[127] Letter of Prince Albert to the Dowager-Duchess of Coburg, in Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. XLVII.

[128] Medical men may be interested to know that the Duke and Duchess transmitted it unconsciously “to the Duke of Brabant and Count of Flanders, whom they met on their way back to Coburg, and before they were aware they had taken the seeds of the illness from England with them.”—Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort.

[129] Contrast this with the habits of the House in the time of Charles I., when it met at eight in the morning and rose at noon; and in Sir Robert Walpole’s time, when the mere suggestion of a Member that “candles be brought in” was regarded as phenomenal.

[130] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort. See also a reference to the Grand Duchess Olga’s “Mission” in Lord Malmesbury’s Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. I., p. 404.

[131] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. XLVIII.

[132] Annual Register for 1853.

[133] Ashley’s Life of Lord Palmerston, Vol. II., p. 13. For Lord Aberdeen’s answer to Palmerston’s bellicose special pleading, see Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. XLVIII.

[134] This letter, dated the 14th of November, was not sent till it had been submitted to Lord Aberdeen and Lord Clarendon for their approval. The precedent should be noted, because, as Sir Hamilton Seymour told Count Nesselrode at the time, “these correspondences between sovereigns are not regular, according to our Constitutional notions.” At the same time, when personally addressed by a foreign sovereign, the Crown cannot, as a matter of courtesy, reply through a Minister of State. The course taken by the Queen in this instance is obviously the prudent one.

[135] Cobden’s Collected Writings, Vol. II., p. 269.

[136] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. L.

[137] Letters of Sir G. C. Lewis, p. 276.

[138] It is only just to the memory of Mr. Cobden to state that towards the end of his career some suspicion of the truth crept into his mind. Speaking on the American Civil War, he said:—“From the moment the first shot is fired or the first blow struck in a dispute, then farewell to all reason and argument; you might as well reason with mad dogs as with men when they have begun to spill each other’s blood in mortal combat. I was so convinced of the fact during the Crimean War; I was so convinced of the utter uselessness of raising one’s voice in opposition to War when it has once begun, that I made up my mind that so long as I was in political life, should a war again break out between England and a great Power, I would never open my mouth upon the subject from the time the first gun was fired till the peace was made.”—Cobden’s Speeches, Vol. II., p. 314. See also Mr. John Morley’s masterly defence of the Cobdenites in 1854, in his Life of Cobden, Chap. XXII.

[139] Count Nesselrode’s Despatch to the Russian Ambassador in England, dated the 16th of January, 1854.

[140] See Sir H. Seymour’s Despatch to Lord Clarendon, dated the 30th of January, 1854.

[141] Amongst other things, she demanded that some fresh arrangement should be made as to the right of asylum granted to political refugees in Turkey. This obviously pointed at Turkey’s refusal to surrender the Hungarian patriots after the Revolution of 1848 was suppressed; and, knowing the opinion of England on the subject, it was absurd to add such stipulations to new preliminaries of peace.

[142] Nesselrode, Orloff, and Kisseleff.

[143] “Russia, as I can guarantee, will prove herself in 1854 what she was in 1812.... My conditions are known at Vienna.”

[144] Observe not “a day,” as Kinglake has it.

[145] “L’Empereur ne juge pas convenable de donner aucune réponse à la lettre de Lord Clarendon.”—Eastern Papers. Consul Michele’s Despatch to Lord Clarendon, dated St. Petersburg, 19th March, 1854.

[146] Mr. Kinglake blames the London Press, especially the Times, for manufacturing this passion. Mr. Cobden took much the same view. Educated people who were rich, but ignorant of geography and military history, however, all clamoured for war. “I have had the satisfaction of seeing the rascally Czar defeated by the unassisted Turks, and obliged to cross the Pruth. Now for Sebastopol!” Thus wrote Lord Campbell in his Journal on the 14th of August.—See Mrs. Hardcastle’s Life of John, Lord Campbell, Vol. II., p. 326.

[147] “In proposing success to the guest of the evening, he (Palmerston) made a speech in that vein of forced jocularity with which elderly gentlemen give the toast of the bridegroom at a wedding breakfast.”—Morley’s Life of Cobden, Chap. XXII.

[148] Compare this with almost the identical expression in Mr. Bright’s speech in the House of Commons of the 13th of March, for delivering which Lord Palmerston jeered at him as “the honourable and reverend gentleman.”

[149] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. LII.

[150] “For if the hostilities continue, if the Powers, released from all apprehension in Turkey, should be free either to pursue us on the evacuated territory, or to employ all their disposable forces in invading our European or Asiatic dominions, with a view to impose on us conditions which could not be accepted, it is evident that the demand made by Austria was that we should weaken ourselves morally and materially by a sacrifice wholly useless.”—Count Nesselrode’s Despatch to Count Buol Schauenstein of 29th of July, 1854.

[151] See Lord Clarendon’s Despatch to the Earl of Westmoreland, dated the 22nd of July, 1854.

[152] France explained this by demanding in the official Moniteur that the fleet of Russia in the Black Sea should be reduced in strength.

[153] Diplomatic Study of the Crimean War, Vol. II., p. 18.

[154] Orloff was sent by the Czar to extract from Austria a pledge of absolute neutrality. The Austrian Emperor asked if the Czar would promise not to cross the Danube or seize territory, and if he would evacuate the Principalities when war was over. Orloff said “No.” The Emperor then replied that Austria would preserve perfect freedom of action. Baron de Bulberg failed at Berlin to extract a similar pledge from Prussia.—Despatch of Lord Westmoreland to Lord Clarendon, dated 8th February, 1854. Eastern Papers.

[155] “Ministers are preparing for war; the quarrel has now become an European quarrel and must have an European settlement. We ask for 20,000 more men for the army and navy; we propose to add £21,000,000 to our expenditure, and is this an occasion on which you should potter over Blue-books?”—Sir James Graham’s speech, in reply to Mr. Layard, in the House of Commons on the 17th of February, 1854.

[156] Writing to Mrs. Cobden about this speech, Cobden says, “No enthusiasm of course; that I did not expect; but there was a feeling of interest throughout the House which is not bumptious or warlike to the extent I expected, and not disposed to be insolent to the ‘peace party.’ In fact, I find many men in the Tory Party agreeing with me. After I spoke, Molesworth took me aside and said he and Gladstone thought I never spoke better.”—Morley’s Life of Cobden, Chap. XXII. If the men who agreed with him privately had been bold enough to say so in public, there would have been no invasion of the Crimea.

[157] Life and Work of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, K.G., by Edwin Hodder, Vol. II., p. 465. Cassell and Co. (Limited). Palmerston was chief of the War Party in the Cabinet. Lady Palmerston was Lord Shaftesbury’s mother-in-law.

[158] Morley’s Life of Cobden, Chap. XXII.

[159] The history of its publication is as follows: On the 13th of March Lord Derby drew the attention of the Peers (1) to “An Official Answer of the Emperor of Russia to a speech of Lord John Russell in the House of Commons,” published in the St. Petersburg Journal, wherein it was alleged that the English Cabinet had been frankly told at the outset what course the Czar desired to pursue in Turkey; (2) to statements in the Times to the effect that though an indignant refusal had been Lord John’s answer, yet the Czar had in 1844 attempted to gain over the Government of the day to his designs. Lord Derby called for the production of this Secret Correspondence, and as Russia, by her official reference to it, had virtually challenged its publication, it was in due course laid before both Houses of Parliament.

[160] The English case against Russia was that the Czar persisted in asserting an exceptional right of protecting the Greek Christians in Turkey under existing treaties. In Lord John Russell’s despatch of 9th of February, 1853, in which he expressed a disapproval of the Czar’s overtures to Sir Hamilton Seymour, he counselled forbearance, and then said: “To these cautions Her Majesty’s Government wish to add that, in their view, it is essential that the Sultan should be advised to treat his Christian subjects in conformity with the principles of equity and religious freedom, which prevail generally among the enlightened nations of Europe. The more the Turkish Government adopts the rules of impartial law and equal administration, the less will the Emperor of Russia find it necessary to apply that exceptional protection which His Imperial Majesty has found so burdensome and inconvenient, though no doubt prescribed by duty and sanctioned by Treaty.”

[161] See ante, p. 582.

[162] Eastern Papers, Part VII., contain proofs of the deception perpetrated by the Coalition Government on Parliament as to the extent to which England might depend on the German States for support.

[163] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. LIII.

[164] An appeal to fear rarely influences German statesmen. In 1868, during the debate in the Customs Parliament at Berlin, the Separatist Party objected to the discussion of national politics, lest, as one of them said, they might provoke an attack from France. Bismarck’s retort was that “an appeal to fear had never yet found an echo in German hearts.”—Lowe’s Life of Bismarck, Vol. I., p. 458.

[165] Lowe’s Life of Bismarck, Vol. I., p. 206 (Cassell and Co.).

[166] It is due to Lord Clarendon to say that in a letter to Prince Albert (26th March) he expresses a shrewd suspicion of this danger. But the Prince, whose authority on the secret diplomacy of Germany no Cabinet Minister, except, perhaps, Palmerston, ever dared to question, promptly silenced his suspicions. On the 27th the Prince wrote to Clarendon, saying, “I don’t think that Austria has anything to fear from Prussia or Germany if she were to take an active part in the war against us.” That the Queen and her husband were mistaken or misinformed is proved by Mr. Lowe in his Life of Prince Bismarck, Vol. I., pp. 200, 202, and 203.

[167] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. LIII.

[168] He allowed for a force of 25,000 men at £50 a head, or a total of £1,250,000.

[169] Other estimates besides those for 25,000 men had to be provided for, e.g., extraordinary expenditure on the Navy, Ordnance, and Commissariat Departments. In fact, the mere prospect of war had thus added, not £1,250,000, but £4,307,000 to the estimates of the coming year in the ordinary Budget before war was declared.

[170] Their real objection was that the conversion scheme caused Mr. Gladstone to take £8,000,000 from his Exchequer balances, which, however, had been kept perniciously high. Had this money been in hand, of course there would have been less need to levy a war tax. The conversion scheme had resulted in a small loss from changes in the Money Market, due to rumours of war and a bad harvest.

[171] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. LIII.

[172] Pitt was first called “the Heaven-born Minister” by the loan-mongers of the City, because he tried to make war on loans instead of taxes. In 1792 he had a war deficit of £4,500,000 to meet. He raised a 4 per cent. loan in the City, for which they made him pay £4 3s. 4d. per cent.; in 1794 he borrowed £11,000,000 at £4 10s. 9d.; in 1795, £18,000,000 at £4 15s. 8d.; in 1796, £25,000,000 at £4 13s. 5d.; in 1797, £32,500,000 at £5 14s. 10d.; in 1798, £17,000,000 at £6 4s. 9d., and he had to give the usurers bonuses, commissions, and inducements to subscribe, which compelled him to add £34,000,000 of capital to the National Debt to get this £17,000,000. His system added £250,000,000 to our National Debt, for which the nation never really got a penny. In 1797 Pitt, however, saw that the country must soon be drained of its resources by the loan-mongers, and he made convulsive efforts to escape from their clutches. He began to raise taxes to meet his war expenditure and pay the principal and interest of his debts. He first tried to raise £7,000,000, and only got £4,000,000 by assessed taxes. In 1798 he returned to the charge, and increased the Income Tax by 40 per cent. That year the revenue was £23,100,000. In 1806, when he died, he had raised it by successive turns of the screw to £50,900,000. In 1807 an addition of 10 per cent. to the Income Tax raised the revenue to £59,300,000. Up to 1816 it fluctuated between £60,000,000 and £70,000,000, but between 1806 and 1816 the war charges and the interest on the Debt were all paid out of current revenue. In fact, after 1797 it is clear Pitt and his successors resolved to exact any sacrifices from the people, rather than float war loans in the City.

[173] Lord Shaftesbury, in a letter to Lord Aberdeen, dated 22nd of February, says that a conversation he held with the Prime Minister on the subject had “terrified” him. “It implied,” writes Lord Shaftesbury, “that the country had entered on a war which you could so little justify to your own conscience as to be unwilling, nay, almost unable, to advise the ordinance of public prayer for success on the undertaking. Why, then, have we begun it? You asked whether ‘the English nation would be brought to pray for the Turks?’ Surely, if they are brought to fight for them, they would be induced to pray for them in a just quarrel.”—Life and Work of Lord Shaftesbury, by Edwin Hodder, Vol. II., p. 466 (Cassell and Co.). See also Greville Memoirs—Third Part (Longmans), 1887.

[174] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. LIV.

[175] Russia held the Sulina mouth of the Danube by the Treaty of Adrianople, and, though she took toll of passing ships, had neglected the channel, greatly to the hindrance of navigation.

[176] Dundonald would have been appointed instead of Napier, had it not been that he insisted on destroying Cronstadt by an “infernal” machine which he had invented. Greville Memoirs—Third Part, p. 136 (Longmans), 1887.

[177] Kinglake’s History of the Invasion of the Crimea, Vol. II., p. 249 and p. 407.

[178] “His (Mr. Kinglake’s) attempt to throw all the credit or blame of the expedition to Sebastopol upon the Duke of Newcastle is a complete delusion. His story about the sleepy Cabinet may be partially true, but the plan of the expedition had been discussed by the Cabinet at repeated sittings, and the despatch in question only embodied a foregone conclusion.”—Letters of Sir George Cornewall Lewis, p. 426. Sir George Lewis was Lord Clarendon’s brother-in-law, and Editor of the Edinburgh Review. His letters, and the articles in the Edinburgh on public affairs at this time, are of high authority. See also a very conclusive answer to Mr. Kinglake by Sir Theodore Martin in a Note in his Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. LIV.

[179] In a letter to Sir Edmund Head (29th December, 1854), the common-sense view of the case is pithily put by Sir George Cornewall Lewis as follows: “The fact is that the Government were urged into the Sebastopol adventure by popular clamour; that they undertook it with an imperfect knowledge of the difficulties of the enterprise; and that the military men anticipated that if the army could once be landed the place would speedily fall. This delusion was shared by all the world in September, and even October last; but now events have dispelled the illusion, the people forget their own mistake, and visit its consequences on the head of the War Minister.”—Sir G. C. Lewis’ Letters, p. 288.

[180] Mr. Kinglake gives an entertaining description of a conversation between General Sir George Brown and Lord Raglan over the Ministerial order. Brown told his chief that they were all so ignorant about the Crimea that it was foolish to invade it; but that he had better obey, for refusal would only lead to his dismissal.

[181] But for Mr. Roberts the expedition must have been abandoned till the following spring. His services were contemptuously ignored, and he died heart-broken by the bitter ingratitude of the Government. He was an able officer—but without “interest.”

[182] The attack on the central redoubt by Sir G. Brown’s Light Division was a confused rush by an armed mob. It failed because the Duke of Cambridge, who led the First Division, did not bring up his supports. But for the remonstrance of Sir Colin Campbell, one of his Brigadiers, he would even have made his Guards ignominiously retire and re-form at a critical moment in the advance, which would have spread panic, and lost the battle. De Lacy Evans and Campbell were the only commanders in this fight who seemed capable of handling troops in a workmanlike manner. Colonels Hood of the Grenadiers, and Ainslie of the 93rd Highlanders, also displayed skill.

[183] It is a melancholy satisfaction that the French Prince Napoleon proved himself to be as incapable as the English Royal Duke. He lost a regiment of his Zouaves who, getting tired of him, went away into the fray on their own account. One of Brown’s Brigadiers (Buller) also lost himself, and spent most of the day with his men in hollow square, waiting to receive imaginary cavalry.

[184] It is an amusing fact that Raglan’s van actually came on Menschikoff’s rear, as the lines of march intersected, and that neither General had the faintest idea of what the other was about.

[185] It may be pointed out that the works on the north side of the town, where the citadel was, commanded those on the south side. Raglan’s vaunted flank march had left the Russian garrison in the North Town open and safe communication with their base, and their army of observation in the field. He had given them ample time to make affluent use of this advantage. It was, therefore, a moral certainty that if we had taken the South Town after the bombardment of the 17th our position would not have been tenable. Though Cathcart and Campbell would have walked into it easily had they been allowed on the 25th of September, the failure of the bombardment of the 17th of October was thus probably a fortunate occurrence.

[186] The ships were also dreadfully underhanded—4,000 of their fighting force being on shore with the army.

[187] It may not be quite fair to blame Lord Raglan too much for this ridiculous manœuvre. At one time his partizans claimed for him the honour of planning it. But Prince Albert ascribed it to Sir John Burgoyne, and so did many others. Burgoyne’s own correspondence seems to show that the Prince was right. (Lieutenant-Colonel Wrottesley’s “Life and Correspondence of Sir John Burgoyne,” Vol. II., pp. 95-164.)

[188] Receiving heavy masses of cavalry in this fashion was but a development of another piece of tactics which Campbell always used “contrary to the regulations.” That was advancing in line—as at the Alma—firing on dense masses of infantry all the time. This he learnt from Sir J. Cameron, colonel of the 6th Regiment, in the Peninsula. Oddly enough Cameron’s son commanded the Black Watch under Campbell in the Crimea, and he, too, had, “contrary to regulations,” taught his father’s tactics to his men. Colonel Hood, of the Grenadiers, had a glimmering of this idea at the Alma. But he did not venture to advance in line firing until the enemy’s column was demoralised. The Scottish Regiments used the manœuvre for the purpose of demoralising the enemy. But it should never be used except by troops of coarse nerve-fibre, in perfect training, and whom their leader can hold in hand as in a vice.

[189] The responsibility for this fearful butchery has been cast on Lord Lucan. He certainly lacked moral courage in obeying an order which nobody but a maniac would, in the circumstances, have issued. But Nolan’s insinuation that Lucan was afraid to attack forced the general’s hand. Nolan was a brave man, with a crazy fad as to the capacity of English cavalry to go anywhere and do anything. He had written a book to show that they could—and he was bitterly disappointed because the campaign had not been conducted so as to illustrate by practical experiments the soundness of his views. He took it on himself to ride in advance of the Brigade, with which he had nothing to do, and excite the men by voice and gesture, as if their own officers, who were personally responsible for their lives, were not fit to lead them. This would indicate that he was one of those meddlesome aides-de-camp, whose interference with operations in the field renders them the pest of British armies.

[190] The success of the Heavy Brigade was due to Scarlett attacking in line, when, to his surprise, he found he was riding with a slender force against enormous masses of Russian cavalry, and to the Russians perpetrating the atrocious blunder of halting to receive the fierce onset of the Scottish and Irish horsemen. Only a third of the Light Brigade were rescued from the “valley of death,” and they owe their lives to a brilliant and impetuous charge which a fiery squadron of French Chasseurs d’Afrique made on a Russian battery, that was cutting our troopers to pieces during their retreat.

[191] History of England, Vol. V., p. 125.

[192] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. I., p. 424.

[193] Stratford de Redcliffe was now for peace, because he found the war substituting French for Russian influence at Constantinople, and of the two he preferred the latter.—Greville Memoirs, Third Part (Longmans), 1887.

[194] The Croker Papers, Vol. III., p. 320. Lyndhurst, long after delivering his ferocious speech demanding that Sebastopol should be razed to the ground, had written to Croker for advice. “The political world is in a most complicated state,” says Lyndhurst in this letter, “and I feel quite at sea.”

[195] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. LVII.

[196] One of the most appalling cases was the death of Lord Jocelyn in Lady Palmerston’s drawing-room.

[197] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. LVIII.

[198] Mr. Herbert’s policy was amply vindicated. The experiment succeeded so well that Miss Stanley, sister of the late Dean Stanley, was sent out afterwards with forty-seven nurses to reinforce Miss Nightingale’s staff.

[199] See a lively correspondence between Sir J. Graham and John Wilson Croker on this subject. Graham showed that the Admiralty was not to blame, but urged in excuse of “the poor idiot,” as Croker called him, who blundered at Balaclava, that “this was the first time coffee had ever been issued to a British army on foreign service.”—Croker Papers, Vol. III., p. 328.

[200] Financial Secretary to the War Office is now the name of this post.

[201] This change was brought about by Russell rudely turning out Lord Granville to make room for himself, and dismissing Mr. Strutt from the Duchy of Lancaster to make room for Lord Granville. Strutt got a Peerage as Lord Belper. Russell threatened to break up the Ministry if he did not get the Presidency of the Council, although there was no precedent—except a doubtful one in Henry VIII.’s reign—for appointing a commoner to the office. The Duke of Bedford told Mr. Greville that Lord John, being poor, was now determined to get an office carrying a high salary. The Duke had met his expenses, but was growing more miserly every day his colossal fortune was accumulating, and, says Mr. Greville, “he falls in very readily with his brother’s notion of taking an office for the sake of its emoluments.”—Greville Memoirs—Third Part, Vol. I., p. 148 (Longmans), 1887.

[202] “Whatever may be the qualities of different Ministers, I am the bond by which they are united together. That once destroyed, the whole fabric falls.”—Letter of Lord Aberdeen to John Wilson Croker, explaining why the factions concentrated their hostility on him personally.—The Croker Papers, Vol. III., p. 348.

[203] Evelyn Ashley’s Life of Palmerston, Vol. II., p. 80.

[204] Palmerston wanted Lord Shaftesbury to be Chancellor of the Duchy. He had to withdraw his offer of the post, and in this letter Lady Palmerston explains why.—Life and Work of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, K.G., by Edwin Hodder, Vol. II., p. 493 (Cassell and Co.).

[205] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 8.

[206] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. LXI.

[207] The opposition of the Peelites to the Committee on grounds of high policy and constitutional legality was soon justified. “Lord Stanley,” says Lord Malmesbury on the 3rd of March, “writes that Louis Napoleon objects strongly to the Committee of Inquiry into the War, and says if it takes place, though his army will still act on the same side as ours, it can no longer do so along with it. He is evidently alarmed at the laches of his own Ministers and generals being shown up to Europe and endangering his position.”—Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 11. Little wonder that the investigation was “incomplete” and “inconclusive.”

[208] Mr. Sidney Herbert succeeded Sir George Grey in this office when Palmerston reorganised the Coalition. Mr. Herbert went out with the Peelites a fortnight after the new Ministry was formed.

[209] Hansard, Vol. CXXXVIII., 1075.

[210] This was, of course, discussing and coming to a unanimous agreement with Russia at the very outset on the Second Point—the navigation of the Danube. This was the point in which Austria had had a vital interest. If it had been kept open to the last, she might have been more zealous in overcoming the difficulties as to the Third Point which wrecked the Conference.

[211] The proof of this is as follows: (1) The Turks would have taken the Austrian compromise, which, by the way, was the development of a suggestion made by the French Envoy, as the basis of a feasible plan for giving effect to the Third Point. (2) Lord John Russell—the most violent and bellicose of the anti-Russian Ministers—was in favour of it. (3) The position of Russia in the matter was officially misrepresented to the English people. Russia said her defeats were not such as to justify her as a Great Power in letting the Allies force on her a reduction of her Black Sea fleet. But she had no objection to any plan limiting her preponderance if it sprang from mutual negotiation between her and Turkey—acting as principals on an equal footing—to establish, by mutual consent a naval equilibrium in the Black Sea. (4) She did not absolutely exclude the idea of reducing her fleet as was falsely stated, not only in the English press, but in Parliament. Article 2 of Count Buol’s compromise provided that Turkey and Russia should “propose by common agreement to the Conference the effective equality of the naval forces which the two coast Powers will keep up in the Black Sea, and which shall not exceed the actual number of Russian ships afloat in that Sea.” (See Annual Register, Vol. XCVII., pp. 214-217.) The use of the word “exceed” shows that the Article provided a maximum limit—not a minimum. It was simply foolish to argue, as representatives of the Government did, that negotiations for peace had to be abandoned because Russia refused to accept a practical and reasonable plan for preventing her from having more ships than Turkey in the Black Sea. The statement of facts on this subject by Sir T. Martin in Chap. LXIII. of his Life of the Prince Consort is as misleading as Mr. Spencer Walpole’s account of the Austrian Compromise (History of England, Vol. V., p. 135). Mr. Walpole says that Count Buol’s proposal was one “under which any addition to the Russian Fleet might be followed by the admission of a corresponding number of war vessels of the Allies into the Euxine.” This is not a correct summary of Article 2 of the Compromise.

[212] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. LXIII.

[213] “If,” writes Prince Albert in a Memorandum dated 3rd of May, 1855, “Austria, Prussia, and Germany will give the diplomatic guarantee for the future which I have here detailed, we shall consider this an equivalent for the material guarantee sought for in the limitation of the Russian Fleet.”—Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. LXIII. But the odd thing to note is, that the Prince was one of those responsible, not perhaps for suspending, but for finally breaking up the Conference of Vienna, that had already adopted the principle of his plan. He and the Queen ignored the fact that it was already embodied in the Memorandum agreed to by the Conference, for giving effect to Ali Pasha’s project for more completely connecting Turkey with “the European equilibrium.” The Queen first coerced—for her note to Clarendon was a coercive instrument—Palmerston to abandon negotiations in Conference, because Russia would not submit to a humiliating material guarantee. Then Prince Albert suggests as a substitute for that a diplomatic guarantee, which Russia had already accepted, and which was a far less effective protection to Turkey than the Austrian compromise which the Queen imperiously condemned. The only original point in the Prince’s plan is the inclusion of Prussia. She had been excluded from the Conference in deference to the prejudices of those who hated peace negotiations, and who declared that she was a mendacious slave of the Czar.