CHAPTER XII.

CHAP. THE mere sensation of being at strife with the

XII.

Rage of the Czar.

English Ambassador at Constantinople, had kindled in the bosom of the Emperor Nicholas a rage so fierce as to drive him beyond the bounds of policy; but when he came to know the details of the struggle, and to see how, at every step, his Ambassador had been encountered—and, finally, when he heard (for that was the maddening thought) that, by counsels always obeyed, Lord Stratford was calmly exercising a protectorate of all the Churches in Turkey, including the very Church of him the Czar, him the Father, him the Pontiff of Eastern Christendom-he was wrought into such a condition of mind that his fury broke away from the restraint of even the very pride which begot it. Pride counselled the calm use of force, an order to the Admiral at Sebastopol, the silent march of battalions. But the Czar had so lost the control of his anger, that everywhere, and to all who would look upon the sight, he showed the wounds inflicted upon him by his hated adversary. He addressed,' said Lord Clarendon, 'to the different Courts of 'Europe, unmeasured complaints of Lord Stratford.

To him, and to him alone, he attributed the failure CHAP.

I of Prince Mentschikoff's mission.'* 'An incurable 'mistrust, a vehement activity,' said Count Nessel

rode,t had characterised the whole of Lord Strat'ford's conduct during the latter part of the nego'tiation.'

6

Even in formal despatches the Czar caused his Minister to speak as though there were absolutely no government at Constantinople except the mere will of Lord Stratford. The English Ambassador,' Count Nesselrode said, 'persisted in refusing us any kind. of guarantee;'† and then the Count went on to picture the Turkish Ministers as prostrate before the English Ambassador, and vainly entreating him to let them yield to Russia. 'Reshid Pasha,' said he, struck with the dangers which the departure of our Legation might entail upon the Porte, earnestly conjured the British Ambassador not to oppose the acceptance of the Note drawn up by Prince Mentschikoff; but Lord Redcliffe prevented its acceptance by declaring that the Note was equivalent to a treaty, ' and was inadmissible.'t This last story, it has been seen, was the work of mere fiction; but in the Czar Nicholas, as well as in Prince Mentschikoff, there were remains of the Oriental nature which made him ready to believe in the boundless power of a mortal, and he seems to have received without question the fables with which the Eastern mind was portraying the unbending, implacable Eltchi. It was vain to show

6

6

*Eastern Papers,' part i. p. 268.

+ Ibid. p. 243. This is proved very clearly. Ibid. p. 336 et seq.

XII.

XII.

CHAP. a monarch, thus wrought to anger, that the difference between him and the terrible Ambassador lay simply in the fact that the one was in the wrong and the other in the right. The thought of this only made the discomfiture more bitter. In the eyes of the Czar, Lord Stratford's way of keeping himself eternally in the right and eternally moderate was the mere contrivance, the mere inverted Jesuitism, of a man resolved to do good in order that evil might come-resolved to be forbearing and just for the sake of doing harm to the Church. It was plain that, to assuage the torment which the Czar was enduring, the remedy was action: yet, strange to say, this disturber of Europe, who seemed to pass his life in preparing soldiery, was not at all ready for a war even against the Sultan alone. His preparations had been stopped in the beginning of March, and the movements which his troops had been making in Bessarabia were movements in the nature of threats. He wished to do some signal act of violence without plunging into

The Da

nubian

lities.

war.

The disposition of the Russian forces on the banks Principa of the Pruth had long been breeding rumours that the Emperor Nicholas meditated an occupation of the Principalities called Wallachia and Moldavia. These provinces formed a part of the Ottoman dominions in Europe; but they were held by the Sultan under arrangements which modified their subjection to the Porte and gave them the character of tributary States. Each of them was governed by a prince called a Hospodar, who received his investi

XII.

ture at Constantinople; but the Sultan was precluded CHAP. by treaty from almost all interference with the internal government of the provinces, and was even debarred the right of sending any soldiery into their territories. Russia, on the other hand, had acquired over these provinces a species of protectorate; and, in the event of their being disturbed by internal anarchy, she had power to aid in repressing the disorder by military occupation. This contingency had not occurred in either of the provinces; but the anomalous form of their political existence caused the Emperor Nicholas to imagine that, by occupying them with a military force, and professing to hold them as occupying a pledge, he could find for himself a middle course betwixt peace and war; and the thought was welcome to him, because, being angry and irresolute, he had been painfully driven to and fro, and was glad to compound with his passion.

On the 31st of May Count Nesselrode addressed a letter to Reshid Pasha, urging the Porte to accept without variation the draft of the Note submitted to it by Prince Mentschikoff, and announcing that, if the Porte should fail to do this within a period of eight days, the Russian army, after a few weeks, would cross the frontier, in order to obtain by force, but without war,' that which the Porte should decline to give up of its own accord. It was afterwards explained that this plan of resorting to violence without war was to be carried into effect by occupying the Danubian Principalities, and holding them as a security for the Sultan's compliance.

6

The Czar's

scheme for

them.

СНАР.
XII.

Efforts to

effect an accommodation.

But, in the second week of June, the Despatch which brought to the Sultan a virtual alliance with England was already at Constantinople, and the English fleet was coming up from Malta to the mouth of the Dardanelles under orders to obey the word of the English Ambassador. Before the moment came for despatching an answer to Count Nesselrode's summons, both the French and the English fleets were at anchor close outside the Straits, in waters called Besica Bay. Thus supported, the Porte at once refused to give Russia the Note demanded; but, under Lord Stratford's counsel, it did this in terms of deferential courtesy, and in a way which left open a door to future negotiation.

In all the capitals of the five great Powers, as well as at Constantinople, great efforts were made to bring about an accommodation, and it is certain that at intervals, if not continually, the Emperor Nicholas sought the means of retreating without ridicule from the ground on which his violence had placed him. It might seem that this was a condition of things in which diplomacy ought to have been able to act with effect; but it is hard for any one acquainted with the Despatches to say that the Statesmen intrusted with the duty of labouring for this end were wanting in energy or in skill. It was the Czar's ancient hatred of Sir Stratford Canning which defied the healing art. What Nicholas wanted was to be able to force upon the Porte some measure which was keenly disapproved by Lord Stratford ; and if it could have been shown that the English