“Article IV. The Commission managing the navigation of the Danube “is maintained in its present composition” for a further period of twelve years.
“Article VIII. The high contracting parties renew and confirm all the stipulations of 1856, which are not annulled or modified by the present treaty.”
This treaty resulted in what Russia wished, viz., the opening of the Black Sea to Russian war ships—a right which she had held previous to the Crimean War.
Mr. Disraeli (afterwards Lord Beaconsfield) vigorously attacked the Gladstonian policy by saying that “the neutral character of the Black Sea is the essence of the Treaty of Paris, and that that, in fact, was the question for which we had struggled and made great sacrifice and endured these sufferings which never can be forgotten,” and the “point upon which the negotiations for peace (at Vienna, 1855) was broken off was the neutral character of the Black Sea.”[[74]]
In answer to this attack Mr. Gladstone replied, “I do not speak from direct communication with Lord Clarendon, but I have been told since his death that he never attached a value to that neutralization. Again I do not speak from direct communication, but I have been told that Lord Palmerston always looked upon the neutralization as an arrangement which might be maintained and held together for a limited number of years, but which, from its character, it was impossible to maintain as a permanent condition for a great settlement of Europe.”
However, Russia had regained what she had lost at the close of the Crimean War by skilful diplomacy. She now was perfectly at liberty to keep her fleet in the Black Sea, and to refortify Sebastopol and Keotch to such an extent as to render them impregnable.
She felt gratified at the result of the Franco-Prussian War, and on hearing that Prussia had annexed Alsace and Lorraine. General Ignatieff, the Russian Ambassador at Constantinople, hastened to the German Ambassador, Count Karserling, and said, “Permit me to congratulate you, and thank you; for you it is a prodigious mistake, but on Russia you have conferred the greatest possible boon.” At the time of the annexation of the two French provinces, Germany thought that they would prove of the greatest value to the German Empire, but this idea proved a mistake, and since then Russia has used, and still uses them, as a pivot on which the Eastern Question turns.
Frederick III.’s idea of selling back Alsace and Lorraine would no doubt prove a great benefit, not only to the German nation, but also to the maintenance of the balance of power in Europe.
Yet, though Bismarck defeated Napoleon III. in a sanguinary war, Prince Gortschakoff had beaten all the signitary powers at the Treaty of Paris by one stroke of the pen, and the greatest gainer, in the Franco-Prussian War was not Germany but Russia. Verily, indeed, is it once more proved that the Pen is mightier than the Sword.