DOWNING STREET AND CONSTANTINOPLE
1853
Causes of the Crimean War--Nicholas seizes his opportunity--The
Secret Memorandum--Napoleon and the susceptibilities of the
Vatican--Lord Stratford de Redcliffe and the Porte--Prince
Menschikoff shows his hand--Lord Aberdeen hopes against hope--Lord
Palmerston's opinion of the crisis--The Vienna Note--Lord John
grows restive--Sinope arouses England--The deadlock in the Cabinet.
MANY causes conspired to bring about the war in the Crimea, though the
pretext for the quarrel--a dispute between the monks of the Latin and
Greek Churches concerning the custody of the Holy Places in
Palestine--presents no element of difficulty. It is, however, no easy
matter to gather up in a few pages the reasons which led to the war.
Amongst the most prominent of them were the ambitious projects of the
despotic Emperor Nicholas. The military revolt in his own capital at the
period of his accession, and the Polish insurrections of 1830 and 1850,
had rendered him harsh and imperious, and disinclined to concessions on
any adequate scale to the restless but spasmodic demands for political
reform in Russia. Gloomy and reserved though the Autocrat of All the
Russias was, he recognised that it would be a mistake to rely for the
pacification of his vast empire on the policy of masterly inactivity.
His war with Persia, his invasion of Turkey, and the army which he sent
to help Austria to settle her quarrel with Hungary, not only appealed
to the pride of Russia, but provided so many outlets for the energy and
ambition of her ruler. It was in the East that Nicholas saw his
opportunity, and his policy was a revival, under the changed conditions
of the times, of that of Peter the Great and Catherine II.
Nicholas had long secretly chafed at the exclusion of his war-ships--by
the provisions of the treaty of 1841--from access through the Black Sea
to the Mediterranean, and he dreamed dreams of Constantinople, and saw
visions of India. Linked to many lawless instincts, there was in the
Emperor's personal character much of the intolerance of the fanatic.
Religion and pride alike made the fact rankle in his breast that so many
of the Sultan's subjects were Sclavs, and professed the Russian form of
Christianity. He was, moreover, astute enough to see that a war which
could be construed by the simple and devout peasantry as an attempt to
uplift the standard of the Cross in the dominions of the Crescent would
appeal at once to the clergy and populace of Holy Russia. Nicholas had
persuaded himself that, with Lord Aberdeen at the head of affairs, and
Palmerston in a place of safety at the Home Office, England was scarcely
in a condition to give practical effect to her traditional jealousy of
Russia. In the weakness of her divided counsels he saw his opportunity.
It had become a fixed idea with the Emperor that Turkey was in a
moribund condition; and neither Orloff nor Nesselrode had been able to
disabuse his mind of the notion.
[Sidenote: NICHOLAS AND THE 'SICK MAN']
Everyone is aware that in January 1853 the Emperor told the English
Ambassador, Sir Hamilton Seymour, that Turkey was the 'sick man' of
Europe, and ever since then the phrase has passed current and become
historic. It was often on the lips of Nicholas, for he talked freely,
and sometimes showed so little discretion that Nesselrode once declared,
with fine irony, that the White Czar could not claim to be a
diplomatist. The phrase cannot have startled Lord Aberdeen. It must have
sounded, indeed, like the echo of words which the Emperor had uttered in
London in the summer of 1844. Nicholas, on the occasion of his visit to
England in that year, spoke freely about the Eastern Question, not
merely to the Duke of Wellington, whose military prowess he greatly
admired, but also to Sir Robert Peel and Lord Aberdeen, who was then
Minister for Foreign Affairs. He told the latter in so many words that
Turkey was a dying man, and did his best to impress the three English
statesmen with the necessity for preparation in view of the approaching
crisis. He stated that he foresaw that the time was coming when he would
have to put his armies in movement, and added that Austria would be
compelled to do the same. He protested that he made no claim to an inch
of Turkish soil, but was prepared to dispute the right of anyone else to
an inch of it--a palpable allusion to the French support of Mehemet Ali.
It was too soon to stipulate what should be done when the 'sick man's'
last hour had run its course. All he wanted, he maintained, was the
basis of an understanding.
In Nicholas's opinion England ought to make common cause with Russia and
Austria, and he did not disguise his jealousy of France. It was clear
that he dreaded the growth of close union between England and France,
and for Louis Philippe then, as for Louis Napoleon afterwards, his
feeling was one of coldness if not of actual disdain. The Emperor
Nicholas won golden opinions amongst all classes during his short stay
in England. Sir Theodore Martin's 'Life of the Prince Consort,' and
especially the letter which is published in its pages from the Queen to
King Leopold, showed the marked impression which was made at Windsor by
his handsome presence, his apparently unstudied confidences, the
simplicity and charm of his manners, and the adroitness of his
well-turned compliments. Whenever the Autocrat of All the Russias
appeared in public, at a military review, or the Opera, or at Ascot, he
received an ovation, and Baron Stockmar, with dry cynicism, has not
failed to record the lavish gifts of 'endless snuff-boxes and large
presents' which made his departure memorable to the Court officials. Out
of this visit grew, though the world knew nothing of it then, the Secret
Memorandum, drawn up by Peel, Wellington, and Aberdeen, and signed by
them as well as by the Emperor himself. This document, though it
actually committed England to nothing more serious than the recognition
in black and white of the desperate straits of the Porte, and the fact
that England and Russia were alike concerned in maintaining the _status
quo_ in Turkey, dwelt significantly on the fact that, in the event of a
crisis in Turkey, Russia and England were to come to an understanding
with each other as to what concerted action they should take. The
agreement already existing between Russia and Austria was significantly
emphasised in the document, and stress was laid on the fact that if
England joined the compact, France would have no alternative but to
accept the decision.
[Sidenote: A FRIEND AT COURT]
There can be no question that Nicholas attached an exaggerated
importance to this memorandum. It expressed his opinion rather than the
determination of the Peel Administration; but a half-barbaric despot not
unnaturally imagined that when the responsible advisers of the Crown
entered into a secret agreement with him, no matter how vague its terms
might appear when subjected to critical analysis, England and himself
were practically of one mind. When the Coalition Government was formed,
two of the three statesmen, whom the Emperor Nicholas regarded as his
friends at Court, were dead, but the third, in the person of Lord
Aberdeen, had succeeded, by an unexpected turn of the wheel, to the
chief place in the new Ministry. Long before the Imperial visit to
London the Emperor had honoured Lord Aberdeen with his friendship, and,
now that the Foreign Minister of 1844 was the Prime Minister of 1853,
the opportune moment for energetic action seemed to have arrived.
Nicholas, accordingly, now hinted that if the 'sick man' died England
should seize Egypt and Crete, and that the European provinces of Turkey
should be formed into independent states under Russian protection. He
met, however, with no response, for the English Cabinet by this time saw
that the impending collapse of Turkey, on which Nicholas laid such
emphatic stress, was by no means a foregone conclusion. Napoleon and
Palmerston had, moreover, drawn France and England into friendly
alliance. There was no shadow of doubt that the Christian subjects of
Turkey were grossly oppressed, and it is only fair to believe that
Nicholas, as the head of the Greek Church, was honestly anxious to rid
them of such thraldom. At the same time no one imagined that he was
exactly the ruler to expend blood and treasure, in the risks of war, in
the _role_ of a Defender of the Faith.
Count Vitzthum doubts whether the Emperor really contemplated the taking
of Constantinople, but it is plain that he meant to crush the Turkish
Empire, and England, knowing that the man had masterful instincts and
ambitious schemes--that suggest, at all events, a passing comparison
with Napoleon Bonaparte--took alarm at his restlessness, and the menace
to India, which it seemed to suggest. 'If we do not stop the Russians on
the Danube,' said Lord John Russell, 'we shall have to stop them on the
Indus.' It is now a matter of common knowledge that, when the Crimean
War began, Nicholas had General Duhamel's scheme before him for an
invasion of India through Asia. Such an advance, it was foreseen, would
cripple England's resources in Europe by compelling her to despatch an
army of defence to the East. It certainly looks, therefore, as if
Russia, when hostilities in the Crimea actually began, was preparing
herself for a sudden descent on Constantinople. Napoleon III., eager to
conciliate the religious susceptibilities of his own subjects, as well
as to gratify the Vatican, wished the Sultan to make the Latin monks the
supreme custodians of the Holy Places. Complications, the issue of which
it was impossible to forecast, appeared inevitable, and for the moment
there seemed only one man who could grapple with the situation at
Constantinople. Lord Palmerston altogether, and Lord John Russell in
part, sympathised with the clamour which arose in the Press for the
return of the Great Elchi to the Porte.
[Sidenote: LORD STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE]
In the entire annals of British diplomacy there is scarcely a more
picturesque or virile figure than that of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe.
Capacity for public affairs ran in the blood of the Cannings, as the
three statues which to-day stand side by side in Westminster Abbey
proudly attest. Those marble memorials represent George Canning, the
great Foreign Minister, who in the famous, if grandiloquent, phrase
'called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old;'
his son Charles, Earl Canning, first Viceroy of India; and his cousin,
Stratford Canning, Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe, who for a long term
of years sought to quicken into newness of social and political life the
broken and demoralised forces of the Ottoman Empire, and who practically
dictated from Constantinople the policy of England in the East. He was
born in 1786 and died in 1880. He entered the public service as a
_precis_-writer at the Foreign Office, and rose swiftly in the
profession of diplomacy. His acquaintance with Eastern affairs began in
1808, when he was appointed First Secretary to Sir Robert Adair, whom he
succeeded two years later at Constantinople as Minister Plenipotentiary.
The Treaty of Bucharest, which in 1812 brought the war, then in progress
between Russia and Turkey, to an end, was the first of a brilliant
series of diplomatic triumphs, which established his reputation in all
the Councils of Europe, and made him, in Lord Tennyson's words, 'The
voice of England in the East.' After services in Switzerland, in
Washington, and at the Congress of Vienna, Canning, in 1825, returned to
Constantinople with the rank of Ambassador.
He witnessed the overthrow of the Janissaries by Sultan Mahmoud II., and
had his own experience of Turkish atrocities in the massacre which
followed. He took a prominent part in the creation of the modern kingdom
of Greece, and resigned his appointment in 1828, because of a conflict
of opinion with Lord Aberdeen in the early stages of that movement.
Afterwards, he was gazetted Ambassador to St. Petersburg; but the
Emperor Nicholas, who by this time recognised the masterful qualities of
the man, refused to receive him--a conspicuous slight, which Lord
Stratford, who was as proud and irascible as the Czar, never forgave.
Between the years 1842 and 1858 he again filled his old position as
Ambassador to Constantinople, and during those years he won a unique
ascendency--unmatched in the history of diplomacy--over men and
movements in Turkey. He brought about many reforms, and made it his
special concern to watch over the interests of the Christian subjects at
the Porte, who styled him the 'Padishah of the Shah,' and that
title--Sultan of the Sultan--exactly hit off the authority which he
wielded, not always wisely, but always with good intent. It was an
unfortunate circumstance that Lord Stratford, after his resignation in
1852, should have been summoned back for a further spell of six years'
tenure of power exactly at the moment when Nicholas, prompted by the
knowledge of the absence from Constantinople of the man who had held him
in check, and of the accession to power in Downing Street of a statesman
of mild temper and friendly disposition to Russia, was beginning once
more to push his claims in the East. Lord Stratford had many virtues,
but he had also a violent and uncertain temper. He was a man of
inflexible integrity, iron will, undeniable moral courage, and
commanding force of character. Yet, for a great Ambassador, he was at
times strangely undiplomatic, whilst the keenness of his political
judgment and forecasts sometimes suffered eclipse through the strength
of his personal antipathies.
[Sidenote: FAREWELL TO THE FOREIGN OFFICE]
Meanwhile, Lord John Russell, who had expressly stipulated when the
Cabinet was formed that he was only to hold the seals of the Foreign
Office for a few weeks, convinced already that the position was
untenable to a man of his views, insisted on being relieved of the
office. The divergent views in the Cabinet on the Eastern Question were
making themselves felt, and Lord Aberdeen's eminently charitable
interpretation of the Russian demands was little to the minds of men of
the stamp of Palmerston and Russell, neither of whom was inclined to pin
his faith so completely to the Czar's assurances. When Parliament met in
February, Lord John quitted the Foreign Office and led the House of
Commons without portfolio. His quick recognition of Mr. Gladstone's
great qualities as a responsible statesman was not the least pleasing
incident of the moment. In April, Lord Aberdeen once more made no secret
of his determination to retire at the end of the session, and this
intimation no doubt had its influence with the more restive of his
colleagues.
When Parliament rose, Lord John Russell's position in the country was
admitted on all hands to be one of renewed strength, for, set free from
an irksome position, he had thrown himself during the session with
ardour into the congenial work of leader of the House of Commons. The
resolution of the Cabinet to send Lord Stratford to Constantinople has
already been stated. He received his instructions on February 25; in
fact, he seems to have dictated them, for Lord Clarendon, who had just
succeeded to the Foreign Office, made no secret of the circumstance that
they were largely borrowed from the Ambassador's own notes. He was told
that he was to proceed first to Paris, and then to Vienna, in order that
he might know the minds of France and Austria on the issues at stake.
Napoleon III. was to be assured that England relied on his cordial
co-operation in maintaining the integrity and independence of the
Turkish Empire. The young Emperor of Austria was to be informed that her
Majesty's Government gladly recognised the fact that his attitude
towards the Porte had not been changed by recent events, and that the
policy of Austria in the East was not likely to be altered. Lord
Stratford was to warn the Sultan and his advisers that the crisis was
one which required the utmost prudence on their part if peace was to be
preserved.
The Sultan and his Ministers were practically to be told by Lord
Stratford that they were the authors of their own misfortunes, and that,
if they were to be extricated from them, they must place the 'utmost
confidence in the sincerity and soundness of the advice' that he was
commissioned to give them. He was further to lay stress on palpable
abuses, and to urge the necessity of administrative reforms. 'It
remains,' added Lord Clarendon, 'only for me to say that in the event,
which her Majesty's Government earnestly hope may not arise, of imminent
danger to the existence of the Turkish Government, your Excellency will
in such case despatch a messenger to Malta requesting the Admiral to
hold himself in readiness; but you will not direct him to approach the
Dardanelles without positive instructions from her Majesty's
Government.' The etiquette of Courts has to be respected, especially by
Ambassadors charged with a difficult mission, but Lord Stratford's
diplomatic visits to Paris and Vienna were unduly prolonged, and
occupied more time than was desirable at such a crisis. He arrived at
Constantinople on April 5, and was received, to his surprise, with a
remarkable personal ovation. In Kinglake's phrase, his return was
regarded as that 'of a king whose realm had been suffered to fall into
danger.'
The Czar's envoy, Prince Menschikoff, had already been on the scene for
five weeks. If Russia meant peace, the choice of such a representative
was unfortunate. Menschikoff was a brusque soldier, rough and impolitic
of speech, and by no means inclined to conform to accepted methods of
procedure. He refused to place himself in communication with the
Foreign Minister of the Porte; and this was interpreted at Stamboul as
an insult to the Sultan. The Grand Vizier, rushing to the conclusion
that his master was in imminent danger, induced Colonel Rose, the
British Charge d'Affaires, to order the Mediterranean Fleet, then at
Malta, to proceed to Vourla. The Admiral, however, refused to lend
himself to the panic, and sent back word that he waited instructions
from London, a course which was afterwards approved by the Cabinet. The
commotion at Stamboul was not lost upon Napoleon, though he knew that
the English Cabinet was not anxious to precipitate matters. Eager to
display his newly acquired power, he promptly sent instructions to the
French Fleet to proceed to Salamis. Meanwhile Prince Menschikoff, who
had adopted a more conciliatory attitude on the question of the Holy
Places, with the result that negotiations were proceeding
satisfactorily, assumed shortly before the arrival of Lord Stratford a
more defiant manner, and startled the Porte by the sudden announcement
of new demands. He claimed that a formal treaty should be drawn up,
recognising in the most ample, not to say abject, terms, the right of
Russia to establish a Protectorate over the Christian subjects of the
Porte. This meant, as Lord Clarendon pointed out at the time, that
fourteen millions of people would henceforth regard the Czar as their
defender, whilst their allegiance to the Sultan would become little more
than nominal, and the position of the Turkish ruler would inevitably
dwindle from independence to vassalage.
[Sidenote: TAKING THE BULL BY THE HORNS]
Lord Stratford at once took the bull by the horns. Acting on his advice,
the Porte refused even to entertain such proposals until the question of
the Holy Places was settled. Within a month, through Lord Stratford's
firmness, Russia and Turkey came to terms over the original point in
dispute; but on the following day Menschikoff placed an ultimatum
before the Porte, demanding that, within five days, his master's claim
for the acknowledgment of the Russian Protectorate over the Sultan's
Greek subjects should be accepted. The Sultan's Ministers, who
interpreted the dramatic return of Lord Stratford to mean that they had
England at their back, declined to accede, and their refusal was
immediately followed by the departure of Prince Menschikoff. Repulsed in
diplomacy, the Czar, on July 2, marched forty thousand troops across the
frontier river, the Pruth, and occupied Moldavia and Wallachia. The
Imperial manifesto stated that it was not the Czar's intention to
commence war, but only to obtain such security as would ensure the
restoration of the rights of Russia. This was, of course, high ground to
take, and a conference of the Great Powers was hastily summoned, with
the result that the French view of the situation was embodied by the
assembled diplomatists in the Vienna Note, which was despatched
simultaneously to Russia and Turkey. Lord John Russell, even before the
arrival of Lord Stratford at Constantinople, had come to the conclusion
that the Emperor of Russia was determined to pick a quarrel with Turkey;
but Lord Aberdeen and his Peelite following were of another mind, and
even Lord Clarendon seems for the moment to have been hoodwinked by the
Czar's protestations.
A month or two later the Foreign Minister saw matters in a different
light, for he used in the House of Lords, in the summer of 1853, an
expression which has become historic: 'We are drifting into war.' The
quarrel at this stage--for the susceptibilities of France and of Rome
had been appeased by the settlement of the question of the Holy
Places--lay between Russia and Turkey, and England might have compelled
the peace of Europe if she had known her own mind, and made both
parties recognise in unmistakeable terms what was her policy. Lord John
Russell had a policy, but no power to enforce it, whilst Lord Aberdeen
had no policy which ordinary mortals could fathom, and had the power to
keep the Cabinet--though scarcely Lord Stratford de Redcliffe--from
taking any decided course. The Emperor Nicholas, relying on the Protocol
which Lord Aberdeen had signed--under circumstances which, however, bore
no resemblance to existing conditions--imagined that, with such a
statesman at the head of affairs, England would not take up arms against
Russia. Lord Aberdeen, to add to the complication, seemed unable to
credit the hostile intentions of the Czar, even after the failure of the
negotiations which followed the despatch of the Vienna Note. Yet as far
back as June 19, Lord John Russell, in a memorandum to his colleagues,
made a clear statement of the position of affairs. He held that, if
Russia persisted in her demands and invaded Turkey, the interests of
England in the East would compel us to aid the Sultan in defending his
capital and his throne. On the other hand, if the Czar by a sudden
movement seized Constantinople, we must be prepared to make war on
Russia herself. In that case, he added, we ought to seek the alliance of
France and Austria. France would willingly join; and England and France
together might, if it were worth while, obtain the moral weight, if not
the material support, of Austria in their favour.
[Sidenote: CAUTION HAS ITS PERFECT WORK]
Lord Aberdeen responded with characteristic caution. He refused to
entertain warlike forecasts, and wished for liberty to meet the
emergency when it actually arose. Lord Palmerston, a week or two later,
made an ineffectual attempt to persuade the Cabinet to send the Fleet to
the Bosphorus without further delay. 'I think our position,' were his
words on July 7, 'waiting timidly and submissively at the back door,
whilst Russia is violently threatening and arrogantly forcing her way
into the house, is unwise, with a view to a peaceful settlement.' Lord
Aberdeen believed in the 'moderation' of a despot who took no pains to
disguise his sovereign contempt for 'les chiens Turcs.' Lord Palmerston,
on the other hand, made no secret of his opinion that it was the
invariable policy of Russia to push forward her encroachment 'as fast
and as far as the apathy or want of firmness' of other Governments would
allow. He held that her plan was to 'stop and retire when she was met
with decided resistance,' and then to wait until the next favourable
opportunity arose to steal once more a march on Europe. There was, in
short, a radical divergence in the Cabinet. When the compromise
suggested in the Vienna Note was rejected, the chances of a European war
were sensibly quickened, and all the more so because Lord Stratford,
with his notorious personal grudge against the Czar, was more than any
other man master of the situation. What that situation had become in the
early autumn of 1853 is pithily expressed in a letter of Sir George
Cornewall Lewis's to Sir Edmund Head: 'Everything is in a perplexed
state at Constantinople. Russia is ashamed to recede, but afraid to
strike. The Turks have collected a large army, and have blown up their
fanaticism, and, reckoning on the support of England and France, are
half inclined to try the chances of war. I think that both parties are
in the wrong--Russia in making unjust demands, Turkey in resisting a
reasonable settlement. War is quite on the cards, but I still persist in
thinking it will be averted, unless some accidental spark fires the
train.'[31]
[Sidenote: THE VIENNA NOTE]
The Vienna Note was badly worded, and it failed as a scheme of
compromise between the Porte and Russia. When it was sent in a draft
form to St. Petersburg the Czar accepted it, doubtless because he saw
that its statements were vague in a sense which might be interpreted to
his advantage. At Constantinople the document swiftly evoked protest,
and the Divan refused to sanction it without alteration. England,
France, and Austria recognised the force of the amendments of Turkey,
and united in urging Russia to adopt them. The Emperor Nicholas,
however, was too proud a man to submit to dictation, especially from the
Sultan, with Lord Stratford at his elbow, and declined to accede to the
altered proposals. Lord John deemed that Turkey had a just cause of
complaint, not in the mere fact of the rejection of her alterations to
the Vienna Note, but because they were rejected after they had been
submitted to the Czar. He told Lord Aberdeen that he hoped that Turkey
would reject the new proposals, but he added that that would not wipe
away the shame of their having been made. In a speech at Greenock, on
September 19, Lord John said: 'While we endeavour to maintain peace, I
certainly should be the last to forget that if peace cannot be
maintained with honour, it is no longer peace. It becomes then but a
truce--a precarious truce, to be denounced by others whenever they may
think fit--whenever they may think that an opportunity has occurred to
enforce by arms their unjust demands either upon us or upon our allies.'
England and France refused to press the original Vienna Note on Turkey;
but as Austria and Prussia thought that their reasons for abandoning
negotiations were scarcely of sufficient force, they in turn declined to
adopt the same policy. The concert of Europe was, in fact, broken by
the failure of the Vienna Note, and the chances of peace grew suddenly
remote. There is a saying that a man likes to believe what he wishes to
be the fact, and its truth was illustrated at this juncture by both
parties to the quarrel. The Czar persuaded himself that Austria and
Prussia would give him their aid, and that England, under Aberdeen, was
hardly likely to proceed to the extremity of war. The Sultan, on the
other hand, emboldened by the movements of the French and English
fleets, and still more by the presence and counsels of Lord Stratford,
who was, to all intents and purposes, the master spirit at
Constantinople, trusted--and with good reason as the issue proved--on
the military support of England and France. It was plain enough that
Turkey would go to the wall in a struggle with Russia, unless other
nations which dreaded the possession of Constantinople by the Czar came,
in their own interests, to her help. With the rejection by Russia of the
Turkish amendments to the Vienna Note, and the difference of opinion
which at once arose between the four mediating Powers as to the policy
which it was best under the altered circumstances to pursue, a complete
deadlock resulted.
[Sidenote: HOSTILITIES ON THE DANUBE]
Lord John's view of the situation was expressed in a memorandum which he
placed before the Cabinet, and in which he came to these conclusions:
'That if Russia will not make peace on fair terms, we must appear in the
field as the auxiliaries of Turkey; that if we are to act in conjunction
with France as principals in the war, we must act not for the Sultan,
but for the general interests of the population of European Turkey. How,
and in what way, requires much further consideration, and concert
possibly with Austria, certainly with France.' He desired not merely to
resist Russian aggression, but also to make it plain to the Porte that
we would in no case support it against its Christian subjects. The
Cabinet was not prepared to adopt such a policy, and Lord John made no
secret of his opinion that Lord Aberdeen's anxiety for peace and
generous attitude toward the Czar were, in reality, provoking war. He
believed that the Prime Minister's vacillation was disastrous in its
influence, and that he ought, therefore, to retire and make way for a
leader with a definite policy. The Danube, for the moment, was the great
barrier to war, and both Russia and Turkey were afraid to cross it. Lord
John believed that energetic measures in Downing Street at this juncture
would have forestalled, and indeed prevented, activity of a less
peaceful kind on the Danube. Meanwhile, despatches, projects, and
proposals passed rapidly between the Great Powers, for never, as was
remarked at the time by a prominent statesman, did any subject produce
so much writing. Turkey--perhaps still more than Russia--was eager for
war. Tumults in favour of it had broken out at Constantinople; and, what
was more to the purpose, the finances and internal government of the
country were in a state of confusion. Therefore, when the concert of the
four Powers had been shattered, the Turks saw a better chance of drawing
both England and France into their quarrel. At length, on October 10,
the Porte sent an ultimatum to the commander of the Russian troops which
had invaded Moldavia and Wallachia, demanding that they should fall back
beyond the Pruth within fifteen days. On October 22 the war-ships of
England and France passed the Dardanelles in order to protect and defend
Turkish territory from any Russian attack. The Czar met what was
virtually a declaration of war by asserting that he would neither retire
nor act on the aggressive. Ten days after the expiration of the
stipulated time, Omar Pacha, the Ottoman commander in Bulgaria, having
crossed the Danube, attacked and vanquished the Russians on November 4
at Oltenitza. The Czar at once accepted the challenge, and declared that
he considered his pledge not to act on the offensive was no longer
binding. The Russian fleet left Sebastopol, and, sailing into the
harbour of Sinope, on the southern coast of the Black Sea, destroyed, on
November 30, the Turkish squadron anchored in that port, and slew four
thousand men.
A significant light is thrown on the crisis in Sir Theodore Martin's
'Life of the Prince Consort,'[32] where it is stated that the Czar
addressed an autograph letter to the Queen, 'full of surprise that there
should be any misunderstanding between her Majesty's Government and his
own as to the affairs of Turkey, and appealing to her Majesty's "good
faith" and "wisdom" to decide between them.' This letter, it is added,
was at once submitted to Lord Clarendon for his and Lord Aberdeen's
opinion. The Queen replied that Russia's interpretation of her treaty
obligations in the particular instance in question was, in her Majesty's
judgment and in the judgment of those best qualified to advise her, 'not
susceptible of the extended meaning' put upon it. The Queen intimated in
explicit terms that the demand which the Czar had made was one which the
Sultan could hardly concede if he valued his own independence. The
letter ended with an admission that the Czar's intentions towards Turkey
were 'friendly and disinterested.' Sir Theodore Martin states that this
letter, dated November 14, was submitted to Lord Aberdeen and Lord
Clarendon, and was by them 'thought excellent.' Scarcely more than a
fortnight elapsed when Russia's 'friendly and disinterested' feelings
were displayed in her cruel onslaught at Sinope, and the statesmen who
had prompted her Majesty's reply received a rude awakening. It became
plain in the light of accomplished events that the wisdom which is
profitable to direct had deserted her Majesty's chief advisers.
[Sidenote: MAKING HASTE SLOWLY]
Lord Aberdeen always made haste slowly, and when other statesmen had
abandoned hope he continued to lay stress on the resources of diplomacy.
He admitted that he had long regarded the possibility of war between
England and Russia with the 'utmost incredulity;' but even before Sinope
his confidence in a peaceful solution of the difficulty was beginning to
waver. He distrusted Lord Stratford, and yet he refused to recall him;
he talked about the 'indignity' which Omar Pacha had inflicted on the
Czar by his summons to evacuate the Principalities, although nothing
could justify the presence of the Russian troops in Moldavia and
Wallachia, and they had held their ground there for the space of three
months. Even Lord Clarendon admitted that the Turks had displayed no
lack of patience under the far greater insult of invasion. The
'indignity' of notice to quit was, in fact, inevitable if the Sultan was
to preserve a vestige of self-respect. Lord Aberdeen was calmly drafting
fresh plans of pacification, requiring the Porte to abstain from
hostilities 'during the progress of the negotiations undertaken on its
behalf'[33] a fortnight after Turkey had actually sent her ultimatum to
Russia; and the battle of Oltenitza was an affair of history before the
despatch reached Constantinople. Lord Stanmore is inclined to blame Lord
John Russell for giving the Turks a loophole of escape by inserting in
the document the qualifying words 'for a reasonable time;' but his
argument falls to the ground when it is remembered that this despatch
was written on October 24, whilst the Turkish ultimatum had been sent to
Russia on October 10. Sinope was a bitter surprise to Lord Aberdeen, and
the 'furious passion' which Lord Stanmore declares it aroused in England
went far to discredit the Coalition Ministry.
Unfortunately, all through the crisis Lord Aberdeen appears to have
attached unmerited weight to the advice of the weak members of his own
Cabinet--men who, to borrow a phrase of Lord Palmerston's, were
'inconvenient entities in council,' though hardly conspicuous either in
their powers of debate or in their influence in the country. Politicians
of the stamp of the Duke of Newcastle, Mr. Sidney Herbert, and Sir James
Graham played a great part in Downing Street, whilst for the moment men
of superior ability like Palmerston and Russell found their advice
unheeded. More than any other man, Sir James Graham, now almost a
forgotten statesman, was Lord Aberdeen's trusted colleague, and the
wisdom of his advice was by no means always conspicuous; for rashness
and timidity were oddly blended in his nature. 'The defeat of the Turks
at Sinope upon our element, the sea,' wrote the Prince Consort to Baron
Stockmar, 'has made the people furious; it is ascribed to Aberdeen
having been bought over by Russia.'[34] The rumour which the Prince
mentions about Lord Aberdeen was, of course, absurd, and everyone who
knew the lofty personal character of the Prime Minister laughed it at
once to scorn. Nevertheless, the fact that the Prince Consort should
have thought such a statement worth chronicling is in itself
significant; and though no man of brains in the country held such a
view, at least two-thirds of the educated opinion of the nation
regarded the Prime Minister with increasing disfavour, as a man who had
dragged England, through humiliating negotiations, to the verge of war.
[Sidenote: ENGLAND RESENTS SINOPE]
The destruction of the Turkish squadron at Sinope under the shadow of
our fleet touched the pride of England to the quick. The nation lost all
patience--as the contemptuous cartoons of 'Punch' show--with the endless
parleyings of Aberdeen, and a loud and passionate cry for war filled the
country. Lord Stanmore thinks that too much was made in the excitement
of the 'massacre' of the Turkish sailors, and perhaps he is right.
However that may be, the fact remains that the Russians at Sinope
continued to storm with shot and shell the Turkish ships when those on
board were no longer able to act on the defensive--a naval engagement
which cannot be described as distinguished for valour. Perhaps the
indignation might not have been so deep and widespread if the English
people had not recognised that the Coalition Government had strained
concession to the breaking point in the vain attempt to propitiate the
Czar. All through the early autumn Lord Palmerston was aware that those
in the Cabinet who were jealous of Russia had to reckon with 'private
and verbal communications, given in all honesty, but tinctured by the
personal bias of the Prime Minister,' to Baron Brunnow, which were doing
'irreparable mischief' at St. Petersburg.[35] The nation did not relish
Lord Aberdeen's personal friendship with the Czar, and now that Russia
was beginning to show herself in her true colours, prejudice against a
Prime Minister who had sought to explain away difficulties was natural,
however unreasonable. The English people, moreover, had not forgotten
that Russia ruthlessly crippled Poland in 1831, and lent her aid to the
subjugation of Hungary in 1849. If the Sultan was the Lord of Misrule to
English imagination in 1853, the Czar was the embodiment of despotism,
and even less amenable to the modern ideas of liberty and toleration.
The Manchester School, on the other hand, had provoked a reaction. The
Great Exhibition had set a large section of the community dreaming, not
of the millennium, but of Waterloo. Russia was looked upon as a standing
menace to England's widening heritage in the East, and neither the logic
of Cobden nor the rhetoric of Bright was of the least avail in stemming
the torrent of national indignation.
[Sidenote: THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER]
When the Vienna Note became a dead letter Lord Aberdeen ought either to
have adopted a clean-cut policy, which neither Russia nor Turkey could
mistake, or else have carried out his twice-repeated purpose of
resignation. Everyone admits that from the outset his position was one
of great difficulty, but he increased it greatly by his practical
refusal to grasp the nettle. He was not ambitious of power, but, on the
contrary, longed for his quiet retreat at Haddo. He was on the verge of
seventy and was essentially a man of few, but scholarly tastes. There
can be no doubt that considerable pressure was put upon him both by the
Court and the majority of his colleagues in the Cabinet, and this, with
the changed aspect of affairs, and the mistaken sense of duty with
regard to them, determined his course. His decision 'not to run away
from the Eastern complication,' as Prince Albert worded it, placed both
himself and Lord John Russell in somewhat of a false position. If Lord
Aberdeen had followed his own inclination there is every likelihood that
he would have carried out his arrangement to retire in favour of Lord
John. His colleagues were not in the dark in regard to this arrangement
when they joined the Ministry, and if not prepared to fall in with the
proposal, they ought to have stated their objections at the time. There
is some conflict of opinion as to the terms of the arrangement; but even
if we take it to be what Lord Aberdeen's own friends represent it--not
an absolute but a conditional pledge to retire--Lord Aberdeen was surely
bound to ascertain at the outset whether the condition was one that
could possibly be fulfilled. If the objection of his colleagues to
retain office under Lord John as Prime Minister was insurmountable, then
the qualified engagement to retire--if the Government would not be
broken up by the process--was worthless, and Lord John was being drawn
into the Cabinet by assurances given by the Prime Minister alone, but
which he was powerless to fulfil without the co-operation of his
colleagues. Lord Aberdeen was therefore determined to remain at his
post, because Lord John was unpopular with the Cabinet, and Palmerston
with the Court, and because he knew that the accession to power of
either of them would mean the adoption of a spirited foreign policy.
FOOTNOTES:
[31] _Letters of Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Bart._, edited by his
brother, Canon Frankland Lewis, p. 270.
[32] Sir Theodore Martin's _Life of the Prince Consort_, ii. 530, 531.
[33] Lord Stanmore's _Earl of Aberdeen_, p. 234.
[34] Sir Theodore Martin's _Life of the Prince Consort_, ii. 534.
[35] _Life of Lord Palmerston_, by the Hon. Evelyn Ashley, ii. 282.