VI.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAP. Now, therefore, it became needful for the Emperor Nicholas to endeavour to divine the temper in which the other great Powers of Europe would be inclined to regard his intended pressure upon the Sultan, and the eventual catastrophe which, even if he should wish it, he might soon be unable to avert. It was of deep moment to him to know what help or acquiescence he might reckon upon, and what hostility he might have to encounter, if he should be called upon to take part in regulating the collapse of the Turkish Empire, and controlling the arrangements which were to follow.

Position of
Austria in
regard to
Turkey at

He looked around. The policy of one of the great States of Europe was bent out of its true course, and the begin in others there were signs of weak purpose. The

ning of

1853.

Power most deeply interested in preventing the dismemberment of European Turkey had already determined to press upon the Sultan an unjust and offensive demand; and although the statesmen of Vienna might have resolved in their own minds to stop short at some prescribed stage of the contemplated hostilities, it was plain that Austria, when

VI.

once engaged in war against the Sultan, would lose CHA P. the standing-ground of a Power which undertakes to resist change, and would become so entangled by the mere progress of events, that it would be difficult for her to extricate herself and revert to a conservative policy. Indeed, the Emperor Nicholas might fairly expect that Austria, having committed the original mistake of disturbing the peace, would afterwards strive to cling to his friendship in the hope of being able to moderate his course of action, and avert or mitigate the downfall of the Turkish Empire.

With respect to Prussia, the Emperor Nicholas Of Prussia. was free from anxiety. As long as the measures against the Sultan were carried on in alliance with Austria, the States of Germany had little ground for fearing that the interest which they had in the freedom of the Lower Danube would be forgotten; and this object being secured, or regarded as secure, Prussia had less interest in the fate of the Ottoman Empire than any of the other great Powers. There being, therefore, no reason of State obliging him to take a contrary course, it was to be expected that the King of Prussia would continue to live under the ascendancy which his Imperial brother-in-law had long been accustomed to maintain.

France, having great military and naval forces, Of France. and a Mediterranean seabord, was well entitled to frame for herself any honest system of policy which she might deem to be the best guide for her conduct in Eastern affairs; but the time for her having a

VI.

CHAP. policy of her own had passed away, for she had fallen under the mere control of the Second Bonaparte; and in order to divine what France would do, it was necessary to make out what scheme of action her ruler would deem to be most conducive to his comfort and safety. Even the supposition that he would copy the First Napoleon gave no sufficing clue for saying what his Eastern policy ought to be, or what it was, or what it was likely to be in any future week. France, as wielded by a Bonaparte, had been known to the Sultan sometimes as a friendly Power, sometimes as a Power pretending to be friendly to him but secretly bargaining for the dismemberment of his empire; sometimes as a mere predatory State seizing his provinces in time of peace and without the pretence of a quarrel,* and sometimes even as a rival Mahometan Power-for it is known that the First Bonaparte did not scruple to call himself in Egypt a true Mussulman; † and although he now and then claimed to be the eldest son of the 'Catholic Church,' he first introduced himself in the Levant as the soldier of a nation which had renounced 'the Messiah.'

Upon the whole, there seemed to be no reason why the new French Emperor should refuse to join with Russia in trying to bring about the dismemberment of the Turkish Empire, and to arrange the distribution of the spoil. Indeed, the great extension which

The one

* e. g., Bonaparte's predatory invasion of Egypt in time of peace. A falsified copy of the manifesto was sent to France. really issued represented Bonaparte as a Mahometan.

VI.

France had given of late to her navy, rendered views CHAP. of this kind less chimerical than they were at the time of the Secret Articles of Tilsit. But, on the other hand, it was the French Government which had provoked the religious excitement under which Nicholas was labouring; and although it is believed that when his troubles increased upon him the Czar afterwards made overtures to France, it would seem that in the beginning of 1853 he was too angry and too scornful towards the French Emperor to be able to harbour the thought of making him his ally. Of the danger lest France should suddenly adopt a conservative policy, and undertake to resist his arrangements in the East of Europe, the Emperor Nicholas made light, for he had resolved at this time not to place himself in conflict with England; and the operations of any Western Power in Turkey being dependent upon sea-communications, he did not think it to be within the wide compass of possible events that France, single-handed and without the alliance of her maritime neighbour, would or could obstruct him in the Levant. He cared,' he said, 'very little what line the French might think proper to take in Eastern affairs; and he had apprised the Sultan that if his assistance were required for resisting the 'menaces of the French, it was entirely at the service ' of the Sultan.'* 'When we (Russia and England) are agreed, I am quite without anxiety as to the West of Europe: it is immaterial what the others may think or do.'t

6

6

СНАР.
VI.

There remained, then, only England, and upon the whole it had come to this: that the Emperor Nicholas would feel able to meet the emergency occasioned Seeming by the downfall of the Sultan, and might perhaps be

Of England.

state of

opinion

there.

inclined to do a little towards bringing about the catastrophe, if beforehand he could come to an understanding with the English Government as to the way in which Europe should deal with the fragments of the Turkish Empire. But he had learned, as he said, that an alliance with England must depend upon the feeling of the country at large, and this he strove hard to understand.

England had long been an enigma to the political students of the Continent, but after the summer of 1851 they began to imagine that they really at last understood her. They thought that she was falling from her place among nations; and indeed there were signs which might well lead a shallow observer to fancy that her ancient spirit was failing her. An army is but the limb of a nation, and it is no more given to a people to combine the possession of military strength with an unmeasured devotion to the arts of peace, than it is for a man to be feeble and helpless in the general condition of his body, and yet to have at his command a strong right arm for the convenience of self-defence. The strength of the right arm is as the strength of the man: the prowess of an army is as the valour and warlike spirit of the nation which gives it her flesh and blood. England, having suffered herself to grow forgetful of this truth, * Eastern Papers,' part iii.