continue. In July and August the Hungarians suffered a succession of reverses. Kossuth, despairing of success, surrendered the supreme power to a military man, Georgey. The latter, surrounded by the enemy's forces, and beaten at Temeswar, was forced to surrender. Comorn, the last remaining stronghold of Hungary, capitulated, and autocracy was able to announce the conclusion of the struggle.1 towards Palmerston had repeated in this case the policy which he had pursued in respect to Italy. When the fortune of war declared against Hungary, he had urged Austria to Palmerston's consent to some arrangement which would satisfy policy, the national feeling of the Hungarians, and would Hungary. maintain unimpaired the bond of union which had so long connected Hungary with the Austrian crown. When the contest was concluded, he had urged the Austrian Government to "make a generous use of the successes which it has obtained," and to pay "due regard to the ancient constitutional rights of Hungary."3 He received from Schwarzenberg, the Austrian Minister, a reply which ought to have taught him. that statesmen unprepared to enforce their counsels had better be cautious about offering their advice. "The world," wrote Schwarzenberg, "is agitated by a spirit of general subversion. England herself is not exempt from the influence of this spirit; witness Canada, the island of Cefalonia, and finally, unhappy Ireland. But, wherever revolt breaks out within the vast limits of the British Empire, the English Government always knows how to maintain the authority of the law, were it even at the price of torrents of blood. It is not for us to blame her. Whatever may be the opinion which we form as to... the measures of repression employed by the British Government, we consider it our duty to refrain from expressing that opinion, persuaded as we are that persons are apt to fall into gross errors in making themselves judges of the often so complicated position of foreign. nations." 4 1 Parl. Papers, pp. 323, 347. 387. 2 Ibid., p. 286. Parl. Papers relating to Hungary, p. 336. 3 Ibid., p. 343. Austrian reprisals. To this despatch Palmerston did not even venture to reply; and the Austrians, secure in their victory, proceeded to wash out rebellion with blood. Even before victory was assured, Haynau, the Austrian general, had threatened to reduce Pesth to "a heap of ashes,” if even only a part of its inhabitants transgressed the rules which he saw fit to impose upon their conduct. "Death, at the shortest notice. without distinction of rank or sex, shall be the portion of every one who, by word, deed, or the wearing of revolutionary badges, shall dare to support the cause of the rebels." When victory was secure, still more violent remedies were applied to disorder. Forty or fifty officers were summarily shot; one lady was ordered to sweep the streets of Temeswar; another lady was stripped and flogged by the soldiery. Many of the leading Hungarians were hanged; and Louis Batthyany, who had presided over the Hungarian Ministry, only escaped hanging by inflicting a wound on his neck which procured him a more honourable death-he was shot.2 Austrian vengeance was not satisfied with consigning an illustrious statesman to death and with hanging patriots by the score. It desired more victims, and it saw with impatience that thousands of the Hungarians had crossed the frontier and entered Turkish territory. Kossuth himself, Bem, Dembinski, a Polish general, and 5000 others thus sought safety. Autocracy at Venice and St. Petersburg was concerned to learn that these men, whose names were on the lips of every patriot, had thus escaped from its clutches. The Porte, however, was a weak and timid Power, and autocratic sovereigns never doubted that it would be compelled to attend to their directions. The treaty of Passarowitz had pledged Austria and Turkey to abstain from sheltering rebels or malcontents. The treaty of Kainardji had pledged Hungarian 1 Parl. Papers relating to Hungary, pp. 288, 303. If more than ten persons were gathered together in the streets and did not disperse at the first summons, the military patrol were ordered to fire on them. Ibid. p. 304. 2 Ibid., p. 387, 390; cf. Mr. (afterwards Sir A.) Cockburn's speech in Hansard, cviii. 509, in which a category of Austrian executions is given. Russia and Turkey to deliver up, or at least to banish, disobedient and traitorous subjects.1 On the faith of these two treaties, Russia and Austria presented simultaneous demands. at the Porte for the surrender of the fugitives. Russia even sent a special envoy to Constantinople to enforce her demand. Fortunately, the British Embassy at the Porte was held by Stratford Canning, the only Englishman of the century who has made a first-rate reputation as a diplomatist. He at once advised the Porte to refuse the demand. The Porte, without courage to adopt his advice, took the temporising course of sending a special mission to St. Petersburg. The Austrian and Russian Ambassadors, irritated at the delay, abruptly broke off diplomatic relations with Turkey. Their irritation was perhaps natural. The move of the Porte gave time for the Western Powers to interfere. Palmerston addressed a strong remonstrance to Vienna and St. Petersburg, and ordered the British fleet to move up to the Dardanelles. De Tocqueville, who held the seals of the French Foreign Office, imitated his example, and despatched a squadron to Smyrna. The The demand autocrats of Vienna and St. Petersburg, exhausted with the struggle in which they had been engaged, were in no mood for a fresh war with the Western Powers. Russia, with some dexterity, availed herself of the Turkish mission to St. Petersburg to modify her demand and ask only for the expulsion of Polish refugees from Turkish territory. Austria, instead of demanding the surrender of the fugitives, only asked for the detention of some thirty of them in the interior of Turkey; and the Western Powers, having effected their chief object, consented to withdraw their fleets from their menacing position.2 for their extraciti n refused. 1 Parl. Papers, 1851, “Correspondence respecting Refugees from Hungary," pp. 28-30. 2 Ibid., pp. 4, 10, 16, 17, 28, 42, 53, 71, 119; cf. Ashley's Palmerston, vol. ii. pp. 107-120. It ought, perhaps, to be added that the correspondence did not end at this point. Palmerston objected to the new Austrian demand that the principal refugees should be imprisoned by Turkey, and it was only after two years' negotiation that the Porte mustered up courage to liberate Kossuth. Throughout the negotiation Palmerston was as badly represented by Ponsonby at Vienna as he was ably supported by S. Canning at Constantinople. To Ponsonby he administered a severe and deserved reproof. Ashley's During these negotiations Palmerston had displayed a vigorous determination which had raised his reputation both in England and on the Continent. His interference on previous occasions had frequently been with weak Powers, and his conduct towards such nations as Portugal or Naples had occasionally borne too close a resemblance to the tyranny which a strong boy commonly exercises over a weak one. But it was impossible to apply this criticism to his policy in 1848 and 1849. During those years he stood at bay against the great autocratic Powers of Europe, and he retrieved the discredit which attached to his failure in Hungary and Italy by the success of his efforts to induce the Porte to resist the demands of its powerful neighbours. Palmerston, however, was probably stimulated by his achievement to enter upon a more doubtful undertaking. The British fleet was still in the East, ready for any further service required in that quarter; and the disorganised condition of the Greek Government made it easy to discover The state of grounds for new interference. Greece, in fact, had Greece. been a source of anxiety to British statesmen from the first establishment of the new kingdom. Otho of Bavaria, who wore the crown, had none of the qualifications which fitted him for his position. Training and temperament prevented him from entrusting the government to his ministers. He had neither the ability nor the vigour which would have enabled him to have conducted it himself. The affairs of Greece naturally fell into disorder, and the representatives of European Powers at Athens struggled one against another The Revolu- for their own interests. The British Minister, Sir tion in 1843. Edmund Lyons, whom Guizot regarded as a rude and imperious sailor, ascribed all the evils of the country to the monarch, and thought that constitutional revolution was the Palmerston, vol. ii. p. 122. It should, moreover, be stated that a delicate question incidentally rose from Sir W. Parker, who commanded the British fleet, taking up a position inside the Dardanelles. Parl. Papers, p. 61. Palmerston's official commentary on this proceeding will be found in ibid., p. 67; his private commentary in Ashley's Palmerston, vol. ii. p. 120; the Austrian protest against the act in Parl. Papers, p. 74; the Russian in ibid., p. 81. only remedy for the kingdom. He had his way; in September 1843 the people of Athens rose, rang the alarm, and, assisted by the troops, proclaimed the Constitution.? claim. Seven years before constitutional government had been thus established, Otho, with the ideas of a king and the means of a bankrupt, had commenced building a palace at Athens. Many a Naboth had a field which it was convenient to add to the Royal garden; and the king seized the property which he required without taking the trouble of paying Mr. Finlay's for it. Among others, Mr. Finlay, a British subject, who had devoted much of his life to the Greek cause, and whose histories preserve his memory, had purchased a plot of land which, coming within the king's ring-fence, the king seized. Finlay, failing to obtain redress, appealed in 1842 to Aberdeen, who instructed Lyons to press the claim on the attention of the Greek Government. But the instructions were not very urgent, and Lyons' movements, after the Revolution of 1843, were not very rapid. He either made no report on the subject from 1843 to July 1846, or, if he made any report, the Foreign Office never thought proper to publish it. On the 1st of July 1846 he admitted that his remonstrance had failed, and that he had been unable to obtain redress for Finlay. His report reached London at a critical moment. Palmerston had just resumed his seat at the Foreign Office; he seized the opportunity of writing a little essay on the duties. of kings and the rights of British subjects. Even in despotic monarchies, land was not arbitrarily wrested from private individuals for the mere convenience of the sovereign; and, if Otho cared to go to Potsdam, he could still see the famous mill which testified to the scrupulous regard paid by the Great Frederick to the rights of one of the humblest of his subjects. The conduct of Frederick the Great might worthily be imitated by Otho the Little. In any event, Palmerston expressed “the just hope and confident expectation of her Majesty's Govern 1 Guizot, vol. vi. p. 259. 2 Ibid., vol. vii. p. 276 et seq. |