On the 17th of March, 1854, the Queen, nettled by the rough practical “North German sense” in this letter from the King of Prussia, endeavoured to answer it—her draft being submitted to Lord Clarendon and Lord Aberdeen for approval. Her answer, according to Sir Theodore Martin, indicates a “firm hand” and “admirable tact.”[163] To the political student of the present day it indicates neither the one nor the other. There was no tact in scoffing at the King’s “North German sound practical sense” by saying, “Had such language fallen from the King of Hanover or of Saxony, I would have understood it,” and there was more weakness and sentimentality than firmness and statecraft in the hand that added, “But up to the present hour I have regarded Prussia as one of the five great Powers which, since the Peace of 1815, have been the guarantors of treaties, the guardians of civilisation, the champions of right, and ultimate arbitrators of the nations; and I have for my part felt the holy duty to which they were thus divinely called, being at the same time perfectly alive to the obligations, serious as they are, and fraught with danger, which it imposes. Renounce these obligations, my dear brother, and in doing so you renounce for Prussia the status she has hitherto held.”[164] If the example thus set by Prussia—that of making the interests of the Prussian people the supreme object of her policy—should find imitators, the Queen contended, “European civilisation is abandoned as a plaything to the winds; right will no longer find a champion, nor the oppressed an umpire to appeal to.”
Such was the reply which the Queen made to what Sir Theodore Martin calls “the amiable but most mischievous weakness” that pervaded the letter from the King of Prussia. Such was the appeal which she made to what Sir Theodore calls “a sentiment higher than the short-sighted and selfish policy which it announced.” The King’s letter was perhaps amiable—but it was not weak. Its policy was perhaps selfish—a Sovereign who draws or sheathes the sword, save from motives of national selfishness, is guilty of a crime against his people—but it was not shortsighted. As Mr. Lowe, in his biography of Prince Bismarck, says, “Every one is now agreed, in the words of Leopold von Ranke, that his (the King of Prussia’s) neutrality during the Crimean War was the condition precedent of the great achievements which afterwards made Germany one.”[165] Prussia, in fact, was at this moment master of the situation; and it is amazing that the Queen, through her German connections, did not know it. Herr von Bismarck had been sent on a secret mission to the minor German States. His intrigues had rendered it certain that if Austria joined the Western Powers in war, Prussia would step into her place as the dominant power in Germany.[166] In fact, but one excuse is given for the grave error of the English Court in not seizing the opportunity offered by the letter of the King of Prussia for building the “golden bridge” over which his Majesty pledged his word the Czar would even then have gladly retreated. The Queen’s reason in her reply was that the resources of diplomacy—its Protocols, Notes, Conventions, &c., &c.—had been exhausted, and that “the ink that has gone to the penning of them might well be called a second Black Sea.”[167] A sanguine and proud young Princess must not be too harshly judged by History for a light jest, even on such a momentous issue. In a few brief months it was wiped out with her tears and her people’s blood. Moreover, her Majesty, as will be seen later, did not forget the hard stern lesson read to her by this “war for an idea,” when she saved England from a similar calamity in the dispute between Germany and Denmark over the Duchies.
Only one thing now vexed the hearts of the War Party. The Address in answer to the Queen’s Message announcing war was carried. But the debate did not definitely commit the Government to a war for the purpose of breaking the power of Russia.
There was, however, an insurrection in the Greek provinces of Turkey, which gave promise of bloodshed, for early in March Nesselrode had authorised the agents of Russia to support the insurgents. King Otho of Greece gave them unofficial support. The atrocious cruelty of the Turkish Bashi-bazouks, according to one party, had caused the rising, whilst another party held that it was due to Russian intrigue. Doubtless it was due to both causes, more especially as it was the hope of getting rid of the torture of Turkish misrule, that led the Greeks to listen eagerly to the Russian intriguers. The insurrection was easily strangled by the Allies who occupied the Piræus on the 25th of May; but one of its incidents was the expulsion of the Greeks from Constantinople. Now, as the Greeks in those days carried on nearly all the trade of Turkey, dealing with Manchester and Glasgow to the extent of £3,000,000 a year, a strong attack might have been made against the Ministry. They could have been taunted with going to war for British interests in support of the Turks, who were destroying our trading agencies in Turkey. Mr. Cobden saw this point clearly, and though he put it before the House of Commons, he spoilt it by foolishly arguing, on sentimental grounds, that we ought not to support an act as barbarous as the Edict of Nantes. Lord John Russell won an easy victory over him by virtually ignoring the question of English commercial interests, and showing that there was no parallel between the expulsion of Frenchmen from France on account of their religious opinions, and the expulsion from Turkey of the subjects of a foreign Prince who was fomenting rebellion. As for the atrocities of the Turks, the House of Commons was, of course, told that they were the natural results of Russian ambition, “for which there was scarcely one apologist but Mr. Cobden!”
THE BARRACKS HOSPITAL, SCUTARI.
In the meantime the war had to be financed, and the country reconciled to increased taxation. Mr. Gladstone’s ordinary, as distinguished from his War Budget, was introduced on the 6th of March, when his position was this.
