sanction given by existing treaties to the Russian Protectorate over her oppressed Christian subjects, that Turkey and England went to war with Russia. Whether that war was right or wrong, this is certain: it was waged by the English Government to rebut a claim, which that Government at the outset admitted. The Czar, through Count Nesselrode, expressed himself satisfied with the self-denying pledges which had passed between the Russian and English Governments, and, as England had promised not to entertain any project for the protection of Turkey without a previous understanding with Russia, so Russia, he said, gave a similar undertaking to England.

But he observed that the surest way to prevent the fall of Turkey would be to induce the Porte to treat the Greek Christians with equity and humanity. The English Government, delighted with this friendly communication, advised the Porte to compose the dispute between France and Russia, by offering to accept any arrangement which these two Powers would take as satisfactory. It remonstrated with France for having been the first, not only to raise the quarrel about the Holy Places, but also to support her demands by a threat of war. This was a second admission on the part of England that in this controversy Russia was in the right. Napoleon III. recalled M. de Lavalelle, his hectoring Envoy at Constantinople, and sent M. de La Cour in his place. Russia ceased her warlike preparations on the Moldavian frontier, and the war-cloud on the horizon began to melt away.

Unfortunately for the prospects of peace, Lord Aberdeen ordered Lord Stratford de Redcliffe to resume his duties as Ambassador at Constantinople.

1853.]

LORD STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE.

549

Stratford de Redcliffe was a man of indomitable strength of character, restless energy, and invincible tenacity of purpose. His fitness for the office of a mediator between Turkey, Russia, and France, charged specially to avert war, may be estimated by the following entry in Lord Malmesbury's Diary, under

date February 25th, 1854:-" Lord Bath," writes Lord Malmesbury, "has come back from Constantinople, and says that Lord Stratford openly boasts having got his personal revenge against the Czar by fomenting the war. He told Lord Bath so." According to Lord Malmesbury, his hatred to the Czar dated from the time when his Majesty refused to receive him as Ambassador at St. Petersburg. It is now beyond doubt that Lord Stratford de Redcliffe,

from the beginning to the end of the negotiations between the Powers, acted the part of a Marplot. As Prince Albert, in a letter to Baron Stockmar on the 27th of November, said, "The prospects of a peaceful settlement in the East do not improve. Lord Stratford fulfils his instructions to the letter, but he so contrives that we are getting constantly deeper and deeper into a war policy." It is impossible to describe in truer words the malign and baneful influence of the diplomatist who, to gratify his personal rancour, inflicted the torture of war upon his country.

Lord Stratford de Redcliffe reached Constantinople on the 5th of April, 1853. There he found that Prince Menschikoff, at the head of a menacing mission, had arrived before him on the 28th of February. Menschikoff began operations by refusing to treat with Fuad Effendi, the Foreign Minister. Fuad resigned in favour of Rifaat Pasha. The tone of the Russian envoy then alarmed the Grand Vizier, who sought advice from Colonel Rose,* British Chargé d'Affaires. Colonel Rose immediately begged Admiral Dundas to bring the Mediterranean squadron to the mouth of the Dardanelles, but the Admiral refused to sail without instructions from the Cabinet, and the Cabinet disapproved of Rose's action. France, however, thought that this act indicated an intention on the part of England to forestall her, and despatched the Toulon squadron to Salamis, without waiting to hear whether Colonel Rose's action had been sanctioned by his Government. † The presence of the French fleet so near the scene of an acrid controversy between France and Russia, would have tended to neutralise the conciliatory diplomacy of England, even if Lord Stratford de Redcliffe had honestly meant to work in the interests of peace.

Lord Stratford, when he arrived at Constantinople, found the Sublime Porte in a panic. Though Russia had assured the English Government that no question then remained open between her, France, and Turkey, except that of the Holy Places, Menschikoff had demanded from the Porte a treaty, the negotiation of which, he said, must be kept secret from the Powers, acknowledging the right of Russia to a protectorate over all Greek Christians in Turkey. Ultimately he offered to accept a Note; but the objection to the concession in any such shape, was that it virtually transferred to the Russian Czar the allegiance of 12,000,000 of the Sultan's subjects. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe advised the Porte to begin by settling the question of the Holy Places, which was the fons et origo of the dispute. That question was quickly settled, and then Menschikoff promptly and peremptorily pressed the new claim of Russia to a protectorate over the Greek Church in Turkey. On the 5th of May he

* Afterwards Lord Strathnairn.

+ Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. I., pp. 387-389. It is right to state the fact as communicated to Lord Malmesbury by the French Emperor in conversation, because Mr. Walpole rather unfairly asserts that the Emperor of the French saw in Rose's fear "a fresh excuse for embroiling France.”-、 Walpole's History of England, Vol. V., p. 84.

1853.]

THE FLEETS IN TURKISH WATERS.

551

sent an ultimatum to the Porte demanding its surrender on this point within five days. On Lord Stratford's advice the Porte refused to surrender, and Prince Menschikoff and his suite left Constantinople in wrath.* At this crisis the voice of Nicholas was for war; but that of Nesselrode, his able and tranquil Minister, was for peace. As a compromise the Czar therefore determined that the Danubian Principalities should be occupied by his troops, and held till Turkey guaranteed to Russia "the rights and privileges of all kinds which have been granted by the Sultan to his Greek subjects.”† On the 31st of May Nesselrode wrote to Reschid Pasha that Russian troops would cross the Pruth, and on the 2nd of June Admiral Dundas was ordered to proceed with the Mediterranean squadron to Besika Bay. The French fleet was ordered to go there also, and the allied squadrons made their appearance in Turkish waters about the same time. ‡ The quarrel up till now had been one between France and Russia. It was thus suddenly transformed into one between France and England on the one side and Russia on the other. On the 2nd of July Prince Gortschakoff entered the Principalities; and then Austria, which had selfishly held aloof, became nervous as to the control of the Danube, and manifested a desire to act with the Western Powers. Turkey was advised not to treat Russian aggression on the Principalities as a casus belli, and the Porte met it with a protest, though it was very nearly forced by its fanatical Moslem subjects to declare war. In England the Government was condemned for its extreme reticence in Parliament as to the turn affairs were taking; and up to this point the Cabinet certainly committed three blunders. In the first place, they permitted Lord Stratford to encourage the Porte to resist Russia, without having come to a clear and definite determination to support that resistance by force, if Russia proved unbending. Secondly, they relied too much on Count Nesselrode's smooth, pacific assurances after they knew, or ought to have known, from Prince Menschikoff's proposal of a secret treaty to the Porte, and from the warlike demonstration on the Moldavian frontier,§ that these assurances were illusory. Thirdly, they did not meet the proposal for a secret treaty and the demonstration on the frontier by ordering Dundas to Besika Bay, and they met the occupation of the Principalities by sending Dundas, not to the Black Sea, but only to Besika Bay. Lord Aberdeen's

*Russia argued that she might fairly exercise the same kind of protectorate that France had always asserted over Roman Catholics and England over Protestants in Turkey. Against this it was urged that there was a difference in degree between the two cases which amounted to a difference in kind, for, whereas the Catholic and Protestant subjects of the Sultan were only a few thousands, his Creek subjects were 12,000,000.

† Official Note of the Porte to the Powers, 28th of May.

On the 1st of June Menschikoff's Note of the 18th of May, intimating his withdrawal from Constantinople and threatening Turkey with coercion, arrived in London.

§ It would have been also more candid at this juncture to have warned Russia that England would object to any actual invasion of the Principalities, before the resources of European diplomacy were exhausted.

apologists allege that the latter step would have caused Russia to occupy Constantinople. That is a feeble defence, for subsequent events showed that Russia could not even mobilise enough troops to hold the Principalities against the Turks. The English Government did enough to irritate the Czar, and though they did not do enough to check him, they did too much to enable them to extricate themselves with honour from the quarrel.

Something, however, had to be done for the Porte, after it had, at the

bidding of England and France, refrained from defending the Principalities, which were in its dominions. A Conference of the Powers was therefore assembled at Vienna, on the 24th of June, to arrive at a pacific solution of the difficulty, and on the 31st they adopted the Vienna Note, which has become famous in European history. It was sent to Russia and Turkey for acceptance as a settlement which, in the opinion of Europe, would be equally honourable and fair to both. The Czar accepted it promptly on the 10th of August. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, in his official capacity, advised Turkey to accept it; but he played his Government false, by plainly indicating his personal objections to it. The Porte acted on his private advice, and refused to accept the Note unless it were modified. Turkey thus dashed all hopes of peace by repudiating the advice of the Powers, and, by thus putting herself in the wrong, she put Russia in the right.