“The Czar received tidings of the hostile decision of the maritime Powers in a spirit which, this time at least, was almost justified by the provocation given. In retaliation for what he would naturally look upon as a bitter affront, and even as a breach of treaty, he determined, it would seem, to have vengeance at sea whilst vengeance at sea was still possible; and it was under the spur of the anger thus kindled that orders for active operations were given to the fleet at Sebastopol. The vengeance he meditated he could only wreak upon the body of the Turks, for the great offenders of the West were beyond the bounds of his power.”
Would not the reader imagine from this that the attack of Sinope had been proved by full evidence to be the immediate result of the exasperation of the Czar at the advance of the combined fleets? But Mr Kinglake acquaints us in a note with the real grounds on which he makes this confident assertion:—
“This conclusion is drawn from dates. The hostile resolution of the Western Powers was known to the Czar a little before the 14th of October, and about the middle of the following month the Black Sea fleet was at sea. If allowance be made for distance and preparation, it will be seen that the sequence of one event upon the other is close enough to warrant the statement contained in the text. In the absence, however, of any knowledge to the contrary, it is fair to suppose that the Czar remembered his promise, and did not sanction any actual attack upon the enemy unless his commanders should be previously apprised that the Turks had commenced active warfare.”
We read this note with surprise. It proves that Mr Kinglake can, when in hot pursuit of the foe, step to a conclusion over grounds where few can follow. The fleets entered the Dardanelles on the 22d October. The attack of Sinope took place on the 30th November. The Turks and Russians had been at war for six weeks; and though the Russian Minister had announced in a circular some time before, that the Czar, in hopes still of a peaceful solution, would remain on the defensive as long as his dignity and interests would allow, yet, as Mr Kinglake himself says, “After the issue of the circular, the Government of St Petersburg had received intelligence not only that active warfare was going on in the valley of the Lower Danube, but that the Turks had seized the Russian fort of St Nicholas on the eastern coast of the Euxine, and were attacking Russia upon her Armenian frontier;” and he fully absolves the Czar from any breach of faith in this matter. Yet he would gravely have us believe that the attack of the ships of one Power upon those of another with which it is at open war requires explanation, and that the most natural explanation possible is to be found in attributing it to a slow retaliation for an imaginary injury inflicted by two other Powers. It is as if we should be told that, in the early rounds of a celebrated pugilistic encounter, Mr Sayers had hit Mr Heenan very hard in the eye, not because they were fighting, but because one of the bystanders had previously trodden on the champion’s coat.
As the reader will probably decline to follow Mr Kinglake over his slender bridge of inference, we must look beyond Sinope for the naval movement instigated by the French Emperor and turning the scale in favour of war; and, as only one remains to be accounted for, we have not far to look. The next orders sent to the fleets were intended to obviate another disaster and disgrace such as that of Sinope. They provided that Russian ships met with in the Euxine should be requested, and, if necessary, constrained, to return to Sebastopol. This, Mr Kinglake terms “a harsh and insulting course of action.” He says the English Cabinet during their deliberations “were made acquainted with the will of the French Emperor; ... the pressure of the French Emperor was the cogent motive which governed the result; ... the result was that now, for the second time, France dictated to England the use that she should make of her fleet, and by this time, perhaps, submission had become more easy than it was at first.” But Lord Clarendon has been quoted by Mr Kinglake as saying, months before, that it had become the duty of England to defend Turkey. According to Mr Kinglake, when independent Powers are acting together, to propose is to dictate, and to acquiesce is to submit. To make a suggestion is imperious, and to adopt it is ignominious. But what kind of an alliance would this be? or how would concert be possible under such circumstances? The proposal of the French Emperor was so offered as to show that he was thoroughly convinced of its expediency. If he was so convinced, he was right so to offer it. And why did the English Ministry adopt it? Because the English people more than kept pace with the wishes of the Emperor. “A huge obstacle,” says the historian, “to the maintenance of peace in Europe was raised up by the temper of the English people; ... the English desired war.” It is strange doctrine then, that an English Ministry which, by assenting to the proposition of an ally, expresses the temper of the English people, thereby submits to foreign dictation.
But the strangest part of the French part of the story is behind. We have seen how Mr Kinglake traces from the first the devious wiles of the French Emperor—how it was his craft that first made the question of the Holy Places important—how his “subtle and dangerous counsels” hurried England into war, and all because war was necessary to the stability of his throne. The complicated texture of his intrigue is followed and traced with immense patience and ingenuity; and yet, when the work is complete, and his imperial victim stands fully detected and exposed as the incendiary of Europe, the detective suddenly destroys his own finely-spun web at a blow. England was the tool of the French Emperor, but the French Emperor was the tool of a still more astute and potent personage. “When the Czar began to encroach upon the Sultan, there was nothing that could so completely meet Lord Palmerston’s every wish as an alliance between the two Western Powers, which should toss France headlong into the English policy of upholding the Ottoman Empire.... As he (Lord Palmerston) from the first had willed it, so moved the two great nations of the West.” The elaborated structure of French intrigue falls, and our gay perennial Premier is discovered smiling amid the ruins. Thus Punch murders his wife and infant, hangs the executioner, and shines as the dexterous and successful villain, till, at the close of the piece, Mr Codlin, the real wire-puller, draws aside the curtain and appears at the bottom of the show, while the great criminal and his victims revert to their proper condition of sawdust and tinsel.
The terms of the alliance between France and England are surely not difficult to understand. The policy of upholding the Ottoman Empire was, as Mr Kinglake says, “an English policy.” The object for which the Governments of France and England were actively united was an English object. Naturally we inquire what inducement the Emperor had then to form the alliance? Mr Kinglake furnishes us with the correct response. It seemed, he says, to the Emperor “that, by offering to thrust France into an English policy, he might purchase for himself an alliance with the Queen, and win for his new throne a sanction of more lasting worth than Morny’s well-warranted return of his eight millions of approving Frenchmen. Above all, if he could be united with England, he might be able to enter upon that conspicuous action in Europe which was needful for his safety at home, and might do this without bringing upon himself any war of a dangerous kind.” The advantages of the alliance were to be reciprocal. The Emperor was to gain in position and reputation, in return for aiding with his fleets and armies the attainment of an English object. Mutual interest and mutual compromise were the basis of this, as of most alliances. We had not to accuse the Emperor of any breach of faith in executing his part of the compact. Being already, as Lord Clarendon said, committed to the defence of Turkey, it made a vast difference to us whether we should enter on a war with Russia alone, or should be aided by the immense power of France. And it was only fair that the Emperor should be allowed to occupy, in the transactions which ensued, that position, the attainment of which was his grand object in seeking the alliance. Yet Mr Kinglake blames this necessitous potentate because he did not sacrifice his position and himself to our interests—because he did not chivalrously place his army and navy at our service for the promotion of English policy, and remain quietly in the background, with his generous feelings for his reward; and he blames our own Government for making those compromises which alone could render the alliance possible.
And here, we rejoice to say, our serious differences with Mr Kinglake end. After so much entertainment and instruction as we have derived from his book, it seems almost ungrateful to make to it so many exceptions. But if we have occupied much of our space thus, he must remember that it takes longer to argue than to acquiesce. Moreover, it is partly owing to his own excellences that we have been able to find matter for dispute. Many a writer would have so muddled his facts and his prejudices that we should have found it hard to do more than suspect the presence of error in the cloudy medium. But his style is so clear, so precise, that the reasoning everywhere shines through, and a fallacy or an inconsistency has no more chance of escaping detection than a gold fish in a crystal aquarium. And besides, Mr Kinglake himself most honestly and liberally furnishes us with the facts, and even the inferences, necessary to rectify his theory. Thus the effect, in his history, of his hostility to the Emperor is not that of a false proportion in a rule of three, which extends and vitiates the whole process. It is only like a series of erroneous items introduced in a sum in addition, which may be separated and deducted, leaving the total right.
The course of the transactions that led to the war may then be traced as clearly as diplomacy, dealing with many great interests and many unseen motives, generally permits. The squabble about the Holy Places was not the origin but only the pretext of the dispute with Turkey. The conversations with Sir Hamilton Seymour and the mission of Mentschikoff prove that the Czar was already seeking to dislocate the fabric of the Turkish Empire, and only took that lever because it lay readiest to his hand. “A crowd of monks,” says Mr Kinglake, in his picturesque way, “with bare foreheads, stood quarrelling for a key at the sunny gates of a church in Palestine, but beyond and above, towering high in the misty North, men saw the ambition of the Czars.” But the real design could not long be hidden by the pretext. And the execution of that design would be subversive of that balance which it was the duty and interest of the other Powers to maintain. It was for the Czar, then, to choose a time for his project when he might find each of the other Powers restrained by some counteracting motive from opposing his ambition. Looking over Europe, he thought that he perceived the favourable moment. Austria, the Power most interested from her contiguity, and from the importance to her of free use of the great waterway of Southern Germany, if she had much reason to resist, had also much reason to acquiesce. She still felt too keenly, financially and politically, the effects of the heavy blows dealt her in 1848–9 to be ready or willing for war. She was under a huge debt of gratitude to Nicholas, who, in the hour of her direst necessity, had advanced to save her, without condition and without reward. He possessed, too, a great personal ascendancy over the young Emperor of Austria. And, lastly, at this time Austria had a hostile altercation with Turkey, which would render it more than ever difficult for her to take part with the Sultan.
It might be calculated that Prussia would follow the lead of Austria. Her interests were the same in kind, but far less in degree. Once satisfied that full guarantees for the freedom of the Danube would be given, she would no longer have special interest in the subject.