[Sidenote: Accession of Victoria, 1837.]
William IV. died at Windsor Castle, and at 5 o'clock on the morning of
June 2oth, 1837 (just 58 years from the day this is written), a young
girl of eighteen was awakened to be told she was Queen of Great Britain
and Ireland. Victoria was the only child of Edward, Duke of Kent,
brother of William IV. Her marriage in 1840 with her cousin, Prince
Albert of Saxe-Coburg, was one of deep affection, and secured for her a
wise and prudent counsellor.
[Sidenote: Famine in Ireland, 1846.]
On account of the high price of corn, Ireland had for years subsisted
entirely upon potatoes. The failure of this crop for several successive
seasons, in 1846 produced a famine of such appalling dimensions that
the old and the new world came to the rescue of the starving people.
Parliament voted 10,000,000 pounds for food. But before relief could
reach them, two millions, one-fourth of the population of Ireland, had
perished. The anti-corn measures, championed by Richard Cobden and
John Bright, which had been bitterly opposed by the Tories under the
leadership of Disraeli, were thus reinforced by unexpected argument;
foreign breadstuffs were permitted free access and free trade was
accepted as the policy of England.
Nicholas, the Czar of Russia, was, after the fashion of his
predecessors (and his successors), always waiting for the right moment
to sweep down upon Constantinople. England had become only a land of
shopkeepers, France was absorbed with her new Empire, and with trying
on her fresh imperial trappings. The time seemed favorable for a move.
The pious soul of Nicholas was suddenly stirred by certain restrictions
laid by the Sultan upon the Christians in Palestine. He demanded that
he be made the Protector of Christianity in the Turkish Empire, by an
arrangement which would in fact transfer the Sovereignty from
Constantinople to St. Petersburg.
That mass of Oriental corruption known as the Ottoman Empire, held
together by no vital forces, was ready to fall into ruin at one
vigorous touch. It was an anachronism in modern Europe, where its
cruelty was only limited by its weakness. That such an odious,
treacherous despotism should so strongly appeal to the sympathies of
England that she was willing to enter upon a life-and-death struggle
for its maintenance, let those believe who can.--Her rushing to the
defence of Turkey, was about as sincere as Russia's interest in the
Christians in Palestine.
The simple truth beneath all these diplomatic subterfuges was of course
that Russia wanted Constantinople, and England would at any cost
prevent her getting it. The keys to the East must, in any event, not
belong to Russia, her only rival in Asia.
France had no Eastern Empire to protect, so her participation in the
struggle is at first not so easy to comprehend, until we reflect that
she had an ambitious and _parvenu_ Emperor. To have Europe see him
in confidential alliance with England, was alone worth a war; while a
vigorous foreign policy would help to divert attention from the recent
treacheries by which he had reached a throne.
[Sidenote: War with Russia, 1854.]
Such were some of the hidden springs of action which in 1854 brought
about the Crimean War,--one of the most deadly and destructive of
modern times. Two great Christian kingdoms had rushed to the defence of
the worst Government ever known, and the best blood in England was
being poured into Turkish soil.
The Russians soon found that the English were no less skilled as
fighters, than as shopkeepers. They were victorious from the very
first, even when the numbers were ill-matched. But one immortal deed of
valor must have made her tremble before the spirit it revealed.
Six hundred cavalrymen, in obedience to an order which all knew was a
blunder, dashed into a valley lined with cannon, and charged an army of
30,000 men!
"Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldiers knew
Some one had blundered.
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do,--and die,
As into the Valley of Death
Rode the six hundred."
The horrible blunder at Balaklava was not the only one. One incapable
general was followed by another, and routine and red-tape were more
deadly than Russian shot and shell.
Food and supplies beyond their utmost power of consumption, were
hurried to the army by grateful England. Thousands of tons of wood for
huts, shiploads of clothing and profuse provision for health and
comfort, reached Balaklava.
While the tall masts of the ships bearing these treasures were visible
from the heights of Sebastopol, men there were perishing for lack of
food, fuel and clothing. In rags, almost barefoot, half-fed, often
without fuel even to cook their food, in that terrible winter on the
heights, whole regiments of heroes became extinct, because there was
not sufficient administrative ability to convey the supplies to a
perishing army!
So wretched was the hospital service, that to be sent there meant
death. Gangrene carried off four out of five. Men were dying at a rate
which would have extinguished the entire army in a year and a half. It
was Florence Nightingale who redeemed this national disgrace, and
brought order, care and healing into the camps.
When England recalls with pride the valor and the victories in the
Crimea, let her remember it was the _manhood in the ranks_ which
achieved it. When all was over, war had slain its thousands,--but
official incapacity its tens of thousands!
It was a costly victory: Russia was humiliated, was even shut out from
the waters of her own Black Sea, where she had hitherto been supreme.
To two million Turks was preserved the privilege of oppressing eight
million Christians; and for this,--twenty thousand British youth had
perished. But--the way to India was unobstructed!
England's career of conquest in India was not altogether of her own
seeking. As a neighboring province committed outrages upon its British
neighbors, it became necessary in self-defence to punish it; and such
punishment, invariably led to its subjugation. In this way one province
after another was subdued, until finally in the absorption of the
Kingdom of Oude (1856) the natural boundary of the Himalaya Mountains
had been reached, and the conquest was complete. The little trading
company of British merchants had become an Empire, vast and rich beyond
the wildest dreams of romance.
The British rule was upon the whole beneficent. The condition of the
people was improved, and there was little dissatisfaction except among
the deposed native princes, who were naturally filled with hate and
bitterness. The large army required to hold such an amount of
territory, was to a great extent recruited from the native population,
the Sepoys, as they were called, making good soldiers.
[Sidenote: Sepoy Rebellion, 1857-1858.]
In 1857 the King of the Oude and some of the native princes cunningly
devised a plan of undermining the British by means of their Sepoys, and
circumstances afforded a singular opportunity for carrying out their
design.
A new rifle had been adopted, which required a greased cartridge, for
which animal grease was used. The Sepoys were told this was a deep-laid
plot to overthrow their native religions. The Mussulman was to be
eternally lost by defiling his lips with the fat of swine, and the
Hindu, by the indignity offered to the venerated Cow. These English had
tried to ruin them not alone in this world, but in the next.
[Sidenote: Massacre at Cawnpore.]
Thrilled with horror, terror-stricken, the dusky soldiers were
converted into demons. Mutinies arose simultaneously at twenty-two
stations; not only officers, but Europeans, were slaughtered without
mercy. At Cawnpore was the crowning horror. After a siege of many days
the garrison capitulated to Nana Sahib and his Sepoys. The officers
were shot, and their wives, daughters, sisters and babes, 206 in
number, were shut up in a large apartment which had been used by the
ladies for a ballroom.
After eighteen days of captivity, the horrors of which will never be
known, five men with sabres, in the twilight, were seen to enter the
room and close the door. There were wild cries and shrieks and groans.
Three times a hacked and a blunted sabre was passed out of a window in
exchange for a sharper one. Finally the groans and moans gradually
ceased and all was still. The next morning a mass of mutilated remains
were thrown into an empty well.
Two days later the avenger came in the person of General Havelock. The
Sepoys were conquered and a policy of merciless retribution followed.
In that well at Cawnpore was forever buried sympathy for the mutinous
Indian. When we recall that, we can even hear with calmness of Sepoys
fired from the cannon's mouth. From that moment it was the cause of men
in conflict with demons, civilization in deadly struggle with cruel,
treacherous barbarism. We cannot advocate meeting atrocity with
atrocity, nor can we forget that it was a Christian nation fighting
with one debased and infidel. But terrible surgery is sometimes needed
to extirpate disease.
Greed for territory, and wrong, and injustice may have mingled with the
acquisition of an Indian Empire, but posterity will see only a majestic
uplifting of almost a quarter of the human family from debased
barbarism, to a Christian civilization; and all through the
instrumentality of a little band of trading settlers from a small far-
off island in the northwest of Europe.