DRIFTING TO WAR.
Origin of the Crimean War--Russia and “the Sick Man”--Coercing
Turkey--The Dispute about the Holy Places--A Monkish
Quarrel--Contradictory Concessions--The Czar and the Tory Ministry
of 1844--The Secret Compact with Peel, Wellington, and
Aberdeen--Nesselrode’s Secret Memorandum--The Czar and Sir Hamilton
Seymour--Lord John Russell’s Admissions--The Czar’s
Bewilderment--Lord Stratford de Redcliffe--The Marplot at
Constantinople--A Hectoring Russian Envoy--The Allied Fleets at
Besika Bay--The Conference of Vienna--The Vienna Note--The Turkish
Modifications--The Case for England--The British Fleet in the
Euxine--A Caustic Letter of the Queen to Lord Aberdeen--Prince
Albert’s Warnings--The Massacre of Sinope--Internal Feuds in the
Cabinet--Lord John Russell’s Intrigues--Palmerston’s Resignation
and Return--The Fire at Windsor--Birth of Prince Leopold--The Camp
at Chobham--The Czar’s Daughters--Naval Review at Spithead--Royal
Visit to Ireland.
When Parliament was prorogued on the 20th of August, 1853, the following
passage was inserted in the Queen’s Speech. “It is with deep interest
and concern that her Majesty has viewed the serious misunderstanding
which has recently risen between Russia and the Ottoman Porte. The
Emperor of the French has united with her Majesty in earnest endeavours
to reconcile differences, the continuance of which might involve Europe
in war.” The war to which these differences led has ever been regarded
by the Queen as the one heart-breaking calamity of her reign--a calamity
hardly equalled by the great Mutiny, which, though it nearly wrecked her
Eastern Empire, ended in establishing her authority more firmly than
ever in her Asiatic dominions. No such tangible result as that followed,
however, from the war into which the country was now being rapidly
hurried. The results of this war--the battles, the siege operations,
“the moving accidents by flood and field”--are all well known; but its
causes are to this day very imperfectly understood by Englishmen. The
folly and weakness of the Aberdeen Ministry, the influence of Prince
Albert, the aggressive designs of Russia, the obstinacy and brutality of
the Turks, the determination of Napoleon III. to foment a disturbance
from which he might emerge with the status of a Ruler who had linked the
throne of a parvenu in an alliance with an ancient monarchy, the
factious desire of the Tory Opposition to entangle the Coalition
Ministry in Foreign troubles--to all these causes have different writers
traced the Crimean war. Let us, then, examine carefully, and closely,
the development of the dispute that broke the peace of Europe in
connection with the attitude to it--sometimes, it must be frankly said,
a wrong attitude--which the Queen and the Court of St. James’s held.
[Illustration: BAZAAR IN CONSTANTINOPLE.]
The geographical conditions of Russia, and the political state of
Turkey, favoured the outbreak of war between these States. Russia has no
outlet to the sea except through the Baltic in the north, which is
frozen in winter, and through the Bosphorus in the south, which is open
all the year, but which is dominated by the Sultan so long as
Constantinople is the capital of Turkey. Russia has, therefore, an
obvious interest either in making Turkey her vassal, or in expelling the
Turks from Europe, and establishing a Power at Constantinople in
servitude to the Czar. It is almost a heresy to say that Russia has not
aimed at seizing Constantinople herself. Yet if we are to base our
judgment on authentic historical documents, and not on the heated
imaginings of excited Russophobists, it is necessary to say this. The
Emperor Nicholas was the most aggressive of modern Czars, and there is
no reason to doubt the cynical candour with which he expressed his views
on this subject to Sir George Hamilton Seymour, in his conversations
with him early in the year.[98] Yet it is certain that his ideas as to
the reconstitution of European Turkey in the event of the Turkish Empire
breaking up, took the form of organising a series of autonomous States,
which, like the Danubian Principalities in 1853, should be under his
protection, though, perhaps, under the nominal suzerainty of the
Turks--by that time banished to Asia Minor--“bag and baggage.” These
ideas may have been right or wrong. It is, however, just to say that
they were the ideas of the Czar, and that they do not correspond with
the scheme for making Constantinople the capital of Russia, which most
popular English writers accuse him of cherishing.[99] The interest of
Russia being thus revealed, let us see where her opportunity lay. It lay
in the fact that the Ottomans, though they had enough bodily strength to
conquer, had never enough brain-power to govern a European Empire. In
this respect they differed signally from the equally savage hordes of
Manchu Tartars, who overran China, and who, instead of destroying,
adapted themselves to the civilisation with which they came in contact.
The Christian provinces of Turkey, and the Greek Christians, under the
rule of the Sultan were misgoverned, plundered, and at times tortured by
the myrmidons of a barbarous and feeble autocracy. The Russian Czar, as
head of a nation fanatically devoted to the Greek cult, could always
find in this misgovernment and oppression apt opportunity for
interfering between the Sultan and his Greek subjects. Moreover, in
every act of interference the Czar of Muscovy knows that he will be
supported to the death by the fervid fanaticism of the Russian people.
But the example of other Powers was not wanting in 1853 to emphasise the
promptings of interest and opportunity. In 1852 the Turks determined to
strike a blow at Montenegro, with which they had for centuries waged
chronic warfare. The Sublime Porte sent Omar Pasha to occupy the
Principality of the Black Mountain. Austria, alarmed at the prospect,
despatched Count Leiningen to Constantinople, and instructed him to
press for the recall of Omar. The Porte yielded to this demand, and
recalled him.[100]
Nor was Austria the only Power that was demonstrating the ease with
which Turkey might be coerced. France had a dispute pending with Turkey,
as to the privileges of the Roman Catholic monks in Jerusalem--a dispute
into which the French Emperor, when Prince-President in 1850, had
entered with vigour, for the purpose of conciliating the French clergy.
Mr. Kinglake insinuates that Napoleon III. manufactured this quarrel in
order to force on a European war that might strengthen his position. It
is but fair to say that the Emperor inherited the controversy from Louis
Philippe.[101] As it led to the assertion of claims on the part of
Russia, the rejection of which by Turkey caused the Crimean war, it may
be well briefly to set forth its salient points.
In 1740 the Porte, in a treaty with France, granted to the Roman
Catholic monks and clergy in Jerusalem the custody of certain places in
the Holy Land, associated with the memory of Christ, and to which Greek
and Latin Christians were in the habit of making pilgrimages. The Great
Church of Bethlehem, the Sanctuary of the Nativity, the Tomb of the
Virgin, the Stone of Anointing, and the Seven Arches of the Virgin in
the tomb of the Holy Sepulchre, were among the Sacred Places thus
ceded.[102] During the Revolution, French zeal for maintaining the
privileges of the Romish clergy in Syria grew cool, and the Holy Places
in the custody of the Latin monks were shockingly neglected. The Greek
Christians, however, not only visited these consecrated spots as
pilgrims, but piously repaired them with the sanction of the Porte, thus
acquiring by firmans from the Sultan the privilege of worshipping in
them. The policy of the Porte seems to have been to induce Latins and
Greeks to share the use of the sacred shrines. But Latins and Greeks,
under the protection of France and Russia respectively, each claimed an
exclusive right of control and guardianship over them. The dispute had
been carried on in a desultory way till, in 1850, it was narrowed down
to this point: France, on behalf of the Latin monks, contended that, in
order to pass into the grotto of the Holy Manger, they should have
exclusive possession of the key of the Church of Bethlehem, and of one
of the keys--the other being in Greek custody--of each of the two doors
of the Holy Manger; further, that the Sanctuary of the Nativity itself
should be ornamented with a silver star, and the arms of France. In
February, 1853, the Porte adjudicated on the rival claims in a letter
addressed to the French Chargé d’Affaires, and in a firman to the Greek
patriarch. The representative of France was told that the Latins were to
have the keys they demanded. The Patriarch was told that Greeks,
Armenians, and Latins should have keys also, and that the Latins were
not to have any of the exclusive rights over the Holy Places that they
claimed. When it became known that the Porte had thus spoken with “two
voices,” France complained that the exclusive rights demanded by her
under the Treaty of 1740 were denied in the firman. Russia, on behalf of
the Greeks, claimed credit for moderation in accepting the firman as a
compromise, and insisted on its being publicly proclaimed at Jerusalem
as a charter of Greek privileges. The Porte, in deference to the
opposition of France, refused to make public proclamation of the
firman.[103] The Russian Consul-General left Jerusalem in high dudgeon.
“The Latins,” says Mr. Walpole, “on hearing the decision of the Porte,
that they should be allowed to celebrate mass once a year in the Church
of the Virgin, near Gethsemane, but that they should not be allowed to
disturb the altar and its ornaments, declared that it was impossible to
celebrate mass on a schismatic slab of marble, and before a crucifix
whose feet were separated.”[104] In this quarrel of a few ignorant monks
over the mummeries of their rival rituals lay the germ of that great war
in which England sacrificed the lives of 28,000 brave men, and spent
£30,000,000 of sterling treasure!
[Illustration: CONVENT OF THE NATIVITY, BETHLEHEM.]
The Porte endeavoured, by contradictory concessions, such as by publicly
reading the firman, and by permitting the Latins to put a star over the
altar of the Nativity, to please both parties--but in vain. Russia,
towards the end of 1852, had moved a _corps d’armée_ on the frontier of
Moldavia. France threatened to send her fleet to Syria; and in the end
of February, 1853, the Czar sent Prince Menschikoff on a special mission
to Constantinople, for the purpose of enforcing the Russian demands.
The turn in affairs that placed Lord Aberdeen at the head of the Queen’s
Government did not tend to moderate these demands, or induce the Czar to
treat the Porte with any delicacy. The Czar, in fact, was honestly
convinced that his views as to the future of Turkey were, in the main,
shared by Lord Aberdeen, and therefore by the British Cabinet. It was
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL OF THE NATIVITY, BETHLEHEM.]
well known that when the Czar visited England, in 1844, he had discussed
the Eastern Question with the Queen and her principal advisers, and that
he and Lord Aberdeen had become personal friends. His Majesty had
propounded to Peel and Aberdeen his fixed idea that it would be well, in
view of the impending dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, that England
and Russia should agree as to the disposal of its European provinces. As
Austria would follow Russia, an Anglo-Russian coalition would
necessarily dictate terms to France, who, by her support of Mehemet Ali,
had shown that her interests were as hostile to those of England in
Egypt, as they were to those of Russia in Syria. In fact, the Czar’s
conversations with the Tory Ministers in 1844 were almost identical with
those which he subsequently held with Sir Hamilton Seymour in 1853. Sir
Theodore Martin asserts that Peel rejected these overtures, saying that
England did not regard the dissolution of Turkey as imminent, that she
wanted no Turkish territory for herself, that she merely desired to
prevent any government in Egypt from closing the road to India, and that
she must decline to pledge herself to accept Russian plans for disposing
of the Turkish territory, till events rendered its disposal a pressing
question.[105] Sir Theodore Martin, however, admits that there was “a
general concurrence in the principle expressed” by the Czar, that no
Great Power--least of all France--should be permitted to aggrandise
itself at the expense of Turkey. Now, it seems certain that up to the
very moment when war was declared, the Emperor Nicholas was convinced
that Lord Aberdeen’s Government would never take sides with France
against him, in any quarrel about Turkey. He was convinced, despite the
despatches of the British Ministry, that the ideas of the British
Government and his own in regard to the future of Turkey, were in
principle the same--and this conviction he evidently carried away with
him from England in 1844. He must have been, therefore, too stupid to
correctly understand what Peel said to him, or Peel must have said more
to him than Sir Theodore Martin felt himself at liberty to record, in
his masterly but discreet biography of Prince Albert. The manifest
reluctance of Lord Aberdeen to thwart the Russian Emperor, and his
obvious embarrassment when his duty forced him to comment publicly on
Russian diplomacy in 1853, indicate that something more _was_ said. What
it was has been revealed by Lord Malmesbury in an entry in his Diary
under date the 3rd of June, 1853. “There is,” says Lord Malmesbury, who
speaks with the authority of one who had held the seals of the Foreign
Office, “a circumstance which I think must strongly influence Lord
Aberdeen at this moment; which is, that when the Emperor Nicholas came
to England in 1844, he, Sir Robert Peel (then Prime Minister), the Duke
of Wellington, and Lord Aberdeen (then Foreign Secretary) drew up and
signed a memorandum, the spirit and scope of which was to support Russia
in her legitimate protectorship of the Greek religion and the Holy
Shrines, and to do so without consulting France. When Lord Derby’s
government came in, at first, I was unable to understand the mysterious
allusions which Brunnow[106] made now and then, and which he retracted
when he saw that either I knew nothing of this paper, or that I desired
to ignore it. Since it was composed and written, the position of affairs
in Europe is totally changed, and is even reversed. In 1840 the events
in the East had then estranged England and France from one another, and
Louis Napoleon did not exist as a factor in European policy. Now he is
Emperor of the French, and the Duke and Peel are dead, yet it is not
unnatural to believe that Nicholas, finding Lord Aberdeen Prime
Minister, and the sole survivor of these three English statesmen, should
feel that the moment had arrived, so long wished for by Russia, to fall
upon Turkey.... He believes that Lord Aberdeen never will join France
against him, and probably thinks Palmerston stultified by the drudgery
of the Home Office.”[107] This passage in Lord Malmesbury’s Diary
explains why Lord Beaconsfield used to say that he knew as a fact within
his own knowledge, that had Lord Aberdeen not come to power in 1852, the
Crimean war would never have broken out.[108] Perhaps it explains why
Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright declared that if the Tories had not been
driven from Office in 1852, the Crimean war would have been avoided. It
is now only too easy to understand that, if he had this Secret
Memorandum in his possession, the Czar Nicholas naturally believed that
the British Government were not serious in their antagonism. It is also
easy to understand why Lord Aberdeen always shrank from speaking the
firm word of warning, which would have induced Russia to pause ere her
troops crossed the Pruth, and draw back whilst it was possible to draw
back with honour.
The existence of an informal understanding between the Czar and the old
Tory Government of 1844 shows us why his Majesty, in conversation with
Sir Hamilton Seymour, on the 9th and 14th of January, 1853, reopened the
question which he believed he had virtually arranged with that
Government. The last living representative of it--Lord Aberdeen--was
Prime Minister of England; Turkey was in a more decrepit condition than
ever; France seemed bent on reviving the Napoleonic legend--of evil omen
to England in Egypt; nay, she was challenging the claim of Russia to
secure protection for the Greek Christians in the Ottoman Empire--a
claim which the Tory leaders in 1844 were disposed to favour.[109] The
Czar therefore thought it most opportune to say to Sir Hamilton Seymour,
as he had said to Wellington and Peel, that Turkey, “the Sick Man,” was
dying on their hands, that England and Russia should either agree what
should or should not be done with his heritage when he died, and,
further, to suggest that the Christian provinces of Turkey should be
organised as independent States under Russian protection, whilst England
occupied Egypt and Candia.[110] Lord John Russell’s reply to these
conversations must have also misled the Czar, preoccupied as he was with
the fact that, in terms of the Secret Memorandum of 1844, England and
Russia had agreed on a common policy in Turkey. Lord John, in effect,
said that, as the British Government did not think that the Turk was
quite moribund, it was premature to discuss any project, negative or
positive, for disposing of his territory, and that England had no desire
for territorial aggrandisement. But he went on to add that he thought
the Sultan should be “advised” to treat his Christian subjects justly
and humanely, because, if he did so, the Czar would not find it
“necessary to apply that exceptional protection which his Imperial
Majesty has found so burdensome and inconvenient, though no doubt
_prescribed by duty and sanctioned by treaty_.” The words here
italicised were not altogether in accord with the facts, for no treaty
sanctioned in plain, definite terms this “exceptional protection;”
moreover, they admitted the whole Russian case; for, as will be seen, it
was precisely because the Czar was supposed to be bent on extorting from
Turkey an extension of the sanction given by existing treaties to the
Russian Protectorate over her oppressed Christian subjects, that Turkey
and England went to war with Russia. Whether that war was right or
wrong, this is certain: it was waged by the English Government to rebut
a claim, which that Government at the outset admitted. The Czar, through
Count Nesselrode, expressed himself satisfied with the self-denying
pledges which had passed between the Russian and English Governments,
and, as England had promised not to entertain any project for the
protection of Turkey without a previous understanding with Russia, so
Russia, he said, gave a similar undertaking to England. But he observed
that the surest way to prevent the fall of Turkey would be to induce the
Porte to treat the Greek Christians with equity and humanity. The
English Government, delighted with this friendly communication, advised
the Porte to compose the dispute between France and Russia, by offering
to accept any arrangement which these two Powers would take as
satisfactory. It remonstrated with France for having been the first, not
only to raise the quarrel about the Holy Places, but also to support her
demands by a threat of war. This was a second admission on the part of
England that in this controversy Russia was in the right. Napoleon III.
recalled M. de Lavalelle, his hectoring Envoy at Constantinople, and
sent M. de La Cour in his place. Russia ceased her warlike preparations
on the Moldavian frontier, and the war-cloud on the horizon began to
melt away.
[Illustration: THE NICOLAI BRIDGE ACROSS THE NEVA, ST. PETERSBURG.]
Unfortunately for the prospects of peace, Lord Aberdeen ordered Lord
Stratford de Redcliffe to resume his duties as Ambassador at
Constantinople.
[Illustration: LORD STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE.
(_From a Photograph by Messrs. Boning and Small._)]
Stratford de Redcliffe was a man of indomitable strength of character,
restless energy, and invincible tenacity of purpose. His fitness for the
office of a mediator between Turkey, Russia, and France, charged
specially to avert war, may be estimated by the following entry in Lord
Malmesbury’s Diary, under date February 25th, 1854:--“Lord Bath,” writes
Lord Malmesbury, “has come back from Constantinople, and says that Lord
Stratford openly boasts having got his personal revenge against the Czar
by fomenting the war. He told Lord Bath so.” According to Lord
Malmesbury, his hatred to the Czar dated from the time when his Majesty
refused to receive him as Ambassador at St. Petersburg. It is now beyond
doubt that Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, from the beginning to the end
of the negotiations between the Powers, acted the part of a Marplot. As
Prince Albert, in a letter to Baron Stockmar on the 27th of November,
said, “The prospects of a peaceful settlement in the East do not
improve. Lord Stratford fulfils his instructions to the letter, but he
so contrives that we are getting constantly deeper and deeper into a war
policy.” It is impossible to describe in truer words the malign and
baneful influence of the diplomatist who, to gratify his personal
rancour, inflicted the torture of war upon his country.
Lord Stratford de Redcliffe reached Constantinople on the 5th of April,
1853. There he found that Prince Menschikoff, at the head of a menacing
mission, had arrived before him on the 28th of February. Menschikoff
began operations by refusing to treat with Fuad Effendi, the Foreign
Minister. Fuad resigned in favour of Rifaat Pasha. The tone of the
Russian envoy then alarmed the Grand Vizier, who sought advice from
Colonel Rose,[111] British Chargé d’Affaires. Colonel Rose immediately
begged Admiral Dundas to bring the Mediterranean squadron to the mouth
of the Dardanelles, but the Admiral refused to sail without instructions
from the Cabinet, and the Cabinet disapproved of Rose’s action. France,
however, thought that this act indicated an intention on the part of
England to forestall her, and despatched the Toulon squadron to Salamis,
without waiting to hear whether Colonel Rose’s action had been
sanctioned by his Government.[112] The presence of the French fleet so
near the scene of an acrid controversy between France and Russia, would
have tended to neutralise the conciliatory diplomacy of England, even if
Lord Stratford de Redcliffe had honestly meant to work in the interests
of peace.
Lord Stratford, when he arrived at Constantinople, found the Sublime
Porte in a panic. Though Russia had assured the English Government that
no question then remained open between her, France, and Turkey, except
that of the Holy Places, Menschikoff had demanded from the Porte a
treaty, the negotiation of which, he said, must be kept secret from the
Powers, acknowledging the right of Russia to a protectorate over all
Greek Christians in Turkey. Ultimately he offered to accept a Note; but
the objection to the concession in any such shape, was that it virtually
transferred to the Russian Czar the allegiance of 12,000,000 of the
Sultan’s subjects. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe advised the Porte to
begin by settling the question of the Holy Places, which was the _fons
et origo_ of the dispute. That question was quickly settled, and then
Menschikoff promptly and peremptorily pressed the new claim of Russia to
a protectorate over the Greek Church in Turkey. On the 5th of May he
sent an ultimatum to the Porte demanding its surrender on this point
within five days. On Lord Stratford’s advice the Porte refused to
surrender, and Prince Menschikoff and his suite left Constantinople in
wrath.[113] At this crisis the voice of Nicholas was for war; but that
of Nesselrode, his able and tranquil Minister, was for peace. As a
compromise the Czar therefore determined that the Danubian
Principalities should be occupied by his troops, and held till Turkey
guaranteed to Russia “the rights and privileges of all kinds which have
been granted by the Sultan to his Greek subjects.”[114] On the 31st of
May Nesselrode wrote to Reschid Pasha that Russian troops would cross
the Pruth, and on the 2nd of June Admiral Dundas was ordered to proceed
with the Mediterranean squadron to Besika Bay. The French fleet was
ordered to go there also, and the allied squadrons made their appearance
in Turkish waters about the same time.[115] The quarrel up till now had
been one between France and Russia. It was thus suddenly transformed
into one between France and England on the one side and Russia on the
other. On the 2nd of July Prince Gortschakoff entered the
Principalities; and then Austria, which had selfishly held aloof, became
nervous as to the control of the Danube, and manifested a desire to act
with the Western Powers. Turkey was advised not to treat Russian
aggression on the Principalities as a _casus belli_, and the Porte met
it with a protest, though it was very nearly forced by its fanatical
Moslem subjects to declare war. In England the Government was condemned
for its extreme reticence in Parliament as to the turn affairs were
taking; and up to this point the Cabinet certainly committed three
blunders. In the first place, they permitted Lord Stratford to encourage
the Porte to resist Russia, without having come to a clear and definite
determination to support that resistance by force, if Russia proved
unbending. Secondly, they relied too much on Count Nesselrode’s smooth,
pacific assurances after they knew, or ought to have known, from Prince
Menschikoff’s proposal of a secret treaty to the Porte, and from the
warlike demonstration on the Moldavian frontier,[116] that these
assurances were illusory. Thirdly, they did not meet the proposal for a
secret treaty and the demonstration on the frontier by ordering Dundas
to Besika Bay, and they met the occupation of the Principalities by
sending Dundas, not to the Black Sea, but only to Besika Bay. Lord
Aberdeen’s apologists allege that the latter step would have caused
Russia to occupy Constantinople. That is a feeble defence, for
subsequent events showed that Russia could not even mobilise enough
troops to hold the Principalities against the Turks. The English
Government did enough to irritate the Czar, and though they did not do
enough to check him, they did too much to enable them to extricate
themselves with honour from the quarrel.
[Illustration: TOWN HALL, VIENNA.]
Something, however, had to be done for the Porte, after it had, at the
bidding of England and France, refrained from defending the
Principalities, which were in its dominions. A Conference of the Powers
was therefore assembled at Vienna, on the 24th of June, to arrive at a
pacific solution of the difficulty, and on the 31st they adopted the
Vienna Note, which has become famous in European history. It was sent to
Russia and Turkey for acceptance as a settlement which, in the opinion
of Europe, would be equally honourable and fair to both. The Czar
accepted it promptly on the 10th of August. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe,
in his official capacity, advised Turkey to accept it; but he played his
Government false, by plainly indicating his personal objections to it.
The Porte acted on his private advice, and refused to accept the Note
unless it were modified. Turkey thus dashed all hopes of peace by
repudiating the advice of the Powers, and, by thus putting herself in
the wrong, she put Russia in the right.
[Illustration: PRINCE MENSCHIKOFF.]
Here Lord Aberdeen and his colleagues committed another blunder. On
balancing the gain against the loss to Turkey which was likely to accrue
from concessions that would prevent war, they might fairly enough have
told the Porte that, if it rejected the Vienna Note, it would be left to
struggle with Russia single-handed. Austria, however, followed by
France, England, and Prussia, asked the Czar to accept the modifications
of Turkey. The Czar refused to do this, and instructed Count Nesselrode
to give his reasons for refusing, whereupon Austria and Prussia veered
round, and again recommended the Porte to accept the original Note.
England and France, on the contrary, alleging that Count Nesselrode’s
despatches proved that the Czar attached a different meaning to the Note
from that which they attributed to it, declined to join Austria and
Prussia in pressing Turkey to accept it. The European concert was
destroyed, and it was the European concert which alone rendered war
impossible.[117] Unfortunately, on this occasion, the Queen, wary and
ingenious as she has shown herself during other crises in checking the
“drift” of Cabinets towards war, fell too easily under the influence of
Lord Aberdeen, for whom personally she ever entertained the warmest
regard. He sent Nesselrode’s despatch to her, but he prepossessed her
mind by pointing out to her first, that Nesselrode’s reasons for
refusing to accept the Turkish modifications of the Vienna Note, showed
that Russia put a different interpretation on it from that which its
framers meant it to bear; and secondly, that it would be dishonourable
to ask the Porte to accept it in the face of this fact. Her Majesty,
easily touched by such an appeal, wrote from Balmoral a strong letter to
Lord Aberdeen supporting his view with much ability. “It is evident,”
she said, “that Russia has hitherto attempted to deceive us, in
pretending that she did not aim at the acquisition of any _new_ right,
but required only a satisfaction of honour, and an acknowledgment of the
rights she already possessed by treaty--and that she does intend, and
for the first time lays bare that intention, to acquire new rights of
interference.” The Queen then made a suggestion which was carried out.
It was that England should lay the whole case before Europe, declaring
that the Russian demands were inadmissible, and “that the continuance of
the occupation of the Principalities, in order to extort these demands,
constitutes an unwarrantable aggression upon Turkey, and infraction of
the public law of Europe.”[118] As matters stood, such an intimation to
the fiery Czar was virtually a challenge to mortal combat.
Those who hold the destinies of great nations in their hands are now
chary of committing themselves to war for the sake of honour or the
public law of Europe. The subterfuges by which Russia disorganised
Bulgaria in 1886, and got rid of Prince Alexander, whose anti-Russian
proclivities had been encouraged by England, touched British honour more
closely than the “explicative Note” of Count Nesselrode. Yet England,
guided solely by her interests, did not make Russian interference with
Bulgaria in 1886, a _casus belli_. A greater statesman than Aberdeen in
1853, also eliminated all considerations of “honour” from his policy,
and looked solely to the material interest of his country. Prussia was
scoffed at by Prince Albert as “a reed shaken by the wind.” But Prussia
not only refused to join the Western Powers against Russia, but deterred
Austria from joining them. And why? Because Herr von Bismarck had enough
influence with the King to convince him that the interest of Prussia did
not lie in strengthening the Western Powers, or in offending Russia,
whose benevolent neutrality might one day be valuable to his country.
Why, he argued, should Prussia waste her strength in helping France and
Austria to weaken Russia, without the prospect of winning for Prussia “a
prize worthy of us”? He was “appalled” by the notion that “we may plunge
into a sea of trouble and danger on behalf of Austria, for whose sins
the King displays as much tolerance as I only hope God in Heaven will
one day show to mine.” The “interest of Prussia,” he said, after the
Crimean war was over, “is my only rule of action, and had there ever
been any prospect of our promoting this interest by taking part in the
war, I should certainly never have been one of its opponents.”[119] Lord
Salisbury, on the 9th of November, 1886, speaking at the Guildhall, has
in our time said that England has no interest to resist Russian
aggression in European Turkey, where Austria has none. Tested by that
principle the policy of the Cabinet and the Crown in 1853 was
chivalrous, but indefensible. Yet if the Sovereign and her Ministers
erred, what is to be said of the Nation? It was simply mad for war with
Russia, and the section of the Cabinet headed by Palmerston and Russell
vied with the Tories in inflaming the war-fever of the hour. Aberdeen
was vilified as a Russian agent--because he was desirous of maintaining
peace. Prince Albert was attacked with equal scurrility as a tool of the
Czar, because he was not a Russophobe, and because he did not conceal
his opinion that the Turkish Government was brutal, fanatical, and
ignorant.
Had Turkey accepted the Vienna Note, had the Powers not asked Russia to
accept the Turkish amendments to it, had Nesselrode in refusing to
accept these refrained from giving reasons for his refusal, peace would
have been preserved. It is, therefore, necessary to examine the points
that were at issue when the Vienna Note was rejected by Turkey. This is
to be done by comparing together Menschikoff’s original Note with the
Vienna Note, and the Turkish modification of it. Menschikoff started by
assuming that Russia and Turkey “being mutually desirous of maintaining
the stability of the orthodox Greco-Russian religion, professed by the
majority of their Christian subjects, and of guaranteeing that religion
against all molestation for the future,” should agree (1) that “no
change shall be made as regards the rights, privileges, and immunities
which have been enjoyed or are possessed _ab antiquo_ by the Orthodox
Greek Churches, pious institutions, and clergy, in the dominions of the
Sublime Ottoman Porte, which is pleased to secure the same to them in
perpetuity on the strict basis of the _status quo_ now existing. (2) The
rights and advantages conceded by the Ottoman Government, or which shall
hereafter be conceded, to the other Christian rites by treaties,
conventions, or special arrangements, shall be considered as belonging
also to the Orthodox Church.”[120] The Vienna Note differed but slightly
from this--and it may be well to put it side by side with the Turkish
modifications--reproducing only the controversial passages.
VIENNA NOTE.
“If the Emperors of Russia have at all times
evinced their active solicitude for the [_maintenance
of the immunities and privileges of the
Orthodox Greek Church in the Ottoman Empire,
the Sultans have never refused to confirm
them_] by solemn acts testifying their ancient
and constant benevolence towards their Christian
subjects.
* * * * *
The undersigned has, in consequence, received
orders to declare by the present Note that the
Government of his Majesty the Sultan will remain
faithful to [_the letter and to the spirit of
the Treaties of Kainardji and Adrianople relative
to the protection of the Christian religion,
and_] that his Majesty considers himself bound
in honour to cause to be observed for ever, and
to preserve from all prejudice either now or
hereafter, the enjoyment of the spiritual privileges
which have been granted by his Majesty’s
august ancestors to the orthodox Greek Eastern
Church, which are maintained and confirmed
by him; and, moreover, in a spirit of exalted
equity, to cause the Greek rite to share in the
advantages granted [_to the other Christian rites
by convention or special arrangement_].”
Turkish Modifications.
orthodox Greek worship and Church (le culte et
l’Église orthodoxe Grecque), the Sultans have
never ceased to provide for the maintenance of
the privileges and immunities which at different
times they have spontaneously granted to that
religion and to that Church in the Ottoman
Empire, and to confirm them
the stipulations of the Treaty of Kainardji,
confirmed by that of Adrianople, relative to the
protection by the Sublime Porte of the Christian
religion, and he is, moreover, charged to make
known
or which might be granted to the other Christian
communities, Ottoman subjects.
Were the points of difference between the Vienna Note and that Note as
modified by the Porte worth fighting for?
It is inconceivable that any English Minister or diplomatist having even
a cursory acquaintance with Turkish history could agree with the Porte
in affirming that the Ottoman Sultans had “never ceased to provide for”
the maintenance of the privileges of their Christian subjects. “Never
honestly attempted to provide for” would have been the truer statement
of the fact. So the _first_ modification of the Porte may be summarily
dismissed. As to the _second_, the Turks averred that it was necessary
(1) because the Vienna Note extended the scope of the Treaties of
Kainardji and Adrianople, and (2) because it gave the Czar new powers of
interfering between the Sultan and his subjects. The 7th and 14th
Articles of these Treaties, when studied, show that the Porte[121]
[Illustration: THE MOSQUE OF SELIM II. AT ADRIANOPLE.]
was clearly wrong on one point. The Sultan, said the Porte, will in
future recognise the stipulations relative to protection given _by the
Porte_ alone; but the Treaty had also stipulations relative to
protection which was to be given by Russia. The Czar was therefore not
unreasonable in suspecting that the Turks were trying, by their
amendment of the Vienna Note, to cancel some of his rights under the
Treaty of Kainardji. The other point at issue must be decided with
reference to history. It is plain that Menschikoff’s Note, from its
terms and from the tone of the Envoy who presented it as an ultimatum,
might fairly be considered offensive to Turkey, and that she, therefore,
had plausible reasons for rejecting it. It might be so construed as to
extend to the whole Empire the Russian right of special protection,
which the Treaty of Kainardji limited to a single Christian temple, and
that of Adrianople restricted to two Principalities. On the other hand,
the Porte, by saying that the Sultan would in future “remain faithful to
the stipulations of the Treaty of Kainardji, confirmed by that of
Adrianople,” was justly suspected of wriggling out of other stipulations
in the latter Treaty, which were not in the former, and which made the
Czar the special guardian of Christian rights in the Principalities. But
holding in view the history of Turkish misrule and oppression, together
with Lord Stratford de Redcliffe’s denunciations of the bad faith of the
Turkish Government in keeping its promises of reform, it is impossible
to blame the Czar for rejecting the Turkish amendment. That amendment
consisted simply in cutting out of the Vienna Note the all-important
words, “letter and spirit.” The Czar denied that Turkey had been
faithful to the letter of existing treaties guaranteeing Christian
privileges. All Europe admitted that she had not been faithful to the
spirit of them, and that if, under Russian pressure, she ever kept the
word of promise to the ear, she usually broke it to the hope. Turkey,
when asked to pledge herself to be true to the spirit as well as the
letter of her obligations, was, therefore, trifling with Europe in
refusing to commit herself to a pledge that would have bound her by both
the letter and spirit of her engagements. Here again, it seems, judgment
must go against Turkey. The object of her third amendment was quite
clear. The stipulation of the Vienna Note that privileges given to any
Christian Church should be also enjoyed by all Greek Christians in
Turkey, was a sort of “most favoured nation clause.” It made the
contract keep all sects automatically on the same level. The Porte,
however, by its amendment, promised Russia to give Greek Christians, not
the privileges it gave to all other Christians, but only to other
Christians who were Turkish subjects. No doubt the Vienna Note would
have given Russia a right of complaint against Turkey in the case of
Greek Christians, who were refused privileges granted to (1) Greek
Christians, (2) Roman Catholics, (3) Protestants, and (4) Armenians who
were not Turkish subjects. But these were few in number, and the affair
of the Holy Places showed that this right of complaint could be pressed
by Russia to some purpose, whether conferred by treaty or not. It almost
seemed as if the third amendment of the Porte were designed to bar
Russia from similar acts of intervention; in other words, to put her in
a worse position than that which she held without any fresh compact
whatever. Strangely enough, the one strong objection which Turkey had a
right to make to the Vienna Note--namely, that it did not make the
evacuation of the Principalities a condition precedent of the
settlement--was not strongly pressed by Europe.
One argument, and one only, was urged with even the shadow of
plausibility by England. It was that the Czar might claim, under the
Vienna Note, a protectorate over the Greek Christians in Turkey, which
would transfer to him the allegiance of nearly all the Sultan’s European
subjects. As the Vienna Note gave the Czar nothing but what he could
claim according to “the letter and to the spirit” of two existing
treaties, it is difficult to understand how the English Government could
advance such an argument, unless, indeed, they meant to affirm that it
was futile to ask Turkey to abide by “the spirit” of any of her pledges.
But if the contention of the English Cabinet is to be taken as true,
what must we say of the wisdom with which the world is governed? The
four Ambassadors, the four Cabinets, and the four Sovereigns of the
European Powers who had the clearest interest in preserving the
independence of Turkey drew up, studied, debated, and revised again and
again every word and phrase of a Joint Note which they declared could be
honourably and justly accepted by the Sublime Porte. When Turkey
rejected it, these very same Ambassadors, Cabinets, and Sovereigns
suddenly turned round and said that they had unwittingly so worded their
Note that it threatened with ruin the empire which they meant it to
save! And of these Powers two--England and France--entered on a
profitless and calamitous war, because their Ambassadors, Ministers of
State, and Sovereigns did not understand the meaning of their own words
in a solemn diplomatic instrument! It is upon this hypothesis--at once
so grotesque and incredible--that Lord Aberdeen’s Government justified
itself in advising Turkey to reject the Vienna Note, and in making war
on Russia because the Czar adhered to it after he had accepted it at the
request of Europe.
England, it has been said, following the lead of Austria, encouraged the
Porte to resist, and pressed Russia to accept the Turkish modification
of the Note. It has been shown how, when Russia refused to do this,
Austria, with whom Prussia acted, suddenly wheeled round and pressed the
original Note on Turkey. England, however, had made herself sufficiently
ridiculous in first recommending Turkey to accept the Note, and in then
supporting her in rejecting it. Lord Aberdeen’s Government accordingly
refused to recommend the Note again to Turkey, and the Government of
France took the same course. The concert of the Powers which thus alone
rendered peace possible was broken, and neither England nor France
seemed to have made any serious effort to repair it. On the contrary,
they not only approved of Lord Stratford’s conduct in summoning two
ships of war from Besika Bay to Constantinople, but in September,
yielding to Palmerston,[122] they put the whole fleet at his disposal.
It was contrary to the Treaty of 1841 for the Porte to admit war-ships
to the Bosphorus in time of peace. To send the English fleet to
Constantinople was therefore a declaration on the part of England that
Turkey was at war with Russia. Turkey formally declared war on Russia on
the 5th, and the British Fleet entered the Bosphorus on the 30th of
October. To order our Fleet to defend the Turks in the Euxine if they
were attacked by Russia was a perilous step to take. Yet it is curious
to observe that the Queen was the only high personage engaged in this
transaction who, in the midst of the popular war frenzy, foresaw the
peril of it. Even her habit of deference to Lord Aberdeen, which
unfortunately led her to sanction without demur the blunders which have
now been recorded, could not induce her to approve of this last and, as
will be seen, most fatal error. Her trenchant criticism of it,
unanswered and unanswerable to this day, is to be found in a letter
which she wrote to the Prime Minister, in which she said:--“It appears
to the Queen that we have taken on ourselves, in conjunction with
[Illustration: THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE.]
France, all the risks of an European war, without having bound Turkey to
any conditions with respect to provoking it. The 120 fanatical Turks
constituting the Divan at Constantinople are left sole judges of the
line of policy to be pursued, and made cognisant at the same time of the
fact that England and France have bound themselves to defend the Turkish
territory. This is entrusting them with a power which Parliament would
be jealous of confiding even to the hands of the British Crown. It may
be a question whether England ought to go to war for the so-called
Turkish independence, but there can be none that, if she does so, she
ought to be the sole judge of what constitutes a breach of that
independence, and have the fullest power to prevent by negotiation the
breaking out of the war.”[123] Had the Queen subjected
[Illustration: DESTRUCTION OF THE TURKISH FLEET AT SINOPE. (_See_ p.
562.)]
every act of the Cabinet from the day on which Menschikoff arrived at
Constantinople, to the same kind of pitiless logical analysis, even the
Coalition Cabinet would have found it difficult to blunder into war.
There was also another calm but acute observer of events who could not
be diverted from his devotion to tangible British interests by
passionate outbursts of popular _chauvinism_, and who saw at a glance
the risks the Government were running. In a letter to Baron Stockmar,
dated the 27th of November, Prince Albert says:--
“Six weeks ago Palmerston and Lord John carried a resolution that we
should give notice that an attack on the Turkish fleet by that of Russia
would be met by the fleets of England and France. Now the Turkish
steam-ships are to cross over from the Asiatic coast to the Crimea, and
to pass before Sebastopol! This can only be meant to insult the Russian
fleet and entice it to come out, in order to make it possible for Lord
Stratford to bring our fleet into collision with that of Russia,
according to his former instructions, and so make an European war
certain.”[124]
Just before the allied fleets were sent to defend Turkey in the Black
Sea the Porte ordered Omar Pasha to demand the evacuation of Moldavia
within fifteen days, and, failing compliance, to attack the Russians at
once. The Russians held their ground, standing on the defensive, and the
Turks crossed the Danube, inflicting on them defeats that, of course,
deeply wounded the pride of the Czar. He therefore ordered the Russian
squadron at Sebastopol to retaliate in the Euxine. On the 30th of
November it discovered a Turkish fleet at Sinope, which, the Turks
declared, was bound for Batoum. The Russian admiral, however, believed
it was on its way to the Circassian coast, for the purpose of stirring
up an insurrection against Russia in the Caucasus. Instead of watching
it or blockading it, as he might have done, he attacked and destroyed
it.
This catastrophe, of course, brought England nearer to war. A fierce cry
of wrath went up from the English people. Their fleet had been sent to
defend Turkey against Russia, yet it had tamely allowed Russia to
perpetrate “the massacre of Sinope.” Russia knew that England stood
pledged to protect Turkey from attack in the Euxine. Sinope was,
therefore, a direct challenge to England, and it must be promptly taken
up. The foresight of Prince Albert was thus amply justified. The
Government had stupidly sent to the Black Sea a fleet strong enough to
provoke Russia, but not strong enough to protect Turkey, and
insinuations of treason were freely made. “The defeat of Sinope,” wrote
the Prince, “upon our own element--the sea--has made the people furious;
it is ascribed to Aberdeen having been bought over by Russia.” Nor was
Aberdeen the only one who suffered. Prince Albert was scurrilously
attacked by Tories and Radicals of the baser sort, and, almost in as
many words, accused of being a Russian spy, whose influence with the
Queen was paralysing her Government. But if the English Government
blundered foolishly in sending the British fleet to the Black Sea with
orders to protect Turkey, without first making sure that Turkey would
not provoke attack, or that our fleet was strong enough to defend her,
Russia blundered, not foolishly, but criminally, in attacking the Turks
at Sinope. Mr. Spencer Walpole says:--“Though the attack on Sinope may
be justified, its imprudence cannot be excused.”[125] But surely if it
cannot be excused it is idle to “justify” it. The Czar was warned that
England and France would defend Turkey if the latter was assailed in the
Euxine. An attack on Turkey at Sinope, in spite of that warning, he must
have known would be taken by the English and French people as a
defiance, which would so madden them, that the war party in France and
England must forthwith control the situation. Therefore, to say it was
an “imprudence” is to say that, in the circumstances, it was a crime
against civilisation. As will be seen later on, it provoked France and
England to order their fleets to patrol the Black Sea, and require every
Russian ship they met to put back into Sebastopol, so that a second
Sinope might be prevented.
During most of this anxious time it is hardly necessary to say that the
domestic life of the Queen was one of wearing excitement. At the outset
of the diplomatic disputes in which her Government entangled the country
it seems that she paid rather less attention than usual to foreign
affairs. Palmerston was no longer at the Foreign Office, and in Lord
Aberdeen, who was at the head of the Government, the Queen put the most
implicit confidence. She had formed a habit of regarding him as the
_beau idéal_ of a “safe” Minister, and thus, when she sat down every
morning to read her official correspondence, her Majesty approached all
the projects of her Government, if not with a decided bias in favour of
them, at any rate without that wholesome prepossession of suspicion,
that rendered her a keen and searching critic of the Foreign Policy of
the country when it was under the direction of Lord Palmerston. It was
not till late in the autumn that the Queen’s correspondence, so far as
it has been made public, shows a disposition on her part to resume the
tone of independent, outspoken, but confidential criticism, that so
often checked the vagaries of Lord John Russell’s Cabinet. The Queen, in
fact, put too much confidence in the sagacity of the Coalition
Government. The Coalition Government, conscious that, so long as
Aberdeen could be persuaded to endorse their doings, they would not be
very jealously scrutinised by the Crown, entered with a light heart on
the most dangerous course of diplomacy. The Queen, the Prime Minister,
the Cabinet, and the Czar all set out with the most sincere and
unbounded confidence in each other. In little more than twelve months
they were accordingly in almost irreconcilable controversy.
[Illustration: THE THRONE ROOM, WINDSOR CASTLE.]
After the Coalition Ministry was formed, what the Queen dreaded most was
that it might break up over the question of Parliamentary Reform, or
over some dispute as to the Premiership, in the event of Lord Aberdeen
resigning office. Aberdeen was old and somewhat infirm, and there can be
little doubt that he would have resigned soon after the Coalition was
organised had not the Eastern Question risen to tie him to his post.
Lord John Russell had some notion that he would be Aberdeen’s successor,
and it was his fixed idea that his scheme for reforming Parliament would
not have a fair chance, unless it were launched by him with all the
prestige of the Premier’s advocacy in its favour. Some members of the
Cabinet did not desire that this scheme should be launched at all;
others, like Palmerston, were determined that it should not be launched,
and that Lord John should not be Premier. A few weeks after the Ministry
was constituted Lord John resigned the seals of the Foreign Office to
Lord Clarendon, becoming a Minister without an office, but retaining the
leadership of the House of Commons. The Queen warned him that he would
grow discontented with
[Illustration: SEBASTOPOL.]
this position, but her warning was unheeded; and yet Lord John soon had
reason to regret that he did not lay it to heart. After the Session
ended he began to give Aberdeen broad hints that it would be well for
him to retire, and to indicate that he himself might have to secede, if
these hints were not acted on. His secession would have broken up the
Coalition, which, Aberdeen knew, the Sovereign had set her heart on
keeping together. Hence, every effort was made to conciliate Lord John
Russell, and, as he soon became, next to Palmerston, the most zealous
member of the War Party in the Cabinet, he was therefore able to exert a
baneful influence on the Foreign Policy of the Ministry. This was,
indeed, one reason why that policy perpetually alternated between energy
and apathy. Still, the Cabinet kept together till Russell’s Reform
scheme was thrust upon it. Then, on the 15th of December, the world was
startled to find that Palmerston had resigned. This event, occurring as
it did immediately after the massacre of Sinope, created a dreadful
sensation in the country. The Press declared that Palmerston had been
turned out because of the Eastern Question. He was the victim of a Court
intrigue. It was whispered that Prince Albert, as a spy of Russia, had
persuaded the Queen to get rid of a high-spirited Minister because he
was eager to avenge against Russia the insult offered to England at
Sinope. The Prince, it was said, had been detected betraying the secrets
of the Government to foreign Courts. One day it was actually reported
that he had been committed to the Tower on a charge of high treason, and
a gaping crowd collected to see him locked up as a traitor. This clamour
was raised by the Palmerstonian clique, and it gave infinite pain to the
Queen. She knew as well as Lord Palmerston and his friends that these
attacks were based on a tissue of falsehoods, for, as a matter of fact,
Lord Palmerston had resigned simply on the question of Reform. His idea
was that Lord Lansdowne, who also disliked Reform, would resign along
with him, and that the public outcry would be so great that the Ministry
must be shattered. The outcry _was_ great, but it was too obviously that
of a personal _claque_; and Palmerston, astounded to find that the
nation did not regard his retirement as an irreparable calamity,
immediately begged the Cabinet to let him come back again. This they
did, having, however, forced him to swallow ignominiously his objections
to Lord John Russell’s Reform Bill. Then the Palmerstonian newspapers
suddenly dropped their attacks on the Queen and Prince Albert, though
the Tory organs kept them up in the true old crusted Protectionist
style. “The best of the joke,” writes the Prince to Stockmar, “is that
because he [Palmerston] went out the Opposition journals extolled him to
the skies in order to damage the Ministry, and now the Ministerial
journals have to do so in order to justify the reconciliation.”
According to Prince Albert, it was the Duke of Newcastle and the
Peelites who induced the Cabinet to let the black sheep that had gone
astray, return to the fold of the Coalition.[126]
Till the Eastern Question assumed a grave aspect towards the end of the
year, the Court seems to have busied itself chiefly about non-political
affairs. The Queen, who shared her husband’s artistic tastes,
encouraged him in early spring to form a splendid collection of copies
of all Raphael’s known works, a fine series of original drawings by that
master in Windsor being the nucleus of this interesting collection. It
was alas! left to her Majesty to complete it, after the death of her
husband made her the sole sad heir of that and many other cherished
projects which they had planned together.
Curiously enough, about this time the art treasures of Windsor were very
nearly destroyed. A disastrous fire broke out in the Castle on the 19th
of March in one of the apartments on the floor over the dining-room on
its north side. It burnt outwards, but limited itself to the upper
portions of the Prince of Wales’s Tower. It would have destroyed the
plate-rooms and the priceless collection known as the Jewelled Armoury,
which contained, by the way, the jewelled peacock of Tippoo Sahib among
its trophies, adjoining the Octagon-room. The Queen and Prince Albert
were not in the Castle when the fire was discovered, but they, with the
officials of the household, were soon on the spot. The scene was one of
excitement, without confusion. The firemen worked with a will, but the
bustle was greatest among the servants and others, who undertook to
dismantle the rooms whose costly treasures were in danger. The fire
began at ten on Saturday night, and was put out at four o’clock on
Sunday morning. The Queen, it seems, was much agitated at first, but she
and her ladies soon regained their composure, and watched the
conflagration from the drawing-room all through the night.[127]
On the 7th of April another Prince was born to the Royal pair, and on
the 18th the Queen was able to write to her uncle, the King of the
Belgians, informing him of the event, and of her intention of naming her
child after him. “It” [Leopold], she says, “is a name which is the
dearest to me after Albert, and one which recalls the almost only happy
days of my sad childhood.” The Prince’s other names were to be George,
Duncan, and Albert--George after the King of Hanover, and Duncan, so the
Queen said, as “a compliment to dear Scotland.” The compliment paid to
that country in subsequently conferring on this Prince the title of Duke
of Albany was a fateful one for him. It is an unlucky title, and Prince
Leopold was not exempt from the evil fortune of most of those who have
worn it. On the 23rd of April the Court removed to Osborne, and on the
27th of May the Queen reluctantly returned to London for the season,
greatly reinvigorated by her holiday.
One of the events of the London season of 1853 was the establishment of
an experimental military camp at Chobham for the purpose of practising
sham-fighting. The camp took the place in the season of ’53, that had
been held by the Great Exhibition in ’51, and young men of rank who were
braving the perils of mimic warfare on the Sussex ridges were the idols
of the hour. On
[Illustration: FIRE IN THE PRINCE OF WALES’S TOWER, WINDSOR CASTLE.
(_See_ p. 567.)]
the 21st of June serious operations began in the presence of the Queen.
She rode to the ground on a superb black charger, accompanied by Prince
Albert, the King of Hanover, and the Duke of Coburg, the scene as she
passed along the lines being most impressive. The moving incidents of
the field, the noise of the firing, the shifting panorama of colour,
delighted the fashionable crowds who followed her Majesty to what Mr.
Disraeli would have called an arena “bright with flashing valour.” On
the 14th of July the camp was broken up, and other contingents took the
places of the regiments which had formed it. They, however, attempted a
movement of real difficulty in endeavouring to effect the passage of the
Thames at Runnymede, where the river is deep and the current rapid.
Artillery on Cooper’s Hill played on the pontoon bridge murderously, in
spite of which, however, it is stated in newspaper records of the day,
that several regiments contrived to pass over safely. But the horses
that dragged the second gun taken across, took fright, and one of them
pulled the rest, with gun and gunners, into the water. The men were
saved. The four leading horses, however, met with a strange death. They
rose to the surface, and, with eyes and nostrils dilated with terror,
beat the water in vain, for the gun, of course, held them
[Illustration: THE QUEEN AT THE CAMP AT CHOBHAM.]
with the wheelers in the river. Yet such was the strength which terror
imparted to them, that they dragged not only the gun but the wheelers
also, close to the bank before they succumbed.
On the 28th of June Prince Albert, who had been “roughing it” with the
Guards in camp, returned to town complaining of a slight cold. The
Prince of Wales had measles at the time, and, to the surprise of
everybody, Prince Albert, the Queen, all the Royal children except the
two youngest, the Crown Prince of Hanover, the Duke and Duchess of
Coburg, were smitten,[128] Prince Albert suffering more severely than
any of the others. This illness prevented the Queen and her husband from
visiting the camp till the 6th of August. On the 28th it broke up.
[Illustration: RUNNYMEDE.]
Two of the Czar’s daughters had come over on a visit to the Queen, with
an autograph letter from their father recommending them to her Majesty’s
protection. Care was of course taken to make them acquainted with the
intense anti-Russian feeling which pervaded England, and they seem to
have been utterly amazed to find that hardly any body put the slightest
faith in their father’s word. They were invited to accompany the Queen
to see the great naval review at Spithead, which took place on the 11th
of August--a superb demonstration of the strength of England on the
high seas. Twenty-five stately ships of war--six steam-ships of the
line, three sailing-ships, and sixteen steam-frigates and
sloops--composed the squadron that took part in this magnificent
spectacle. The fleet carried 1,076 guns, 10,000 men, and was moved by
steam equivalent to the power nominally of 9,680 horses, but really of
double that amount--in other words, by more horse-power than the cavalry
of the British army could muster at the time. The smallest of its guns
was as large as the largest carried by Nelson’s ships at Trafalgar,
whilst the largest threw a solid shot of 104 lbs. The review was an
event that stirred to its inmost depths the pride of England, because,
for the first time, a mighty fleet propelled by steam was manœuvred
under the eye of the Sovereign, as if it were engaged in actual battle.
The occasion was rendered unique by the presence at the review of the
House of Commons--in fact, the House, on the day of the review, could
not form a quorum till half-past eleven o’clock at night.[129]
About 10 o’clock in the morning, the Queen, her husband, her family, and
her Russian and German guests, bore down in the Royal yacht on Admiral
Cochrane’s flagship, the _Duke of Wellington_. Having remained on board
her for some little time, they returned to the yacht, and then, led by
the Queen in the _Victoria and Albert_, this invincible Armada put out
to sea in two divisions. The weather was exceptionally fine, and most
majestic was the progress of the fleet as it steamed, at the rate of
eleven miles an hour, down to the Nab, where it formed line with an ease
and precision of movement that astonished all beholders. Then “the
enemy,” under Admiral Fanshawe, were sighted, and a memorable sham fight
began amidst cyclopean thunders of artillery. When it was over, each
ship made for port at racing speed, the winner being the _Agamemnon_.
The effect of it all, not only on the Queen’s guests but on the country,
was duly reported by Prince Albert to Stockmar, who replied, “I am well
pleased that the ladies (the Russian princesses) should have been
present at the manœuvres of the fleet. For what the eyes see that does
the heart believe, and with what that is full of the mouth will overflow
in letters to St. Petersburg.”[130] At this time the political barometer
at Court was pointing to “fair,” and the Queen and Prince Albert were
congratulating each other that the acceptance of the Vienna Note by
Russia, would settle honourably the Russo-Turkish dispute. Though the
evacuation of the Principalities was not insisted on in that Note as it
ought to have been, the Queen and her husband alike regarded it as a
_sine quâ non_, and never doubted that Russia would withdraw her army of
occupation.[131]
At the end of August the Queen determined to visit Dublin on her way to
Balmoral; and on the 29th she and her family landed at Kingstown
Harbour.[132] Thence they proceeded to the Irish capital, where in their
progress to the Vice-regal Lodge they met with an enthusiastic reception
that recalled pleasant memories of their last tour. In the evening the
city was illuminated in honour of its Royal guests. On the 30th they
visited the Exhibition of Irish Industry, which had been organised at
the sole expense of Mr. Dargan, a public-spirited citizen, whose simple,
manly bearing so charmed the Queen that she says in one of her letters,
“I would have made him a baronet but he was anxious it should not be
done.” Nor was she less delighted with the products of native industry,
which she inspected most carefully, and which she says convinced her
that the display would be of vast use in encouraging the spirit of the
people, by showing them what excellent work they could turn out by their
own efforts. Though the Queen met with wretched weather, yet she records
her delight with her visit--“a pleasant, gay, interesting time” she
calls it--and speaks gratefully of the extreme kindness shown to her by
all classes of the people. On the 3rd of September she left Kingstown,
and on the 6th was enjoying the bracing air of Balmoral once more.
It was here, on the evening of the 12th, that she heard that the Vienna
Note was rejected by the Turks, and that the Eastern question was again
simmering in the fatal cauldron of diplomatic incapacity. From that day
her Majesty’s great aim was to work, like Lord Aberdeen, for peace; but
there was an end to holiday repose at Balmoral. Foreign affairs became
more and more unsettled, and on the 6th of October Stockmar was implored
to come over and give the Queen and her husband the benefit of his
advice. Sir James Graham was staying with them at the time, and his
depressed spirits reacted on the Royal family. To refuse to protect the
Sultan the Queen saw would so rouse public opinion that the Coalition
Ministry, which she was so anxious to support, must fall. To declare war
on Russia, Prince Albert assured her, would with equal certainty
ultimately destroy that Ministry. One thing only was clear to them.
Aberdeen must abandon all idea of resigning in favour of Lord John
Russell, and, despite age and infirmity, must remain at the head of
affairs till the war-cloud passed away. On the 14th of October the Queen
accordingly returned to Osborne, painfully anxious lest the concessions
which Lord Aberdeen had made to Palmerston and Russell as leaders of the
War Party, and on which she commented caustically in her letter of the
11th of October to the Prime Minister, would bring the country still
nearer to war. What were we to go to war for? That was the question
which troubled the Queen. She could understand that in some dire
extremity it might be right to exact the most terrible of sacrifices
from her people, to keep the Russians out of Constantinople, and prevent
the balance of power from being upset to the detriment of England. That
was an intelligible war
[Illustration: SPITHEAD.]
for the tangible interest of England and the civilised Powers. But such
a war was a very different affair from the kind of war for which
Palmerston clamoured--a war for the maintenance of the complete
integrity of the Ottoman Empire. If waged, it must surely not be so
waged that it would end by putting the oppressed Christians in Turkey
once again in the absolute power of such a cruel dominion as that of the
Porte. To this conclusion her Majesty had been forced by her close study
of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe’s own despatches, describing the brutal
treatment to which the Christians in Turkey were even at that time
subjected. But then, of what use was it to suggest these ideas to the
Cabinet, even though Lord Aberdeen supported them? When Prince Albert,
at the Queen’s request, put them into the form of a Memorandum,
Palmerston wrote a flippant reply to it only too closely in harmony with
the popular frenzy of the time, the gist of the answer being that it was
the duty of England to make war for Turkey and for Turkey alone, quite
irrespective of any considerations affecting her treatment of her
Christian subjects. To ask Turkey for concessions to civilisation, he
argued, somewhat inconclusively, meant that we must connive at her
expulsion from Europe. As for all the stories of Turkish fanaticism
that had frightened the Queen, Lord Palmerston scoffingly described them
as “fables invented at Vienna and St. Petersburg.”[133]
[Illustration: BALMORAL CASTLE FROM THE ROAD.]
The Czar’s Manifesto of the 1st of November still further excited the
War Party, and it was followed by a letter to the Queen, written by his
own hand, begging her Majesty to decide between him and her Government
in the dispute which had arisen from his attempt to apply the principles
of the Treaty of Kainardji to the new situation which French pretensions
in Syria had created in Turkey. To this the Queen replied with dignified
courtesy, saying that, after repeatedly reading and studying the 7th
Article of that Treaty, she could not fairly say that the Czar’s
interpretation of it was correct, and adding that the continued
occupation of the Principalities must lead to events “which I should
deplore, in common with your Majesty.”[134] The year closed with the
ferocious attacks of a certain portion of the Press on Prince Albert,
and as for the future, it was dark with the signs and omens of impending
war.