the crimean war;—palmerston prime minister, 1855.
the war began in earnest with the naval conflict at sinope. it was a terrible deed, and done, we must say, altogether in revenge. the english and french fleets had gone up the dardanelles, and by doing so had offended the proud nature of nicholas past all immediate forgiveness. the russian ships came out from sebastopol, and, after hovering about the black sea for a fortnight, to see, probably, whether the combined fleet would interfere, and finding that the small turkish squadron lying at sinope was at their mercy, went in and destroyed it altogether. “it was believed by men in authority,” says mr. kinglake, “that 4,000 turks were killed, and that less than 400 survived, and that all these were wounded.”[l]
england was full of wrath, and nothing would appease her anger but a conviction that now, let the prime minister say what he would, we should fight russia. looking back on the circumstance over many years, we must acknowledge that the emperor of russia had on his side any legal rights which a state of war can give. he, out of his own mad sense of power, had crossed the pruth, and we,—the french, that is, and ourselves,—had{159} on the part of our allies taken our fleets up to constantinople. the russians had returned back across the pruth; but nicholas refused to say that he would give up his idea of a protectorate. the allies had therefore gone with their fleets into the black sea, and there could be no doubt that a state of war existed. but the russian admiral had six or seven ships of the line on the spot, whereas the turks had but seven frigates. there was no hope for them, but still they fought bravely while they had a gun to fight, and perished at last almost to a man. our fleet, the meanwhile, was lying at the bosphorus, and all england was angry. nothing but war could now serve to quiet the minds of englishmen.
on the 10th of december, 1853, lord palmerston wrote to the prime minister, recommending that we in england should at once prepare to fight;—“what i would strongly recommend, therefore, is that which i proposed some months ago to the cabinet, namely, that the russian government and the russian admiral at sebastopol should be informed that so long as russian troops occupy the principalities, or hold a position in any other part of the turkish territory, no russian ships of war can be allowed to show themselves out of port in the black sea.” lord aberdeen declined the advice thus given, and on the 15th lord palmerston resigned. but the government could not go on without him. “in truth,” says mr. kinglake, “he was gifted with the instinct which enables a man to read the heart of a nation.”[m] he was no sooner gone than the cabinet in his absence did decide upon sending the fleet into the black sea; and then the resignation was withdrawn. lord aberdeen wrote to him as follows;—“i am glad{160} to find that you approve of a recent decision of the cabinet with respect to the british and french fleets, adopted in your absence. i feel sure you will have learnt with pleasure that, whether you are absent or present, the government are duly careful to preserve from all injury the interests and dignity of the country.” on the 7th of february the russian ambassador was recalled, and troops were immediately sent to the east. then there was a dinner given to sir charles napier at the reform club, for which lord palmerston was held to be specially responsible. it was not, perhaps, done in the best taste or with the most correct judgment. a triumphant banquet to a conquering hero should follow, and not precede, the victories to be celebrated. lord palmerston presided, and was very triumphant and very jocund. he told stories of all that the admiral had done in the mediterranean and elsewhere, and suggested all that he would do in the baltic. mr. bright fell very foul of him, and perhaps deservedly. lord palmerston retorted on mr. bright with severity, and a considerable amount of ill-feeling was engendered. mr. bright belonged then, as now, to the peace party, and found an ample scope for attack in the loud joy of a minister who was exciting his fellow-countrymen to war; and, undoubtedly, he had the best of it in the end, as sir charles did not return triumphant.
the british troops now flocked into turkey, and the transit across from varna to the crimean peninsula was quickly achieved. on the 14th of september the first detachments of the english and french armies landed, and a few days later the battle of the alma was fought and won. we can still remember the feeling of triumph with which the news was heard, and the spirit{161} of conquest which was enhanced by the false tidings, believed at the time, that sebastopol also had fallen. england did think for a few hours that she had already done that which was to cost her twelve months of heart-rending anxieties, many millions of taxes, and woe beyond measure. hitherto, as we have read the records of the preparations for the campaign, it has appeared that lord palmerston, as home secretary, has had more to do with the war than any other minister. but he escaped the personal annoyance to which those were subjected who had the management of the details in their hands, and who were supposed to be responsible for what was amiss. but the time was soon to come in which he would cease to be an underling;—and then, such was his luck, all things went well.
after the battle of the alma things did not go prosperously. england, when she was brought back from the feeling of triumph which had almost overpowered her on the false report of the fall of sebastopol, expected that though the stronghold had not yet fallen into her hands, it should be made to do so very quickly. she was unreasonable in the severity with which she treated her servants, both civil and military, at home and in the crimea. england, not being accustomed to war on a great scale for the last forty years, could not at first carry it on as though she were used to it, and accused all her servants of “routine,” “red tape,” blundering, and ignorance. we can look back now and see that such were the charges made by the austere mistress, and remember the names of lord raglan and the duke of newcastle with affection and respect, though we broke the heart of the one and the spirit of the other by our usage. but if the servants are noble-minded, as is{162} generally the case with english servants in high places, even when broken-hearted, they leave examples behind them which instigate others to renewed efforts.
when the tidings of failures came lord john russell was himself the first to declare that his own colleague at the war department was unfit for his position. that colleague was the unfortunate duke of newcastle, and lord john recommended that “before parliament meets lord palmerston should be entrusted with the seals of the war department.” lord aberdeen, however, declined to dismiss the duke of newcastle, and then mr. roebuck moved for the appointment of a select committee to inquire into the condition of our army. lord john immediately resigned, by no means with the good-will of his colleagues. lord john had been leader of the house, and on his desertion the defence of lord aberdeen and of the duke of newcastle was left to lord palmerston. he said, which was true enough, that our misfortunes had come from the inexperience caused by a long peace. the house divided on mr. roebuck’s motion, and the ministry were defeated by a great majority. it was found that 305 members followed mr. roebuck into the lobby against only 148, who supported the government. it was clear, at any rate, that lord aberdeen must resign.
but though lord palmerston must resign also with his chief, and appeared for the time as the second in command of a beaten army, it was to him a moment of great triumph. there was no longer a question whether he should again serve under lord john or with lord john, or whether he should be compelled on behalf of his country to serve under one whose general politics were so distasteful to him as those of lord aberdeen. lord{163} derby was at once invited to form a government,—but in vain. he applied to lord palmerston to help him; but it was not thus, we can fancy, that lord palmerston saw his way through the future troubles. lord derby could well understand that if he were to be a successful prime minister in a war cabinet, he must have lord palmerston as his right-hand man. but it was not so long since this same lord derby, then lord stanley, had brought against him in the house of lords the bitterness of the don pacifico arraignment. it was not that this would have stood in palmerston’s way, had it been possible for him to have thrown his heart into the work in conjunction with lord derby. but such a conjunction cannot be always attained by mere volition. political coalitions are never firm, because they are formed of individual men, and each man has a heart in his bosom in which he carries his memories of the past as well as his hopes for the future. “i have come to the conclusion,” he said, “that if i were to join your government, as proposed by you, i should not give to that government that strength which you are good enough to think would accrue to you from my acceptance of office.” lord john was then sent for, and made the attempt. lord clarendon and others of the party would not serve with him, though lord palmerston had consented to do so. lord john, in telling lord palmerston of his failure, offered to serve with him, should the queen require his services. there was no other alternative. indeed there was no other man than lord palmerston in england who could have carried on the war. the queen sent for him, and lord john did join him.
“ ... quod optanti div?m promittere nemo
auderet, volvenda dies en attulit ultro.”
{164}
it was thus he signified his final triumph to his brother,—or intended so to signify it, but quoted the passage wrongly.
there is in this a boyish feeling of the happiness of success. and yet he was seventy years old. we cannot fancy such an expression coming from lord john or lord aberdeen. though either had felt it, he could not have so written to his brother. here i am at last,—prime minister of england, in spite of all accidents. my old friend, lord john, turned me out of the foreign office the other day. and i was obliged to go at his bidding. and i had a bad quarter of an hour in the house of commons when, for reasons which are always paramount with an englishman, i was unable to take my own part. they said i was crushed. “there was a palmerston.” but when these times of war had come, i was wanted, and now my lord john is my lieutenant. all that was not loudly expressed in the “volvenda dies en attulit ultro;” but it was understood both by the writer and by his brother. and he goes on: “here am i, writing to you from downing street as first lord of the treasury. the fact was, that aberdeen and newcastle had become discredited in public estimation as statesmen equal to the emergency; derby felt conscious of the incapacity of the greater portion of his party, and their unfitness to govern the country; and john russell, by the way in which he suddenly abandoned the government, had so lost caste for the moment that i was the only one of his political friends who was willing to serve under him.” “i think our government will do very well. i am backed by the general opinion of the whole country, and i have no reason to complain of the least want of cordiality or confidence on the part of the court.” lord aberdeen{165} had himself done his best to make the matter easy for lord palmerston. i quote the following words from the “life of the prince consort” (vol. iii. p. 209);—“lord palmerston had good reason to appreciate the generosity with which his old chief had interposed to remove this formidable impediment to his success.” nor was her majesty less grateful; and in her letter, 6th of february, announcing to lord aberdeen that lord palmerston had just kissed hands upon his appointment as premier, she told him that she was now relieved from great anxiety and difficulty, and felt that she owed much to lord aberdeen’s kind and disinterested assistance. then he states the terms which he intends to propose to the enemy, and in doing so prophesies the future almost exactly. “we must also ask for the destruction of the works at sebastopol, although we should not make that a sine qua non unless we had taken the place and had destroyed the works ourselves.”
a majority of the house of commons, led by mr. roebuck, and with the people of the country to back them, insisted on inquiry, on punishment, on improvement, and increased activity. we still remember how “red tape” and “routine” were in all our mouths. mail after mail brought home news of increased suffering. palmerston had become prime minister in february, 1855, and it was during the winter then drawing to its close that the sufferings and struggles of the army had been most intense. balaclava had been fought in october; the battle of mount inkerman in november; the great storm was on the 14th of that month; and, as the winter wore on, tidings of the difficulties of transit from balaclava to the heights reached us,—and at last the road was made. it was in the middle{166} of all these difficulties that palmerston had become prime minister, and that mr. roebuck urged on his committee. sir james graham, mr. gladstone, and mr. sydney herbert then retired; but others came in their places, and lord palmerston still went on; and during all the misery of the time,—for england was miserable with the sense of failure, or, at least, of performance not perfected,—he never quailed, or expressed any diffidence as to the work to which he had been called. it was the nature of the man not to be diffident, and therefore he succeeded. his courage was coarse and strong and indomitable, like that of a dog. we should say that he never trembled, even when he laid his head upon his pillow, because of the task imposed upon him. he would go on, having england at his back, and did not doubt but that the country would be found standing on its legs when the struggle should come to an end. i do not know that there was any one concerned in the matter whose heart was exactly of the same calibre. it was the very type of health, unadorned,—as also unalloyed,—by romance or high feeling, or poetry, or even sentiment.
in the midst of these things, in the early spring, the emperor nicholas died,—died broken-hearted, a victim to his own pride; but the contest went on the same as ever.
a second conference, to which lord john went on the part of england, was held at vienna, to arrange, if possible, the terms of peace, and to fix the four principal headings,—the condition of the principalities, the navigation of the danube, the power which russia was to assume, or not to assume, in the black sea, and the independence of the porte. in his operations there lord john was held by the country to have failed. indeed, he had never really succeeded in any political effort since the{167} day on which he had ventured to dismiss lord palmerston. and yet lord palmerston had been true to him. lord palmerston had never opposed him since the great blow by which he had turned him out on the militia bill. in truth, the people had not been with him, and had ceased to trust him. but to the other man the people had been true throughout. lord palmerston had no capability for thought equal to that of which lord john was the master; but he possessed an instinctive sympathy with the masses which supported him to the end of his days.
the vienna conference was broken up, but the war still was carried on, certainly with the most exemplary care on the part of the septuagenarian prime minister. he writes as follows to lord panmure, the minister for war;—“this is capital news from the sea of azoff, and the extensive destruction of magazines and supplies in the towns attacked must greatly cripple the russian army in the crimea. i am very sorry, however, to see so sad an account of the health of the sardinians, and i strongly recommend you to urge raglan, by telegraph to-day, to move the sardinian camp to some other and healthier situation. such prevalence of disease as the telegraphic message mentions must be the effect of some local cause.” “as the cholera seems to be increasing among the troops, i should advise you to send for the doctor i mentioned.” “we are 40,000 men short of the number voted by parliament, and we shall be without the shadow of an excuse if we do not resort to every possible means and every possible quarter to complete our force to the number which parliament has authorized.” “do not forget to suggest to our commissariat people in the black sea that large supplies of oxen{168} to be eaten, and of horses to be ridden and to draw, may be derived from the country on the eastern shore of the sea of azoff.” “it would be well also to point their attention to the projecting neck of land or island called krassnoi, in the bay of perekop, which is said to abound in sheep and hay.” from these quotations it will be seen how sleepless was his watchfulness, and how minute his attentions to the affairs of the war. he writes to his brother in august of the same year, and speaks of the probable fall of sebastopol. “our danger will then begin—a danger of peace, and not a danger of war.” “i must try to fight the battle of negotiation as well as the battle of war, and, fortunately, the spirit of the english nation will support us. i wish i could reckon with equal confidence on the steady determination of the french.”
in september sebastopol had fallen, and the difficulties did in truth begin. he had now to contend not only with russia, but with austria and also with france. it is said of course that his spirit of contention was simply interference, and that in all things he wrote and spoke as a bully. it is difficult indeed to defend his manner; but that which he desired to get, he desired honestly. he desired it always on behalf of his country, and he usually got it. he writes as follows in january, 1856, to our ambassador at vienna;—“my dear seymour,—buol’s statement to you the night before last was what, in plain english, we should call impertinent. we are happily not yet in such a condition that an austrian minister should bid us sign a treaty without hesitation or conditions. the cabinet of vienna, forsooth, must insist upon our doing so! why, really our friend buol must have had his head turned by his success at st.{169} petersburg, and quite forgot whom he was addressing such language to.” “we know the exhaustion, the internal pressure, difficulties, and distress of russia quite as well as buol does; but we know better than he does our own resources and strength. he may rest assured, however, that we have no wish to continue the war for the prospect of what we may accomplish another year, if we can now obtain peace upon the conditions which we deem absolutely necessary and essential; but we are quite prepared to go on if such conditions cannot be obtained. the british nation is unanimous in this matter. i say unanimous, for i cannot reckon cobden, bright, and co. for anything.” and he was right. the british nation did support him, and, in spite of mr. cobden and mr. bright, would have supported no minister who had acted otherwise. the emperor of the french, now that the war was over,—now rather when it was possible to bring it to an end,—was desirous of softening the terms for russia. but england was not specially desirous,—was not in a hurry. england was better able to continue the fight than she had been to begin it, and was by no means willing to give up any of those points for which she had expended her blood and her money. it had cost her fifty millions and 25,000 men. having paid so dearly for her whistle, she was determined to have as much of it as might be possible. therefore it must, i think, be admitted, that lord palmerston, in his arrogance, showed no more than the concentrated essence of an englishman. it may be said that the feeling of the country was bulldog, turbulent, arrogant, and headstrong; but it was honest, and in all that it did it was guided by the feeling that each man should have that which was properly his own.{170}
it would be vain in such a memoir as this to go back to the question of the right or wrong of the crimean war. lord clarendon wittily declared that we had “drifted” into it. the word has been considered happy, and, since our passion on the subject has been over, has been used extensively to indicate our own folly in the matter. but if we had not gone to war, together with our french allies, would not nicholas have been allowed to drift into constantinople? it has been one of the chief efforts of europe in the present century to restrain the ambition of the czar of russia. whether this has or has not been a wise desire need not be discussed here. but it will, i think, be admitted, that when the emperor’s troops had crossed the pruth and occupied a position on turkish territory, they would not have receded without doing something on their master’s behalf—unless they had been made to do so. lord aberdeen had thought that they could be made to go back by the force of argument. and the czar had thought that he need not go back without gaining some portion of his road to constantinople, because lord aberdeen’s thoughts had been of so peaceful a nature. therefore lord palmerston was put into lord aberdeen’s place, and the czar had to go back—with terrible consequences to himself. how it might have ended had the english people been less turbulent and headstrong, it would require a wise man to say. but had not palmerston been there to their hand, some other prime minister would have been found to do the work, and to do it probably with less skill in the management.
the feelings of england with regard to turkey, and also in regard to russia, have changed since the crimean war. and there has been reason for the change. at{171} that time it had been the intention of the emperor nicholas gradually to swallow the sultan’s dominions,—to swallow them, or to have them swallowed by some other confederate and hungry animal. we all remember, as though it were yesterday, the proposal for the partition of the sick man’s goods. the suggestion did not suit us. but as we would have none of these goods for ourselves, neither would we permit another to take them. we felt that for us russia would be a more dangerous occupant of the eastern mediterranean than turkey. and though we thought but little of the mahommedan, we thought almost less of the russian christian. it was, at any rate, indispensable for our purposes that the turk should be maintained. the half of the population of turkey in europe were christians, whom we thought to be as near to civilization as the muscovite from further north; and we flattered ourselves that it might be possible for us to teach them and their mahommedan compatriots some touch of better manners. with the russian we conceived that we could do nothing. there was much of mistaken vanity in this, because we had told ourselves that this people, thoroughly averse to us in customs, might be tamed and reduced and made like ourselves by the execution of a few treaties and the loan of a good deal of money. they took our money, and increased their harems, and laughed at our treaties. but still we had gained our object in this, that the turk and not the russian owned, and was likely to own, constantinople. we had beaten back the russian, to whom, though we did not begrudge him the power to increase his borders in asia,—except in our own special direction,—we did refuse any advance in europe. with these ideas, and on this theory, we went to war, and as we were by{172} treaty the joint protectors of turkey, the war was surely justifiable. whether we got a good investment for our fifty millions, and, also, for our 25,000 english lives, is a question which we cannot now settle. the way in which it is settled by each individual depends on his own occupation in life. does he breed cattle, or does he make carpets?
but in the quarter of a century which has passed since the crimean war the turk has done very much to make the blood of an englishman boil. we lent him money on the promise of certain performances. he has spent our money, but has performed none of his promises. we have called upon him again and again to reform, and he has replied by expressing his desire for more money. he has done nothing to change his habits, and has only proved to us that a mahommedan turk cannot become a good christian.
and this is the man for whom we expended 25,000 lives in war and fifty millions in war expenses, for which we have no claim on any one,—and many other millions in loans, as to which it would be better for our peace of mind if also we had no claim! the mahommedan must certainly be made to go out of europe, but it must be by slow degrees, and not at the instance of a despotic emperor, who, under the name of a religious protectorate, would take possession of the country. let any one who is still unhappy on the score of turkey take the modern map of europe, and compare the lines as they are drawn now and as they were drawn sixty years ago. he will see that the banishment of the turk has not been so very slow.
not, therefore, from dislike to turkish rule should the english reader decide that the war into which he will{173} have been told we had drifted, was inexpedient or more expensive than has been justified by the objects attained. that war was essentially one of lord palmerston’s making. he advised it, commenced it, carried it on, and completed it. his hand—instant, urgent, and pressing—is to be seen in it throughout. we cannot yet say that it was all wise. it may well be that the world shall never be able to say with any certainty whether it was wise or foolish; but as far as the world has gone yet, no verdict has been given against it.
