palities. France and England had no particular interest in these provinces, but the German Powers, or at any rate Austria —which regulated the policy of Prussia as well as her ownhad a vital interest in their occupation. Austria could not afford to see a great military Power astride the Danube, or Russian armies encamped on its banks. On the 22nd of February, Buol, the Austrian Minister, told Bourqueney, the French Ambassador at Vienna, that if England and France would fix a delay 1 for the evacuation of the Principalities, the expiration of which should be the signal for hostilities, the Cabinet of Vienna would support the summons. The language implied that Austria was at any rate prepared for war. But the ministry, instead of acting on an assurance which had filtered to them through three or four persons, telegraphed to Vienna and Berlin for a distinct statement of the part which Austria and Prussia would take in the event of Russia refusing the summons.2 These despatches were sent on the 23rd and 24th of February 1854. The answers to them were received on the 28th of February.. Austria, instead of replying to the question of Clarendon, approved the proposal of a summons, and promised to support it. The Prussian Minister more cautiously declared that he did not think that Prussia would "perhaps " object to join in a summons, but he did not think that she would take a part in active hostility in the event of a refusal. Neither Austria nor Prussia had answered the question which had been addressed to them. If it were, however, necessary to make the inquiry on the 23rd or 24th, it was equally requisite to have a distinct reply to it on the 28th. But ministers, with singular imprudence, thought otherwise. They were in such a hurry that they actually despatched the ultimatum through Vienna and Berlin to St. Petersburg the day before they received the

The ultimatum of February 1854.

1 Eastern Papers, Part vii. p. 53. Mr. Kinglake prints the word "day," vol. ii. p. 112. But in this, as in all cases, I have endeavoured to retain the exact language of the despatch.

2 Ibid., p. 57.

3 Ibid., p. 64.

4 Ibid., p. 61. Mr. Kinglake has much weakened his argument by overlooking this singular circumstance, vol. ii. p. 112.

replies of the Austrian and Prussian Governments. The summons thus addressed by the Western Powers was, however, urgently supported by the German States. The Czar, by this time almost mad from rage, declined to notice the ultimatum. The Western Powers, almost equally insane, undertook alone to enforce by arms a summons which the German Unanswered States had joined them in urging on Russia. With by Russia. their own blood, with their own treasure, they decided on upholding a policy in which they had no greater interest than the rest of Europe, and in which one Power-Austria-had a much greater interest than themselves.1

fleet.

It is a miserable reflection that in this imprudent haste England was even a greater offender than France. Her people, her Parliament, her press, were all eagerly demanding war. The utmost anxiety was felt not merely that war should be declared, but that war should be declared at once. And the hurry was the haste of the man who feels that he is ready to start, and who fears to miss his chance. For a great The Baltic fleet, such as England had not seen for more than a generation, was assembled at Portsmouth. Its command had been entrusted to Napier, the hero of Acre, and neither England nor Napier could afford to wait, for the ice in the Baltic was beginning to break up. From prince to peasant, every man was eager for the fleet to sail. The Liberal party thought proper to entertain the Admiral at their political club in London before he set out on his command. The war was spoken of at the dinner with a levity which may have accorded with the feelings of the hour, but which must shock every person who reads the proceedings now. The great fleet, moreover, which was despatched amid light words and lighter expectancy, did. nothing quite worthy of its promise or its commander. The Russian fleet in the Baltic was not captured; the great Russian

1 People have argued-Mr. M'Carthy among others-that Austria and Prussia had not the same interest as the Western Powers in the causes of the But these writers overlook the fact, that the only cause of war stated in the summons was the evacuation of the Principalities, and in this it is admitted that Austria had a capital interest.

war.

2 Prince Consort to Stockmar, in Martin, vol. iii. p. 36.

arsenal, Cronstadt, was not even attacked; and a generation which had not known war, and which conveniently recollected the story of its forefathers' victories and forgot the history of their failures, blamed every one except itself for its disappoint

ment.

The cam

Danube.

The war, however, was not to be decided by a mere episode in the Baltic. It was the South at which Russia was striking, and the struggle had to be fought out in the South. paign on the Omar Pacha was defending the line of the Danube; and the French and British armies, which were in the first instance taken to Gallipoli, on the shores of the Dardanelles, were moved to Varna, the great Turkish port north of the Balkans. The command of the French army was entrusted to St. Arnaud; the command of the English army was given to Lord Raglan, who as Fitzroy Somerset in his youth had ridden by the side of Wellington in the Peninsula, and who in his mature years had served under him in the Horse Guards. But it did not require the presence of French and English troops to secure victory for the Ottoman on the Danube. The Russian armies, under Paskievitsch, the hero of 1828, moved against Silistria in May. But the garrison, sustained by the courage of a few English officers, resisted the attack. On the 22nd of June the great Russian general was forced to confess his failure and to raise the siege. A fortnight afterwards, a chance reconnaissance, which brought the Turks across the Danube at Giurgevo, induced Gortschakoff to move with another Russian army on that place. But the Turkish troops, reinforced by British gunboats, presented a bold front, and Gortschakoff withdrew from the attack. The

Russia

evacuates the Principalities.

skill of Omar Pacha, the courage of the Turks, the sustaining presence of the Western armies, the attitude of Austria, and the difficulties of the country had made-so it was no longer doubtful-Russian successes impracticable.

The evacuation of the Principalities, to which Russia was thus forced, accomplished every object which the Conference of Vienna or the Western allies had proposed. Russia had

claimed the right of protecting the members of the Greek Church in Turkey. She had seized the Principalities as a guarantee for the concession of her claim. The guarantee was surrendered when Gortschakoff's men recrossed the Pruth. It was true that Russia had not withdrawn her claim, but she had proved-what was practically the same thing that she was powerless to enforce it. The battalions of Omar Pacha forbade her further access to European Turkey; the fleets of France and England condemned her ships to inactivity; and the mere continuance of an armed force in the Baltic and the Euxine would have paralysed her trade, reduced her to impotence, and compelled her sooner or later to sue for peace.

Common-sense, therefore, plainly indicated that the time had come for abstaining from active operations, and for exerting only a passive pressure on the Russian Empire. Unhappily, however, when nations engage in war they are not usually contented with passive operations. They like to hear of the achievements of their arms and of the courage of their soldiers, and this unwholesome appetite for military success has been indirectly stimulated by the machinery of modern civilisation. The rapid transmission of news, and its extended circulation, have created in the multitude a craving for fresh intelligence, which, in 1854, had not been satisfied. The people had expected much from the armaments which had left the shores of Britain, and their expectations had resulted in disappointment. The Turkish vessels at Sinope had been destroyed almost in the presence of the British fleet, the Russian vessels in the Baltic reposed in safety under the guns of Cronstadt, Even the allied armies lay in camp at Varna, while Omar Pacha and his raw Turkish levies were bearing the brunt of the contest. The war was the nation's war; the nation could not bear the thought of its termination without one great national achievement; it could not believe in a peace secured without disaster to its adversary.

There was one way, so the people thought, in which a heavy blow could be struck at the rising power of Russia in Southern Europe. The Russians had formed a great naval

The expe

dition to

the Crimea decided on.

arsenal at Sebastopol, a harbour on the western shores of the Crimea. Thence the fleet had sailed which had dealt the blow of Sinope. Thither the Czar's navy had repaired after the passage of the Bosphorus by the allied squadrons. The naval strength of Russia might be destroyed for years if Sebastopol were taken and the Russian. fleet sunk. The people, anxious to prove that the sword which they had drawn had not been blunted by disuse, began to talk of an expedition to Sebastopol. On the 15th of June 1854 the Times, giving expression to the general desire, declared that "the grand political and military objects of the war could not be attained as long as Sebastopol and the Russian fleet were in existence." On the 22nd of June it repeated the advice, and insisted that "a successful enterprise against the place was the essential condition of permanent peace."1 In the ministry there were men, besides their chief, anxious for milder measures. But pacific counsels could not be heard in the stormy atmosphere charged with passion and war. On the 28th of June the Cabinet sent instructions to Raglan, recommending, or rather urging, an immediate expedition to the Crimea.2 Against his own opinion, against the judgment of St. Arnaud, Raglan was constrained by the urgency of these despatches to attempt the invasion of Russian terridition sails. tory,3 and, after a delay of two months, caused partly by sickness in the camp and partly by the necessity for preparation, the allied forces sailed.

The expe

Yet the expedition would not have sailed if a man of low rank and with little interest, whose services were unrewarded in life, and forgotten in death, had not devised means for embarking and disembarking the cavalry and artillery-Roberts, a master in the navy, bought up the long narrow caïques of the country and made them the floating power of the rafts which he built upon them. At the time the men on the spot

1 Kinglake's Crimea, vol. ii. pp. 241, 243. Lyndhurst had urged the same course in the Lords on the 20th June. Life of Prince Consort, vol. iii. p. 75; and cf. ibid., p. 76.

2 Kinglake's Crimea, vol. ii. p. 261.

8 Ibid., p. 277; cf. Martin's Prince Consort, vol. iii. p. 81.