I. Emperor, and it chanced that the qualities of Nicholas CHA P. were of such a kind as to enable him to give a literal truth to the theory that he, and he alone, was the Personal State. government in Russia. In Austria the disasters of 1848 had broken the In Austria. custom of government, and placed a kind of dictatorship in the hands of the youthful Emperor. And although before the summer of 1853 the traditions. of the State had regained a great deal of their force, still for a time the recovery was not so plainly evidenced as to compel an unwilling man to see it; and the notion that the great empire of the Danube had merged in the mere wishes of Francis Joseph lingered always in the mind of the Czar and drew him on into danger. Even in Prussia, though the country seemed to en- In Prussia. joy a constitutional form of government, the policy of the State was always liable to be deranged by the tremulous hand of the King; and the anticipation of finding weakness in this quarter was one of the causes which led the Czar to defy the judgment of Europe. tration of fairs under In the Ottoman dominions Abdul Medjid was Adminis accustomed to leave the administration of foreign foreign afaffairs to responsible ministers; and it will be seen the Sultan. that this wholesome method of reigning gave the Turkish Government a great advantage over the diplomacy of other Continental States. tional sys In England there was no evil trace of that Oriental Constitupolity which yields up the power of the State into tem of the hands of one human being. Happy in the love in its England CHAP. of the people who surrounded her throne, and free I. from all motives clashing with the welfare of her bearing realms, the Queen always intrusted the business of conduct of the monarchy to ministers of state enjoying the conAffairs. fidence of Parliament; and upon the whole, the upon the Foreign polity of the English state was such that no Government could draw the country into a needless war unless its error came to be shared by the bulk of the people. Indeed, the power of the Crown in England is so far from being a source of disturbance, that it is one of the safeguards of peace. There are circumstances in which an ancient reigning House gains a view of foreign affairs more tranquil and in some respects more commanding than any obtained by a Cabinet; and although it is known that in these days ministerial responsibility can never be evaded by alleging the order of the Crown, the practice of the Constitution requires that the Foreign Secretary shall have the actual sanction of his Sovereign for every important step which he takes; and it requires also that, in order to the obtaining of this sanction, the explanations tendered to the Crown by the ministry shall be complete and frank.* The duty of rendering these explanations, and of asking for the Royal sanction, can scarcely be fulfilled without giving a minister the advantage of seeing a question from a new point of view. Therefore, although the responsible Secretary for Foreign Affairs can never find shelter by setting up the overruling will of his * The existing practice of the Constitution in this respect is laid down in the debates which began the Session of 1852. I. Sovereign as the justification of his conduct, and al- CHAP. though he must needs be supported by the advice or assent of Parliament, still he is not without means of guidance from sources of a less changeful kind; for whilst he has below him the tradition of the office, there is above him the tradition of the monarchy. By these means some steadfastness of purpose is generally, though not always, insured; and, except when it happens that the people are turned aside for a moment by some honest sentiment or moved by their innate desire to hear of insurrections and battles, the foreigner has good grounds for inferring that, whatever the policy of England may be, it will not be altogether unstable. Certainly the transactions of the East so drew England away from her landmarks as to bring her at last into war, and this, too, at a time when the Queen was still blessed with the counsels of a husband, who was a wise and a gifted statesman; but it will be seen by-and-by how it came to happen that the forces of the Constitution were baffled. will France, down to steps December the 2d of 1851. France, down to the winter of 1851, was under And of parliamentary government, and although, as be seen, the President was able to take which tended to generate troubles, the country was safe from the calamity of a wanton rupture with friendly States. The change wrought in the night of the 2d of December* will be shown by-and-by, and its effects upon the peace of Europe will be traced; but the period now spoken of is the middle of * 1851. I. CHAP. the century; and at that time, and so long as the Republic maintained a real existence, it was not possible in France, any more than in England, that a war should be undertaken by the Executive Government without the approval of Parliament and of the nation at large. Power of It was believed that the Emperor Nicholas numbered almost a million of men under arms; and of these a main part were brave, steady, obedient soldiers. Gathering from time to time great bodies of troops upon his western frontier, he caused the minds of men in the neighbouring States to be weighed down with a sense of his strength. Moreover, he was served by a diplomacy of the busy sort, always labouring to make the world hear of Russia and to acknowledge her might; and being united by family ties with some of the reigning Houses of Germany, he was able to have it believed that his favour might be of use to the courtiers and even sometimes to the statesmen of Central Europe. Down to the giving of trinkets and ribbons, he was not forgetful. His power was great; and when the troubles of 1848 broke out, the broad foundation of his authority was more than ever manifested; for, surrounded by sixty millions of subjects whose loyalty was hardly short of worship, he seemed to stand free and aloof from the panic which was overturning the thrones of the Western Continent, and to look down upon the terrors of his fellow-sovereigns, not deigning to yield his cold patronage to the cause of law and order. In the West, he said, and even in Cen tral Europe, the storm might rage as it liked, but he CHAP. warned and commanded that the waves should not so much as cast their spray upon the frontiers of 'Holy Russia ;'* and when Hungary rose, he ordered his columns to pass the border, and forced the insurgent army to lay down its arms. Then, proudly abstaining from conditions and recompense, he yielded up the kingdom to his Ally. That day Russia seemed to touch the pinnacle of her greatness; for men were forced to acknowledge that her power was vast, and that it was wielded in a spirit of austere virtue, ranging high above common ambition. I. But towards the South, Russia was the neighbour Turkey. of Turkey. The descendants of the Ottoman invaders still remained quartered in Roumelia and the adjoining provinces. They were a race living apart from the Christians who mainly peopled the land; for the original scheme of the Moslem invasions still kept its mark upon the country. When the Ottoman warriors were conquering a province, they used to follow the injunction of the Prophet, and call upon such of the nations as rejected the Koran to choose between the tribute' and the sword; but the destiny implied by the first branch of the alternative was very different from that of a people whose country is conquered by European invaders. Instead of being made subject to all the laws of their conquerors, the people of the Christian Churches were suffered to live apart, governing themselves in their own way, furnishing no recruits to the army, and * See the Manifesto issued by the Czar in 1848. |