LORD STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE
Another obstacle to a pacific solution, perhaps most formidable of them all, was Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, the British ambassador at Constantinople. Animated by a vehement antipathy to Russia, possessing almost sovereign ascendency at the Porte, believing that the Turk might never meet a happier chance of having the battle out with his adversary once for all, and justly confident that a policy of war would find hearty backers in the London cabinet—in him the government had an agent who while seeming to follow instructions in the narrow letter baffled them in their spirit. In the autumn of 1853 Lord Aberdeen wrote to Graham, 'I fear I must renounce the sanguine view I have hitherto taken of the Eastern question; for nothing can be more alarming than the present prospect. I thought that we should have been able to conquer Stratford, but I begin to fear that the reverse will be the case, and that he will succeed in defeating us. Although at our wit's end, Clarendon and I are still labouring in the cause of peace; but really to contend at once with the pride of the Emperor, the fanaticism of the Turks, and the dishonesty of Stratford is almost a hopeless attempt.'[303] This description, when he saw it nearly forty years later, seems to have struck Mr. Gladstone as harsh. Though he agreed that the passage could hardly be omitted, he confessed his surprise that Lord Aberdeen should have applied the word dishonesty to Lord Stratford. He suggested the addition of a note that should recognise the general character of Lord Stratford, and should point out that prejudice and passion, by their blinding powers, often produce in the mind effects like those proper to dishonesty.[304] Perhaps we may find this a hard saying. Doubtless when he comes to praise and blame, the political historian must make due allowance for his actors; and charity is the grandest of illuminants. Still hard truth stands first, and amiable analysis of the psychology of a diplomatic agent who lets loose a flood of mischief on mankind is by no means what interests us most about him. Why not call things by their right names?[305]
In his private letters (November) Stratford boldly exhibited his desire for war, and declared that 'the war, to be successful, must be a very comprehensive war on the part of England and France.' Well might the Queen say to the prime minister that it had become a serious question whether they were justified in allowing Lord Stratford any longer to remain in a situation that enabled him to frustrate all the efforts of his government for peace. Yet here, as many another time in these devious manœuvres, that fearful dilemma interposed—inseparable in its many forms from all collective action whether in cabinet or party; so fit to test to the very uttermost all the moral fortitude, all the wisdom of a minister, his sense of proportion, his strength of will, his prudent pliancy of judgment, his power of balance, his sure perception of the ruling fact. The dilemma here is patent. To recall Lord Stratford would be to lose Lord Palmerston and Lord John; to lose them would be to break up the government; to break up the government would be to sunder the slender thread on which the chances of peace were hanging.[306] The thought, in short, of the high-minded Aberdeen striving against hope to play a steadfast and pacific part in a scene so sinister, among actors of such equivocal or crooked purpose, recalls nothing so much as the memorable picture long ago of Maria Theresa beset and baffled by her Kaunitzes and Thuguts, Catherines, Josephs, great Fredericks, Grand Turks, and wringing her hands over the consummation of an iniquitous policy to which the perversity of man and circumstance had driven her.
As the proceedings in the cabinet dragged on through the winter, new projects were mooted. The ground was shifted to what Lord Stratford had called a comprehensive war upon Russia. Some of the cabinet began to aim at a transformation of the policy. It was suggested that the moment should be seized to obtain not merely the observance by Russia of her treaty obligations to Turkey, but a revision and modification of the treaties in Turkish interests. This is the well-known way in which, ever since the world called civilised began, the area of conflict is widened. If one plea is eluded or is satisfied, another is found; and so the peacemakers are at each step checkmated by the warmakers. The Powers of central Europe were immovable, with motives, interests, designs, each of their own. Austria had reasons of irresistible force for keeping peace with Russia. A single victory of Russia in Austrian Poland would enable her to march direct upon Vienna. Austria had no secure alliance with Prussia; on the contrary, her German rival opposed her on this question, and was incessantly canvassing the smaller states against her in respect to it. The French Emperor was said to be revolving a plan for bribing Austria out of Northern Italy by the gift of Moldavia and Wallachia. All was intricate and tortuous. The view in Downing Street soon expanded to this, that it would be a shame to England and to France unless the Czar were made not only to abandon his demands, and to evacuate the Principalities, but also to renounce some of the stipulations in former treaties on which his present arrogant pretensions had been formed. In the future, the guarantees for the Christian races should be sought in a treaty not between Sultan and Czar, but between the Sultan and the five Powers.
BRITISH OPINION
Men in the cabinet and men out of it, some with ardour, others with acquiescence, approved of war for different reasons, interchangeable in controversial value and cumulative in effect. Some believed, and more pretended to believe, that Turkey abounded in the elements and energies of self-reform, and insisted that she should have the chance. Others were moved by vague general sympathy with a weak power assailed by a strong one, and that one, moreover, the same tyrannous strength that held an iron heel on the neck of prostrate Poland; that only a few years before had despatched her legions to help Austria against the rising for freedom and national right in Hungary; that urged intolerable demands upon the Sultan for the surrender of the Hungarian refugees. Others again counted the power of Russia already exorbitant, and saw in its extension peril to Europe, and mischief to the interests of England. Russia on the Danube, they said, means Russia on the Indus. Russia at Constantinople would mean a complete revolution in the balance of power in the Mediterranean, and to an alarmed vision, a Russia that had only crossed the Pruth was as menacing as if her Cossacks were already encamped in permanence upon the shores of the Bosphorus.
Along with the anxieties of the Eastern question, ministers were divided upon the subject of parliamentary reform. Some, including the prime minister, went with Lord John Russell in desiring to push a Reform bill. Others, especially Palmerston, were strongly adverse. Mr. Gladstone mainly followed the head of the government, but he was still a conservative, and still member for a tory constituency, and he followed his leader rather mechanically and without enthusiasm. Lord Palmerston was suspected by some of his colleagues of raising the war-cry in hopes of drowning the demand for reform. In the middle of December (1853) he resigned upon reform,[307] but nine days later he withdrew his resignation and returned. In the interval news of the Russian attack on the Turkish fleet at Sinope (November 30) had arrived—an attack justified by precedent and the rule of war. But public feeling in England had risen to fever; the French Emperor in exacting and peremptory language had declared that if England did not take joint action with him in the Black Sea, he would either act alone or else bring his fleet home. The British cabinet yielded, and came to the cardinal decision (Dec. 22) to enter the Black Sea. 'I was rather stunned,' Gladstone wrote to Sidney Herbert next day, 'by yesterday's cabinet. I have scarcely got my breath again. I told Lord Aberdeen that I had had wishes that Palmerston were back again on account of the Eastern question.'
Here is a glimpse of this time:—
Nov. 23, '53.—Cabinet. Reform discussed largely, amicably, and satisfactorily on the whole. Dec. 16.—Hawarden. Off at 9 A.M. Astounded by a note from A. Gordon. [Palmerston had resigned the day before.] After dinner went to the admiralty, 10½-1½, where Lord Aberdeen, Newcastle, Graham, and I went over the late events and went over the course for to-morrow's cabinet. Dec. 21.—Called on Lord Palmerston, and sat an hour. 22.—Cabinet, 2-7½, on Eastern Question. Palmerston and reform. A day of no small matter for reflection. Jan. 4, 1854.—To Windsor. I was the only guest, and thus was promoted to sit by the Queen at dinner. She was most gracious, and above all so thoroughly natural.
THE DECISION OF DECEMBER 22