the time of their settlement in Europe up to 1774, the whole of the coasts surrounding not only the Straits, but also the Black Sea and the Sea of Azoff, were possessed by the Turks. The Black Sea was regarded as a Mare clausum, in other words, as a Turkish lake or territorial water; and the Straits themselves, both the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, were in a special sense regarded as Turkish territory. The Bosphorus and the Dardanelles are both so narrow that, even in the early times of artillery, they could be commanded by guns on either side.-Kinglake, vol. i. p. 363. Hence, besides the general ground that they were the outlets to a purely Turkish lake, of itself, perhaps, according to old notions, enough to sustain the proposition, these Straits came also under the maxim which extended the territory of a country to the limit of the power of its arms. But in 1774, by the treaty of Kainardji, Russia acquired ports on the Sea of Azoff, and thus the exclusively Turkish character of the inland sea was lost. But the resulting changes in the right to navigate the Straits by which this sea communicates with the Mediterranean were not left to be deduced from the changed circumstances; they were expressly provided for. Pour la commodité et l'avantage des deux Empires il y aura une navigation libre et sans obstacles pour les vaisseaux marchands appartenans aux deux Puissances contractantes, dans toutes les mers qui baignent leurs terres; la sublime Porte accorde aux vaisseaux marchands Russes nommément tels que ceux qu'employent partout pour le commerce et dans les ports les autres puissances, un libre passage de la Mer Noire dans la Mer Blanche reciproquement.-Treaty of Kanardji, Art. 11.1 It will be observed that there was accorded to Russia by this treaty a right over the territorial waters of the two Straits of the nature of a right of way; and that this easement, so to speak, was strictly limited to merchant vessels. By various stages a similar right of way was accorded to the merchant vessels of other Powers; each such act being regarded as a concession made by the Porte in favour of the commerce of friendly Powers. Ships of war were upon an entirely different footing. So long as the Porte was at peace it seems to have been the practice to prohibit the passage of foreign men-of-war through the Straits, as being Turkish territorial waters. If the Porte were at 1 F. G. Ghillany, Recueil des Traités. La "Mer Blanche" is the Ægean Sea. The article goes on to provide for permission to the subjects of the contracting Powers to trade within each other's dominions. Translation of the text is given at length. Holland (ante, p. 117) and in Abdy's Kent's Int. Law. Ed. 1878, p. 506. war of course the prohibition would count for nothing in the case of an enemy's war-ship powerful enough to venture through in the face of hostile batteries, and the war-ships of allies would of course be welcomed by the Porte. The practice of the Porte to keep the Straits closed to war-ships, whenever it was itself at peace, appears to have been so invariable that any alteration in its practice, whereby Russian war-ships from the Black Sea should enter the Mediterranean, or the ships of other Powers should enter the Black Sea, would have been the introduction of a distinctly new factor in the European balance of power. Hence it soon came to be regarded as the duty of Turkey to insist upon this rule impartially towards all nations alike. This view is embodied in Art. 11. of the treaty of peace signed between Great Britain and the Porte on January 5th, 1809, after a hostile English fleet, under Admiral Duckworth, had forced the passage of the Dardanelles and appeared off Constantinople, in order to detach Turkey from her alliance with Napoleon. Comme il a été de tout tems défendu aux vaisseaux de guerre d'entrer dans le canal de Constantinople savoir dans le détroit de Dardanelles et dans celui de la Mer Noire;-et comme cette ancienne règle de l'Empire Ottoman doit être de même observée dorénavant en tems de paix vis-à-vis de toute puissance quelle que ce soit, la cour Britannique promet aussi de se conformer à ce principle.-Treaty of 1809, Art. 11.1 In 1833 the Porte, sorely pressed by Mehemet Ali and abandoned by the Western Powers, threw itself into the arms of Russia, and on July 8th, the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi was concluded between them, by which they engaged to furnish aid to each other for a period of eight years. The English and French Governments protested against this step as producing a change in the relations between Turkey and Russia to which other European Powers were entitled to object,2 and great disquiet appears to have been caused by the knowledge that there was a secret article relating to the navigation of the Straits. The Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi provides that the Porte in place of the aid which it is bound to furnish in 1 Martens, Nouveau Recueil des Traités, i. p. 160. 2 Hertslet, ii. 928; Wheaton's, Hist. Law of Nations, 569. It appears to be sometimes imagined that the effect of this secret article was to provide for the first time for the closing of the Straits to the war-vessels of all nations except Russia, thus involving the assumption that they had been free to use them before. A French corvette of war presented itself at the entrance of the Dardanelles, aud was refused a passage. Explanations were at once demanded on the part of the English and French ambassadors. . . . These explanations were accompanied by a communication of the public treaty. But as the Dardanelles remained closed to the vessels of war of all nations, except Turkey and Russia, the existence of a further secret treaty became self-evident.-Alison, Hist. Eur. chap. xxxvi. Unless we suppose that, notwithstanding the declaration embodied in the Treaty of 1809, the "ancient rule" had been laxly enforced by Turkey, or perhaps suffered altogether to fall into abeyance, it is not very easy to understand this. Prior to 1833 did the war vessels of other Powers go in and out of the Black Sea, without objection on the part of Turkey, notwithstanding the "ancient rule," and the treaty? Did Russian men-of-war issue from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean, while the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi lasted? However this may have been, the arrangement was only a temporary one, and in 1841, by the Treaty of July 13, between the Five Great Powers and Turkey, the rule as laid down in 1809 was reaffirmed, and its observance promised on all hands. His Highness the Sultan on the one part declares that he is firmly resolved to maintain for the future the principle invariably established as the ancient rule of his Empire, and in virtue of which it has at all times been prohibited for the ships of war of foreign Powers to enter the Straits of the Dardanelles and of the Bosphorus; and that so long as the Porte is at peace, his Highness will admit no foreign ship of war into the said Straits. And their Majesties the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia, the King of the French, the King of Prussia, and the Emperor of all the Russias, on the other part, engage to respect this determination of the Sultan, and to conform themselves to the principle above declared.-Convention of July 13, 1841, signed at London, Art. 1. Possibly, prior to 1841 the validity of the English contention that the rule was a generally binding one was not admitted by the other Powers. At all events in that year it was definitely incorporated with the general public law, and this with the good will of Russia.1 The matter next appears in the negotiation for putting an end to the Crimean War.? Of four points for which the allies were contending, the third was the revision of the Treaty of the Straits "in the interests of the European balance of power, and with a view to a limitation of the Russian power on the Black Sea." It was on this point that the negotiations at the Viennese Conference in the spring of 1855 turned. England insisted that the Black Sea should be neutralised altogether, that is to say, that it should be illegal for either Power to have any war vessels at all on it. Austria recommended a system of naval equipoise; that is, a limitation of the number of ships to be maintained both by Russia and Turkey. Russia thereupon proposed that the Straits should be opened equally to the war flag of all nations. From this the allies absolutely dissented. The resolve of the English ministry cost another year of war, but at length Russia yielded, and the "third point" of the Vienna Conference was embodied in the Treaty of Paris. The Black Sea is neutralised; its waters and its ports, thrown open to the mercantile marine of every nation, are formally and in perpetuity interdicted to the flag of war either of the Powers possessing its coasts, or of any other Power, with the exceptions mentioned in Articles 14 and 19 of the present treaty.-Art. 11. [Article 14 allowed Russia and Turkey to have a few light vessels for coast service, and Article 19 allowed each of the contracting parties to station two light vessels at the mouths of the Danube.]-Treaty of Paris. It is worth noticing that in reality there was no difference in principle between the Austrian proposal of mutual limitation of armaments, and the English proposal of complete neutralisation. At all events the latter is only the extreme case of the former. In one aspect, at least, either was an example of an arrangement such as has often been proposed for curtailing military expenditure by mutual agreement. It might have been thought under these circumstances that the neutralisation of the Black Sea would have received the warmest approbation and the heartiest support of the professed Peace Party. This, however, was far from being the case; on the contrary, that party always spoke in tones of 1 Wheaton's Hist. p. 577; Kinglake, chap. xvi. p. 364. 2 For a good account see Edin. Rev. Jan. 1871. L deprecation both of the neutralisation of the Black Sea and of the Rule of the Straits, as if some great hardship and injustice were imposed upon Russia which no one could wonder at her seeking to throw off at the first opportunity. The provision for the neutralisation of the Black Sea was wholly independent of and did not affect the Rule of the Straits, although it might seem to render the latter superfluous. A convention between the Six Powers (Sardinia, which had not been a party to the convention of 1841, being now included) on the one part, and the Sultan on the other, recited that their Majesties, wishing to conform to the ancient rule of the Ottoman Empire, had resolved to renew the convention of 13th July, 1841, subject to some modifications of detail, further extending the exceptions as to light vessels. And this convention was incorporated in the Treaty of Paris by Art. 9. In 1870, Russia suddenly announced that she could not be satisfied with an assumed protection which rested on a theory, and that she resumed her freedom to build men-of-war upon the Black Sea for the protection of her own coasts.1 In the upshot, the Treaty of London was signed, March 13, 1871. The neutralisation of the Black Sea, which had been added to the rule as the result of the Crimean War, was now abrogated, and the rule restored as it was formulated in 1841, but with this modification: the Sultan, while yet at peace, was given liberty to open the Straits to the war vessels of the other Powers, if the security of his empire should demand their presence in the Black Sea. Thus things were substantially restored to the old footing with regard to the Rule of the Straits, the exception being for the case of imminent danger to Turkey. Thus stood the "Rule of the Straits" in 1876, when the recrudescence of the Eastern Question drew public attention to it, and the notion that the rule was necessary as a protection against Russia, and that Russia would seek to enforce its abrogation, became elements of anti-Russism. But it will be convenient here to allude to subsequent events which may have a bearing upon the rule. In February 1878, after the armistice and preliminaries of peace were signed between Turkey and Russia, but before the definite treaty, the English fleet was sent through the Dardanelles, and up to Constantinople, notwithstanding the refusal of the Porte to 1 Hertslet, iii. p. 1892. |