THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

RIVERSIDE

Ex Libris C. K. OGDEN <

THE SULTAN AND THE POWERS

THE SULTAN

AND THE POWERS

BY THE KEY.

MALCOLM MAcCOLL, M.A. /"

CANON OF BIPON

' Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof ; because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty.' — JUDGES v. 23.

' They are slaves who fear to speak For the fallen and the weak: They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think : They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three.

LOWELL

LONGMANS, GKEEN, AND CO.

LONDON, NEW YORK, AND BOMBAY 1896

Ml rights reserved

DEDICATED

TO

HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF WESTMINSTER, KG.

MY DEAE DUKE OF WESTMINSTEK,

I take the liberty of dedicating this volume to your Grace as a small token of the admiration and gratitude which I feel for all that you have done for the suffering Christians in the Turkish Empire. When my dear friend, the late Dr. Liddon, and myself returned from South-Eastern Europe in the end of the year 1876, and felt the need of some visible proof of British sympathy for the suffering Christians, your Grace gladly accepted the presidency of an influential committee formed to assist the Russian and other sick and wounded in the war of liberation. And when the massacres in Armenia could no longer be concealed you disregarded your own convenience and, I fear, your health, and readily agreed to become President of the 0 Grosvenor House Committee, which has for its object \jj to aid, in every way open to it, the Armenians and other » Christians suffering under Turkish misrule. Under the shadow of the Grosvenor House Committee the \ Armenian Relief Fund — so admirably organised by its indefatigable Honorary Secretary and Treasurer, Mr. Atkin — has saved the lives of, thousands of starving Armenians; and thousands more are still dependent on it for their lives.

vi Dedication

But while the Grosvenor House Committee has left to the Armenian Belief Fund the management — which it has so well executed — of relieving distress, there is need of another work, that of enlightening the public on the facts of the Eastern question, and the present volume is intended as a small contribution towards that end. As Honorary Secretary, jointly with Mr. Atkin, of the Grosvenor House Committee, I shall deem it an honour as well as a pleasure to be allowed to dedicate the volume to your Grace.

I remain, dear Duke of Westminster, with sincere gratitude and respect,

Yours very truly,

MALCOLM MAcCOLL.

MEMBERS' MANSIONS, VICTORIA STREET, S.W. : November 19, 1896.

PREFACE

THE first half of this volume consists of signed articles, revised and enlarged, which I contri- buted to the Daily Chronicle in the end of September and the first half of October. I received numerous letters from all parts of the country, as did also the Editor of the Daily Chronicle, urging that they should be republished. On re-reading them for that purpose, I saw that a good deal more was needed to elucidate the subject, and the result is the present volume.

I have tried to be fair all round, and have striven to obey the precept : ' Nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice.' It would have been more agreeable to me to praise instead of blaming men whom I admire, and from whom I have received undeserved kindnesses ; and I can only plead — si parva licet componere magnis — Aristotle's excuse for criticising his great master's doctrine of Ideas. ' Where the interests of truth are actually at stake it is a duty to sacrifice in its defence the most valuable private possession, including precious friendships. Both are alike dear to us ; but it is a religious duty to prefer truth.'

viii Preface

In political matters I have generally found myself hitherto in sympathy with the Liberal party. A careful study of the Armenian ques- tion has convinced me that the late Govern- ment mismanaged it from the beginning, and I have said so, and given my reasons. One of the evils of party Government is the too common tendency to condone in one's political friends what one would condemn, perhaps denounce, in one's political opponents. It seems to me, on the contrary, that one ought to be more severe on the delinquencies of one's own party than on those of the opposite party. First, because one has a right to expect more from it ; next, because the exposure of its faults should serve it as a warning in the future. What I have condemned in a Liberal Government I should have con- demned in a Conservative Government, and I am not going to belie my convictions in the interest of any party. It is the helpless Armenians, after all, whom I am anxious to help — next to my zeal for the honour of my own country — and I care little for the con- venience of any party in comparison, if so be that I succeed ever so little in my endeavour. Politicians and parties will find it easy to survive my criticism ; but myriads of innocent Armenians will not survive this winter unless Europe can be roused immediately to the imperative duty of staying the hand of the assassin. He is still busy at his work. The crowds of Armenians

Preface ix

whom he has driven from the sight of Europe into the recesses of Anatolia, and the other crowds in Armenia whom he has robbed of their all, are already, according to the latest accounts, 1 dying like flies ' from cold and starvation ; while the children are carried off by the Turks to be brought up as Muslims, in order to recruit the decaying race of their oppressors. The boys will be brought up for service in the Turkish Army, while the girls, on reaching the age of puberty, will be sold as slaves into those un- speakable hotbeds of vice — the harems of dis- solute Turks.

And Christian Europe looks on with less con- cern than on an outbreak of rinderpest among some of its cattle ! * Shall I not visit for these things, saith the Lord ? And shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this ? ' And the Sovereigns of Christendom hold familiar in- tercourse with, and treat as an equal, this man whom their own Ambassadors have twice branded as a wholesale murderer. It may be that the God, whom Christian Europe appears to have practically disowned in this matter, will yet punish the Great Powers by that very- scourge, the dread of which has benumbed their consciences and paralysed their strength — a great European war. A little disinterestedness now, and a little common sense and courage, would prevent that dire calamity, the bare possibility of which makes them tremble like

x Preface

chickens at the shadow of a passing bird in the air ? This very dread of war is indeed the most damning proof of the selfishness of the Great Powers ; for what can cause a great war but the selfishness of the Powers themselves — their greed to grasp wrhat does not belong to any of them ; like a band of brigands watching some booty which they dare not seize for fear of quarrelling among themselves over its distribu- tion ? It is the most ignoble spectacle that the history of Europe affords. God can afford to be patient, for He has an eternity to wrork in ; but we, creatures of a day, must work in our own way, however humble, until ' this tyranny be overpast.'

There is one Power which, even at this late hour, could save the Armenians without trouble. It is Russia. I have endeavoured to do her justice in this volume, and I received the thanks of the late Tsar for defending Eussia in the troubles of 1876-78. Is Russia going to allow the Armenians to be exterminated when one stern word from her would stay the hand of the murderer ? England prevented her from saving them eighteen years ago. Is she going to prevent England from saving them now ? Would that be a revenge worthy of her great traditions as Protector of the Christians of the East ? I will not believe it. England has abjured the past, and will give Russia a free hand now.

CONTENTS

CHAPTEK I

CAN NOTHING BE DONE?

PAGES

Impossibility of stopping agitation on the Armenian Ques- tion.— Parallel of the Bulgarian agitation. — Political officials and wirepullers then out of touch with the feeling of the country. — Probably the same now. — What caused the agitation of 1876-78 to become a party organisa- tion.— Mischief caused by Mr. Forster's speech in October 1876 paralleled by Lord Eosebery's speech in Edinburgh on October 9, 1896. — Mistakes made by Lord Eosebery's Government in its management of the Armenian Ques- tion.— State of affairs as to Armenia when Lord Salisbury's Government was formed ....... 1-13

CHAPTER II WHAT ENGLAND CAN DO

Coercion the only effective weapon. — Argument from alleged combination against Britain. — Our treaty rights not likely to be contested by other Powers. — Improbability of war against England. — Eussia and Constantinople.— Proposed settlement in 1867. — German and Austrian Press playing a game of chess 14-24

CHAPTEE III MUSULMANS DESIRE EUROPEAN CONTROL

Both Liberals and Tories are to blame : therefore let bygones be bygones, and let there be a fresh start on non-party lines.— Ottoman Empire moribund. — Deposition of the Sultan. — Chronic condition of the Christians of Turkey. — The Sultan not Khalif. — European control desired by Musulman population, provided religion is respected. — Threats of massacre unreal, and not to be regarded. — Put Turkey in commission. — Public opinion abroad. — With- drawal of British Ambassador ...... 25-38

xii Contents

CHAPTER IV

TIMID COUNSELS

TAG S3

Russia under obligations to Lord Salisbury. — Policy for public meetings. — Advice of Sir Charles Dilke and Lord Rosebery. — Prince Lobanoffs declaration misunder- stood.— A material guarantee. — Xo danger of European war. — ' Toujours de 1'Audace.' — Duty of Liberals. — Con- servatives should welcome the agitation. — Mr. Gladstone's intervention. — Continued inaction impossible . . . 39-49

CHAPTER V

POLICY OF AUSTRIA

War not the object of the agitation, but assurance to the Government that they may rely on the support of the whole nation in any effective steps which they may take for protecting the Armenians. — Press of Vienna. — Count Goluchowski on the massacres. — The Sultan branded as a murderer by the Powers. — Apathy of the Powers encouraged by Austria, backed by Germany. — Lord Salisbury on Austria's policy ...... 50-57

CHAPTER VI LORD SALISBURY'S RECORD

Mr. Gladstone's resolution and speech (1858) in favour of the union of the Danubian Principalities supported by Lord Salisbury, and opposed by Mr. Disraeli and Lord Palmerston. — Concert of Europe baffled by Roumania. — Lord Salisbury on the Eastern Question in 1877-78. — Lord Salisbury and coercion. — Lord Salisbury's policy : How his policy was defeated. — Lord Beaconsfi eld's policy in 1877 : How it was defeated. — Lord Salisbury and Russia 58-72

CHAPTER VII

LORD SALISBURY AND PRINCE BISMARCK

Instances of separate action by Lord Salisbury and Mr. Gladstone. — Different kinds of separate action. — The division of Bulgaria. — Reunion of divided Bulgaria. — A secret of diplomacy. — Proposed naval demonstration in 1895 : Why it did not take place. — England's greatest enemy. —Motives of his enmity 73-83

CHAPTER VIII

PRECEDENTS FOR SEPARATE ACTION

Lord BeaconsfieldVplot against Russia in 1877 : Its rash- ness and immorality. — A Russian precedent for separate

Contents xiii

PAGES

action. — European approval of separate action in 1877. — Separate action denned. — Involves no danger of war. — Austrian and German designs 84-96

CHAPTER IX BRITAIN'S TRADITIONAL POLICY

Admission of Turkey into the comity of European nations in 1856 a blunder and a crime.— Appeal to history. — Eepresentative British statesmen on Turkey. — Lord Pahnerston on coercion. — .Reforms in Turkey impos- sible without coercion. — Turkish Ministers in 1877 on coercion 97-108

CHAPTER X

THE NEW POLICY AND ITS CAUSES

Pitt's policy towards Russia. — The triumvirate who plotted the Crimean War. — Story of Sir Stratford Canning. — ' Massacre of Sinope.' — Anglo-French affront to Russia. — Unpopularity of the Aberdeen Cabinet. — The Queen and Prince Consort on Turkey. — Palmerston's intrigue. — The Prince Consort slandered. — Prince Consort the first proposer of the ' bag and baggage ' policy. — His policy defeated by Palmerston. — A new departure initiated by Lord Derby. — Its real author was Lord Beaconsfield. — Lord Derby's political defects. — Lord Beaconsfield's ideals 109-126

CHAPTER XI POLICY OF TSAR NICHOLAS

Russia's desire for a good understanding with England. — Visit of Nicholas to England. — Nesselrode's Memo- randum.— Nicholas on the ' Sick Man.' — Russia and Constantinople. — England's blunder.— Napoleon the prime author of the Crimean War. — His reasons. — France and England should acknowledge their mistake 127-137

CHAPTER XII

ISLAM AS A RULING SYSTEM

The Turkish Government is a strict theocracy. —Conse- quent disabilities of Christians. — Mohammedan belief as to the Koran. — Koran plus the traditions constitutes the immutable sacred law of Turkey. — Disabilities of Christians. — Taxation of Christians. — A sophism refuted. — Limit of religious toleration. — Christians cannot be

xiv Contents

PAGES

citizens. — Sultan and India. — The Sultan not Khalif. — Qualifications of Khalif. — Ibn Khaldun on the Khali- fat.— Origin of qualification for the Khalifat. — The Khalifat elective. — Indian Musulmans and Turkey. — Extinction of the Khalifat.— Rise of the Ulema to power. — "Why coercion of the Sultan is necessary. — Lord Stratford de Redcliffe's error. — Apostasy a capital offence in Turkey. — British ignorance of Turkish law. — Crusade against Islam repudiated. — Musulnian rule inhuman 138-162

CHAPTER XIII MK. GLADSTONE'S LIVERPOOL SPEECH

Feeling in Ireland on Armenia. — Origin of the agitation. — Consultation with Mr. Gladstone. — Misrepresentation of Mr. Gladstone's speech. — Chief points of his speech . 163-175

CHAPTER XIV LORD ROSEBERY'S EDINBURGH SPEECH

The speech a surprise. — Author's feeling towards Lord Rosebery. — Effect of Lord Rosebery's speech. — Lord Rosebery on Mr. Gladstone. — Lord Rosebery himself in favour of separate action. — His indictment against the Concert of Europe. — Gospel of material interests versus the Gospel of Humanity. — Sir H. Elliot's despatch in 1877. — What are British interests ? — Lord Rosebery's change of mind requires explanation .... 176-191

CHAPTER XV

POLICY OF SEPARATE ACTION CONSIDERED

Lord Rosebery's idea of separate action. — Prerogative of the Sheikh-ul-Islam. — The Sultan not a free man. — Separate action various. — Interdiction of separate action a dangerous precedent. — Examples of separate action. — Withdrawal of British Ambassador. — Con- tinued diplomatic intercourse may be mischievous. — Sultan's triumph and character. — Suppression of Consular reports. — Lord Roeebery's unfairness to Mr. Gladstone. — Why did Lord Rosebery resign ? . . 192-206

CHAPTER XVI ALLEGED COMBINATION AGAINST ENGLAND

Lord Rosebery's reasons examined. — Language of diplo- macy.— Prince Lobanoff interprets himself. — The ' Twenty Floddens ' appeal 207-216

Contents xv

CHAPTER XVII A BAD BEGINNING IN BRITISH POLICY

PACKS

Sultan begins to organise massacres. — A Turkish ' monster ' rewarded by the Sultan. — How to deal with the Sultan. — The Turkish Commission. — Sultan's insult to the British Government : How it was resented. — Mr. Shipley's report. — The Scheme of Reforms indirect cause of massacres. — Lord Rosebery on the Scheme of Reforms. — Initial mistake. — Why Russia objected. — Separate action suggested by British Government. — Two offers of cooperation by Russia repelled. — Expla- nation of Prince Lobanoff s policy. — Lord Salisbury's plan. — Paper reforms useless. — ' Turkey never changes.' — The clergy and the Eastern Question. — Evils of red- tape diplomacy 217-247

CHAPTER XVIII

THE ARGUMENT OF MASSACRE

The argument of massacre a stale one, and always refuted by events. — Key of the Eastern Question. — A Sultan's ' royal word ' tested by facts.- — Religious tolera- tion as understood in Turkey. — Various illustrations. — Crescentade by the Sultan. — His triumph over the Concert of Europe. — Selfishness of the Concert. — Austria and the Duke of Wellington 248-268

CHAPTER XIX

CYPRUS AND EGYPT

A good understanding between England and Russia and France desirable. — Vitality of political delusions. — Examples. — Russian invasion of India a superstition. — No motive for such invasion. — Alarming increase of Indian population. — No cause of antagonism with Russia. — The future of Cyprus. — The Porte an organised brigandage. — Anglo-French lien on Cyprus. — British occupation of Egypt paralleled by French occu- pation of Tunis. — Certain relapse of Egypt under Islamic rule. — What solution will France offer ? — Dongola Expedition defended ...... 269-283

CHAPTER XX

CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS

Duke of Argyll's explanation of the cause of the Crimean War questioned. — Status quo ante Crimean War. — Russia's statement of her case. — No new claims made

xvi Contents

PAGES

by Russia. — Protectorate exercised by France and Eng- land as well as by Russia. — Protectorate by the Con- cert of Europe tested by results. — Concert of Europe at Dulcigno. — Lord Salisbury on the Concert of Europe. — Inaccurate charge against Mr. Gladstone regarding the Concert of Europe. — An amende due to Russia. — Mischief of guaranteeing the status quo. — Sultan's power of mischief augmented by the Crimean War. — A for- gotten factor in the case. — Nations ruined from within. — A warning by Burke. — Ominous symptoms of decad- ence.— Conscription not needed to enable England to do her duty.— Military occupation unnecessary. — European control the one need. — Providence needs cooperation of human wills. — True source of national strength. — Critical moments in a nation's life ... . 284-308

Errata.

Page xi, line 22, for chess read bluff „ 214, „ 9, for from read with

220, „ 22, for massacres read massacre „ 251, „ 17, insert the before human 279, „ 7, for as read than 298, last line, for concerns read concern

THE SULTAN AND THE POWERS.

CHAPTER I.

CAN NOTHING BE DONE ?

THE one or two organs in the Press, which deprecate any agitation against the continued irresponsible rule of the Sultan and his parasites, are doing a bad service to the Government. They might as wTell try to stop the inflow of the rising tide. Perhaps I may venture to say that I am in a better position than most men to express an opinion on that subject. In conjunc- tion with my lamented friend, Dr. Liddon, I got together an influential but non-partisan commit- tee in 1876, of which the Duke of Westminster was president and the late Marquis of Bath vice-president. We established auxiliary com- mittees all over Great Britain, and I was thus, as honorary secretary of the central committee, put in touch with a series of political nerve- centres outside the range of ordinary politicians. I had piles of letters from country clergymen

13

2 The Bulgarian Agitation

and quiet squires, who, in sending contributions to the Bussian Sick and Wounded Fund, assured me that they longed for the day when they could show their disapproval of Lord Beacons- field's policy by voting for the first time in their lives against a Tory Government. Very few people on either side of politics had any idea of the disaster that was in store for Lord Beaconsfield's Government. Mr. Gladstone divined it with that magnetic insight which is quicker than reason in placing a leader of men en rapport with a great and free people, and acted on his belief while some leading Liberals, judging from parliamentary majorities and the talk of the clubs, thought that Mr. Gladstone was ruining the Liberal party. On the eve of the Midlothian campaign the Liberal whip, Mr. Adam, asked me what I thought of the prospects of the General Election. ' I give the Liberals,' I said, ' a majority of sixty for a minimum and 100 for a maximum.' He thought me almost crazy. ' The utmost I hope for,' he said, ' is to reduce the Government majority to about twenty/ Never, I venture to think, was a great majority more gratuitously thrown away than Lord Bea- consfield's majority in that memorable campaign. The agitation of 1876-77 sprang up spontane- ously, like the present agitation. Indeed, it is impossible in a free, self-governed country like ours to get up an agitation on any subject in which the people are not profoundly interested.

denounced by Lord Beaconsfield 3

At the beginning of the Bulgarian agitation there was no difference between Liberals and Tories. They attended meetings side by side to denounce the massacres perpetrated, or sanc- tioned, by the present Sultan, who began his novitiate of infamy in Bulgaria. In the early stages of that agitation it received the approval of such distinguished members of Lord Beacons- field's Government as Lord Salisbury, Lord Cross, the late Lord Carnarvon, and the late Lord Iddesleigh, then Leader of the House of Commons. On September 20, 1876, Lord Bea- consfield made a speech at Aylesbury which fell upon the country like a bolt from the blue. Admitting that ' it would be affectation for him to pretend that he was backed by the country,' he went on to denounce the agitation, and ap- pealed to the British public on the ground of British interests against such 'sublime senti- ments ' as were uttered at public meetings. The superb courage of that speech must extort the admiration even of the strongest opponents of Lord Beaconsfield' s policy. But it set the heather on fire, and stimulated to fever heat an agitation which eventually overwhelmed Lord Beaconsfield, who, with all his ability, did not understand the passion of mingled pity and indignation which sometimes makes a great people dare almost anything in putting down such horrors as those perpetrated by the Sultan and his instruments.

n 2

4 Mr. Forsters Speech

Lord Beaconsfield's speech only stimulated the agitation. Liberals and Conservatives still continued to attend public meetings together. The speech that did the mischief was that delivered by Mr. Forster on his return from Constantinople in October 187G. I travelled home with him from Vienna, and we had much talk on the Eastern question. He expressed himself strongly against Mr. Gladstone's policy, not at all because he feared that it would lead to war, but because he believed that the Bulgarians were not fit for self-government. Centuries of Turkish oppression, he thought, had so cowed and unmanned them, that they would not be able to stand up and hold their own against even the small Musulman minority who would still remain among them if Mr. Gladstone's policy of getting rid of the Turkish administra- tion and giving the Bulgarians autonomy were carried out. ' The Musulmans,' he said — I re- member the phrase — ' would chaw them up in no time.' I ventured to suggest that the air of freedom had a wonderfully invigorating effect, and might be trusted to endow the Bulgarians with manly courage as soon as they had fairly breathed it. And I quoted the opinion of Lord Strangford and other competent authorities. But I could make no impression. Servitude, Mr. Forster thought, was in the blood of the Bulgarians, and it would take a new generation to profit by the autonomy which Mr. Gladstone

and its Effects 5

claimed for them. He spoke in this sense at a great meeting after his return to England, and ended by expressing his confidence in Lord Derby in preference to Mr. Gladstone. The speech had the same effect as Lord Kosebery's, but to a more mischievous degree ; for Lord Salisbury's policy now is very different from Lord Derby's in 1876. Mr. Forster's speech encouraged the Sultan to resist all proposals for reform in the provinces which, in Mr. Gladstone's words, he 'had desolated and defiled.' It encouraged Lord Derby in his laissez -faire policy. It encouraged the pro-Turkish party to organise an agitation in favour of Turkey, and thus caused a division in the national protest against Turkish misrule.

But it is a great mistake to suppose that there was any reaction in the national mind. On the contrary, the determination to carry out Mr. Gladstone's policy increased in volume, till it returned him to power in 1880 with a majority considerably over 100. The reaction caused by Mr. Forster's speech never penetrated below the surface of national feeling. It influenced, as Lord Kosebery's speech has influenced, the clubs, some journalists and political wire-pullers, and what is called society. Mr. Delane hurried back from Scotland and altered the policy of the Times, which had hitherto on the whole supported Mr. Gladstone. Other journals followed suit, and the Jingoes were encouraged to come to the

6 Compared with

* front and organise a counter demonstration.

But to cite this as a reaction on the part of the country is a gross error, as the verdict of the constituencies proved when they had an oppor- tunity of recording it.

Similarly, Lord Eosebery's speech — well meant, I have no doubt, like Mr. Forster's — has only intensified the feeling of the country at large in favour of the policy of Mr. Gladstone's Liverpool speech — namely, to give Lord Salis- bury a free hand without imposing upon him any of the restrictions with which Lord Eosebery would fetter his discretion. Perhaps I may venture to give two incidental proofs of this. I received the report of Lord Eosebery's speech in the country on the evening of the Saturday after it was delivered. I was engaged to speak at a large meeting in Harrogate on the follow- ing Monday, and I determined to test the feeling of the meeting by replying to Lord Eosebery's speech point by point. The Town Hall was crammed with an audience which the Mayor, who was in the chair, estimated at 1,800. I was told that the majority consisted of Liberals. In my dissection of Lord Eosebery's speech I carried the entire audience with me, except one person in the body of the hall and a gentleman on the platform, who, in language courteous and friendly to me, asked the chairman — a strong Eadical — to rule me out of order in criticising Lord Eosebery's speech. The chairman refused,

Lord Roseberys 7

with approving cheers from the audience. I proceeded with my speech, and received a unanimous vote of thanks at the close of the meeting. The following Thursday I addressed, with a similar result, a large meeting at Warminster, presided over by Lord Bath. There was one small difference. At Warminster there was not a single dissentient voice, and, when I sat down, the leading Nonconformist minister in the place, an earnest Eadical, think- ing that my criticism of Lord Eosebery's speech was too gentle, got up and denounced it in vigorous language, amidst the cheers of the audience.

Mr. Forster saw cause to change his opinion. He adopted Mr. Gladstone's policy ; and when he returned from a second visit to Bulgaria a few years later he expressed his admiration of the results of the policy which he had himself condemned in 1876, and expressed his surprise that anyone should ever have doubted the fitness of the Bulgarians for freedom ; forgetting that he was himself the coryphaeus of those sceptics.

The channels of information which served me then serve me now as honorary secretary of the Grosvenor House Committee. We have sources of information with which official politicians are not in touch. The agitation is genuine and spontaneous. It is quite impossible to stop it ; the attempt would only stimulate it. But it is possible to guide it. It is not hostile to the

8 Mistakes made by

Government, nor need it become hostile. Lord Salisbury is not held responsible^ for the present situation. His difficulties are recognised, and there is every wish to avoid saying or doing anything which might tend to render his difficult task more difficult still. I did all I could against Lord Beaconsfield's Government in the agitation of 1875-77, and for that very reason I feel all the more bound to do Lord Salisbury justice now. What is his record in this Armenian business ? Let us remember that he did not start with a clean slate. He did not originate, he inherited a policy. And what was that policy ? My firm conviction is that if the Government of Lord Kosebery had grasped the nettle immediately after they got authentic information of the Sassun massacres they could have settled this matter in friendly co-operation with Eussia. Eussia was at that time in a most amiable mood towards England. The outburst of British sympathy with the Eussian nation in connection with the pathetic circumstances of the late Tsar's death, coupled with the charm of manner and tact of the Prince of Wales on that sad occasion, made a deep impression on the Eussian mind.

If the Liberal Government had utilised that favourable moment, I believe it might have come to terms with Eussia without the intervention of any other Power. It might have conciliated the amour propre of Eussia by admitting the failure of the Cyprus Convention and inviting Eussia

Lord Rosebery s Government 9

to move troops into Armenia, while the British fleet, if necessary, would occupy Smyrna or some other place agreed upon by the two Powers. The mere threat of such combination would have brought the abject coward of Yildiz Kiosk to his knees. But what happened ? Lord Kosebery's Government recommended, even pressed, the Sultan to appoint a purely Turkish Commission of Inquiry. What did they expect a Sultan's Commission to do ? Did they really think that its inquiry would be an honest one ? Did they not know that the hell of Turkish mis- rule is paved with the lying reports of Turkish Commissions, wrhose aim is always to acquit the guilty and damn the innocent ? Of course the Sultan wasted weeks over the preliminaries of that Commission, and months over the tragical farce of its inquiry. And meanwhile the Ar- menians were being harried out of home and honour and life, while the British fleet, cruising off the coast of Asia Minor, instead of menacing the Sultan, was exchanging hospitalities with Turkish pashas. And all this folly did not pass without a solemn warning from Eussia, as the following extract from a despatch from the British Ambassador at St. Petersburg will show : —

' His Excellency (Prince Lobanoff) replied that he had never entertained much hope of a satisfactory result [from the Turkish Commis- sion], and he doubted whether the perpetrators

io Mistakes 'made by

of the Sassun massacres would be brought to justice. In his opinion, however, the most important question to be considered was what was to be done when the Commission had finished its labours ; and he sincerely hoped that some practical suggestion would be made.'

That was a straightforward invitation to the British Government to come to terms with Eussia in regard to Armenia. What was the response ? A rebuff of silence. Was not that calculated to raise the suspicion of Eussia ? But Prince Lobanoff made another attempt to come to terms with England. Eussia was seriously alarmed by the sudden collapse of China, and the equally sudden apparition of Japan as a power of the first class. It was not Austria, or Germany, or even France that Eussia then in- vited to co-operate with her in the far East ; it was England, with the implied promise of co- operating with England in pacifying Armenia. Again, Eussia's offer of co-operation was repelled, ^ith the result that France and Germany were invited to occupy the place which England had refused ; that Armenia was ruined ; and that Japan got much worse terms than she would have got had we accepted Eussia's offer of partnership.

That was the commencement of the isolation of England. Then followed the abortive scheme of reforms, which the Sultan treated with such contempt that for three weeks he would not take

Lord Roseberys Government 1 1

the trouble to say whether he approved of it, or even read it. Why was that insolence endured ? And the scheme itself ? It was not worth the paper on which it was written, as I showed at the time. ' The scheme of reforms,' said the Italian Ambassador in a despatch to his Govern- ment— which refused to have anything to do either with the Turkish Commission or with the scheme of reforms — ' would be useless.' And he gave excellent reasons for his opinion. Prince Lobanoff described it with perfect accuracy as ' unworkable.' But useless as it wras even in its original form, it was made ridiculous by the surrender of the one tolerable thing in it — namely, that a High Commissioner should be appointed for a term of years, subject to the approval of the Powers. This provision would have been of little value so long as the High Commissioner was to be a Musulman and an ordinary subject of the Sultan. ' And this pro- posal was abandoned,' said the Italian ambas- sador, ' for the sake of keeping up the entente with France and Russia, who recognised the inutility of the scheme.'

Such was the state of affairs when Lord Salisbury took office. His knowledge of Turkish administration showed him at once the fatal flaw in the scheme of reforms — namely, the lack of European control. And he sought to remedy it by the insertion of an effective . surveillance, but was naturally met by the objection that he was

12 Combination to Preserve

proposing to upset the scheme of his predecessor. This perfectly futile scheme was at last accepted by the Sultan ; in other words, Lord Salisbury carried out the policy of his predecessor at the Foreign Office. Austria and Germany, who had previously refused Lord Kimberley's invitation to cooperate, now insisted on having their fingers in the pie, and the ' Concert of Europe ' followed. I have no doubt that when Lord Salisbury uttered his menacing warning to the Sultan there was a scheme of coercion in the air. How it fell through is one of the secrets of diplomacy for the present.

But meanwhile let us face the facts. There is at this moment, I believe, a combination of three Powers — Austria, Russia, and Germany — to resist any action that might imperil the stability of the Turkish Empire ; and I suppose that Russia would be likely to carry France. Such then is the plain fact that we have to face. It will not do to talk airily about bombarding Constantinople and hanging the Sultan. That is not practical politics. Can nothing then be done ? I believe that something may be done. The resources of British diplomacy are not yet exhausted, nor is England the effete and impotent Power that our continental critics love to paint her. What I have to say further must, however, be reserved for another chapter. It is no use beating the air in public meetings. We must aim at something definite and practicable. Meanwhile do not let

the Territorial ' Status Quo ' 1 3

us exaggerate the importance of the combination to which I have referred. It aims at upholding the territorial status quo in Turkey. It does not follow that it would oppose action which virtually would have the same aim by coercing the Sultan into such conduct as is most likely to prolong the existence of the Ottoman Empire.

CHAPTER II.

WHAT ENGLAND CAN DO.

I SHOULD like to preface the observations which follow with an expression of my opinion that Lord Rosebery's own views and feelings on the Armenian question were much sounder than the deplorable policy pursued by his Government. What occult influence overcame his own better judgment I know not. Why did his Government persistently, almost rudely, refuse to publish its own Consuls' reports from Armenia, thus forcing enterprising journalists to ferret out and publish horrors of which the Government had evidence locked up in the pigeon-holes of the Foreign Office ? Lord Beaconsfield's Govern- ment at least published the facts, even in the darkest days of the Bulgarian agitation, except in one instance, where Lord Derby suppressed some Consular reports and a despatch from Sir Henry Elliot charging the Sultan with allowing his officials in Bosnia to perpetrate 'horrors,' including impalements, which, says the Consul's report, ' are matters of almost daily occurrence here.' Why did Lord Rosebery's Government

Coercion the only effective Policy 15

almost force the Sultan to appoint a Turkish Commission to inquire into the truth of the reports sent by British Consuls from Armenia ? Did they think the Sultan's creatures more trustworthy than their own Consuls ? And why, after wasting six months of precious time, did their protracted deliberations result in the elaboration of a scheme of reforms for Armenia which was, in plain language, an imposture ? A Liberal Government will be in office some day again, and may possibly have to deal with some other phase of the Eastern question. Let it take warning from the disastrous failure of the last Liberal Government, and understand that the only rational policy is prompt coercion. No Sultan has ever yielded, or ever will yield, or ever can yield, to any other argument in the case of reforms which would violate the unchangeable theocratic law of the Turkish Empire by putting the non-Musulman subjects of the Sultan on a footing of equality with the Musulmans. Do nothing, or use the only effective argument — coercion. Let the Powers, or any one of them, with the acquiescence of the rest, or even of a majority, formulate a plan, offer it to the Sultan with a plain intimation that its rejection will be followed by coercion, and success is certain. But mere argument, ' representations,' ' admonitions ' — anything short of ' Do it or I'll make you ' — might just as well be addressed to the unhearing winds. Any

T 6 What can be done?

reform which lacks European control is of necessity an imposture, and no Sultan will accept European control without coercion. Therefore I repeat my formula : Leave it all alone, or use the only effective weapon.

Let us now see whether anything really effective can be done to prevent the Sultan from carrying out his policy of exterminating the Armenians. According to my information, which I believe to be good, Prince Lobanoff and Count Goluchowski at their recent interview in Vienna mutually pledged each other to uphold the Turkish Empire to the best of their ability, but without making any provision for safeguarding the rights of the Sultan's Christian subjects. Germany has joined this combination to hand over some millions of Christians for an indefinite time to the tender mercies of Ottoman thraldom. I believe that France has not joined yet, and I trust that she will refuse to fix so dark a stain on her historical escutcheon. But let us include her in the pro- Turkish league, for the sake of argument. Italy, which has behaved right nobly all through the Armenian troubles, has nothing to do with the fatal policy of leaving things alone, and she would certainly sympathise with any action on behalf of the Armenians by England ; but I will not assume her active co-operation. What, then, could England do alone to put an end to the pandemonium to which the arch-criminal of Yildiz Kiosk has reduced his empire ? There

England's Treaty Rights 17

are various alternatives, and I will begin with the most formidable and drastic. We have a treaty with the Sultan which gives us, I believe, a right to insist on reforms in his Asiatic posses- sions. In the Cyprus Convention England ac- quired c a right to insist on satisfactory arrange- ments ' for reforms as * an indispensable part ' of the Convention. In a despatch from M. Waddington to the French Ambassador in London, dated July 21, 1878, the French Government admitted that by the Cyprus Con- vention England had ' acquired a right to inter- vene henceforth actively in the administration of all the territories of Asia subject to Ottoman jurisdiction.' I am not aware that any other Power has protested against or disputed the right which France has thus so explicitly ad- mitted. The right was tacitly allowed by the Berlin Congress, to which the Cyprus Conven- tion was made known, though not formally com- municated.

We have thus unquestionably a separate treaty right ' to insist ' on the Sultan carrying out his engagements under the Cyprus Conven- tion. But Great Britain has an additional right, in common with the other Powers, in the 61st Article of the Treaty of Berlin. On June 11, 1880, an Identic Note was presented to the Sultan by the Ambassadors of the Great Powers, calling his attention to the fact that he had done ' nothing ' to fulfil his obligations. The British

c

1 8 England's Treaty Rights and the

Note was signed by Mr. Goschen as special Ambassador for England, and contains the following words : — ' Her Majesty's Government, therefore, as one of the signatory Powers of the Treaty of Berlin, must demand the complete and immediate execution of Article 61 of that treaty,' &c. In this document, then, the six Powers claim, unitedly and severally, the right to enforce on the Sultan the fulfilment of his obligations.

England has thus a twofold legal right to coerce the Sultan, and to adopt any measures for that purpose which do not touch the rights of any other Power. Let us suppose, then, that England calls upon the Sultan to accept, for his Asiatic provinces, such European control as may suffice to guard the rights of the Christians, giving Russia singly, or in union with the other Powers, liberty to settle the character of the con- trol, with an intimation to the Sultan that, on his refusal, the British Fleet will occupy some Turkish port as a material guarantee. Can any one doubt that the Sultan would yield at once ? Mr. Goschen will not doubt it, for by a similar action he compelled the speedy submission of the Sultan in 1880, though Germany, Austria, and Erance refused to sanction it. Is it conceivable that any of the Powers would make war on England in a case where she had the right so distinctly on her side, and in a cause which appeals so strongly to the conscience of civilised mankind,

Attitude of the Great Powers 1 9

and from which she would reap no material advantage ? I cannot believe it. But let me assume for the sake of argument that the three Northern Powers would refuse to sanction the action of England. (I exclude France, for she has publicly admitted the right of England to intervene single-handed, as I have shown.) Look at the risk to them of conduct equally insane and inane. Is there the least likelihood that the three Northern Powers would translate their refusal to sanction into a declaration of war, after the British Government had given them satisfactory assurances that this country had no private or selfish objects, but, on the contrary, aimed at the same end as themselves, though with a better promise of success than the im- potent policy which has hitherto prevailed? That any of the Powers, still less all of them, should meet so reasonable a proposal with an immediate declaration of war is a vagary more befitting the phantasms of political mythology than the sober reflections of rational statesmen. The nightmare which lies upon them all is the premature (for them) dissolution of the Turkish Empire. England could bring the rotten struc- ture down about their ears in a week. And where would they be then? At each other's throats, with England quietly looking on. When that day of Armageddon comes, the Powers which now amuse themselves by jeers at Eng- land's isolation will need all their fleets and

c2

2O Improbability of War

armies to settle their own quarrels instead of combining in fraternal union against England. The possession of the Holy Places in Palestine •will test to the quick the Franco-Russian alliance. Germany, too, has of late years been acquiring large pecuniary interests in Asia Minor and Syria, and both Russia and France will have to reckon with her when the scramble has begun for the Sick Man's possessions. Then there is Con- stantinople, on which both Russia and Austria have their eyes. It is Bismarck's policy which still dominates the German Foreign Office, and one of the cardinal points of that policy is to make of Austria a great Slav Power, with Con- stantinople for her capital, as a counterpoise to Russia ; the German population of Austria being annexed to the German Empire. The claims have also to be considered of Greece, Servia, Roumania, and Bulgaria, with their considerable forces ; while Italy has not relinquished her idea of an ' Italia Irredenta.'

And the three Northern Powers are to run the risk of all this cataclysm, which would be the inevitable result of trying, vi et armis, to prevent England from enforcing single-handed — without any risk to the territorial status quo — the fulfil- ment, from which she would derive no benefit, of a treaty to which they have all affixed their signatures ! That is what their Press tells us. It is all brag and bluster. See how Lord Salis- bury's refusal the other day to sanction the

against England 21

blockade of Crete, instead of combining the European Concert against him, forced them to adopt his policy, which they would now fain claim as their own.* So it would be in Asiatic Turkey. Is France going to join in a war against England in order to aggrandise Ger- many? Or Germany, in order to strengthen France? Or Austria and Eussia, in order to precipitate between them a race for the pos- session of Constantinople? There is not one of the Powers which are now supposed to have combined against England, which would not gladly purchase the alliance of England with a heavy bribe. But instead of wanting bribes England has more to offer than any other Power. The possession of Constantinople, for instance, has come to be recognised as a matter of no consequence to British interests. If Russia were to turn her back on Austria's cruel policy and revert to her old role of protecting the Christians of Turkey, I do not believe that it would be possible to get up a single public meeting in this country to protest against

* Since this was written the Eussian Press has changed its tone, and its leading organs advocate a friendly understanding with England. What is still more remarkable, the Novosti&nd Bishevoi Viedomost have both declared that ' the granting of autonomy to Crete is solely due to England, whilst the conduct of her statesmen towards the Sultan compares very favourably with that of the Emperor William or of Count Goluchowski, who desire Crete to be crushed out of political existence.' This confirms what I have said elsewhere, namely, that the great sinner in this matter has been Austria, with Germany at her back. It is also a decisive testimony to the signal success of ' separate action ' by Lord Salisbury.

22 Russia and Constantinople

Russia's possession of Constantinople; if (which I doubt) she desires it. Hitherto we have been wasting blood and treasure to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for Germany and Austria, and they have thus very cleverly got us to push Russia away from Constantinople towards our Indian frontier. If Russia is to be kept out of Constantinople, it is the interest of Germany and Austria, not ours, to keep her out. An Austrian journal, which is really the property of the Turkish Government, has been trying of late to inflame Russia against England, by accusing us of aiming at the possession of Con- stantinople under a mask of zeal on behalf of the Armenians. Very good. Let the matter be brought to the test. Let Lord Salisbury propose to the Powers a self-denying ordinance pledging themselves not to acquire a rood of Turkish ter- ritory in any measure which they may agree to enforce on the Sultan for the amelioration of his Christian subjects. We shall then see which of the Powers are most sincere in their professions of disinterestedness in this matter.

One of the most extraordinary facts con- nected with this question is the almost preter- natural stupidity of the Powers, who think that they are likely to prolong the existence of the Turkish Empire by allowing the criminal maniac at Yildiz Kiosk to pursue the conduct which is most likely to bring about the very catastrophe, the mere shadow of which seems to have upset

Proposed Settlement in 1867 23

their mental equilibrium. Surely it requires very little intelligence to see that the most likely way to prolong the framework of the Turkish Empire is to compel the Sultan to make life tolerable for his subjects. And this has hitherto been the policy of the Great Powers. Let me give an example from each of the Powers who are most interested in preventing the sudden disruption of Turkey — Austria and Russia. In 1867 Count Beust, then Prime Minister of Austria, declared that Austria wished to encour- age among the Christian population of Turkey ' a wider development of their privileges, and to promote the establishment of a system of auto- nomy, to be limited only by a tie of vassalage. This, moreover, would be the surest means of making lasting peace between the Sultan and the Rayahs.' In a subsequent despatch Count Beust proposed * a medical consultation ' of the Great Powers ' on the condition of the Sick Man and the distribution of his territory ' ; suggesting the necessity of * heroic remedies,' beginning with the annexation of Crete to Greece. In that year Prince Gortchakoff advocated the same policy, and expressed his opinion that ' the only possible escape open to the Powers from the course of expedience and palliatives, which up to the present had but served to increase the diffi- culties,' was to promote 'the gradual development of autonomous States ' among the Christian popu- lation of Turkey. The French Government

24 War against England a Myth

cordially supported Count Beust's policy, while England alone opposed it. This is the very policy which Russia and Austria have now, it is said, combined to prevent by force of arms. I cannot believe that Russia is partner in a scheme which would imply the policy not of statesmen but of lunatics.

So much for my first suggestion as to what I consider feasible in this crisis. I believe that the anti-English Press of Germany and Austria is playing a game of bluff. England has, in other days, stood alone against a world in arms, and she is not now going to cringe and cowrer before the swashbucklers of the Continental Press, who would soon begin to sing another tune if England took them at their word. I have hope that Lord Salisbury will be able to bring the other Powers to reason on the Armenian as he did on the Cretan question. But everything depends on his being backed up loyally by the country. His record on the Eastern question is but little under- stood. I hope to find time to give a summary of it later, as well as to suggest some additional means of suppressing the homicidal amusements of Abdul Hamid.

CHAPTEK III.

MUSULMANS DESIEE EUROPEAN COXTEOL.

I TBUST that in all meetings on this subject no attempt will be made in resolutions or otherwise to dictate any specific policy to the Government. The choice of effective means must be left to the Government, and if the meetings are to do good instead of harm, their aim must be to show foreign nations that Lord Salisbury will have the whole country, without distinction of party, at his back in putting an end to the inhuman orgies in which the contemptible miscreant of Yildiz Kiosk has been allowed too long to in- dulge. Let there be no criticisms or recrimina- tions about the past. Let bygones be bygones henceforth on all sides. Both parties — i.e. the whole nation — are grievously to blame for the insane endeavour for half a century to protect a moribund and foul tyranny against the inevitable Nemesis of its own incurable vices. The Otto- man Empire has now arrived at that pass so tersely described by the Koman historian. It can no longer endure either its vices or their reme- dies. It can no more be vitalised into a new

26 Ottoman Empire moribund

lease of life than could the mesmerised serni- defunct corpse in Edgar Poe's hideous tale. Not all Germany's horses nor all Austria's men can put Humpty-Dumpty on the Avail again ; and if they are wise in their own interests they will join England in helping to provide a bloodless euthanasia in lieu of a violent dissolution for the most infamous despotism which Providence has ever permitted to afflict mankind. How to pro- vide that euthanasia is the subject of our present discussion. I have suggested one method, which still seems to me the best. Propose a self-denying ordinance to the other Powers, and convince Russia especially that England has no arriere-pensee in this matter, and I believe the Northern Powers will find their interest in acting with Lord Salisbury instead of against him in saving the political framework of the Turkish Empire for some years to come. And let the remedy include not Armenia only, but all the disturbed regions of the Turkish Empire. Let Governors be appointed under the control of the Powers, with force enough to keep order, and of course with due regard to the circumstances of each place.

It would probably be best to let Russia administer Armenia under the nominal rule of the Sultan, as we administer native States in India — i.e. under the supervision of a Political Resident. Similar provision might be made for Macedonia, and I believe the Musulmans them-

Deposition of the Sultan 27

selves, outside the official class who batten and fatten on corruption, would welcome such a relief from the intolerable yoke of Abdul Hamid. I doubt whether a hundred Musulmans can be found outside the walls of Yildiz Kiosk who would not rejoice at the deposition of the Sultan, or at the extraction of his claws and fangs. He is detested throughout his empire, over which he has spread a network of espionage which has crushed out all freedom of speech, and almost of thought. In Constantinople and the neighbour- hood he is hated and loathed by Christians and Musulmans alike. The Turks are at least a brave race, and they feel humiliated in having over them a wretched coward who trembles at his own shadow. Moreover, they do not believe that he is a Turk at all. The general belief among Musulmans and Christians in Con- stantinople is that Abdul Hamid is the son of an Armenian menial in Abdul Medjid's service by an Armenian slave girl in that Sultan's harern. Among the Musulmans he is known, sotto voce, as 'the Armenian Bastard.' Doubt- less this has reached his ears, and it probably accounts in part for his policy of extermination against the Armenians, in the hope of clearing himself in the eyes of his Musulman subjects from any suspicion of favouring his own race. A proposal to depose him would therefore be hailed with satisfaction by the Musulmans, not only on account of his cruel despotism, but also because

28 Chronic Condition of the

they believe that he has no legitimate right to the throne.

But apart from the personal aspect of the matter, I believe that the Musulmans would welcome European control, provided they were assured that it would not interfere with their property or religion. The recent massacres have not been the result of local fanaticism ; they have all been organised at Yildiz Kiosk. Indeed, all the great massacres in Turkey have been the work of the Government, never of the local population. When you have a dominant caste over a subject race, with no arms and practically no rights, the subject race is sure to be oppressed. Nevertheless, the Christians and Muslims in Turkey would manage to find a rough sort of modus vivendi if only the central Government and its host of corrupt and rapacious police and officials would leave them alone. The Govern- ment is the fons et origo malorum. All suffer from it ; but of course the Christians suffer much more than the Musulmans. For, in addition to their being by law unarmed and practically out- laws, they have to pay all the taxes paid by the Musulmans and many more besides ; the most cruel tax of all being the * hospitality tax,' which obliges every Christian subject of the Sultan to provide three days' gratuitous board and lodging for every Musulman official and traveller who demands it. Christian households are hardly ever free from these unwelcome guests, who

Christians of Turkey 29

constantly (though the law does not sanction this) order the men out of the house at nightfall, leaving the women at the mercy of the guests. Our Consular reports are full of harrowing details of this horrible custom. Do journalists who write indignant articles against ' Armenian des- peradoes ' know the provocation those men have ? The Times's Special Commissioner in Armenia two years ago declared, after careful inquiry, that in a certain district which he named he believed every woman had thus been outraged before she was married. And what is true of Armenia now was true of Bulgaria down to the day of its liberation, and is true of all the Christian population still subject to the Sultan's rule. It is one of the horrors of Turkish rule of which outsiders hear but seldom, for it is one which the victims naturally desire to conceal. But it overshadows and embitters the daily life of the Christians ; and I own that to my mind the chronic condition of these dumb, helpless victims of Turkish brutality is more horrible even than the massacres which have lately drenched the streets of Constantinople with blood. It is not the Musulman rural peasantry who commit these horrors, but the ruffianly police (who live on the Christian inhabitants), and the troops — the irregular troops especially — and the travelling dervishes, and the unclean brood of officials generally who get no pay and live on bribery and extortion, having the Christian population

30 The Sultan not Khalif

absolutely at their mercy. Behold the hell to which Governments who profess lip allegiance to the Virgin's Son have doomed, for their own fancied interests, millions of their fellow Chris- tians ! On that infernal policy England at last has turned her back for ever, and no cry of * British interests ' will ever again tempt her to raise a little finger to save the Ottoman Empire from its righteous doom. As if British interests could be served in the long run by an alliance with Sodom and Gomorrah !

The present Sultan on his accession sought to find compensation for the abridgment of his temporal power by trying to extend his assumed spiritual influence as Khalif. Now, the truth is that he has no more right to the title of Khalif than I have, and he is not acknowledged as such in any Musulman country out of Turkey, or even there except by the Turks. The Arabs re- pudiate with scorn the spiritual claims of the Sultan, for it is a cardinal article of the creed of Islam that the Khalif must be an Arab of the tribe of Mohammed. It may suit hybrid Muslims like Mr. Justice Ameer Ali to magnify their office by saluting the Sultan as Khalif ; but this only proves insincerity or ignorance. Nor is this a mere academic question, for this Sultan, in his usurped character of Khalif, has for years been sending preachers of sedition all over India, and promoting a Crescentade against Christianity throughout his own dominions. In

European Control 31

this way he has doubtless succeeded in rousing in parts of Turkey the dormant spirit of fanati- cism against the Christians. Fortunately, how- ever, he has neutralised the mischief by the hatred which he has inspired against himself. On the whole, then, the feeling of the unofficial Musulmans of Turkey is now what it was when Abdul Hamid ascended the throne. And what was that ?

The first thing -Lord Salisbury did when he reached Constantinople in 1877 was to send two competent agents, Consul Calvert and Captain (now Sir John) Ardagh, to different parts of European Turkey to find out the feelings of the Musulman population in regard to European control. The result is published in a Blue Book, from which I make a few extracts. Writing from Bulgaria, Consul Calvert says : —

I have now seen all the local Beys or Turkish landowners. They every one comment strongly on the wretched state to which the population at large has been reduced through Ottoman misgovernment, which has caused the discontent that has brought the country to its present pass. One Bey, without any leading on my part, volunteered confidentially his opinion on the subject as follows : — ' The best remedy,' he said, ' for these evils would be for the Foreign Powers to insist on the association of an experienced European in the administration of the province, with power to control all abuses.' He made this remark as an original idea of his own, and apparently in ignorance that any- thing of the sort had been projected by the Western

32 Approved by Muslims

Powers. . . . On my inquiring whether the Musulman population would not view with jealousy reforms carried out under foreign auspices, he energetically exclaimed : — ' Every man of us would bless the Powers if they would undertake so good a work.' I sounded the other Beys by asking in a casual manner : — ' Supposing now the friendly Powers were to put pressure on the Porte with regard to administrative reforms, how would it be viewed by you Musulmans ? ' They one and all energetically replied with the same formula. One Bey even laughed outright at my simplicity in putting such a question. Another remarked : — ' Our religion teaches us to appre- ciate good from whatever quarter it may come. It is- enough that it is good. Should the Powers give us prosperity and quiet, we would all of us put up prayers for them.' There is among Muslims a greater uni- formity of character and ideas than is the case with Europeans, and there is no doubt that sentiments similar to these would be found to prevail throughout Turkey.

Consul Calvert adds that even if it were otherwise —

The power of the central Government is absolute and complete over the Musulman population. ... I be- lieve every Consul in Turkey would be able to con- firm the statement that there cannot be a more hollow plea than that which the Porte finds it convenient to put forward, of its inability to control the Muslim population. The Musulmans have concentrated their opinion that all the excesses, massacres, and other mischief are due to the central Government in the popular proverb, ' The fish rots from the head.'

Captain Ardagh bore similar testimony. A short extract from his report will suffice. He

But Religion to be respected 33

asked the Beys ' their views as regards the superintendence of reforms ' : —

All but one considered that the appointment of foreign Commissioners, selected by the guaranteeing Powers, would be acceptable ; and several expressed a strong opinion that the presence of such officials in the general and local administration would be an unmixed benefit. . . . With the exception of the one I have mentioned, all the other Turkish gentlemen agreed in saying that, whatever other measures were proposed by the Conference, and agreed to by the Porte, if promulgated bond fide, would be received without opposition by the Musulman population, provided only that religion was not interfered with.*

The reason given for his opinion by the single dissentient is remarkable. I quote Captain Ardagh : —

This opinion is rather to be interpreted that the Porte and the official class, in the event of the Con- ference [of Constantinople] extorting an involuntary consent to measures to which they are at heart opposed, would create an antagonistic feeling among the lower classes, in order to throw difficulties in the way of rendering such measures practically operative, and would foment, or at least be at little pains to repress, any disturbances which might arise. . . . Without such provocation there is strong reason to believe that the lower part of the urban and rural population would accept without a murmur any changes likely to be pro- posed. There is little or no probability of any outbreak on the part of the Mohammedan population of internal origin, and disturbances are only to be apprehended from the action of exterior influences, namely, of the central Government.

* Turkey, No. 2 (1877), pp. 170-3.

34 Threats of Massacres

The Porte tried in vain to prevent Anglo- French intervention in Syria in 1860 by con- juring up a terrible vision of Turkish fanaticism in the event of foreign interference in the internal affairs of Turkey. It was, like all similar threats, a brutumfulmen. The answer of M. Thouvenel, the Foreign Minister, is worth quoting : —

M. Thouvenel [French Foreign Minister] observed that he could not admit the reasoning that because a Turkish Minister was apprehensive that if a foreign force should be landed in Syria there would be disturb- ances at Constantinople, the Great Powers were on that account to desist from a measure that had appeared to them necessary for the future tranquillity of that country. If such reasoning were once to be admitted, it would be put forward on every occasion when an abuse was to be corrected in Turkey.*

I could produce abundant evidence from other sources to show the ignorance or disingenu- ousness of the German official Press in urging that the Musulman population of Turkey would rise against any scheme of European reforms and control; and I can, moreover, bear personal testimony from my own visits to different parts of the Ottoman Empire in Europe, Asia, and Africa, that the Musulman population would eagerly accept European control on being assured that their religion and property would be re- spected. They are, on the whole, a submissive and patient people, and easily governed when not

* Correspondence on the Affairs of Syria (1860-61), p. 14.

Turkey in Commission 35

stimulated to the commission of outrages by the authorities.

If, therefore, the Powers who are so anxious to put off indefinitely the dissolution of the Otto- man Empire would only depose Abdul Hamid, and put his dominions in commission under some roi faineant, who would reign but not rule, they would be- much more likely to achieve their purpose than by the imbecile policy of ' support- ing the status quo.1 You don't stop the progress of dry-rot in a building by supporting the status quo, but by putting an end to it. Is it really come to this, that there is not a single states- man worthy of the name in all the Continental Cabinets of the ' Concert of Europe ' ? Are they all smitten with judicial blindness, like the Syrian army which was led by the prophet into the capital of its enemy with open eyes and closed minds? But their folly is Lord Salisbury's opportunity. He understands the Eastern ques- tion in all its bearings better than most of them, and he showed at Constantinople in 1877 that he held the key of its solution — namely, European control in friendly co-operation with Eussia. If he had been loyally supported at home he would have succeeded. He failed because he was the victim of underhand intrigues and of a vacilla- tion not his own. It is an interesting story, but must be reserved for another article. Mr. Frede- rick Greenwood has just been lifting a corner of the veil. I will lift another corner. Mean-

D 2

36 Public Opinion Abroad

while Lord Salisbury has more than one string to his bow in giving check to the stupid diplo- macy of his Continental opponents. I have suggested one which would, I believe, be speedily successful. It is easy to practise the goose-step in line; but it is a different matter when the awkward squad begins to run forward. It is easy to form a combination to stand in line watching the status quo. The first proposal to attack England for attempting to discharge a duty to which she is pledged by treaty, and which the other Powers have flagrantly neglected, would dissolve the combination. After all, there is still a Christendom, and Christendom would cry shame on such portentous wickedness. Besides, these potentates would have to reckon even with some of their own people. Let it be considered that under a despotism the ruler is, on an occasion which appeals to the moral sense of mankind, more amenable to public opinion than a constitutional Sovereign. Under an autocracy there is no barrier between the monarch and the multitude. Let Lord Salisbury offer the Powers their choice of co-operating with him in coercing the Sultan, accompanying his offer with a self- denying ordinance by which they would mutually pledge themselves to abstain from taking indivi- dual advantage of the issue; or of acquiescing in his acting alone in coercing the Sultan into submission to the will of Europe. I venture to say that not a single Power would dare to oppose

Withdrawal of Ambassador 37

him for very shame, to say nothing of the cer- tainty of their immediately beginning to quarrel among themselves if they did. Lord Salisbury's literary skill would enable him so to expound the whole situation that it would simply be impos- sible for his opponents to make out a case for interfering with him. And, after all, even despots will not dare to go to war nowadays without at least a plausible case.

Another alternative is to withdraw the British Ambassador from Constantinople, and give the Turkish Ambassador his passport, leaving the British residents and British interests under the protection of Italy or France. The Powers could not quarrel with that, yet it would make them reflect and the Sultan tremble. There is no- thing a coward dreads so much as the possibilities of the unknown. There are so many things which England can do against Turkey without moving a regiment or an ironclad. A breach of diplomatic intercourse with this red-handed murderer would cause a ferment throughout his Empire. It might lead to a rebellion in Arabia or a rising in Macedonia. The Sultan knows that. Austria knowTs it too. It is all very well for the hireling Press of Austria and Germany to hurl defiance at England — defiance, however, which has a comic quaver in its tone ; but the moment Lord Salisbury formulated his case and offered his terms, this Press, which is largely the property of financial gamblers, would show its im-

38 Union is Strength

potence and would then begin to claim, as in Crete, the credit of what it did its best to defeat. But everything depends on the nation showing a united front, and this again can only be done by Conservatives and Liberals appearing side by side at meetings which cannot be prevented, but may be made of the greatest service to the Government.

CHAPTEK IV.

TIMID COUNSELS.

IT seems to be thought in some quarters in this country — Madame Novikoff has done her best to propagate the same view in Eussia and France — that Lord Salisbury's record on the Eastern question has placed him in a peculiarly disad- vantageous position for coming to an agreement with Kussia at this moment. I hope in a following chapter to prove, on the contrary, that Kussia is under deep obligations to Lord Salis- bury. But let me begin by explaining as clearly as I can the policy which I venture to recom- mend for public meetings and elsewhere. It is to assure Lord Salisbury that he has the whole nation at his back in any measure which he may take for the effectual protection of the Armenians, and for delivering England from all further com- plicity in the policy of futile remonstrance and criminal inaction, which has already sacrificed the lives of some 100,000 innocent men, women, and children, massacred in cold blood ; and will, probably, if persevered in, result in a general massacre of Christians all over Turkey. If the

4O Advice of Sir Charles Dilke

Concert of the Powers agree to act with Lord Salisbury in putting an end without delay to a state of things which has already covered Christendom with infamy, well and good. If not, then perish the Concert of the Powers ! At this moment shiploads of Armenians are being deported before the eyes of the Ambassadors to be drowned at sea or massacred in some obscure corner of Anatolia. And the Ambassadors do nothing to stay the hand of the assassin. And then we are told, forsooth ! by some weak-kneed and invertebrate politicians that England must only bewail her impotence and sit wringing her feeble hands in the Concert of Europe. Can she not at least leave the Concert, shaking the dust of her garments against its guilty complicity in the stupendous crimes of a red-handed murderer, whose continued impunity emboldens him to meditate and organise further excesses ? Time was when the slave and the oppressed plucked up hope from the ashes of despair wherever the flag of England was seen waving. Is this great nation, with its glorious history, fallen so low that it has no longer the courage to defend with its own right arm its own honour and treaty obligations, without stooping, ' in bondman's key with bated breath and whisp'ring humbleness,' to ask leave of some foreign potentate ?

I am not surprised that such advice should be given by Sir Charles Dilke. Her Majesty's Government, it seems, refused to shape their

and Lord Rosebery 41

naval policy by his sage advice, and so 'the weakness ' of the strongest fleet that ever sailed the seas has now reduced England to im- potence ! If Sir Charles Dilke had commanded the British fleet at Trafalgar he would have counted the enemy's ships through his telescope, and, finding them to outnumber his own, would have run away. Whenever Nelson saw the enemy's ships he made for them without counting the odds, and beat them. I have followed the various phases of the Eastern question with at least as much care as Sir Charles Dilke, and I do not hesitate to say that l his remembrance of the fickleness of public opinion ' on the Bulgarian question is only a reminiscence of his own fickle- ness. Then as now he veered about with the superficial eddies that babbled over the shallows of public opinion, but was never in touch with the nation's pulse, and has thus remained igno- rant to this hour of the outburst of sympathy for the oppressed which went on increasing in volume till it achieved its purpose. There wTas no fickleness and no reaction, as I have already shown.

But I am more than surprised that the leader of the Liberal party should follow Sir Charles Dilke's example. Lord Eosebery 'is not pre- pared to assume the position of the Execu- tive, and to attempt to direct the Govern- ment of the country.' Yet he does not hesitate to lay down a policy for the Government as a

42 Prince Lobanoff's Declaration

condition of his support, but which imposes no sort of responsibility on himself. ' Separate action/ on the part of England, * would involve a European war.' Why? Because of 'the declaration of Eussia, in August 1895, that she would oppose separate action on the part of any Powers.' But the circumstances of August 1895 are not the circumstances of September 1896. Much has happened since then which may well modify the policy of Eussia. More- over, Eussia never made the declaration which Lord Eosebery's lapse of memory has imputed to her. In answer to the British Ambassador's inquiry whether Eussia would be willing to em- ploy force against the Sultan, Prince Lobanoff replied that * the employment of force was per- sonally repugnant to the Emperor.' And being pressed to say what Eussia thought as to the employment of force by other Powers, Lobanoff said ' that the employment of force by any one of the Powers would be equally distasteful to the Eussian Government.' That is a very different thing from saying that Eussia ' would oppose ' the employment of force by any of the Powers. There might then have been some lingering hope that the Sultan might be made to see the peril of further massacres, and agree to a modus vivendi for the Armenians. There is no such hope now. I do not believe that Eussia would oppose coercion in the present dangerous crisis, when a spark may fire the magazine, if she were

A Material Guarantee 43

convinced that England desires no individual benefit, and is willing to come to a friendly understanding with the Tsar. What is suggested is that England should propose coercion to the other Powers, or to one of them acting as the mandatory of the rest, not by a declaration of war against the Sultan, but by a method well known to diplomacy, the method of a material guarantee — that is, the temporary occupation of a portion of the Sultan's territory. It is a method which all nations have used at various times. England has used it quite lately. Kussia used it before the Crimean war with the assent of England; and Germany used it against Turkey not many years ago. I do not suppose that any one would dis- pute England's right by international law to adopt that mode of proceeding in forcing the Sultan to fulfil his obligations to Europe under the terms of Article 61 of the Treaty of Berlin, and to England in addition by the Convention of Cyprus. Certainly Russia cannot dispute it, for she has agreed to it already in a less aggra- vated case than the present. When the Sultan, in 1880, insolently refused to surrender to Greece and Montenegro the territories which he had agreed to give up in the Treaty of Berlin, Mr. Gladstone assembled contingents from the fleets of the Powers at Dulcigno. And when the Sultan still refused, he determined to seize Smyrna, thereby intercepting, for the time being, the largest part of the Sultan's revenues

44 No Danger of European War

Austria, Germany, and France refused their consent. Russia acquiesced. But before the answer of Italy was received the Sultan got wind of Mr. Gladstone's intentions, and hastened to avert the blow by unconditional submission to Mr. Goschen, then British Ambassador at the Porte.

Let Eussia be convinced of England's dis- interestedness, as she easily can, and I do not believe that she will go back on her own prece- dent. But let us assume the worst — namely, a declaration by the other Powers that they wrould resist by force England's temporary occupation of some Turkish port. Where is the danger of Lord Eosebery's * European war ' ? No one says that Lord Salisbury should in that case take the risk of a war against Eussia, Austria, Ger- many, and Erance. But he could warn them of the consequences of their short-sighted selfish- ness, throw on them the responsibility of whatever might happen, break off diplomatic intercourse with the Sultan, and quietly await the result. This Lord Salisbury, with his literary skill, and with the damning array of facts at his command, could do in a despatch that would brand his opponents with an infamy which they would not dare to face. Where is the danger of European war there ? Would not Lord Salisbury's hands be immensely strengthened if Europe saw that he had the British nation, like one man, at his back in any measure which he may adopt, how-

' Toujours de I'Audace ' 45

ever vigorous, leaving him meanwhile to choose out of several alternatives the policy which he considers most efficacious ?

What the nation will not stand is any further continuance of the policy of pothering and ped- dling which the other Powers, with the noble exception of Italy, seem to regard as the ne _pZws ultra of statesmanship. I can understand Liberals — if there be such, who are willing * to give up to party what was meant for mankind ' — trying to dissuade Lord Salisbury from a policy which would undoubtedly secure for him a great diplomatic victory and place him at a bound at the head of European statesmanship. What I cannot understand is Conservative newspapers falling into the snare. I remember a speech by Lord Salisbury some sixteen years ago in which he barbed an argument in favour of a bold policy with Danton's famous phrase : 11 nous faut de I'aiidace, et encore de Vaudace, et toujours de Vaudace ; and I think too well of his knowledge and political sagacity to believe that he agrees with those who would persuade him that pusil- lanimity is the most successful weapon in the armoury of diplomacy. To proclaim upon the housetops that England will never risk war in defence of her duty and honour is to invite aggression and disaster.

One thing, however, cannot be made known too soon. Lord Eosebery's policy is not the policy of Mr. Gladstone. The late leader of the

46 Duty of Liberals

Liberal party has the courage of his convictions, and is not afraid to say before the world that he will support Lord Salisbury in coercing the Sultan, leaving to him the choice of such effec- tive measures as may seem to him best for effecting his purpose. That assurance is much more likely to strengthen Lord Salisbury's hands than counsels of timidity and dishonouring lamentations over England's inability ' to go forward alone ' in defence of her just rights. England was never better able than she is now * to go forward alone ' where duty calls her ; and none know that better than her Continental traducers. The crisis is a testing one for English Liberals. In my humble j udgment their interest, not less than their duty, should make them sup- port Lord Salisbury, without ' ifs ' or ' buts ' as to the means he may use, however extreme, pro- vided only that they are effectual. To tell him that they will support him only on condition of his doing nothing beyond dancing attendance on the Concert of Europe is to paralyse his hands instead of strengthening them. And, above all, let the support be hearty and without reserva- tion. Foreign statesmen are sharp enough to see the difference between such support and that so felicitously described by Pope : —

Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering teach the rest to sneer ; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike ; Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike.

The Agitation to be Welcomed 47

And now a word as to the attitude of the Conservative party towards the agitation. Let them oppose it and they will inevitably make it a party question, and put a powerful party weapon in the hands of their opponents. Let them remember 1876. In the early stage of that agitation it was supported quite as earnestly by the Tory party as by the Liberals ; nay, more : some members of Lord Beaconsfield's Govern- ment took part in it. The leader of the House of Commons (Sir Stafford Northcote), Lord Cross, and Lord Carnarvon are names which occur to me at once. Lord Carnarvon said : —

I rejoice to believe that the heart of my countrymen beat so soundly as it did when such a tale of horror was unfolded. I rejoice that there was neither delay nor hesitation in the expression of that feeling ; and, so far from weakening the hands of the Government I believe that, if rightly understood at home and abroad, nothing could more strengthen the hands of my noble friend the Foreign Secretary than the burst of indignation which has gone through the length and breadth of the land.

Wise words ! And Lord (then Mr.) Cross and Sir Stafford Northcote spoke out quite as strongly. In the initial stages of his wonder- ful campaign Mr. Gladstone was an honoured guest at leading Conservative houses — Mr. Arthur Balfour's for example, and the Duke of Northumberland's. I don't remember whether Lord Salisbury spoke on the subject at the time ; but in the end of September

48 Mr. Gladstone s Intervention

1876 a great meeting was held in the Guild- hall, under the presidency of a Tory Lord Mayor, one of the leading speakers being the Eight Hon. J. G. Hubbard, one of the Conser- vative Members for the City. Lord Salisbury was invited to attend, and, while pleading his official position as Minister for India to excuse his absence, he expressed his hearty sympathy with the agitation. His son has just expressed his sympathy with the present agitation in language as strong as Mr. Gladstone's, and his hope that other countries will imitate it. Conservatives have everything to gain, and nothing to lose, by participating in the agita- tion ; and I would especially implore the Con- servative Press to welcome Mr. Gladstone's intervention in a friendly spirit. He has been most reluctant to emerge from his privacy, and one of his reasons for hesitancy has been his anxiety to say nothing that could in the least embarrass Lord Salisbury or wear the appear- ance of forcing a policy on him. The condition of the political atmosphere is at this moment very electrical, and an attack on Mr. Gladstone from the Ministerial side would be pretty certain to cause an explosion. Let there be hearty co-operation now, and let the keynote be a resolution to support Lord Salisbury in his righteous endeavours to obtain reparation and protection for the Armenians without pre- scribing for him any specific method of procedure.

Continued Inaction Intolerable 49

Let him have a free hand whether he shall act with or without the Concert of Europe. I see no reason, however, why speakers should not express their own individual opinions on alter- native plans.

The one thing which meetings will not tole- rate is a recommendation to sit with folded arms and do nothing. That, I am sure, is not the policy of Lord Salisbury. I do not doubt at all that he feels as keenly as any of us the pain and shame of the callousness of the other Powers, and that he is doing his best to realise in action the universal desire of the country. The agitation is intended to reinforce his diplo- macy, and will unquestionably do so.

I shall presently show that Lord Salisbury is peculiarly well qualified at this moment to settle the Armenian question — qualified by his ability, his comprehensive knowledge of the subject, his genuine sympathy with the Christian population of Turkey, and — not least — by his antecedents.

E

CHAPTER Y.

POLICY OP AUSTEIA.

BEFOEE I enter on the interesting subject of Lord Salisbury's record on the Eastern question I must make one more effort to make plain, as I understand it — and I have more than average means of knowing — the aim and purport of the agitation. There is no desire to dictate any policy to Lord Salisbury. Nobody urges him to make war or do anything in particular. But the country wishes foreign Powers to know that if Lord Salisbury, in despair of persuading the other Powers to secure reparation and justice for the Armenians, decides to act alone, he will have the whole nation behind him. It is the worst possible policy to tell foreign Powers that in no case will Great Britain act alone. It is just the way to paralyse Lord Salisbury's diplomacy and to encourage the Sultan to go on with his massacres. And it is not true. The country will act if Lord Salisbury think it necessary; and Lord Salisbury himself cannot possibly tell whether circumstances may not arise any day which might force him to act alone. As we

Press of Vienna 51

have no desire to force his hand, still less have we any wish to fetter his discretion. Let him have a free hand to act with or without the other Powers in carrying out the policy of the nation, which is doubtless his own — namely, to deliver England from all complicity in the tacit assent of the other Powers to the Sultan's deliberate purpose to exterminate the Armenians. The agitation has already compelled the Press of Vienna to change its tone of menace and bluster towards this country to one of supplica- tion. But there is no indication of any change of policy. The Standard — to whose ability and honourable conduct in this matter I wrish to pay my small tribute of gratitude — gratefully accepts the following passage in a Vienna paper as * English policy in a nut-shell ' : — ' So long as the present Government is at the head of affairs in England, abhorrence of Turkish rule, though well- founded enough, will not be allowed to conjure up the spectre of European war.' I am sure the Standard does not realise the hideous sig- nificance of that passage. Let it read it again in the light of the following facts. On the 13th of last December the British Ambassador at Constantinople informed Lord Salisbury by telegraph that —

A moderate estimate put the loss of life at 30,000. The survivors are in a state of absolute destitution, and in many places they are forced to become Musulmans. The charge against Armenians

• i

52 Coimt Goluckowski on

of having been the first to offer provocation cannot be sustained. Non-Armenian Christians were spared, and the comparatively few Turks who fell were killed in self-defence.

Four days later the British Ambassador at Vienna handed a copy of this telegram to Count Goluchowski. and begged him to read it carefully.

Count Goluchowski did so, and observed that the description is doubtless true enough, and very impres- sive ; but that, as he had already stated, there is nothing to be done but to wait and see if the Sultan will be able to carry out his promises and restore order. Every kind of admonition had been given to him, and his Excellency did not see what more could be said to him than has already been repeatedly urged. Inter- vention of any other kind must inevitably result in the further disaggregation of the Ottoman Empire. But, if Count Goluchowski rightly understands the situation, this is the last thing that the Powers desire. . . . He must therefore maintain that, lamentable as the condition of affairs in Anatolia undoubtedly is, there is nothing whatever to be done but to give the Sultan the opportunity of doing what he has engaged to do. The prospect is not a hopeful one.

A fortnight later the Austrian Minister received news of more horrors, and again unbosomed himself to the British Ambassador.

His Excellency went on to deplore that, beyond making representations [to the Sultan] the Powers can do nothing for the Armenians, of whom several thou- sands may be computed to have perished by violence ; while the rigours of winter, bringing famine, want of shelter and warmth — in fact, destitution in its most

the Massacres 53

•appalling shape — might be calculated to destroy many more before the return of spring.

This foreboding has been but too well fulfilled. Sir Philip Currie's ' moderate estimate ' of 30,000 massacred in cold blood does not come down farther than the end of October, embraces only a limited area, and takes no account of those who perished from cold and starvation. Massacres have taken place since then in many other places, and a moderate estimate of the total number of victims, including deaths from exposure and starvation, down to now is 200,000. Count Ooluchowski was prepared for all this and more. Let me continue my quotation from the Blue- Book :—

In presence of this heartrending prospect it is in- telligible that numbers of humane people are revolted at the idea that Europe is powerless, and, regardless of consequences, would wish that action should be taken by some, or even by one of the Powers, to put a stop to the extermination of the miserable Armenians. But practical statesmen are bound to consider the situation from another standpoint.*

Which means, in plain language, that Austria covets Macedonia, Salonica, and Constantinople, if England will be good enough to help her, and therefore is willing — very sorrowfully, of course, but with philosophic equanimity — to wratch the gradual ' extermination of the

* See Turkey, No. 2 (1896), pp. 210, 252-3, 290.

54 The Sultan branded- by the Powers

miserable Armenians/ with every circumstance of revolting cruelty, rather than run the smallest risk of losing one morsel of her coveted prize. The Austrian Minister frankly admits that 1 admonitions ' and ' representations ' addressed to the Sultan are absolutely useless, and he knows that the Sultan is himself the arch- criminal. For it was the Austrian Ambassador who, after consultation with his colleagues, went in person as their accredited representative to the Sultan on November 18, 1895, and delivered the following stern message on behalf of the six Great Powers : —

The only means of restoring confidence is to put a stop to the massacres, which we are convinced the Sultan can do if he is sincere in his profession ; that an inquiry should be held as to the participation of soldiers in the outrages, and the guilty be punished ; that the orders recently sent to the Valis and military commanders should be published, and assurances given that previous orders [to commit massacres] have been cancelled ; that a Hatt should be issued by the Sultan ordering his subjects to obey his wishes.*

That is, the Sultan hypocritically assured the Ambassadors of his fatherly affection for the Armenians while he was deliberately ordering his soldiers and encouraging the rabble to massacre them. That was nearly a year ago, and the Sultan has gone on systematically to this very hour with his work of ' exterminating the miserable Armenians.' And the masters of

* Turkey, No. 2 (1896), p. 160.

Apathy of the Powers 55

some 15,000,000 drilled soldiers, and navies such as the world has never seen before, look quietly on, and call heaven and earth to witness that they are * powerless ' to prevent this monster in human form from pursuing his career of blood- shed! And the Austrian Government calmly believes that the British people and their states- men may be trusted * to lend their co-operation ' to the consummation of this hellish plot ! Was ever such insult offered to the British nation before ?

I will not insult the Standard by asking whether it regards this as ' English policy in a nut-shell ' ; and to suppose that it could excite any other feeling than loathing in Lord Salisbury's breast would be not to insult him merely, but to accuse him of repudiating the whole of his record on the Eastern question, as I shall show conclusively in my next chapter, for I find it impossible to compress my evidence within the limits of this. What I am trying to do now is to show cause for believing that the great sinner in the tragedy that is being enacted in Turkey is Austria, backed by Germany, rather than Kussia — Austria, which has ever pursued a huckster's policy, and has never in all her history struck a blow or spent a shilling in any cause or interest but her own. Eussia, as I have shown, offered on two occasions to work amicably with England in pacifying Armenia, and suspected some underhand schemes against her from the

56 Lord Salisbury

rebuffs which she received. Then there was much foolish talk in this country about forming an autonomous Armenian State under an Austrian governor — a proposal most offensive to Russia. There were also paper schemes of partition of the Turkish Empire — by amateur and unauthorised theorists, 'tis true. But all this alarmed Eussia and increased her suspicion of England.

Austria, on the other hand, has been playing a sordidly selfish game all through. I shall have more to say on that subject later ; but I must give one piece of evidence here which seems to show that Austria, more than Russia, has been opposed to the coercion of the Sultan. In a despatch from Lord Salisbury to Sir E. Monson, on November 13, 1895, the Prime Minister relates a conversation which he had the previous day with the Austrian Ambas- sador, who had called at the Foreign Office to ask what Lord Salisbury proposed to do in the event, which the Ambassador feared, of ' an outburst of Musulman fanaticism ' in Constan- tinople. ' What remedy had ' Lord Salisbury ' to suggest ? ' Here is Lord Salisbury's answer : —

I asked him whether he contemplated acting through the Sultan, or in despite of the Sultan. He replied that of course his Government only contem- plated acting through the Sultan. I said that if the mere impression ever gained ground that so conserva-

on Austria's Policy 57

tive a Government as Austria was prepared to act with the unanimous concurrence of the Powers, but without the assent of the Sultan, that assent would not then be difficult to obtain.*

Is it not a legitimate inference, from the words which I have marked by italics, that at that time Austria was the only member of the European Concert who opposed coercion of the Sultan ?

* See Turkey, No. 2 (1896), p. 126.

CHAPTEE VI.

LOED SALISBURY'S EECOED.

ON May 4, 1858 — Lord Derby being Prime Minister and Mr. Disraeli leader of the House of Commons — Mr. Gladstone initiated a great xlebate on the union of the two Principalities — then under Turkish rule — which now constitute the kingdom of Eoumania. The question of their union came before the Congress of Paris in 1856, and the Plenipotentiaries of France and England strongly supported it, and had influence enough to get their policy thus re- corded in the twenty-eighth Article of the Treaty of Paris : —

His Majesty the Sultan promises to convoke immediately in each of the two Provinces a divan ad hoc, composed in such a manner as to represent most closely the interests of all classes of society. These divans shall be called upon to express the wishes of the people in regard to the definite organisation of the Principalities.

Austria and Turkey — Arcades ambo as foes of freedom — opposed the union ; and, when an appeal was made to the people of Moldavia, stifled the popular will by the grossest intimida-

Union of Danubian Principalities 59

tion. England urged the quashing of the elections and a fresh appeal to the people, and, of course, Austria and Turkey opposed, but in vain. In the second election the people of both Princi- palities voted unanimously in favour of the union. Still Austria and Turkey opposed, and there was thus a second Congress of Paris to adjudicate upon the matter. While the Congress was sitting Mr. Gladstone moved in the House of Commons a resolution in favour of the union. His most eloquent speech is well worth reading now for its far-seeing statesmanship. Suggesting that ' the Mohammedan Power in Europe could not be permanently maintained,' he advised the endowment of its Christian population with practical self-government under the protection of the Powers, yet leaving them under the rule of the Porte, and thus maintaining as long as possible ' the territorial integrity of Turkey,' to prevent a scramble, possibly leading to a great war, on the part of ambitious neighbours. He was not surprised that Austria should join Turkey in opposing the union of the Danubian Princi- palities.

I will not undertake to say that it is convenient to Austria to have freedom in conjunction with prosperity close by her threshold; but that is her fault, not mine.

Mr. Gladstone was supported, in a generous and powerful speech, by Lord John Russell, and fiercely opposed by the Government and, in a

60 Lord Sahsbiirys First Speech

violent speech, by Lord Palmerston, who affirmed that the Principalities did not wish for union. It was all a factitious excitement got up for sinister purposes by 'foreign agency.' Carry out Mr. Gladstone's policy, and * Russia would in a moment overspread ' Eoumania, wrhich would thus become a scene of confusion and in- trigue, and, like Poland, * be absorbed by Russia, or divided between her and Austria.' And, above all, Mr. Gladstone's policy w^ould be fatal to ' the independence and integrity of the Turkish Empire.' Three years previously Lord Palmer- ston said that his own policy was * to emancipate the Principalities from foreign interference, and to tie them more closely to the Sultan.'

The debate was remarkable, not only for the eloquence of the veteran orators of the House, but for a brilliant speech in support of Mr. Gladstone by a young Member on the Conserva- tive benches.

The House must consider maturely (he said) what would be the fate of those Principalities if the motion of his Eight Honourable friend should be rejected. . . . The probability was that if the strong assistance of Europe were given in favour of the claims of Turkey, the Principalities would be handed over for the present to Turkey, the most oppressive and rapacious of all governments. As long as Turkey lasted they would be subjected to her rule ; and when Turkey fell, as she ultimately must do, they would become a prey to some other Powers who would divide her remains between them. He trusted that the House of Com- mons would show themselves on this occasion to be

on the Eastern Question 61

the supporters of freedom. They had made many efforts and had talked a great deal about propagating the principles which they professed, and of spreading the institutions which they revered, in other countries. . . . There was now an opportunity, which might never recur, of supporting those principles which we revered, of establishing those institutions to which we owed our own happiness, and of securing the freedom and welfare of thousands of our fellow-creatures. That opportunity had been afforded in consequence of a pledge given by ourselves, and if it should be neglected and thrown away the responsibility would fall upon us, and all would feel that it had been lost by our betrayal and our falsehood.

The name of the young orator was Lord Eobert Cecil, now Marquis of Salisbury. The speech made a great impression on the House, and was deeply resented by Mr. Disraeli, who devoted a considerable part of his own speech to the task of neutralising that impression. The following extract from Mr. Disraeli's speech shows how angry he was at this display of in- dependence by one of his own party : —

If the views expressed by the noble Lord the Member for Stamford are sound, then you are justified in supporting the Address to the Crown. If, indeed, the fall of Turkey is to be looked on as a realised fact, . . . then you would be justified in ratifying the sentiments of the noble Lord the Member for Stamford. But, as I believe the opinions of the noble Lord are raw and crude opinions, as I believe they are not the opinions of any one who has sufficiently thought on the subject on which he has spoken with so much authority, I must decline to follow his example. But that such

62 Concert of Europe

opinions should be in any degree sanctioned by the right hon. gentleman the Member for the University (Mr. Gladstone) is to me matter of deep astonishment.

It was a thoroughly pro-Turkish and anti- Eussian speech, ridiculing the idea * of raising up in the Danubian Principalities a fantastic kingdom, and of establishing in those countries what indeed would be but the phantom of in- dependence.' By the coalition of Palmerstonians and Mr. Disraeli's followers, Mr. Gladstone's motion was defeated by a majority of 292 against 114. The bugbear of ' a European war ' was then also raised by Lord Palmerston and Mr. Disraeli to frighten a timorous Parliament from fulfilling a national pledge and discharging a national duty. Bead in the light of events, how prescient and statesmanlike are the speeches of Mr. Gladstone, Lord John Eussell, and Lord Eobert Cecil ! And what political rubbish are the speeches of Lord Palmerston and Mr. Disraeli ! But the vote of the House of Commons was a triumph for Austria and Turkey — on paper. The Congress of Paris, under the influence of the British Government, riveted the yoke of the Sultan on the necks of the people of Eoumama. Nevertheless, the speeches of the champions of freedom in Parliament encouraged the Eou- rnanians to take their destiny into their own hands, and by the device of electing the same Prince for both Principalities they defeated the scheme of selfish statesmen and cemented their

Baffled by Roumania 63

own union. The statesmen looked on baffled and helpless, for brave as they were in a policy of inaction, their courage oozed out at the tips of their fingers when it became a matter of moving forward to undo the plucky manoeuvre of little Koumania. Yet timid politicians now assure us, with bated breath and trembling limbs, that a Concert of Powers would join in a war against mighty England if she determine to vindicate her honour and treaty rights in any legitimate way which would not encroach on or imperil the rights of others. The bond which binds the opponents of England in a policy of doing nothing to stay the reign of terror and massacre in Turkey is a rope of sand, which would fall to pieces the moment any of them proposed to move to the attack. Timid Austria, which now declares that the six mightiest States in the world are ' powerless ' to prevent the miserable poltroon of Yildiz Kiosk from exter- minating the Armenians in his dominions, would, forsooth, rush madly into a war with Britain — a war which would be much more likely to destroy the Turkish Empire than isolated action on the part of any Great Power. Will sensible men face the problem which separate action on the part of England would mean to Austria ? What Austria dreads is the downfall of Turkey before she is ready to grasp as much of the spoil as she covets. But the continued disorganisation of Turkey is exceedingly likely to precipitate that

64 Lord Salisbury in 1-877-78

catastrophe. England says, in effect : — ' I am willing to join you in maintaining the Turkish Empire for the present — but on one condition, namely, that security for life, religion, property, and honour shall be guaranteed to the Christian subjects of the Sultan. You have admitted that mere diplomatic intervention is useless without force. But if the Powers unanimously demand the Sultan's submission to their wishes, with the alternative of force to compel him, the Sultan will yield at once. If, however, you object to this, I am entitled by treaty rights to coerce the Sultan, and I can do it with my fleet without the smallest risk of war. I will, at the same time, give a guarantee to the Powers that I will not annex a rood of the Sultan's territory, and that I will withdraw my fleet the moment I have compelled the Sultan to submit to the will of Europe.' Is it really to be seriously argued that the Powers would meet so reasonable a proposal with a declaration of war against England ? The supposition is incredible and preposterous.

The next landmark in Lord Salisbury's record on the Eastern question is his action in 1877-78. The limits of space forbid my doing more than giving the salient points. In the early part of that historic controversy he in- dicated his scorn for the Eussophobists by his ' large map ' illustration ; as he did a year ago, when there was a silly panic about Port Arthur, by declaring that there was room enough in Asia

Lord Salisbury and Coercion 65

for both Eussia and Britain. In the late spring of 1877 he carried to the Conference of Con- stantinople a paper of admirable instructions, signed by his chief, Lord Derby, but drawn up, I imagine, by himself. They covered the ground most satisfactorily, and were barbed with an ominous warning of coercion in case the Sultan rejected the reforms offered to him. But Lord Salisbury had scarcely left the shore of England when Lord Derby told the Turkish Ambassador that in no case would England join in a coercive policy, or give her sanction to its adoption by any other Power — stronger language than that used by Prince Lobanoff in August 1895, to which such portentous significance has been attributed. Musurus Pasha immediately telegraphed the important information to his Government, and received by return a telegraphic acknowledg- ment with the Grand Vizir's ' deep gratitude to Lord Derby,' and an assurance that ' the Sublime Porte reckons more than ever on the kind support of the Government of Her Britannic Majesty,' which thus offered ' a sure guarantee ' of future help in time of need.

Thus it happened that when the Conference was opened Lord Salisbury found the efficient weapon with wilich his Government had armed him broken in his hand. But there was another weapon still left — the Eussian army on the frontier, now alone ' the motive force of the Conference,' as Lord Salisbury called it in the

F

66 Lord Salisbury on Coercion

House of Lords after his return. But this weapon also was broken by two dexterous strokes. The Jingo Press of London, the Pall Mall Gazette in particular, laboured from day to day, with great skill, to assure the British public and the Sultan that the Russian army was in so disorganised and rotten a state that it could not fight Turkey. To this malign influence on Lord Salisbury's diplomacy he bears witness himself in the speech already referred to.

To myself (he says) it appears that one of the causes which led the Turks to this unfortunate resolution [rejection of the proposals of the Powers] was the belief which was so sedulously fostered, I know not by whom but by irresponsible advisers, that the power of Kussia was broken,- that the armies of Kussia were suffering from disease, that the mobilisation had failed, and that, consequently, the fear of war was over.

Undoubtedly there was an influential party then in England, as I shall show presently, which eagerly desired a war between Russia and Turkey, in the hope and belief that England might be pushed into it in alliance with the Sultan.

The other, and even more formidable, stroke which • neutralised the diplomatic use of the Russian army as ' the motive force of the Conference,' was the speech in which Lord Beaconsfield threatened Russia with ' three campaigns ' in the event of her making war on Turkey. This is not a matter of speculation or of inference. It is Lord Salisbury himself who

Lord Salisbury's Policy 67

complains, in a despatch to Lord Derby, ' that the Grand Vizir believed he could " count upon the assistance of Lord Derby and Lord Beaconsfield." And the Grand Vizir himself (Midhat Pasha) declared afterwards, in an article in the Nineteenth Century, that the Sultan would never have rejected the proposals of the Powers or run the risk of a war with Eussia if he had not counted confidently on the assistance of England. Still Lord Salisbury worked energeti- cally with the Plenipotentiaries of Russia, who, after the Eussian plan was rejected by England, retired behind Lord Salisbury and supported him loyally step by step, even to the 'irreducible minimum ' to which he was reluctantly forced by instructions from home to pare down the excellent proposals wrhich he had originally offered to the Conference. On one thing the Russian Plenipotentiaries and Lord Salisbury were thoroughly agreed — namely, that the Sultan would accept no proposals without coercion, as indeed he could not have done, since any scheme of reform that tends to put non-Musulmans on a footing of equality with Musulmans would be a violation of the theocratic laws of Islam, which no ruler can transgress without apostasy except under force majeure. Lord Salisbury's sagacity and knowledge told him that the key to the problem was an amicable understanding between Russia and England, and he directed his diplomacy to that end. But the pro-Turkish Press in London,

F 2

68 How Lord Salisbury s

with the Pall Mall Gazette at the head of it, started a campaign of slander against Lord Salisbury, and did its very best to belittle his authority abroad and his influence at home. The arrant nonsense that was distributed in London from day to day will now appear incredible, but was then largely believed. Lord Salisbury was the dupe of Ignatieff. His real object was union between the Churches of Eussia and Eng- land, and he was sacrificing the honour and in- terests of his country to that dream. Lady Salisbury could not be seen in the same carriage with Madame IgnatiefT, or shaking hands with the Russian Plenipotentiary, without the portentous fact being telegraphed to London as a proof of Lord Salisbury's folly or perfidy. This is the sort of stuff which the Pall Mall Gazette poured out almost daily in acid streams of vigorous English. It is comical reading now ; but it had consider- able effect at the time. Other papers followed the lead of the Pall Mall, and the campaign of depreciation and slander helped to undermine Lord Salisbury's position both at Constantinople and in London. For there were occult influences at work at the same time. It was no secret that Lord Salisbury's colleague at the Conference was more in sympathy with Midhat Pasha than with Lord Salisbury. And that fervid disciple of David Urquhart, who proved the sincerity of his convictions by the ruin of his fine estate in the Sultan's cause — poor Mr. Butler Johnston — was

Policy was defeated 69

for months flitting about between the Sultan and the Porte, exhorting them to pay no heed to Lord Salisbury, since Lord Beaconsfield was heartily with them and would see them through their troubles.

Thus it was that Lord Salisbury's mission to Constantinople failed, and that Abdul Hamid, buoyed up by false hopes, was mad enough to engage in war with Russia. So sure was he of his ground that he thought he could afford to give vent to his spirit of vindictiveness by attempting to put an affront on Lord Salisbury. For when the latter called to take his leave of him, the Sultan pleaded a sudden attack of diplomatic toothache, and refused to see him. Mr. Frederick Greenwood has now raised a corner of the curtain which has hitherto veiled the intrigue that made Lord Salisbury's mission to Constantinople abortive. In a signed article in the Pall Mall Gazette of the 16th of last September, Mr. Greenwood makes the following statement : —

Disraeli's policy during the Russo-Turkish War was a policy of armed intervention. He would have fought the Russians in alliance with the Turks. If he could he would have raised Turkestan against the Russians at the same time for the relief of our Indian frontier : measures to that effect were considered, if not arranged. That was what he proposed to do and would have done but for the strong opposition of his colleagues in the Cabinet. His motive? ... It is true that Disraeli was a Jew, was pleased with the grandiose, would no doubt have liked to link his name

7o Lord Beaconsfield 's Policy

with a memorable Eastern enterprise, and was probably grateful to those Mahommedan Turks who were so good to his people. . . . Disraeli thought this policy good, because it bolstered up the British Empire, and did so not in keeping up Turkey, but in keeping Russia down.

I thought at the time of his journalistic cam- paign against Lord Salisbury that Mr. Green- wood had access to Cabinet secrets, and this article of his shows that I thought rightly. As he has not scrupled to divulge so much, it is better that the public should know a little more. Yes ; a plan of campaign against Eussia was really arranged after Lord Salisbury's mission to Constantinople. An attempt was to have been made to raise Turkestan against her in prepara- tion for an invasion from India, and I believe that British troops were also to be landed at Trebi- zond and an attack made on Eussia from that side also. That plan of campaign is in the Eussian Foreign Office, for political secrets will out. Is it so very surprising that Eussia should be exceedingly suspicious about the designs of England ? As Mr. Greenwood's incomplete re- velation is calculated seriously to prejudice Lord Salisbury's diplomacy at this critical moment, I will add that the man who took the lead against Lord Beaconsfield on that occasion, and defeated him in his own Cabinet, was Lord Salisbury. So at least Lord Carnarvon told me in the course of a quiet walk in the park of Longleat in the

and its Defeat 71

year 1878. I have not repeated it till now ; but I think I am justified in revealing it under the circumstances. Is it possible to avoid the con- clusion that Lord Salisbury's mission to Con- stantinople was never intended, by some one, to be a success, but merely to gain time for allied England and Turkey to get ready for Mr. Disraeli's * three campaigns ' ? Of that policy itself it is really not necessary to speak at this time of day. I should imagine that Mr. Green- wood, that pathetic Abdiel of a lost cause, is now the only defender of it. He is still a believer in the possibility of 'keeping Eussia down,' and emphasises his formula with Dantesque iteration. The possibility of keeping down a growing empire of 125,000,000 souls and boundless resources by an alliance with a moribund despotism of 17,000,000 Musulmans ! A Mezentian alliance truly !

Mortua quin etiam jungebat corpora vivis, Componens manibnsque manus atque oribus ora, Tormenti genus ! et sanie taboque fluentes Complexu in misero, longa sic morte necabat.*

I trust that I shall offend none of Lord Beaconsfield's admirers by humbly expressing my opinion that his policy on the Eastern question smacked more of the novelist than of the statesman. He tried to realise the dreams of ' Tancred.' And he succeeded, too, in part. That he imagined that he was serving the

* 2Eneid, viii, 485.

7.2 Lord Salisbury and Russia

British Empire well at the same time I have no doubt. But suppose — for I have no know- ledge on that subject — that Lord Salisbury could only defeat the Mezentian policy by a compromise which included the Cyprus Con- vention and the division of Bulgaria, then I think those transactions may wear a different aspect both for his countrymen and for Russia, so far as he is concerned.

I think I have said enough to show that Lord Salisbury, from his first speech on the Eastern question down to the Treaty of Berlin, has been an opponent of an alliance with Turkey, and a supporter of a friendly under- standing with Russia. In my next article I think I can show that he has continued in that policy till now ; and has exemplified it by a service which he has lately done to Russia even more signal than his defeat of Lord Beacons- field's ' three campaigns.' It is a dramatic ending to a great political career if Mr. Glad- stone's last appearance on a public platform has been in support of the Minister who, as a young- nobleman, deserted Mr. Disraeli in order to support with his first speech on the Eastern question Mr. Gladstone's eloquent pleading .for the liberation of Roumania from the curse of Turkish misrule.

CHAPTEE VII.

LORD SALISBURY AND BISMARCK.

IT really seems as if one required some sort of intellectual Eontgen. tube to reach the intelli- gence of those nervous persons who in their unreasoning panic keep on declaring that separate action on the part of England would be to court a European war. Did Lord Salisbury court a European war when he took his own line on the Cretan question without the co- operation of the other Powers ? Did Mr. Glad- stone court a European war when he acted without the co-operation of the other Powers in 1880 ? On the contrary, separate action on the part of those statesmen averted the danger of European wTar, while it vindicated at the same time the honour of England. Lord Eosebery has lately upbraided Lord Salisbury for pursuing a policy which is * neither spirited nor skilful.' Is it either spirited or skilful to tell the other Powers of Europe and the Sultan that under no imaginable circumstances will we separate from the Concert of Europe, even after Count Goluchowski has declared, as related

74 Meaning of Separate Action

in the Blue Book, that the policy of the Concert of Europe — at least as far as Austria can influence it — is to stand quietly by while the Sultan is proceeding to the ' extermination of the miserable Armenians ' ? How much wiser as Veil as more skilful is Mr. Gladstone's policy as expounded in his Liverpool speech : —

While I admit that it is of the utmost importance that we should study every means of consulting the sentiments of other Powers, and of carrying them along with us, I do not believe that the way to carry them along with us is to show a servile determination under all circumstances, and whatever they may decide, to make their conscience the measure of our own.

A noble sentiment, cheered to the echo by Conservatives and Liberals alike. It now appears that the policy of showing the white feather is opposed to Lord Salisbury's not less than to Mr. Gladstone's, for the Liverpool resolution, drawn up in consultation with Lord Derby, ' assures Her Majesty's Ministers that they may rely on the cordial support of the citizens of Liverpool in whatever steps they may feel it necessary to take.'

Separate action may be of various kinds. It may consist in declining to be a party any longer to the fatuous policy of futile ' admonition ' and ' representations,' which Lord Salisbury has himself denounced as worse than useless. It may consist in the cessation of diplomatic

The Division of Bulgaria 75

intercourse with a convicted assassin. It may consist in suggesting to the other Powers that England should act alone ; and, if they menace her with armed opposition, to retire and throw on them, in the face of civilised mankind, the terrible responsibility of the consequences — a responsibility which they are by no means likely to accept. It is surely making too large a demand on our intelligence to ask us to believe that the adoption of any of these courses would be to court a European war. It would be, on the contrary, the best way to avoid it. The recent pacification of Crete is one instance of successful separate action on the part of Lord Salisbury, and some more will appear in the course of my narrative of Lord Salisbury's diplomatic management of the Eastern ques- tion.

Lord Beaconsfield seemed to think that the division of the Bulgaria created by the Treaty of San Stefano was the culmination of his triumph at Berlin. It is said that he ordered a special train to take him home on the morrowr unless Bussia yielded on that point. I doubt whether that policy ever commended itself to Lord Salisbury's mind. Why, then, did he sanction it ? There are cases where a statesman must balance the claims of varying duties, and is obliged to choose the course which he considers, not the best abstractedly, but the one wrhich, under the circumstances, he believes to be the

76 Bulgarian Manoeuvre and

least likely to do mischief. All statesmen, even the most powerful, must sometimes act on this principle of compromise. But let events speak for themselves.

In the year 1881 a deputation from the two severed divisions of Bulgaria made the round of the Courts of the six Powers, in the hope of persuading them to allow the reunion of the two provinces. A Liberal Government was then in office, and the deputation naturally came to London first. But Lord Granville, then Foreign Secretary, refused to see them. Greatly sur- prised and grieved, they called on me, for I was known to several of them before. I tried to make them understand how the very fact of Lord Granville being a member of Mr. Gladstone's Government made it all the more impossible for him, in his official position, to espouse their cause, or do anything that might expose him to the suspicion and imputation on the part of foreign Powers of intriguing to reopen the Eastern question. Both as a statesman out of office, and as one of the signatories of the Treaty of Berlin, Lord Salisbury could act with greater freedom. He received the Bulgarian deputation kindly, and, while refusing to encourage their hopes, advised them to be patient. Their mission, of course, was a failure at all the Courts, and they wrote to me in a mood of somewhat ominous despair. In my reply I said : — " There is nothing desperate in

Lord Salisbury s Sanction 77

your case. Take a lesson from the union of the two Principalities of Eoumania. Avoid giving any legitimate ground of complaint to the Porte or the Powers. Organise your finances. Get up a good army. Prove to Europe that you know how to govern yourselves ; and then, one fine morning, unite yourselves without asking any one's leave, and you will find that, as in the case of Roumania, the same stupid dread of reopening the Eastern question, which will always prevent the Powers from combining to sanction your union, will equally prevent them from combining to undo your accomplished fact.' They took my advice. Years passed, and then one fine day Europe was astonished to find that divided Bulgaria had united itself in a quiet business- like fashion, without tumult or bloodshed.

Lord Salisbury was at the time, as he is now, Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary. How did he act ? He did not place his judgment and conscience at the feet of other Powers. He took no counsel of his fears, lest anybody should accuse him of courting a European war. Nor did he show any petty amour propre as to the undoing of what Lord Beaconsfield had ordered a special train to effect. He acted promptly and alone. He sanctioned the union of the two Bulgarias before any of the Powers had time to move, and thereby prevented, in all probabilit}*, a European war. Lord Eosebery would have consulted the European Concert before acting,

78 A Secret of Diplomacy

beginning with the Sultan, and thereby done his best unwittingly to court a European war. Turkey had a treaty right to march troops into Bulgaria to undo the union, and would have had the sup- port of Austria, Germany, and Servia in doing so. But Lord Salisbury's decision saved the situation. Even as it was, Austria egged Servia on to declare an unprovoked war against Bul- garia— Austria herself, as usual, tying low, in the hope of picking up some of the spoils won by others. But Austria underrated the strength and bravery of the Bulgarian army, and the military capacity of its gallant chief ; and Servia got a sound beating for her pains, and was saved from disaster by the intervention of Austria. The Sultan was prevented from inter- vening by a warning from Lord Salisbury. So much for ' separate action ' !

All this is a matter of history. My next point is as yet, in its full details, one of the secrets of diplomacy. Lord Salisbury's warning to the Sultan in his Guildhall speech, and later at Brighton, has been characterised by some as a mere brutum fulmen. My belief is that Lord Salisbury meant business. It will be remembered that Mr. Goschen made a speech last March in which he said that England's ' splendid isolation' was not compulsory, since she had refused in- vitations from some Powers to act with them on the Armenian question. What did Mr. Goschen mean ? I was on the Continent at the time, and

Proposed Naval Demonstration 79

was told on first-hand authority that Austria had proposed a demonstration of the fleets of the six Powers before Constantinople to bring the Sultan to reason on pain of deposition. Russia and France refused, doubtless suspecting some con- cealed design upon Constantinople. Austria and Germany then proposed that the other fleets should still carry out their programme ; the fleets of England, Italy, and Austria passing the Dar- danelles, while Germany lay in wait to join the three Powers in case Russia and France made any attempt to oppose them. Lord Salisbury, while ready to join in a naval demonstration by all the Powers, or by some of them with the acquiescence of the rest, refused to have any- thing to do with an enterprise which embraced the contingency of a combined attack on France and Russia.

Such is the story which I was told by one who was in a position to know, and there is nothing inherently improbable in it. The secular policy of Germany and Austria is to keep Russia away from Constantinople and the region of the Danube, and England has hitherto been good enough to play their game and fight their battle. The Franco-Russian alliance is a formidable fact for the two Northern Powers, and it would suit them well to get England and Italy to help them to seize Constantinople by a coup de maiti. The combination could have crushed the united fleets of France and Russia. England would

80 England's Greatest Enemy

have been ensnared into the Triple Alliance, and Germany and Austria would have been rid of the nightmare of the Franco-Russian alliance. Or, if it suited his game, the ' honest broker ' would have left his dupes in the lurch, and come to terms with France and Eussia. For Bismarck is still the ruling spirit of the German Foreign Office. It escaped notice at the time that the German Emperor paid a flying visit to Fried- richsruh before sending the famous Kruger telegram. Bismarck's method has always been first to dupe and then to betray and crush his victim. His nefarious acquisition of the Elbe Duchies ; his bamboozling of the Germanic Confederation and absorption of the minor States ; his wars on Austria and France after first lulling their suspicions with false promises and hopes ; his use of Russia to keep Austria in check while he was crushing France, and then his betrayal of her at the Congress of Berlin by putting Austria in a position to dominate the Balkan States and watch her opportunity to seize Constantinople : these are examples of Prince Bismarck's diplomacy. He is the greatest enemy of England since the first Napoleon ; and his enmity springs from two causes. In 1870 Mr. Gladstone refused to give implicit credence to Prince Bismarck's story of the Bismarck-Bene- detti draft treaty for the spoliation of Belgium, and required both Prussia and France to sign a treaty with England to respect Belgium on pain

Motives of his Enmity 81

of reckoning with England as an ally against the Power that invaded Belgium. In 1875 Lord Beaconsfield's Government joined that of Russia in preventing Bismarck and Moltke from an unprovoked war against France, whose rapid recovery from her great defeat surprised and alarmed them, and whom they wished this time, in Prince Bismarck's phrase, 'to bleed white.' 1 1 will not permit all the laws of the civilised world to be transgressed and Europe plunged into the horrors of war again,' said the Tsar to the French Ambassador at St. Petersburg.* ' The old Emperor,' said Lord Derby to the French Charge d'Affaires in London, * does not wish for another war, and was ignorant, as we have seen, of the plot going on around him. Prince Bismarck desires it, and is in a hurry to bring it on during the Emperor William's life- time.'f It now appears that our Queen also intervened effectively by a letter to the German Emperor, for Prince Bismarck has lately pub- lished in his Hamburg organ his own insolent attack on Her Majesty and the Empress Frederick, in his reply to the Emperor's request for an explanation. Prince Bismarck seems to be a man who, spite of all his greatness, is unable to forgive a check or slight, and has vindictively pursued even the wretched printer

* See Alexander II., so, Vie, son (Euvre, p. 292. t See M. Gavard's Notes in the Correspondant of November 25, 1894.

G

82 Motives of Bismarck ' s

of a pamphlet unfavourable to the great states- man. He has never forgiven England for the checks of 1870 and 1875.

But there is a deeper reason for his hostility to Great Britain. His huge armaments are an intolerable burden to the Fatherland, and the conscription is driving crowds of able-bodied Germans every year into foreign lands. Ger- many therefore needs colonies rich and attractive enough to allure Germans, who would thus remain still available as soldiers. If Bismarck could only destroy the naval supremacy of England, he might oust her from South Africa and supplant her commercial marine primacy. He has accordingly devoted his ingenuity for the last quarter of a century to the task of provoking a war between England and Russia, or England and France — a war which would have the addi- tional advantage of crippling for a time one of the Powers which he dreads. Hence the excitement of the Press of Germany and Austria just now, caused by the visit of the Tsar and Tsaritsa to Balmoral. Hence the canards about a Russian General inspecting the fortifications of the Dardanelles, and the Russian Dragoman secretly advising the Sultan to reject the proposals of the Powers. Austria and Germany are in mortal fright lest England and Russia should come to a friendly understanding, and their Press has begun again its congenial occupation of sowing distrust between them. But ' in vain is the net

Hostility to England 83

spread in the sight of any bird.' The people of this country have come to realise that the owner- ship of Constantinople is not a British interest, however much it may be an Austrian interest ; and that, in any case, there is no difficulty which need keep England and Eussia apart, or England and France either. A leading French paper the other day suggested that France might seek in Syria her compensation for the British occupa- tion of Egypt. Why should she not ? England is not likely to oppose her. In short, everything points to a new grouping of the Powers, based on a friendly understanding between England, Eussia, France, and Italy.

G 'I

CHAPTER VIII.

PRECEDENTS FOR SEPARATE ACTION,

I INSERT the following letter not only in fairness to Mr. Greenwood, but also in order to emphasise Lord Salisbury's service both to England and Russia on that occasion.

To the Editor of the ' DAILY CHRONICLE.'

SIR, — Canon MacColl, in an article printed in this morning's Daily Chronicle, says that I am ' still a believer in the possibility of keeping Russia down.' Since Canon MacColl must have read that article of mine from which he makes a meanly garbled extract (see the Pall Mall Gazette si September 16), I cannot imagine him unaware that this is not my case. The whole tenor and purpose of what I wrote, its intention and meaning in every line, is to the following effect : — Russia cannot be kept down ; her ascendency over England and Europe — but particularly over England — is complete ; and the last chance of keeping Russia out of the dictatorship which she now holds was lost when Disraeli's policy of 1877-78 was disallowed by

Lord Bcaconsfield 's Policy 85

his colleagues. Just where I say this Mr. MacColl's extract leaves off. Allow me to follow him with a few sentences from where he stops. ' Disraeli's anxiety was to prevent in 1878 what was fully accomplished in 1895, the absolute predominance of Russia in Europe and the East too. . . . His motive was the post- ponement to a far future of the dictatorship which England is now compelled to acknowledge. What is unintelligently called bolstering up the Turkish Empire was the seizing of an oppor- tunity of rolling back the half-crippled Eussian armies in ruin, breaking down the Eussian prestige in Asia, and therewith destroying all idea of Russian ascendency for many a decade.' And then I say that ' no doubt Disraeli .saw that this opportunity, if lost, would be the last,' and that it was the last. Europe must be turned topsy-turvy before another recurs.

So far, then, from believing it ' still possible to keep Russia down,' I complain that she has been allowed a position of absolute mastery which there is no present hope of shaking. What Canon MacColl dislikes, I fancy, is the further explanation that if Disraeli's policy had been permitted, and had been fairly successful, there would have been * no Russian dictatorship in Turkey, and, at any rate for the present, no Russian mastery in Europe. To England would have been restored the most commanding voice at the Porte.' Nor can Mr. MacColl, in his

86 Mr. F. Greenwood 's Theory

heart, think that policy wrong which, had it been allowed, * would have forestalled the Russian, dictatorship under which the Armenians perish and the Sultan is shielded.' Or if he do think it wrong, how much the dictatorship must please him !

Trusting to your sense of fairness to print this answer to what you can see for yourself is an entirely unwarrantable misrepresentation, I am, your obedient servant,

FREDERICK GREENWOOD. September 25.

I have too much respect not only for Mr. Greenwood's honesty and ability, but for the prudential rules of controversy, to lay myself wilfully open to the charge of ' entirely un- warrantable misrepresentation.' The truth is that I cut out as much of Mr. Greenwood's article as included even more than he has quoted in his letter to the Daily Chronicle. But finding that my article extended to such a length that I could find no room for my full quotation, I gave what I believed to be the gist of it, and gave also the reference to the number of the Pall Mall Gazette which contained the article, in order that the honesty of my quotation might be tested. I regarded Mr, Greenwood's opinion that the defeat of Mr. Disraeli's policy in 1877 had established for the future * the absolute

tested by Facts 87

predominance of Kussia in Europe and the East too ' as a rhetorical exaggeration rather than the expression of his deliberate conviction. And I had more than surmise to guide me to that conclusion. For long after 1877 — down to this very year, in fact — Mr. Greenwood has been urging this country to join the Triple Alliance, in order to prevent that predominance of Russia which he now tells us was irretrievably esta- blished by Lord Salisbury's defeat of Lord Beaconsfield's plot against Russia in 1877. I cannot see, then, that I have done him any injustice. As a matter of fact, Russia is not nearly as predominant in Europe now as she was from 1848 to the Crimean War.

But I must say a word on this scheme of ' seizing an opportunity of rolling back the half-crippled Russian armies in ruin, breaking down the Russian prestige in Asia, and there- with destroying all idea of Russian ascendency for many a decade.' England wTas to have achieved this easy triumph over a high-spirited nation of (at that time) 100,000,000 of human beings, and with no other ally than ' Abdul the Damned.' Napoleon tried that achievement with an army incomparably greater than any that England and Turkey could have put into the field, and failed disastrously. Has Mr. Greenwood forgotten that it took the combined military and naval forces of England, France, Sardinia, and Turkey more than two years to

88 Morality of the Plot ?

conquer Russia fort}' years ago, when Eussia had scarcely any railways, and was otherwise less prepared for war than in 1877 ? Yet Eussia is again, in his opinion, in a position of ' absolute predominance in Europe.' And while this deadly contest, of which Mr. Greenwood was so ardent an advocate, was going on, the 'honest broker ' would be lying in ambush till Eussia and England were exhausted, when he would step in to make terms with Eussia at England's cost, and perhaps achieve his long-cherished purpose of reducing this country to the rank of a second-rate Power.

But what about the morality of the plot ? Where would be England's casus belli ? Eussia made war on Turkey, with the approbation of Europe, for the liberation of millions of Christians suffering as the Armenians are suffering now, and she gave absolute guarantees of good faith which Lord Beaconsfield's Government accepted as satisfactory. Mr. Greenwood has now re- vealed the fact that in the midst of that most righteous war Lord Beaconsfield hatched a plot for ' rolling back the half-crippled Russian, armies in ruin,' and riveting the yoke of Abdul Hamid on the necks of his half -delivered victims. Thus * was lost,' according to Mr. Greenwood, an opportunity of giving England ' the most commanding voice at the Porte,' ' when Dis- raeli's policy of 1877-78 was disallowed by his colleagues.'

Lord Salisbury s Opportunity 89

.Mr. Greenwood thinks that he is honouring the memory of Lord Beaconsfield by thus ex- hibiting him in the character of a freebooter, smitten with ' midsummer madness,' instead of that of a civilised statesman ! If Lord Salisbury had done no other service to his country, he would deserve undying gratitude for having saved us from that deadly peril and everlasting infamy.

I will now proceed to show how complete a case Lord Salisbury could make for separate action if he thought it expedient to make such a proposal to the Powers. And let me say, in passing, that those show a singular kind of con- fidence in Lord Salisbury who tell him that they will support him as long as he acts with the other Powers, but no longer. We may assume that the resolution of the Liverpool meeting, which received the sanction of Lord Derby as well as Mr. Gladstone, is a fair reflex of Lord Salisbury's mind, and that resolution promised the Government ' cordial support ' ' in whatever steps they may feel it necessary to take ' in discharging the nation's obligations. Lord Salisbury has thus a free hand from the country, and may exercise his own discretion undismayed by the timid counsels of the few who seem to think that the best way to strengthen his hands is to proclaim to the world that England can be frightened from her righteous purpose by the mere frown of some foreign Power. Nobod}~ is

9O Russian Precedent

urging Lord Salisbury to go to war. The country has declared that it trusts him to do the best that circumstances will admit of, and this not so much for the benefit of Lord Salisbury himself as for the purpose of showing foreign nations that this is no artificial agitation like those sometimes manufactured in Austria, Germany, and Turkey, but the spontaneous uprising of a free nation enjoying the advantage of a free Press.

And now let me indicate, out of the Blue Books of 1876-77, the case that England may make out for separate action if she thinks it right to propose it. In replying to Lord Derby's invitation to the Conference of Constantinople, Prince Gortchakoff, after expressing his general agreement with the bases of negotiations laid down, uttered the following warning against too formal a recognition of the independence of the Sultan, as likely to hamper negotiations : —

If the Great Powers wish to accomplish a real work, and not expose themselves to the periodical and aggravated return of this dangerous crisis, it is impos- sible that they should persevere in the system which permits the germs of it to exist and develop with the inflexible logic of facts. It is necessary to escape from this vicious circle, and to recognise that the indepen- dence and integrity of Turkey must be subordinated to the guarantees demanded by humanity, the sentiments of Christian Europe, and the general peace. The Porte has been the first to infringe the engagement which she contracted by the Treaty of Paris with regard to

for Separate Action 91

her Christian subjects. It is the right and duty of Europe to dictate to her the conditions on which alone it can on its part consent to the maintenance of the status quo created by that treaty ; and since the Porte is incapable of fulfilling them, it is the right and duty of Europe to substitute itself for her to the extent necessary to insure their execution. Eussia can, less than any other Power, consent to renew the experiences of palliatives, of half-measures, of illusory programmes, which have led to the results which are under the eyes of all, and which react on her tranquillity and internal prosperity ; but if she is more directly and more sensibly interested in putting an end to it by real and adequately guaranteed improvements, she none the less considers this question one of general interest, calling for the concord of all the Powers with a view to its pacific solution. With reference to the personal views which she brings into the pursuit of this object, they are free from all exclusive arriere-pensees : the most positive assurances in this respect have many times been given by the Imperial Cabinet.*

What answer could- Eussia and the other Powers make if Lord Salisbury were to present this admirable Russian despatch to them and advise them to act upon it now, mutatis mutandis ? Or this, also from Prince Gortchakoff, on Novem- ber 13, 1876 ?—

The Imperial Cabinet, finding itself in presence of a question where political interests should make way before the universal interests of humanity and European peace, has done its utmost to bring about an agreement among the Great Powers. For itself, it will neglect no effort in order that this agreement may bring about a practical and substantial result, and one which will

* Turkey, No. 1 (1877), p. 719.

92 European Approval

satisfy the exigencies of public opinion and of general peace. But while diplomacy has been deliberating for a whole year with a view to reduce to practice the combined wishes of Europe, the Porte has had time to summon from the recesses of Asia and Africa the ban and arriere-ban of the disciplined forces of Islamism, to arouse Musulman fanaticism, and to crush under the weight of its numbers the Christian populations who are struggling for their very existence. The per- petrators of the horrible massacres which have so shocked Europe remain unpunished, and at this very moment their example tends to propagate and per- petuate throughout the whole of the Ottoman Empire, and in full view of indignant Europe, similar acts of violence and barbarism. . . . His Imperial Majesty does not wish for war, and will do his utmost to avoid it ; but he is determined not to halt before the principles which have been recognised by the whole of Europe as just, humane, and necessary, and which public opinion in Russia has taken up with the greatest energy, have been fully carried out and secured by efficient guarantees.

Could any one more accurately describe the present situation and the English position, even to the appeal to the public opinion behind him which the Autocrat of All the Eussias was not ashamed to make ? There is just one little difference — namely, that the crimes of the Sultan are now infinitely more heinous in character and in extent, as well as flaunted with greater insolence ' in full view of indignant Europe,' than they were in 1877.

On the 5th of the following December Prince Bismarck made a speech in the Beichstag.

of Separate Action 93

After quoting this declaration of the Tsar, and denouncing the Bulgarian massacres as ' re- volting to the conscience of the whole of Europe,'

he said : —

Should the Conference not lead to any result, and should Russia determine to obtain by force of arms what she has failed to obtain by pacific means, we shall put no veto on her action, since the objects she pursues are also our own, and we have no reason to believe that she will pass the limits of those objects. No one shall succeed in disturbing our friendly relations with Russia, for the alliance of the three Emperors, formed some time ago, subsists to-day in its integrity.*

It was in face of that alliance that Lord Beaconsfield proposed, with Mr. Greenwood's energetic support, to make war on Russia in alliance with Abdul Hamid ! The other Powers took the same view as Germany and Austria. The Foreign Minister of France, Due Decazes, pledged France, in the event of Russia enforcing the will of Europe on the Sultan at the point of the sword, to a policy of ' absolute neutrality, guaranteed by the most absolute non-interven- tion.'f

Signor Depretis, Prime Minister of Italy, took occasion, in a speech to his constituents a short time before the Constantinople Con- ference, to reprobate * an excessive prudence r which should sacrifice ' the grand principles of civilisation and humanity to the traditions of

* Nouvelle Etude sur la Question cT Orient, p. 22. t Turkey, No. 25 (1877), p. 138.

94 Separate Action Defined

diplomacy and the cold calculation of political interests.'

I do not believe that the nineteen years that have elapsed since then have destroyed the moral sense of Christian Europe. It is not dead, but sleepeth. Mr. Gladstone's noble speech will have done much to awake it ; and if Lord Salisbury were to formulate England's case now on the basis of Russia's case (which received the sanction of Europe) in 1877, I believe that he would carry Europe with him. That would not mean war. There would have been no war in 1877 if the Sultan, as Lord Salisbury has told us, had not counted on the support of England. Let me then put an extreme case — though I believe, for my part, that Lord Salisbury will now be able, with a united nation at his back, to persuade the other Powers to adopt his policy of coercion. Let me suppose that he proposes to occupy some point of Turkish territory with the fleet till Turkey gives satisfaction to Europe, offering at the same time such guarantees of disinterestedness as Russia offered in 1877. That would not be war. It would be a pacific method, well known to diplomacy, of enforcing just claims, and often practised by all Govern- ments. Surely no sensible man will say that the mere proposal of such a thing would provoke a European war. The supposition is prepos- terous, and those who hazard it on that ground are simply proposing to degrade Great Britain

No Danger of War 95

from her position as a great Power. The nation which has not the pluck to make so moderate a proposal to Europe has abdicated its position as a Power of the first class, and has gone out of its way to invite insult and aggression. The other Powers would be more likely to join England in such a pacific solution of the crisis that now threatens the very catastrophe which they fear — the downfall of the Turkish Empire — than in thwarting her proposal. My own belief is that, once Russia is convinced that England has now no plot against her, as in 1877, she will return to her old tradition of protecting the Christians of Turkey, and per- haps send troops into Armenia while the British Fleet co-operates wherever its action may be thought most effectual. The mere knowledge that such action was contemplated by Russia and England would bring the Sultan to his knees at once, as in 1880, and the question would be settled without bitterness or danger. It is the interest of every Power to settle it speedily, except Austria and possibly Germany. Austria has her eye on Macedonia, and it is not her interest to see any reforms introduced into Asiatic Turkey which would set a precedent for similar reforms in Macedonia. The late Lord Derby accused Austria to her face, as the Blue Books testify, of having got up and of keeping alive, for her own ends, the insurrection in Bosnia and the Herzegovina. So now her

96 Austrian and German Designs

policy is to keep discontent and disaffection simmering in Macedonia, in the hope of some day getting the sanction of Europe to occupy Macedonia after the precedent of Bosnia. Germany, too, covets a good slice of Asiatic Turkey when the fruit is ripe for her plucking. She has once again declared that for her the Eastern question ' is not worth the bones of a Pomeranian grenadier.' I am sick of the Pomeranian grenadier and his bones. Nobody wants him, and I trust that his friends will now give him a decent burial and have done with him. But the plain truth is that Germany intends, with the aid of Austria and any other combination which she may succeed in form- ing, to play a leading part in the final solution of the Eastern question, and in a manner by no means to the advantage of France and Eussia. All these considerations make for the peaceful settlement of the Armenian question through a friendly understanding between Russia, France, Italy, and Great Britain.

CHAPTER IX.

BRITAIN'S TRADITIONAL POLICY.

WE have heard much of late about ' our tra- ditional policy towards Turkey,' and about the Sultan of Turkey as ' our ancient ally.' Now the plain fact is that our traditional policy to- wards Turkey has branded that Government as a barbarous Power, beyond the pale of civil- isation, and which, therefore, it was necessary to keep in decent order by the strong arm of coercion. Through the influence of Lord Palmerston this barbarous Power was admitted within the comity of European nations by the Treaty of Paris — ' one of the greatest blunders, if not one of the greatest crimes, in history,' said Dr. Dollinger, a master of the subject, to me in the year 1877. But although Lord Palmerston unfortunately succeeded in persuading the Con- gress of Paris to admit an irretrievably barbarous Power into the political system of Europe, it was on condition that the Sultan should be put in leading-strings and obey the behests of the Christian Powers. In the House of Commons' debate on the Treaty of Paris in 1856 he went out of his way to explain that the maintenance

H

98 Appeal to History

of the Turkish Empire did not necessarily mean the maintenance of the Turkish race in that Empire. * We did not engage,' he said, ' to maintain in the Turkish Empire this or that race — one dominant party or the other.' Lord Palmerston thought it impossible to get any fundamental change introduced into the admini- stration of Turkey during the reign of Abdul Medjid, the Sultan of the Crimean War period ; but he had great hopes of his successor, and wrote to the British Ambassador at the Porte urging some drastic reforms. He recommended the Sultan to put * into execution the system of liberal toleration and progressive internal im- provement established by his predecessor on paper. . . But the Sultan must begin by clearing out the harem, dismissing his architects and builders, and turning off his robber Ministers.'*

Such was the policy of Europe down to the Cretan Insurrection of 1866-67 : diplomatic in- terference in the affairs of Turkey for the pro- tection of the non-Musulman subjects of the Sultan, and, when diplomatic intervention failed, material coercion. It is the policy with which are associated the best traditions of British statesmanship, Liberal and Tory : Burke, the two Pitts, Fox, Lord Holland, Mackintosh, Canning, Peel, Lord Aberdeen, Lord Palmerston, Lord Eussell, Mr. Gladstone, Lord Salisbury. A

* Ashley's Life of Lord Palmerston, ii. p. 213.

Lord Holland on Turkey 99

few typical examples will suffice. Lord Holland was as far removed as most men from a fanatical or intolerant temper, yet he did not hesitate to speak as follows : —

The anti-social race which now enjoys the throne of the Constantines considers itself naturally at war with every nation with which it has not entered into a formal treaty of peace. Mr. Addison, who was not only a philosopher but one of the wisest and best men on the face of the earth, remarked upon the bad effect of the numerous journalists in this country, and went on to say that, though there was no absurdity to which people, by this itch for talking and writing politics, might not be brought, he did not believe it possible that there could be persons in England who could think that we were interested in the prosperity of the Ottoman Empire. . . . Almost every man who had held office and had authority stated that the opinion of Lord Chatham was that we should never have any kind of connection whatever with the Ottoman Porte, and that opinion was fortified during the Seven Years' War by a similar opinion of the King of Prussia. In 1772 our allies, the Russians, sent a great fleet into the Mediterranean for the purpose of overpowering the Turks. What was the policy of this country ? To assist the Eussian navy. That fleet was refitted in our harbours, and, with the munitions and implements which it received from us, burnt a Turkish town and fleet, and continued cruising in the Archipelago for no less than five or six years.

In the year 1791 there was a great debate in the House of Commons on a proposal by Pitt to join Turkey and Prussia in compelling Russia to restore to the Sultan some territory which she

H 2

ioo Burke on Turkey

had extorted from him in the Crimea. Burke spoke against the proposal with his usual eloquence and force, and in a tone of pathetic solemnity characterised the proposal as ' the most extraordinary event that passed in that House since he had the honour to sit in it.' He ' could not account for ' Mr. Pitt proposing any- thing so opposed to the traditions of British policy. An extract or two from the speech will show its drift : —

As in all probability this will be the last time I shall ever speak upon a political question in this House, I beg leave to intrude upon its patience a few minutes. It may arise from the prejudices of an old man that I cannot help feeling an alarm at any new principles of policy ; but since I have sat in this House, I solemnly declare I have never heard anything so new as what I have heard advanced this evening. The confidence claimed by His Majesty's Ministers is new. The prin- ciple of alliance [with Turkey], and the doctrine drawn from thence, are entirely new. ... I have never before heard it held forth that the Turkish Empire was ever considered as any part of the balance of power in Europe. They have nothing to do with European power. They consider themselves as wholly Asiatic. . . . They despise and contemn all Christian Princes as infidels, and only wish to subdue and exterminate them and their people. What have these worse than savages to do with the Powers of Europe but to spread war, destruction, and pestilence among them? The Ministers and the policy which shall give these people any weight in Europe will deserve all the bans and curses of posterity. All that is holy in religion, all that is moral and humane, demands an abhorrence of every-

Fox on Turkey 101

thing which tends to extend the power of that cruel and wasteful Empire. Any Christian Power is to be preferred to these destructive savages. . . . Russia is our natural ally, and the most useful ally we have in a commercial sense.

Fox took the same line in a powerful speech. The proposal to join the Turks and the Prussians in an attack on Kussia he denounced as ' conduct so unreasonable, so unjust, so insolent as he had never before witnessed.'

It would be madness in us to show the most lively jealousy of the growing power of Russia in the Black Sea. But it might be said that if the Russians became masters of the Black Sea, they would soon appear in the Mediterranean. It was indifferent to him if they did, for then there would be three Powers in that sea, and as the two former were allies it was probable we might be assisted by the third [Russia].

Pitt carried his proposals in both Houses of Parliament ; but the country declared so un- equivocally against his pro-Turkish policy, that he dropped it incontinently, and henceforth was an advocate for a friendly understanding with Eussia. One of the curious features of the debate in both Houses was the hearty denuncia- tion of the conduct of Prussia, which, then as now, was apparently eager to sacrifice the free- dom and happiness of the Christians of Turkey to her own sordid ends. ' The Prussians,' said Earl Fitzwilliam, 'were desirous to obtain possession of Moldavia [then in the possession of Kussia] merely in order to give it up to the

IO2 Mackintosh and Peel

Turks. But was it not better that it should re- main in the hands of a Christian Sovereign than be subjected to the dominion of a Mohammedan Prince ? ' *

Sir James Mackintosh said in another de- bate : —

It was bare justice to Kussia to say that her dealings with the Ottoman Power for the last seven years had been marked with as great forbearance as the conduct of Turkey had been distinguished by continued insolence and incorrigible contumacy. Facts proved that if Russia was to be blamed at all it was rather for the long patience she had exercised than for any premature interference. . . . The war against the Greeks was waged against defenceless women and children, with the superadded aggravation of the burning of villages, the rooting up of trees, the destruction not only of works of art but of the productions of Nature herself, as well as those of man.f

Sir Eobert Peel, in a speech in the House of Commons on March 24, 1828, said : —

Previous to the signature of the Treaty (of July 6) an intimation was given to His Majesty's Government that it was the intention of Turkey to remove from the Morea the female part of the population and the children for the purpose of selling them in Egypt as slaves, &c. Distinct notification was given to Ibrahim Pasha that so violent an exercise of rights — if rights they could be called — that a proceeding so repugnant to the established usage of civilised nations never would be permitted by His Majesty, and that this country

* Hansard, vol. xxix. (1791), pp. 32-81. t Ibid. Second Series, vol. i. pp. 400-1409.

Lord John Russell 103

would certainly resisiTany attempt to carry such an object into effect.

That was the manly and patriotic language of the Conservative party of that day, and indicates, as I believe, the spirit of the Conser- vative party of to-day. And Sir Eobert Peel had the advantage of having a Liberal leader opposite him who supported him heartily, instead of beseeching him, for God's sake, to beware of courting a European war. The mere threat of Sir Eobert Peel sufficed, for the Sultan knew he had to deal with a Government, backed by the nation, which had the will as well as the power to enforce its threat. Lord John Eussell had two months previously (January 29) used the following language in the House of Commons : —

We believe the battle (Navarino) to have been a glorious victory and a necessary consequence of the Treaty of London, and, moreover, as honest a victory as had ever been gained from the beginning of the world. . . . Turkey was spoken of as an ancient ally. Now the fact was that there never had been any alliance between Turkey and this country prior to 1799, and it was not twenty years since Mr. Arbuthnot had been compelled to fly privately from Constantinople from his fear that his personal safety would be en- dangered by a violation of the ordinary rights of Ambassadors.

The alliance to which Lord John Eussell referred was a very short-lived one, and there was no other till the Crimean War. * The

IO4 Lord Aberdeen on Turkey

travelled Thane, Athenian Aberdeen,' was not a man to let either his tongue or pen run away with him ; he was also one of the most expe- rienced Foreign Secretaries that England has ever had, as well as one of the best. And it was on the eve of the Crimean War, and from the responsible position of Prime Minister of England, that he deliberately put on record the following opinion : —

Notwithstanding the favourable opinion entertained by many, it is difficult to believe in the improvement of the Turks. It is true that under the pressure of the moment benevolent decrees may be issued ; but these, except under the eye of some foreign minister, are entirely neglected. Their whole system is radically vicious and inhuman. I do not refer to fables which may be invented at St. Petersburg or Vienna [in answer to Lord Palmerston], but to numerous despatches of Lord Stratford himself, and of our own Consuls, who describe a frightful picture of lawless oppression and cruelty. This is so true that if the war should continue, and the Turkish armies meet with disaster, we may expect to see the Christian populations of the empire rise against their oppressors ; and in such a case it would scarcely be proposed to employ the force in the Levant to assist in compelling their return under a Mohammedan yoke.*

In a ' Memorandum on Greek Affairs sent to Lord Goderich ' on December 6, 1827, Lord Palmerston said : —

It seems now to be perfectly certain that the Porte * "Life of the Prince Consort, vol. ii. p. 528.

Lord Palmerston on Coercion 105

is obstinately determined to refuse compliance with the demands of the Allies with respect to Greece ; and unless therefore the Allies are prepared to abandon the objects for which they coalesced, and to expose them- selves by so doing to the derision of the whole world, it becomes necessary for them to concert, in pursuance of the agreement they have entered into, such further measures as may be necessary for the accomplishment of the ends of the Treaty of London. Persuasion, reasoning, and threats having failed to sway the Porte, actual coercion must be resorted to.

Lord Palmerston had a nation at his back, as Lord Salisbury has now, and by presenting a determined front in tones which showed that he intended to have his way he got his way. Would he have succeeded if a chorus of puling voices had gone forth warning him that his language was likely to bring on a European war ? It is not by waving the white flag in the sight of Europe that England has won her triumphs 011 the field of diplomacy or of battle. In the Hatt- i-Humaioun of 1856 the Sultan engaged to put his Christian subjects on a footing of perfect equality in all( respects with his Musulman subjects. ' The Treaty of Paris,' said Lord Palmerston in the House of Commons' debate on the subject at the time, * having recorded that that Firman has been issued by the Sultan, it is perfectly plain to my mind that it cannot be revoked. In fact, that it should be revoked is a thing which I hold to be as impossible, almost,

io6 Turkish Reforms Impossible

morally speaking, as that the sun should go back- wards.' Again : —

Hitherto the Sultan has been like a person with but one leg to stand on, and but one arm to defend himself; for one-half of his subjects have had no interest in maintaining his empire, and have been precluded from all participation in its defence. Now, however, if this Firman be but faithfully carried out, all the subjects of the Sultan will have equal rights, and will equally contribute to the defence of the empire.*

All the world knows that no Sultan from that day to this has taken a single step to fulfil the solemn promises made to Europe, and on which Lord Palmerston relied as on the stability of the laws of Nature. The lot of the Christian subjects of the Sultan has, in fact, become much worse. There was no need to ' revoke ' the Hatt-i-Humaioun, for it never became a legally valid document. No political act of the Sultan has any validity for his Ministers or subjects till it has received the Fetva of the Sheikh-ul-Islam, and the Sheikh-ul-Islam will never give his sanction, without coercion, to any Firman of the Sultan which promises to put thenon-Musulman subjects on a footing of equality with the Musulmans. For Turkey is a theocracy, and its politics are based on the unchangeable dogmas of a religious law which forbids absolutely and eternally (without coercion) the equality of the non-Musulman with the Musulman. Hatts and Firmans, there- fore, are mere dust throwrn in the eyes of Europe,

* Hansard, Third Series, vol. cslii. pp. 125-126.

^v^thout Coercion 107

and are never meant to have any effect. It is their crass ignorance of this fact that has made the diplomacy of European statesmen such a ghastly failure in Turkey. Eussian statesmen know the fact, and so does Lord Salisbury. Hence Prince Lobanoff's reference as ' unwork- able ' to the scheme of reforms which Lord Eosebery bequeathed to his successor, and hence Lord Salisbury's complaint that * he found his hands tied ' when he acceded to office. The Sultan will never accept without coercion any scheme of reform which has the smallest value ; or if he does accept it he will never execute one particle of it without European control. And so it was that when Lord Palmerston found that the Sultan's promises were mere waste paper, he took advantage of the Syrian massacres to teach Turkey a lesson. He took ' separate action ' very energetically, got France to join him, and sent a fleet to Syria, with Lord Dufferin as Special Commissioner, to punish the official organisers of the massacres, and to rescue the district of the Lebanon from the uncontrolled yoke of the Sultan. Eussia, to her credit, volunteered to send a man-of-war to join the Anglo-French fleet as a visible token of sym- pathy.

I have now shown that the traditional policy of this country has been, not alliance with Turkey, but coercion of Turkey, sometimes in concert with the other Powers, or with some of

loS Turkish Accusation against England.

o o

them, and sometimes by separate action, coupled with an understanding with Eussia as often as circumstances allowed it. That policy prevailed till 1867, when a contrary policy was for the first time adopted.*

* I have referred to Midhat Pasha's article in the Nineteenth Century, in which he says that Turkey would not have engaged in war with Eussia if the Porte had not been encouraged to rely on British aid. To this must be added the message dictated by Server Pasha, Foreign Minister of Turkey, for publication in England when Turkey lay prostrate at the feet of her conqueror. Server Pasha declared that England was entirely responsible for the war, and Turkey would now become an ally of Russia. And one of the Turkish Envoys with him added : ' We were encouraged to go to war by England, and even to continue the war when our better judgment told us we had better make peace on any terms. We would have made peace before the fall of Plevna that would have satisfied Eussia but for the counsels of the English Government. I do not refer to the official notes of Lord Derby. If we believed them we had nothing to hope from England ; but it is not official notes diplomatists believe in most. It is " officious " notes. It is words whispered in the ear. It was the private conversations of Lord Beaconsfield with Musurus Pasha, of Mr. Layard with Server Pasha and with the Sultan, that led us on and deceived us. Server Pasha has documents which will prove beyond doubt all I say.'

Sir H. Layard and Lord Beaconsfield contradicted this at the time ; but Server Pasha chose to resign rather than withdraw a word ; and now Mr. F. Greenwood's revelations in the Pall Mall Gazette and the Corrihill Magazine prove that Server Pasha was strictly accurate. — See Daily News of Feb. 7, 1877, and Thomp- son's Public Opinion and Lord Beaconsfield, ii. p. 377.

CHAPTEE X.

THE NEW POLICY AND ITS CAUSES.

I SAID in my last chapter that when Pitt found that not only the leading British statesmen of the day, but the entire British nation, con- demned the anti-Russian attitude into which he had allowed himself to be momentarily betrayed under the influence of Prussia^ ' he dropped it incontinently, and henceforth was an advocate of a friendly understanding with Russia.' As I have based my argument all through on authori- tative proof, I had better fortify this statement also by unimpeachable evidence. In a subse- quent debate in the House of Commons Mr. Pitt eulogised Alexander I. of Russia as ' the most magnanimous and powerful Prince ' of his age, as shown by his sacrifices ' for the deliverance of Europe.' This eulogy was greeted by a solitary jeer from Mr. Tierney, upon whom Pitt imme- diately turned with the retort : ' Does it not promise the deliverance of Europe when we find the armies of our allies (the Russians) rapidly advancing in a career of victory, at once the most brilliant and auspicious that

no The Triumvirate

ever signalised the exertions of any combi- nation ? ' *

This policy continued down to the Crimean War — a war into which England was cleverly manoeuvred by three men — the Emperor of the French, who had a special reason of his own to break the power of Russia, as I shall explain in my next chapter ; Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, who had a personal quarrel to avenge on the Emperor Nicholas ; and Lord Palmerston, who appeared to have been mesmerised by the Em- peror of the French. I have related elsewhere (and it is also alluded to in the Greville and Malmesbury Memoirs) a painful story told me in 1877 by the late Lord Bath, with permission to publish it ; but it is worth repeating here. Lord Palmerston and the British Ambassador at the Porte succeeded, with the powerful aid of Louis Napoleon, in persuading the Cabinet of Lord Aberdeen to agree to the despatch of the French and English fleets to Constantinople, Turkey having before then declared war against Russia — a challenge which Russia, on the advice of France and England, did not take up actively, as negotiations for peace were still going on. It was at this critical stage that the three con- spirators, eager for war, managed to manoeuvre the allied fleets to Constantinople, in the hope of provoking Russia into some indiscretion which would give France and England a casus

* Hansard, vol. xxxiv. p. 1046.

Story of Sir Stratford Canning 1 1 1

belli against her, or (still better) which might provoke Nicholas at last to declare war against the two Powers. While the allied fleets, many of which were sailing vessels, were waiting at the Dardanelles for a favourable wind to take them up to Constantinople, . Lord Bath arrived in his yacht. Admiral Dundas, in command of the two fleets, visited him, and begged him on his arrival at Constantinople to call on the Ambassador and tell him that the allied fleets were at the Dardanelles, and would arrive at Constantinople as soon as the wind per- mitted. * On delivering my message,' said Lord Bath to me, ' Sir Stratford Canning (as he then was) jumped up, and, apparently oblivious of my presence, stalked up and down the room mutter- ing aloud to himself : " Ah ! the fleets will soon be here. Once they are here there must be war. It cannot be avoided. I shall take care that it is not avoided. I vowed to have my revenge upon that man [Nicholas, who had refused to receive him as Ambassador at St. Petersburg], and now, by God, I've got it." Yes, indeed, he got it. Under his inspiration the Turks used all their ingenuity to provoke Russia to attack them. They employed their navy to carry Turkish Bashi-Bazouks to the coast of Circassia, from which they conducted a guerilla warfare against Russia, while the Turkish fleet manoauvred in bravado before Sebastopol. After one of these piratical expeditions and challenges the Eussian

ii2 ' Massacre of Sinope '

fleet came out from Sebastopol to engage the Turkish fleet, which immediately took to flight. The Eussian fleet pursued, and sank it in the harbour of Sinope — a legitimate and justifiable operation of war, if ever there was one. But it was immediately denounced by Sir Stratford Canning as 'the massacre of Sinope,' and the London Press took up the cry and hounded the Government on to war. Lord Aberdeen and most of his Cabinet tried to stem the tide, while the Emperor of the French and Palmerston did their uttermost to swell the cry for war. The former proposed that France and England should order the Eussian navy not to issue from their ports on pain of being driven back by the fleets of France and England. Palmerston urged this policy on the Cabinet in vain, whereupon he resigned on the pretext of disagreement with his colleagues on a domestic question. There was a popular clamour for his return to the Cabinet, and Lord Aberdeen, yielding to the storm, took Palmerston back on his own terms — namely, the acceptance of the French Emperor's proposed insult to Eussia. The insulting order was issued, and Nicholas, seeing that France and England were bent on war, refused to accept any more humiliations, and broke off diplomatic inter- course.

Eussia knew that the French Emperor was determined on war, and gave up all hope of con- ciliating him. But up to this last fatal affront

Affront to Ritssia 1 1 3

the Tsar still cherished the hope of avoiding war with England. In a Eussian official * Diplo- matic Study on the Crimean War ' (Vol. i. p. 337) I read as follows : —

M. Drouyn de 1'Huys (French Foreign Minister) proposed to order the admirals (of France and England) to declare to the Eussian naval authorities that the allied Governments were resolved to prevent a repetition of the affair of Sinope ; that consequently any Eussian vessel met with at sea would be invited to put back into Sebastopol, and that any act of aggression against the territory or flag of Turkey would be repelled by force.

Yet Turkey had declared war on Eussia and committed sundry acts of aggression, including the seizure of a Eussian town. ' The English Cabinet,' continues the 'Diplomatic Study,' hesitated to take so serious a step ' as that pro- posed by the French Government ' ; and believing that ' the English Ministers had not lost every sentiment of justice and honour,' the Eussian Government made an appeal to them which is pathetic in its pleading. I continue the quotation : —

The Eussian Government for its part declared to them that nothing could have been more ill-founded than the supposition that any offence had been intended to France or England. ' What had occurred,' said the Chancellor of the Empire to Sir Hamilton Seymour (British Ambassador), ' was an inevitable result of the position taken up by the two Powers, and of that which they had assigned to Eussia. Turkey wages war on us : she begins a campaign before the period fixed by

I

H4 Unpopularity of British Cabinet

herself ; she takes from us Fort St. Nicholas, which she still retains, and you reproach us for meeting hos- tility with hostility ! Pray remember that we are at war with Turkey, and that no one has ever heard of a war in which such acts as those of which you complain do not occur. Moreover, our alleged attack was a defensive measure. It is notorious that the Turkish squadron was carrying ammunition and troops intended to help and arm the tribes which are waging war upon our frontiers.'

But the appeal was made in vain. The lie of ' the massacre of Sinope ' inflamed the British public and frightened Lord Aberdeen to take Palmerston back into the Cabinet on his own condition, namely, that the Government should join the French Cabinet in flinging this affront into the face of the proud Nicholas.

I still quote from the Eussian official account : —

Lord Aberdeen was completely overwhelmed by the public exasperation. This was so great that, at the opening of Parliament, Prince Albert, the Queen's husband, involved in the odium then attaching to the peace party, was the object of popular insult. Lord Aberdeen did not disguise from our Minister the state of affairs. ' I am accused,' he said, ' of cowardice, of betraying my country to Russia. I dare not show myself in the streets ; I am done for.'

It would be improper to bring the name of the Queen into such a discussion as this gratuitously. But the Queen has herself let her subjects into her confidence, and revealed the part which herself and the Prince Consort took in this

The Queen and Prince Consort 115

deplorable business. They were behind the scenes, and saw clearly the deadly peril of allowing the British fleet to join the French fleet in a hostile demonstration against Eussia. The following extracts from the ' Life of the Prince Consort ' show how much more prescient and wise than either the nation or the Cabinet were the Queen and the Prince Consort : —

It appears to the Queen that we have taken on ourselves, in conjunction with France, all the risks of a European war without having bound Turkey to any conditions with respect to provoking it. The 120 fanatical Turks constituting the Divan at Constan- tinople are left sole judges of the line of policy to be pursued, and made cognisant at the same time of the fact that England and France have bound themselves to defend the Turkish territory. This is entrusting them with a power which Parliament has been jealous of confiding even to the hands of the British Crown. It may be a question whether England ought to go to war for the defence of the so-called Turkish indepen- dence ; but there can be none that, if she does so, she ought to be the sole judge of what constitutes a breach of that independence.

The Prince Consort, writing to Baron Stockmar on November 27, 1853, says : —

The prospects of a peaceful settlement in the East do not improve. Lord Stratford fulfils his instruc- tions to the letter, but he so contrives that we are constantly getting deeper into a war policy. Six weeks ago Lord Palmerston and Lord John carried a resolution [i.e. in the Cabinet] that we should give notice that an attack on the Turkish fleet by that of Eussia would be met by the fleets of England and

i 2

1 1 6 Palmerston s Intrigue

France. Now the Turkish steamships are to cross over from the Asiatic coast to the Crimea, and to pass before Sebastopol ! This can only be meant to insult the Russian fleet, and to entice it to corne out, in order thereby to make it possible for Lord Stratford to bring our fleet into collision with that of Russia according to his former instructions, and so to make a European war certain. Of course this is merely surmise. Still there are under-currents without end. . . . The consequence is a set of measures, which the late Lord Liverpool would have called ' neither here nor there.'

The biographer, Sir Theodore Martin, con- tinues : —

On December 16 the political world was startled by the announcement that Lord Palmerston had re- signed. On the 25th it learnt that his resignation had been withdrawn and that peace was once more restored in the Cabinet. It was at this time that the destruction of the Turkish fleet at Sinope by a squad- ron, which had run out from Sebastopol for the pur- pose, realised all that had been apprehended as likely to result from sending the combined fleet to the Bosphorus, where its presence was a defiance to Russia, but futile to prevent a serious disaster to Turkey.

On December 23 the Prince wrote to Baron Stockmar from Windsor : —

The defeat of the Turks at Sinope, upon our element — the sea — has made the people furious ; it is ascribed to Aberdeen having been bought over by Russia, and Palmerston is the only English Minister ! . . . One almost fancies oneself in a lunatic asylum.

The Prince himself, as we have seen, did not

Prince Consort Slandered 1 1 7

escape these dishonouring imputations. On December 27 he writes : —

The defeat at Sinope has made the people quite furious. Treachery is the cry, and, guided by a friendly hand, the whole Press has for the last week made ' a dead set at the Prince ' (as the English phrase goes). My unconstitutional position, corre- spondence with foreign Courts, dislike to Palmerston, relationship to the Orleans family, interference with the army, &c., are depicted as the causes of the decline of the State, the Constitution, and the Nation ; and, indeed, the stupidest trash is babbled to the public — so stupid that (as they say in Coburg) you would not give it to the pigs to litter in.

The view which I have taken of the origin of the Crimean War ever since I studied its diplomatic history for myself is thus confirmed by the Queen and the Prince Consort. The Duke of Argyll and Mr. Gladstone are now the only survivors of the Aberdeen Cabinet, and they have both defended the Crimean War on the ground that it was waged in vindication of the public law of Europe against a violation of it by the Emperor Nicholas. This defence is justified by the facts as they were presented to these illustrious statesmen. If the true state of the case had been known to them, I am sure they would never have given their consent to a war which was hatched in the brain of the Emperor Napoleon for his own private ends, manipulated with consummate craft, in order to avenge a personal grudge, by the British Ambassador at

1 1 8 Prince Consort's Policy

Constantinople, and forced on the British Cabinet by the dexterity of Lord Palmerston.

One more extract from the Prince Consort's writings must end this part of my subject. He sent to the Cabinet a singularly able and com- prehensive Memorandum on the objects and aims of the Crimean War after it had, through the manoauvres which I have described, become inevitable. The drift of his policy may be gathered from the following passage : —

The war ought to be carried on unshackled by obligations to the Porte, and will probably lead, in the peace which must be the object of that war, to the obtaining of arrangements more consonant with the well understood interests of Europe, of Christianity, liberty, and civilisation than the reimposition of the igno- rant, barbarian, and despotic yoke of the Musulman on the most fertile and favoured portion of Europe.*

It thus appears that the original author of the ' bag and baggage ' policy was the Prince Consort. Lord Aberdeen and his Cabinet were in favour of it, with the exception of Lord Palmerston, who denounced it as ' aiming at expelling from Europe the Sultan and his two millions of Musulman subjects ' ; as gross a misrepresentation as the criticism, twenty-three years afterwards, of Mr. Gladstone's policy. The Prince, like Mr. Gladstone, proposed to put an end to Turkish rule and administration in Europe. There was no question of expelling a single Musulman. Unfortunately, Lord

* ' Life of the Prince Consort,' ii. pp. 521-533.

H9

Palmerston's opposition defeated the Prince's prescient and statesmanlike scheme. I am an admirer of constitutional government, but one must admit that it has its disadvantages and failures. It is impossible to read dispassionately the diplomatic history of the Crimean War without being forced to the conclusion that if the Queen and Prince Consort had been able to carry out their own policy unhampered by a Govern- ment, a Parliament, and an irresponsible Press, they would have settled the Eastern question on a durable basis without war.

I have now shown what the policy of England has always been, with the unfortunate exception of the Crimean War. That was, however, only a temporary interruption. The traditional policy of England down to the Cretan insurrection of 1867 was a friendly understanding with Russia, coupled with diplomatic intervention in the affairs of Turkey for the protection of the Christian population; and when diplomatic intervention failed, material coercion. In 1867 this policy was reversed, and a new policy laid down and acted on — namely, a policy of non-intervention in the affairs of Turkey, qualified by going to war against any Power which should attack her. The Porte must be left alone to deal with its subjects in any way it thought best for its own interests ; or, if any advice at all was given, it must be only to the extent of urging the Turkish Government to suppress as promptly as possible

I2O A New Depart lire

every effort of the subject population towards freedom. I cannot for the moment lay my hand on any document in the Parliamentary papers of 1867 in which this policy is formally laid down. But it was laid down in several despatches by the Secretary for Foreign Affairs in 1876-77. The following is a specimen : —

Her Majesty's Government have, since the outbreak in Bosnia and the Herzegovina, deprecated the diplo- matic intervention of the other Powers in the affairs of the Ottoman Empire. Her Majesty's Government would not, however, assume the responsibility of advising the Porte, who must be guided by what they thought best, after due consideration, for the welfare of the Ottoman Empire. It was impossible to expect them (Her Majesty's Government) to do more than to state, if their opinion was asked, that they had better follow the policy which they thought most consistent with their own interests.

Even an intervention by Consuls

was scarcely compatible with the independent authority of the Porte ; it offered an inducement to insurrection as a means of appealing to foreign sympathy against Turkish rule, and it might not improbably open the way to further diplomatic interference in the internal affairs of the empire.

This policy is repeated and enforced in several of Lord Derby's despatches,* and in a speech to a deputation, headed by Mr. John Bright, on July 14, 1876. I quote from the report of the Times of the following day : —

As regards intervention between Turkey and the * See Turkey, No. 2 (1876), p. 96 ; No. 3, pp. 174, 188, 192, 236.

initiated by Lord Derby 121

subjects of the Porte, or between Turkey and the semi- independent States which form part of the Turkish Empire, that is a question which has never been so much as entertained. We will endeavour to press that view on others, and I have every reason to hope that we shall succeed. . . . Now that, gentlemen, is in a few words our policy as regards this war now going on. We shall not intervene; we shall do our utmost, if necessary, to discourage others from intervening ; but I do not believe that under the present circumstances it will be necessary.

' Our policy as regards this war now going on.' The ' war ' was an uprising of a poorly-armed peasantry, driven to desperation by intolerable wrongs, against disciplined and well-armed troops, aided by what Lord Derby called * armed bands of murderers and robbers.' And Lord Derby's policy was to form a ring round these unequally-matched combatants, neither inter- vening himself nor (to the best of his ability) let- ting others intervene. The Suit an had bound him- self before the Areopagus of Europe, twenty years before, to place his Christian subjects on a foot- ing of equality with the Musulmans ; but he had flagitiously broken every item of his solemn engagement, and the oppression of the Christians had gone from bad to worse, and had at last become unbearable. They had therefore a clear right to rise in insurrection against a tyrannical and perjured Government ; and the Powers had not only a right to intervene, they had a casus belli against the Sultan. Yet they contented

122 Its real Author

themselves with pressing for moderate reforms, which the Sultan would undoubtedly have ac- cepted if the Powers had been unanimous. But Lord Derby persistently opposed every suggestion pressed upon him by the other Powers with re- markable unanimity, yet shrank afterwards from the logical conclusion of his policy — a war against Eussia — and called it 'the gunpowder and glory business.'

This was a new departure, a complete reversal of the traditional policy of England, and it dates, as I have said, from the Cretan insurrec- tion of 1866-7, the year in which Lord Beacons- field became Prime Minister. Austria then took the lead in urging the Powers to deal in a com- prehensive spirit with the growing evils of the Turkish Empire. The Sultan had broken all his promises, ' and the Treaty of Paris had failed to provide sufficient guarantees for the better government of the Christians of Turkey.' Count Beust proposed accordingly, ' to put the popula- tions of Turkey under the protectorate of the whole of Europe, by endowing them, under guarantees from all the Courts, with independent institutions in accordance with their various religions and races.'* All the other Powers agreed, but Lord Derby strenuously and success- fully opposed every suggestion of intervention on behalf of the Christians of Turkey. The Govern- ment went even so far as to administer a severe

* See Emile de Girardin's 'La Honte de 1'Europe,' p. 53.

was Lord Beaconsfield 123

reprimand to the gallant captain of a British man-of-war who, seeing a crowd of women and children running down to the shore with cries for help as they were being pursued by armed Turks, took them on board under protection of his guns. Thus a golden opportunity was thrown away for settling the Eastern question on somewhat of a permanent footing. Lord Salisbury was not a member of that Govern- ment.

I have quoted Lord Derby because it is his name as Foreign Secretary that occupies the chief place in this change of policy. And yet the policy could hardly have been Lord Derby's own. For in a speech at King's Lynn in 1864 he recommended a totally different policy, as the following extract will show : —

I believe the question of the breaking up of the Turkish Empire to be only a question of time, probably not a very long time. The Turks have played their part in history ; they have had their day, and that day is over. I do not understand, except it be from the influence of diplomatic traditions, the determination of the elder statesmen to stand by the Turkish rule, whether right or wrong [this is not accurate]. I think we are making for ourselves enemies of races which will very soon become in Eastern Europe dominant races ; and I think we are keeping back countries by whose improvement we, as the great traders of the world, should be the greatest gainers ; and that we are doing this for no earthly advantage, either present or prospective.

The policy was of course Lord Beaconsfield's,

124 Lord Derby s Defects

and Lord Derby was an apt pupil as long as the policy promised to keep things quiet all round and avert war. With all his ability and clear- ness of judgment within a limited range, Lord Derby lacked imagination and sentiment. Having surveyed the political situation in 187G, he came to the conclusion that war was impos- sible ; France, Italy, Germany, England, did not want war ; and as for Austria and Russia, her Slav soldiers would prevent the former from fighting Eussia, while * the condition of Russian finance ' would restrain the latter. Lord Derby's unemotional and unimaginative nature made it impossible for him to realise either the unspeakable misery of the Christians of Turkey, or the wave of uncontrollable pity and indigna- tion which roused the Russian people to such a pitch of enthusiasm that no Government could have held them back from going to the rescue of their kin in faith and race.

But what was Lord Beaconsfield's motive in reversing the traditional policy of England ? I am anxious to say nothing which can vex any of his admirers. I, too, can admire his splendid pluck; his devotion to his race, regardless of self-interest ; his indomitable perseverance in the face of what to most men might well seem insurmountable difficulties ; his domestic virtues. But he had in abundance what Lord Derby lacked — a glowing Oriental imagination and lively emotions concealed under an impassive

Lord Beaconsfield' s Ideals 125

exterior. That he aimed at the glory of England I have no doubt. But he was with us rather than of us. It was in the East that his ideals lay and his strongest affections. He was a believer in the primacy of certain races ; and probably thought that by ' rolling back Kussia for many a decade,' as Mr. Greenwood says, he would give a new lease of life to Turkey, and bring the Arabs, whom he regarded as cousins, to the front.* He admired the English for their rough strength and courage, but despised them a little for their lack of ideality and pure blood, which placed them, as he expressed it, under the ban of * that law of extermination which is fatal to curs.' He firmly believed in the resuscita- tion of the long-slumbering East ; the idea pervades all his writings, and he probably imagined that he was himself predestined to set in motion the forces which would in course of time fulfil his dreams. For, with all his shrewd- ness and worldly wisdom, there was a strong vein of mysticism in Lord Beaconsfield's nature. It is thus that I interpret his reversal of

* ' For nearly five hundred years the true Oriental mind has been enthralled. Arabia alone has remained free and faithful to the divine tradition. From its bosom we shall go forth and sweep away the Tataric system ; and thus, when the East has resumed its indigenous intelligence, when angels and prophets again mingle with humanity, the sacred quarter of the globe will recover its prominent and divine supremacy; it will act upon the modern empires, and the faint-hearted faith of Europe, which is but the shadow of a shade, will become as vigorous as befits men who are in sustained communication with the Creator.' — Tancred, page 428.

126 Lord Beaconsfield* s Ideals

England's traditional policy on the Eastern question ; and it is no small tribute to his genius that he succeeded, and that the present Oriental complication is so largely due to the reveries of an extraordinary and complex genius, whose cast of mind was more Oriental than English.

T27

CHAPTER XI.

POLICY OF TSAE NICHOLAS.

* IT is really painful,' said Prince Gortcha- koff in the midst of the crisis of 1877, * to see two great States, which together might regulate European questions for their mutual advantage and the benefit of all, excite themselves and the world by an antagonism founded on prejudice or misunderstanding.' * In another despatch the same year he said — to Prince Bismarck's fierce indignation — that if only Great Britain and Eussia would come to a friendly understanding, ' not a cannon could be fired in Europe without their consent.' It is England, not Russia, which has always put obstacles in the way of such understanding. A cordial understanding with this country on all questions, both in Europe and in Asia, was an article in the political creed of the Emperor Nicholas, which he held with almost the fervour of a religious dogma. He had witnessed the horrors of the Napoleonic wars, culminating, for him, in the patriotic immolation of Moscow, and he believed that the best security

* Turkey, No. 2 [1877], p. 786.

128 Visit of Nicholas to England

for peace lay in the union of the two Powers which then dominated between them both land and sea. For the purpose of threshing out all difficulties and differences between the two countries he came to London in the year 1844 on a visit to the Queen, and had frequent and friendly interviews with Sir Eobert Peel and with his Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Lord Aberdeen. The result was a thorough understanding with the Conservative Government as regards India, Persia, Central Asia, and Turkey. On his return to Eussia Nicholas instructed the Chancellor of the Empire, Count Nesselrode, to embody his understanding with the British Court and Cabinet in a Memorandum, which was sent to the Government of Sir Eobert Peel. That most important State paper, I believe, has never been published by our Foreign Office ; at all events, I have never been able to find any trace of it in the Blue-books. Lord Salisbury could do no better service to the cause of peace at this mo- ment, if I may presume to say so, than by pub- lishing the agreement arrived at between the two Governments in 1844, since it contains no infringement, as far as I can judge, of the rights of other Powers. I got a copy of the Memoran- dum twenty years ago from Baron Jomini — ' the pen of the Foreign Office,' as he used to be called in St. Petersburg ; and it throws such a flood of light on the traditional policy of Eussia that the publication of so much of it as relates

Nesselrodes Memorandum 129

to Turkey may be useful at this moment. Here it is : —

Russia and England are mutually penetrated with the conviction that it is their common interest that the Ottoman Porte should maintain itself in the state of independence and of territorial possession now existing in that empire, this political combination being the one which best accords with the preserva- tion of general peace.

Agreed as to this principle, Russia and England have an equal interest in uniting their efforts to strengthen the existence of the Ottoman Empire, and to avert all dangers by which its security may be threatened. With this object, the essential thing is to allow the Porte to live in peace, without agitating it by diplomatic worries, and without interfering in its internal affairs. To put this system in practice, two things must not be lost sight of. They are as follows : — In the first place, the Porte has a constant tendency towards freeing itself from the engagements imposed upon it by the treaties which it has concluded with the other Powers ; and it hopes to do this with impunity because it relies upon the mutual jealousies of the Cabinets. It believes that if it fails in its engagements towards one, the others will take up its quarrel, and will shield it against all responsibility.

It is essential not to confirm the Porte in this illusion. Each time that it fails in its obligations towards one of the Great Powers it is the interest of all the others to make it sensible of its fault, and to exhort it seriously to render justice to the Cabinet which seeks reparation. As soon as the Porte sees itself not maintained by the other Cabinets it will yield ; and the differences which may have arisen will disappear through the medium of conciliation, without any conflict taking place.

K

130 Nesselrode s Memorandum

A second cause exists for the complications in- herent in the situation of the Porte ; the difficulty of bringing into accord the respect due to the sovereign authority of the Sultan founded on the Musulman law, and the concessions due to the interests of the Christian population of the empire.

This difficulty is not to be denied. In the actual condition of the European mind the Cabinets cannot with indifference see the Christian populations of Turkey subject to flagrant vexations and to religious intolerance. This truth must be impressed without cessation on the Ottoman Ministers, who must be persuaded that they can only count on the friendship and support of the Great Powers on condition of the Christian subjects of the Porte being treated with tolerance and mildness.

While they insist on this truth, the foreign repre- sentatives must, on the other side, use all their in- fluence to maintain the Christian subjects of the Porte in submission towards the sovereign authority. Guided by these principles the foreign representatives must act between themselves in a perfect spirit of concord. If remonstrances are addressed to the Porte, they must bear a character of unanimity without any one Power putting itself forward exclusively.

Proceeding in this system with all calmness and moderation, the representatives of the Great Cabinets of Europe will have the best chance of succeeding without provoking such complications as might com- promise the peace of the Ottoman Empire. If all the Great Powers adopt frankly this line of conduct they may hope wTith reason to preserve the existence of Turkey.

It is impossible, however, not to see what elements of dissolution are contained within this empire. Imperious circumstances may hasten its fall without its being possible for the united Cabinets to prevent

Nesselrodes Memorandum 131

such a result, inasmuch as it is not given to human foresight to trace beforehand a plan of action for such an unexpected case. It would be premature to take into consideration eventualities which may never be realised. In the uncertainty which weighs upon the future, one fundamental idea seems alone capable of practical application. It is this — that the danger which may result from a catastrophe in Turkey will be much diminished if, the case occurring, Russia and England understand one another as to the course to be pursued by both in common. This understanding will be all the more salutary, inasmuch as it will receive the complete assent of Austria. Between Austria and Russia a perfect conformity of principles as regards the affairs of Turkey already exists, the interests of both Powers being conservation and peace. To render the union more efficacious, the one thing to desire would be to see England associated with them in the same object. The reasons for aiming at the establish- ment of this accord are very simple. By land Russia exercises on Turkey a preponderating influence ; on sea England occupies the same position. Isolated, the influence of these two Powers might do a good deal of harm ; combined it may do much good. Hence the utility of a preliminary understanding before taking action.

This idea was adopted in principle during the stay