THE REIGN OF JINGOISM.
Opening of Parliament--Sir Stafford Northcote’s Leadership--The
Prisons Bill--Mr. Parnell’s Policy of Scientific Obstruction--The
South Africa Confederation Bill--Mr. Parnell’s Bout with Sir
Stafford Northcote--A Twenty-six Hours’ Sitting--The Budget--The
Russo-Turkish Question--Prince Albert’s Eastern Policy--Opinion
at Court--The Sentiments of Society--The Feeling of the British
People--Outbreak of War--Collapse of Turkey--The Jingoes--The Third
Volume of the “Life of the Prince Consort”--The “Greatest War
Song on Record”--The Queen’s Visit to Hughenden--Early Meeting of
Parliament--Mr. Layard’s Alarmist Telegrams--The Fleet Ordered to
Constantinople--Resignation of Lord Carnarvon--The Russian Terms of
Peace--Violence of the War Party--The Debate on the War Vote--The
Treaty of San Stefano--Resignation of Lord Derby--Calling Out the
Reserves--Lord Salisbury’s Circular--The Indian Troops Summoned
to Malta--The Salisbury-Schouvaloff Agreement--Lord Salisbury’s
Denials--The Berlin Congress--The _Globe_ Disclosures--The
Anglo-Turkish Convention--Occupation of Cyprus--“Peace with
Honour”--The Irish Intermediate Education Bill--Consolidation
of the Factory Acts--The Monarch and the Multitude--Outbreak of
the Third Afghan War--The “Scientific Frontier”--Naval Review at
Spithead--Death of the Ex-King of Hanover--Death of the Princess
Alice.
The “green Yule,” which bodes ill-luck, ushered in the year 1877. The
attitude of the Ministry to the Eastern Question was still one of
indecision; but there was joy in City circles when, on the 11th of
January, it was announced that Lord Derby had recalled the British
Fleet from Besika Bay. This was a warning to the Sultan that England
had no sympathy with the contumacy of the Porte, which still refused to
concede the guarantees for reform in its European provinces that the
Conference insisted on.
On the 8th of February the Queen opened Parliament in person, and
was well received in the crowded streets, but Mr. Gladstone, Lord
Beaconsfield, and the Chinese Ambassador and his suite were for the
time the real heroes of the mob. The scene in the House of Lords
was one of exceptional brilliancy, and after the Speech, was read
by Lord Cairns, the Queen, descending the steps of the Throne, left
the Chamber, the ceremony, so far as her Majesty was concerned, not
occupying more than fifteen minutes. It need not be said that in both
Houses the debates on the Address centred round the Eastern Question.
The Conference had been a failure, and the Government were seriously
embarrassed. Logically, Ministers, as men of spirit, were bound to
make the demands of the Conference effective, for was it not their own
device for settling the Eastern Question, and were not its demands
their demands? That was the view which Lord Hartington vindicated in a
speech of great power and cogency.
On the other hand, it was clear that the Cabinet had no fixed aim
when it organised the Conference--that if it ever contemplated the
contingency of failure, which its supporters by their fierce attacks
on Lord Salisbury had virtually manufactured, it had hoped to tide
over the difficulty by letting matters drift. Lord Derby had begun by
assuming that it was not the right or duty of England to insist on
Turkey conceding reforms to Bulgaria. The autumnal agitation about
the atrocities induced him to change front, and to admit that it
was alike the duty and right of England, as one of the Powers whose
support maintained the Turkish Empire, to demand that its European
Provinces should not be submerged in barbarism. He had organised the
Powers in support of this demand, and now, when the Turks refused to
yield to it, he reverted to his original theory that England had no
more right to interfere with Turkey, than with Austria or France. What
made matters worse for the Cabinet was the prevailing belief that,
though they sent Lord Salisbury to Constantinople to insist on reforms,
their agents privily assured Midhat Pasha, then Grand Vizier, that
no harm would come if Turkey upset the Conference. The State Papers
furnish no confirmation of this belief. Indeed, they show that Lord
Derby told Lord Salisbury to warn the Turks that though England would
take no part in coercive measures against them, the Porte “is to be
made to understand that it can expect no assistance from England in
the case of war.”[99] The Turks, however, had a fixed conviction that
England would help them in a war with Russia. Nothing but a strong
statement from Lord Beaconsfield would have eradicated this belief,
and all that the English Government can be blamed for is, that Lord
Beaconsfield failed or refused to make this statement. According to
Prince Bismarck, no statesman who aspires to influence abroad will
permit his Government to be associated with a failure in diplomacy. Yet
not only had Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Derby permitted their project
of the Conference to be laughed to pieces by the Turks, but all they
had to say to Parliament was that they were sorry that Turkey had
misunderstood her own interests. They were quite contented to accept
the defeat of their scheme meekly. Their position appears rather abject
to those who look at it critically, and yet no other was practically
open to them. Only a small faction, led by Lord Hartington and Mr.
Gladstone, were for coercing Turkey. A still smaller faction of idle
loungers, whose favourite phrase was that “Piccadilly wanted a little
wholesome blood-letting,” were for joining Turkey in a war against
the Slav States headed by Russia. The people were divided between
their spasmodic fear of Russia and their equally spasmodic loathing
for the Turks, and Radical Russophobes, like Mr. Joseph Cowen, were
just as loud in demanding non-intervention as Radical Russophiles
like Mr. Bright. Thus the policy of the Government--that of demanding
concessions from Turkey from a love of Humanity, and tamely submitting
to a contemptuous refusal, from fear of Russia, fairly well reflected
the mind of the English democracy.
Sir Stafford Northcote’s leadership of the House of Commons was not
promising. He tolerated the obstruction of a small group of members,
who caused the Bill which closed public-houses in Ireland on Sundays
to be abandoned, after Ministers stood pledged to its principle, and
all parties in the House were willing to pass it. He permitted his
more devoted followers to oppose a Resolution moved by Mr. Clare
Read--who had left the Government because he considered that they
neglected agricultural interests--in favour of County Government
Reform. But at the last moment he put forward Mr. Sclater-Booth
to accept the Resolution in a speech which was evidently meant as
a conclusive argument against it. Mr. Cross’s Prisons Bills, too,
spread disaffection among the squirearchy. These measures reduced the
management of gaols in the three kingdoms to something like uniformity.
But they made the prisons national and not local institutions,
centralised their administration in the hands of the Imperial
Government, deposed the local justices from their position of control
over them, and charged their cost to the Consolidated Fund.
The debates in Parliament were rendered memorable by the appearance of
a cool and adroit gladiator on the Irish benches, whose business-like
methods of attacking the Prisons Bill in Committee extorted admiration
from all old Parliamentary hands. This was Mr. Charles Stewart Parnell.
It was known to be his intention to obstruct the Prisons Bill, in
defiance of the wishes of Mr. Butt, the leader of the Irish Party. But
it was assumed that a combination of the two great English Parties
would easily crush opposition of the frivolous and factious order
with which Mr. Beresford Hope and a section of the Tories had met Mr.
Forster’s Ballot Bill.[100] But Mr. Parnell had evidently foreseen this
contingency, and he met it by inventing a higher and more scientific
type of obstruction than Mr. Hope had been capable of devising. His
obstruction paralysed the two front benches, because he took care that
it was not frivolous. He had evidently spent many nights and days
in the minute dissection of the Bill, and he had manifestly toiled
without stint in reading up the whole question of Prison discipline.
It was not till he had made himself master of the entire subject that
he intervened in the Debates, and then the House, to its amazement,
found that the Home Secretary himself, when pitted against this bland
young Irish squire with his soft voice, his lugubrious intonation, his
funereal manner, and dull, prosaic Gradgrind-like form of speech, was
but a poor amateur wriggling in the firm grip of a pitiless expert. To
the dismay of the three leaders of the House--Sir Stafford Northcote,
Lord Hartington, and Mr. Butt--there was no easy means of getting rid
of Mr. Parnell, simply because his amendments--and their name was
legion--were not vamped up. Nay, with Machiavelian ingenuity he had
draughted them so skilfully that most of them appealed strongly to
the sympathies of other sections of the House than those connected
with Ireland. Indeed, but for the persistency with which Mr. Parnell
and one or two of his friends “bored” the House with the sufferings
of certain Fenian prisoners under discipline, one would have thought
that his treatment of the Bill was simply that of an English country
gentleman, who had made himself an authority on the question, and had
a genuine desire to eliminate from it stupid provisions which had
been palmed off on a credulous Home Secretary. Nor was it in mastery
of detail and skill of draughtsmanship alone that Mr. Parnell showed
himself formidable. His ingenuity in inventing amendments drawn on
lines that appealed to English popular feeling was inexhaustible. If
at one moment the Home Secretary found himself contending with Mr.
Parnell in the guise of a healthy-minded Tory squire, who was a hater
of centralisation and a champion of the rights of visiting justices,
at another he found himself battling with a philanthropist in whom
the spirit of Howard lived again. Few who witnessed the long duel
between Mr. Cross and Mr. Parnell will ever forget the pitiful and
perturbed embarrassment of the Home Secretary when he found himself at
every turn so maliciously cornered by his enemy, that he must either
surrender, offend the prejudices of the rural magistracy, who hated the
Bill, or raise up hosts of enemies in Exeter Hall and other centres
of philanthropic activity, where any proposal to humanise Prison
Discipline was hailed with delight. And when the duel was over it was
impossible to deny that whatever might be Mr. Parnell’s motive, he had
by his opposition extorted from Mr. Cross a series of concessions,
which not only improved the Bill, but converted it from a bad one into
a good one.
One more point remains to be noted. Mr. Parnell’s party practically
consisted of one--namely, Mr. Joseph Gillies Biggar. If it was Mr.
Parnell’s desire “to scorn delights and live laborious days” in
reforming the administration of English prisons, it was the firm and
austere resolve of Mr. Biggar that this great work should be done with
a solemnity of deliberation
[Illustration: HORSESHOE CLOISTERS, WINDSOR CASTLE.]
worthy of such an august Assembly as the House of Commons. The business
in hand was too serious to be transacted without a quorum--so Mr.
Biggar invariably tried to “count” out the House. Public affairs ought
not to be transacted at an hour when, to use his favourite phrase,
“no decent person would be out of _their beds_,” so Mr. Biggar would
insist on adjourning the House or the Committee about one o’clock in
the morning.[101] And Mr. Biggar played his part in the serio-comedy
with so much elfish delight and quaint, grotesque humour, that if the
House now and then roared with rage at him, it still oftener roared
with laughter. Those who saw deeper than the surface saw that something
more serious than a comedy was being produced by these new performers
from Ireland. They saw sprouting the germ of that extraordinary
policy of Parliamentary pressure by which the new school of Irish
Nationalists sought to gain their end--the policy that offered the
Imperial Government the choice of one of two alternatives--concession
of autonomy in Ireland, or the sacrifice of the ancient liberties and
privileges of Parliament.
Still Englishmen were loth to believe that an issue so grave would be
forced upon them. Indeed, the Conservative Party regarded obstruction,
so far as it had gone, with merely a Platonic hatred. It had been used
only to check legislation, and Conservative interests were not hurt by
keeping things as they were. Then it was also said that the success of
Mr. Parnell was due to the feebleness of Mr. Cross, who, however, was
in a position to smile at such innuendoes. Whether he had been strong
or weak, Mr. Cross had, at all events, got his Prisons Bill passed in
a form that brought him great credit in the country. However, in the
lobbies of the House of Commons and in the political clubs the general
opinion was, that there was no need for Conservatives to be alarmed
so long as Mr. Parnell merely delayed legislative changes. He would
not venture to obstruct administrative work, and he must assuredly
succumb if he challenged a vigorous and resolute Minister like Mr.
Gathorne-Hardy. Mr. Parnell accordingly put up Mr. O’Connor Power to
block Mr. Hardy’s Army Estimates on the 2nd of July. Mr. Power waited
till the Army Reserve Vote came on, and then he met it with a motion to
report progress, first, because money ought not to be voted away after
midnight, and secondly because Ireland, not being allowed to raise
a Volunteer Force, ought not to pay taxes to support the Volunteer
Forces of England and Scotland. Would Mr. Hardy explain why Ireland
should not have Volunteers? Mr. Hardy seemed speechless with wrath at
the audacity of the attack, and met the question with contemptuous
silence. The interest of the House was now roused. It would be seen
whether the strong Minister of the Government, would be more successful
than Mr. Cross in coping with obstruction. Of course the motion was
defeated--but eight members, including Mr. Whalley, voted for it. Mr.
Parnell, it was then seen, had a small party at his back, nay, he
had lieutenants at his call ready to serve. Mr. O’Donnell next moved
that the Chairman of Committee leave the chair, and defiantly warned
Mr. Hardy that, till he did answer Mr. Power’s question, no Supply
would be voted. Mr. Hardy still refused, and then the struggle went on
merrily, dilatory motions being moved one after the other, till at last
the Government gave up the fight, and allowed the House to be counted
out at a quarter past seven in the morning.[102] Mr. Cross was the
only Conservative member who did not appear crestfallen next day. His
“feeble” method of dealing had, at all events, borne fruit. He had got
work, and good work, done. Mr. Hardy’s vigour had simply demonstrated
to the world that six Irish members could keep the House of Commons
sitting till seven o’clock in the morning, and keep it sitting for
nothing. Sir Stafford Northcote accordingly carried the feeling of
the House with him when, at next meeting, he threatened to move that
the rules of Procedure be reconsidered. But on going into the matter
he found that this would take time. The rules were dear to Members
opposed to reform, because they were so contrived as to give the utmost
facilities for impeding legislative change. Hence, he intimated, on the
5th of July, that he would deal with the difficulty after the Recess.
Mr. Parnell’s retort was to obstruct business at that sitting till
about three in the morning. He and his friends not only opposed the
clause in the Irish Judicature Bill fixing the salaries of the Irish
Judges,[103] but they affected to have suddenly taken an absorbing
interest in the Solicitors Examination Bill which had come down from
the House of Lords. On the 23rd of July Sir Stafford Northcote, still
shrinking from altering the rules of the House, tried to meet the case
by moving that the Government should confiscate for their business the
nights allotted to private members. This enabled the Parnellite Party
to again obstruct business, as champions of Parliamentary privileges.
By this time the House of Commons was working itself up into a fit of
burning indignation. The anger of the Conservatives indeed knew no
bounds, for they saw that they must either submit to Mr. Parnell, or
surrender privileges of obstruction which they had themselves found
useful in defeating measures of reform in bygone days. Mr. Parnell’s
Party sat maliciously cool and annoyingly calm through all the turmoil;
indeed, Mr. Parnell seemed bent on provoking the Tories opposite him,
by assuming towards them a demeanour of supercilious aristocratic
superiority that cut them at every moment like a whip. His manner of
disdainful mastery indicated that he must have some dire instrument
of torture in reserve for them. And so he had. He and his friends had
picked up a Bill which nobody dreamt of seriously attacking, because
it was purely an administrative measure proposed by the Colonial
Office. It gave the Colonies and the two Dutch Republics in South
Africa the means of forming a Confederation if they chose to do so.
It was perfectly harmless and permissive, but it was unfortunately
complex and loaded with detail. Mr. Parnell and his band had devoted
their unremitting energies to mastering, not only this Bill, but
every imaginable point in South African policy. Hence, when it came
before the House, they suddenly appeared in the character of South
African “experts,” who knew infinitely more about the subject than the
unfortunate Minister in charge of the measure. The Government had also
annexed the Transvaal Republic under the erroneous impression that the
Boers desired annexation, and Lord Grey had frankly admitted in the
House of Lords that South Africa was not ripe for Confederation. A few
Radical doctrinaires, led by Mr. Courtney, alarmed at the annexation of
the Transvaal, also disliked the Bill. In fact, an ideal opportunity
for practising obstructive tactics had been presented to Mr. Parnell
by the Government, and he took advantage of it ruthlessly. He and his
Party opposed the South Africa Bill line by line, nay, almost word
by word,[104] contemptuously asking Ministers to explain why they
persisted in giving to Colonies that did not want it, the autonomy
for which Ireland sued in vain. What, however, chiefly embarrassed
the Ministry was the factiousness of several powerful Radicals,
like Mr. Chamberlain, Professor Fawcett, and Mr. Rylands, who, not
content with expressing dissent in the constitutional manner on the
Second Reading, voted with Mr. Parnell in obstructing the formal
proposal to go into Committee on the Bill.[105] It would have been
comparatively easy to rouse an overwhelming force of public opinion
against Mr. Parnell at this juncture, had not Messrs. Chamberlain,
Rylands, Courtney, and Fawcett thrown over his opposition the ægis
of their personal authority. Their unexpected alliance emboldened
Mr. Parnell, who accordingly blocked the Bill in Committee to such
an extent, that Sir Stafford Northcote, on the 25th of July, moved
that the Irish leader be suspended for two days because he had said
he had “satisfaction in preventing and thwarting the intentions of
the Government in respect of the Bill.” In the wrangle that followed,
Mr. Parnell’s cool, supercilious manner rendered the House almost
ungovernable, until several Members recalled it to reason. It was
seen that the words expressed no more in themselves than a legitimate
act of critical opposition. Mr. Whitbread moved that the debate on
the motion to suspend Mr. Parnell be adjourned for twenty-four hours.
Mr. Hardy accepted the proposal, whereupon Mr. Parnell with frigid
imperturbability rose and resumed his speech at the very sentence in
delivering which Sir Stafford Northcote had interrupted him exactly two
hours before. During that sitting, from noon till a quarter to six in
the evening, only two clauses were passed. But one point was gained.
Mr. Parnell had inflicted on Sir Stafford Northcote a personal defeat
so detrimental to his authority as leader of the House, that he was at
last compelled to consent to a modification of the rules of procedure.
On the 27th of July he moved two Resolutions, one prohibiting a Member
from moving dilatory motions of adjournments more than once on the same
night, and another enabling the Chair to put without debate a motion
silencing a Member for the rest of the debate who had been “named” as
defying the authority of the Speaker or Chairman of Committees. As
for Sir Stafford Northcote’s motion to suspend Mr. Parnell, that was
dropped at Lord Hartington’s suggestion. After apologetic explanations
were given by Lord Beaconsfield and Sir Stafford Northcote to the
Members of the Tory Party at a private meeting at the Foreign Office,
these resolutions were carried. Independent critics predicted that
they would be futile; that, indeed, no remedy short of the Continental
_clôture_, which the Conservatives dreaded much more than Mr. Parnell,
could be effective.
[Illustration: LORD DERBY.
(_From a Photograph by Elliott and Fry._)]
Mr. Parnell proceeded without delay to give a practical illustration of
the defects of the new rules. He played his game more warily, but more
persistently than ever, and every day the House of Commons found itself
an object of contempt to the nation, because it could not vindicate
its authority against one man. At last, on the 31st of July, Sir
Stafford Northcote in despair resolved to resort to physical methods.
He arranged with Lord Hartington to force the South Africa Bill through
Committee, by getting the House to sit on without a break till the
Parnellites were worn out from sheer bodily exhaustion. Relays of
Members were brought up to keep the House in Session, and Mr. Parnell
and his friends were allowed to talk themselves out. For twenty-six
consecutive hours the struggle went on with the seven Irish Members,
who, ere it was half through, lost their Radical ally, Mr. Courtney,
who flounced out of the House muttering his disgust at the hideous
scene of anarchy. At two o’clock in the afternoon of the following day,
Sir Stafford Northcote threatened “further proceedings,” and then, and
not till then, did the Irish forlorn hope give way. Mr. O’Donnell,
whose voice was now scarcely audible, said that this menace[106]
changed the situation, and the Bill was forthwith passed through
Committee. The Government triumphed, but at a terrible cost. They had
to drop all their best Bills, because Mr. Parnell kept them using up
the time at their disposal in passing a measure which was of little
interest to Englishmen, and which ultimately proved, not only useless,
but mischievous. The Session was therefore barren of legislative
fruit. Even the Budget failed to excite debate, for, as Sir Stafford
Northcote said, it was “a ready-made” one, and changed nothing.[107]
No old taxes were remitted, and no new ones imposed. Sir Stafford
Northcote perhaps underrated the depression in trade, which was even
then obviously growing. He hardly appreciated the rapidity with which
the working classes were exhausting their savings at a time when wages
were more likely to fall than rise. But otherwise his statement was
unobjectionable.
Foreign Policy was, however, the mainstay of the Ministry, and it is
curious to note how completely the anti-Turkish agitation, which Mr.
Gladstone had fomented with passionate zeal, forced the Cabinet to
change their attitude to the Eastern Question. In 1876 the Ministerial
doctrine was that England had no more to do with a quarrel between
the Sultan and his subjects than between the Austrian Emperor and his
people--the Ministerial theory, in fact, was, that if England was bound
to protect anybody, it was the Sultan, and not his subjects. In 1877
Ministers acknowledged that, as England had been mainly responsible
for keeping the Turk in Europe, she was in honour bound to protect his
Christian subjects from the torture which his Pashas inflicted on them.
There was also a change in regard to another point. In 1876 Ministers
were all for maintaining the “integrity and independence” of Turkey.
The Atrocities agitation, however, forced Lord Derby to make demands on
Turkey, and to assent to demands being made on her, which ignored her
visionary integrity and her mythical independence. It was said at the
time that the Court, having strongly supported the pro-Turkish policy
of 1876, was disappointed at the change of front in 1877. It is quite
certain that these views were not shared by the Duke and Duchess of
Edinburgh and their _entourage_. A passage in one of the letters of
the Princess Alice to the Queen makes that point tolerably clear.[108]
But as to the other question the evidence is faulty. The policy of the
Prince Consort, which was always supposed to dominate the ideas of
the Court, was certainly not pro-Turkish. In his celebrated Memorandum
to Lord Aberdeen’s Cabinet in 1853 he laid down two principles: It was
the duty and interest of England to prevent Russia from imposing in
an underhand way a Protectorate on the European provinces of Turkey
“incompatible with their own independence.” It was also the duty and
interest of England to prevent Turkey from using English diplomacy
so as to enable the Pashas to impose “a more oppressive rule of two
millions of fanatic Mussulmans over twelve millions of Christians.”
England might go to war to prevent Bulgaria from falling into the
hands of Russia, but not for the mere maintenance of the integrity
and independence of Turkey. Nay, the Prince considered that such a
war ought to lead, in the peace which must be its object, “to the
obtaining of arrangements more consonant with the well-understood
interests of Europe, of Christianity, liberty, and civilisation, than
the re-imposition of the ignorant barbarian and despotic yoke of the
Mussulman over the most fertile and favoured portion of Europe.”[109]
Lord Aberdeen, Lord Clarendon, Sir James Graham, and Mr. Gladstone
accepted this view of English policy. On the other hand, Lord
Palmerston repudiated it. He contended that it was the duty of England
to maintain the integrity of Turkey at all hazards; that the Prince
Consort’s policy pointed to the ultimate expulsion of the Ottomans from
Europe; and that any reconstruction of Turkey such as that which the
Prince foreshadowed simply meant “its subjection to Russia, direct or
indirect, immediate or for a time delayed.”
But Lord Beaconsfield’s policy was simply a reproduction of Lord
Palmerston’s, hence it might be inferred that if the Prince Consort’s
ideas still prevailed at Court, his policy in 1876 could not have
had Royal sanction. On the other hand, there is no proof that Prince
Albert’s ideas on the subject--which in the main were those of the
great bulk of the English people--were still held as authoritative
at Court. In a curious letter, the significance of which is obvious
in its relation to the Queen’s personal opinions, written by the
Princess Alice to her mother (25th July, 1878) there occurs, after an
outburst against the advance of the Russians on Bulgaria, the following
passage: “What do the friends of the ‘Atrocity Meetings’ say now? How
difficult it has been made for the Government through them, and how
blind they have been! All this must be a constant worry and anxiety
for you.”[110] As the Princess’s letters, where they touch on English
public affairs, invariably reflect the opinions of the Queen, and as
it cannot be imagined that in a matter of bitter political controversy
she would venture to obtrude on the Queen so contemptuous a view of the
“Atrocity Meetings” and of the conduct of the Opposition, had it not
been in sympathy with the Queen’s own feelings, we may safely draw
one conclusion. Despite the conjectures which have been ingeniously
based on the Prince Consort’s Memorandum of 1853, the policy of the
Court was identified with that of the Cabinet all through 1876, and
if it was changed in 1877, it was changed in deference to the popular
hostility to Turkey, which Mr. Gladstone had aroused. Among those
persons, however, who were closest in contact with the Court, and who
usually reflected Royal ideas most correctly, there was no change
of opinion. Mr. Hayward’s correspondence teems with references to
the fierce hatred with which Mr. Gladstone and the Opposition were
denounced by “the upper ten thousand;”[111] in fact, Society vilipended
Mr. Gladstone with the same obloquy that it had bestowed on him for his
pamphlet denouncing the Neapolitan atrocities. But Mr. Hayward is at
pains to state that, “all that the Government have been doing in the
right direction is owing to the flame kindled by him [Mr. Gladstone]”;
and the Hayward Correspondence proves that at the different embassies
the diplomatists were at one on three points (1), the insulation of
England; (2), the necessity of protecting the Bulgarians effectually
from Turkish oppression; (3), the necessity of refusing Russia any
cession of Turkish territory in Europe; a condition which, says Mr.
Hayward in his account of a celebrated diplomatic dinner-party at the
Austrian Embassy, Russia accepted.[112]
Events justified the accuracy of Mr. Hayward’s information, for it was
the fatal error of Lord Beaconsfield’s policy that it assumed there was
no genuine accord among the Powers, and that they were neither able nor
willing to prevent Russia from seizing Turkish territory in Europe.
Indeed, Mr. Hayward seems to have been the only observer of public
affairs who clearly understood why they were drifting in the direction
indicated by the table-talk of the embassies. In a letter to Lady
Waldegrave (7th October, 1876) he says, “the power of public opinion
is a remarkable feature of the Eastern Question. Russia is so strongly
impelled by it that the Government would be endangered by holding back.
Austria is impelled by the Magyar to oppose the construction of any new
Slav State. The Porte is afraid of exasperating its Mahometan subjects
by what might be deemed unworthy concessions. The English Government
is completely controlled by public opinion.” And again in a letter to
Mr. Gladstone he says, “One of the strongest features of the situation
is, that the popular voice or national will is bettering or impelling
diplomacy and statesmanship in Russia, Austria, England, and Turkey, and
[Illustration: THE TOWER OF GALATA, CONSTANTINOPLE.]
fortunately so as concerns England. Whatever England is doing in
the right direction is owing to the popular impulse for which you
are mainly responsible, and which will redound to your lasting
honour.”[113] At the same time, there was a point at which Mr.
Gladstone and the nation parted company. He thought that if England
admitted that she ought to see that the Bulgarians were protected from
oppression, she ought to force Turkey to give effectual guarantees
for their protection. If she did not, Russia would step in as their
champion, and establish a claim to exclusive influence over European
Turkey, which it was not politic to give her even a pretext for
exercising. The great majority of Englishmen, however, held (1), that
it was not their business to waste their taxes in winning freedom for
the Bulgarians; (2), that they sufficiently discharged their duty
to them when they paralysed Turkey by withdrawing British support
from her; and (3), that the futile results of the Crimean War proved
that Austria and Germany, from their geographical position, were the
only Powers who could be safely trusted to effectively check Russian
aggression in Eastern Europe. The masses, as distinguished from the
aristocratic and academic classes, here proved themselves wiser than
their leaders, on whom they forced a policy of non-intervention, which
practically meant benevolent neutrality to the oppressed provinces of
Turkey. The manner in which the Treaty of San Stefano was transformed
into the Treaty of Berlin, every concession extorted from Russia being
obviously exacted in Austro-German interests, more than justified the
somewhat cynical anticipations of the British people.
It is not necessary to describe at length the steps which led up to
the outbreak of war between Russia and Turkey on the 23rd of April,
1877. In vain did Lord Derby implore Turkey to grant of her own free
will the concessions she had refused to the abortive Conference. Russia
stood grimly on the frontier, with her hand on her sword-hilt, asking
Europe how long she was to wait ere she unsheathed her weapon. In
March a Protocol was signed by the Powers pressing Turkey to yield.
To this Russia appended a declaration that she would disarm if Turkey
accepted the advice of the Powers, and also sent an ambassador to St.
Petersburg to arrange for mutual disarmament. But otherwise Russia
clearly indicated her intention to use force. Lord Derby accepted, as
did the other Powers, this declaration, only he added, on behalf of
England, a reservation that she would consider the instrument null and
void if it did not lead to disarmament. The Turks rejected the appeal
of the Protocol. Prince Bismarck rejected a personal appeal which the
Queen made to him to hold back Russia; and so war was declared. To the
last the Turks expected that England would take their side, and they
had been confirmed in their attitude of contumacy by the appointment
of Mr. Layard, a notorious supporter of Turkey, to the British Embassy
at Constantinople on the day on which the Protocol was signed. If it
was the object of Lord Beaconsfield to prevent the outbreak of war
and to save the Ottoman Empire in Europe from ruin, his policy must
be described as an utter failure. And it failed for obvious reasons.
Lord Beaconsfield and the British diplomatic agents in Turkey talked
and wrote in terms which persuaded the Turks that, if they resisted
the demands of Europe, England would defend them, as in 1853-4. On the
contrary, if Lord Beaconsfield desired the Foreign Policy of England
to succeed, and to save Turkey from being crushed by Russia, he should
have taken steps to convince her that, even if he had the will, he had
not the power to do battle for her.
Others besides the Turks shared the opinion that Lord Beaconsfield
meant to drag England into a new Crimean War. On the 5th of May Mr.
Carlyle stated in the _Times_, “not on hearsay, but on accurate
knowledge,”[114] that Lord Beaconsfield was contemplating a feat “that
will force, not Russia only, but all Europe to declare war against
us.”[115] The idea of the Government was to occupy Gallipoli to
protect British interests. This would have forced Russia to declare
war against England, and then English public opinion would, of course,
have supported Lord Beaconsfield in fighting on the side of Turkey. But
Mr. Carlyle’s sudden revelation of the scheme roused public opinion in
favour of non-intervention, and Mr. Gladstone “took occasion by the
hand” to inflame the populace against Lord Beaconsfield’s supposed
designs. Stormy meetings were held all over England during the first
week of May, and then Ministers seemed to have changed their offensive
tone towards Russia. On the 6th of May Lord Derby buoyed out for Russia
the torpedoes called “British interests” which lay in her way. He laid
down in a polite despatch the precise conditions under which England
would remain neutral, conditions so plainly reasonable that Prince
Gortschakoff accepted them with the utmost frankness. Meanwhile Mr.
Gladstone was seriously misled by the public indignation which had
been roused against a conspiracy to fight for Turkey under the pretext
of protecting British interests. He imagined it would enable him to
carry out his own project of coercing Turkey in company with Russia. He
therefore submitted to the House of Commons six Resolutions, which were
discussed early in May. Of these, however, he was forced to withdraw
two, because a powerful section of the Liberal party considered that
they bound England to joint action with Russia. Thus Mr. Gladstone’s
formidable array of Resolutions dwindled down to the simple and
harmless proposition that the Turk was a bad man, who did not deserve
English sympathy or support. The House, however, by a majority of 131,
carried a colourless amendment declining to embarrass the Government
by any formal vote, and leaving “the determination of policy entirely
in their hands.” The debate on the Resolutions was one of those high
and sustained triumphs of Parliamentary eloquence which at great crises
display the British House of Commons at its best. It may be said to
have exhausted the controversy on the Eastern Question. Mr. Gladstone’s
speech (which would of itself have rendered the debate historical)
admittedly soared as high as the loftiest flights of Chatham and of
Burke.
There is no need to narrate the events of the war, how Osman Pasha,
from behind his earthworks at Plevna, blocked the Russian advance, and
Mukhtar held the Russians at bay in Asia Minor. As the star of fortune
shed its beams on either side, public opinion in England grew feverish
and excited, the Tories all the while clamouring for intervention on
behalf of Turkey. Some of them, indeed, seemed to hold that it was
the duty of England to head a new Crusade on behalf of Islam against
Christianity. But the public utterances of Ministers indicated their
determination to remain neutral, and Lord Derby did his best to
convince Musurus Pasha that Turkey was abandoned to her fate.
[Illustration: RUSSIAN WOUNDED LEAVING PLEVNA.]
Though the fact was not known at the time, a perfectly frank and
friendly understanding existed between the English and Russian
Governments; in fact, Russia had informed England, through her
ambassador, what terms of peace she would offer to Turkey, if Turkey
were to yield before Russian troops were compelled to cross the
Balkans. This information was given so that Lord Derby might have an
opportunity of modifying these terms if necessary for the protection of
British interests, prior to their presentation to the Porte, and Lord
Derby thought them so reasonable that he made more than one fruitless
effort to get Mr. Layard to press them on Turkey. Unfortunately the
diplomacy of 1877 was kept a profound secret, and as the people
were not aware of the good understanding between the Governments of
Russia and England, a fierce and exasperating controversy between the
Russophiles and the Russophobes raged through the land. On the 14th
and 15th of October the Turkish defence in Asia Minor collapsed. On
the 11th of December the fall of Plevna was announced, and when it was
intimated that Parliament was to meet on the 13th of January, 1878,
the country was panic-stricken. Nobody knew that Lord Derby and Count
Schouvaloff had practically agreed about the terms of peace that were
to be imposed on Turkey, and that Lord Derby had repeatedly warned the
Turks to expect no help from England. Everybody, in fact, inferred,
from the tone of the Ministerial press and of the speeches of Lord
Beaconsfield, Mr. Hardy, and Lord John Manners, that a scheme of
intervention was “in the air,” and that the early meeting of Parliament
implied a demand for supplies to carry on a war with Russia. The
Money Market rocked and swayed with excitement, and securities fell
with amazing rapidity.[116] Throughout England meetings were held by
business people protesting against any divergence from a policy of
neutrality. At night bands of young men, representing the War Party,
marched about London, the only English city which favoured war, singing
the chorus of a song then becoming popular in the music-halls, and
which began--
“We don’t want to fight,
But by Jingo if we do,
We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men,
And we’ve got the money too.”
[Illustration: HUGHENDEN MANOR. (_From a Photograph by Taunt and Co._)]
A new political term crept into use, namely, “Jingoism,”[117] or the
cult of the war-god Jingo, whose worshippers, however, were bellicose
rather than warlike, for they always prefaced their hymnal invocations
by the assurance that they did “_not_ want to fight.” The Ministry,
too, was divided--Lord Beaconsfield, Lord John Manners, and Mr. Hardy
leading the “Jingo” faction, whilst Lord Derby, Lord Carnarvon, and
Mr. Cross represented the Peace Party. This split in the Cabinet was
deplored at the time, and yet it was of enormous advantage to England.
It prevented her from being dragged into the war. It is true that it
buoyed up the expectant Turks with false hopes of aid from England,
and thus tempted them to reject the easy terms of peace which Russia
would have accepted after the fall of Plevna.[118] But the wrecking of
Turkey was not in 1877 a matter that deeply moved the British taxpayer,
unless he held Turkish Bonds, and if Lord Beaconsfield, Mr. Hardy,
Lord John Manners, and their group, by their bellicose attitude, lured
the Ottoman race to disaster, it was for the Turkish or War Party, and
not for the nation, to call these Ministers to account.[119] As for
the policy of neutrality which the English people literally forced on
Lord Beaconsfield and Mr. Gladstone, it was justified in the second
week of December, by a statement which Count Andrassy made to the
Austro-Hungarian Delegations on the 8th and 9th of that month. He
frankly said that Austrian sympathies were with the Christian subjects
of the Sultan, and that he “would not dare to stand up for the _status
quo_” in Turkey.
It needed little insight to discern that when Austria--a Power that
could have hurled 150,000 men on the flank of Russia--declared herself
against Turkey, and the _status quo_, it meant that Russia had bought
her alliance by consenting to an Austrian occupation of Bosnia and
Herzegovina. In such a crisis the true policy of a high-spirited
English statesman was to have safeguarded British interests in the
Ottoman Empire by “temporarily” occupying Egypt, as Austria was to
“temporarily” occupy Bosnia. Lord Beaconsfield, however, adopted
the surest means for paralysing his arm for such a bold stroke.
He summoned Parliament to meet three weeks earlier than usual, and
permitted his supporters to divert the attention of the country from
Egypt--obviously endangered by the impending fall of Turkey--to
wild schemes for occupying Gallipoli, sending a fleet to defend
Constantinople, and an army to obstruct the advance of Russia in Asia
Minor. As any one of these projects meant war with Russia, popular
excitement soon grew intense.
In this crisis it was to be expected that the policy of the Court would
be the subject of criticism, even though it were based on conjecture.
The pro-Turkish party were artful and adroit in their insinuations that
the Queen was on their side; though it is doubtful if the country would
have paid heed to them but for a curious coincidence. The third volume
of the “Life of the Prince Consort” was published at this juncture,
and it was assumed by both the partisans of Lord Beaconsfield and Mr.
Gladstone that Sir Theodore Martin had issued it by the Queen’s desire
in the form of a violent pamphlet against Russia. Perhaps it might
have been more discreet to have suppressed some passages, in which the
Prince, carried away by the excitement of the Crimean struggle, had
naturally taken a less sober and far-seeing view of European diplomacy
and English duty than he formulated in his famous Memorandum of 1853.
On the other hand, there is no reason to suppose that when the work was
compiled Sir Theodore Martin, or rather the Queen, who selected the
documents for publication, could have anticipated that the London Press
and the Pall Mall clubs would be agitated by a frenzied controversy
as to whether the Cossack was a more moral man than the Bashi-Bazouk,
or Lord Beaconsfield a greater traitor than Mr. Gladstone. Nor can it
be said that a just view of the Prince Consort’s opinions would have
been obtained if his letter to Stockmar, penned in April, 1854, and his
Memorandum to the Cabinet of the 3rd of May, 1855, had been withheld.
The former expressed the Prince’s regret that the English public
were too excited to permit the Government to stand by, and, having
let Turkey dash herself to pieces against Russia, step in and take
guarantees against Russia using her victory to the prejudice of Europe.
Public opinion in 1854, the Prince regretfully admitted, recognised no
way of taking these guarantees but one--that of supporting Turkey at
the outset, so that the influence thus gained might be used to persuade
the Porte to behave decently. As for the Memorandum of May, 1855,
written during the negotiations at Vienna, it merely put on record
his strong feeling against giving Russia an excuse for enforcing,
single-handed, demands which Europe might make on Turkey. It is simply
amazing that by these documents the Russophobes pretended to prove that
the Queen was on the side of Turkey, and the Russophiles that she was
for attempting to raise another Crimean War. The natural inferences
from the documents read in connection with the Memorandum of 1853, were
(1), that as English public opinion had now changed so as to tolerate
the policy of expectancy, for which Prince Albert hinted his personal
preference, he would, if alive, have supported the “sordid” national
policy of neutrality, and that, too, all the more readily that Austria
and Germany were better able to curb Russia in 1877 than in 1854; (2),
that he would have either accepted the Berlin Memorandum, or have
taken steps to give executive effect to the demands formulated by the
Conference of Constantinople.
But another circumstance gave colour to the floating gossip as to
the Queen’s pro-Turkish sympathies.[120] She resolved to confer on
Lord Beaconsfield a distinction she had bestowed only on three of her
Premiers--Melbourne, Peel, and Aberdeen--that of paying him a visit
at his country seat. It was on the 15th of December that the Queen
arrived at High Wycombe, which she found lavishly decorated with
evergreens, flowers, and flags. At one part of her route there was
built a triumphal arch of chairs (representing the staple manufacture
of the town), in which she displayed a special interest. Accompanied
by the Princess Beatrice, her Majesty was received at High Wycombe
railway-station by Lord Beaconsfield and the Local Authorities, who
presented her with a loyal address. The Mayor’s daughter then presented
bouquets to their illustrious visitors, after which the Royal party
drove, amidst the cheers of the townspeople, to Hughenden Manor. Her
Majesty had luncheon there with the Prime Minister, and spent about two
hours in his house. She and the Princess planted trees in the grounds
in memory of their visit.
[Illustration: THE QUEEN’S VISIT TO HUGHENDEN: AT HIGH WYCOMBE RAILWAY
STATION.]
If political significance could be attributed to the visit, it must
have had some relation to the most recent action of the Government.
That had, however, consisted in sending a despatch to Russia (13th of
December) expressing a hope that, if the Russians crossed the Balkans,
they would not occupy Constantinople or menace the Dardanelles.[121]
To this Gortschakoff’s answer was a repetition of the pledge given
in July, that British interests would be respected, and that
Constantinople should only be occupied if the obstinacy of the Turks
forced that step on Russia as a military necessity.[122] That the Queen
should approve of such a despatch as that which Lord Derby sent two
days before she visited Hughenden, and of its frank warning that the
occupation of Constantinople would leave England free to take active
steps for protecting British interests, was only natural. Yet it was
out of this visit that there grew up a great fabric of foolish gossip,
the purport of which was that the Sovereign was goading the Cabinet
into war with Russia! The Ministerial Press made matters worse by
pretending that Prince Gortschakoff’s reply to the despatch of the 13th
of December was insulting to England. But on the 2nd of January, 1878,
Lord Carnarvon, addressing a South African deputation, took occasion
to contradict these assertions. The fall of Plevna, he said, had not
materially affected the policy of the Cabinet, which was still one of
neutrality, and there had been nothing in the Russian communications
with the Ministry of an insulting or discourteous character. The war
scare now subsided as if by magic, and Funds rose a quarter per cent.
But the Ministerial newspapers heaped obloquy on Lord Carnarvon,
declaring that he merely spoke for himself; and at a Cabinet Meeting
on the 3rd of January there was quite a “scene” between him and Lord
Beaconsfield. The Prime Minister condemned the speech of his colleague,
who, however, put on a bold front, and read a Memorandum before the
Cabinet vindicating his position, and re-affirming everything that
he had said. Lord Beaconsfield merely asked him for a copy of this
document, and no Minister then or at any subsequent period hinted
at a private or public disavowal of Lord Carnarvon’s statement. A
very conciliatory answer was sent on the 12th of January to Prince
Gortschakoff. It did not even suggest that the temporary military
occupation of Constantinople would endanger British interests, but it
asked Russia not to touch Gallipoli. On the 15th of January Prince
Gortschakoff answered that Russia would not occupy Gallipoli unless
Turkish troops were massed there; but he said that a British occupation
of the Peninsula would be regarded by Russia as a breach of neutrality.
On the 17th of January Parliament met, and, to its surprise, found
itself greeted with a Royal Speech couched in the most dove-like terms
of peace. The War Party were abashed. Even Lord Beaconsfield spoke not
of daggers, though he hinted vaguely at the chances of using them.
There was also a clause in the Queen’s Speech which, after admitting
that none of the conditions of British neutrality had been violated,
alluded darkly to the possibility of something occurring which might
render “measures of precaution” necessary. Lord Salisbury, however,
went out of his way to state that the Czar, so far from having
aggressive designs, had shown himself anxious to defer to the wishes of
Europe, and was possessed with “an almost tormenting desire for peace,”
so that Members went about asking each other--Why had Parliament been
summoned so soon, to the great disturbance of business and the alarm of
the nation, merely to be told that everything was going on smoothly?
The fact is, that it had been Lord Beaconsfield’s original intention to
send the Fleet to the Dardanelles.
On the 12th of January, 1878, this proposal was discussed in the
Cabinet, and it would have been necessary to follow up the step by
asking the House of Commons for a war vote. At a meeting on the 14th,
from which Lord Derby was absent, the proposal was adopted. On the
15th Lord Carnarvon sent in his resignation, but Mr. Montagu Corry
came to him with a message from Lord Beaconsfield to say that certain
telegrams had arrived which had caused the order to the Fleet to be
cancelled. These telegrams must obviously have been from Lord Augustus
Loftus, conveying Prince Gortschakoff’s pledge that Gallipoli would
not be touched, and his warning that Russia would regard the British
occupation of it as a breach of neutrality. On the 16th Lord Carnarvon
was at the Cabinet meeting, but his resignation was not returned to
him till the 18th, when Lord Beaconsfield assured him that there was
no longer any difference between them. Lord Beaconsfield, indeed,
went further in his soothing assurances to the House of Lords on the
17th. Though he had Lord Carnarvon’s resignation at that moment in
his pocket, he said “there is not the slightest evidence that there
has _ever_ been any difference between my opinions and those of my
colleagues.”[123] As for the rumours of dissensions in the Cabinet,
Lord Salisbury scornfully averred that they were only the inventions of
“our old friends the newspapers.”
To understand the events that followed, and which again threw the
country into a panic, two facts must be kept in view. First, the
resolution to send the Fleet to the Dardanelles had been taken on
the 14th of January, after the receipt of a telegram from Mr. Layard
warning the Government that the Russians were moving on Gallipoli.
This false statement had been neutralised by Lord Augustus Loftus,
who sent on the 15th the telegram conveying Gortschakoff’s renewed
pledges to respect British interests, in time to enable Lord
Beaconsfield to cancel the orders to the Fleet. But the second point
is, that the public and Parliament were kept in complete ignorance
of Gortschakoff’s fresh pledges not to approach Gallipoli, and not
to occupy Constantinople. If the one pledge was to be trusted, so
was the other, and the withdrawal of the orders to the Fleet proved
that the Government thought that the one pledge was valid. Yet Lord
Beaconsfield’s friends strove without ceasing to impress the public
with the false notion that Russia meant to seize Constantinople. On
the 17th Mr. Layard sent another alarmist telegram. The Russians,
he said, were marching on Adrianople. They were next to occupy
Constantinople, and the Sultan was making ready to fly to Broussa. On
the 22nd a deputation of the Tory War Party, representing seventy-five
malcontents in the House of Commons, urged a policy of intervention
on Sir Stafford Northcote. On the 23rd the Cabinet resolved to send
immediate orders to Admiral Hornby to take the Fleet to Constantinople.
Lord Derby and Lord Carnarvon thereupon resigned. The order to the
Fleet was countermanded, and Hornby was instructed to anchor in Besika
Bay, whereupon Lord Derby returned to the Cabinet, but without Lord
Carnarvon. Lord Derby afterwards admitted that neither he nor his
colleagues had altered their opinions about the propriety of sending
the order to the Fleet, so that the Ministry and its Foreign Secretary
were now avowedly at variance as to a vital point of principle in
Foreign policy. If the Cabinet was trustworthy Lord Derby should not
have left it. If it was not trustworthy he was right to leave it,
but wrong to go back. As for Lord Beaconsfield, that he should have
permitted Lord Derby to return in such circumstances was, it need
hardly be said, discreditable to him as a man of honour. On January
24th Sir Stafford Northcote gave notice that on the 28th he would move
“a supplementary estimate for the military and naval services,” and the
Ministerial press immediately circulated the most startling accounts
of the oppressive conditions which Russia sought to impose on Turkey,
then negotiating for an armistice. The Liberal press, on the other
hand, accused Sir Stafford Northcote of breaking his promise, passed on
the opening day of the Session, that he would not ask for a Vote till
he knew what the Russian terms of peace were, and saw that they plainly
put British interests in peril.
As for the public, it had not the faintest idea that Ministers had
received assurances from Prince Gortschakoff which they had dealt with
as satisfactory. The official excuse for the War Vote now was that
Russia, by delaying to communicate the terms of peace which were the
basis of the armistice, rendered precautionary measures necessary. On
the 25th, Count Schouvaloff communicated these terms to the Foreign
Office, and they were found to be simply those which Russia had, with
unusual frankness, forewarned England and the Powers at various stages
of the war, she would exact from Turkey. On the evening of the 25th,
Lord Beaconsfield alluded to these terms as a possible basis for an
armistice. He must have regarded them as eminently moderate, for he
said that they had induced him to cancel the order to the Fleet to
proceed to Constantinople.[124] But the Ministry still persisted in
going on with the War Vote, and on the 28th of January Sir Stafford
Northcote denounced the terms of peace, in language which would have
induced Turkey to reject them had Russia not astutely kept them secret
till Turkey had accepted them. On the same day Lord Carnarvon, in the
House of Lords, explained his reasons for quitting the Cabinet.[125]
[Illustration: PRINCE GORTSCHAKOFF.]
The feeling in the House of Commons was now running high against the
Ministry, whose dissensions could no longer be concealed. But the War
Party organised with some difficulty a strong agitation in London in
their favour, and the streets and public-houses soon rang again with
the hymnal invocation to the war-god Jingo. His worshippers attacked
and broke up meetings called to protest against the War Vote, and they
themselves held meetings in Sheffield, in Trafalgar Square, and in
Exeter Hall (6th February). Still these demonstrations were empty of
real meaning, and the Opposition would not have been intimidated by
them but for a curious circumstance.
On the 7th of February the debate on the War Vote was still dragging
on, and every night the case of the Cabinet seemed to grow feebler
and feebler. The accommodating Mr. Layard, however, once more came
to their rescue. He began again to pour in his stereotyped telegrams
that the Russians, in spite of the armistice, were still marching on
Constantinople. Finally his despatches formed the basis for a rumour
that was circulated at Countess Münster’s ball, on the 6th of January,
that the Russians had actually occupied Constantinople. Next day the
panic-stricken City was literally occupied by raging “Jingoes,” and but
for the police Mr. Gladstone’s house would have been sacked. Every man
who did not bow to the war-god was a traitor and a Russian spy, and
the violence of the War Party ultimately frightened the wits out of
the Opposition. When the House of Commons met, Sir Stafford Northcote,
in reply to Lord Hartington, read Mr. Layard’s alarming telegrams, and
then the Liberal leaders ran from their guns in a panic. Mr. Forster
made haste to withdraw his Resolution against the War Vote. Nobody
would listen to Mr. Bright, who shrewdly suggested that Mr. Layard
was again misleading the Government; and the Liberal Party, deserted
by its leaders, sat in abject dismay, cowering beneath the triumphant
cheering of their opponents. But in a moment the whole scene changed,
as if by the touch of a magician. While Mr. Bright was casting doubt on
Mr. Layard’s telegrams, a note was passed on to Sir Stafford Northcote,
after reading which he grew visibly agitated. He handed it to his
colleagues, and when Mr. Bright sat down, Sir Stafford Northcote rose
and, with a shame-faced visage, said he had something of importance to
communicate. Both sides strained every ear to learn what fresh act of
Russian perfidy had been discovered; but the reaction was indescribable
when he read out an official denial from Prince Gortschakoff of Mr.
Layard’s sensational despatches. “The order,” said Gortschakoff, “has
been given to stop hostilities along the whole line in Europe and in
Asia. There is not a word of truth in the rumours which have reached
you.” Peals of derisive laughter greeted this anti-climax, only it was
difficult to know whether the Opposition and Ministers were laughing at
themselves, or at each other.
The end of the affair was that Mr. Forster could not muster up enough
courage to press his Resolution, and when a division came he and Lord
Hartington and about a hundred bewildered Liberals walked out of the
House. Hence the Vote was carried into Committee by a majority of 295
to 199. The country did not conceal its contempt for Mr. Forster’s
manœuvre. Men of sense agreed that there was only one ground on which
such a Vote could be fairly opposed. It was that till Ministers
stated definitely, whether their policy was to be that of Lord Derby
or Lord Beaconsfield, tempered at intervals by a telegraphic romance
from the British Embassy at Constantinople, not a farthing should
be granted to them. No such statement of policy was made, and the
withdrawal of the Liberals from their position served to convince
impartial observers that their opposition had been factious from the
beginning.[126] After this unexpected victory the “Jingoes” pressed the
Government to follow it up. To please them the Fleet was ordered to
Constantinople, but to soothe Lord Derby he was permitted to explain
that it went there merely to protect British residents who were
alarmed by the prevailing anarchy. The Turks, enraged at what they
deemed their betrayal by Lord Beaconsfield and Mr. Layard, churlishly
refused to grant a firman opening the Straits to the Fleet. Prince
Gortschakoff said, that as the protection of Europeans from anarchy
was a duty which Russia and England ought to undertake in common for
the sake of Humanity, Russia would now, as a matter of course, occupy
the fortified lines that covered Constantinople, and, if need be,
the city itself. It was a pretty “situation” in the high comedy of
diplomacy, in which Lord Beaconsfield was, for the moment, outwitted
and outmanœuvred. He lowered the point of his foil with good temper and
good grace, but when he effected a compromise with Gortschakoff there
was wailing and gnashing of teeth in the Temple of “Jingo.” And yet
Lord Beaconsfield may be forgiven much, on account of the dexterity
with which he extricated the country from a position which rendered war
with Russia, and the immediate expulsion of the last remnant of the
Ottoman race to Asia, a dead certainty. He, or Lord Derby in his name,
promised Gortschakoff not to occupy Gallipoli nor the lines of Bulair,
if Russia would promise not to land troops on the European shore of
the Dardanelles. This compromise was accepted by Russia, with the
additional proviso that neither Power was free to occupy the Asiatic
side of the Straits.
After the Government obtained the Vote of Six Millions, they began
to spend the money as quickly as possible in the arsenals, for the
strangest part of their policy was, that their Army and Navy Estimates
were essentially peace estimates. Meantime, everybody was speculating
as to what terms of peace were being forced on Turkey, and the War
Party were busy spreading abroad the most alarming rumours about the
exactions of Russia. The veil of secrecy in which the negotiations
were wrapped excited the suspicion of the people, who, it must be
remembered, were kept in ignorance of the fact that the Russian
Government had frankly told Lord Derby the conditions on which they
would make peace. There was thus a distinct oscillation of public
feeling towards the “Jingoes.” The Treaty of Peace was signed at San
Stefano on the 3rd of March. Nineteen days afterwards the full text
of this Treaty, by which, as Prince Bismarck told General Grant,
“Ignatieff had swallowed more than Russia could digest,” was printed in
the English newspapers. At first, the War Party collapsed. It was clear
that the Russians had not touched British interests, and that to offer
to fight on behalf of Turkey after she was annihilated as a fighting
Power, and had signed a Treaty of Peace, was a palpable absurdity. Some
other basis for a policy had thus to be discovered, and it was soon
found. The ghastly phantom of “the public law of Europe” was conjured
up from the Crimean Museum of diplomatic antiquities. It was said that
England was bound to defend that law against the Treaty of San Stefano
which had violated it, by upsetting the Treaty of Paris as modified in
1871 by the Powers. Austria also took a line that again inspired the
War Party with false hopes. The Treaty of San Stefano had not arranged
for an Austrian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as a counterpoise
to a Bulgaria under Russian influence. Austria therefore began to arm.
At the instance of Germany, however, she invited all the Powers to meet
in Congress and endeavour to harmonise the Treaty of San Stefano with
the general interests of Europe. As Lord Derby was blamed, somewhat
unjustly, for the failure of the project of a Congress, it may be well
to state precisely his attitude to it. Unfortunately for himself he
deemed it desirable to conceal his real objection to the scheme, which
was this: he held that more harm than good results from a discussion
among rival Powers on their competing interests in any Congress, unless
they shall have arrived beforehand at a complete agreement as to the
concessions which they will give and take.
[Illustration: RUSSO-TURKISH WAR: MAP SHOWING POSITION OF RUSSIAN AND
TURKISH LINES OUTSIDE OF CONSTANTINOPLE, AND OF THE BRITISH FLEET.]
Lord Derby’s idea evidently was to delay the Congress till the Powers
were so far agreed that their meeting would be virtually one to
register foregone conclusions. Lord Beaconsfield and the War Party,
on the other hand, knew that their only hope lay in preventing the
Congress from meeting. Up to a certain point Lord Derby and Lord
Beaconsfield could, therefore, hold common ground. But as Lord Derby’s
policy of obstructive procrastination destroyed the popularity of the
project before it had brought about such an agreement among the Powers
as would render the Congress innocuous, even in his eyes, it was easy
for Lord Beaconsfield to take some warlike step that would get rid
of Lord Derby and the Congress also. Hence throughout the period of
diplomatic conflict that followed we find Lord Derby allowed to object
to the Congress, first because Greece was not to be represented, and
lastly because the Russians did not distinctly promise to submit the
whole Treaty of San Stefano to it. The dispute finally centred round
this last point. Out of England nobody at the time could understand
Lord Derby’s objection. He seemed, from beginning to end, either to
be quibbling about words and phrases, or trying to force Russia to
enter the Congress with less liberty of action and on a lower status
of dignity and independence than the other Powers. Before England
accepted the Congress he wrote to Sir Henry Elliot, saying that she
would not enter it unless he distinctly understood that “every article
in the Treaty between Russia and Turkey will be placed before the
Congress, _not necessarily for acceptance_, but in order that it may
be ascertained what articles require acceptance or concurrence by
the several Powers, and what do not.” Russia had already admitted
that at the Congress each of the Powers “would have full liberty of
appreciation and action” as regards the Treaty of San Stefano, and on
the 9th of April Prince Gortschakoff’s Circular Note further stated
that “in claiming the same right for Russia we can only reiterate the
same declaration.” Lord Beaconsfield, on the 8th of April, complained,
in the House of Lords, that the phrase “liberty of appreciation and
action” was involved in classical ambiguity. “Delphi herself,” said
he, with a provoking sneer at the Russian Chancellor, “could hardly
have been more perplexing and august.” Yet, on the 27th of March,
Count Schouvaloff wrote to Lord Derby as follows: “The liberty of
appreciation and action which Russia thinks it right to reserve to
herself at the Congress the Imperial Cabinet defines in the following
manner. It leaves to the other Powers the liberty of raising such
questions at the Congress as they may think it fit to discuss, and
reserves to itself the liberty of accepting or not accepting the
discussion of those questions.”[127] Russia had communicated the Treaty
in its entirety to all the Powers. She had expressly and explicitly
informed Austria, who had summoned the Congress, that she admitted
the competence of that body to overhaul every clause of the Treaty in
European interests--a fact of which Lord Derby was well aware. Austria
and the Continental Powers were satisfied that Russia had sufficiently
recognised the competence of the Congress. England alone denied this,
and pressed for a declaration which would have technically left
all the Powers except Russia free not only to decide what affected
their individual interests, but free to decide what affected those of
Russia also. Lord Derby’s demand seemed as if meant to put the Russian
Government, behind which stood a great and irritable army, flushed with
victory, in the position of a criminal at the bar of Europe, and to
force from her an admission that on certain vital points she pledged
herself to bow to the decision of the Congress, though no other Power
was to be put under a similar obligation.[128] Whilst this pedantic
controversy was going on the “Jingoes” beat the war-drum with so much
sound and fury that Lord Beaconsfield was misled into the idea that
they were strong outside London. On the 26th of March the Cabinet
accordingly resolved to call out the Reserves, to summon a contingent
of native troops from India, to seize Cyprus, and land an army at a
port in Syria. Lord Derby was not much alarmed about the order to call
out the Reserves, but to seize one portion of the Turkish Empire, and
land an army on another, without a declaration of war, was to his
mind an act of piracy. Moreover, it would have instantly led to the
catastrophe which he had made every sacrifice to avoid--the Russian
occupation of Constantinople.
At this crisis Lord Derby saved his country from the direst calamity--a
war between England and Russia, in which victory could bring no other
gain to England than the privilege of restoring the liberated Turkish
provinces to barbarism, and in which, since India had been put down by
Lord Beaconsfield as one of the stakes in his game, defeat would have
meant the loss of her Asiatic and Colonial Empire. Lord Derby resigned,
and the panic caused by his withdrawal from the Cabinet compelled
Lord Beaconsfield to abandon the filibustering expedition to Cyprus
and Syria, and confine himself to those steps which did not make war
inevitable. Russia, who was strengthening her own forces, could not
object to England calling out her Reserves. As for the summons to the
Indian troops, it would have been harmless, but for a circumstance
not known at the time. It gave Prince Gortschakoff an opportunity
for carrying out a diabolically malignant scheme of vengeance. He
considered himself free to ignore the arrangement by which Russia
was bound not to interfere in the “neutral zone” between her Asiatic
Empire and the Indian frontier. Russian troops were accordingly ordered
to move towards the Oxus for the invasion of India. Russian agents
hastened in advance to the frontier to brew trouble for England in
Afghanistan. Nay, so swift and secret were these counter-strokes, that
even after the dispute between Russia and England in Europe had been
settled, Russia was unable to undo the mischief she had wrought in
Asia. England was dragged into the costly agony of another Afghan War,
and it may therefore be said that the luxury of bringing the native
troops to Europe in 1878 not only permanently disorganised the finances
of India, but cost the country hecatombs of lives and £20,000,000 of
money in 1879-80. Though the step was at first popular, the nation in
time began to appreciate the grave political and fiscal objections
which could be urged unanswerably against the employment of Indian
troops out of Asia, or out of that portion of Eastern Africa which is
practically Asiatic.
But when Lord Derby resigned it was not known that Indian troops were
to be brought to Cyprus and landed in Syria, and the Ministerial
explanations were so couched as to make it appear that he left the
Government merely because the Reserves were called out. His real
reasons could not be given at the moment, and he had to submit to a
tirade of abuse from Tory speakers and writers unparalleled in its
ferocity. Even his personal character was attacked by abominable
slanders. Violence and virulence are the outward and visible signs
of decaying power in a political Party. These evil qualities had,
however, never been displayed to a greater extent by the Tories since
the wars of the Protectionists and the Peelites in 1852, when a band
of the former one day after dinner at the Carlton Club explored the
drawing-room in order to “fling Mr. Gladstone out of the window.”[129]
Yet it is curious to observe that Lord Beaconsfield and his followers
were forced by events to adopt the policy and even the method of their
slandered colleague. They floundered deeper and deeper every day into a
quagmire of difficulties, till they actually made a secret arrangement
with Russia as to the points in the Treaty of San Stefano, about which,
however much they might wage a sham fight in the coming Congress,
neither Power would go to war.
In fact it is now evident that of the statesmen who figured in the
controversy at this crisis, Lord Derby is the one who emerges from
it with least damage to his reputation. Alike in his strength and
weakness, in his resolute determination to spend neither British blood
nor British treasure for the sake of Turkey, and in his lack of red-hot
enthusiasm for the cause of Slavic
[Illustration: THE MARINA, LARNACA, CYPRUS.]
nationality, Lord Derby’s diplomacy was the diplomacy of the British
people in their saner moments, when they were not under the spell of
passion or partisanship. His blunders--the rejection of the Berlin
Memorandum and the refusal to give an executive character to the
decisions of the Constantinople Conference--had at all events wrought
no evil to England or the world, unless it were an evil to hasten
the destruction of Ottoman tyranny in Europe, and the deliverance
of Bulgaria from barbarism.[130] As for his successes, they are
now obvious. His shrewd appreciation of British interests, and his
firmness, candour, courtesy, and lucidity in defining them at the
outset of the struggle between the belligerents, made it easy for
Russia to avoid a collision with England. That he fell short of his
opportunity in neglecting to establish British influence in Egypt was a
mistake excusable in a minister whose leader, like a character in one
of his own novels, “had but one idea in Foreign
[Illustration: SALONICA.]
Policy, and that was wrong”--the “maintenance of the integrity of the
Ottoman Empire.” But the net result of Lord Derby’s administration
was that he kept the country out of war, and out of enfeebling
and disreputable alliances. He thrust a peace policy on bellicose
colleagues. Even when they broke from his control he still forced them
back to the paths of peace by inflicting on them the penalty of his
resignation. In quitting them he left them as his legacy the secret of
going into the Congress, and bringing back from it “Peace with Honour.”
Mr. Gladstone, in a famous speech at Oxford, said, on the 30th
of January, that he had devoted his life, during the past year,
to counteract the Machiavelian designs of Lord Beaconsfield. Mr.
Gladstone, however, never appeared to less advantage than when he
made that statement. It was not Lord Beaconsfield but Lord Derby who
was the master-mind of the Cabinet during 1877-78, and who moulded
its diplomacy and controlled its action in Foreign Affairs. That Mr.
Gladstone strengthened Lord Derby’s hands by rendering a war for the
sake of Turkey unpopular is true; but that he weakened them by seeming
to advocate a military alliance with Holy Russia for a crusade against
Islam, is true also.
Lord Derby’s successor was Lord Salisbury. His first act was to
issue a Circular to the Powers, which was a furious and unrestrained
condemnation of every line of the Treaty of San Stefano. If it were to
be taken seriously it meant the condemnation even of the proposals of
the Constantinople Conference, to which he was himself a party. Prince
Gortschakoff, however, did not take it seriously. He replied to it with
polite irony in his Circular of the 9th of April, pointing out that the
difficulty Lord Salisbury put him in was that he confined himself to
saying what England did _not_ want. The situation, however, could not
be understood by the Powers till Lord Salisbury stated plainly what
she did want. The only logical answer which Lord Salisbury in terms of
his Circular could give was, “The restoration of the _status quo_ in
Turkey.” Hence it is needless to say that he did not find it convenient
to issue a direct reply to Prince Gortschakoff’s cynical despatch.
The Resolution calling out the Reserves was carried in the House of
Commons by 319 against 64, the Liberal leaders, with the exception of
Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright, refusing to take part in the division.
That fewer than half the House supported the Government was bitterly
bewailed by the War Party, but was taken by the country as a good omen
of peace. So was the proposal to adjourn Parliament for a holiday of
three weeks at Easter, though, when the order summoning the Indian
troops to Malta was issued immediately after the adjournment, war
alarms again vexed the nation. Peace meetings were once more held, and
the provinces grew so restive that in the end of April Mr. Hardy and
Mr. Cross, speaking at Bradford and Preston, tried to soothe public
opinion by the most pacific assurances. When Parliament met after the
Recess the Government were taken to task because, in sending for the
Indian troops, they seemed to be endeavouring to nullify Parliamentary
control over the Army. Though the Opposition were beaten in the
division in the House of Commons, independent Conservatives did not
conceal the suspicions and the dislike with which they regarded a
proceeding which appeared more in harmony with the policy of Rome in
her decay, than of the British Empire in the full vigour of virility.
Though the War Party were more noisy than ever in London, there grew
up a strong feeling towards the end of May that the Congress would
meet after all, and that the risk of war was over. Intimidated by
the Peace demonstrations, the feeble vote of support on the motion
for calling out the Reserves, and the suspicions with which many
Conservatives viewed the employment of Asiatic troops to fight the
battles of England in Europe, the Government adopted Lord Derby’s plan,
and entered into a secret agreement with Russia as to what was to be
conceded in Congress. After that agreement it mattered little on what
terms the two Powers met. The compromise between Lord Salisbury and
Count Schouvaloff pushed back the Bulgaria of the San Stefano Treaty
from the Ægean Sea to the limit fixed by the Constantinople Conference,
cutting it off from all possible contact with England, an arrangement
not altogether disadvantageous to Russia. It divided Bulgaria into two
provinces--one to be free, but tributary to Turkey, and the other to
have an autonomous government, under a Christian Pasha, appointed by
the Porte with the sanction of the Powers. This weakened Bulgaria so as
to give Russia a dominant influence in both provinces, which was not
shaken till 1885, when their aspirations for union were realised by a
Revolution, which it was Lord Salisbury’s fate to sanction, perhaps,
indeed, in some measure to encourage. Greek populations were excluded
from the new Bulgarias, greatly to the satisfaction of Mr. Gladstone
and Lord Derby. Bayazid was restored to Turkey, but Batoum and Kars
were to be taken by Russia, who thus had the Asiatic frontier of Turkey
at her mercy. Russia was to take Bessarabia, and Turkey to cede Kolour
to Persia--obviously to earn Persian gratitude for Russia. Subject to
this compromise Lord Beaconsfield agreed not to make a _casus belli_ of
any Article in the Treaty of San Stefano, each one of which had been so
fiercely condemned by Lord Salisbury’s Circular of the 1st of April.
The intention of the Government was to keep the Salisbury-Schouvaloff
compromise secret. The people were to be left to imagine that Ministers
had won a diplomatic victory by forcing Russia into the Congress
fettered, whilst England entered it free. All the points agreed on
privately were to be fought over publicly by the representatives of
England in the Congress as if no such agreement were in existence,
and Englishmen were to be deluded into the idea that their diplomatic
agents had, by superhuman efforts at Berlin, not by private
huckstering in London, obtained enormous concessions from Russia.
But when the _Globe_ newspaper astonished the world by divulging
the secret agreement, the people--more especially the enthusiastic
Tories--refused to be
[Illustration: PRINCE BISMARCK.
(_From the Photograph by Loescher and Petsch, Berlin._)]
deluded. What, they asked, had Ministers made such a fuss about? Why
had they passed war votes, brought Indian troops to Malta at the risk
of violating the Constitution, and kept Europe in a fever of unrest,
if they were prepared to accept a compromise with Russia, so fatal to
the Turk as this? In fact, public opinion was so much excited that
Lord Salisbury, on the 3rd of June, had the courage to deny that the
secret compromise published by the _Globe_ on the 31st of May was
“authentic.” Ministerial organs, also tried to convince the world that
it was a forgery which had been treacherously uttered from the Russian.
Embassy.[131] For a time this denial lulled all popular suspicions. By
way of enforcing it Sir Stafford Northcote, when pressed, on the 6th of
June, as to what policy Ministers would pursue in Congress, referred
the House of Commons to the drastic Circular of the 1st of April, which
tore every Article in the Treaty of San Stefano to pieces. As a matter
of fact that Circular became a bit of waste-paper when Lord Salisbury
signed his secret agreement with Russia, the existence of which the
Government were now denying.
Three days after this compromise was arrived at, Germany, on the
3rd of June, issued invitations to the Powers to meet in Congress
at Berlin on the 14th.[132] Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury
then proceeded to represent England at the conclave in the Radziwill
Palace. Few will forget the almost breathless excitement with which
the people of England watched what they believed would be a terrible
diplomatic duel for the honour of their Queen and country between
Lord Beaconsfield and Prince Gortschakoff, for all this time the
country had accepted as true Lord Salisbury’s denial of his secret
compact with Count Schouvaloff.[133] But the tension of public feeling
suddenly relaxed in the reaction of a ludicrous anti-climax. On the
day after the Congress met (14th June) the _Globe_ published the full
text of the Secret Agreement. In vain did Sir Stafford Northcote and
the Duke of Richmond repeat Lord Salisbury’s equivocal denials of
its authenticity. Lord Grey indignantly condemned the Government for
their misleading disclaimers. Lord Houghton, a Liberal supporter of
Lord Beaconsfield’s foreign policy, said “the effect of the document
on the whole of Europe had been portentous,” and had lowered the
dignity of the Government.[134] The theory of the Ministerial Press,
that the document came from the Russian Embassy was refuted in a few
days by the Ministry. They raised criminal proceedings against Mr.
Charles Marvin, a writer in the Foreign Office, for surreptitiously
copying the paper and sending it to the _Globe_.[135] The prevarication
of Ministers and the revelations attendant on the disclosure of the
Secret Agreement shocked the confidence of the nation in the Cabinet.
Lord Salisbury and his colleagues earned for themselves at this time
an evil reputation for mendacity, which did much to bring about the
defeat of Lord Beaconsfield’s Administration at the General Election
of 1880. And yet it was difficult for them to be quite candid with
Parliament in the circumstances. On the day after they had signed the
Secret Agreement with Russia (which, it must be kept in view, bound
her to encroach no further on Turkey in Asia) they began to negotiate
a Convention with the Porte by which England promised to defend the
Asiatic frontier of Turkey, on condition that the Sultan would reform
the Government of Asia Minor, and permit the British Government to hold
Cyprus as long as Russia kept Kars. It would have been inconvenient
to divulge this scheme before Congress had decided the fate of
Bulgaria. Hence Lord Salisbury was really within the mark in saying
that the Secret Agreement with Russia did not “wholly” represent
the Government policy. On the 8th of July it was announced that the
Anglo-Turkish Convention had been signed on the 4th of June--most
reluctantly, as it seemed, by Turkey. Her hesitancy, indeed, was not
overcome till Lord Salisbury in the Congress abandoned, and Lord
Beaconsfield actively opposed, the cause of the Greeks, whom they had
buoyed up with delusive hopes. In an instant the scandal of the Secret
Agreement was forgotten. The wildest tales of the wealth that was to
be exploited in Cyprus flew from mouth to mouth. Englishmen saw with
prophetic eye, “in a fine frenzy rolling,” Asia Minor “opened up,”
under a British Protectorate, by the British prospector and pioneer.
Indeed, it was not till the 9th of November, when the nauseous wines
of Cyprus (of which such glowing accounts had been published) were
served at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet, that the truth dawned on the
City. Then it was recognised that the country had been deceived as
to the teeming riches of its new possessions and positions in the
East. Cool-headed men did not, however, at the outset conceal their
opinion that the privilege of occupying Cyprus and of defending the
Asiatic frontier of Turkey was a poor substitute for the occupation
of Egypt as a means of restoring British influence in the East and
safeguarding British communications with India. Mr. Gladstone and Lord
Hartington both denounced the Anglo-Turkish Convention, as an “insane
covenant,” and the Opposition attacked it savagely in Parliament, but
without success. Independent Members attributed less importance to the
arrangement than Mr. Gladstone. They argued that, as the introduction
of reforms into Asia Minor was the condition precedent of defending the
frontier by arms, the Treaty, so far as England was concerned, would
remain a dead-letter. Great commercial interests, if created in Asia
Minor by English adventurers, might doubtless need defence. But, on
the other hand, it was impossible to create those interests so long as
Asia Minor was desolated by misgovernment, which the Sultan had not the
power, even if he had the will, to reform. Lord Beaconsfield and Lord
Salisbury returned to London on the 15th of July, bringing with them,
as they said, “Peace with Honour.” Applauding crowds welcomed them with
passionate enthusiasm. The Tories were delighted with the Anglo-Turkish
Convention, for as yet the gilt had not been rubbed off their Cyprian
toy. The Liberals, though indignant at the betrayal of Greece, were
pleased that Lord Beaconsfield had come out of the Congress without
involving England in war. They could say very little against a Treaty
the net result of which was to free eleven millions of Christian
Slavs from the direct rule of the Sultan, to render even divided
Bulgaria practically autonomous, and to create Servia and Roumania
into independent Kingdoms. On the 18th of July Lord Beaconsfield
gave the House of Lords an apologetic explanation of the Treaty of
Berlin, which was only the Treaty of San Stefano modified by the
Salisbury-Schouvaloff Agreement, and by the concession to Austria of
the right to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina. The debate raised no point
of interest, save Lord Derby’s disclosure of the Ministerial decision
in May, to send a naval Expedition to Syria, a project which was
abandoned when he quitted the Cabinet. Lord Salisbury created a scene
by comparing Lord Derby’s revelations to those of Titus Oates, and he
gave them a flat denial. But Lord Derby had spoken from a Memorandum
which he had made of the decision to which he referred at the time it
was arrived at. As Lord Salisbury’s reputation for veracity had been
sadly shaken by his statements about his Secret Agreement with Russia,
the country paid little heed to his disclaimers, and Lord Derby’s
version of the facts has ever since been taken as correct.
Triumphant majorities endorsed the policy which had been adopted
in the Congress, and at the end of the year Ministers went about
predicting for the country halcyon days of peace. Domestic affairs gave
them little trouble. Irish obstruction was bought off by the Irish
Intermediate Education Bill, which appropriated £1,000,000 to encourage
secondary schools in Ireland, by prizes, exhibitions, and capitation
grants. An attempt was made to pass a Bill, which, under the pretext
of excluding diseased cattle from English ports, might have been so
applied as to shut out foreign competition in the cattle trade. But
when it was discovered that the effect of the measure would be to raise
meat to eighteen-pence and two shillings a pound, the Tory borough
members threatened to revolt, and after a long and obstructive struggle
in Committee concessions were extorted from the Government which
satisfied the Opposition. The Government and the Opposition agreed to
pass a Bill consolidating forty-five Factory and Workshop Acts--a most
useful measure which removed many legal ambiguities. But no other Bills
of importance were carried, and no debates of much consequence raised,
save on foreign questions.
The Budget was introduced on the 4th of April. But for the money spent
under the Vote of Credit, Sir Stafford Northcote would have had a
balance in hand of £859,000. As it was he had a deficit on the accounts
of 1877-78 of £2,640,000. Supposing that no change either in taxation
or ordinary expenditure occurred in the coming year, he admitted
that he would also have a deficit in the accounts of the coming year
of £1,559,000. But besides this, Sir Stafford Northcote contended
that he must make provision for an “extraordinary expenditure” of
£1,000,000, or perhaps £1,500,000, in addition to what appeared in
the regular estimates for the Army and Navy for 1878-79. The ordinary
income and expenditure he estimated at £79,640,000, but his attempt
to introduce the vicious system of bankrupt or half-bankrupt States,
whose Governments confuse their accounts by mixing up ordinary and
extraordinary expenditure could not conceal one fact. Adding his
extraordinary expenditure to his past and estimated deficits, the
existing taxation of the country would fail to meet the expenditure of
1878-79 by at least £5,300,000. Hence it was necessary to impose new
taxes. Sir Stafford Northcote therefore added 2d. to the income-tax,
and 4d. per pound to the duty on tobacco, but even then he estimated a
deficit of about £1,500,000, which he added to the floating debt.
Parliament was prorogued on the 16th of August, and, amidst optimist
anticipations of peace, an end was put to a Session in which the House
of Commons, for the first time in the century, had permitted itself
to be treated by the Ministry like a Bonapartist _Corps Législatif_.
When it adjourned many people wondered why it had been summoned.
In the stirring crises of the year the Government had on every
momentous occasion carried out their policy without consulting it. The
legislative work that it was allowed to do might have been deferred for
another year without serious inconvenience. It had been converted into
a court of registration for the decisions of a Minister who treated it
as an ornamental appendage to a new system in which the Monarch and the
Multitude, under his guidance, were the only real governing forces.
Ministers, however, when they went down to their constituents in the
autumn, and told them to hope for peace, plenty, and
[Illustration: SHERE ALI, AMEER OF CABUL.]
reduced taxation, did not apparently know that a cunning trap had been
set for them by Russia. Before Parliament rose there were rumours
afloat that the policy of the Indian Government was becoming restless
and disquieting. Lord Lytton had put the vernacular Press under a
harsh censorship. The native Princes were threatened, or they expected
to be threatened, with a demand for the reduction of their armies. A
frontier policy of perilous adventure was mooted, greatly to the alarm
of experienced Indian officials like Lord Lawrence.
It has been already stated that Lord Salisbury, when Secretary of
State for India, had a scheme in view for covering Afghanistan with
European residents, and that Lord Northbrook resigned office rather
than further it. In 1878 Lord Lytton found an opportunity made for
him by Russia for developing this scheme, and he hastened to seize
it. He had already estranged Shere Ali, the Afghan Ameer, by his
menaces, and this prince was perhaps not indisposed to intrigue with
a rival Power. When Lord Beaconsfield brought the Indian troops to
Malta, Russia not only made secret preparations for the invasion of
India, but sent a Mission to Cabul for the purpose of securing the
co-operation of the Afghans. It does not appear that Shere Ali entered
into any bargain with the Russian Envoys, whom he sent away as soon
as he could, because whilst they were in Cabul he seems to have been
very nervous about their safety. But the Indian Government, hearing of
what was going on, demanded that they too should send an Embassy to
Cabul, urging that the reception of the Russian Mission showed that
Shere Ali’s apprehensions as to the safety of Europeans in his capital
were groundless. A Mahometan official of rank, the Nawab Gholeim Hasan
Khan, was entrusted with the task of conveying the demand to Shere
Ali, and he did his work honestly, and with great tact and skill. The
Nawab, on the 30th of August, left Peshawur, where the British Envoy,
Sir Neville Chamberlain, and his escort of a thousand troops were
waiting for the Ameer’s reply. The Nawab apparently did not see Shere
Ali till the 12th of September, who told him that he did not like the
idea of the Mission being forced on him. The advice of the Nawab, who
appears in these transactions as the only diplomatist who correctly
appreciated the situation, was to delay the Mission, “otherwise some
harm will come.” By “some harm” Gholeim Hasan Khan meant an Afghan war,
at all times a dire calamity for India, whether it ended in victory
or defeat. The Nawab, as the result of further negotiations, reported
that Shere Ali was willing to send for the British Mission, and clear
up any misunderstanding that might have arisen about his reception
of the Russian Envoys, if the Indian Government would give him time.
The Russians had come to Cabul uninvited, and they had all been sent
away, save some who were ill, and who were to be sent back whenever
they recovered. As the Nawab sensibly said, Shere Ali did not want
his people to suspect that the British Mission was thrust on him. “If
Mission,” said the Nawab, “will await Ameer’s permission, everything
will be arranged, God willing, in the best manner, and no room will
be left for complaint in future.”[136] But during September all these
details--afterwards revealed in the Blue-books--were concealed from
the British people. The Indian Government primed the correspondents
of the Press with mendacious accounts of Shere Ali’s insulting
refusal to receive a British Envoy, whereas he had not only invited a
Russian Mission to Cabul in violation of his pledges to us, but was
loading them with attentions, whilst Sir Neville Chamberlain was kept
ignominiously waiting his pleasure at Peshawur. British _prestige_,
it was said, rendered it necessary to coerce the Ameer, and so Sir
Neville Chamberlain was ordered to enter Afghan territory without the
Ameer’s permission, with a force “too large,” as Lord Carnarvon said,
“for a mission, and too small for an army.” When the advance guard of
the Mission came to the fort of Ali Musjid the Commandant stopped
it. At the time the country was told in the inspired telegrams in the
newspapers that the Commandant, Faiz Muhammed Khan, was violent and
insulting, and threatened to shoot Major Cavagnari. When the Blue-book
appeared with Major Cavagnari’s account of the affair it showed that
the Khan behaved with the greatest courtesy, and though he said he
must, in obedience to orders, oppose the advance of the Mission, he had
actually prevented his troops from firing on Cavagnari and his men.
What need to expand the story? The Mission returned. A pretext for a
quarrel with Shere Ali, which Lord Salisbury had instructed Lord Lytton
to find, was at last discovered. War was declared on Afghanistan, and
Parliament was summoned on the 5th of December to hear the news.
Of course Parliament was called into consultation too late. The Viceroy
of India had deliberately put himself into a position to invite and
receive a blow in the face from a semi-barbarous Asiatic prince. The
Government were therefore compelled either to recall Lord Lytton, and
treat the whole affair as a blunder, or avenge the rebuff which he had
received by war. They chose the latter alternative, and the hearts
of Liberal wirepullers were lifted up, because manifestly even Lord
Beaconsfield’s Administration could not survive such an escapade as
a third Afghan war. The debates on the policy of the Government were
dismal reading for those who knew what Afghan campaigns meant. The
Government shrank from resting their case on the transactions which
caused the war. It could not be concealed that on the 19th of August
Lord Salisbury asked Russia to withdraw her mission from Cabul, and
that on the 18th of September he received a scoffing reply informing
him that the Mission was only a temporary one of courtesy. As Sir
Charles Dilke put it, Lord Salisbury was naturally dissatisfied with
this reply, but being “afraid to hit Russia, yet determined to hit
somebody,” he “hit Shere Ali.” Ministers, however, took up a broader
ground of defence. They said that the Russian advances in Asia rendered
it necessary for England to secure the independence of Afghanistan. All
Indian statesmen were agreed that this could be done by guaranteeing
his throne to Shere Ali, he on his side giving the Indian Government
control over his policy. Shere Ali had been always willing to accept
the guarantee and the pledge to defend him against foreign and domestic
foes. But he would never consent to pay for it by putting his country
under a diplomatic or military protectorate. On no consideration would
he permit European agents to be stationed at Cabul, though he had no
objection to receive Mussulman agents, and neither Lord Mayo nor Lord
Northbrook thought it wise to press him on the point. They confined
themselves to a promise of aid, reserving to themselves the right of
determining when they should give it. Shere Ali was not satisfied
with this arrangement, but he had to make the best of it. In 1875
Lord Salisbury urged Lord Northbrook to find some pretext for forcing
European residents on the Ameer. Lord Northbrook refused and resigned.
Lord Lytton took his place. Lord Lytton roused Shere Ali’s suspicions
at the outset by occupying Quetta. At a conference at Peshawur in 1876,
between Sir Lewis Pelly and Shere Ali’s representative, Mir Akbor,
menaces were exchanged for persuasion, and even the conditional promise
of support given by Lord Mayo and Lord Northbrook to Shere Ali was
withdrawn. This aggravated Shere Ali’s suspicions, and it was while
he was in this frame of mind that Lord Lytton attempted to force a
British Mission upon him. The theory of the Government was that as
diplomacy had failed to make the Ameer accept our protectorate, resort
must be had to coercion. This had led to war, it was true. But war
must end in victory, and victory in the occupation of the southern
part of Afghanistan, which, as Lord Beaconsfield said, would give
India a “scientific frontier.” The objection to his idea was that to
push our outposts farther north was to put ourselves at a disadvantage
in defending India. Not only would the occupation of Afghanistan be
ruinously costly, but it would lengthen and attenuate the line of our
communications with our base--a line, moreover, which would run through
the lands of wild and fanatical hill-tribes. The debates in both Houses
perhaps served to render the war unpopular. But it had begun, and it
was absurd to refuse supplies to carry it on, because such a refusal
merely exposed British troops to disaster in the field. However, it was
notorious that in the majorities who supported the Government were many
who, like Lord Derby, felt forced to support in action a policy which
in opinion they disapproved.
During the Session of 1878 only one matter personally affecting the
interests of the Queen came up for discussion. On the 25th she sent
to both Houses a Message announcing the approaching marriage of the
Duke of Connaught with the Princess Louise, third daughter of Prince
Frederick Charles of Prussia, the celebrated cavalry leader, popularly
known as “The Red Prince.” He was a man of large private fortune, and
his daughter was described by Lord Beaconsfield as “distinguished
for her intelligence and accomplishments, and her winning simplicity
of thought and manner.” As for the Duke of Connaught, Lord Napier of
Magdala bore testimony to his efficiency as a soldier. In the House of
Commons an addition of £10,000 a year was voted to the Duke’s income,
thus raising it to £25,000, of which £6,000 a year was to be settled on
his wife in the event of her surviving him. The vote was passed without
a division, the only protest made coming from Sir Charles Dilke, who
asserted that no good precedent could be cited for such a provision for
a Prince, when it was not manifestly a provision for succession to the
Crown.
The only great public function of the year in which the Queen took part
[Illustration: THE QUEEN REVIEWING THE FLEET AT SPITHEAD.]
was the Review of the Fleet at Spithead on the 13th of August. The
spectacle was marred by the storm of wind and rain, which too often
spoils naval reviews, but it was one which had a special interest. It
was designed to show the country what kind of naval defence could be
organised on short notice, amidst rumours of war, when the Channel
Fleet was absent in foreign waters. It represented a naval force which,
but for its ordnance which was utterly obsolete and inefficient, would
have been equal in strength to the navy of any of the Continental
Powers, and the Queen saw for the first time the manœuvring of two
malevolent-looking little torpedo boats, which astonished her by
dashing about in all directions at the rate of twenty-one knots an
hour. At noon the ships were dressed. At half-past three the Royal
Yacht with the Queen on deck passed down the lines. Salutes were fired,
and yards manned, and her Majesty, accompanied by the Prince and
Princess of Wales, Princess Beatrice, and the Lords of the Admiralty,
was enthusiastically cheered. When the Queen’s vessel emerged from the
lines it was followed by a gay flotilla of yachts. Those that were
sailing craft luffed their wind and, headed by Mr. Brassey’s _Sunbeam_,
went round by starboard, the steamers going round by port, and with
the Royal Yacht in the centre the brilliant pleasure fleet came back
with the Squadron. All evolutions were countermanded on account of the
weather, but at night the Fleet was illuminated.
At Paris, on the 12th of June, there died George V., ex-King of
Hanover, Duke of Cumberland, grandson of George III. of England and
first cousin of the Queen. Court mourning was ordered for him, though
it was not very generally displayed. The old jealousy with which the
people regarded English Princes, who had interests separate from
England, accounted for their indifference to his death. Nor was there
any strong family sentiment at Court to counteract this feeling. On the
contrary, the sentiment of the Queen’s family was as anti-Hanoverian
as that of the nation. She had not forgiven the treasonable intrigues
which his father, her uncle, King Ernest Augustus of Hanover--the
most universally hated of all the sons of George III.--carried on
with the Orange Tories to set up Salic law in England, and usurp her
throne. She had unpleasant memories of his arrogance in persistently
conferring the Guelphic Order on Englishmen, not only without asking
her permission, but in defiance of her prohibition, as if in suggestive
assertion of an unsurrendered hereditary right of English sovereignty.
More recently the Queen had been still further offended by the
pretensions of his son, her cousin George V., to sanction or veto
the marriages of English princes and princesses, as male head of the
House of Brunswick-Sonneberg. His attempt to treat the marriage of the
Duchess of Teck (the Princess Mary of Cambridge) as a mere morganatic
connection, and his refusal to let the Duke of Teck sit beside the
Duchess at dinner, had also strained the relations between the Queen
and her cousin. Still, in 1866, she had, in response to his appeal,
used her influence on his behalf with the German Emperor. She had even
pressed Lord Derby and Lord Stanley to save Hanover from Prussian
annexation, and though they refused, she had induced them to mediate on
his behalf in order to secure for him a comfortable personal position
as a dethroned monarch. His misfortunes roused her sympathies, and
when he died, so far as the Queen was concerned, all feuds with the
Hanoverian branch of the Royal Family were buried in his grave.
But the end of the year brought a more bitter sorrow to the Queen than
the death of George V. The Princess Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse,
died in extremely touching circumstances. She had spent the summer
months with her children at Eastbourne, where she had endeared herself
to the people by her sweetness of disposition, and by the personal
interest she manifested in the poor of the town. She was usually to
be seen visiting the cottages of the sick in the fishing quarter.
She had taken a keen interest in studying the management of certain
charitable institutions, evidently with a view to making use of her
knowledge when she returned to Darmstadt, and a charming visit to
Osborne completed a holiday that was for her full of happiness. Her
life was uneventful at Darmstadt till the 8th of November, when her
daughter, the Princess Victoria, was smitten with diphtheria. The
Grand Duchess was herself a skilled and scientifically-trained nurse,
and she tended her child personally. She was the first to detect the
appearance of the diphtheritic membrane in the little Princess’s
throat, and she promptly attacked it with inhalations of chlorate of
potash. In spite of careful isolation, the whole family, including the
Grand Duke, with the exception of the Princess Elizabeth, caught the
disease, and it need hardly be said that the strength of the Grand
Duchess soon began to give way under the strain of mental anxiety and
bodily fatigue. The Princess May died, but on the 25th of November
the Grand Duke recovered. On the 7th of December the Grand Duchess
went to the railway station to see the Duchess of Edinburgh, and next
day she too was prostrate with diphtheria. Lord Beaconsfield, in his
speech of condolence in the House of Lords on the 16th of December,
described her, with ornate rhetoric, as receiving “the kiss of death”
from one of her children, and he recommended the tragic incident as
fit to be commemorated by the painter, the sculptor, or the artist in
gems. There was no foundation for this histrionic flight. Nobody knew
how the Princess caught the contagion, but her biographer states “it
is supposed that she must have taken the infection when one day, in
her grief and despair, she had laid her head on her sick husband’s
pillow.”[137] Her sufferings were severe and protracted, and on the
13th of December it was seen that she must die. Still she lingered
on. In the afternoon she welcomed her husband with great joy. She saw
her lady-in-waiting, and even read two letters, the last one being
from the Queen, her mother. Then she fell asleep and never woke again.
At half-past eight on the morning of the 14th, the anniversary of
her father’s death, she passed away, quietly murmuring to herself
these words: “From Friday to Saturday, four weeks--May--dear papa!”
All through her life she had worshipped her father’s memory with
passionate devotion, and in death his name was the last on her lips.
The grief of the Queen was only equalled by that of the Prince of
Wales, who seems to have regarded the Grand Duchess as his favourite
sister. As for the English people, they mourned for her with
simple-minded sincerity. The character of the Princess Alice--so full
of sense and enterprise, and high-spirited self-helpfulness--had been
to them peculiarly attractive. She had won their gratitude by her
devotion to her mother in the first hours of her widowhood, and to
the Heir Apparent, when in 1871 his life hung in the balance. That
her daily existence was clouded with sordid cares due to straitened
means was not known to her countrymen till after her death. But they
were well aware that much domestic sorrow had entered into her life.
Her efforts to raise the condition of her sex in Germany procured for
her many enemies in a country where it is deemed desirable to reduce
the house-mothers to the position of upper servants in their families,
who, however, do their work without claiming wages. Sticklers for
Court etiquette were shocked by the unconventional activity manifested
by the Princess in furthering the organisation of charitable and
educational movements. Even the poor in most instances viewed her
visits to their homes--visits which she ultimately found prudent to
make _incognito_--with suspicious hostility. She had the character in
fact of being bent on revolutionising the domestic and social life
of Darmstadt by English ideas. She loved learning, and delighted in
the society of men of letters and artists, who were always her most
favoured guests. Hence it was bruited about that she was an infidel,
and a foe to religion. Undoubtedly at one time, when she cultivated
close relations with Friedrich Strauss, under whom she studied the
works of Voltaire, her theological views ceased to be orthodox. But
her musings on the mystery of life, the problem of duty, the conflict
between Will and Law in the world, reveal a profoundly reverent and
eagerly upstriving spirit, ever struggling towards the light. Some day
the story of the spiritual conflict that went on in the still depths
of this pure and gentle soul may be told. Here it is enough to say
that personal influences played a great part in bringing it to a happy
issue. Some time after her philosophical conclusions had crumbled away
like dust, one of her most intimate relatives writes, “She told me
herself, in the most simple and touching manner, how this change had
come about. I could not listen to her story without tears. The Princess
told me she owed it all to her child’s death, and to the influence of
a Scotch gentleman, a friend of the Grand Duke’s and Grand Duchess’s,”
who was residing with his family at Darmstadt.[138] “I owe all
[Illustration: THE ALBERT MEMORIAL, KENSINGTON.]
to this kind friend,” she said, “who exercised such a beneficial
influence on my religious views; yet people say so much that is cruel
and unjust of him, and of my acquaintance with him.”[139] In Germany,
her biographer[140] admits “her life and work were not easy,” and she
had not the intrepid intellect, the ardent temperament, the caustic wit
and the soaring ambition, which enabled her sister, the Crown Princess,
to conquer for herself a position of dominant influence in the midst
of an unsympathetic Court, and an antipathetic Society. Perhaps this
explains why through life she had every year been drawn more closely to
the land of her birth, where her worth was more justly appreciated than
in the land of her exile. “How deep was her feeling in this respect,”
writes the Princess Christian in her touching preface to her sister’s
memoirs, “was testified by a request which she made to her husband, in
anticipation of her death, that an English flag might be laid on her
coffin; accompanying the wish with a modest expression of a hope that
no one in the land of her adoption would take umbrage at her desire to
be borne to her rest with the old English colours above her.”