The revolution of July, 1830, by threatening Europe with the ideas then triumphing in France, had tightened the bonds, previously a little relaxed, between the czar and the two great German powers, Austria and Prussia. Independently of diplomatic conferences, the three monarchs had frequent interviews for the purpose of adopting measures to oppose the invasion of the revolutionary principle. Even whilst affecting to abandon the west to the dissolution towards which he felt it was marching, and to regard it as afflicted with approaching senility, Nicholas by no means lost sight of its development. But the East, then in combustion, remained the true mark of Russian policy. A movement was on foot for the overthrow of the declining Ottoman power, and its substitution by an Arab power, inaugurated by Muhammed Ali, the pasha of Egypt. France regarded this movement with no unfriendly eye, but Russia entered a protest. By giving the most colossal proportions to this Eastern Question, which extended as far as the countries of central Asia, the situation created grave embarrassments for the British government. For, to begin with, when, in 1833, Ibrahim Pasha, at the head of the Egyptian army, was ready to cross the Taurus and march on Constantinople, within two months the northern power (summoned to aid by that very sultan whom Russia had hitherto so greatly humiliated) landed on the Asiatic coast of the Bosporus a body of fifteen thousand men in readiness to protect that capital; then the secret treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi (July 8th, 1833) granted her, as the price of an offensive and defensive alliance with the Porte, the withdrawal in her exclusive favour of the prohibition forbidding armed vessels of foreign nations to enter the waters of Constantinople; finally, by the conclusion of the Treaty of London July 15th, 1840, which left France, still obstinately attached to the cause of Muhammed Ali, outside the European concert, she had the joy of causing the rupture of the entente cordiale between that country and Great Britain—but only momentarily, for a new treaty, concluded the 13th of July, 1841, likewise in London, readmitted the French government to the concert.
The events of the year 1848, by bringing back the Russians into Moldavia and Wallachia, afforded Europe new apprehensions relative to the preservation, growing daily more difficult, of the Ottoman Empire and the political balance, the latter of which was seriously threatened if not destroyed by the colossus of the north, with its population now increased to as much as sixty-five million souls. But Germany was absorbed by the serious situation of her own affairs, to which the czar was far from remaining a stranger; and the latter linked himself by new ties to Austria, in whose favour he had already renounced his share in the protectorate over the republic of Cracow, when at the request of the Vienna cabinet he marched against insurgent Hungary (June, 1849) an army which beat the insurrectionary forces, compelled them to submission, and thus closed the abyss in which one of the oldest monarchies of Christendom was about to be engulfed. Then, in 1850, chosen as arbiter between Austria and Prussia, who were on the point of a rupture, the czar turned the scale in favour of Austria, and kept Prussia in check by threats.
“Austria will soon astonish the world by her immense ingratitude”: this famous prophetic saying of Prince Felix of Schwarzenberg, prime minister of the young emperor Francis Joseph, was not slow of accomplishment. The ingratitude was a necessity which the history of Austria explains; for in her case, as for the rest of Europe, the continued and immoderate aggrandisement of Russia was the greatest of dangers. This leads us, in finishing this general glance over the history of the period, to say a word on the complications which, at the moment of the empire’s attaining its apogee, commenced for it a new phase.
We have elsewhere explained the final cause of the decay of Turkey. That decay was consummated in favour of the northern neighbour who followed with attentive gaze the progress of what she called the death struggle. Certain words pronounced by the autocrat on this subject, and consigned to diplomatic despatches, had, not long ago, a great circulation. But the influence of Russia was counterbalanced by that of France and that of Great Britain. The cabinets of Paris and Vienna obtained important concessions, we might say diplomatic triumphs, from Constantinople—the one in relation to the Holy Places, the other on the subject of Montenegro. Russian jealousy immediately awoke. According to the czar, Turkey had a choice between two things only: she must regard Prussia as either her greatest friend or her greatest enemy. To remind her of this, and to neutralise the embassy of the prince of Linanges on behalf of Austria, Nicholas sent Prince Menshikov, one of his ministers and confidants, to Constantinople. Arriving February 28th, 1853, Menshikov exhibited a haughty and irritable demeanour; and, after astonishing the Divan by his noisy opposition, put forward pretensions relative to the Holy Places which were only designed to lull the vigilance of England, but were soon followed by others more serious and exorbitant; for they amounted to nothing less than the restoration to the czar of the protectorate over all the sultan’s subjects professing the Græco-Russian worship—that is to say the great majority of the inhabitants of Turkey in Europe.
OUTBREAK OF THE CRIMEAN WAR (1853 A.D.)
In vain the Divan protested; in vain the friendly powers interceded. Unable to obtain the satisfaction he was demanding with the extreme of violence, the Russian ambassador extraordinary quitted the Bosporous with menace on his lips. And, in effect, on the 2nd of July, the czar’s troops crossed the Pruth to occupy, contrary to all treaty stipulations, the two Danubian principalities. Nicholas was not prepared for war and did not expect to be obliged to have recourse to that last appeal; he hoped to triumph over the Divan by audacity. Moreover, he did not think the western powers were in a position to come to an understanding and to act in common. He was mistaken: Turkey’s death struggle did not prevent her from making a supreme effort to sell her life dearly, if it were impossible for her to save it; and on the 26th of September the sultan declared war on the aggressor. Hostilities began in the course of the month of October, first on the Danube and afterwards in Asia, where a surprise made the Turks masters of the little maritime fort of St. Nicholas or Chefketil. The Porte was not long abandoned to its own resources, for the time of political torpor in regard to the territorial aggrandisement of the Muscovite colossus had gone by; the eyes of all were at last opened and a European crisis was inevitable. At that moment, the fleets of France and England were already at the entrance of the Dardanelles; and even before the end of October these fine naval armies passed the straits under the authority of a firman, and approached Constantinople. In consequence of the position taken up by these two states, the autocrat broke off relations with them in the beginning of February, 1854. On the 21st of the same month he informed his subjects of the fact in a manifesto, recalling to some extent, by its tone, by its biblical references, and its exalted language, the Treaty of the Holy Alliance. It may be worth while to reproduce here the following passage:
“Against Russia fighting for orthodoxy England and France enter the lists as champions of the enemies of Christianity. But Russia will not fail in her sacred vocation; if the frontier is invaded by the enemy we are ready to resist him with the energy of which our ancestors have bequeathed us the example. Are we not to-day still the same people whose valour was attested by the memorable displays of the year 1812? May the Most High aid us to prove it by our deeds. In this hope, and fighting for our oppressed brothers who confess the faith of Christ, Russia will have but one heart and voice to cry: ‘God, our Saviour! whom have we to fear? Let Christ arise and let his enemies be scattered!’”
FRANCE, ENGLAND, AND TURKEY IN ALLIANCE
[1854 A.D.]
Thus, by an almost miraculous concourse of circumstances, an alliance was formed between France and England, those two ancient and ardent rivals. Preceded by a formal alliance with the Porte (March 12th), it was signed in London, April 10th, 1854. This was not all: this memorable document was immediately submitted to the governments of Austria and Prussia and sanctioned by a protocol signed at Vienna by the four powers, by which the justice of the cause sustained by those of the west was solemnly proclaimed. Austria and Prussia laid down the conditions of their eventual participation in the war in another treaty, that of Berlin, of the 20th of April, 1854, to which the Germanic Confederation on its side gave its adhesion. Finally at Baïadji-Keui, on the 14th of June, 1854, the great Danubian power also concluded a treaty with the Ottoman Porte, in virtue of which she was authorised to enter into military occupation of the principalities, whether she should have previously expelled the Russian army or whether the latter should of its own will have decided to evacuate them. Russia was in the most complete isolation; the Scandinavian states, who had hitherto been her allies, declared themselves neutral; an insurrection in her favour, which was preparing in Servia, was prevented; that of the Greeks, openly favoured by King Otto, was stifled. The Turks, thus effectively protected, were able to turn all their forces on the frontiers, and to prove by heroic acts that they had not lost all the bravery of their ancestors. In return for Europe’s efforts in favour of the integrity of his empire, and in order to ward off the reproach they might incur by supporting the cause of the crescent against a Christian state, the sultan as early as the 6th of June, 1854, published an edict or irade, by which he improved in a notable manner the condition of the rayas, and prepared for their civil freedom, as well as for a complete remodelling of the laws which, governing up to that day the internal government of the Ottoman Empire, seemed to render its preservation almost impossible.