France and England after 1830--Affairs of Portugal--Don Miguel--Don Pedro
invades Portugal--Ferdinand of Spain--The Pragmatic Sanction--Death of
Ferdinand: Regency of Christina--The Constitution--Quadruple Alliance--
Miguel and Carlos expelled from Portugal--Carlos enters Spain--The Basque
Provinces--Carlist War: Zumalacarregui--The Spanish Government seeks French
assistance, which is refused--Constitution of 1837--End of the War--Regency
of Espartero--Isabella Queen--Affairs of the Ottoman Empire--Ibrahim
invades Syria; his victories--Rivalry of France and Russia at
Constantinople--Peace of Kutaya and Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi--Effect of
this Treaty--France and Mehemet Ali--Commerce of the Levant--Second War
between Mehemet and the Porte--Ottoman disasters--The Policy of the Great
Powers--Quadruple Treaty without France--Ibrahim expelled from Syria--Final
Settlement--Turkey after 1840--Attempted reforms of Reschid Pasha.
[France and England after 1830.]
Alliances of opinion usually cover the pursuit on one or both sides of some
definite interest; and to this rule the alliance which appeared to be
springing up between France and England after the changes of 1830 was no
exception. In the popular view, the bond of union between the two States
was a common attachment to principles of liberty; and on the part of the
Whig statesmen who now governed England this sympathy with free
constitutional systems abroad was certainly a powerful force: but other
motives than mere community of sentiment combined to draw the two
Governments together, and in the case of France these immediate interests
greatly outweighed any abstract preference for a constitutional ally. Louis
Philippe had an avowed and obstinate enemy in the Czar of Russia, who had
been his predecessor's friend: the Court of Vienna tolerated usurpers only
where worse mischief would follow from attacking them; Prussia had no
motive for abandoning the connexions which it had maintained since 1815. As
the union between the three Eastern Courts grew closer in consequence of
the outbreak of revolution beyond the borders of France, a good
understanding with Great Britain became more and more obviously the right
policy for Louis Philippe; on the other hand, the friendship of France
seemed likely to secure England from falling back into that isolated
position which it had occupied when the Holy Alliance laid down the law to
Europe, and averted the danger to which the Ottoman Empire, as well as the
peace of the world, had been exposed by the combination of French with
Russian schemes of aggrandizement. If Canning, left without an ally in
Europe, had called the new world into existence to redress the balance of
the old, his Whig successors might well look with some satisfaction on that
shifting of the weights which had brought over one of the Great Powers to
the side of England, and anticipate, in the concert of the two great
Western States, the establishment of a permanent force in European politics
which should hold in check the reactionary influences of Vienna and St.
Petersburg. To some extent these views were realised. A general relation of
friendliness was recognised as subsisting between the Governments of Paris
and London, and in certain European complications their intervention was
arranged in common. But even here the element of mistrust was seldom
absent; and while English Ministers jealously watched each action of their
neighbour, the French Government rarely allowed the ties of an informal
alliance to interfere with the prosecution of its own views. Although down
to the close of Louis Philippe's reign the good understanding between
England and France was still nominally in existence, all real confidence
had then long vanished; and on more than one occasion the preservation of
peace between the two nations had been seriously endangered.
[Affairs of Portugal, 1826-1830.]
It was in the establishment of the kingdom of Belgium that the combined
action of France and England produced its first and most successful result.
A second demand was made upon the Governments of the two constitutional
Powers by the conflicts which agitated the Spanish Peninsula, and which
were stimulated in the general interests of absolutism by both the Austrian
and the Russian Court. The intervention of Canning in 1826 on behalf of the
constitutional Regency of Portugal against the foreign supporters of Don
Miguel, the head of the clerical and reactionary party, had not permanently
restored peace to that country. Miguel indeed accepted the constitution,
and, after betrothing himself to the infant sovereign, Donna Maria, who was
still with her father Pedro, in Brazil, entered upon the Regency which his
elder brother had promised to him. But his actions soon disproved the
professions of loyalty to the constitution which he had made; and after
dissolving the Cortes, and re-assembling the mediæval Estates, he caused
himself to be proclaimed King (June, 1828). A reign of terror followed. The
constitutionalists were completely crushed. Miguel's own brutal violence
gave an example to all the fanatics and ruffians who surrounded him; and
after an unsuccessful appeal to arms, those of the adherents of Donna Maria
and the constitution who escaped from imprisonment or execution took refuge
in England or in the Azore islands, where Miguel had not been able to
establish his authority. Though Miguel was not officially recognised as
Sovereign by most of the foreign Courts, his victory was everywhere seen
with satisfaction by the partisans of absolutism; and in Great Britain,
where the Duke of Wellington was still in power, the precedent of Canning's
intervention was condemned, and a strict neutrality maintained. Not only
was all assistance refused to Donna Maria, but her adherents who had taken
refuge in England were prevented from making this country the basis of any
operations against the usurper.
[Invasion of Portugal by Pedro. July, 1832.]
Such was the situation of Portuguese affairs when the events of 1830
brought an entirely new spirit into the foreign policy of both England and
France. Miguel, however, had no inclination to adapt his own policy to the
change of circumstances; on the contrary, he challenged the hostility of
both governments by persisting in a series of wanton attacks upon English
and French subjects resident at Lisbon. Satisfaction was demanded, and
exacted by force. English and French squadrons successively appeared in the
Tagus. Lord Palmerston, now Foreign Secretary in the Ministry of Earl Grey,
was content with obtaining a pecuniary indemnity for his countrymen,
accompanied by a public apology from the Portuguese Government: the French
admiral, finding some difficulty in obtaining redress, carried off the best
ships of Don Miguel's navy. [396] A weightier blow was, however, soon to
fall upon the usurper. His brother, the Emperor Pedro, threatened with
revolution in Brazil, resolved to return to Europe and to enforce the
rights of his daughter to the throne of Portugal. Pedro arrived in London
in July, 1831, and was permitted by the Government to raise troops and to
secure the services of some of the best naval officers of this country. The
gathering place of his forces was Terceira, one of the Azore islands, and
in the summer of 1832 a sufficiently strong body of troops was collected to
undertake the reconquest of Portugal. A landing was made at Oporto, and
this city fell into the hands of Don Pedro without resistance. Miguel,
however, now marched against his brother, and laid siege to Oporto. For
nearly a year no progress was made by either side; at length the arrival of
volunteers from various countries, among whom was Captain Charles Napier,
enabled Pedro to divide his forces and to make a new attack on Portugal
from the south. Napier, in command of the fleet, annihilated the navy of
Don Miguel off St. Vincent; his colleague, Villa Flor, landed and marched
on Lisbon. The resistance of the enemy was overcome, and on the 28th of
July, 1833, Don Pedro entered the capital. But the war was not yet at an
end, for Miguel's cause was as closely identified with the interests of
European absolutism as that of his brother was with constitutional right,
and assistance both in troops and money continued to arrive at his camp.
The struggle threatened to prove a long and obstinate one, when a new turn
was given to events in the Peninsula by the death of Ferdinand, King of
Spain.
[Death of Ferdinand, Sept., 1833.]
Since the restoration of absolute Government in Spain in 1823, Ferdinand,
in spite of his own abject weakness and ignorance, had not given complete
satisfaction to the fanatics of the clerical party. Some vestiges of
statesmanship, some sense of political necessity, as well as the influence
of foreign counsellors, had prevented the Government of Madrid from
completely identifying itself with the monks and zealots who had first
risen against the constitution of 1820, and who now sought to establish the
absolute supremacy of the Church. The Inquisition had not been restored,
and this alone was enough to stamp the King as a renegade in the eyes of
the ferocious and implacable champions of mediæval bigotry. Under the name
of Apostolicals, these reactionaries had at times broken into open
rebellion. Their impatience had, however, on the whole been restrained by
the knowledge that in the King's brother and heir, Don Carlos, they had an
adherent whose devotion to the priestly cause was beyond suspicion, and who
might be expected soon to ascend the throne. Ferdinand had been thrice
married; he was childless; his state of health miserable; and his life
likely to be a short one. The succession to the throne of Spain had
moreover, since 1713, been governed by the Salic Law, so that even in the
event of Ferdinand leaving female issue Don Carlos would nevertheless
inherit the crown. These confident hopes were rudely disturbed by the
marriage of the King with his cousin Maria Christina of Naples, followed by
an edict, known as the Pragmatic Sanction, repealing the Salic Law which
had been introduced with the first Bourbon, and restoring the ancient
Castilian custom under which women were capable of succeeding to the crown.
A daughter, Isabella, was shortly afterwards born to the new Queen. On the
legality of the Pragmatic Sanction the opinions of publicists differed; it
was judged, however, by Europe at large not from the point of view of
antiquarian theory, but with direct reference to its immediate effect. The
three Eastern Courts emphatically condemned it, as an interference with
established monarchical right, and as a blow to the cause of European
absolutism through the alliance which it would almost certainly produce
between the supplanters of Don Carlos and the Liberals of the Spanish
Peninsula. [397] To the clerical and reactionary party at Madrid, it
amounted to nothing less than a sentence of destruction, and the utmost
pressure was brought to bear upon the weak and dying King with the object
of inducing him to undo the alleged wrong which he had done to his brother.
In a moment of prostration Ferdinand revoked the Pragmatic Sanction; but,
subsequently, regaining some degree of strength, he re-enacted it, and
appointed Christina Regent during the continuance of his illness. Don
Carlos, protesting against the violation of his rights, had betaken himself
to Portugal, where he made common cause with Miguel. His adherents had no
intention of submitting to the change of succession. Their resentment was
scarcely restrained during Ferdinand's life-time, and when, in September,
1833, his long-expected death took place, and the child Isabella was
declared Queen under the Regency of her mother, open rebellion broke out,
and Carlos was proclaimed King in several of the northern provinces.
[The Regency and the Carlists.]
[Quadruple Treaty, April 22, 1834.]
[Miguel and Carlos removed, May, 1834.]
For the moment the forces of the Regency seemed to be far superior to those
of the insurgents, and Don Carlos failed to take advantage of the first
outburst of enthusiasm and to place himself at the head of his followers.
He remained in Portugal, while Christina, as had been expected, drew nearer
to the Spanish Liberals, and ultimately called to power a Liberal minister,
Martinez de la Rosa, under whom a constitution was given to Spain by Royal
Statute (April 10, 1834). At the same time negotiations were opened with
Portugal and with the Western Powers, in the hope of forming an alliance
which should drive both Miguel and Carlos from the Peninsula. On the 22nd
of April, 1834, a Quadruple Treaty was signed at London, in which the
Spanish Government undertook to send an army into Portugal against Miguel,
the Court of Lisbon pledging itself in return to use all the means in its
power to expel Don Carlos from Portuguese territory. England engaged to
co-operate by means of its fleet. The assistance of France, if it should be
deemed necessary for the attainment of the objects of the Treaty, was to be
rendered in such manner as should be settled by common consent. In
pursuance of the policy of the Treaty, and even before the formal
engagement was signed, a Spanish division under General Rodil crossed the
frontier and marched against Miguel. The forces of the usurper were
defeated. The appearance of the English fleet and the publication of the
Treaty of Quadruple Alliance rendered further resistance hopeless, and on
the 22nd of May Miguel made his submission, and in return for a large
pension renounced all rights to the crown, and undertook to quit the
Peninsula for ever. Don Carlos, refusing similar conditions, went on board
an English ship, and was conducted to London. [398]
[Carlos appears in Spain.]
With respect to Portugal, the Quadruple Alliance had completely attained
its object; and in so far as the Carlist cause was strengthened by the
continuance of civil war in the neighbouring country, this source of
strength was no doubt withdrawn from it. But in its effect upon Don Carlos
himself the action of the Quadruple Alliance was worse than useless. While
fulfilling the letter of the Treaty, which stipulated for the expulsion of
the two pretenders from the Peninsula, the English Admiral had removed
Carlos from Portugal, where he was comparatively harmless, and had taken no
effective guarantee that he should not re-appear in Spain itself and
enforce his claim by arms. Carlos had not been made a prisoner of war; he
had made no promises and incurred no obligations; nor could the British
Government, after his arrival in this country, keep him in perpetual
restraint. Quitting England after a short residence, he travelled in
disguise through France, crossed the Pyrenees, and appeared on the 10th of
July, 1834, at the headquarters of the Carlist insurgents in Navarre.
[The Basque Provinces.]
In the country immediately below the western Pyrenees, the so-called Basque
Provinces, lay the chief strength of the Carlist rebellion. These
provinces, which were among the most thriving and industrious parts of
Spain, might seem by their very superiority an unlikely home for a movement
which was directed against everything favourable to liberty, tolerance, and
progress in the Spanish kingdom. But the identification of the Basques with
the Carlist cause was due in fact to local, not to general, causes; and in
fighting to impose a bigoted despot upon the Spanish people, they were in
truth fighting to protect themselves from a closer incorporation with
Spain. Down to the year 1812, the Basque provinces had preserved more than
half of the essentials of independence. Owing to their position on the
French frontier, the Spanish monarchy, while destroying all local
independence in the interior of Spain, had uniformly treated the Basques
with the same indulgence which the Government of Great Britain has shown to
the Channel Islands, and which the French monarchy, though in a less
degree, showed to the frontier province of Alsace in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. The customs-frontier of the north of Spain was drawn
to the south of these districts. The inhabitants imported what they pleased
from France without paying any duties; while the heavy import-dues levied
at the border of the neighbouring Spanish provinces gave them the
opportunity of carrying on an easy and lucrative system of smuggling. The
local administration remained to a great extent in the hands of the people
themselves; each village preserved its active corporate life; and the
effect of this survival of a vigorous local freedom was seen in the
remarkable contrast described by travellers between the aspect of the
Basque districts and that of Spain at large. The Fueros, or local rights,
as the Basques considered them, were in reality, when viewed as part of the
order of the Spanish State, a series of exceptional privileges; and it was
inevitable that the framers of the Constitution of 1812, in their attempt
to create a modern administrative and political system doing justice to the
whole of the nation, should sweep away the distinctions which had hitherto
marked off one group of provinces from the rest of the community. The
continuance of war until the return of Ferdinand, and the overthrow of the
Constitution, prevented the plans of the Cortes from being at that time
carried into effect; but the revolution of 1820 brought them into actual
operation, and the Basques found themselves, as a result of the victory of
Liberal principles, compelled to pay duties on their imports, robbed of the
profits of their smuggling, and supplanted in the management of their local
affairs by an army of officials from Madrid. They had gained by the
Constitution little that they had not possessed before, and their losses
were immediate, tangible, and substantial. The result was, that although
the larger towns, like Bilbao, remained true to modern ideas, the country
districts, led chiefly by priests, took up arms on behalf of the absolute
monarchy, assisted the French in the restoration of despotism in 1823, and
remained the permanent enemies of the constitutional cause. [399] On the
death of Ferdinand they declared at once for Don Carlos, and rose in
rebellion against the Government of Queen Christina, by which they
considered the privileges of the Basque Provinces and the interests of
Catholic orthodoxy to be alike threatened.
[Carlist victories, 1834-5.]
There was little in the character of Don Carlos to stimulate the loyalty
even of his most benighted partizans. Of military and political capacity he
was totally destitute, and his continued absence in Portugal when the
conflict had actually begun proved him to be wanting in the natural
impulses of a brave man. It was, however, his fortune to be served by a
soldier of extraordinary energy and skill; and the first reverses of the
Carlists were speedily repaired, and a system of warfare organised which
made an end of the hopes of easy conquest with which the Government of
Christina had met the insurrection. Fighting in a worthless cause, and
commanding resources scarcely superior to those of a brigand chief, the
Carlist leader, Zumalacarregui, inflicted defeat after defeat upon the
generals who were sent to destroy him. The mountainous character of the
country and the universal hostility of the inhabitants made the exertions
of a regular soldiery useless against the alternate flights and surprises
of men who knew every mountain track, and who gained information of the
enemy's movements from every cottager. Terror was added by Zumalacarregui
to all his other methods for demoralising his adversary. In the exercise of
reprisals he repeatedly murdered all his prisoners in cold blood, and gave
to the war so savage a character that foreign Governments at last felt
compelled to urge upon the belligerents some regard for the usages of the
civilised world. The appearance of Don Carlos himself in the summer of 1834
raised still higher the confidence already inspired by the victories of his
general. It was in vain that the old constitutionalist soldier, Mina, who
had won so great a name in these provinces in 1823, returned after long
exile to the scene of his exploits. Enfeebled and suffering, he was no
longer able to place himself at the head of his troops, and he soon sought
to be relieved from a hopeless task. His successor, the War Minister
Valdes, took the field announcing his determination to act upon a new
system, and to operate with his troops in mass instead of pursuing the
enemy's bands with detachments. The result of this change of tactics was a
defeat more ruinous and complete than had befallen any of Valdes'
predecessors. He with difficulty withdrew the remainder of his army from
the insurgent provinces; and the Carlist leader master of the open country
up to the borders of Castile, prepared to cross the Ebro and to march upon
Madrid. [400]
[Request to France for assistance, May, 1835.]
The Ministers of Queen Christina, who had up till this time professed
themselves confident in their power to deal with the insurrection, could
now no longer conceal the real state of affairs. Valdes himself declared
that the rebellion could not be subdued without foreign aid; and after
prolonged discussion in the Cabinet it was determined to appeal to France
for armed assistance. The flight of Don Carlos from England had already
caused an additional article to be added to the Treaty of the Quadruple
Alliance, in which France undertook so to watch the frontier of the
Pyrenees that no reinforcements or munition of war should reach the
Carlists from that side, while England promised to supply the troops of
Queen Christina with arms and stores, and, if necessary, to render
assistance with a naval force (18th August, 1834). The foreign supplies
sent to the Carlists had thus been cut off both by land and sea; but more
active assistance seemed indispensable if Madrid was to be saved from
falling into the enemy's hands. The request was made to Louis Philippe's
Government to occupy the Basque Provinces with a corps of twelve thousand
men. Reasons of weight might be addressed to the French Court in favour of
direct intervention. The victory of Don Carlos would place upon the throne
of Spain a representative of all those reactionary influences throughout
Europe which were in secret or in open hostility to the House of Orleans,
and definitely mark the failure of that policy which had led France to
combine with England in expelling Don Miguel from Portugal. On the other
hand, the experience gained from earlier military enterprises in Spain
might well deter even bolder politicians than those about Louis Philippe
from venturing upon a task whose ultimate issues no man could confidently
forecast. Napoleon had wrecked his empire in the struggle beyond the
Pyrenees not less than in the march to Moscow: and the expedition of 1823,
though free from military difficulties, had exposed France to the
humiliating responsibility for every brutal act of a despotism which, in
the very moment of its restoration, had scorned the advice of its
restorers. The constitutional Government which invoked French assistance
might, moreover, at any moment give place to a democratic faction which
already harassed it within the Cortes, and which, in its alliance with the
populace in many of the great cities, threatened to throw Spain into
anarchy, or to restore the ill-omened constitution of 1812. But above all,
the attitude of the three Eastern Powers bade the ruler of France hesitate
before committing himself to a military occupation of Spanish territory.
Their sympathies were with Don Carlos, and the active participation of
France in the quarrel might possibly call their opposing forces into the
field and provoke a general war. In view of the evident dangers arising out
of the proposed intervention, the French Government, taking its stand on
that clause of the Quadruple Treaty which provided that the assistance of
France should be rendered in such manner as might be agreed upon by all the
parties to the Treaty, addressed itself to Great Britain, inquiring whether
this country would undertake a joint responsibility in the enterprise and
share with France the consequences to which it might give birth. Lord
Palmerston in reply declined to give the assurance required. He stated that
no objection would be raised by the British Government to the entry of
French troops into Spain, but that such intervention must be regarded as
the work of France alone, and be undertaken by France at its own peril.
This answer sufficed for Louis Philippe and his Ministers. The Spanish
Government was informed that the grant of military assistance was
impossible, and that the entire public opinion of France would condemn so
dangerous an undertaking. As a proof of goodwill, permission was given to
Queen Christina to enrol volunteers both in England and France. Arms were
supplied; and some thousands of needy or adventurous men ultimately made
their way from our own country as well as from France, to earn under
Colonel De Lacy Evans and other leaders a scanty harvest of profit or
renown.
[Continuance of the war.]
The first result of the rejection of the Spanish demand for the direct
intervention of France was the downfall of the Minister by whom this demand
had been made. His successor, Toreno, though a well-known patriot, proved
unable to stem the tide of revolution that was breaking over the country.
City after city set up its own Junta, and acted as if the central
government had ceased to exist. Again the appeal for help was made to Louis
Philippe, and now, not so much to avert the victory of Don Carlos as to
save Spain from anarchy and from the constitution of 1812. Before an answer
could arrive, Toreno in his turn had passed away. Mendizabal, a banker who
had been entrusted with financial business at London, and who had entered
into friendly relations with Lord Palmerston, was called to office, as a
politician acceptable to the democratic party, and the advocate of a close
connection with England rather than with France. In spite of the confident
professions of the Minister, and in spite of some assistance actually
rendered by the English fleet, no real progress was made in subduing the
Carlists, or in restoring administrative and financial order. The death of
Zumalacarregui, who was forced by Don Carlos to turn northwards and besiege
Bilbao instead of marching upon Madrid immediately after his victories, had
checked the progress of the rebellion at a critical moment; but the
Government, distracted and bankrupt, could not use the opportunity which
thus offered itself, and the war soon blazed out anew not only in the
Basque Provinces but throughout the north of Spain. For year after year the
monotonous struggle continued, while Cortes succeeded Cortes and faction
supplanted faction, until there remained scarcely an officer who had not
lost his reputation or a politician who was not useless and discredited.
[Constitution of 1837.]
[End of the war, Sept., 1839.]
The Queen Regent, who from the necessities of her situation had for awhile
been the representative of the popular cause, gradually identified herself
with the interests opposed to democratic change; and although her name was
still treated with some respect, and her policy was habitually attributed
to the misleading advice of courtiers, her real position was well
understood at Madrid, and her own resistance was known to be the principal
obstacle to the restoration of the Constitution of 1812. It was therefore
determined to overcome this resistance by force; and on the 13th of August,
1836, a regiment of the garrison of Madrid, won over by the Exaltados,
marched upon the palace of La Granja, invaded the Queen's apartments, and
compelled her to sign an edict restoring the Constitution of 1812 until the
Cortes should establish that or some other. Scenes of riot and murder
followed in the capital. Men of moderate opinions, alarmed at the approach
of anarchy, prepared to unite with Don Carlos. King Louis Philippe, who had
just consented to strengthen the French legion by the addition of some
thousands of trained soldiers, now broke entirely from the Spanish
connection, and dismissed his Ministers who refused to acquiesce in this
change of policy. Meanwhile the Eastern Powers and all rational partisans
of absolutism besought Don Carlos to give those assurances which would
satisfy the wavering mass among his opponents, and place him on the throne
without the sacrifice of any right that was worth preserving. It seemed as
if the opportunity was too clear to be misunderstood; but the obstinacy and
narrowness of Don Carlos were proof against every call of fortune. Refusing
to enter into any sort of engagement, he rendered it impossible for men to
submit to him who were not willing to accept absolutism pure and simple. On
the other hand, a majority of the Cortes, whose eyes were now opened to the
dangers around them, accepted such modifications of the Constitution of
1812 that political stability again appeared possible (June, 1837). The
danger of a general transference of all moderate elements in the State to
the side of Don Carlos was averted; and, although the Carlist armies took
up the offensive, menaced the capital, and made incursions into every part
of Spain, the darkest period of the war was now over; and when, after
undertaking in person the march upon Madrid, Don Carlos swerved aside and
ultimately fell back in confusion to the Ebro, the suppression of the
rebellion became a certainty. General Espartero, with whom such distinction
remained as was to be gathered in this miserable war, forced back the
adversary step by step, and carried fire and sword into the Basque
Provinces, employing a system of devastation which alone seemed capable of
exhausting the endurance of the people. Reduced to the last extremity, the
Carlist leaders turned their arms against one another. The priests
excommunicated the generals, and the generals shot the priests; and
finally, on the 14th September, after the surrender of almost all his
troops to Espartero, Don Carlos crossed the French frontier, and the
conflict which during six years had barbarised and disgraced the Spanish
nation, reached its close.
[End of the Regency, Isabella, Queen, Nov., 1843.]
The triumph of Queen Christina over her rivals was not of long duration.
Confronted by a strong democratic party both in the Cortes and in the
country, she endeavoured in vain to govern by the aid of Ministers of her
own choice. Her popularity had vanished away. The scandals of her private
life gave just offence to the nation, and fatally weakened her political
authority. Forced by insurrection to bestow office on Espartero, as the
chief of the Progressist party, she found that the concessions demanded by
this general were more than she could grant, and in preference to
submitting to them she resigned the Regency, and quitted Spain (Oct.,
1840). Espartero, after some interval, was himself appointed Regent by the
Cortes. For two years he maintained himself in power, then in his turn he
fell before the combined attack of his political opponents and the extreme
men of his own party, and passed into exile. There remained in Spain no
single person qualified to fill the vacant Regency, and in default of all
other expedients the young princess Isabella, who was now in her fourteenth
year, was declared of full age, and placed on the throne (Nov., 1843).
Christina returned to Madrid. After some rapid changes of Ministry, a more
durable Government was formed from the Moderado party under General
Narvaez; and in comparison with the period that had just ended, the first
few years of the new reign were years of recovery and order.
[War between Mehemet Ali and the Porte, 1832.]
The withdrawal of Louis Philippe from his engagements after the
capitulation of Maria Christina to the soldiery at La Granja in 1836 had
diminished the confidence placed in the King by the British Ministry; but
it had not destroyed the relations of friendship existing between the two
Governments. Far more serious causes of difference arose out of the course
of events in the East, and the extension of the power of Mehemet Ali,
Viceroy of Egypt. The struggle between Mehemet and his sovereign, long
foreseen, broke out in the year 1832. After the establishment of the
Hellenic Kingdom, the island of Crete had been given to Mehemet in return
for his services to the Ottoman cause by land and sea. This concession,
however, was far from satisfying the ambition of the Viceroy, and a quarrel
with Abdallah, Pasha of Acre, gave him the opportunity of throwing an army
into Palestine without directly rebelling against his sovereign (Nov.,
1831). Ibrahim, in command of his father's forces, laid siege to Acre; and
had this fortress at once fallen, it would probably have been allowed by
the Sultan to remain in its conqueror's hands as an addition to his own
province, since the Turkish army was not ready for war, and it was no
uncommon thing in the Ottoman Empire for one provincial governor to possess
himself of territory at the expense of another. So obstinate, however, was
the defence of Acre that time was given to the Porte to make preparations
for war; and in the spring of 1832, after the issue of a proclamation
declaring Mehemet and his son to be rebels, a Turkish army led by Hussein
Pasha entered Syria.
[Ibrahim conquers Syria and Asia Minor.]
Ibrahim, while the siege of Acre was proceeding, had overrun the
surrounding country. He was now in possession of all the interior of
Palestine, and the tribes of Lebanon had joined him in the expectation of
gaining relief from the burdens of Turkish misgovernment. The fall of Acre,
while the relieving army was still near Antioch, enabled him to throw his
full strength against his opponent in the valley of the Orontes. It was the
intention of the Turkish general, whose forces, though superior in number,
had not the European training of Ibrahim's regiments, to meet the assault
of the Egyptians in an entrenched camp near Hama. The commander of the
vanguard, however, pushed forward beyond this point, and when far in
advance of the main body of the army was suddenly attacked by Ibrahim at
Homs. Taken at a moment of complete disorder, the Turks were put to the
rout. Their overthrow and flight so alarmed the general-in-chief that he
determined to fall back upon Aleppo, leaving Antioch and all the valley of
the Orontes to the enemy. Aleppo was reached, but the governor, won over by
Ibrahim, closed the gates of the city against the famishing army, and
forced Hussein to continue his retreat to the mountains which form the
barrier between Syria and Cilicia. Here, at the pass of Beilan, he was
attacked by Ibrahim, outmanoeuvred, and forced to retreat with heavy loss
(July 29). The pursuit was continued through the province of Cilicia.
Hussein's army, now completely demoralised, made its escape to the centre
of Asia Minor; the Egyptian, after advancing as far as Mount Taurus and
occupying the passes in this range, took up his quarters in the conquered
country in order to refresh his army and to await reinforcements. After two
months' halt he renewed his march, crossed Mount Taurus and occupied
Konieh, the capital of this district. Here the last and decisive blow was
struck. A new Turkish army, led by Reschid Pasha, Ibrahim's colleague in
the siege of Missolonghi, advanced from the north. Against his own advice,
Reschid was compelled by orders from Constantinople to risk everything in
an engagement. He attacked Ibrahim at Konieh on the 21st of December, and
was completely defeated. Reschid himself was made a prisoner; his army
dispersed; the last forces of the Sultan were exhausted, and the road to
the Bosphorus lay open before the Egyptian invader.
[Russian aid offered to the Sultan.]
[Peace of Kutaya, April, 1833.]
In this extremity the Sultan looked around for help; nor were offers of
assistance wanting. The Emperor Nicholas had since the Treaty of Adrianople
assumed the part of the magnanimous friend; his belief was that the Ottoman
Empire might by judicious management and without further conquest be
brought into a state of habitual dependence upon Russia; and before the
result of the battle of Konieh was known General Muravieff had arrived at
Constantinople bringing the offer of Russian help both by land and sea, and
tendering his own personal services in the restoration of peace. Mahmud had
to some extent been won over by the Czar's politic forbearance in the
execution of the Treaty of Adrianople. His hatred of Mehemet Ali was a
consuming passion; and in spite of the general conviction both of his
people and of his advisers that no possible concession to a rebellious
vassal could be so fatal as the protection of the hereditary enemy of
Islam, he was disposed to accept the Russian tender of assistance. As a
preliminary, Muravieff was sent to Alexandria with permission to cede Acre
to Mehemet Ali, if in return the Viceroy would make over his fleet to the
Sultan. These were conditions on which no reasonable man could have
expected that Mehemet would make peace; and the intention of the Russian
Court probably was that Muravieff's mission should fail. The envoy soon
returned to Constantinople announcing that his terms were rejected. Mahmud
now requested that Russian ships might be sent to the Bosphorus, and to the
dismay of the French and English embassies a Russian squadron appeared
before the capital. Admiral Roussin, the French ambassador, addressed a
protest to the Sultan and threatened to leave Constantinople. His
remonstrances induced Mahmud to consent to some more serious negotiation
being opened with Mehemet Ali. A French envoy was authorised to promise the
Viceroy the governorship of Tripoli in Syria as well as Acre; his
overtures, however, were not more acceptable than those of Muravieff, and
Mehemet openly declared that if peace were not concluded on his own terms
within six weeks, he should order Ibrahim, who had halted at Kutaya, to
continue his march on the Bosphorus. Thoroughly alarmed at this threat, and
believing that no Turkish force could keep Ibrahim out of the capital,
Mahmud applied to Russia for more ships and also for troops. Again Admiral
Roussin urged upon the Sultan that if Syria could be reconquered only by
Russian forces it was more than lost to the Porte. His arguments were
supported by the Divan, and with such effect that a French diplomatist was
sent to Ibrahim with power to negotiate for peace on any terms.
Preliminaries were signed at Kutaya under French mediation on the 10th of
April, 1833, by which the Sultan made over to his vassal not only the whole
of Syria but the province of Adana which lies between Mount Taurus and the
Mediterranean. After some delay these Preliminaries were ratified by
Mahmud; and Ibrahim, after his dazzling success both in war and in
diplomacy, commenced the evacuation of northern Anatolia.
[Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, July, 1833.]
For the moment it appeared that French influence had decisively prevailed
at Constantinople, and that the troops of the Czar had been summoned from
Sebastopol only to be dismissed with the ironical compliments of those who
were most anxious to get rid of them. But this was not really the case.
Whether the fluctuations in the Sultan's policy had been due to mere fear
and irresolution, or whether they had to some extent proceeded from the
desire to play off one Power against another, it was to Russia, not France,
that his final confidence was given. The soldiers of the Czar were encamped
by the side of the Turks on the eastern shore of the Bosphorus; his ships
lay below Constantinople. Here on the 8th of July a Treaty was signed at
the palace of Unkiar Skelessi, [401] in which Russia and Turkey entered
into a defensive alliance of the most intimate character, each Power
pledging itself to render assistance to the other, not only against the
attack of an external enemy, but in every event where its peace and
security might be endangered. Russia undertook, in cases where its support
should be required, to provide whatever amount of troops the Sultan should
consider necessary both by sea and land, the Porte being charged with no
part of the expense beyond that of the provisioning of the troops. The
duration of the Treaty was fixed in the first instance for eight years. A
secret article, which, however, was soon afterwards published, declared
that, in order to diminish the burdens of the Porte, the Czar would not
demand the material help to which the Treaty entitled him; while, in
substitution for such assistance, the Porte undertook, when Russia should
be at war, to close the Dardanelles to the war-ships of all nations.
[Effect of this Treaty.]
By the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, Russia came nearer than it has at any
time before or since to that complete ascendency at Constantinople which
has been the modern object of its policy. The success of its diplomatists
had in fact been too great; for, if the abstract right of the Sultan to
choose his own allies had not yet been disputed by Europe at large, the
clause in the Treaty which related to the Dardanelles touched the interests
of every Power which possessed a naval station in the Mediterranean. By the
public law of Europe the Black Sea, which until the eighteenth century was
encompassed entirely by the Sultan's territory, formed no part of the open
waters of the world, but a Turkish lake to which access was given through
the Dardanelles only at the pleasure of the Porte. When, in the eighteenth
century, Russia gained a footing on the northern shore of the Euxine, this
carried with it no right to send war-ships through the straits into the
Mediterranean, nor had any Power at war with Russia the right to send a
fleet into the Black Sea otherwise than by the Sultan's consent. The Treaty
of Unkiar Skelessi, in making Turkey the ally of Russia against all its
enemies, converted the entrance to the Black Sea into a Russian fortified
post, from behind which Russia could freely send forth its ships of war
into the Mediterranean, while its own ports and arsenals remained secure
against attack. England and France, which were the States whose interests
were principally affected, protested against the Treaty, and stated they
reserved to themselves the right of taking such action in regard to it as
occasion might demand. Nor did the opposition rest with the protests of
diplomatists. The attention both of the English nation and of its
Government was drawn far more than hitherto to the future of the Ottoman
Empire. Political writers exposed with unwearied vigour, and not without
exaggeration, the designs of the Court of St. Petersburg in Asia as well as
in Europe; and to this time, rather than to any earlier period, belongs the
first growth of that strong national antagonism to Russia which found its
satisfaction in the Crimean War, and which has by no means lost its power
at the present day.
[France and Mehemet Ali.]
In desiring to check the extension of Russia's influence in the Levant,
Great Britain and France were at one. The lines of policy, however,
followed by these two States were widely divergent. Great Britain sought to
maintain the Sultan's power in its integrity; France became in an
increasing degree the patron and the friend of Mehemet Ali. Since the
expedition of Napoleon to Egypt in 1798, which was itself the execution of
a design formed in the reign of Louis XVI., Egypt had largely retained its
hold on the imagination of the leading classes in France. Its monuments,
its relics of a mighty past, touched a livelier chord among French men of
letters and science than India has at any time found among ourselves; and
although the hope of national conquest vanished with Napoleon's overthrow,
Egypt continued to afford a field of enterprise to many a civil and
military adventurer. Mehemet's army and navy were organised by French
officers; he was surrounded by French agents and men of business; and after
the conquest of Algiers had brought France on to the southern shore of the
Mediterranean, the advantages of a close political relation with Egypt did
not escape the notice of statesmen who saw in Gibraltar and Malta the most
striking evidences of English maritime power. Moreover the personal fame of
Mehemet strongly affected French opinion. His brilliant military reforms,
his vigorous administration, and his specious achievements in finance
created in the minds of those who were too far off to know the effects of
his tyranny the belief that at the hands of this man the East might yet
awaken to new life. Thus, from a real conviction of the superiority of
Mehemet's rule over that of the House of Osman no less than from
considerations of purely national policy, the French Government, without
any public or official bond of union, gradually became the acknowledged
supporters of the Egyptian conqueror, and connected his interests with
their own.
[Rule of Mehemet and Ibrahim.]
Sultan Mahmud had ratified the Preliminaries of Kutaya with wrath in his
heart; and from this time all his energies were bent upon the creation of a
force which should wrest back the lost provinces and take revenge upon his
rebellious vassal. As eager as Mehemet himself to reconstruct his form of
government upon the models of the West, though far less capable of
impressing upon his work the stamp of a single guiding will, thwarted
moreover by the jealous interference of Russia whenever his reforms seemed
likely to produce any important result, he nevertheless succeeded in
introducing something of European system and discipline into his army under
the guidance of foreign soldiers, among whom was a man then little known,
but destined long afterwards to fill Europe with his fame, the Prussian
staff-officer Moltke. On the other side Mehemet and Ibrahim knew well that
the peace was no more than an armed truce, and that what had been won by
arms could only be maintained by constant readiness to meet attack. Under
pressure of this military necessity, Ibrahim sacrificed whatever sources of
strength were open to him in the hatred borne by his new subjects to the
Turkish yoke, and in their hopes of relief from oppression under his own
rule. Welcomed at first as a deliverer, he soon proved a heavier
task-master than any who had gone before him. The conscription was
rigorously enforced; taxation became more burdensome; the tribes who had
enjoyed a wild independence in the mountains were disarmed and reduced to
the level of their fellow-subjects. Thus the discontent which had so
greatly facilitated the conquest of the border-provinces soon turned
against the conqueror himself, and one uprising after another shook
Ibrahim's hold upon Mount Lebanon and the Syrian desert. The Sultan watched
each outbreak against his adversary with grim joy, impatient for the moment
when the re-organisation of his own forces should enable him to re-enter
the field and to strike an overwhelming blow.
[The commerce of the Levant.]
With all its characteristics of superior intelligence in the choice of
means, the system of Mehemet All was in its end that of the genuine
Oriental despot. His final object was to convert as many as possible of his
subjects into soldiers, and to draw into his treasury the profits of the
labour of all the rest. With this aim he gradually ousted from their rights
of proprietorship the greater part of the land-owners of Egypt, and finally
proclaimed the entire soil to be State-domain, appropriating at prices
fixed by himself the whole of its produce. The natural commercial
intercourse of his dominions gave place to a system of monopolies carried
on by the Government itself. Rapidly as this system, which was introduced
into the newly-conquered provinces, filled the coffers of Mehemet Ali, it
offered to the Sultan, whose paramount authority was still acknowledged,
the means of inflicting a deadly injury upon him by a series of commercial
treaties with the European Powers, granting to western traders a free
market throughout the Ottoman Empire. Resistance to such a measure would
expose Mehemet to the hostility of the whole mercantile interest of Europe;
submission to it would involve the loss of a great part of that revenue on
which his military power depended. It was probably with this result in
view, rather than from any more obvious motive, that in the year 1838 the
Sultan concluded a new commercial Treaty with England, which was soon
followed by similar agreements with other States.
[Campaign of Nissib, June, 1839.]
The import of the Sultan's commercial policy was not lost upon Mehemet, who
had already determined to declare himself independent. He saw that war was
inevitable, and bade Ibrahim collect his forces in the neighbourhood of
Aleppo, while the generals of the Sultan massed on the upper Euphrates the
troops that had been successfully employed in subduing the wild tribes of
Kurdistan. The storm was seen to be gathering, and the representatives of
foreign Powers urged the Sultan, but in vain, to refrain from an enterprise
which might shatter his empire. Mahmud was now a dying man. Exhausted by
physical excess and by the stress and passion of his long reign, he bore in
his heart the same unquenchable hatreds as of old; and while assuring the
ambassadors of his intention to maintain the peace, he despatched a letter
to his commander-in-chief, without the knowledge of any single person,
ordering him to commence hostilities. The Turkish army crossed the frontier
on the 23rd of May, 1839. In the operations which followed, the advice and
protests of Moltke and the other European officers at head-quarters were
persistently disregarded. The Turks were outmanoeuvred and cut off from
their communications, and on the 24th of June the onslaught of Ibrahim
swept them from their position at Nissib in utter rout. The whole of their
artillery and stores fell into the hands of the enemy: the army dispersed.
Mahmud did not live to hear of the catastrophe. Six days after the battle
of Nissib was fought, and while the messenger who bore the news was still
in Anatolia, he expired, leaving the throne to his son, Abdul Medjid, a
youth of sixteen. Scarcely had the new Sultan been proclaimed when it
became known that the Admiral, Achmet Fewzi, who had been instructed to
attack the Syrian coast, had sailed into the port of Alexandria, and handed
over the Turkish fleet to Mehemet Ali himself.
[Relations of the Powers to Mehemet.]
[Quadruple Treaty without France. July, 1840.]
The very suddenness of these disasters, which left the Ottoman Empire
rulerless and without defence by land or sea, contributed ultimately to its
preservation, inasmuch as it impelled the Powers to combined action, which,
under less urgent pressure, would probably not have been attainable. On the
announcement of the exorbitant conditions of peace demanded by Mehemet, the
ambassadors addressed a collective note to the Divan, requesting that no
answer might be made until the Courts had arrived at some common
resolution. Soon afterwards the French and English fleets appeared at the
Dardanelles, nominally to protect Constantinople against the attack of the
Viceroy, in reality to guard against any sudden movement on the part of
Russia. This display of force was, however, not necessary, for the Czar, in
spite of some expressions to the contrary, had already convinced himself
that it was impossible to act upon the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi and to
make the protectorate of Turkey the affair of Russia alone. The tone which
had been taken by the English Government during the last preceding years
proved that any attempt to exercise exclusive power at Constantinople would
have been followed by war with Great Britain, in which most, if not all, of
the European Powers would have stood on the side of the latter. Abandoning
therefore the hope of attaining sole control, the Russian Government
addressed itself to the task of widening as far as possible the existing
divergence between England and France. Nor was this difficult. The Cabinet
of the Tuileries desired to see Mehemet Ali issue with increased strength
from the conflict, or even to establish his dynasty at Constantinople in
place of the House of Osman. Lord Palmerston, always jealous and suspicious
of Louis Philippe, refused to believe that the growth of Russian power
could be checked by dividing the Ottoman Empire, or that any system of
Eastern policy could be safely based on the personal qualities of a ruler
now past his seventieth year. [402] He had moreover his own causes of
discontent with Mehemet. The possibility of establishing an overland route
to India either by way of the Euphrates or of the Red Sea had lately been
engaging the attention of the English Government, and Mehemet had not
improved his position by raising obstacles to either line of passage. It
was partly in consequence of the hostility of Mehemet, who was now master
of a great part of Arabia, and of his known devotion to French interests,
that the port of Aden in the Red Sea was at this time occupied by England.
If, while Russia accepted the necessity of combined European action and
drew nearer to its rival, France persisted in maintaining the claim of
the Viceroy to extended dominion, the exclusion of France from the
European concert was the only possible result. There was no doubt as to
the attitude of the remaining Powers. Metternich, whether from genuine
pedantry, or in order to avoid the expression of those fears of Russia
which really governed his Eastern policy, repeated his threadbare
platitudes on the necessity of supporting legitimate dynasties against
rebels, and spoke of the victor of Konieh and Nissib as if he had been a
Spanish constitutionalist or a recalcitrant German professor. The Court
of Berlin followed in the same general course. In all Europe Mehemet Ali
had not a single ally, with the exception of the Government of Louis
Philippe. Under these circumstances it was of little avail to the Viceroy
that his army stood on Turkish soil without a foe before it, and that the
Sultan's fleet lay within his own harbour of Alexandria. The intrigues by
which he hoped to snatch a hasty peace from the inexperience of the young
Sultan failed, and he learnt in October that no arrangement which he
might make with the Porte without the concurrence of the Powers would be
recognised as valid. In the meantime Russia was suggesting to the English
Government one project after another for joint military action with the
object of driving Mehemet from Syria and restoring this province to the
Porte; and at the beginning of the following year it was determined on
Metternich's proposition that a Conference should forthwith be held in
London for the settlement of Eastern affairs. The irreconcilable
difference between the intentions of France and those of the other Powers
at once became evident. France proposed that all Syria and Egypt should
be given in hereditary dominion to Mehemet Ali, with no further
obligation towards the Porte than the payment of a yearly tribute. The
counter-proposal of England was that Mehemet, recognising the Sultan's
authority, should have the hereditary government of Egypt alone, that he
should entirely withdraw from all Northern Syria, and hold Palestine only
as an ordinary governor appointed by the Porte for his lifetime. To this
proposition all the Powers with the exception of France gave their
assent. Continued negotiation only brought into stronger relief the
obstinacy of Lord Palmerston, and proved the impossibility of attaining
complete agreement. At length, when it had been discovered that the
French Cabinet was attempting to conduct a separate mediation, the Four
Powers, without going through the form of asking for French sanction,
signed on the 15th of July a Treaty with the Sultan pledging themselves
to enforce upon Mehemet Ali the terms arranged. The Sultan undertook in
the first instance to offer Mehemet Egypt in perpetuity and southern
Syria for his lifetime. If this offer was not accepted within ten days,
Egypt alone was to be offered. If at the end of twenty days Mehemet still
remained obstinate, that offer in its turn was to be withdrawn, and the
Sultan and the Allies were to take such measures as the interests of the
Ottoman Empire might require. [403]
[Warlike spirit in France, 1840.]
The publication of this Treaty, excluding France as it did from the concert
of Europe, produced a storm of indignation at Paris. Thiers, who more than
any man had by his writings stimulated the spirit of aggressive warfare
among the French people and revived the worship of Napoleon, was now at the
head of the Government. His jealousy for the prestige of France, his
comparative indifference to other matters when once the national honour
appeared to be committed, his sanguine estimate of the power of his
country, rendered him a peculiarly dangerous Minister at the existing
crisis. It was not the wrongs or the danger of Mehemet Ali, but the slight
offered to France, and the revived League of the Powers which had humbled
it in 1814, that excited the passion of the Minister and the nation. Syria
was forgotten; the cry was for the recovery of the frontier of the Rhine,
and for revenge for Waterloo. New regiments were enrolled, the fleet
strengthened, and the long-delayed fortification of Paris begun. Thiers
himself probably looked forward to a campaign in Italy, anticipating that
successfully conducted by Napoleon III. in 1859, rather than to an attack
upon Prussia; but the general opinion both in France itself and in other
states was that, if war should break out, an invasion of Germany was
inevitable. The prospect of this invasion roused in a manner little
expected the spirit of the German people. Even in the smaller states, and
in the Rhenish provinces themselves, which for twenty years had shared the
fortunes of France, and in which the introduction of Prussian rule in 1814
had been decidedly unpopular, a strong national movement carried everything
before it; and the year 1840 added to the patriotic minstrelsy of Germany a
war-song, written by a Rhenish citizen, not less famous than those of 1813
and 1870. [404] That there were revolutionary forces smouldering throughout
Europe, from which France might in a general war have gained some
assistance, the events of 1848 sufficiently proved; but to no single
Government would a revolutionary war have been fraught with more imminent
peril than to that of France itself, and to no one was this conviction more
habitually present than to King Louis Philippe. Relying upon his influence
within the Chamber of Deputies, itself a body representing the wealth and
the caution rather than the hot spirit of France, the King refused to read
at the opening of the session in October the speech drawn up for him by
Thiers, and accepted the consequent resignation of the Ministry. Guizot,
who was ambassador in London, and an advocate for submission to the will of
Europe, was called to office, and succeeded after long debate in gaining a
vote of confidence from the Chamber. Though preparations for war continued,
a policy of peace was now assured. Mehemet Ali was left to his fate; and
the stubborn assurance of Lord Palmerston, which had caused so much
annoyance to the English Ministry itself, received a striking justification
in the face of all Europe.
[Ibrahim expelled from Syria, Sept.-Nov., 1840.]
[Final settlement, Feb., 1841.]
[The Dardanelles.]
The operations of the Allies against Mehemet Ali had now begun. While
Prussia kept guard on the Rhine, and Russia undertook to protect
Constantinople against any forward movement of Ibrahim, an Anglo-Austrian
naval squadron combined with a Turkish land-force in attacking the Syrian
coast-towns. The mountain-tribes of the interior were again in revolt. Arms
supplied to them by the Allies, and the insurrection soon spread over the
greater part of Syria. Ibrahim prepared for an obstinate defence, but his
dispositions were frustrated by the extension of the area of conflict, and
he was unable to prevent the coast-towns from falling one after another
into the hands of the Allies. On the capture of Acre by Sir Charles Napier
he abandoned all hope of maintaining himself any longer in Syria, and made
his way with the wreck of his army towards the Egyptian frontier. Napier
had already arrived before Alexandria, and there executed a convention with
the Viceroy, by which the latter, abandoning all claim upon his other
provinces, and undertaking to restore the Turkish fleet, was assured of the
hereditary possession of Egypt. The convention was one which the English
admiral had no authority to conclude, but it contained substantially the
terms which the Allies intended to enforce; and after Mehemet had made a
formal act of submission to the Sultan, the hereditary government of Egypt
was conferred upon himself and his family by a decree published by the
Sultan and sanctioned by the Powers. This compromise had been proposed by
the French Government after the expiry of the twenty days named in the
Treaty of July, and immediately before the fall of M. Thiers, but
Palmerston would not then listen to any demand made under open or implied
threats of war. Since that time a new and pacific Ministry had come into
office; it was no part of Palmerston's policy to keep alive the antagonism
between England and France; and he readily accepted an arrangement which,
while it saved France from witnessing the total destruction of an ally,
left Egypt to a ruler who, whatever his faults, had certainly shown a
greater capacity for government than any Oriental of that age. It remained
for the Powers to place upon record some authoritative statement of the law
recognised by Europe with regard to the Bosphorus and Dardanelles. Russia
had already virtually consented to the abrogation of the Treaty of Unkiar
Skelessi. It now joined with all the other Powers, including France, in a
declaration that the ancient rule of the Ottoman Empire which forbade the
passage of these straits to the war-ships of all nations, except when the
Porte itself should be at war, was accepted by Europe at large. Russia thus
surrendered its chance of gaining by any separate arrangement with Turkey
the permanent right of sending its fleets from the Black Sea into the
Mediterranean, and so becoming a Mediterranean Power. On the other hand,
Sebastopol and the arsenals of the Euxine remained safe against the attack
of any maritime Power, unless Turkey itself should take up arms against the
Czar. Having regard to the great superiority of England over Russia at sea,
and to the accessibility and importance of the Euxine coast towns, it is an
open question whether the removal of all international restrictions upon
the passage of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles would not be more to the
advantage of England than of its rival. This opinion, however, had not been
urged before the Crimean War, nor has it yet been accepted in our own
country.
[Turkey after 1840.]
[Legislation of Reschid.]
The conclusion of the struggle of 1840 marked with great definiteness the
real position which the Ottoman Empire was henceforth to occupy in its
relations to the western world. Rescued by Europe at large from the
alternatives of destruction at the hands of Ibrahim or complete vassalage
under Russia, the Porte entered upon the condition nominally of an
independent European State, really of a State existing under the protection
of Europe, and responsible to Europe as well for its domestic government as
for its alliances and for the conduct of its foreign policy. The necessity
of conciliating the public opinion of the West was well understood by the
Turkish statesman who had taken the leading part in the negotiations which
freed the Porte from dependence upon Russia. Reschid Pasha, the younger,
Foreign Minister at the accession of the new Sultan, had gained in an
unusual degree the regard and the confidence of the European Ministers with
whom, as a diplomatist, he had been brought into contact. As the author of
a wide system of reforms, it was his ambition so to purify and renovate the
internal administration of the Ottoman Empire that the contrasts which it
presented to the civilised order of the West should gradually disappear,
and that Turkey should become not only in name but in reality a member of
the European world. Stimulated no doubt by the achievements of Mehemet Ali,
and anxious to win over to the side of the Porte the interest which
Mehemet's partial adoption of European methods and ideas had excited on his
behalf, Reschid in his scheme of reform paid an ostentatious homage to the
principles of western administration and law, proclaiming the security of
person and property, prohibiting the irregular infliction of punishment,
recognising the civil rights of Christians and Jews, and transferring the
collection of taxes from the provincial governors to the officers of the
central authority. The friends of the Ottoman State, less experienced then
than now in the value of laws made in a society where there exists no power
that can enforce them, and where the agents of government are themselves
the most lawless of all the public enemies, hailed in Reschid's enlightened
legislation the opening of a new epoch in the life of the Christian and
Oriental races subject to the Sultan. But the fall of the Minister before a
palace-intrigue soon proved on how slight a foundation these hopes were
built. Like other Turkish reformers, Reschid had entered upon a hopeless
task; and the name of the man who was once honoured as the regenerator of a
great Empire is now almost forgotten.