during the age of Voltaire and the turmoil of the Revolution; and meanwhile, every advance of Russia had been marked by further encroachments of the Orthodox clergy in Palestine on the ancient rights of their Latin rivals. The quarrels of these monks might have been left to the contempt they deserved, had not Napoleon III. seen in the situation an opportunity at once for conciliating the clericals in France and for humiliating Russia, which had given to his title but an equivocal recognition. His ambassador, accordingly, handed in at Constantinople a formal demand for the restitution of the Catholics in all their property and rights. The Ottoman government, seeking to gain time, proposed a “mixed commission” of inquiry; and to this France agreed, on condition that no documents later than 1740 should be admitted as evidence. To this suggestion, which would have excluded the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji, the emperor Nicholas replied by a haughty demand that nothing should be altered in the status quo. It was now clear that no less an issue was involved than a contest between France and Russia for paramount influence in the East, a contest into which Great Britain would inevitably be dragged. The British government did its best to help the Porte to evolve a compromise on the questions immediately at issue, and in March 1852 a firman was issued, which to Protestants and Mahommedans might well seem to have embodied a reasonable settlement. Concessions were made to one side and the other; and the question of the right of “protection” was solved by the Turkish government itself undertaking the duty. But neither Napoleon nor Nicholas desired a settlement. The French emperor wanted a war for dynastic reasons, the tsar because he conceived his honour to be involved, and because he judged the moment opportune for expelling the infidel from Europe. France, he believed, would never come single-handed to the assistance cf Turkey; Austria would be bound at least to benevolent neutrality by “gratitude” for the aid given in 1849; the king of Prussia would sympathize with a Christian crusade; Great Britain, where under the influence of John Bright and Richard Cobden the “peace at any price” spirit seemed to be in the ascendant, would never intervene. Nicholas even hoped for the active sympathy of Britain. Lord Aberdeen made no secret of his dislike for the Turks, and openly expressed his disbelief in the reality of their reforms; and in January 1853 the tsar, in conversation with Sir Hamilton Seymour, the British ambassador at St Petersburg, spoke of the Ottoman Empire as “the Sick Man,” and renewed the proposals for a partition made in 1844.
Early in 1853 the Russian army was mobilized, and Prince Menshikov, a bluff soldier devoted to the interests of Orthodoxy and tsardom, was sent to present the emperor's ultimatum at Constantinople. He demanded the recognition of the status quo in the holy places, and of the tsar's right, under the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji, to the protectorate of all Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman dominions. The Porte, in alarm, turned to Great Britain for advice and assistance. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, who reached his post at Constantinople shortly after the arrival of Menshikov, at once grasped the essential facts of the situation. The question of the holy places was insignificant in itself—it might be settled if France were granted political compensation elsewhere; that of the protectorate claimed by Russia over the Christians involved the integrity of the sultan's sovereignty. With great address he succeeded in persuading Menshikov to present the two demands separately. On the 22nd of April the French, Russian and British ministers came to an agreement on the question of the holy places; with the result that, when the question of protectorate was raised, Menshikov found himself opposed by the ambassadors of all the other powers. On the 5th of May, nevertheless, in obedience to his peremptory instructions, he presented his ultimatum to the Ottoman government, which, backed now by all the other powers, rejected it. On the 22nd Menshikov and the whole of the Russian diplomatic staff left Constantinople; and it was announced that, at the end of the month, the tsar's troops would enter the Danubian principalities. On the 22nd of June the Russian army, under Prince Gorchakov, crossed the Pruth, not—as was explained in a circular to the powers—for the purpose of attacking Turkey, but solely to obtain the material guarantees for the enjoyment of the privileges conferred upon her by the existing treaties. The news of this aggression roused intense excitement in England; but the British government still exerted itself to maintain peace. In August a conference of the four powers assembled at Vienna, but the settlement they proposed, which practically conceded everything demanded by Russia except the claim to the protectorate, though accepted by the tsar, was rejected by the Porte, now fallen into a mood of stubborn resentment at the Russian invasion. At the beginning of October Turkey formally declared war; on the 22nd the French and British fleets passed the Dardanelles. Lord Aberdeen still hoped to secure peace, and the Russian government was informed that no casus belli would arise so long as Russia abstained from passing the Danube or attacking a Black Sea port. To the emperor Nicholas this was tantamount to a declaration of war; and in effect it was so. On the 30th of November the Russian fleet attacked and destroyed a Turkish squadron in the harbour of Sinope; on the 3rd of January the combined French and British fleets entered the Black Sea, commissioned to “invite” the Russians to return to their harbours.
The emperor Nicholas had been singularly misled as to the state of public opinion in Europe. The news of the affair of Crimean War. Sinope, rather wanton slaughter than a battle, raised excitement in England to fever heat; while the excellent bearing and consistent successes of the Turkish troops during the first months of the campaign on land excited the admiration of all Europe. The belief in the rejuvenation of Turkey seemed to be justified; and when, on the 27th of March 1854, Great Britain and France declared war on Russia, the action of the governments was supported by an overwhelming public opinion. As regards Austria, too, the emperor Nicholas was no less mistaken. If she maintained neutrality, it was due to no impulse of gratitude, and it was far from “benevolent.” As the Russians withdrew from the Danubian principalities, Austrian troops occupied them, and by a convention with the Porte the Austrian government undertook to resist by arms any attempt of the Russians to return. So far as the extreme claims of the tsar were concerned, neither Austria nor Prussia was willing to concede them, and both had joined with France and Great Britain in presenting, on the 12th of December 1853, an identical note at St Petersburg, drawn up at the Conference of Vienna, reaffirming the principles of the treaty of 1841. Save for the benevolent neutrality of Prussia, therefore, which enabled her to obtain supplies from the north, Russia was pitted single-handed against a coalition of Turkey, Great Britain and France, to which Sardinia was added later.
The events of the war that followed are told elsewhere (see Crimean War). The main operations were confined to the Crimea, where the allied troops landed on the 14th of September 1854, and they were not concluded, in spite of the terrible exhaustion of Russia, till in December 1855 the threatened active intervention of Austria forced the emperor Alexander II. to come to terms. These terms were ultimately embodied in the Treaty of Paris of the 30th of March 1856. Its provisions, held by some to be so unduly favourable to Russia as to justify the question whether she had not been victorious in the war, were as follows: Russia abandoned all pretensions to exercise a protectorate over the Christians in Turkey, or to an exclusive right of interference in the Danubian principalities, to which Bessarabia was restored; the navigation of the Danube was made free and placed under the supervision of an international commission; the Black Sea was closed to warships, while open to the commercial flags of all countries; the Asiatic frontier between the two empires remained unchanged; Turkey was admitted to the concert of Europe, and all the contracting parties agreed to respect her independence and the integrity of her territory; moreover, the provisions of the Tanzimāt were reaffirmed in a fresh decree of the sultan, which was incorporated in the treaty, and further provided for a
