[Sidenote: A FRIEND AT COURT]
There can be no question that Nicholas attached an exaggerated importance to this memorandum. It expressed his opinion rather than the determination of the Peel Administration; but a half-barbaric despot not unnaturally imagined that when the responsible advisers of the Crown entered into a secret agreement with him, no matter how vague its terms might appear when subjected to critical a.n.a.lysis, England and himself were practically of one mind. When the Coalition Government was formed, two of the three statesmen, whom the Emperor Nicholas regarded as his friends at Court, were dead, but the third, in the person of Lord Aberdeen, had succeeded, by an unexpected turn of the wheel, to the chief place in the new Ministry. Long before the Imperial visit to London the Emperor had honoured Lord Aberdeen with his friendship, and, now that the Foreign Minister of 1844 was the Prime Minister of 1853, the opportune moment for energetic action seemed to have arrived.
Nicholas, accordingly, now hinted that if the "sick man" died England should seize Egypt and Crete, and that the European provinces of Turkey should be formed into independent states under Russian protection. He met, however, with no response, for the English Cabinet by this time saw that the impending collapse of Turkey, on which Nicholas laid such emphatic stress, was by no means a foregone conclusion. Napoleon and Palmerston had, moreover, drawn France and England into friendly alliance. There was no shadow of doubt that the Christian subjects of Turkey were grossly oppressed, and it is only fair to believe that Nicholas, as the head of the Greek Church, was honestly anxious to rid them of such thraldom. At the same time no one imagined that he was exactly the ruler to expend blood and treasure, in the risks of war, in the _role_ of a Defender of the Faith.
Count Vitzthum doubts whether the Emperor really contemplated the taking of Constantinople, but it is plain that he meant to crush the Turkish Empire, and England, knowing that the man had masterful instincts and ambitious schemes--that suggest, at all events, a pa.s.sing comparison with Napoleon Bonaparte--took alarm at his restlessness, and the menace to India, which it seemed to suggest. "If we do not stop the Russians on the Danube," said Lord John Russell, "we shall have to stop them on the Indus." It is now a matter of common knowledge that, when the Crimean War began, Nicholas had General Duhamel"s scheme before him for an invasion of India through Asia. Such an advance, it was foreseen, would cripple England"s resources in Europe by compelling her to despatch an army of defence to the East. It certainly looks, therefore, as if Russia, when hostilities in the Crimea actually began, was preparing herself for a sudden descent on Constantinople. Napoleon III., eager to conciliate the religious susceptibilities of his own subjects, as well as to gratify the Vatican, wished the Sultan to make the Latin monks the supreme custodians of the Holy Places. Complications, the issue of which it was impossible to forecast, appeared inevitable, and for the moment there seemed only one man who could grapple with the situation at Constantinople. Lord Palmerston altogether, and Lord John Russell in part, sympathised with the clamour which arose in the Press for the return of the Great Elchi to the Porte.
[Sidenote: LORD STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE]
In the entire annals of British diplomacy there is scarcely a more picturesque or virile figure than that of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe.
Capacity for public affairs ran in the blood of the Cannings, as the three statues which to-day stand side by side in Westminster Abbey proudly attest. Those marble memorials represent George Canning, the great Foreign Minister, who in the famous, if grandiloquent, phrase "called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old;"
his son Charles, Earl Canning, first Viceroy of India; and his cousin, Stratford Canning, Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe, who for a long term of years sought to quicken into newness of social and political life the broken and demoralised forces of the Ottoman Empire, and who practically dictated from Constantinople the policy of England in the East. He was born in 1786 and died in 1880. He entered the public service as a _precis_-writer at the Foreign Office, and rose swiftly in the profession of diplomacy. His acquaintance with Eastern affairs began in 1808, when he was appointed First Secretary to Sir Robert Adair, whom he succeeded two years later at Constantinople as Minister Plenipotentiary.
The Treaty of Bucharest, which in 1812 brought the war, then in progress between Russia and Turkey, to an end, was the first of a brilliant series of diplomatic triumphs, which established his reputation in all the Councils of Europe, and made him, in Lord Tennyson"s words, "The voice of England in the East." After services in Switzerland, in Washington, and at the Congress of Vienna, Canning, in 1825, returned to Constantinople with the rank of Amba.s.sador.
He witnessed the overthrow of the Janissaries by Sultan Mahmoud II., and had his own experience of Turkish atrocities in the ma.s.sacre which followed. He took a prominent part in the creation of the modern kingdom of Greece, and resigned his appointment in 1828, because of a conflict of opinion with Lord Aberdeen in the early stages of that movement.
Afterwards, he was gazetted Amba.s.sador to St. Petersburg; but the Emperor Nicholas, who by this time recognised the masterful qualities of the man, refused to receive him--a conspicuous slight, which Lord Stratford, who was as proud and irascible as the Czar, never forgave.
Between the years 1842 and 1858 he again filled his old position as Amba.s.sador to Constantinople, and during those years he won a unique ascendency--unmatched in the history of diplomacy--over men and movements in Turkey. He brought about many reforms, and made it his special concern to watch over the interests of the Christian subjects at the Porte, who styled him the "Padishah of the Shah," and that t.i.tle--Sultan of the Sultan--exactly hit off the authority which he wielded, not always wisely, but always with good intent. It was an unfortunate circ.u.mstance that Lord Stratford, after his resignation in 1852, should have been summoned back for a further spell of six years"
tenure of power exactly at the moment when Nicholas, prompted by the knowledge of the absence from Constantinople of the man who had held him in check, and of the accession to power in Downing Street of a statesman of mild temper and friendly disposition to Russia, was beginning once more to push his claims in the East. Lord Stratford had many virtues, but he had also a violent and uncertain temper. He was a man of inflexible integrity, iron will, undeniable moral courage, and commanding force of character. Yet, for a great Amba.s.sador, he was at times strangely undiplomatic, whilst the keenness of his political judgment and forecasts sometimes suffered eclipse through the strength of his personal antipathies.
[Sidenote: FAREWELL TO THE FOREIGN OFFICE]
Meanwhile, Lord John Russell, who had expressly stipulated when the Cabinet was formed that he was only to hold the seals of the Foreign Office for a few weeks, convinced already that the position was untenable to a man of his views, insisted on being relieved of the office. The divergent views in the Cabinet on the Eastern Question were making themselves felt, and Lord Aberdeen"s eminently charitable interpretation of the Russian demands was little to the minds of men of the stamp of Palmerston and Russell, neither of whom was inclined to pin his faith so completely to the Czar"s a.s.surances. When Parliament met in February, Lord John quitted the Foreign Office and led the House of Commons without portfolio. His quick recognition of Mr. Gladstone"s great qualities as a responsible statesman was not the least pleasing incident of the moment. In April, Lord Aberdeen once more made no secret of his determination to retire at the end of the session, and this intimation no doubt had its influence with the more restive of his colleagues.
When Parliament rose, Lord John Russell"s position in the country was admitted on all hands to be one of renewed strength, for, set free from an irksome position, he had thrown himself during the session with ardour into the congenial work of leader of the House of Commons. The resolution of the Cabinet to send Lord Stratford to Constantinople has already been stated. He received his instructions on February 25; in fact, he seems to have dictated them, for Lord Clarendon, who had just succeeded to the Foreign Office, made no secret of the circ.u.mstance that they were largely borrowed from the Amba.s.sador"s own notes. He was told that he was to proceed first to Paris, and then to Vienna, in order that he might know the minds of France and Austria on the issues at stake.
Napoleon III. was to be a.s.sured that England relied on his cordial co-operation in maintaining the integrity and independence of the Turkish Empire. The young Emperor of Austria was to be informed that her Majesty"s Government gladly recognised the fact that his att.i.tude towards the Porte had not been changed by recent events, and that the policy of Austria in the East was not likely to be altered. Lord Stratford was to warn the Sultan and his advisers that the crisis was one which required the utmost prudence on their part if peace was to be preserved.
The Sultan and his Ministers were practically to be told by Lord Stratford that they were the authors of their own misfortunes, and that, if they were to be extricated from them, they must place the "utmost confidence in the sincerity and soundness of the advice" that he was commissioned to give them. He was further to lay stress on palpable abuses, and to urge the necessity of administrative reforms. "It remains," added Lord Clarendon, "only for me to say that in the event, which her Majesty"s Government earnestly hope may not arise, of imminent danger to the existence of the Turkish Government, your Excellency will in such case despatch a messenger to Malta requesting the Admiral to hold himself in readiness; but you will not direct him to approach the Dardanelles without positive instructions from her Majesty"s Government." The etiquette of Courts has to be respected, especially by Amba.s.sadors charged with a difficult mission, but Lord Stratford"s diplomatic visits to Paris and Vienna were unduly prolonged, and occupied more time than was desirable at such a crisis. He arrived at Constantinople on April 5, and was received, to his surprise, with a remarkable personal ovation. In Kinglake"s phrase, his return was regarded as that "of a king whose realm had been suffered to fall into danger."
The Czar"s envoy, Prince Menschikoff, had already been on the scene for five weeks. If Russia meant peace, the choice of such a representative was unfortunate. Menschikoff was a brusque soldier, rough and impolitic of speech, and by no means inclined to conform to accepted methods of procedure. He refused to place himself in communication with the Foreign Minister of the Porte; and this was interpreted at Stamboul as an insult to the Sultan. The Grand Vizier, rushing to the conclusion that his master was in imminent danger, induced Colonel Rose, the British Charge d"Affaires, to order the Mediterranean Fleet, then at Malta, to proceed to Vourla. The Admiral, however, refused to lend himself to the panic, and sent back word that he waited instructions from London, a course which was afterwards approved by the Cabinet. The commotion at Stamboul was not lost upon Napoleon, though he knew that the English Cabinet was not anxious to precipitate matters. Eager to display his newly acquired power, he promptly sent instructions to the French Fleet to proceed to Salamis. Meanwhile Prince Menschikoff, who had adopted a more conciliatory att.i.tude on the question of the Holy Places, with the result that negotiations were proceeding satisfactorily, a.s.sumed shortly before the arrival of Lord Stratford a more defiant manner, and startled the Porte by the sudden announcement of new demands. He claimed that a formal treaty should be drawn up, recognising in the most ample, not to say abject, terms, the right of Russia to establish a Protectorate over the Christian subjects of the Porte. This meant, as Lord Clarendon pointed out at the time, that fourteen millions of people would henceforth regard the Czar as their defender, whilst their allegiance to the Sultan would become little more than nominal, and the position of the Turkish ruler would inevitably dwindle from independence to va.s.salage.
[Sidenote: TAKING THE BULL BY THE HORNS]
Lord Stratford at once took the bull by the horns. Acting on his advice, the Porte refused even to entertain such proposals until the question of the Holy Places was settled. Within a month, through Lord Stratford"s firmness, Russia and Turkey came to terms over the original point in dispute; but on the following day Menschikoff placed an ultimatum before the Porte, demanding that, within five days, his master"s claim for the acknowledgment of the Russian Protectorate over the Sultan"s Greek subjects should be accepted. The Sultan"s Ministers, who interpreted the dramatic return of Lord Stratford to mean that they had England at their back, declined to accede, and their refusal was immediately followed by the departure of Prince Menschikoff. Repulsed in diplomacy, the Czar, on July 2, marched forty thousand troops across the frontier river, the Pruth, and occupied Moldavia and Wallachia. The Imperial manifesto stated that it was not the Czar"s intention to commence war, but only to obtain such security as would ensure the restoration of the rights of Russia. This was, of course, high ground to take, and a conference of the Great Powers was hastily summoned, with the result that the French view of the situation was embodied by the a.s.sembled diplomatists in the Vienna Note, which was despatched simultaneously to Russia and Turkey. Lord John Russell, even before the arrival of Lord Stratford at Constantinople, had come to the conclusion that the Emperor of Russia was determined to pick a quarrel with Turkey; but Lord Aberdeen and his Peelite following were of another mind, and even Lord Clarendon seems for the moment to have been hoodwinked by the Czar"s protestations.
A month or two later the Foreign Minister saw matters in a different light, for he used in the House of Lords, in the summer of 1853, an expression which has become historic: "We are drifting into war." The quarrel at this stage--for the susceptibilities of France and of Rome had been appeased by the settlement of the question of the Holy Places--lay between Russia and Turkey, and England might have compelled the peace of Europe if she had known her own mind, and made both parties recognise in unmistakeable terms what was her policy. Lord John Russell had a policy, but no power to enforce it, whilst Lord Aberdeen had no policy which ordinary mortals could fathom, and had the power to keep the Cabinet--though scarcely Lord Stratford de Redcliffe--from taking any decided course. The Emperor Nicholas, relying on the Protocol which Lord Aberdeen had signed--under circ.u.mstances which, however, bore no resemblance to existing conditions--imagined that, with such a statesman at the head of affairs, England would not take up arms against Russia. Lord Aberdeen, to add to the complication, seemed unable to credit the hostile intentions of the Czar, even after the failure of the negotiations which followed the despatch of the Vienna Note. Yet as far back as June 19, Lord John Russell, in a memorandum to his colleagues, made a clear statement of the position of affairs. He held that, if Russia persisted in her demands and invaded Turkey, the interests of England in the East would compel us to aid the Sultan in defending his capital and his throne. On the other hand, if the Czar by a sudden movement seized Constantinople, we must be prepared to make war on Russia herself. In that case, he added, we ought to seek the alliance of France and Austria. France would willingly join; and England and France together might, if it were worth while, obtain the moral weight, if not the material support, of Austria in their favour.
[Sidenote: CAUTION HAS ITS PERFECT WORK]
Lord Aberdeen responded with characteristic caution. He refused to entertain warlike forecasts, and wished for liberty to meet the emergency when it actually arose. Lord Palmerston, a week or two later, made an ineffectual attempt to persuade the Cabinet to send the Fleet to the Bosphorus without further delay. "I think our position," were his words on July 7, "waiting timidly and submissively at the back door, whilst Russia is violently threatening and arrogantly forcing her way into the house, is unwise, with a view to a peaceful settlement." Lord Aberdeen believed in the "moderation" of a despot who took no pains to disguise his sovereign contempt for "les chiens Turcs." Lord Palmerston, on the other hand, made no secret of his opinion that it was the invariable policy of Russia to push forward her encroachment "as fast and as far as the apathy or want of firmness" of other Governments would allow. He held that her plan was to "stop and retire when she was met with decided resistance," and then to wait until the next favourable opportunity arose to steal once more a march on Europe. There was, in short, a radical divergence in the Cabinet. When the compromise suggested in the Vienna Note was rejected, the chances of a European war were sensibly quickened, and all the more so because Lord Stratford, with his notorious personal grudge against the Czar, was more than any other man master of the situation. What that situation had become in the early autumn of 1853 is pithily expressed in a letter of Sir George Cornewall Lewis"s to Sir Edmund Head: "Everything is in a perplexed state at Constantinople. Russia is ashamed to recede, but afraid to strike. The Turks have collected a large army, and have blown up their fanaticism, and, reckoning on the support of England and France, are half inclined to try the chances of war. I think that both parties are in the wrong--Russia in making unjust demands, Turkey in resisting a reasonable settlement. War is quite on the cards, but I still persist in thinking it will be averted, unless some accidental spark fires the train."[31]
[Sidenote: THE VIENNA NOTE]
The Vienna Note was badly worded, and it failed as a scheme of compromise between the Porte and Russia. When it was sent in a draft form to St. Petersburg the Czar accepted it, doubtless because he saw that its statements were vague in a sense which might be interpreted to his advantage. At Constantinople the doc.u.ment swiftly evoked protest, and the Divan refused to sanction it without alteration. England, France, and Austria recognised the force of the amendments of Turkey, and united in urging Russia to adopt them. The Emperor Nicholas, however, was too proud a man to submit to dictation, especially from the Sultan, with Lord Stratford at his elbow, and declined to accede to the altered proposals. Lord John deemed that Turkey had a just cause of complaint, not in the mere fact of the rejection of her alterations to the Vienna Note, but because they were rejected after they had been submitted to the Czar. He told Lord Aberdeen that he hoped that Turkey would reject the new proposals, but he added that that would not wipe away the shame of their having been made. In a speech at Greenock, on September 19, Lord John said: "While we endeavour to maintain peace, I certainly should be the last to forget that if peace cannot be maintained with honour, it is no longer peace. It becomes then but a truce--a precarious truce, to be denounced by others whenever they may think fit--whenever they may think that an opportunity has occurred to enforce by arms their unjust demands either upon us or upon our allies."
England and France refused to press the original Vienna Note on Turkey; but as Austria and Prussia thought that their reasons for abandoning negotiations were scarcely of sufficient force, they in turn declined to adopt the same policy. The concert of Europe was, in fact, broken by the failure of the Vienna Note, and the chances of peace grew suddenly remote. There is a saying that a man likes to believe what he wishes to be the fact, and its truth was ill.u.s.trated at this juncture by both parties to the quarrel. The Czar persuaded himself that Austria and Prussia would give him their aid, and that England, under Aberdeen, was hardly likely to proceed to the extremity of war. The Sultan, on the other hand, emboldened by the movements of the French and English fleets, and still more by the presence and counsels of Lord Stratford, who was, to all intents and purposes, the master spirit at Constantinople, trusted--and with good reason as the issue proved--on the military support of England and France. It was plain enough that Turkey would go to the wall in a struggle with Russia, unless other nations which dreaded the possession of Constantinople by the Czar came, in their own interests, to her help. With the rejection by Russia of the Turkish amendments to the Vienna Note, and the difference of opinion which at once arose between the four mediating Powers as to the policy which it was best under the altered circ.u.mstances to pursue, a complete deadlock resulted.
[Sidenote: HOSTILITIES ON THE DANUBE]
Lord John"s view of the situation was expressed in a memorandum which he placed before the Cabinet, and in which he came to these conclusions: "That if Russia will not make peace on fair terms, we must appear in the field as the auxiliaries of Turkey; that if we are to act in conjunction with France as princ.i.p.als in the war, we must act not for the Sultan, but for the general interests of the population of European Turkey. How, and in what way, requires much further consideration, and concert possibly with Austria, certainly with France." He desired not merely to resist Russian aggression, but also to make it plain to the Porte that we would in no case support it against its Christian subjects. The Cabinet was not prepared to adopt such a policy, and Lord John made no secret of his opinion that Lord Aberdeen"s anxiety for peace and generous att.i.tude toward the Czar were, in reality, provoking war. He believed that the Prime Minister"s vacillation was disastrous in its influence, and that he ought, therefore, to retire and make way for a leader with a definite policy. The Danube, for the moment, was the great barrier to war, and both Russia and Turkey were afraid to cross it. Lord John believed that energetic measures in Downing Street at this juncture would have forestalled, and indeed prevented, activity of a less peaceful kind on the Danube. Meanwhile, despatches, projects, and proposals pa.s.sed rapidly between the Great Powers, for never, as was remarked at the time by a prominent statesman, did any subject produce so much writing. Turkey--perhaps still more than Russia--was eager for war. Tumults in favour of it had broken out at Constantinople; and, what was more to the purpose, the finances and internal government of the country were in a state of confusion. Therefore, when the concert of the four Powers had been shattered, the Turks saw a better chance of drawing both England and France into their quarrel. At length, on October 10, the Porte sent an ultimatum to the commander of the Russian troops which had invaded Moldavia and Wallachia, demanding that they should fall back beyond the Pruth within fifteen days. On October 22 the war-ships of England and France pa.s.sed the Dardanelles in order to protect and defend Turkish territory from any Russian attack. The Czar met what was virtually a declaration of war by a.s.serting that he would neither retire nor act on the aggressive. Ten days after the expiration of the stipulated time, Omar Pacha, the Ottoman commander in Bulgaria, having crossed the Danube, attacked and vanquished the Russians on November 4 at Oltenitza. The Czar at once accepted the challenge, and declared that he considered his pledge not to act on the offensive was no longer binding. The Russian fleet left Sebastopol, and, sailing into the harbour of Sinope, on the southern coast of the Black Sea, destroyed, on November 30, the Turkish squadron anch.o.r.ed in that port, and slew four thousand men.
A significant light is thrown on the crisis in Sir Theodore Martin"s "Life of the Prince Consort,"[32] where it is stated that the Czar addressed an autograph letter to the Queen, "full of surprise that there should be any misunderstanding between her Majesty"s Government and his own as to the affairs of Turkey, and appealing to her Majesty"s "good faith" and "wisdom" to decide between them." This letter, it is added, was at once submitted to Lord Clarendon for his and Lord Aberdeen"s opinion. The Queen replied that Russia"s interpretation of her treaty obligations in the particular instance in question was, in her Majesty"s judgment and in the judgment of those best qualified to advise her, "not susceptible of the extended meaning" put upon it. The Queen intimated in explicit terms that the demand which the Czar had made was one which the Sultan could hardly concede if he valued his own independence. The letter ended with an admission that the Czar"s intentions towards Turkey were "friendly and disinterested." Sir Theodore Martin states that this letter, dated November 14, was submitted to Lord Aberdeen and Lord Clarendon, and was by them "thought excellent." Scarcely more than a fortnight elapsed when Russia"s "friendly and disinterested" feelings were displayed in her cruel onslaught at Sinope, and the statesmen who had prompted her Majesty"s reply received a rude awakening. It became plain in the light of accomplished events that the wisdom which is profitable to direct had deserted her Majesty"s chief advisers.
[Sidenote: MAKING HASTE SLOWLY]
Lord Aberdeen always made haste slowly, and when other statesmen had abandoned hope he continued to lay stress on the resources of diplomacy.
He admitted that he had long regarded the possibility of war between England and Russia with the "utmost incredulity;" but even before Sinope his confidence in a peaceful solution of the difficulty was beginning to waver. He distrusted Lord Stratford, and yet he refused to recall him; he talked about the "indignity" which Omar Pacha had inflicted on the Czar by his summons to evacuate the Princ.i.p.alities, although nothing could justify the presence of the Russian troops in Moldavia and Wallachia, and they had held their ground there for the s.p.a.ce of three months. Even Lord Clarendon admitted that the Turks had displayed no lack of patience under the far greater insult of invasion. The "indignity" of notice to quit was, in fact, inevitable if the Sultan was to preserve a vestige of self-respect. Lord Aberdeen was calmly drafting fresh plans of pacification, requiring the Porte to abstain from hostilities "during the progress of the negotiations undertaken on its behalf"[33] a fortnight after Turkey had actually sent her ultimatum to Russia; and the battle of Oltenitza was an affair of history before the despatch reached Constantinople. Lord Stanmore is inclined to blame Lord John Russell for giving the Turks a loophole of escape by inserting in the doc.u.ment the qualifying words "for a reasonable time;" but his argument falls to the ground when it is remembered that this despatch was written on October 24, whilst the Turkish ultimatum had been sent to Russia on October 10. Sinope was a bitter surprise to Lord Aberdeen, and the "furious pa.s.sion" which Lord Stanmore declares it aroused in England went far to discredit the Coalition Ministry.
Unfortunately, all through the crisis Lord Aberdeen appears to have attached unmerited weight to the advice of the weak members of his own Cabinet--men who, to borrow a phrase of Lord Palmerston"s, were "inconvenient ent.i.ties in council," though hardly conspicuous either in their powers of debate or in their influence in the country. Politicians of the stamp of the Duke of Newcastle, Mr. Sidney Herbert, and Sir James Graham played a great part in Downing Street, whilst for the moment men of superior ability like Palmerston and Russell found their advice unheeded. More than any other man, Sir James Graham, now almost a forgotten statesman, was Lord Aberdeen"s trusted colleague, and the wisdom of his advice was by no means always conspicuous; for rashness and timidity were oddly blended in his nature. "The defeat of the Turks at Sinope upon our element, the sea," wrote the Prince Consort to Baron Stockmar, "has made the people furious; it is ascribed to Aberdeen having been bought over by Russia."[34] The rumour which the Prince mentions about Lord Aberdeen was, of course, absurd, and everyone who knew the lofty personal character of the Prime Minister laughed it at once to scorn. Nevertheless, the fact that the Prince Consort should have thought such a statement worth chronicling is in itself significant; and though no man of brains in the country held such a view, at least two-thirds of the educated opinion of the nation regarded the Prime Minister with increasing disfavour, as a man who had dragged England, through humiliating negotiations, to the verge of war.
[Sidenote: ENGLAND RESENTS SINOPE]
The destruction of the Turkish squadron at Sinope under the shadow of our fleet touched the pride of England to the quick. The nation lost all patience--as the contemptuous cartoons of "Punch" show--with the endless parleyings of Aberdeen, and a loud and pa.s.sionate cry for war filled the country. Lord Stanmore thinks that too much was made in the excitement of the "ma.s.sacre" of the Turkish sailors, and perhaps he is right.
However that may be, the fact remains that the Russians at Sinope continued to storm with shot and sh.e.l.l the Turkish ships when those on board were no longer able to act on the defensive--a naval engagement which cannot be described as distinguished for valour. Perhaps the indignation might not have been so deep and widespread if the English people had not recognised that the Coalition Government had strained concession to the breaking point in the vain attempt to propitiate the Czar. All through the early autumn Lord Palmerston was aware that those in the Cabinet who were jealous of Russia had to reckon with "private and verbal communications, given in all honesty, but tinctured by the personal bias of the Prime Minister," to Baron Brunnow, which were doing "irreparable mischief" at St. Petersburg.[35] The nation did not relish Lord Aberdeen"s personal friendship with the Czar, and now that Russia was beginning to show herself in her true colours, prejudice against a Prime Minister who had sought to explain away difficulties was natural, however unreasonable. The English people, moreover, had not forgotten that Russia ruthlessly crippled Poland in 1831, and lent her aid to the subjugation of Hungary in 1849. If the Sultan was the Lord of Misrule to English imagination in 1853, the Czar was the embodiment of despotism, and even less amenable to the modern ideas of liberty and toleration.
The Manchester School, on the other hand, had provoked a reaction. The Great Exhibition had set a large section of the community dreaming, not of the millennium, but of Waterloo. Russia was looked upon as a standing menace to England"s widening heritage in the East, and neither the logic of Cobden nor the rhetoric of Bright was of the least avail in stemming the torrent of national indignation.
[Sidenote: THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER]
When the Vienna Note became a dead letter Lord Aberdeen ought either to have adopted a clean-cut policy, which neither Russia nor Turkey could mistake, or else have carried out his twice-repeated purpose of resignation. Everyone admits that from the outset his position was one of great difficulty, but he increased it greatly by his practical refusal to grasp the nettle. He was not ambitious of power, but, on the contrary, longed for his quiet retreat at Haddo. He was on the verge of seventy and was essentially a man of few, but scholarly tastes. There can be no doubt that considerable pressure was put upon him both by the Court and the majority of his colleagues in the Cabinet, and this, with the changed aspect of affairs, and the mistaken sense of duty with regard to them, determined his course. His decision "not to run away from the Eastern complication," as Prince Albert worded it, placed both himself and Lord John Russell in somewhat of a false position. If Lord Aberdeen had followed his own inclination there is every likelihood that he would have carried out his arrangement to retire in favour of Lord John. His colleagues were not in the dark in regard to this arrangement when they joined the Ministry, and if not prepared to fall in with the proposal, they ought to have stated their objections at the time. There is some conflict of opinion as to the terms of the arrangement; but even if we take it to be what Lord Aberdeen"s own friends represent it--not an absolute but a conditional pledge to retire--Lord Aberdeen was surely bound to ascertain at the outset whether the condition was one that could possibly be fulfilled. If the objection of his colleagues to retain office under Lord John as Prime Minister was insurmountable, then the qualified engagement to retire--if the Government would not be broken up by the process--was worthless, and Lord John was being drawn into the Cabinet by a.s.surances given by the Prime Minister alone, but which he was powerless to fulfil without the co-operation of his colleagues. Lord Aberdeen was therefore determined to remain at his post, because Lord John was unpopular with the Cabinet, and Palmerston with the Court, and because he knew that the accession to power of either of them would mean the adoption of a spirited foreign policy.
FOOTNOTES:
[31] _Letters of Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Bart._, edited by his brother, Canon Frankland Lewis, p. 270.
[32] Sir Theodore Martin"s _Life of the Prince Consort_, ii. 530, 531.
[33] Lord Stanmore"s _Earl of Aberdeen_, p. 234.
[34] Sir Theodore Martin"s _Life of the Prince Consort_, ii. 534.
[35] _Life of Lord Palmerston_, by the Hon. Evelyn Ashley, ii. 282.
CHAPTER XI
WAR HINDERS REFORM
1854-1855
A Scheme of Reform--Palmerston"s att.i.tude--Lord John sore let and hindered--Lord Stratford"s diplomatic triumph--The Duke of Newcastle and the War Office--The dash for Sebastopol--Procrastination and its deadly work--The Alma--Inkerman--The Duke"s blunder--Famine and frost in the trenches.
ALL through the autumn of 1854 Lord John Russell was busy with a scheme of Parliamentary reform. The Government stood pledged to bring forward the measure, though a section of the Cabinet, and, notably Lord Palmerston, were opposed to such a course. As leader of the House, Lord John had announced that the question would be introduced to Parliament in the spring, and the Cabinet, therefore, took the subject into consideration when it resumed its meetings in November. A special committee was appointed, and Lord John placed his proposals before it.
Every borough with less than three hundred electors was to be disfranchised, and towns with less than five hundred electors were to lose one of their representatives. Seventy seats, he argued, would be gained by this plan, and he suggested that they should be divided between the largest counties and the great towns. He proposed greatly diminishing the qualifications alike in counties and boroughs. He laid stress on the necessity of calling into existence triangular const.i.tuencies, in which no elector should have the power to vote for more than two of the three candidates, and wished also to deprive the freemen of their guild qualification. Lord Palmerston had no relish for the subject. His predilections, in fact, leaned in quite the opposite direction. If his manner was genial, his temper was conservative, and he was inclined to smile, if not to scoff, at politicians who met such problems of government with other than a light heart. He was therefore inclined at this juncture to adopt Lord Melbourne"s att.i.tude, and to meet Lord John with that statesman"s famous remark, "Why can"t you let it alone?"
[Sidenote: PALMERSTON AND REFORM]
Devotion to one idea, declared Goethe, is the condition of all greatness. Lord John was devoted from youth to age to the idea of Parliamentary reform, and in season and out was never inclined to abandon it. Probably Lord Palmerston would have adopted a less hostile att.i.tude if he had been in his proper element at the Foreign Office; but being Home Secretary, he was inclined to kick against a measure which promised to throw into relief his own stationary position on one of the pet subjects of the party of progress. Whilst the Cabinet was still engaged in thrashing the subject out, tidings of the battle of Sinope reached England, and the popular indignation against Russia, which had been gathering all the autumn, burst forth, as has already been stated, into a fierce outcry against the Czar. Two days after the news of Russia"s cowardly attack had been confirmed, Palmerston saw his opportunity, and promptly resigned. Doubtless such a step was determined by mixed motives. Objections to Lord John"s proposals for Parliamentary reform at best only half explains the position, and behind such repugnance lay hostility to Lord Aberdeen"s vacillating policy on the Eastern Question. The nation accepted Lord Palmerston"s resignation in a matter-of-fact manner, which probably surprised no one more than himself. The Derbyites, oddly enough, made the most pother about the affair; but a man on the verge of seventy, and especially one like Lord Palmerston with few illusions, is apt to regard the task of forming a new party as a game which is not worth the candle. The truth is, Palmerston, like other clever men before and since, miscalculated his strength, and on Christmas Eve was back again in office. He had received a.s.surances from his colleagues that the Reform proposals were still open to discussion; and, as the Cabinet had taken in his absence a decision on Turkish affairs which was in harmony with the views that he had persistently advocated, he determined to withdraw his resignation.