the islands of the archipelago;) Greece practically within her present limits, and a fifth State consisting of Epirus and Albania. A similar idea occurred to Metternich in 1833, but for selfish and reactionary reasons which were quite foreign to Capodistria's scheme. Metternich was afraid of Nicholas's Byzantine project, inasmuch as it involved the creation of a powerful State on the southern borders of Austria-Hungary.
    "It is not a little curious, in view of the perplexities which confront us to-day, that one of the chief difficulties in all these schemes was the fate of Constantinople. The question cropped up at Tilsit when Alexander suggested to Napoleon that he should be permitted to restore the Cross to St. Sophia. It was on that occasion, according to Thiers, that Napoleon exclaimed: 'Constantinople, never! That would be to make you master of the world!' The question figured again in a very interesting form in Capodistria's Memorandum. How far ahead of his times was the Greco-Russian statesman, is shown by the fact that he not only outlined a scheme of 'the Balkans for the Balkan people's,' but he also proposed that the five new States should form a confederacy, and that they should possess a common capital in Constantinople, which should be conceded a small radius of territory and declared a free port. This scheme is far more alive today than it was in 1828, for it is the only effective and final solution of the question. The proposal was revived by Komaroski in 1896, and quite recently Mme. Novikoff suggested something of the same kind in a letter to The Times. Official Russia, however, will have nothing to do with it, no doubt for the reason advanced by Pozzo di Borgo and Dashkoff in 1828, that a Constantinople so situated would not be strong enough to control the Straits and thus protect the Black Sea from an incursion of hostile warships."