England and the Orléans Monarchy

by John Hall

Two days before this concession was extorted from the Porte, Mehemet Ali surrendered the Ottoman fleet to the commissioners sent to receive it. Furthermore, he gave the necessary orders for the evacuation of Crete and the other territories which he had promised to restore to the Sultan. His son Ibrahim, with the remnants of the army of Syria, had by this time arrived at Gaza, on the Egyptian frontier. He had himself been attacked by jaundice, and his troops had suffered cruelly in their retreat.[677] But their losses would have been far heavier, had it not been for the Napier Convention. The British officers employed in Syria had considered themselves in honour bound to observe the armistice, which was one of the conditions of that irregular agreement.[678]

Mehemet Ali having thus made his submission, it remained only to determine the conditions under which the hereditary governorship of Egypt should be conferred upon him. The Porte was very naturally desirous to circumscribe in every possible way, the powers which it had reluctantly consented to delegate. Some weeks, accordingly, were spent in discussing the affair with the ambassadors. But, at last, on February 13, 1841, the Porte issued a firman of investiture, and sent off a special envoy to Egypt to present it to Mehemet Ali.[679]

The French government, meanwhile, rigidly abstained from any kind of interference, M. Guizot from the tribune of the Chamber declared his intention of preserving the peace, whilst at the same time maintaining the armaments which, by reason of her isolation, France could not afford to reduce. The Opposition inveighed fiercely against the attitude which the government proposed to adopt. M. Thiers gave his version of the negotiations and protested that, had he been able to remain in office, he would have armed upon a gigantic scale, not only in order to prevent the execution of the Treaty of July, but in order to obtain a revision of the territorial settlement of 1815. To support their statements, he and his former colleagues recklessly divulged the contents of confidential documents, and disclosed military secrets.[680] Nevertheless, ministers obtained a majority in both Chambers on the question of their foreign policy. The attention of the assembly, during the remainder of the session, was chiefly directed to matters connected with the fortification of Paris. The enormous expenditure entailed by that measure, and by the other military preparations of M. Thiers had a very sobering effect upon the popular Chamber. The crisis, it was computed, would cost the country not less than one hundred and fifty millions of francs.[681]

No sooner had M. Guizot emerged successfully from the initial stages of the parliamentary struggle, than he applied himself diligently to the task of bringing back France into the Concert of the Powers. The German Courts, he was well aware, were most anxious to terminate a situation pregnant with dangerous possibilities. In the eyes of Metternich and of Baron Werther, the Prussian minister, the isolation of France threatened the peace of Europe, and, in order to put an end to it, they were prepared to settle “tant bien que mal,”[682] the eastern question. Under ordinary circumstances the Tsar Nicholas might have been expected to oppose the resumption by France of her place in the Concert of the Powers. But he had now strong reasons of his own for desiring that her isolation should cease. He had instructed Brunnow to undertake that the Treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi should not be renewed, because experience had proved that it was of no practical value.[683] The Cabinet of St. Petersburg had arrived at the conclusion that, for the better protection of the southern provinces of Russia, the question of the Dardanelles should be regulated by some European agreement. But no compact of that nature would be likely to endure, unless France were to be made a party to it.[684]

Although it suited Nicholas that France should re-enter the European Concert, his dislike of Louis Philippe, and of the régime of July was as strong as ever. Whilst proposing to close the eastern question with some “final transaction to which France might be invited to adhere,”[685] he also suggested that the treaty for the pacification of the Levant should be converted into a quadruple alliance, “providing against the contingency of an attack by France upon the liberties of Europe.” His main reason, he informed Lord Clanricarde, for making this proposal, was to establish a close understanding with Great Britain.[686] Metternich had not “the spirit of a gentleman,” and neither England nor Russia ought to place any confidence in him.[687] The British government, however, was unable to entertain the suggestion. “All formal engagements of the Crown,” Lord Clanricarde was instructed to explain, “must be submitted to Parliament, and Parliament might not approve of an engagement which should bind England prospectively.” Nor was there any way in which this difficulty could be overcome. It would not be removed by the verbal agreement into which the Imperial Cabinet had declared its readiness to enter, should the constitutional obstacles to the conclusion of a more formal compact prove insuperable. “A verbal engagement would bind the ministers who made it, but might be disavowed by their successors, and thus the Russian government might be led to count upon a system of policy which might not eventually be pursued. . . . Under these circumstances,”concluded Lord Palmerston, “it seems to Her Majesty’s government that the Cabinet of St. Petersburg should be satisfied to trust to the general tendency of the policy of Great Britain, which leads her to watch over the maintenance of the balance of power.”[688]

Whether or not M. Guizot obtained any inkling of the Tsar’s proposals, he appears to have ascertained quickly that the three absolute Courts wished to close the eastern question in order that France should resume her place in the Concert. But he was very far from certain whether Lord Palmerston’s views coincided with those of his continental allies. He was not without fear that it might be the secret intention of Great Britain to drive Mehemet Ali out of Egypt. From the moment he had taken office, he had declared that the fate of Syria must be left to the chances of war, but that no French government could acquiesce in the expulsion of the Pasha from his Egyptian governorship. So long, however, as France maintained her armaments Metternich would be most unlikely to consent to any further measures of hostility against Mehemet Ali. Thus by playing upon the fears of the German Courts, he could bring considerable pressure to bear upon Palmerston. Nor was it only in this way that he proposed to counteract the schemes which he suspected the British minister of harbouring. Lord Holland was dead, and the French party was greatly discredited, but he could still depend upon the assistance of “Bear” Ellice,[689] Greville and his other English friends, whenever an opportunity of thwarting Palmerston should arise. For the purpose of organizing as much opposition as possible to the Foreign Secretary, he had, in the month of November, 1840, despatched Baron Mounier upon a special mission to London.[690] At the same time Baron Bourqueney, the French chargé d’affaires, was instructed confidentially to discuss the situation with his colleagues, but, under no circumstances, was he to make any direct proposals to Lord Palmerston. He was constantly to declare that the isolation of France must continue, so long as the treaty of July should be in existence.

M. Guizot had made no mistake in supposing that Palmerston would rather have seen Mehemet Ali deposed than invested with the hereditary tenure of Egypt. But, as he pointed out to the Ottoman ambassador, it was his rule in all affairs “to be content with what was practical,”[691] and Lord Beauvale’s despatches from Vienna made it clear that Metternich would never consent to take part in expelling the Pasha from Egypt.[692] Palmerston, therefore, accepted the situation and was prepared to be satisfied with an arrangement which restricted the authority of Mehemet Ali to his Egyptian Pashalic. He was opposed to the plan, which had been proposed at one time, of inviting France to participate in the final settling between the Sultan and the Pasha. As the avowed protector of Mehemet Ali she could not, he contended, fail to bring a dangerous element of discord into the conference.[693] Nevertheless, at the beginning of January, 1841, Baron Bourqueney, after having been his guest for a few days at Broadlands, felt convinced that “he was really anxious to discover some way of bringing back France into the concert, although he was still undecided as to the manner in which it should be effected.”[694] The correctness of this surmise was before long confirmed by the event. After the decision of the four Powers to press the Porte to confer the heredity upon Mehemet Ali had been embodied in the collective note of January 30, 1841, Palmerston himself took the initiative and invited Baron Bourqueney to call upon him at the Foreign Office, in order to discuss future arrangements.

The conferences which were thus begun on February 18 continued until March 5, and resulted in the framing of two diplomatic instruments. The first, termed the protocol, was only to be signed by the representatives of the Powers which were parties to the Treaty of July 15, 1840. The difficulties which had induced the Porte to invoke the assistance of the four Courts being now at an end, the wish was recorded “of expressing in the most formal manner the respect due to the ancient rule of the Ottoman Empire, in virtue of which it has, at all times, been prohibited for ships of war of foreign Powers to enter the straits of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus.” With this principle, which was of general and permanent application, France was to be formally invited to concur. The second document consisted of a treaty, known as The Convention of the Straits, according to which the Sultan undertook to close the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus to the warships of all foreign nations, and the Sovereigns of Great Britain, France, Prussia, Austria and Russia pledged themselves to uphold this ancient rule of the Ottoman Empire.[695]

M. Guizot, after the plenipotentiaries had agreed to certain small verbal alterations, pronounced himself satisfied with both documents. Nevertheless, the full powers to sign, which Baron Bourqueney was expecting to receive, were not transmitted. For the present, he was merely authorized to initial the convention.[696] The news had reached Paris that Mehemet Ali was greatly displeased with the conditions attached to his firman of investiture, and that he had, in consequence, refused to accept it. The decree in question had never been submitted to the approval of the ambassadors at Constantinople, and it now appeared that the heredity, which it professed to confer, was of an entirely fictitious nature. At the death of Mehemet Ali, it was provided that his successor was to be chosen by the Sultan from among any of his descendants. Furthermore, the appointment of all officers of the Egyptian army, above the rank of captain, was to be regulated by the Porte. Lastly, the Pasha complained that the amount of the tribute imposed upon him was far too heavy. Rather than submit to conditions so humiliating he would once more appeal to arms.[697]

Three months elapsed before the points in dispute could be settled. Meanwhile, the French government resumed its attitude of complete aloofness, and M. Guizot declared that no powers to sign could be sent to London, so long as the possibility existed that coercion might once more be applied to the Pasha under the terms of the Treaty of July. To the great annoyance of the German Courts, Palmerston was resolutely opposed to any declaration that the objects of that treaty had been attained. A premature dissolution of the alliance, he maintained, would only encourage Mehemet Ali to adopt a more defiant attitude, and must increase the difficulties of adjusting his relations with the Sultan.[698] “A question,” he insisted, “could not be really finished merely by saying that it was so.”[699] Metternich was compelled reluctantly to admit the force of this argument.[700] But, whilst he acknowledged the necessity of maintaining the alliance, his agents insinuated freely that Palmerston desired to embarrass the negotiations, in order to drive Mehemet Ali to commit some act of violence.