of the “Ingoldsby Legends”—appeared once more as pilot of the diplomatic
ship among the rather difficult shoals of British waters.
Nor at the outset of the new reign was English diplomacy any too strong.
England, as Count Pablen pointed out, was in bad odour at St. Petersburg,
and it needed all the exquisite tact of Lord Granville, when he went
as special ambassador for the coronation, to conciliate the Emperor,
while at the same time firmly giving His Majesty to understand that he
must insist upon being received with the courtesy and consideration due
to the Queen’s personal representative. Lord Granville’s letters to
Lord Canning, quoted by Lord Fitzmaurice, tell the story in the most
interesting way.
The glove was of velvet, but the hand was of steel. It was no easy task,
for Count Pahlen was quite right when he warned Lord Granville that
the Emperor was deeply prejudiced against England, and had quite thrown
himself into the arms of France—a strange infatuation, considering that
it was Louis Napoleon’s personal ambition and aggressive policy which
raised the question of the Holy Places, and was the cause of the war,
whereas England did her best—a bad best, it must be admitted—to preserve
the peace. Yet France was in high favour, while for us there was as yet
no forgiveness. At any rate, Lord Granville’s special embassy was a great
success, and for years afterwards the Russians spoke with enthusiasm of
the English _grand seigneur_ who had conquered _à force de plaire_ and
upheld the dignity of his country. If in some future decade, century, or
æon, I, on the eve of a new incarnation, should be consulted by the gods
as to the quality with which I should prefer to be endowed, I should have
little hesitation in asking to be blessed with the tact of Lord Granville.
Lord Wodehouse, afterwards Earl of Kimberley, who was our Minister at
St. Petersburg, was a man of great ability, singularly well read and
thoroughly posted in diplomatic lore. He knew his trade, but he had not
the secret of treating business with charm. His talents were better
fitted to the fuliginous atmosphere of Downing Street than to the bright
sparkling air of the Russian capital. It was single-stick, very doughty
single-stick, against the light play of the foils. The contrast with
that skilful fencer, Lord Granville, was great. But the victories gained
by the latter could only be temporary. He had to go, and Lord Wodehouse
remained, a brilliantly dull man—or would it be better to say a dully
brilliant man?—quite out of his element in the glittering gaiety of a
Russian _salon_. Those who knew his solid worth appreciated his wisdom
and scrupulous honesty. But he was rather a great parliamentarian than a
courtly diplomatist. When he opened the flood-gates of his talk, it was
a Niagara that issued forth, carrying all before it, not to be stopped
or stayed, and this deluge was made even more overwhelming by a doctoral
or donnish manner, which absolutely staggered the delightfully smart and
rather cynical Prince Gortchakoff. As for the Emperor, the voluble envoy
frankly bored him. Lord Wodehouse could earn respect for England, but not
affection.
Nor was England much better served when his place was taken in 1858
by Sir John Crampton, a most delightful personality, but, in spite of
his long experience, little fitted for such a post as St. Petersburg.
The truth is that he was a Bohemian of the Bohemians, a man who loved
his ease and to whom the donning of a fine coat and a star was little
short of torture. I knew him well, for he was a contemporary of my
father’s in the service, and there were few days—when he was on leave
in London—on which he did not knock at our door. He had all the gifts
of the Irish raconteur, and his stories were enhanced by the charm of
a musical speaking voice—a great, handsome, leonine figure, with his
silver hair and beard, whose advent we always hailed with joy. Probably
he was at his best in his beautiful Irish home near Powerscourt, where,
with a congenial friend or two—notably old Sharpe, the eccentric Dublin
artist—he could sit and smoke after dinner in the same frieze coat that
he had worn all day. With us and very few other friends he would sit
by the fire, a great tame cat, purring the livelong winter afternoon.
However great his personal attractiveness might be, he was certainly not
successful as a diplomatist.
When he was at Washington, President Peirce broke off relations with
him on account of his recruiting activities—when there were men wanted
for the Foreign Legion in the Crimean War. It was the one case in which
he overcame his constitutional indolence, and it was not lucky. He had
to leave the United States, but Lord Palmerston, always the generous
defender of his subordinates, stood up for him, and sent him as Minister
to Hanover, at the same time decorating him with the K.C.B., and thence
he was transferred to St. Petersburg, a post where the members of the
diplomatic body, unless they were prepared to face all the requirements
of a delightful but rather exacting society, were bound to become mere
cyphers.
That is what happened to Sir John Crampton, and that, too, at a moment
when it was very important to bury the hatchet and establish relations of
cordial friendship and sympathy with the Tsar and his ministers. It was
at last the tame cat nature to which I have alluded above brought about
his retirement from Russia in 1860, and his transfer to Spain, where at
that moment there was little urgency for activity. In an unlucky moment
for all concerned, Balfe came to St. Petersburg, with his beautiful
young daughter Victoire, who had been engaged at the Opera. Naturally
the Irish Minister and the Irish composer forgathered, and Balfe’s rooms
were a delightfully congenial place, where, when the young lady was not
singing at the theatre, Crampton could pass the lazy evenings, free from
the cramping fetters of a tailcoat and from all the irksome restraint
and exigencies of a diplomatist’s life. Balfe, whom I knew well for
many years, was himself endowed with all the fascination of Irish wit
and bonhomie, while his daughter was as attractive as youth, beauty
and talent could make her. They must have been a delightful trio—but
the lotus-eating was not to last. There came a day when Balfe, in the
character of the _père noble_, told Sir John that his visits must
cease—the old story, his daughter’s happiness was at stake—and so the
veteran diplomatist hoisted the white flag, surrendered unconditionally,
and January and May were united for a very brief time, at the end of
which the marriage was annulled, and the lady married the Duc de Friar, a
grandee of Spain.
When I reached St. Petersburg in 1863, and went through the archives of
the Embassy, which were in my charge, I found that there was a dispatch
missing. No trace could be found of it and no one had ever seen it. I
wrote to London, asking the Foreign Office to send out a copy. When it
came, it turned out to be a severe wigging from Lord Russell, scolding
Crampton for not keeping him better informed on Russian affairs. Crampton
had burned the dispatch! It was easy for him to do this, for the
messenger arrived about ten o’clock at night, and he was in the habit
of opening the bag himself, and only sending down its contents to the
Chancery on the following morning. This particular document he kept to
himself. In 1869 he left the service, and from that time lived chiefly
at his Irish home in County Wicklow, where he died, full of years and
comfort, in 1886, greatly regretted by all of us who knew him as a dear,
kind, affectionate old friend.
Never was there a happier appointment than that of Lord Napier, who
succeeded him in Russia in 1860, with the more exalted rank of
Ambassador, seconded by an ambassadress who seemed to have been born
for the position. The British Embassy soon became the most popular
centre of society in Russia. John Lumley—afterwards Lord Savile—was
First Secretary (what would now be called Councillor), and he was a most
valuable aide-de-camp socially to his chief. In these happy circumstances
the prestige and influence increased every day, until at the end, when
Lord Napier, in 1864, was transferred to Berlin, the Emperor Alexander
wished to give him the Order of St. Andrew, the Garter of Russia, but
unfortunately in those days the acceptance of foreign Orders was strictly
forbidden. Queen Victoria was like Queen Elizabeth, who said that she
would not allow her dogs to wear any collar but her own.
Few men ever had a much more difficult task than that with which Lord
Napier was confronted when he took possession of the Embassy. Not only
did he conjure into life a new popularity out of the ashes of the dead
indifference, and worse, in which England was held, but he succeeded
in winning the personal love and affection of all with whom he came in
contact; and this he did in spite of the emasculate meddlings in Polish
affairs which were the favourite pastime of Lord Russell and the cynical
amusement of Prince Gortchakoff.
[Illustration: PRINCE GORTCHAKOFF.
_From a photograph._
[_To face p. 296._]
It must not be supposed that Lord Napier did not himself openly condemn
much that was going on in Poland; but he did so with tact, as an
onlooker, and not like Lord Russell, with the appearance of impertinent
interference in the internal government of a friendly country. There
were, as I have shown in my “Memories,” many Russians in high positions
who were outspoken in their detestation of General Muraieff, whom Prince
Suvoroff did not hesitate to call a “hangman” in the Tsar’s presence
at a banquet at Tsarskoe Selo. Lord Napier would have cried “Amen” to
that. But though he was an uncompromising critic, he never forfeited the
goodwill of the court to which he was accredited.
The honour and reputation of England were safe in his hands, and
he enjoyed an influence which had been vouchsafed to none of his
predecessors. What Prince Gortchakoff and all other Russians resented in
Lord Russell was the schoolmaster tone of his dispatches. That Prince
Suvoroff’s condemnation of the cruelties of Warsaw did not meet with an
Imperial reproof was significant enough, and an English ambassador would
find plenty of men who would applaud a similar reproof from him. But none
of them, even of those who were loudest in their blame, would accept
Lord Russell’s sermons and prescriptions. The Polish Revolution was a
terrible first act in the drama upon which the curtain was to fall in so
tragic a fashion.
The liberation of the serfs in 1861 was manifestly the greatest
achievement of Alexander’s reign—indeed, it was one of the greatest and
noblest achievements in the whole history of Society. It was a great
upheaval, far more wide-reaching and searching than the abolition of
negro slavery which rewarded the humane labours of Clarkson, Sharp
and Wilberforce. That only affected the planters of the West Indies.
There were no negro slaves in London, Edinburgh, or Dublin. In Russia,
on the contrary, serfdom was universal. There were serfs even among
the tradesmen of St. Petersburg, Moscow and Warsaw, and all the great
towns—men who had raised themselves by industry and knowledge into a
higher status than that of the drudge or labourer, the hewer of wood and
drawer of water, but who yet remained serfs, and had to pay a share of
their gains to their lords. The fortunes of rich Boyarin were calculated
in the souls of men. There had been more than once talk of putting an
end to this horror, but it was left to the generous and good Tsar to
carry the reform into execution. He was ably seconded by M. Valouieff,
Minister of the Interior, who worked out all the details of the scheme.
It was no easy task to carry out so mighty a change, for, of course,
the vested interests were powerful and the mighty ego was on guard, as
ever; but the Tsar was in deadly earnest, and in spite of all opposition,
twenty-three millions of dead souls were born again into life.
It was an audaciously bold piece of statesmanship. Even an autocrat is
dependent upon the will of others for his power. He cannot stand up in
the Agora, and, like a god, proclaim himself “I am that I am!” He needs
support, and in Russia at that time, when the proletariat had not yet
even the semblance of political existence, the only prop upon which the
Tsar could rely was the _noblesse_, and it was precisely their privileges
that he was attacking. It needed moral courage, it needed physical
courage, to set such a machinery in motion. Remember who and what were
the men who murdered the Emperor Paul. Not a gang of revolutionary
_carbonari_—Turgénieff was not yet born and the word “Nihilist” had not
yet been coined[22]—but a band of powerful nobles, headed by his own
prime minister. Remember who were the leading Dekabrists, men bearing
historic names, proud of their descent from the sacred stock of Rurik. It
was men of that importance who would be the most affected by the change,
and whose opposition was to be feared. No weak man would have braved
them. It is true that emancipation had long been in the air, and that a
great number—perhaps even a large majority—of the landed aristocracy had
pledged themselves to it. But there was a dangerous leaven of discontent,
and none could say how far the taint might have penetrated.
M. Valouieff, the minister who was the Tsar’s right-hand man in this
difficult business, was a remarkable personality. Strikingly handsome,
tall and dignified, with all the characteristics of blue blood, he was
not dwarfed even by the mighty stature of his Imperial master. When,
two years after the liberation of the serfs in Russia, the measure was
extended to Poland, I was present, as I have related in my “Memories,”
at the reception of the Tsar of the peasants’ deputation who came to St.
Petersburg to thank the Tsar. It was impossible not to be struck by the
commanding aspect of the Emperor and his minister, both sons of Anak,
towering above the rest of the crowd.
The emancipation of the serfs was, of course, Valouieff’s masterpiece
in statesmanship, but he had several other measures of first-class
importance to his credit. It was he who in 1864 established the
Zemstvo—elected bodies for the local conduct of provincial business—and
another of his achievements was the regulation of the laws relating to
the Press. He, moreover, had something of a literary reputation as the
author of two or three novels. But these were rather amateurish, and it
is upon his statesmanship that his fame must rest.
Like the Chancellor, Prince Gortchakoff, he was very kind to me, and
whenever we met in Society, he always had a friendly word for me. When
I got back to London, he was next to Prince Gortchakoff, the Russian
statesman in whom I found Lord Palmerston and Lord Clarendon the most
interested. They fully appreciated the greatness of his work in the
emancipation business, and were glad to have some first-hand impressions
of his very remarkable personality.
The emancipation was a colossal task. It is not possible by a mere stroke
of the pen to revolutionize the lives of twenty-three millions of men.
The serfs were to be freed—that is easily said; but the interests of the
landed aristocracy must also be taken into consideration, and it says
much for Valouieff’s statesmanship and wisdom that the measure should
have been carried into effect practically without any friction.
It was impossible suddenly to deprive of its labour the whole of the
agricultural land of that vast empire. There had to be a transition
period during which the peasants, though no longer serfs, still remained
under certain obligations to their former masters; but within the
space of two years the landlords were bound to make over to them their
houses with suitable allotments of land against a fair rent, with the
further privilege of purchase, with the consent of the proprietor. The
obligations of the peasant and his rent were capitalized on a basis of
six per cent. Of this capital, twenty per cent. was to be paid at once
to the landlord, while the Government gave him the remaining eighty per
cent. in Government bonds bearing five per cent. interest, the Government
recouping itself for this advance in forty-nine years by a payment of six
per cent. from the peasant. The purchases might be effected by single
individuals or by partnerships. This would be facilitated by the Russian
communal system, by which the members of each commune were able to
combine for the redemption money and other expenses.
It was calculated that about one-third of the property of the landed
aristocracy, equal to 390,886 square kilometres, was made over to the
peasants. This is Brockhaus’ calculation. He goes on to point out
that for various reasons, chiefly the ignorance and intemperance of
the peasants, there were not a few troubles arising out of the great
economic change. Although in some instances land soon rose in value
fifty per cent. above the estimate of 1861, in others it suffered great
deterioration.
There is one feature in this great economic change which is worthy of
note. If we read the lives, memoirs and correspondence of the ministers
who have ruled England in modern times, it is impossible not to recognize
an underlying element of personal ambition in all their contentions.
That, I take it, is inseparable from a constitutional Government where
the “Outs” are always struggling to become “Ins.” Here there was no such
motive possible. A Tsar of Russia could become no greater than he already
was, and even the minister who did his behest had nothing to fear or to
gain from the _arbitrium popularis aurae_. The Emperor had, and could
have, nothing in view but the good of his people, and for that those
who saw him at work knew that his efforts were untiring. It is strange
that it should have been precisely in the reign of so good a monarch, a
real benefactor of the world over which he ruled, that the seeds of the
poisonous plant of Nihilism should have germinated, spreading like the
virus of cancer, which, cut out of one place by the surgeon’s knife,
still travels through the system and reappears in some new spot.
Nihilism was not confined, as has been popularly supposed, to the
students of the universities and a few clever but discontented literary
men and artists. As a matter of fact, it had invaded all classes. The
civil service, the army, the police—even the secret police—were infected.
* * * * *
The diplomatic negotiations which took place at St. Petersburg in the
winter of 1863-64 were big with the fate of Europe and of the world.
It was the result of the grievous blunders made by Lord Russell that
Prussia was enabled to take the first step in that career of plunder and
aggrandisement which has wrought such terrible tragedies. I have dealt
with that story fully in my “Memories.” I was at St. Petersburg at the
time, and owing to my confidential relations with Lord Napier, and to the
kindness of Prince Gortchakoff and other Russian ministers, I had the
opportunity of being well posted, not only in what took place publicly,
but also in the feeling which was prevalent in Russia in regard to the
Danish war.
In his brilliantly fascinating fourth volume of the “Life of Lord
Beaconsfield,” Mr. Buckle[23] revives the time-honoured fallacy that
Russia was not ready to join hands with us in defence of Denmark.
That fallacy can only owe its existence to the careful handling of
persons whose aim it was to whitewash Lord Russell. It is true that his
blustering and bullying in the Polish Revolution—followed by the eating
of the leek with appetite—had made England very unpopular in Russia;
but in regard to Denmark there was another motive at work, and a very
powerful one, in the prospective marriage of the Princess Dagmar to the
Tsarevitch.
In principle, Russia did not want to go to war, but she was ready to
sacrifice her wish for peace if only England would join in with her
and cry “Hands off!” to Prussia and Austria. England did not want war
in July, 1914, but on the 4th of August war was declared. The cases
are exactly similar. In both cases a “scrap of paper” was torn up by
Prussia, who only a few months earlier had guaranteed the integrity of
King Christian’s dominions. In 1914 mercifully Lord Russell had been long
“resting and being thanked” over the mischief he had wrought. Sterner and
more chivalrous doctrines prevailed, and this time England was ready to
draw the sword for a principle of honour.
It is, I know, an absolute mistake to suppose that if we had carried out
the policy indicated by Lord Palmerston in Parliament at the end of the
Session of 1863 we should have stood alone. Russia would have been with
us. Our position, supposing we had gone to war, would have been all to
our advantage—as Lord John Manners pointed out, it would have been “the
most popular, the easiest and the cheapest war (for it can be managed by
our navy alone) of the century.”[24] Lord John Manners was quite right.
We should have sent our navy to Danish waters, and we need not have sent
out a single soldier.
To march upon Berlin would have been a mere holiday task for the Russian
army, a sort of picnic, like our march upon Magdala. But I can assert
that it was the firm conviction of the best informed diplomatists of
Europe that the mere knowledge that England and Russia were determined
to uphold the rights of Denmark would of itself have sufficed to avert
war. I have written elsewhere how, when Lord Napier had to tell Prince
Gortchakoff that England would not join with him, the Prince answered:
“Alors, milord, je mets de côté la supposition que l’Angleterre fasse
jamais la guerre pour une question d’honneur.” That was the conviction
which guided him in all his subsequent dealings with England, the
advances in Central Asia, in defiance of all treaties, until the gates
of Afghanistan were reached, and in 1870, when France was crippled, the
tearing up of the Black Sea Treaty obligations of 1856.
Mr. Buckle is so clear-minded a critic of foreign politics that I should
hesitate to differ from him were I not possessed of absolute knowledge
not from hearsay. A study of the “Origines diplomatiques de la guerre de
1870” can only confirm what I have said; and that exhaustive publication
proves up to the hilt my contention that since the origin of the war of
1870 was due to the betrayal of Denmark in 1863-64, it is to the grave
political blunders then made that we must ascribe the outrage of 1914.
Free of England and Russia, Bismarck was able to carry out his full
programme: (1) Kiel and a navy. (2) The crippling of Austria. (3) The
humiliation of France. (4) Who can doubt what that was? The destruction
of England’s sea power, and the world under the heel of Prussia.
Lord Russell’s meddling and muddling in the affairs of Poland had,
it is true, estranged Russia and France. But the former Power was,
nevertheless, keenly in favour of Denmark; as regards France, there was
perhaps another consideration which was not without its influence. It is
a matter of common knowledge that Louis Napoleon was very ambitious to
build up a navy which should be able to hold its own with ours. In the
“Origines diplomatiques” there is published a dispatch from the French
chargé d’affaires at St. Petersburg, M. de Massignac, a very clever man,
with whom I was intimate, urging upon M. Drouyn de Lhuys the expediency
of furthering the views of Prussia. He pointed out that the success of
Prussia would give her Kiel, and enable her to build a navy which might,
in given circumstances, help the other Continental Powers to destroy
England’s preponderant supremacy at sea! I am inclined to think that
this view may have had more restraining influence with Louis Napoleon
even than the snubbing with which Lord Russell met his proposals for a
conference or congress at Brussels. We know, moreover, that the Emperor
had a distinct leaning towards Prussia, which he looked upon as making
for progress in contradistinction to Austria, which in his eyes was
antiquated and retrograde.