Looking back at these days, we seem to remember that Lord Palmerston, as Home Secretary, appeared larger to us than did other Ministers of the day. He was not only Home Secretary, but had confided to him the duty of general adviser in public matters. The great trouble of the Crimean War was coming on, and the state of things was not so well known to others as to him. There was, too, a question as to Reform, regarding which he all but felt himself compelled to resign. “My office is too closely connected with Parliamentary changes to allow me to sit silent during the whole progress of a Reform Bill through Parliament; and I could not take up a Bill which contained material things of which I disapprove, and assist to fight it through the House of Commons, to force it on the Lords, and to stand upon it at the hustings.” This he said in a letter to his brother-in-law, Lawrence Sulivan. We can understand that, for the satisfaction of his own political feelings, he need not have stirred himself much on any question of Reform. But it must have been difficult for him to have a Reform Bill settled for him while he was Home Secretary. There was, too, a double reason for his disagreement at the moment. Should the fleet move up to the Dardanelles, or should it remain in the Mediterranean? This was in anticipation of that which afterwards became the Crimean War, and was a matter on which Lord Palmerston was likely to have a more decided opinion than in regard to the Reform Bill. But at last he withdrew his resignation. “I remain in the Government. I was much and strongly pressed to do so for several days by many of the members of the Government, who declared that they were no parties to Aberdeen’s answer to me, and that they considered all the details of the intended Reform measure as still open to discussion. Their earnest representations and the knowledge that the Cabinet had on Thursday taken a decision on Turkish affairs in entire accordance with opinions which I had long unsuccessfully pressed upon them, decided me to withdraw my resignation, which I did yesterday.”
This was at the close of 1853, when Parliament was not sitting, and for the next two years the Crimean War became so completely the one matter of vital interest to England as to make it necessarily the point on which a memoir of Lord Palmerston’s life for those two years must altogether hang. He was Home Secretary when the war began, but had been lifted up to the position of Prime Minister before its close. This was done that England might be able to have, as she ought, the most competent man she possessed to conduct it for her. I am not expressing an opinion that he was the most competent man,—only that England so thought, and justified her opinion by the final result. But in truth the capability of a man for such work does not depend on any power of intellect, or indomitable courage, or far-seeing cunning. The man is competent simply because he is believed to be so. A nation trusts a man, and will go to work under him in a manner which is impossible for it to adopt under a leader that it does not trust. And, as seems to be the case with all men who are brought into a difficult operation, and succeed in it, just at the moment convenient for success, Lord Palmerston took the matter in hand exactly at the right time. It may be that Aberdeen had failed because he was Aberdeen, and Palmerston succeeded because he was Palmerston, each by such lights and gifts as were in him. That was, and still is, the average Englishman’s idea. Or it may be that Palmerston, with his usual luck, stepped in just when the evil days were over and success was becoming possible. That is the idea of clever critics of affairs. Who shall say which was correct?
We must go back here, and in the slightest possible manner touch upon the causes of the great war. They had had their beginning while Lord Palmerston was at the Foreign Office, even if they be not said to have commenced earlier than that. The nominal cause was a dispute which grew up in Jerusalem between the Latin and the Greek Churches for possession of the highest authority over the Holy Places. It was acknowledged that the Holy Places should be open to both, but it was considered essential that one should be supreme. It need hardly be said that with this contest England had no personal concern. It was settled at last by the perplexed Turk on the advice of the English Ambassador. But it was so settled as to make Nicholas, the Emperor of Russia, more convinced than ever of the general necessity of taking all the members of the Greek Church in Turkey especially under his protection. This he attempted to do in the fulness of autocratic authority. Then, when demur was made to the Emperor’s claim, Count Mentschikoff was sent across the Pruth so as to occupy the Danubian Principalities, which, as far as this transaction was concerned, were at the time a part of Turkey. All Europe at once went to work to induce him to return. England, France, Austria, and Prussia, at any rate, did so. But Nicholas, who had long been busy and greedy over the chattels of the “sick man,” would not retire without achieving something. And Turkey, thoroughly supported by that famous Englishman, Sir Stratford Canning,—who had now become Lord Stratford de Redcliffe,—would grant him nothing in the way of a protectorate. A conference met at Vienna, with a pundit from each of the four countries, to save Turkey, and at the same time to save if possible the feelings and the honour of the Czar. But the attempt came to nothing, and was at last altogether abortive.
Mr. Kinglake seems to attribute to Lord Palmerston almost more than a friendly compliance with Napoleon in this matter. “There was not, perhaps, more than one member of the English Cabinet who desired the formation of this singular alliance on grounds like those which moved the French Emperor.” We presume that Lord Palmerston was the Cabinet Minister here indicated. Again he says; “Of the bulk of the Cabinet, and possibly of all of them except one, Lord Clarendon’s pithy phrase was the true one. They drifted” (vol. i. p. 440). Napoleon probably was anxious to obtain for himself the éclat of going to war with Queen Victoria for his ally. For a man who had obtained his empire as he had done it was a great thing to appear before the world with such a Sovereign for his friend. We can understand that in fighting Russia he should be actuated by such a motive. But the Coup d’Etat had taken place in the winter of 1851-1852, and the pundits were at their work of peace in Vienna during the summer of 1853. The dates do not hold good for the continuance of such a project on the part of Napoleon. It might have served for three months to keep his throne, but could hardly have been serviceable after fifteen. We do know that Lord Aberdeen was weak, doing his best to stave off war if he could do so. And we know also that Palmerston was strong, anxious from the beginning to act in accordance with the English Ambassador at Constantinople. But we doubt whether there be reason to suppose that he had lent himself to the wishes of the Emperor of the French, or desired to go beyond his own Ambassador.
Looking back at the whole character of the man through a long life, we find that his fault has been that of confident,—almost that of self-opinionated audacity. Having the advantage of his private correspondence,—which had not been revealed to Mr. Kinglake when his first volumes were published,—we can read in it no trace of such friendship, or, we may say, of such anti-British feeling. He was ready to fight any man who was not an Englishman for any point,—and any man who was an Englishman who opposed him, as long as he had a leg to stand upon. I am inclined, therefore, to think that Palmerston, in his readiness for war with Russia, was in no degree guided by imperial sympathies. In July he wrote as follows to Lord Aberdeen; “I quite agree with you that we ought to try whether we can devise any proposal which, without involving any departure by the Sultan from the ground of independence on which he has taken his stand, might satisfy any just claim which the Emperor can put forward. In the meantime, however, I hope you will allow the squadrons to be ordered to go up to the Bosphorus as soon as it is known in Constantinople that the Russians have entered the Principalities, and to be further at liberty to go into the Black Sea, if necessary or useful for the protection of Turkish territory.” And he ends his letter as follows; “I am confident that this country expects that we should pursue such a course, and I cannot believe that we should receive anything but support in pursuing it from the party in Opposition.” Then he writes to Lord John Russell; “In my opinion, the course which the Emperor”—the Emperor of Russia,—“has pursued on these matters from his first overtures for a partition of Turkey, and especially the violent, abusive, and menacing language of his last manifesto, seem to show that he has taken his line, and that nothing will satisfy him but complete submission on the part of Turkey; and we ought, therefore, not to disguise from ourselves that he is bent upon a stand-up fight.”
“I tried again to persuade the Cabinet to send the squadrons up to the Bosphorus, but failed; I was told that Stratford and La Cour have powers to call for them. This is, no doubt, stated in public despatches, but we all know that he has been privately desired not to do so. Words may properly be answered by words, but acts should be replied to by acts; and the entrance of the Russians as invaders into the Turkish territory ought to be followed and replied to by the entrance of the squadrons into the Bosphorus as protectors.” Here Palmerston seems to speak with his wonted voice. It was as though the foreign affairs of England were all but under his control. It may be that he and the Emperor of the French were of one mind. Or it may be that the Emperor, knowing which way Palmerston was inclined to lead, foresaw that he could best play his own part by walking with him. But of the two men we think it probable that Lord Palmerston knew Eastern Europe the better, and had the clearer idea of what he intended to do. Still in July, he writes thus to the members of the Cabinet; “The Russian Government has been led on step by step by the apparent timidity of the Government of England; and reports, artfully propagated that the British Cabinet had declared that it would have la paix à tout prix, have not been sufficiently contradicted by any overt acts.” But Lord Aberdeen was instinctively against the war into which, as Lord Clarendon afterwards said, England had drifted, and Lord Clarendon, who had become Foreign Secretary, agreed with Lord Aberdeen.
It must be remembered that the Emperor Nicholas was thoroughly convinced that England, and especially England under the guidance of Lord Aberdeen, would not allow herself to be driven into war. He read the speeches in the House of Commons, and probably counted even the votes. To the English money-making commercial mind, war he conceived to be of all things the most antipathetic. Looking forward as well as his intellect would allow him, he thought he saw that the British power was in her decline. Sir Stratford Canning and Lord Palmerston he had always hated. They were two special foes; but they were only two. All England, with her bales of cotton, would certainly not go to war. Such was the conviction of the Emperor Nicholas. And, since Lord Aberdeen had come into power at the preceding Christmas, such also had been the tendency of the English Prime Minister’s mind. But the will of Lord Palmerston,—and the will also of the Emperor of the French,—had been stronger than that of Lord Aberdeen. Very much in compliance with Palmerston’s instructions, the two fleets did pass up the Dardanelles on the 14th of October, and were brought to an anchor immediately off Constantinople. The two Lords in the English Cabinet were still hardly acting in concert, though Lord Aberdeen’s nature was so gracious as to make actual opposition to his colleague almost impossible. He, too, had at his back the Prince Consort, who, though he agreed to war under certain circumstances, was not of one mind with Lord Palmerston as to what those circumstances were.[K] Lord Palmerston defines his ideas in the following words; “We passed the Rubicon when we first took part with Turkey, and sent our squadrons to support her; and when England and France have once taken a third Power by the hand, that third Power must be carried in safety through the difficulties in which it may be involved. England and France cannot afford to be baffled, and whatever measures may be necessary on their part to baffle their opponent, those measures must be adopted; and the Governments of the two most powerful countries on the face of the earth must not be frightened, either by words or things, either by the name or by the reality of war.” That was dated on the 1st of November, hardly a clear month before Sinope, and indicates what were then his intentions.
When the fleets had passed up the Dardanelles, the anger of Nicholas was very great. He had never thought that by crossing the Pruth he had given a casus belli; and as without such provocation the passage of the fleets up to Constantinople would have been an infraction of a well-understood treaty, he considered himself to have been grossly insulted and misused. Was it the fact that these English did intend to fight him? He was a Sovereign who had made awful preparations for war, and he was aware that the English army was, in these latter days, always maintained on a peace-footing,—what to him must have appeared a cheap and nasty military arrangement. If these English attempted to follow up their fleet, he would let them feel the weight of his right hand. But it was incumbent on him, at any rate, to punish the Turks. Therefore he sent his own fleet out from Sebastopol, and arranged matters for Sinope.
The reader must remember that during this time Lord Palmerston was Secretary of State for Home Affairs, and was by no means specially called upon to attend to this Russo-Turkish question. He had his smoke and his cemeteries, and his factories and his law courts, to look after.