Three European Great Powers were more closely affected than others by the Eastern question—Russia, by reason of her office as guardian of the Eastern Church, as well as by her hereditary policy of absorbing neighbouring territories—Austria, on account of her claim to the Danubian provinces of the Porte—and England, because she could not suffer the advance of Russia between her and her Asiatic dominions. The interest of England may seem to have been less direct than that of the other Powers; nevertheless, the continual encroachment of Russia in Asia, and the steady extension of the Russian frontier towards that of British North-West India, had so powerfully impressed British statesmen with the danger of a collision in that quarter, that the integrity of the Ottoman Empire had become a cardinal principle in the Continental diplomacy of England.
THE LARGEST GUN OF 1897.
The huge 110-ton guns of Sir W. G. Armstrong, Mitchell, & Co. are mounted in the Sanspareil and Benbow, and the Victoria carried two of them to the bottom when she sank. There are considerable disadvantages attaching to the use of artillery so enormous, as will be understood when it is stated that the cost of each round fired with full charge and armour-piercing projectile is £200; that the gun would become practically useless after firing 75 rounds of this description (of course a much smaller charge is used when practising); and that the energy developed amounts to 60,000 foot-tons—about enough to lift the whole ship six feet in the air. For these and other reasons the 67-ton gun shown on next page is now being supplied in preference to the larger one. The 110 ton gun is capable of piercing a solid mass of wrought iron 30½ inches thick, at a distance of 1,000 yards; the much smaller 9·2-inch (22-ton) gun was tested in 1887, and threw a shot nearly 12 miles, its trajectory rising to a height greater, by 2,000 feet, than that of Mont Blanc.
But the Emperor Nicholas of Russia had convinced himself that the “sick man” was at the point of death, and that it was essential to the peace of Europe that his heirs should divide the inheritance before his demise. |Projects of the Emperor Nicholas.| The sentence at the head of this chapter was spoken by the Czar when he revived proposals which he had made to the Duke of Wellington and Lord Aberdeen, then Foreign Secretary, on the occasion of his visit to England in 1844. These proposals had been embodied in a celebrated memorandum drawn up by Count Nesselrode, to the effect that the Turkish Empire should be maintained in its integrity as long as possible, but that as soon as its fall could be averted no longer, England, Austria, and Russia should act on a common understanding and divide the dominion among themselves. Nesselrode’s memorandum had been received and placed in the archives of the Foreign Office, and no disclaimer of assent to the propositions therein had ever been made on the part of Her Majesty’s Government. Silence is often assumed to indicate consent, so when Nicholas, believing in 1853 that the Porte was indeed on the point of dissolution, renewed his proposal for a partition of the Turkish Empire, it was at least excusable that he should reckon on the co-operation of Great Britain. Lord Aberdeen, who had been Foreign Secretary when the Czar was in England in 1844, was Prime Minister in 1853. Nicholas disclaimed any intention of a Russian occupation of Constantinople; he suggested that Bulgaria and Servia might be constituted independent States under Russian protection, and declared that he would acquiesce in the annexation of Egypt and Candia by Great Britain. All this, and much more, he explained to Sir Hamilton Seymour, assuring him that if Great Britain and Russia came to an understanding on the subject, it mattered nothing to him how the other Powers might view it.
John Leech.] [From “Punch.”
THE OLD ’UN AND THE YOUNG ’UN.
Old Nicholas (Emperor of Russia): “Now then, Austria; just help me to finish the Port(e).”
The Emperor of Russia, disappointed in his overtures to England, endeavoured to obtain the assistance of Austria against Turkey.