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CHAP. seemed to be; and what he seemed to be in the beginning of 1853 was a firm, righteous man, too brave and too proud to be capable of descending to falsehood.

Nicholas had a violent will; but of course when he underwent the change which robbed him of his singleness of mind, his resolves, notwithstanding their native force, could not fail to lose their momentum. He was a man too military to be warlike; and was not only without the qualities for wielding an army in the field, but was mistaken also as to the way in which the best soldiers are made. Russia, under his sway, was so oppressively drilled that much of the fire and spirit of enterprise which are needed for war was crushed out by military training No man, however, could toil with more zeal than he did in that branch of industry which seeks to give uniformity and mechanic action to bodies of men. He was an unwearied inspector of troops. He kept close at hand great numbers of small wooden images clothed in various uniforms, and one of the rooms in his favourite palace was filled with these military dolls.

The Emperor Nicholas had not been long upon the throne, when he showed that he was a partaker of the ambition of his people; for in 1828 he had begun an invasion of Turkey, and was present with his army in some of the labours of the campaign: but his experience was of a painful kind. The mechanical organisation in which he delighted broke down under stress of real war

IV.

carried on upon an extended line of operations. CHAP. In the country of the Danube his soldiery perished fast from sickness and want; and although he had so well chosen his time that the Sultan was without an ally, and (having but lately put to death his own army) was in an ill condition for war, still he encountered so much of obstinate and troublesome resistance from the Turks, and was so ill able to cope with it, that at the instance, as is said, of his own Generals, he retired from the scene of conflict, and went back to St Petersburg with the galling knowledge that he was without the gifts which make an able commander in the field. He could not but see, too, that the military reputation of Russia was brought into great peril; and, although in the following year he was rescued from the dangerous straits into which he had run, by the brilliant audacity of Diebitsch, by the skill of his diplomacy, and above all by indulgent fortune, still he was so chastened by the anxiety of the time, and by the narrowness of his escape from a great humiliation, that he ceased to entertain any hope or intention of dismembering Turkey, except in the event of there occurring a chain of circumstances which should enable him to act with the concurrence of other great Powers.

But the Emperor knew that the pride of his people would be deeply wounded if any great changes should take place in the Ottoman Empire without bringing gain to Russia and accelerating her march to Constantinople; and therefore he believed that, until he was prepared to take a

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CHAP. part in dismembering the Empire, it was his interest to preserve it intact. For more than twenty years his actions as well as his declared intentions were in accordance with this view; and it would be wrong to believe that the policy thus shown forth to the world was only a mask. Just as the love of killing game generates a sincere wish to preserve it, so the very fact that the Czar looked upon Turkey as eventual booty, made him anxious to protect it from every other kind of danger. In 1833 the Emperor Nicholas saved the Sultan and his dynasty from destruction; and although he accompanied this measure with an act offensive to the other maritime Powers,* his conduct towards Turkey was loyal. In 1840 he again acted faithfully towards the Sultan, and joined with England and the two chief Powers of Germany in preventing the disruption of the Ottoman Empire.

In 1844 the Czar came to England, and anxiously strove to find out whether there were any of our foremost statesmen who had grown weary of a conservative policy in Turkey. He talked confidentially with the Duke of Wellington and Lord Aberdeen, and also, no doubt, with Sir Robert Peel; but evidently meeting with no encouragement, he covered his retreat by giving in his adhesion to England's accustomed policy, and to do this with the better effect, he left in our Foreign Office a solemn declaration not only of his own policy, but likewise, strange to say, of the policy of Austria; * The Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi.

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and all this he blended in a somewhat curious CHAP. manner with words which might be read as importing that his views had obtained the sanction of the English Government. It would seem that our Government agreed, as they naturally would, to that part of the Czar's memorandum which was applicable to the existing state of things, and which, in fact, echoed the known opinion of England; and they also assented to the obvious proposition that the event of a breaking-up of the Ottoman Empire would make it important for the great Powers to come to an understanding amongst themselves; but it must be certain that the Duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, and Lord Aberdeen refrained, as it is the custom of our statesmen to do, from all hypothetical engagements. Russia and England,' said this memorandum, ' are mutually penetrated with the conviction that 'it is for their common interest that the Ottoman 'Porte should maintain itself in the state of independence and of territorial possession which at 'present constitutes that Empire. Being agreed on this principle, Russia and England have an equal interest in uniting their efforts in order to keep up the existence of the Ottoman Empire, ' and to avert all the dangers which can place in 'jeopardy its safety. With this object, the essen'tial point is to suffer the Porte to live in repose, 'without needlessly disturbing it by diplomatic 'bickerings, and without interfering, without absolute necessity, in its internal affairs.' Then, after showing that the tendency of the Turkish

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CHAP. Government to evade treaties and ill-use its Christian subjects ought to be checked rather by the combined and friendly remonstrance of all the Powers than by the separate action of one, the memorandum proceeded: If all the great Powers frankly adopt this line of conduct, they will have a well-founded expectation of preserving the ex'istence of Turkey. However, they must not 'conceal from themselves how many elements of 'dissolution that Empire contains within itself. 'Unforeseen circumstances may hasten its fall. ‘. . . In the uncertainty which hovers over the 'future, a single fundamental idea seems to admit of a really practical application: it is, that the ⚫ danger which may result from a catastrophe in Turkey will be much diminished if, in the event ' of its occurring, Russia and England have come

His policy from 1829 to 1853.

6

to an understanding as to the course to be taken by them in common. That understanding will be the more beneficial, inasmuch as it will have 'the full assent of Austria. Between her and 'Russia there exists already an entire accord.'

Upon the whole, it would seem that from the peace of Adrianople down to the beginning of 1853 the state of the Czar's mind upon the Eastern Question was this:-He was always ready to come forward as an eager and almost ferocious defender of his Church, and he deemed this motive to be one of such cogency that views resting on mere policy and prudence were always in danger of being overborne by it; but in the absence of events tending to bring this fiery principle into