Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 93, No. 569, March, 1863

by Various

These strong measures were the first indications that war was possibly impending. And as they appeared to spring from the religious fervour of the Czar, which had been roused to this pitch by the gratuitous intermeddling of Napoleon in the question of the Holy Places, it would at first seem as if it were indeed the French ruler who had first blown the coal which presently caused such a conflagration. But in the interval between the decision of the Sultan about the churches, and the appearance of Mentschikoff at Constantinople, Nicholas had held with Sir Hamilton Seymour the remarkable conversations which explain the real designs cloaked by the religious question. In these interviews he uttered his famous parable of “the sick man,” representing that the Turkish Empire was dying, and might fall to pieces any day, and proposing that the event should be provided for by an immediate arrangement for dividing the fragments. Provided he had the concurrence of England, the Czar would not, he said, care what any other Powers might do or say in the matter.

Here then was a foregone conclusion plainly revealed. The religious ire of the Czar, the movement of his troops, the mission of Mentschikoff, were all to be instruments for hastening the dissolution of the sick man, and appropriating his domains. It was no new idea; for Nicholas was but following the traditionary policy of his house. And if it could be believed that his expectations of the speedy collapse of the Turkish Empire were real, it would be unjust to blame him for wishing to profit by the event. We are too apt to judge of the policy of other Governments by the interests of England, and to condemn as unprincipled what is opposed to our advantage. Nevertheless, to a ruler of Russia, no object can appear more legitimate than the possession of that free outlet to the world, which alone is wanting to remove the spell that paralyses her gigantic energies. Looking from the shores of the Euxine, she is but mocked by the vision of naval glories and of commercial prosperity; but let her extend her limits to the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, and no dreams of greatness can be too splendid for her to realise. But there is no proof that the Czar’s anticipations respecting Turkey were grounded on anything more solid than his strong desire to render them true. In fact, the forecast of the Czar is much the same as that of Mohammed Damoor, as described in ‘Eothen:’ who, having prophesied that the Jews of Damascus would be despoiled on a particular day, took steps to verify his prediction by first exciting and then heading the mob of plunderers.

The reply of England to his overtures satisfied him that he could not hope for her complicity in his design upon Turkey. Had it been otherwise, the sick man would, no doubt, have been so cared for that, sick or well, there would soon have been an end of him. But the Czar perceived he must for the present forego his desire for the vineyard of Naboth. Yet there were several reasons why he should still draw what profit he could from the present opportunity. He had a pretext—an indifferent one it is true, but still it was more convenient to use it than to look for another. He had been at the trouble of military preparations, and was naturally desirous that they should not be barren of result. And, in the matter of Montenegro, Turkey had just succumbed to him so readily on a threat of war, that it seemed very unlikely he should ever find her in a better frame of mind for his purpose. Therefore, though the sick man was reprieved, yet he was not to go scot-free; and Mentschikoff was charged, while ostensibly urging the Sultan to reconsider the question of the Holy Places, to keep in reserve a demand of much deeper significance.

Scornful in demeanour and imperious in language, Mentschikoff entered Constantinople more like the bearer of a gage of defiance than a messenger of peace. His deportment startled the Divan out of its habitual calm; and the British Chargé d’Affaires, at the instance of the Turkish Ministers, requested our Admiral at Malta to move his squadron into the Levant. This demand was not complied with; but the French fleet was ordered to Salamis. And this movement is condemned by Mr Kinglake as most impolitic; for it happened, he says, at a time when “the anger of the Emperor Nicholas had grown cool,” and it “gave deep umbrage to Russia.” From which he means us to infer that Louis Napoleon, following his deep design of fanning the flame of discord when it should seem to languish, was so timing the advance of his fleet as to neutralise the pacific influences which had begun to have their sway.

Now what are the circumstances of the case? The French Emperor knew nothing of the conversation with Sir Hamilton Seymour, which did not transpire till long afterwards. Neither he nor the British Government were aware of the Czar’s real demands. Ostensibly the matter of controversy was still the original question between him and the Czar concerning the Holy Places. And while one of the disputants, France, had urged her views in the ordinary way by the mouth of her ambassador, her opponent was preparing to coerce the arbiter by a menacing mission backed by an army and a fleet. The army already touched the frontier, the fleet was prepared to sail for the Bosphorus. Will anybody except Mr Kinglake blame the French Emperor for sending his fleet to Salamis? or say that he was bound, before taking such a step, to consider whether it might not give deep umbrage to Russia?

Mentschikoff then proceeded to urge his demands. These were, that, in addition to the concessions required respecting the Holy Places, the Sultan should, by treaty with the Czar, engage to confirm the Christian subjects of the Porte in certain privileges and immunities. Though the Sultan was very willing to confirm them in these privileges, he was by no means willing to bind himself by treaty with the Czar to do so; for by so doing he would give the Czar a right, as a party to the treaty, to see that it was fulfilled; and hence those who were to benefit by the privileges would naturally regard most, not him who granted them, but him who could compel their observance. In fact, it was virtually conferring on the Czar the protectorate of the Sultan’s Christian subjects.

It was while the Turkish Ministers were in the deepest embarrassment between the consequences of listening to such a proposition on the one hand, and the fear of offending the Czar by refusing to entertain it on the other, that Lord Stratford appeared on the scene. The coming of the British Ambassador, and the diplomatic duel that ensued between him and Mentschikoff, where predominant influence in the Sultan’s counsels was to be the prize of the victor, forms one of the most brilliant passages in this brilliant book. The mere presence of the Ambassador of England restores the Sultan and his Ministers to complete self-possession. When Mentschikoff blusters, they refresh themselves by a view of Lord Stratford’s commanding aspect; when the Russian menaces war, they are comforted by a hint from the Englishman respecting the English squadron. Of such dramatic excellence is this portion of the story, that the enthralled reader forgets to inquire how it was that in a dispute between France and Russia respecting the subjects of Turkey, the Ambassador of England should be the foremost champion. But we see him throughout as the power that moves the Mussulman puppets, and from whose calm opposition the menaces of Mentschikoff recoil harmless; and we see in distant St Petersburg the great Czar himself lashed to fury at feeling himself foiled by one whom he has long, we are told, considered as a personal foe. We cannot but feel proud in these circumstances of the position of our representative, though it would be difficult to say, perhaps, what advantage besides this feeling of pride we, as a nation, derived from it. But it is clear that, while the Czar was dreaming, as of something possible to be realised by a great display of power, of a protectorate over the Christian subjects of the Porte, here was a British protectorate of the most absolute character already established over the Porte and its subjects, Christian and Mussulman; and we might almost infer that nothing further was requisite on Lord Stratford’s part but to humour Mohammedan prejudices by submitting to a few insignificant religious rites, in order to qualify him for at once taking his place as Chief of the Ottoman Empire, and the true Commander of the Faithful.

In the diplomatic encounter, Mentschikoff had no more chance than the fiend in a moral tale of diablerie, who urges weak man to sign his soul away after the good angel has come to the rescue. Baffled at all points, he departs with all the diplomatic train, muttering vengeance. And here ends the first act of the drama, when the pretexts of the Czar have vanished, and he shows his true design. The next begins with the crossing of the Pruth by the Russian forces, in order to secure the material guarantee of the Danubian provinces. But the menacing position of Russia was not the only change in the situation. England, who in the earlier dispute had no more interest than the other Western Powers in opposing Russia, had in the progress of the controversy made herself so prominent that she was, in the judgment of Lord Clarendon, bound to defend the provinces of the Sultan against an unprovoked attack by Russia. That she had laid herself under this obligation was entirely owing to the lofty part which Lord Stratford had played in the drama. On the other hand, had Lord Stratford not been so ready and conspicuous in his championship, the Divan, feeling itself unsupported, might have yielded to the demands of Russia.

For a great part of the narrative, then, the principal positions have been occupied by England, Russia, and Turkey; and the interest imparted to scenes which, from an ordinary hand, would have been eminently tedious, is wonderful. But at this juncture, King Charles I., who has long been impending, can no longer be kept out of the memorial. The iniquitous machinations of the French Emperor are brought into the foreground. The occasion for enlarging on them is that which we shall presently state. But first we must say that it is from no wish to dilate on what we think the blemish of the book that we expatiate on this theme. It is because it is mixed up with all the main parts of a work which we are bound to treat as an authentic history. But it happens that, for a reason to be noted hereafter, we can, without injury to the texture, separate this portion from the rest; and we therefore propose to follow this thread of the narrative to its end, and so, having done with it, to be at liberty, for the rest of these volumes, to approve no less warmly than we admire.

Austria naturally felt considerable interest in the movements of a formidable neighbour, whose troops were now winding round her frontier, who, by overrunning Turkey, would enclose some of her provinces, and who, at the next step in advance, would control the Lower Danube. She therefore, in conjunction with Prussia, made common cause with the Western Powers, so far as to offer a strong remonstrance against the occupation of the Danubian provinces, and to join in their efforts to preserve peace. Mr Kinglake contends that this kind of pacific pressure would have secured its object, and that if it had not, Austria would have joined France and England in having recourse to sterner measures. But he says that, without waiting for the result of this joint coercion, England was persuaded to join France in a separate course of action, which, without necessity, involved us in a war desired only by the French Emperor. “In order to see how it came to be possible,” says the historian, “that the vast interests of Europe should be set aside in favour of mere personal objects, it will presently be necessary to contract the field of vision, and, going back to the winter of 1851, to glance at the operations of a small knot of middle-aged men who were pushing their fortunes in Paris.”