t one method
of dealing with barbarian enemies--the unflinching use of fire and
sword, the policy of devastation and massacre. 'I desire,' said
Yermoloff, 'that the terror of my name shall guard our frontiers more
potently than chains of fortresses; that my word shall be for the
natives a law more inevitable than death. Condescension in the eyes
of Asiatics is a sign of weakness, and out of pure humanity I am
inexorably severe. One execution saves hundreds of Russians from
destruction, and thousands of Mussulmans from treason.' He demanded
unconditional submission from all the tribes of the Caucasus; and he
substituted for the former system of bribery and subsidies the policy
of treating all resistance as rebellion, and suppressing it with cruel
severity, 'but' (says one writer) 'always combined with justice and
magnanimity.' Upon this Mr. Baddeley remarks that it is difficult to
see where justice came in, 'but in this respect Russia was only doing
what England and all other civilised States have done, and still do,
wherever they come into contact with savage or semi-savage races. By
force or fraud a portion of the country is taken and sooner or later,
on one excuse or another, the rest is sure to follow.' To this it may
be rejoined that on the north-west frontier of India, and nowhere
else, England has come into contact with a race quite as savage and
untamable as the Caucasian mountaineers, but that it would be a great
mistake to suppose that the methods of Yermoloff have ever been
adopted in dealing with the turbulent fanaticism of the Afghan tribes.

On the Cossack line, when Yermoloff assumed charge of operations,
'there was no open warfare, but there was continual unrest. No man's
life was safe outside the forts and stanitzas; robbery and murder were
rife; raiding parties, great and small, harried the fields, the farms
and the weaker settlements.' To this state of things he was resolved
to put an end. He built fortresses, pushed forward his outposts,
formed moving columns of troops, and assiduously trained his soldiers
to the peculiar conditions of warfare on this borderland. The Russian
regiments, like the Roman legions, were often stationed in their
camps or garrisons for twenty-five years; and for the service required
of them their efficiency was admirable. For ten years Yermoloff
carried on this tribal war with inflexible rigour, by expeditions to
punish some marauding village, which was razed to the ground, a