THE RUSSIAN ATTACK ON SINOPE. (See p. [28].)
It would be difficult now to make the reader feel what the people of Britain felt when, a fortnight after it occurred, they received the news of this disaster. They asked for what purpose fleets had been sent to Constantinople if not for the purpose of protecting the Turks. They asked why Ministers continued, and had continued, to rely upon the equivocal language of the Czar, and they met with derision the assurance of the Government that, after the Ottoman squadron had been crushed by a force of ten times its strength, the allied fleets had entered the Black Sea. The fact is that the public, in its eagerness to punish Russia, saw more clearly than the Ministers. The prevailing sentiments in London and in the embassies at Constantinople were indignation at the bad faith and violence of Russia, and an almost morbid longing to preserve the peace. It was the latter sentiment which made Lord Stratford de Redcliffe slow to send the fleets into the Black Sea. He and his Government were afraid that some conflict would break the finely spun web of peace negotiations which they thought promised so fairly, and which, if they failed, would at least put the Czar utterly in the wrong. Then the French admiral raised objections and expressed doubts whether his instructions warranted him in running the risk of an encounter; and the British Ambassador would not send British ships alone into the Euxine, fearing it might produce a bad political effect. More than this, supposing the assurance of the Czar that he would not attack applied to the sea as well as the land, the case did not seem urgent; and above all there appears to have been a real ignorance of the fact that there was an exposed Turkish squadron in the Euxine. And, after all, the fleets would have been ordered out, had not Admiral Hamelin declined to employ his ships on the weak plea that he could dispose of fewer than Admiral Dundas. These considerations only palliate, but do not excuse, the conduct of the Allies in refraining from taking at an earlier period a decided course.
When the mischief was done they did not fail to adopt the most severe measures. The French were the first to move. On the 15th of December M. Drouyn de Lhuys wrote a despatch which reached Lord Clarendon the next day. In this, after showing that Russia had given out that she would take the offensive "in no quarter," and how her action had falsified that assurance, he proposed that Admiral Dundas and Admiral Hamelin should declare to the Russian admirals, that every Russian ship met at sea by the Allies should thenceforward be "invited" to return to Sebastopol, and that every subsequent act of aggression should be repelled by force. Lord Cowley was desired by the Emperor personally to urge this measure on the Government, and convey to them a sense of his great disappointment if the suggestion were not adopted. On the same day, and before he received Lord Cowley's letter, Lord Clarendon wrote to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, informing him that the most effectual means should be taken to guard against a disaster similar to that of Sinope. He had no doubt, he said, that the combined fleets had entered the Black Sea. "Special instructions," he wrote, "as to the manner in which they should act do not appear to be necessary. We have undertaken to defend the territory of the Sultan from aggression, and that engagement must be fulfilled." On the 24th of December Lord Clarendon informed Lord Cowley that her Majesty's Government agreed to the French proposal. It was not until the 27th that he sent the formal instructions to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, directing him to inform the Russian admiral of the determination arrived at by France and Britain. It was not until the same day that Lord Clarendon instructed Sir Hamilton Seymour to make known to Count Nesselrode the nature of the orders sent to the East, orders issued with "no hostile design against Russia," but rendered imperative by Russian acts. Russia was not to mistake forbearance for indifference, nor calculate on any want of firmness in the execution of a policy having for its object the maintenance of the independence and integrity of the Ottoman Empire.
Was it judicious at a moment when the last attempt to obtain peace by negotiation was making progress, to send the fleet into the Black Sea, and to send it with such orders? It may be said that this course was injudicious. The Porte had agreed to terms of peace; the Conference had signed these terms; they were sent by a special Minister to St. Petersburg, and arrived on the very day on which the resolution of the Western Powers was communicated to Count Nesselrode. How could the Western Powers hope that these terms would be accepted at a time when they had almost made war upon Russia? The demand for explanations was made in London on the 23rd, and in Paris on the 24th of January, 1854. Baron Brunnow placed in the hands of Lord Clarendon a despatch from Count Nesselrode, in which the Chancellor vindicated the conduct of the Russian fleet at Sinope, and declared that Russia could not look upon the exclusion of her flag from the Black Sea in any other light than that of a violence offered to her belligerent rights. He protested against the notification, and refused to admit its legality. Baron Brunnow asked, in writing, whether it was intended to establish a system of reciprocity in the Black Sea—that is, whether Russian ships as well as Ottoman ships were to be allowed to keep up communication with their respective coasts? Lord Clarendon, in answer, while professing peaceful sentiments, re-stated, in precise terms, the order given to clear the Black Sea of the Russian flag. But while striving for peace, England would not shrink from the duty imposed on her by Russia. In a letter written on the same day to Sir Hamilton Seymour, Lord Clarendon branded the Czar as "the disturber of the general peace," and traced to his unprovoked conduct all the evil consequences that had already ensued. On the 4th of February Baron Brunnow, firing a parting shot, announced his departure; and, on the 7th, Sir Hamilton Seymour was directed to quit St. Petersburg. The same scenes had been enacted in Paris. M. de Kisseleff departed, and M. de Castelbajac was recalled. Whatever may have been the feelings of the French people, the British nation openly expressed its joy that the season of suspense was over.
At this time the Emperor of the French had taken a remarkable step on his own account, and without consulting his allies. He wrote a letter himself to the Emperor Nicholas, in the hope of averting the dangers which menaced the peace of Europe. It was dated January 29th, five days after M. de Kisseleff had demanded explanations, but before that envoy had announced his determination to quit Paris. The Emperor Napoleon began his letter, "Sire"—not "Sire, my brother," the usual form—for Nicholas had never addressed him in the usual form. He ended it by styling himself his Majesty's "good friend," and good friend was long a cant name at St. Petersburg for the Emperor Napoleon. In this extraordinary Imperial missive the French Emperor coolly recapitulated the history of the Eastern Question, not from the beginning, but from the time of the Menschikoff mission; and he told it in a manner showing, and intended to show, that the Emperor Nicholas had by his acts caused the Maritime Powers to adopt what Russia called a system of pressure; but what the Emperor Napoleon said was a system "protecting, but passive." It was the Czar, he said, who, by invading the Principalities, took the question out of the domain of discussion into that of facts. Now, there must be a prompt understanding or a decisive rupture. He offered the Czar peace or war. Let him sign an armistice, and let all the belligerents' forces be withdrawn. Then he politely told the Czar, in direct terms, that, as he desired, he "should" send a plenipotentiary to negotiate with a plenipotentiary of the Sultan, respecting a convention to be submitted to the Four Powers. The letter drew from the Czar a haughty and brief reply.
The diplomatists still talked of peace, and gossipped over schemes of accommodation; but the Governments of the West and North prepared for inevitable war. The Western Powers entered upon an intimate alliance; Sir John Burgoyne and Colonel Ardent were sent on a military mission to Turkey, and in the middle of February it was notified to the Porte that Britain and France would send a considerable force to Constantinople. Greece, which showed a disposition, and more than a disposition, to take sides actively with the Czar, was told, in so many words, to choose between the goodwill of France and Britain, and the blockade of Athens. Servia, where Russian agents invoked the spirit of disaffection, was warned to be upon her good behaviour. Austria and Prussia were implored to adopt a bolder policy, and unite with the Maritime Powers. From his vast resources the French Emperor proceeded to select a choice army, taking by preference the picked troops which had been seasoned in Algerian warfare; and Britain, with smaller means, laid hands on whatever regiments were nearest. The fleet was not forgotten, and seamen were rapidly raised to man a squadron for service at the earliest moment in the Baltic. Britain, in fact, grown rusty during a long peace, was ill-prepared for the work she had undertaken. Neither her military nor her naval establishments were up to the exigencies of war; while her administration was a painful chaos of routine and contradiction. But her energy and goodwill were never doubtful, and with a steadfast heart, but unready hand, she plunged into a war with that Northern Empire which boasted of its destiny to control the fortunes of the East of Europe by land and sea.
GATCHINA PALACE, ST. PETERSBURG.