FOOTNOTES:
See p. [635-6].
See p. [639].
Between 1846 and 1874 the Conservatives were only in power for four years in all.
See p. [664].
CHAPTER XLI.
THE DAYS OF PALMERSTON.
1852-65.
Expectations of peace.—The Exhibition of 1851.
The time which followed the quieting down of England and Europe after the turbulent years 1848 and 1849, was perhaps the most peaceful which the century had known. The English people, overjoyed to find that Chartism was but a bugbear and Irish rebellion a farce, had settled down to enjoy what they trusted would prove a long spell of tranquil prosperity. There was no great political question pending at home, since the Corn Laws were gone, and the Whigs had refused to take up any Radical programme. The continent was quiet, though its stillness only resulted from the dying down for a space of the flames of rebellion in Italy, Germany, and Hungary, where embers still smouldered beneath the apparent deadness of the surface, and only needed a fresh stirring to make them break out again into a blaze. This fact was not appreciated in England, and the year 1851 saw the high-water mark of a vague and optimistic belief that the troubles of the world were over, and a reign of good-fellowship and brotherly affection among nations about to begin. When the Prince Consort opened the first great International Exhibition in Hyde Park in the May of that year, much wild and visionary talk was heard about the end of war, and the advent of an era when all disputes should be settled by arbitration. No expectation was ever more ill-founded. After forty years of comparative peace, since the fall of Napoleon, the continent was just about to see the commencement of a series of four great wars, and England—whose soldiers had not fired a shot in Europe since Waterloo—was not to be without her share in them.
Steam navigation.
The English people were far from guessing this. Nearly all their attention had been given to matters of domestic policy for the last forty years, and no one thought that other topics were now to engross them. But before passing on to the Crimean war and the struggles that followed it, a few words are needed to show how the England of 1852 differed from the England of the days before the Reform Bill. The first and most striking change visible was the enormous development of the means of internal communication in the land. In 1832 the application of steam to locomotive engines alike on water and on land was just beginning to grow common. The first steam-tug had been seen on the Clyde as far back as 1802, but no serious attempt to utilize the discovery on a large scale, and for long voyages, was made for many years. It was only after 1830 that the steamer began steadily to supersede the sailing-ship for ordinary commercial purposes. But within a few years after that date all passenger traffic was carried on the new paddle-steamer, and a large share of the goods traffic also. It was a sign of the indifference of the nation to things military during the years of the great peace, that ships of war remained unaltered long after the advantages of steam had been discovered. A few small vessels were fitted with paddle-wheels about 1840, and took part in the bombardment of Acre. But even in 1854 most of the line-of-battle ships of Great Britain were still of the old type that Nelson had loved, and depended on their sail power alone.
Growth of railways.
The utilization of steam for locomotion by land had started in the humble shape of the employment of small engines to drag trucks of coal and stone on local tramways at the slowest of paces. After lingering for some thirty years in this embryo stage, it was suddenly and rapidly developed by George Stephenson, a clever north-country engineer. The first railway on which passengers were conveyed, and merchandise of all kinds carried, was a short line between the two towns of Stockton and Darlington, built by Stephenson's advice in 1825. It was not till five years later that the success of the Stockton and Darlington railway led to the construction of a second and greater venture of the same kind, the Liverpool and Manchester railway, opened in 1830. This line achieved an unhappy notoriety owing to the fact that Huskisson, the Tory Free-Trade minister, was killed by the first train that ran upon it. Though the early railways were slow and inconvenient—their average pace was eight miles an hour, and their carriages were converted stage-coaches, strapped on to trucks—they soon conquered the public confidence, though old-fashioned persons refused for many years to trust themselves to the new-fangled and dangerous mode of locomotion. Between 1830 and 1840 the companies began to multiply rapidly, and in 1844-45 there was a perfect mania for railway construction, and schemes were formed to run lines through every corner of England, whether they were likely to pay or not. Many of these plans were never carried out, others were executed and ruined those who invested in them. But the temporary depression which followed this over-speculation had no long continuance, and the competition of the companies with each other was always increasing the rapidity and comfort of railway travelling. By 1852 it had taken its place among the commonplaces of life, and had profoundly modified the condition of England in several ways. The habit of travelling for pleasure which it begot and fostered, the safe, cheap, and quick transportation of goods which it rendered possible, and the easy transfer of labour from market to market which it favoured, have all had their share in the making of modern England.
The Penny Post and the Telegraph.
A part only second to that of the railway in modifying the character and habits of the English people was played by two other inventions of the forties. The Penny Post, introduced by the efforts of Rowland Hill in 1840 into every corner of the kingdom, and superseding the old rates which ranged up to many shillings, had a marvellous effect in facilitating communication. To supplement it by a yet more rapid process, the first public Telegraph offices were opened in 1843; but, for many years after, this invention was in the hands of private companies, and was too dear to suit the pocket of the ordinary citizen, who preferred to trust to his letter sent by the Penny Post.
The Factory Acts.
Meanwhile many other characteristic features of modern English social life were rapidly developing themselves. We have mentioned the misery of the operative classes in the great towns in an earlier chapter. The first efforts to amend their condition date from the years 1832-52. Philanthropists, of whom Lord Shaftesbury was the best known, strove unceasingly to put an end to the worst horrors of the new industrial system. In 1833 acts were passed to prevent mill-owners from working children in their factories for more than half-time. In 1844 Sir Robert Peel put women under the same protection, prohibited lads under eighteen from being given more than twelve hours' labour, and appointed inspectors to go round the factories and see that the law was carried out. The Mines Act of 1842 prohibited women and children from working underground, and a second Mines Act of 1850 put all subterranean labour under government inspection. This benevolent legislation was mainly due to the Tories, for the Liberals, wedded to the principles of strict political economy, were loth to interfere between employer and workman, and generally urged that matters ought to be allowed to right themselves by the laws of supply and demand.
Trades Unions.
A not less effective means of protection for the operative classes was devised by the workmen themselves. Trades Unions became possible after the laws prohibiting combination of labourers had been repealed in 1824, though governments, both Whig and Tory, still looked upon them with much suspicion and disapproval, and occasionally suppressed them under the plea that they were secret societies for coercing free labour. Strikes, then as now, were often accompanied with violence and rioting, and it had not yet been realized that they might often be justified. But in spite of the frowns of those in authority, the Unions were continually growing in number and in power all through the middle of the century, though they had not yet assumed the inquisitorial and dictatorial tone which they have adopted in our own day, and were still defensive rather than offensive in their character.
The state of the Church.
While social England was thus assuming its modern shape, the chief factors of the spiritual and intellectual life of the present day were also coming into being. To the period 1832-52 belongs the rise of both of the movements which have stirred the minds of men during the last fifty years. In the early years of the century the condition of the Church of England was very unsatisfactory. The only body within its pale who displayed any zeal or true spiritual life were the Evangelicals, the heirs of the men who had been stirred by the preaching of the contemporaries of Wesley. [63] But they were not a very numerous body, for their general acceptance of the harshest doctrines of Calvinism repelled the majority; moreover, they were destitute of organization, for they worked to increase the religious fervour of the individual soul, not to reform the Church. Yet the Church needed reforming; its higher ranks were still filled by "Greek-play bishops" and promoted royal chaplains; the bulk of the parish clergy, though genial honest men, were neither learned, zealous, nor spiritual-minded, differing often only by the colour of their coats from the squires with whom they associated. The worst part of the situation was that the new masses of the population in the great towns were slipping out of religious habits altogether, owing to the want of missionary zeal among their pastors, and the deplorable dearth of religious endowment in the new centres of life.
The "Broad- Church" movement.
The reaction against the deadness of the national Church took shape in two new forms. The first was the "Broad-Church" movement, started by men who wished to broaden and popularize the Church by bringing its teaching into accordance with the latest discoveries in science and in history, and by giving it a basis on philosophy rather than on dogma. The first great name in this school was Archbishop Whately (1787-1863); he and his contemporaries laid more stress on logic and philosophy than did the younger generation of Broad Churchmen, who devoted themselves more to reconciling science and religion, and to bringing to bear on the history of Christianity new historical and scientific lights. They only agreed in setting dogma aside, advocating the widest freedom of opinion, and preaching the application of the spirit of Christianity to the everyday acts and duties of life.
The Tractarian movement.
Very different were the views and aims of the other party in the Church which arose in the years between 1830 and 1840. The new High-Church school thought that the deadness of spiritual life in their day came from a neglect of dogma and a want of appreciation of the unity and historical continuity of the Church of England. Most men then held that the national Church only dated from the Reformation, and that the Bible was the only basis of its doctrines. Against these views the leaders of the new school—the Oxford movement as it was called, because its three leaders, John Henry Newman, John Keble, and Edward Pusey, were all resident Fellows of Oxford colleges—entered an emphatic protest. They said that the Church of 1835 was the Church of Anselm and Augustine, and that those who wished to make it the Church of Henry VIII. and to cut it off from its place in the unity of Christendom, were guilty of national apostacy. They taught that it was still bound to hold all the dogmas and usages which could be traced back to the days of the early Fathers. Most especially they laid stress on two doctrines of which little had been heard since the days of the Stuarts—the Real Presence in the Sacrament, and the sacrificial priesthood of the clergy. Newman started a series of "Tracts for the Times," to which his friends and followers contributed; they urged that submission to authority in matters doctrinal, and a return to the ritual and practice of the early Church could alone revivify English spiritual life. Unfortunately, it was impossible to find any universally received authority to which to appeal, since Low Churchmen and Broad Churchmen alike denied the first postulates of the Tractarian creed, and fell back on the Thirty-nine Articles and the practice of the last two centuries as the only standard of faith and ceremony that they would recognize. They added that those who yearned after mediaeval doctrine and ritual were mere disguised Romanists, and would find what they wanted in Popery alone.
Newman's secession.
A storm of wrath was directed against the new High-Churchmen, who were denounced as Jesuits and false brethren. Most of all was the outcry loud when Newman in 1841 wrote a pamphlet to prove that by certain ingenious interpretations of loosely worded portions of the Thirty-nine Articles, a man might hold all the leading doctrines of Rome and yet stay inside the English Church. This curious production was a tour de force which, as he afterwards confessed, did not satisfy his own conscience. He retired from teaching for awhile, and then seceded to the Romanist communion, where alone he felt that he could realize his desire to belong to a Church undoubtedly orthodox and enjoying a right to speak with authority [1845]. Many of his more zealous adherents followed him, at intervals, in the next ten years.
The High- Church party.
But the bulk of the Tractarians felt sure that the Church of England was a true branch of the Catholic Church and remained within it, gradually conquering the tolerance of their contemporaries by their undoubted zeal and purity of motive. Ere long they acquired a strong position, as their doctrines were very acceptable to the clergy, while the admirable life and work of men like Keble gradually won over many of the laity to their views. To the new High-Church party we owe much good work in neglected parishes, and a restoration of decency and order in public worship, which was a great improvement on the careless and slovenly practice of the eighteenth century. Their efforts led to a revival of interest in Church history and ecclesiastical antiquities. Their influence made the clergy as a body more spiritual and more hard-working. But for a time the Tractarian controversy split England into two hostile camps, and the eccentric mediaevalism of the "Ritualists"—those of the party who strove to restore the forgotten minutiae of pre-Reformation ceremonies—drove Low and Broad Churchmen into extreme wrath. Even yet the breach is not healed, and the Church is divided, though the old bitterness has been forgotten to a great extent in the last ten years. But the net result of the movement has been to substitute zeal—if sometimes the zeal was without discretion—for deadness, and the Church of to-day is far stronger and more powerful than the Church of 1830.
The Nonconformists.
The most unhappy result of the movement has been to drive the Nonconformists, to whom High-Church doctrine was particularly repulsive, into a deeper antagonism to the Church than they ever felt before. Hence Dissent has become political, putting the disestablishment of the Church of England before it as one of the ends of its work, side by side with its spiritual aims.
The Ecclesiastical Titles Bill.
The fear that the Tractarian movement would lead to widespread conversions to Romanism turned out to be unjustified. Though a considerable number followed Newman in the forties, the stream soon slackened. Yet for some years the nation was nervously anxious about "Papal aggression," and in 1850, when the Pope issued a Bull which appointed a hierarchy of bishops and archbishops to preside over English sees, the government of Lord John Russell passed an "Ecclesiastical Titles Bill," imposing penalties on all who acknowledged the validity of the Bull. But the excitement died down, and nothing was done to enforce the act.
State of the political parties.
Meanwhile, if the social and intellectual history of England was interesting, its purely political history was for some years both dull and perplexing. On the fall of the Russell cabinet in the spring of 1852, owing to the quarrel between the prime minister and his masterful Foreign Secretary, Palmerston, English politics were left in a confused and unsatisfactory condition, for there was no party strong enough to command a majority in the country. The Tories were still split into two sections. Sir Robert Peel was dead, killed by a fall from his horse in St. James's Park on July 2, 1850, but his followers still clung together under Lord Aberdeen and Mr. Gladstone, and refused to hold any communication with that larger half of the Conservative party which since Lord George Bentinck's death was led by Disraeli and Lord Derby. The question of Protection still lay between them; but a far more real bar to union was their personal dislike for each other, dating back to the hard words used in 1846 over the Corn Laws. Now that the Liberal party had been for a moment broken up by the quarrel of Russell and Palmerston, there were four factions in the House, each of which was largely outnumbered by the junction of the other three.
Lord Derby's ministry.
It was difficult to see who should be Lord John Russell's successor, but after some doubting the Queen sent for Lord Derby, one of the chiefs of the Protectionist Tories, and asked him to form a cabinet. He complied, knowing that he could not hold office for long, unless a general election should change the balance of parties in Parliament. Hence followed the short Conservative ministry of March-December, 1852, whose tenure of office was marked by only two events of importance,—the death of the Duke of Wellington on September 14, which removed the last great figure that reminded men of the days of the old wars of George III., and the proclamation of Louis Napoleon as Emperor of the French on December 1. The policy of the Derby-Disraeli ministry was only notable as showing that even the Tory section of the Conservative party had learned something from the events of the last six years. They did not make any open attempt to reintroduce Protection, and Disraeli's budget as Chancellor of the Exchequer was only remarkable for an effort to substitute direct for indirect taxation, in opposition to the strict rules of Political Economy.
The general election, which presented the only chance of salvation for this weak Tory cabinet, disappointed them deeply. They gained a few seats, but not nearly enough to enable them to secure a majority in the new House of Commons, and had to resign shortly after meeting Parliament.
The Peelites and the Whigs.
To secure any permanent cabinet a coalition was obviously necessary, and on Lord Derby's resignation the natural result followed. The Peelite Conservatives consented to join the Whigs, and thereby a party with a clear majority was formed. There was nothing strange or at all unworthy in this coalition; the more advanced Conservatives were not separated by any great gulf from men like Palmerston, and those other Whigs who thought that reform and change had now gone far enough, and that the constitution needed no further alteration. Both alike believed in Free Trade; both were zealous for the safe-guarding of English interests abroad; both were opposed to the radical reforms which the more advanced wing of the Liberal party were advocating. The Peelites and the moderate Whigs were indeed more at home with each other than with the more extreme men of their own parties. Ere long they coalesced, and—as is always the case—the larger body absorbed the smaller, so that Aberdeen, Gladstone, and their followers became ranked as Liberals.
Lord Aberdeen's ministry.
In the new ministry Lord Aberdeen was chosen as prime minister; Gladstone, the great financier of the Peelite party, was made Chancellor of the Exchequer; Russell and Palmerston patched up their old quarrel for a space, and took office as Home and Foreign Secretaries; the other posts were equally divided between the two sections of the coalition. This cabinet, created by a compromise, and not viewed with any great enthusiasm by the nation, was destined to chance upon the gravest foreign complication that England had known for forty years.
Louis Napoleon.—Designs of the Czar Nicholas.
The disturbing elements in Europe at this moment were two in number. The first was the new Emperor of the French, who felt his throne unsteady, and thought that it could be best made firm by a war; for, as a Bonaparte, he felt that great deeds of arms were expected from him. He was at first undecided in his choice of a foe, but events in the East of Europe soon settled his resolve. Czar Nicholas of Russia had long been eyeing the decrepit Turkish empire with greed. He was not satisfied with his gains in the war of 1828, and thought that his vast army could overrun Turkey with ease, if he could be sure that no other European power would interfere. He knew that an attack on Turkey might be resented by England, France, and Austria; but he was prepared to buy them off with a share in the spoil. His point of view was well expressed in the phrases which he used to an English ambassador in 1853: "We have on our hands a sick man—a very sick man; it would be a great misfortune if, one of these days, he should slip away from us before the necessary arrangements have been made." Adding that Turkey must break up ere long, he offered England, as her share in the spoil, Crete and Egypt. Of course the offer was refused, and the indications of the Czar's state of mind on the subject were viewed with some dismay.
The Greek and Latin Churches.—Russia prepares for war.
The nominal casus belli in the East was a trivial quarrel between Greek and Latin monks in Palestine. There were some disputed rights in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, and the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem, to which both Roman Catholics and Greek Churchmen have access. "All the bloodshed came from a key and a star," as was said at the time, the former being the key of the Holy Sepulchre, of which the Greek and Latin patriarchs both claimed the custody, the latter a large emblem that hung over the altar at Bethlehem. When Russia used her power in favour of the Greeks, Louis Napoleon, eager to assert the influence of France in the East, replied by supporting the Latins. Both threatened the unfortunate Sultan with their displeasure, and when he decided in favour of the Romanists, the Czar proceeded to strong measures of coercion. He demanded that the Sultan should recognize him as the legal protector and guardian of all the Greek Christians within the Turkish empire, a preposterous request, for to grant it would have been equivalent to giving Russia control over the whole of European Turkey. Prince Mentchikoff, a stern and blustering old general, was sent to Constantinople to bring pressure to bear on the Sultan, and soon after, Czar Nicholas sent his armies over the Pruth and occupied Moldavia and Wallachia, two vassal states of Turkey (July, 1853).
Palmerston and Sir Stratford Canning.
Now, England had no interest in the foolish quarrel about the key and the star, but she was deeply concerned at the occupation of Turkish territory by Russian troops, which foreboded a dash at Constantinople, and an attempt to make an end of the Sultan's rule in Europe. The Aberdeen cabinet had no intention to go to war with Russia, but they could not suffer the Czar's aggression to pass unnoticed, and sent off Sir Stratford Canning, an able diplomatist, who knew the East better than any other living Englishman, to counteract the doings of Prince Mentchikoff on the Bosphorus. Stratford Canning was an old enemy of Russia, and much trusted by the Sultan, who put himself under his advice, and rejected all the demands of Russia. France at the same time bade the Sultan stand his ground, for the Emperor was set on gaining prestige by checking Russia, and quite ready to make war if the Czar would not yield. Palmerston strongly advised Stratford Canning to act vigorously on the same lines as the French ambassador at Constantinople, and thus England was gradually drawn into a hostile attitude towards Russia, before Lord Aberdeen and the rest of the ministry had realized the drift of the action of their energetic colleague at the Foreign Office.
Russia declares war on Turkey.
The Czar was obstinate, and determined not to yield an inch to the threats of Palmerston or Louis Napoleon; he thought England would not fight, and he despised the brand-new Emperor at Paris. On November 1, 1853, he declared war on Turkey, and a few days later his troops crossed the Danube, while his fleet destroyed a Turkish squadron at Sinope, and got complete control of the Black Sea.
England and France join the Turks.
This violent action put the Aberdeen cabinet in great perturbation of spirit; they did not want to declare war on Russia; yet they had gone so far in opposing the Czar, that they could not retire from their position without deep humiliation. Even yet they might have drawn back, if Lord Palmerston had not threatened to resign unless strong measures were taken. Yielding to him, the ministers consented to join the French Emperor in sending an ultimatum to St. Petersburg, menacing war unless the Russian troops were withdrawn from Turkish soil. Nicholas I. proved recalcitrant, and only ordered his armies to press the sieges of the fortresses of Bulgaria which they were beleaguering. Accordingly England and France declared war on him on March 27, 1854.
Want of military preparations in England.
Thus England had been drawn into a dangerous struggle with the most powerful monarch in Europe, before her ministers well realized what they were doing. She was utterly unprepared for war. The army was weak in numbers, and had been woefully neglected for the last forty years. It had seen no fighting with a European foe since Waterloo, and had quite lost the habit of taking the field. Accustomed to barrack life in England, the men found themselves entirely at a loss when landed on the shores of the Black Sea, and showed little power to shift for themselves. A great proportion of the officers were ignorant of all their duties, save that of facing the enemy with the old English courage. The commissariat service and the other branches of supply proved hopelessly incompetent to keep the army well fed or well clothed. To add to the other misfortunes of England, the leaders of the army were unwisely chosen. The command was given to Lord Raglan, an amiable but worn-out veteran of sixty-six, who had served as Wellington's aide-de-camp in Spain; many of the divisional commanders owed their place to influence or interest, rather than to proved competence in war. Sir Colin Campbell, who had won a great reputation in India, was one of the few among them who thoroughly deserved his place.
Sebastopol to be attacked.
With some difficulty, an expeditionary force of 28,000 men was collected and sent to the East; they landed at Varna, on the Black Sea, and joined a French army of about the same strength. But it was found that they were not needed on the Danube. The Turks had already thrust the Russians out of Bulgaria, and the Czar's forces were in retreat towards the Pruth. It thus became necessary to settle on some plan of offensive operations against Russia, which the English and French governments had not hitherto contemplated. Russia is only open to attack from the water on two points, the Baltic and the Black Sea, and the allies were almost committed to making their main attack on the latter field, as they had already sent their armies in that direction. It was resolved, therefore, to despatch a powerful fleet to the Baltic to threaten St. Petersburg, but to confine serious operations to the Black Sea. There the easiest point of attack was the great naval fortress of Sebastopol, in the Crimea, the stronghold and arsenal of the Russian fleet. Its destruction would inflict a great blow on the Czar, and its capture seemed easy owing to its remoteness from the centres of Russian strength.
Accordingly the allied armies, somewhat more than 50,000 strong, sailed from Varna on September 7, 1854, and landed on the western shore of the Crimea, thirty miles north of Sebastopol, a few days later. The expedition was very late in starting; it should have sailed in July, and would then have found the Russians unprepared. As it was, Prince Mentchikoff, now commanding in the Crimea, had got wind of the intention of the allies, and hastily taken measures to strengthen his position.
Battle of the Alma.
Advancing very slowly towards Sebastopol, the English and French armies found Mentchikoff with 40,000 men drawn up behind the river Alma, in a lofty position strengthened with entrenchments. The allied generals won the battle that ensued, but their victory was not the reward of their own good generalship. Raglan and the French general St. Arnaud did not get on well together, and the latter showed from the first a tendency to throw the heavier work of the campaign on the English. Half of the French army executed a long flank march by the sea-shore, and never fired a shot in the action. The remaining half allowed themselves to be checked for some time by the Russian left wing, a force of very inferior strength. Meanwhile the English advanced against the hostile centre and right; their front line outran its supports, crossed the river with a rush, and captured the chief redoubt on the opposite bank. But, assailed by the main body of the enemy, it was compelled to fall back, and the heights had to be stormed for a second time by the belated English reserves, which came up at last and swept all before them. Thus the fight was won, without any co-operation from the two commanders-in-chief: for St. Arnaud was too ill to follow the fortunes of the day; while Lord Raglan had blindly ridden forward, lost touch with his men, and blundered by mistake into the rear of the Russian position, where he might easily have been taken prisoner (September 20, 1854).
As the French, who had done hardly any fighting, refused to pursue, while the English were worn out, the Russian army got away without being completely destroyed, though the deadly musketry of the English infantry had fearfully thinned its ranks. The allies followed at a very slow pace; if they had hurried on they might have captured Sebastopol at once. But St. Arnaud was dying, and Lord Raglan could not goad the French into action. Even when they approached the fortress, an extraordinary caution and lack of enterprise was displayed. Mentchikoff had retired into the interior with his army, and left the town to an improvised garrison of sailors and militia, so that it could probably have been stormed offhand.
SEBASTOPOL.
1854.
The siege of Sebastopol.
But the allies sat down before the place to besiege it in full form, and allowed the great engineer Todleben to cover its weak defences with a screen of improvised earthworks which daily grew more formidable. Mentchikoff came back with his army when he saw that Sebastopol could resist, and as Russian reinforcements kept pouring in, the defenders soon outnumbered the beleaguering force.
The position of the English and French grew daily more unsatisfactory. They were only blockading the southern half of the town, for they were not numerous enough to encircle the two sides of Sebastopol harbour. They had chosen to occupy the bleak peninsula of the Chersonese, where neither food nor fodder could be got, and had no power to make raids into the interior for supplies. The English had to bring their stores up from the small harbour of Balaclava, six miles from the trenches, and much exposed to the danger of an attack from the east.
Balaclava.—The Charge of the Six Hundred.
Finding that the bombardment by land and sea was doing no harm, and seeing that they were gradually beginning to outnumber the besiegers, the Russians resolved to make an attack against the English communications. The battle of Balaclava resulted from an attempt made by a large hostile force to seize Balaclava, which was only protected by two weak brigades of English cavalry, 1500 sabres in all, a single regiment of Highland infantry, and 3000 Turks. General Liprandi, with 20,000 men, came down towards the harbour, drove the Turkish auxiliaries from some weak redoubts, and pushed onward. His advance was stopped by the gallant charge of General Scarlett's brigade of dragoons, led by the Scots Greys and Inniskillens, who rode down a force of three times their own numbers, and gave the English commander time to hurry up reinforcements from his siege-lines. The Russians, staggered by the desperate attack of the "Heavy Brigade," halted, and began to draw back. Then occurred a dismal blunder: Lord Raglan sent orders for the remainder of the English cavalry, the "Light Brigade," to "advance and prevent the enemy from carrying off the guns," meaning the guns in the redoubts which the Turks had lost in the morning. Lord Lucan, the chief of the English cavalry, stupidly or wilfully misunderstood the order, and sent the Light Brigade to charge a battery in position which formed the centre of the Russian host. Accordingly the five weak regiments of light cavalry—only 670 sabres in all—which formed Lord Cardigan's brigade, deliberately and without supports attacked a whole army. They rode for a mile and a half through a tempest of shells and bullets, captured the Russian battery, routed the troops in support of it, and then—for want of help from the rear—were forced to retreat by the same way they had come, through a second hail of fire. Out of the famous "Six Hundred," 113 had been killed, and 134 wounded. The charge was absolutely useless, for Lord Raglan did not proceed to follow it up by an infantry attack, though the Russians had been greatly cowed by the frantic courage of the Light Brigade, and would certainly have made off if they had been threatened with more fighting. So the battle ended unsatisfactorily for both parties; for though Balaclava was saved, yet the Russians remained in a position which constantly threatened it with a new attack (October 25).
Battle of Inkerman.
Prince Mentchikoff was far from being discouraged by the result of the fight, and, when fresh reinforcements joined him, resolved to try another assault on the right flank of the English. This time it was their siege-lines which were to be attacked under cover of the night. Two great columns, mustering more than 40,000 men, secretly assembled opposite the extreme right of the English lines, one coming from Sebastopol, the other from the open country. A thick fog completely hid them from the English, and they were attacking the camp of the second division almost before their arrival was suspected. There followed the fight of Inkerman, "the soldiers' battle," as it was called, for the men, surprised in their tents, turned out without orders and almost without guidance, and flung themselves recklessly on the advancing enemy. Arriving in scattered companies and wings, each regiment attacked the first foe it met, and for six hours a desperate fight went on all over Mount Inkerman. In the fog no one knew where or with what numbers he was fighting, but the general result of the battle was all that could have been desired. Every time that the dark masses of the enemy surged up against the crest of the English position, they were dashed down the hillside by the desperate valour of the thin line of defenders. When towards midday some French reinforcements came up, the Russians withdrew, leaving the ground covered with their dead. It was only when the fight was over that the victors realized that 8000 English, aided late in the day by 6000 French, had defeated an army of more than 40,000 men, and slain or wounded more than 10,000 of them. The heavy English loss of 2300 men was not too great a price to pay for the self-confidence and feeling of superiority over their enemies which the victory of Inkerman gave to the conquerors (November 5, 1854).
Sufferings of the troops.
Sebastopol might perhaps have fallen if vigorously attacked the day after Inkerman, but the English and French commanders did not call on their wearied troops for another effort, and the siege dragged on into the winter with the most disastrous results. The army had only been equipped for a short campaign, and no account had been made of the bitter cold of the Crimea. All the commissariat horses and mules died, and the supplies had to be brought up from Balaclava for six miles on the backs of the wearied soldiery. Food ran short, the flimsy tents gave no shelter against the storms and snow, and the men were stricken down in hundreds by cold and disease. An unlucky storm sank the ships which were bringing warm clothing, and in January, 1855, Lord Raglan had to report to London that the army comprised 11,000 men under arms and 13,000 in hospital. The French suffered hardly less, but the Emperor continued sending out reinforcements, which kept up their numbers, while the English army had no reserves, and could not be quickly recruited.
Resignation of Lord Aberdeen.
When the miserable state of the army in the Crimea became known in England, owing mainly to the reports of newspaper correspondents, a howl of wrath was raised against the men who were responsible for the want and starvation which our troops were enduring. Part of the misery, it is true, was due merely to the inexperience of the English in war; but much more was owing to the inconsiderate slackness and folly of the home authorities, who were responsible for feeding and clothing the army. Almost incredible tales are told of the combination of parsimony and extravagance, red-tape and ignorance, which ruined our army. The nation called for scapegoats, and, in deference to its clamour, the prime minister, Lord Aberdeen, and the war minister, the Duke of Newcastle, resigned their offices. They were only guilty of being unable to control their inefficient and ignorant subordinates.
Lord Palmerston premier.
When Lord Aberdeen retired, he was succeeded by the brisk and vigorous Palmerston, the soul of the war-party, who managed to infuse a share of his own energy into the struggle. Supplies and recruits were poured into the Crimea; a railway was built from Balaclava to the front; and the hospitals, where the sick and wounded were dying by thousands, were reformed, and entrusted with success to Florence Nightingale and her volunteer nurses, who came out to supplement the inadequate staff that the government had provided.
Victor Emmanuel joins the allies.
Soon the English had nearly 40,000 men in the Crimea, while the French Emperor had raised his troops to 100,000. Further aid was given to the allies by Sardinia, whose king Victor Emmanuel, following the old tradition of the house of Savoy, was eager to take part on the stronger side in a great war. His object was partly to gain the gratitude of France, partly to display the strength of his warlike little kingdom in the councils of Europe.
Death of the Czar Nicholas.
The Russians were now feeling the war bear hardly upon them. Their supplies and reinforcements had to be brought from vast distances, and there were as yet no railways—or even good roads—over the steppes of Southern Russia. So toilsome was the winter march to the Crimea, that a quarter of the troops sent thither are said to have fallen by the way. The Czar Nicholas died on March 2, heart-broken by the utter failure of his armies; but his successor, Alexander II., was too proud to ask for peace on such terms as the allies offered—negotiations at Vienna for this purpose completely failed. The young Czar was induced to persevere only by the obstinate courage with which the garrison of Sebastopol held out, guided by the great engineer Todleben, who had so strengthened the defences of the place that nothing but a few outlying redoubts had yet fallen into the allies' hands.
Fall of Sebastopol.
On June 18, 1855, the allies tried a general assault on the fortress, which failed with heavy loss. Soon after Lord Raglan died, worn out by responsibility and by the knowledge that he was much criticized at home. He was replaced by General Simpson: the French commander Canrobert was at the same time superseded by Marshal Pélissier, a rough soldier who did not err from over-caution like his predecessor. On September 8, the new leaders ordered a general assault on the eastern front of Sebastopol, the French taking as their goal the Malakoff, and the English the Redan, two forts which formed the keys of the line of defence. The English assault was beaten off; though the stormers actually got inside the Redan, they were too few to hold their ground. But Pélissier launched more than 20,000 men against the Malakoff, and carried it by a bold rush. The loss of this all-important fort broke the Russians' line; in the following night they set fire to Sebastopol and retired across the harbour, abandoning the town to the allies.
The Treaty of Paris.
After this disaster the Czar was forced to bow to circumstances, and sued for peace. This the Emperor of the French was ready to grant on easy terms, for he was satisfied with the prestige that he had acquired by his victory, and did not wish to make Russia his enemy for ever. England was desirous of going on with the war, to make a thorough end of the aggressive and despotic empire of the Czars. But when her ally refused to continue the struggle, she was forced to join in the general pacification, though Palmerston declared that Russia was only scotched, and would be as powerful as ever in ten years—a true prophecy. By the treaty of Paris (March, 1856) the Czar engaged to cede to Turkey a small strip of territory at the mouth of the Danube, to keep no war-fleet in the Black Sea, and to leave Sebastopol dismantled. The Sultan undertook to grant new rights and liberties to his Christian subjects—a promise most inadequately fulfilled. The opportunity was taken, at the same time, to settle an old and long-disputed question of maritime law. England and the other powers agreed for the future that privateering in time of war should be abolished, and that the neutral flag should cover all goods from seizure, except military stores and other munitions of war.
The peace of Paris settled nothing. The late war had disabled Russia for ten or fifteen years, and the Eastern question did not begin to grow dangerous again till after 1870. But Turkey was no stronger for all the support that she had received; the Sultan's government was hopelessly effete, and when next Russia began to move, the doom of the Turkish power in Europe was near at hand.
Supremacy of Palmerston.
But few men in England understood that the Eastern question had only been shelved for a few years. Proud of the valour which the army had displayed, and fondly hoping that the weak points of our military system had now been discovered and remedied, the nation gave all its confidence to the minister who had brought the war to what was considered a successful conclusion. Palmerston stayed in power for the remaining ten years of his life, save for one short interval in 1858-59. He was, as we have already had occasion to remark, less fond of constitutional changes than any other man in the Whig party. He thought that little more remained to be done in matters of internal reform, and used his influence to check the more progressive members of his cabinet. As long as he held office, questions of domestic importance were entirely subordinated to matters of foreign policy.
Palmerston was right in thinking that our external relations were likely to be difficult and dangerous during the next few years. The selfish and unscrupulous designs of Louis Napoleon were a disturbing element in Europe so long as the Second Empire lasted, and a watchful eye was always needed to look after England's interests.
War with Persia.
Meanwhile there were other complications further afield which required attention. The Crimean war was hardly over before England found herself involved in two little wars in the East. One of them was a direct consequence of the great struggle with the Czar in 1854-55. While it was still in progress, the Shah of Persia had behaved with scant courtesy to the British minister at his court, thinking that England was too much engrossed in the strife in Europe to resent his conduct. Finally, he had invaded Afghanistan and taken Herat, though warned that such action meant war, for, as Persia was now under Russian influence, this advance toward India could not be tolerated. In the autumn of 1856 Lord Palmerston thought that England was at leisure to chastise the Persians. An army from India was landed at Bushire; it beat the Shah's troops at the battle of Kooshaub, and occupied most of the ports of Southern Persia. Thus brought to reason, Nasr-ud-din asked for peace, and obtained it on evacuating Herat (March, 1857). That he chose to sue for terms at this moment chanced to be most fortunate for England, for the army which returned from Persia was sorely needed in India, to take part in subduing the great mutiny in that country, which we shall have to notice in another chapter.
War with China.
The second little war in which the English were engaged in 1857 was with China. The mandarins of Canton had seized a small trading vessel, the Arrow, flying the British flag, and imprisoned the crew. Lord Palmerston never endured for a moment high-handed acts committed by a barbarous power. He declared war, sent an army and fleet against China, and seized first the forts which command Canton, and afterwards the more important Taku forts, which guard the way to Pekin up the Pei-Ho river. In the end the British troops, aided by a French force, compelled the Emperor of China to pay an indemnity of £4,000,000, and to open several ports to English commerce (1860). The length of the second Chinese war resulted from the distraction of the English arms to the great mutiny in India. If that struggle had not been raging, the forces of the effete Eastern power would have been crushed much sooner.
Attempted murder of Napoleon by Orsini.
Long before the end of this weary little war, the attention of the English government was called back to affairs in Europe. The disturbing element was Louis Napoleon, who was once more striving to win personal profit by fostering the old quarrels of other nations. He had half promised to do something to deliver the Italians from the bitter bondage to Austria which they had endured since 1848. But he was weak and vacillating, and dallied so long that some Italian exiles, headed by one Orsini, tried in revenge to murder him by throwing a bomb into his carriage.
The "Conspiracy to murder Bill."—Palmerston resigns.
This attempted assassination led, strange as it may appear, to the temporary displacement of Palmerston from power. Orsini had formed his plot and made his bombs in London, and the French government hotly pressed for the seizure and extradition of his accomplices, as would-be murderers. The prime minister, who wished to keep on good terms with the Emperor, replied by proposing to the English Parliament the "Conspiracy to Murder Bill," which placed political assassination-plots among the offences punishable by penal servitude for life, whether the crime took place in or out of England. But, unfortunately for Palmerston, the French press, and more especially the French army, were using at the time very threatening language, which was deeply resented on this side of the Channel. Special offence was given by an address to the Emperor by certain French colonels, which asked him to permit his army to "destroy the infamous haunt in which machinations so infernal are hatched." The opposition charged Palmerston with cringing to the angry clamour of France, though the Conspiracy Bill in itself was a rational measure enough. The unfounded charge shook for a moment the confidence which the nation and the House of Commons felt in the old minister. His bill was thrown out, and he resigned (February, 1858).
Lord Derby in office.—Disraeli's Reform Bill.
No Liberal ministry could be formed without Palmerston's aid; so the Queen sent for the Conservatives. Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli took office, as they had done in 1852, though they had not a majority in Parliament to back them. As on the previous occasion, their ministry was merely a stop-gap, doomed from the first to a speedy end. They clung to office till 1858 had passed by, and well into the following year. Disraeli, who was, as he said, trying hard to "educate his party," strove to win popular favour by showing that the Conservatives could be friends of domestic reform and progress as much as the Liberals. He brought in a Reform Bill, extending the household franchise both in town and country, but giving extra votes to persons of education and property. This very rational measure was greeted with derision by the Liberals, who called the new qualifications for voters which Disraeli wished to introduce "fancy franchises," and insisted on keeping to the old idea, which made householding alone the test of citizenship.
The Volunteer Movement.
The Reform Bill dropped, but the Conservatives, in their short term of power, conferred one great boon on the nation by encouraging and organizing the "Volunteer Movement." The angry language of the French army at the time of the Orsini plot had provoked both resentment and alarm in England. To guard against the peril of sudden invasion, it was felt that the small regular army and the militia were not numerous enough. Accordingly men of all classes came forward and formed themselves into volunteer corps, like the old levies of 1803. They undertook to arm and train themselves at their own expense, and to take the field for the defence of the realm, whenever peril of invasion should arise. The Derby government encouraged this patriotic scheme: 170,000 men were enrolled in the year 1859, and the Volunteer force, though at first it was hampered by the red tape of the War Office, and somewhat derided by the regulars, has taken a fixed and valuable place in the national line of defence.
Napoleon and the Italians.
Fortunately, the French scare had soon blown over. Louis Napoleon was scheming against Austria, not against England. The great Sardinian statesman Cavour had induced him to pledge himself to deliver Italy from its oppressors, and after much vacillation the Emperor declared war on Francis Joseph II., and sent his armies over the Alps. He beat the Austrians at Magenta and Solferino, and the Italians vainly hoped that he would aid them to set up a kingdom of United Italy. But he suddenly stopped short after rescuing Lombardy alone, and made peace with the Austrian enemy. Lombardy was united to Sardinia, but the selfish and greedy Emperor took Nice and Savoy from his own ally in return for his aid, and refused to free Central or Southern Italy. Abandoned by him, the Italians delivered themselves. Sudden insurrections drove out the foreign rulers of Tuscany, Parma, and Modena, and the hero Garibaldi expelled the Bourbons from Naples and Sicily. Thus a kingdom of Italy was created in spite of the French Emperor (1860-1). But he sent troops to Rome to guard the Pope, and would not permit Cavour and Garibaldi to complete their work by adding the ancient capital to the dominions of Victor Emmanuel.
Palmerston returns to power.
Long ere the Italian war was over, Lord Derby's Conservative government had been defeated, and had retired from office. Palmerston's doings of 1858 had quickly been forgiven and forgotten by the nation, and he returned to office, which he held till his death six years later.
The American civil war.
It was well that his strong and practised hand should be at the helm, for the years 1860-65 were full of delicate problems of foreign policy, which more than once brought England within measurable distance of war. A most formidable difficulty cropped up when the great civil war across the Atlantic broke out in 1861. The Southern States seceded from the Union, and proclaimed themselves independent under the name of the Confederate States of America. Their avowed reason for separating themselves from the North was that the Federal government, under Northern control, was infringing the rights of the individual States to self-government. But old sectional jealousies, and especially the fear of the Southern planters that the Northerners would interfere with their "great domestic institution," negro slavery, were really at the bottom of the quarrel.
Attitude of England.—Seizure of the "Trent."
English opinion was much divided on the subject of the American civil war. It was urged, on the one hand, that the North were fighting for the cause of liberty against slavery; and this idea affected many earnest-minded men to the exclusion of any other consideration. On the other side, it was urged that the Southern States were exercising an undoubted constitutional right in severing themselves from the Union, and this was true enough in itself. It was certain that the Southerners, who wished for Free Trade, were likely to be better friends of England than the protectionist North, which had always shown a bitter jealousy of English commerce. Many men were moved by the rather unworthy consideration that America was growing so strong and populous that she might one day become "the bully of the world," and welcomed a convulsion that threatened to split the Union into two hostile halves. Others illogically sympathized with the South merely because it was the weaker side, or because they thought the Southern planters better men than the hard and astute traders of the North. The Palmerston cabinet, with great wisdom, tried to steer a middle course and to avoid all interference. But when eleven powerful States joined in seceding, they thought themselves bound to recognize them as a belligerent power, and to treat them as a nation. This gave bitter offence to the North, and war nearly followed, for a United States cruiser in 1862 stopped the British steamer Trent, and took from her by force two envoys whom the Confederates were sending to Europe. This flagrant violation of the law of nations roused Lord Palmerston to vigorous action: he began sending troops to Canada, and demanded the restoration of the envoys Mason and Slidell under pain of war. President Lincoln and his advisers hesitated for a moment, but gave up their prisoners with a bad grace just as war seemed inevitable. Naturally this incident did not make the English people love the North any better.
The Alabama.
Another cause of friction was destined to give trouble long after the civil war had ended. The United States ambassador in London summoned the English government to prevent the sailing from Liverpool of a vessel called the Alabama, which, as he declared, had been bought by the Confederates, and was destined to be used by them as a war-ship. The cabinet were somewhat slow in ordering the detention of the Alabama, which hurriedly put to sea, and justified the fears of the American minister by seizing and burning many scores of Northern vessels. This damage to commerce was charged to the account of England by the government of President Lincoln, and probably they had some ground for accusing the English officials of slackness. The grudge was carefully nursed in America, and put to good use when the war was over.
The cotton famine.
But the most painful form in which the American quarrel affected England was the dreadful cotton famine in Lancashire, which set in as the year 1862 wore on. The English mills had always subsisted on the cotton of the Southern States, and when the strict blockade instituted by the Northerners sealed up New Orleans, Charleston, and the other cotton ports, England suffered terribly for the want of raw material to keep her mills going. The mill-hands bore the stoppage of their work and wages with great courage and resignation, but they lived for months on the verge of starvation. A disaster as great as the Irish potato famine of 1846 was only prevented by lavish private charity, which sent £2,000,000 to the distressed districts of Lancashire, supplemented by the wise measures of the Government, who worked so well that hardly a life was lost in spite of the pinching poverty of the times. Cotton was at last brought from Egypt and India in quantities sufficient to set the mills going again, and by 1863 the worst of the trouble was over. In 1865 the Southern States were conquered, and the American cotton once more came in.
Palmerston and the Danish duchies.
Wars nearer home were meanwhile beginning to distract the attention of the English from America. A quarrel between the King of Denmark and his German subjects in the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein led to the interference of Austria and Prussia. The inhabitants of the two duchies wished to cut themselves loose, and to join Germany. Bismarck, the iron-handed prime minister of Prussia, saw his way to make profit for his country out of the war, and induced the unwise Austrian government to join him in bringing force to bear against the Danes. The English looked upon the struggle as a mere case of bullying by the two German powers, and Palmerston used somewhat threatening language against them; but when he found that his usual ally, the Emperor of the French, was not prepared to help him, he drew back, and allowed the Austrians and Prussians to overrun the duchies. Beaten in the field, the Danish king had to consent to their cession.
Palmerston and the Polish insurrection.
To protest, and then to make no attempt to back up words with deeds, is somewhat humiliating. But this course was forced on Palmerston not only in the case of the Schleswig-Holstein war, but also in the case of Poland in the same year (1863). Treating the unfortunate Poles with even more than its usual rigour, the Russian government forced them to a fierce but hopeless insurrection. Palmerston sent a note to the Czar in favour of better treatment of Poland, but met with a rebuff, and was practically told to mind his own business. Not being ready to engage in a second Crimean war without Louis Napoleon's aid, he had to endure the affront. He was much censured for his useless interference, but it is hard to blame him either for his protest, or for his refusal to follow it up by plunging England into a dangerous war.
Prosperity at home.—Rise of Gladstone.
While these foreign affairs were engrossing most of the nation's attention, domestic matters caused little stir. After the cotton famine ended, the country entered into a cycle of very considerable growth and prosperity. Gladstone, once a Peelite, but now one of the most advanced of the progressive wing of the Liberal party, was now Chancellor of the Exchequer. Year after year he was able to announce a surplus, and to grant the remission of old taxes. His measures were judicious, but the constant growth of the revenue from increased prosperity, and the conclusion of a fortunate commercial treaty with France, were the real causes of his being able to produce his favourable budgets, and won him a financial reputation at a comparatively cheap expense of labour. But his name was rapidly growing greater, and it was beginning to be clear that he would be Palmerston's successor as leader of the Liberal party. The old premier did not view this prospect with much satisfaction. "Whenever he gets my place," he observed, "we shall have strange doings."
Death of Palmerston.
The succession was not long delayed. Lord Palmerston died on October 18, 1865, and, on the removal of his restraining hand, the Liberal party began to show new and rapid signs of change. For the first time it was about, under the guidance of its new leader, to frankly accept the principles of democracy, and to throw up its old alliance with the middle classes. Palmerston had been for so many years the leading figure in English politics, that his death, at the ripe age of eighty-one, seemed to end an epoch in domestic history. He was by far the most striking personage in the middle years of the century. Faults he had: somewhat over-hasty in action, somewhat flippant in language on occasion, too self-confident and too prone to self-laudation, he was yet so resourceful and so full of courage and patriotism that he won and merited the confidence of the nation more than any minister since the younger Pitt.