THE VIENNA DIFFICULTY
1855
Blunders at home and abroad--Roebuck's motion--'General Fevrier
turns traitor'--France and the Crimea--Lord John at Vienna--The
pride of the nation is touched--Napoleon's visit to Windsor--Lord
John's retirement--The fall of Sebastopol--The Treaty of Paris.
PARLIAMENT met on January 23, and the general indignation at once found
expression in Mr. Roebuck's motion--the notice of which was cheered by
Radicals and Tories alike--to 'inquire into the condition of our Army
before Sebastopol, and into the conduct of those Departments of the
Government whose duty it has been to minister to the wants of that
Army.' Lord John, in view of the blunders at home and abroad, did not
see how such a motion was to be resisted, and at once tendered to Lord
Aberdeen his resignation. His protests, pointed and energetic though
they had been, had met with no practical response. Even the reasonable
request that the War Minister should be in the Commons to defend his own
department had passed unheeded. Peelites, like Sir James Graham and Mr.
Sidney Herbert, might make the best of a bad case, but Lord John felt
that he could not honestly defend in Parliament a course of action which
he had again and again attacked in the Cabinet. Doubtless it would have
been better both for himself and for his colleagues if he had adhered
to his earlier intention of resigning; and his dramatic retreat at this
juncture unquestionably gave a handle to his adversaries. Though
prompted by conscientious motives, sudden flight, in the face of what
was, to all intents and purposes, a vote of censure, was a grave
mistake. Not unnaturally, such a step was regarded as a bid for personal
power at the expense of his colleagues. It certainly placed the Cabinet
in a most embarrassing position, and it is easy to understand the
irritation which it awakened. In fact, it led those who were determined
to put the worst possible construction on Lord John's action to hint
that he wished to rid himself of responsibility and to stand clear of
his colleagues, so that when the nation grew tired of the war he might
return to office and make peace. Nothing could well have been further
from the truth.
[Sidenote: ROEBUCK'S MOTION]
Lord John's retirement was certainly inopportune; but it is almost
needless to add--now that it is possible to review his whole career, as
well as all the circumstances which marked this crisis in it--that he
was not actuated by a self-seeking spirit. Looking back in after life,
Lord John frankly admitted that he had committed an error in resigning
office under Lord Aberdeen at the time and in the manner in which he did
it. He qualified this confession, however, by declaring that he had
committed a much greater error in agreeing to serve under Lord Aberdeen
as Prime Minister: 'I had served under Lord Grey and Lord Melbourne
before I became Prime Minister, and I served under Lord Palmerston after
I had been Prime Minister. In no one of these cases did I find any
difficulty in allying subordination with due counsel and co-operation.
But, as it is proverbially said, "Where there is a will there is a way,"
so in political affairs the converse is true, "Where there is no will
there is no way."' He explained his position in a personal statement in
the House of Commons on the night of Mr. Roebuck's motion. 'I had to
consider whether I could fairly and honestly say, "It is true that evils
have arisen. It is true that the brave men who fought at the Alma, at
Inkerman, and at Balaclava are perishing, many of them from neglect; it
is true that the heart of the whole of England throbs with anxiety and
sympathy on this subject; but I can tell you that such arrangements have
been made--that a man of such vigour and efficiency has taken the
conduct of the War Department, with such a consolidation of offices as
to enable him to have the entire control of the whole of the War
Offices--so that any supply may be immediately furnished, and any abuse
instantly remedied." I felt I could not honestly make such a
declaration; I therefore felt that I could come only to one conclusion,
and that as I could not resist inquiry--by giving the only assurances
which I thought sufficient to prevent it--my duty was not to remain any
longer a member of the Government.' In the course of a powerful speech
Lord John added that he would always look back with pride on his
association with many measures of the Aberdeen Government, and more
particularly with the great financial scheme which Mr. Gladstone brought
forward in 1853.
[Sidenote: OPEN CONFESSION]
He refused to admit that the Whigs were an exclusive party, and he
thought that such an idea was refuted by the fact that they had
consented to serve in a Coalition Government. 'I believe that opinion to
have been unjust, and I think that the Whig party during the last two
years have fully justified the opinion I entertained. I will venture to
say that no set of men ever behaved with greater honour or with more
disinterested patriotism than those who have supported the Government
of the Earl of Aberdeen. It is my pride, and it will ever be my pride to
the last day of my life, to have belonged to a party which, as I
consider, upholds the true principles of freedom; and it will ever be my
constant endeavour to preserve the principles and to tread in the paths
which the Whig party have laid down for the guidance of their conduct.'
Lord John made no attempt to disguise the gravity of the crisis, and the
following admission might almost be said to have sealed the fate of the
Ministry: 'Sir, I must say that there is something, with all the
official knowledge to which I have had access, that to me is
inexplicable in the state of our army. If I had been told, as a reason
against the expedition to the Crimea last year, that your troops would
be seven miles from the sea, and that--at that seven miles'
distance--they would be in want of food, of clothing, and of shelter to
such a degree that they would perish at the rate of from ninety to a
hundred a day, I should have considered such a prediction as utterly
preposterous, and such a picture of the expedition as entirely fanciful
and absurd. We are all, however, forced to confess the notoriety of that
melancholy state of things.' Three days later, after a protracted and
heated debate, Mr. Roebuck's motion was carried in a House of 453
members by the sweeping majority of 157. 'The division was curious,'
wrote Greville. 'Some seventy or eighty Whigs, ordinary supporters of
Government, voted against them, and all the Tories except about six or
seven.' There was no mistaking the mandate either of Parliament or of
the people. Lord Aberdeen on the following day went down to Windsor and
laid his resignation before the Queen, and in this sorry fashion the
Coalition Government ignominiously collapsed, with hardly an expression
of regret and scarcely a claim to remembrance.
The Queen's choice fell upon Lord Derby, but his efforts to form an
Administration proved unavailing. Lord Lansdowne was next summoned, and
he suggested that Lord John Russell should be sent for, but in his case,
also, sufficient promises of support were not forthcoming. In the end
Her Majesty acquiesced in the strongly-expressed wish of the nation, and
Lord Palmerston was called to power on February 5. For the moment Lord
John was out of office, and Lord Panmure took the place of the Duke of
Newcastle as War Minister, but all the other members of the defeated
Administration, except, of course, Lord Aberdeen, entered the new
Cabinet. Lord Palmerston knew the feeling of the country, and was not
afraid to face it, and, therefore, determined to accept Mr. Roebuck's
proposals for a searching investigation of the circumstances which had
attended the conduct of the war. Loyalty to their late chief, as well as
to their former colleague, the Duke of Newcastle, led Sir James Graham,
Mr. Sidney Herbert, Mr. Gladstone, and other Peelites to resign. Lord
John, urged by Lord Palmerston, became Colonial Secretary. Palmerston
shared Lord Clarendon's view that no Government calling itself Liberal
had a chance of standing without Lord John. Sir G. C. Lewis succeeded
Mr. Gladstone as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Sir Charles Wood took
Sir James Graham's vacant place at the Admiralty.
[Sidenote: 'GENERAL FEVRIER TURNS TRAITOR']
Changes of a more momentous character quickly followed. Early in the
winter, when tidings of the sufferings of the Allies reached St.
Petersburg, the Emperor Nicholas declared, with grim humour, that there
were two generals who were about to fight for him, 'Janvier et Fevrier;'
but the opening month of the year brought terrible privations to the
Russian reinforcements as they struggled painfully along the rough
winter roads on the long march to the Crimea. The Czar lost a quarter of
a million of men before the war ended, and a vast number of them fell
before the cold or the pestilence. Omar Pasha defeated the Russian
troops at Eupatoria in the middle of February. The fact that his troops
had been repulsed by the hated Turks touched the pride of Nicholas to
the quick, and is believed to have brought on the fatal illness which
seized him a few days later. On February 27, just after the Emperor had
left the parade-ground on which he had been reviewing his troops, he was
struck down by paralysis, and, after lingering in a hopeless condition
for a day or two, died a baffled and disappointed man. The irony of the
situation was reflected with sombre and dramatic realism in a political
cartoon which appeared in 'Punch.' It represented a skeleton in armour,
laying an icy hand, amid the falling snow, on the prostrate Czar's
heart. The picture--one of the most powerful that has ever appeared,
even in this remarkable mirror of the times--was entitled, 'General
Fevrier turned Traitor,' and underneath was the dead Emperor's cruel
boast, 'Russia has two generals on whom she can confide--Generals
Janvier and Fevrier.' Prior to the resignation of the Peelites the
second Congress of Vienna assembled, and Lord John Russell attended it
as a plenipotentiary for England; and France, Austria, Turkey, and
Russia were also represented. The 'four points' which formed the basis
of the negotiations were that Russia should abandon all control over
Moldavia, Wallachia, and Servia; that the new Czar, Alexander II.,
should surrender his claim to command the entrance of the Danube; that
all treaties should be annulled which gave Russia supremacy in the Black
Sea; and that she should dismiss her pretensions to an exclusive right
to protect in her own fashion the Christians in the Ottoman Empire.
Nicholas, though at one time favourable to this scheme as a basis of
peace, eventually fell back on the assertion that he would not consent
to any limitation of his naval power in the Black Sea. Though the
parleyings at Vienna after his death were protracted, the old difficulty
asserted itself again, with the result that the second Congress proved,
as spring gave way to summer, as futile as the first.
Although subjects which vitally affected the Turkish Empire were under
consideration, the Turkish Ambassador at Vienna had received anything
but explicit directions, and Lord John was forced to the conclusion that
the negotiations were not regarded as serious at Constantinople. Indeed,
he had, in Mr. Spencer Walpole's words, 'reason to suspect that the
absence of a properly credited Turk was not due to the dilatory
character of the Porte alone but to the perverse action of Lord
Stratford de Redcliffe.'[38] Lord Clarendon did not hesitate to declare
that Lord Stratford was inclined to thwart any business which was not
carried on in Constantinople, and the English Ambassador kept neither
Lord John in Vienna nor the Cabinet in Downing Street acquainted with
the views of the Porte. Lord John declared that the Turkish
representative at Vienna, from whom he expected information about the
affairs of his own country, was 'by nature incompetent, and by
instruction silent.' Two schemes, in regard to the point which was
chiefly in dispute, were before the Congress; they are best stated in
Lord John's own words: 'One, called limitation, proposed that only four
ships of the line should be maintained in the Black Sea by Russia, and
two each by the allies of Turkey. The other mode, proposed by M. Drouyn
de Lhuys, contemplated a much further reduction of force--namely, to
eight or ten light vessels, intended solely to protect commerce from
pirates and perform the police of the coast.' Although a great part of
the Russian fleet was at the bottom of the sea, and the rest of it
hemmed in in the harbour of Sebastopol, Prince Gortschakoff announced,
with the air of a man who was master of the situation, that the Czar
entirely refused to limit his power in the Euxine.
[Sidenote: COUNT BUOL'S COMPROMISE]
At this juncture Count Buol proposed a compromise, to the effect that
Russia should maintain in the Black Sea a naval force not greater than
that which she had had at her disposal there before the outbreak of the
war; that any attempt to evade this limitation should be interpreted as
a _casus belli_, by France, England, and Austria, which were to form a
triple treaty of alliance to defend the integrity and independence of
Turkey in case of aggression. Lord Palmerston believed, to borrow his
own phrase, that Austria was playing a treacherous game, but that was
not the opinion at the moment either of Lord John Russell or of M.
Drouyn de Lhuys. They appear to have thought that the league of Austria
with England and France to resist aggression upon Turkey would prove a
sufficient check on Russian ambition, and did not lay stress enough on
the objections, which at once suggested themselves both in London and
Paris. The Prince Consort put the case against Count Buol's scheme in a
nutshell: 'The proposal of Austria to engage to make war when the
Russian armaments should appear to have become excessive is of no kind
of value to the belligerents, who do not wish to establish a case for
which to make war hereafter, but to obtain a security upon which they
can conclude peace now.' Lord John Russell, in a confidential interview
with Count Buol, declared that he was prepared to recommend the English
Cabinet to accept the Austrian proposals. It seemed to him that, if
Russia was willing to accept the compromise and to abandon the attitude
which had led to the war, the presence of the Allies in the Crimea was
scarcely justifiable. M. Drouyn de Lhuys took the same view, and both
plenipotentiaries hastened back to urge acquiescence in proposals which
seemed to promise the termination of a war in which, with little result,
blood and treasure had already been lavishly expended.
Lord Palmerston and Lord Clarendon, backed by popular sentiment, refused
to see in Russia's stubborn demand about her fleet in the Black Sea
other than a perpetual menace to Turkey. They argued that England had
made too heavy a sacrifice to patch up in this fashion an inglorious and
doubtful peace. The attitude of Napoleon III. did more than anything
else to confirm this decision. The war in the Crimea had never been as
popular in France as it was in England. The throne which Napoleon had
seized could only be kept by military success, and there is no doubt
whatever that personal ambition, and the prestige of a campaign, with
England for a companion-in-arms, determined the despatch of French
troops to the Crimea. On his return, Lord John at once saw the
difficulty in which his colleagues were landed. The internal tranquility
of France was imperilled if the siege of Sebastopol was abandoned. 'The
Emperor of the French,' he wrote, 'had been to us the most faithful ally
who had ever wielded the sceptre or ruled the destinies of France. Was
it possible for the English Government to leave the Emperor to fight
unaided the battle of Europe, or to force him to join us in a peace
which would have sunk his reputation with his army and his people?' He
added, that this consideration seemed to him so weighty that he ceased
to urge on Lord Palmerston the acceptance of the Austrian terms, and
Lord Clarendon therefore sent a reply in which Count Buol's proposals
were rejected by the Cabinet. Lord Palmerston laid great stress on Lord
John's presence in his ministry, and Mr. Walpole has shown that the
latter only consented to withdraw his resignation after not merely an
urgent, but a thrice-repeated personal request from the Premier.
[Sidenote: PRESSURE FROM PALMERSTON]
He ought unquestionably, at all hazards to Lord Palmerston's Government,
to have refused to remain a member of it when his colleagues intimated
that they were not in a position to accept his view of the situation
without giving mortal offence to the Emperor of the French. Under the
circumstances, Lord Palmerston ought not to have put the pressure on
Lord John. The latter stayed in order to shield the Government from
overthrow by a combined Radical and Tory attack at a moment when
Palmerston was compelled to study the susceptibilities of France and
Napoleon III.'s fears concerning his throne. There is a published
letter, written by the Prince Consort at this juncture to his brother
the Duke of Saxe-Coburg, which throws light on the situation. The Prince
hints that the prospects of the Allies in the Crimea had become more
hopeful, just as diplomatic affairs at Vienna had taken an awkward turn.
He states that in General Pelissier the French 'have at last a leader
who is determined and enterprising, and who will once more raise the
spirit of the army, which has sunk through Canrobert's mildness.' He
adds that the English troops 'are again thirty thousand men under arms,
and their spirit is excellent. At home, however, Gladstone and the
Peelites are taking up the cry for peace, and declaring themselves
against all further continuation of the war; whilst Lord Derby and the
Protectionists are all for making common cause with Layard and others,
in order to overthrow Palmerston's Ministry.' Disraeli, significantly
adds the Prince, has been 'chiefly endeavouring to injure' Lord John
Russell.
Towards the end of May, Mr. Disraeli introduced a resolution condemning
the conduct of the Government, and calling attention to Lord John
Russell's attitude at the Vienna Conference. Lord John had fulfilled the
promise which he had given to Count Buol before leaving Vienna; but Lord
Palmerston was determined to maintain the alliance with France, and
therefore, as a member of his Government, Lord John's lips were sealed
when he rose to defend himself. He stated in a powerful speech the
reasons which had led to the failure of the Conference, and ended
without any allusion to the Austrian proposals or his own action in
regard to them. Irritated at the new turn of affairs, Count Buol
disclosed what had passed behind the scenes in Vienna, and Lord John
found himself compelled to explain his explanations. He declared that he
had believed before leaving Vienna that the Austrian scheme held out the
promise of peace, and, with this conviction in his mind, he had on his
return to London immediately advised its acceptance by Lord Palmerston.
He was not free, of course, to state with equal frankness the true
reason of its rejection by the Cabinet, and therefore was compelled to
fall back on the somewhat lame plea that it had been fully considered
and disallowed by his colleagues. Moreover he felt, as a
plenipotentiary, it was his duty to submit to the Government which had
sent him to Vienna, and as a member of the Cabinet it was not less his
duty to yield to the decision of the majority of his colleagues.
[Sidenote: AN EMBARRASSING POSITION]
Lord John's explanations were not deemed satisfactory. He was in the
position of a man who could only defend himself and make his motives
plain to Parliament and the country by statements which would have
embarrassed his colleagues and have shattered the French alliance at a
moment when, not so much on national as on international grounds, it
seemed imperative that it should be sustained. The attacks in the Press
were bitter and envenomed; and when Lord John, in July, told Lord
Palmerston it was his intention to retire, the latter admitted with an
expression of great regret that the storm was too strong to be resisted,
though, he added, 'juster feelings will in due time prevail.' A few days
later Lord John, in a calm and impressive speech, anticipated Sir E. B.
Lytton's hostile motion on the Vienna Conference by announcing his
intention to the House. Though he still felt in honour obliged to say
nothing on the real cause of his withdrawal, his dignified attitude on
that occasion made its own impression, and all the more because of the
sweeping abuse to which he was at the moment exposed. It was of this
speech that Sir George Cornewall Lewis said that it was listened to with
attention and respect by an audience partly hostile and partly
prejudiced. He declared that he was convinced it would go far to remove
the imputations, founded on error and misrepresentation, under which
Lord John laboured. He added, with a generosity which, though
characteristic, was rare at that juncture: 'I shall be much surprised
if, after a little time and a little reflection, persons do not come to
the conclusion that never was so small a matter magnified beyond its
true proportions.'
Within twenty-four hours of his resignation Lord John had an opportunity
of showing that he bore no malice towards former colleagues. Mr.
Roebuck, with characteristic denunciations, attacked the Government on
the damaging statements contained in the report of the Sebastopol
Committee. He proposed a motion censuring in severe terms every member
of the Cabinet whose counsels had led to such disastrous results.
Whatever construction might be placed on Lord John's conduct of affairs
in Vienna, he at least could not be charged with lukewarmness or apathy
in regard to the administration of the army and the prosecution of the
war. He had, in fact, irritated Lord Aberdeen and the Duke of Newcastle
by insisting again and again on the necessity of undivided control of
the military departments, and on the need of a complete reorganisation
of the commissariat. A less magnanimous man would have seized the
opportunity of this renewed attack to declare that he, at least, had
done his best at great personal cost to prevent the deplorable confusion
and collapse which had overtaken the War Office. He disdained, however,
the mean personal motive, and made, what Lord Granville called, a
'magnificent speech,' in which he declared that every member without
exception remained responsible for the consequences which had overtaken
the Expedition to the Crimea, Mr. Kinglake once asserted that, though
Lord John Russell was capable of coming to a bold, abrupt, and hasty
decision, not duly concerted with men whose opinions he ought to have
weighed, no statesman in Europe surpassed him on the score of courage or
high public spirit. The chivalry which he displayed in coming to the
help of the Government on the morrow of his own almost compulsory
retirement from office was typical of a man who made many mistakes, but
was never guilty, even when wounded to the quick, of gratifying the
passing resentments of the hour at the expense of the interests of the
nation.
[Sidenote: WARLIKE COUNSELS PREVAIL]
During the summer of 1855 the feeling of the country grew more and more
warlike. The failure of the negotiations at Vienna had touched the
national pride. The State visit in the spring to the English Court of
the Emperor Napoleon, and his determination not to withdraw his troops
from the Crimea until some decisive victory was won, had rekindled its
enthusiasm. The repulse at the Redan, the death of Lord Raglan, and the
vainglorious boast of Prince Gortschakoff, who declared 'that the hour
was at hand when the pride of the enemies of Russia would be lowered,
and their armies swept from our soil like chaff blown away by the wind,'
rendered all dreams of diplomatic solution impossible, and made England,
in spite of the preachers of peace at any price, determined to push
forward her quarrel to the bitter end. The nation, to borrow the phrase
of one of the shrewdest political students of the time, had now begun to
consider the war in the Crimea as a 'duel with Russia,' and pride and
pluck were more than ever called into play, both at home and abroad, in
its maintenance. The war, therefore, took its course. Ample supplies and
reinforcements were despatched to the troops, and the Allies, under the
command of General Simpson and General Pelissier, pushed forward the
campaign with renewed vigour. Sardinia and Sweden had joined the
alliance, and on August 16 the troops of the former, acting in concert
with the French, drove back the Russians, who had made a sortie along
the valley of the Tchernaya. After a month's bombardment by the Allies,
the Malakoff, a redoubt which commanded Sebastopol, was taken by the
French; but the English troops were twice repulsed in their attack on
the Redan. Gortschakoff and Todleben were no longer able to withstand
the fierce and daily renewed bombardment. The forts on the south side
were, therefore, blown up, the ships were sunk, and the army which had
gallantly defended the place retired to a position of greater security
with the result that Sebastopol fell on September 8, and the war was
virtually over. Sir Evelyn Wood lately drew attention to the fact that
forty out of every hundred of the soldiers who served before Sebastopol
in the depth of that terrible winter of 1854 lie there, or in the
Scutari cemetery--slain, not by the sword, but by privation, exposure,
disease, and exertions beyond human endurance.
[Sidenote: ALL FOR NAUGHT]
France was clamouring for peace, and Napoleon was determined not to
prolong the struggle now that his troops had come out of the siege of
Sebastopol with flying colours. Russia, on her part, had wellnigh
exhausted her resources. Up to the death of the Emperor Nicholas, she
had lost nearly a quarter of a million of men, and six months later, so
great was the carnage and so insidious the pestilence, that even that
ominous number was doubled. The loss of the Allies in the Crimean war
was upwards of eighty-seven thousand men, and more than two-thirds of
the slain fell to France. Apart from bloodshed, anguish, and pain, the
Crimean war bequeathed to England an increase of 41,000,000_l._ in the
National Debt. No wonder that overtures for the cessation of hostilities
now met with a welcome which had been denied at the Vienna Conference.
After various negotiations, the Peace of Paris was signed on March 30,
1856. Russia was compelled to relinquish her control over the Danube and
her protectorate over the Principalities, and was also forbidden to
build arsenals on the shores of the Black Sea, which was declared open
to all ships of commerce, but closed to all ships of war. Turkey, on the
other hand, confirmed, on paper at least, the privileges proclaimed in
1839 to Christians resident in the Ottoman Empire; but massacres at
Damascus, in the Lebanon, and later in Bulgaria, and recently in
Armenia, have followed in dismal sequence in spite of the Treaty of
Paris. The neutrality of the Black Sea came to an end a quarter of a
century ago, and the substantial gains--never great even at the
outset--of a war which was costly in blood and treasure have grown small
by degrees until they have almost reached the vanishing point.
FOOTNOTES:
[38] _Life of Lord John Russell_, vol. ii. p. 251.