Europe. By treachery towards the Congress of Vienna, and by false promises of a constitution to the remnant of Poland, she kept possession of the Duchy of Warsaw, violated and suppressed the Constitution, and ere long crushed the people. By her action in the Holy Alliance, and through the Congress of Verona, she overthrew constitutional government in Spain, and has doomed that country to lasting misery. She has trampled down the laws and liberties of Hungary (which are as old as those of England), in order to make Austria her humble servant. She terrifies every German prince, and, through Austria, sustains cruel despotism in Italy, Naples, and Sicily. The Emperor Nicolas is a scornful and avowed hater of all constitutional restraints on sovereigns. What will he do if, besides his vast land forces, he wins maritime preponderance in the Levant, by holding the keys of the Straits, and getting plenty of Greek sailors?-Prof. Newman, Contemp. Rev. Nov. 1877.

It was contended by some that the notion of Russia as the ally and supporter of despots was something of an anachronism in reference to the events of 1876. Still the odium excited by the tradition of the Holy Alliance remained; and even the new Russia could not be regarded as wholly free from the taint.

I am in no sense an advocate, or even an apologist, of Russia. Like most English Liberals I had been accustomed to regard her, ever since the fatal day of Vilagos, when she crushed the independence of Hungary, as the arch foe of political progress, the incarnation of political evil. [Even now, the advance of Russia over Turkey would be an evil; but the Russia of 1876 is not the Russia of 1849.]-Bryce, Fort. Rev. Dec. 1876.

The dislike excited by the notion of Holy-Alliance-Russia had its counterpart in the conception of Turkey as a liberal and reforming Power. It was remembered, too, that after the troubles of 1849, Kossuth and other refugees had found an asylum on Turkish soil, and that the Sultan, supported by England and by France, had withstood all the demands of Russia and of Austria for the surrender of the fugitives.1

The notion, if it had been that of the importance of protecting Powers which refuse an unlawful demand for extradition, would have been diplomatic; but as an apologetic factor of philo-Turkism, the notion in question appears to be rather sentimental in its character, and we shall speak of it with that group. We notice, indeed, that many of the notions of anti-Russism, though founded upon diplomatic considerations, verge upon the non-diplomatic character.

1 See Ashley's Palmerston, chap. iv.

§ c. Russia Systematically Faithless and Cunning.

In the conception of Russia as a systematically aggressive Power there was often involved the notion of something in her to be encountered beyond mere brute force. Russia was regarded as systematically faithless and cunning. Such ideas as these were of long standing, and indeed the older Russophobia had evolved a sort of mythus, which served as a basis for much of the special antiRussism of 1876-80.

The notion of secret organisation has a strange fascination for some minds. Just as some find a ready explanation of all political phenomena in the machinations of Jesuits, so there are others who would trace all the troubles of Europe for the past century to the will of Peter the Great. The Russian diplomatist is thought of as a being endowed with a preternatural craft, and, at the same time, as absolutely faithless. He pushes on with unwearied persistence to the accomplishment of his unholy design. From this point of view the dread and hatred of Russia seems almost to go beyond a purely political desire that her power may be kept within bounds. There mingles with it something of the awe with which one would await the onset of a supernatural foe, and men look forward to an impending conflict as to a holy war.

Mr. David Urquhart, who was formerly secretary of the Embassy at Constantinople, and who sat for Stafford as a Conservative from 1847 to 1852, was at one time a sort of apostle of the older Russophobia. He also took a very strong view of the mischievous effect of the Declaration of Paris on England's maritime power, and, moreover, he advocated a return to something like the Privy Council system of government. He succeeded in interesting a number of people, for the most part working men, in his views, and by his influence societies calling themselves "Foreign Affairs Committees" were established in various towns, chiefly in the north of England. We catch some curious glimpses of the old Foreign Affairs Committees during the crisis of 1876-8. They appear as organising opposition in the anti-Turkish meetings at the height of the Bulgarian agitation, and after the Treaty of Berlin they

1 It appears that in 1857 there were sixty-nine of these Committees. For an interesting account of them see an article entitled "Political Reminiscences" [A. G. Stapleton, Macmil. March, 1875]. Mr. Urquhart's views were also advocated in a quarterly publication called the Diplomatic Review, which reached its twenty-third year in 1875. Mr. Urquhart died in May, 1877. [See Obituary notice in Annual Register.]

petition for the impeachment of Lord Beaconsfield.1 Mr. Urquhart, it was said, maintained till his death that Lord Palmerston was bribed by Russia, and made the Crimean War in her interest.2 Whether or not the story correctly represents Mr. Urquhart, it illustrates, not inaptly, the lengths to which people might be carried by the notion of Russian craft.

We find the same tendency to extravagant suspicion with regard to the troubles which beset Turkey in 1875 and 1876. There were some who refused to admit that the troubles which were threatening the peace of Europe were to be attributed to any fault of Turkey, and who traced them all to the machinations of Russia. It was General Ignatieff, said they, who persuaded Abdul Aziz first to extravagance, then to repudiation, and thus brought about the financial ruin of Turkey, which was intended to open the way for Russian conquest.3

It is stated on no mean authority, that it was owing to [General Ignatieff's] own advice the Turkish Government adopted the measures [of repression in Bulgaria] which led to the horrible massacres that completely turned the tide of European opinion against Turkey, and which may prove the immediate cause of the fall of the Ottoman dominion in Europe.-Quart. Rev. Jan. 1877, p. 296.

But, after all, these extravagant manifestations of Russophobia were only the indications of a wide-spread and deep-seated distrust of the aims and methods of Russian diplomacy.

The traditional impression concerning the untrustworthiness of Russian diplomacy had been revived and freshened by the action of Russia in taking the opportunity of the Franco-German war to repudiate the clause in the Treaty of Paris which neutralised the Black Sea. Still more was this effect produced by the virtual annexation of Khiva in 1873, after assurances offered to the English Government, which had been understood as disclaiming any such intention.

English diplomatists usually dislike, and sometimes detest, the Russian Foreign Office, which they accuse at once of overweening ambition and of habitual faithlessness-faithlessness of the kind which most irritates diplomacy, faithlessness not so much to treaties so much as to honourable engagements made in private. The Khiva affair may be misunderstood, but it will cost Russia as much as a lost battle.-Spec. Nov. 4, 1876.

1 See meeting at Newcastle, Sept. 1876, post, chap. vii. § 1. Again see H. of C. July 25, 1878, post, chap. xviii. § The Secret Agreement."

2 Sir Tollemache Sinclair's Defence of Russia, p. 2.

3 See Alfred Austin, Russia before Europe,

§ D. Russia threatens Constantinople.

The apprehension of Russian aggression took its most definite form in relation to Constantinople. The idea that Russia aims at making herself mistress of Constantinople is of long standing in England, and has always excited a most determined opposition.1

The English public has a broad conception of the general relations of the European Powers, and it was the accepted tradition that Russia, on the one hand, desires the conquest of Turkey and the acquisition of Constantinople, and that England, on the other hand, desires to prevent Constantinople from falling into Russian hands.

The enormous importance of Constantinople is here held to consist in the power which its possession might confer. Hence the preference for keeping a comparatively weak power like Turkey seated there.

I shall reduce the plea for the maintenance of the Turkish Empire to that one plea of expediency upon which the greatest master of Turkish policy, Fuad Pasha, was content to rest its claim. "We are the best police of the Bosphorus."-A. Arnold, Contemp. Rev. July, 1876.

If we assume the dream of Russian enthusiasts fulfilled, that Russia had simply succeeded to the possession of Turkey, we should find her endowed with a power which would seriously threaten the rest of Europe. She could easily make the Hellespont as impassable to attack from the south as if it were crossed by a breakwater of granite. Behind this impervious gate the Propontis and the Euxine would form a station, compared to which all the stations in the world are of trifling value, being port, arsenal, roadstead, practising ground, and naval station all in one. . . If to this array of nautical advantage we add the opportunities of the countless islands and roadsteads in the Levant, we get a combination of physical resources for naval supremacy to which everything else in world becomes quite insignificant.-F. Harrison, Fort. Rev. Dec. 1876.

While the idea of the transcendent importance of Constantinople thus enters largely into the composition of anti-Russism, there were some who argued that safety might be found in this very circumstance, and others again who regarded the idea itself as exaggerated.

1 M. Thiers (Hist. Consulate and Empire, book xxi.) mentions that in 1805 Pitt told the Russian envoy there was a strong prejudice in England against such an event, which he was obliged to regard.

The sovereignty of European Turkey could scarcely be added to the possessions of the Czar without tendency to dislocate the system of his empire.-Kinglake, vol. i. p. 62.

One axiom may be laid down: the New Rome must ever be the New Rome; she must be the head of something, be it empire or federation. . . . The Russian of our day may win her as the Russian of a thousand years back strove to win her; but, if he wins her, he will cease to be a Russian. Constantinople can never be a dependency of St. Petersburg any more than it can be a dependency of Berlin or of London.1-Freeman, Fort. Rev. Jan. 1877.

The question as to Constantinople is more serious, though its gravity has been a good deal exaggerated by the fancy which inflates the actual importance of the place up to the measure of its historic renown. A similar illusion prevailed about Rome, the occupation of which by the Italian Government was looked forward to as an event pregnant with momentous consequences.— Goldwin Smith, Contemp. Rev. Nov. 1877.

Again it was pointed out that Austria and Germany were much more closely concerned than England to prevent the apprehended result, if, indeed, Russsia was aiming at the possession of Constantinople and preponderance in South-Eastern Europe, and that the duty of taking the initiative might be safely left to them so far as the general question of the European balance of power was concerned.

Note on the Rule of the Straits.

Very closely connected with the question of the possession of Constantinople was the question of the navigation of the Straits which connect the Black Sea with the Mediterranean and the Oceans of the World; for the possession of Constantinople carries with it the command of the Bosphorus.

And since this people [the Russians] have a seaboard and ports on the Euxine, they are forced by an everlasting policy to desire the command of the Straits which lead through the heart of an empire.-Kinglake, vol. i. p. 57.

But over and above the physical control which the position of the Turks upon the banks of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles enables them to exercise over the passage of ships through those waters the way is barred to ships of war by a rule of European law.

The exact nature of the Rule of the Straits, and the relation of the closing of the Straits to the neutralisation of the Black Sea does not appear always to have been clearly apprehended. From

1 See also P. M. G. Dec. 14, 1875.