'Among those I knew' (says a later note) 'was the pretty little child of Count Chotek of the Austrian Embassy, the bosom friend of Prince Henry VII. of Reuss, the Prussian Ambassador. The child's mother, Chotek's wife, was Countess Kinsky. She became the wife of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and the birth of her son, in 1902, was hailed by the Magyars as that of an heir to the throne of the dual monarchy, and may lead to civil war in Austria some day.' [Footnote: It was the assassination of this Archduke which preceded the Great War of 1914.]
Sir Charles continued to correspond with Lord Granville about the international complication. The Foreign Secretary wrote in December of the proposed Conference of London that—
"It would not be a bad result that each side should imagine it had had a victory. There would remain the public opinion of Europe, and as we are neither of us popular, that may be tolerably impartial."
The Russian point of view had been put to Sir Charles before he left England in a letter from Baron Jomini, who complained that attempts to revise the Treaty of Paris by a European Congress had repeatedly failed, because England had always made it a condition that at such "a Congress the Eastern question should not be raised." What, then, was open to Russia—since "all the world privately admitted that the position created for her by the Treaty of 1856 was inequitable and an obstacle to good understanding" but to show the signatory Powers the impossibility of her remaining any longer in a false position?
The view which Sir Charles formed at the time was in strong condemnation of Lord Granville's action. In his opinion, Great Britain, by consenting to a Conference (proposed by Russia's friend; Prussia), consented to negotiate upon an act of repudiation by which her own rights were infringed; and this surrender seemed to him wholly unnecessary. Later knowledge only confirmed him in his opinion.
'We knew' (he writes in the Memoir) 'that Austria, the original proposer of the neutralization, had on November 22nd stated that she would join us in a war with Russia if we declared war upon the question, and Italy had already declared that she would act with Austria and ourselves. On the other hand, we now know (1906) that the British Cabinet of 1856 did not contain a member who thought the neutralization worth anything, or that it could be maintained beyond "the first opportunity." Gladstone, in 1879, returned to the question, and said that even Turkey had been willing to agree in 1870 to what had been done; but from a despatch to Lord Granville, dated November 24th, 1870, which has been published, it is clear that Austria, Italy, and Turkey would have gone along with us. Under these circumstances no fighting would have been wanted. All that we need have done would have been to have declared that we should take no notice of the Russian denunciation, and to have sent our fleet into the Black Sea, and the Russians could have done nothing but give in, as a platonic declaration that they were free would not have enabled them to launch a ship. Then we might gracefully have yielded; but as it was, we gave in to a mere threat of force.'
Acceptance of the Conference, moreover, seemed to Sir Charles a betrayal of France. France, who had been England's ally in the Crimea, one of the signatory Powers to the Black Sea Treaty, saw her capital beleaguered by the Prussian friends of the Power which repudiated the Treaty, and could not even send a representative to the Conference to protest.
It was natural, then, that at the opening of Parliament in 1871 the member for Chelsea should raise this question. But to do so involved the bringing forward of a motion tantamount to a vote of censure on the Government, which Sir Charles Dilke himself supported; and Mr. Gladstone contrived to put his too critical supporter in a difficulty.
The Queen's Speech inevitably contained reference to Prince Gortschakof's action, and in both Houses there was considerable comment upon this in the debate on the Address. The Prime Minister referred to the opportunity for fuller discussion which would be afforded by Sir Charles's motion, but, when pressed to name a day for the motion, deprecated discussion while the Conference was sitting. Frequent questioning led finally to the intervention of Mr. Disraeli, who raised the whole question of Conference and Treaty in a speech, and was answered by Mr. Gladstone. When after all this Sir Charles still persisted in his motion, the purpose of which was not to discuss either the methods or the results of the Conference, but to deplore the Government's action in having entered on it at all, Mr. Gladstone declared that Government could spare no time, and would give a day only if it were taken as a direct vote of censure, which they must in honour meet; adding that the day could only be found by the postponement of a Licensing Bill which had much support in the Liberal party. Sir Charles persevered, and made a very able speech, to which no serious answer was given. He entirely destroyed the pretence that the Conference had met without a "foregone conclusion," and stigmatized the indecent haste which could not wait to secure the presence of France even as an assenting party to this acceptance of an act of repudiation. But the House was dominated by dislike for anything which seemed to hint at opening up a new European war at the moment when a settlement of the existing conflict was expected. The Tories, 'would only speak, and would not vote'; while Sir Charles's Radical associates, such as Mr. Peter Rylands, welcomed anything done under pretext of avoiding war.
'An attempt was made by Sir Henry Bulwer, the cynical and brilliant brother of Lord Lytton, by Mr. Horsman and Mr. Otway, to use my motion for their own purposes. Otway had resigned his Under-Secretaryship of Foreign Affairs on account of his strong opinion upon the question, and was distressed to find that his resignation had fallen flat. Horsman was always discontented, and Bulwer wanted to be a peer. [Footnote: Sir Henry Bulwer was afterwards created Lord Calling; Mr. Horsman had been a conspicuous Adullamite in the previous Parliament.] I used to tell Bulwer up to his death that I gave him his peerage, for he received Gladstone's offer of the peerage just in time to prevent him from speaking for my motion. Bulwer, whom I had known as Ambassador at Constantinople, Sir Andrew Buchanan, whom I had known as Ambassador at St. Petersburg, Horsman, and Otway came and dined with me, and we made a great plot, and thought we were going to upset the arrangement with the Russians. But Gladstone succeeded in taking away Goldsmid, who was one of our very few Liberal supporters, made Bulwer a peer, and left me only with Otway, Gregory, afterwards Governor of Ceylon, and Horsman….