But the whole question soon passed out of the region of debate. On the 27th of March, the Queen’s message proclaiming war—though oddly enough the word war is not mentioned in it—was read to both Houses of Parliament; and on the 31st a loyal address agreeing to it was duly moved and carried, after a debate which was worthier of such an occasion than many others that had preceded it. The Opposition leaders seem to have been sobered by the solemnity of the moment, and all parties practically supported the Government with the helpless unanimity of despair. In the Upper House, Lord Grey alone uttered a strong protest against the war. In the House of Commons, Mr. Bright and the Marquis of Granby were the only speakers who were for peace. The violent Russophobists found in Mr. Layard an energetic champion. He condemned the Government, first, because it had not coerced Russia immediately after the massacre of Sinope, and secondly, because even now Ministers did not specifically declare that the object of the war was to lock up Russia within well-defined limits, so as to cripple her for ever. The Tory leaders were more cautious. They naturally made capital out of the Secret Correspondence,[159] already referred to (pp. 546-7). They had little difficulty in convicting the Government of misleading the Czar as to their rooted objection to his Turkish policy. Lord John Russell had not rejected the Russian proposals with the sternness of one who had serious hostility to them. He had, indeed, admitted the very claim which he and his colleagues were now about to rebut by war.[160] A “hybrid policy of credulity and connivance,” as Mr. Disraeli once called it, could have no other result than that of tempting the Czar to advance pretensions which he could not withdraw without prejudicing his Imperial position, and it is strange that this aspect of the affair was dealt with somewhat leniently by the critics and enemies of the Ministry. The questions that seemed to be of supreme interest to both Houses were really two—What was the object of the war? Where were our allies? To the one question the answer was vague. To the other the reply was neither frank nor candid. Lord Clarendon said that the object of the war was “to check and repel the unjust aggression of Russia”—which, as things stood, meant to force her out of the Danubian Principalities. But, he added, to ask what was the object of the war was to ask on what terms peace would be made?—a question the answer to which must depend on chances nobody could forecast. As for allies, it was easy to say that France was with us. The difficulty was to say what the German Powers would do. Ministers felt that Cobden had pierced their armour when, in the adjourned debate on Mr. Layard’s motion (20th Feb.), he asked whether it would not be sensible to let those Powers who were nearest Russia—and must therefore suffer first from her aggression—begin the fighting. Parliament must therefore be cajoled into a belief that Austria and Prussia would join us. Both Houses knew that though Austria and Prussia had concurred with England and France in recommending Russia to evacuate the Principalities, they had not pledged themselves to co-operate with us in war. Still, said Lord John Russell, when Austria was asked what she would do in the event of war breaking out, “the answer was at the time satisfactory,” and if Prussia had only fallen in with her views, he would have had a most satisfactory statement to make to the House. Though Prussian views seemed to Lord John “too narrow, taking in German interests alone,” he (Lord John) trusted that a short time would bring Prussia “to the conclusion that the disturbance of the balance of Power and the aggrandisement of Russia were matters of concern to Prussia as well as to other Powers.”
Lord John Russell unscrupulously deceived the House of Commons and the country on both points. The whole course of the negotiations had shown first, that Prussia considered the Czar’s final concessions sufficient, and, secondly, that Austria, though regretting that Russia did not do more to mollify Lord Clarendon, refused to admit that a declaration of war was necessary for that purpose. Lord John Russell’s statement as to Prussia was not only untrue, but the dates of the official despatches prove that he and his colleagues must have known it to be untrue.[161] When it was made in the House of Commons by him, and virtually in the same form in the House of Lords by Lord Clarendon, neither Austria nor Prussia had given any direct answer whatever to the question as to what they would do if war broke out. The Prussian Minister, indeed, said he did not think that Prussia would join the Powers in such a
OMAR PASHA.
war.[162] But a still grosser deception was the delusive assurance that Prussia would yet come to our assistance. The Government knew too well that the views of Prussia were such as to absolutely destroy this hope. The King of Prussia looked upon war against Russia on the issue raised as a crime, and he had written an autograph letter to the Queen, a fact which was concealed from Parliament, saying so in the plainest words. He reminded her of what it is to be feared the Queen, like most of her countrymen, did not then sufficiently realise—the agonies of a great war such as that of 1813-15—agonies that he had seen, but which, alas! her Majesty and the new generation had only read about. Yet that was a war worth the horrors of its sacrifices. Was this one now impending worth similar sacrifices?
MAP OF THE CRIMEA.
Hardly, argued the King, for even England had at last become ashamed of the cause she had taken up—that of the Turk, and her endeavour now was to persuade herself and the world that it was for another cause—the equilibrium of Europe, menaced by the preponderance of Russia—that she was about to draw the sword. “The preponderance of Russia,” he writes in this letter, “is to be broken down! Well! I, her neighbour, have never felt this preponderance, and have never yielded to it.” It was war for an idea, and, adds the King with intense earnestness, “Suffer me to ask, ‘Does God’s law justify war for an idea?’” He implores the Queen to reconsider the Russian proposals in a friendly spirit, sifting what is really objectionable from them, and pledges himself that if a golden bridge is built to save the Czar’s honour, the Czar will cross it. But one word the King craves leave to speak plainly to the Queen: “For Prussia and myself,” he writes, “I am resolved to maintain a position of complete neutrality; and to this I add, with proud elation, my people and myself are of one mind. They require absolute neutrality from me. They say (and I say), ‘What have we to do with the Turk?’ Whether he stand or fall in no way concerns the industrious Rhinelanders and the husbandmen of the Riesengeberg and Bernstein.” Russia, he admits, might have perhaps pressed hard on the Turk. However, “it was the Turk, not we, who suffered, and the Turk has plenty of good friends, but the Emperor is a noble gentleman, and has done us no harm. Your Majesty will allow that this North German sound practical sense is difficult to gainsay.” Yet it was with such a letter in their possession that the Government led the country to believe, first, that Austria, who could not possibly move without Prussia, would join us in the war; and, second, that Prussia would also draw her sword for a cause which she declared we ourselves were even then ashamed of!