CHAPTER NINE

Mission Impossible: I – Menshikov vs the Chargés (March 1853)

FATAL INSTRUCTIONS

The Turks had just agreed to call off the Montenegrin expedition and la Valette had barely skipped town when Menshikov arrived on 28 February 1853 at Constantinople on the Thunderer, a. steam frigate with two eighty-four pounders (huge for those days) and eight lesser cannon. Accompanied by Nesselrode’s son and a suite of high officers, he was greeted with fanfare by many of the local Orthodox population, some of whom acted as if a saviour had arrived. In fact, as hinted earlier, he came burdened with an impossible mission, and, as diplomatic rumour currently surmised, ‘precise instructions’.¹ On paper these seemed logical enough, but they were totally divorced from political reality.

Menshikov was to demand nullification of any new concessions to the Latins, except the keys, and otherwise full execution of the February 1852 firman, as Russia understood it, with Greek-supervised repair of the cupola. Since the French would not allow a proper execution that would nullify the concession of the keys, Menshikov was to demand a reparation in the form of a formal convention or sened, which would enshrine the new status quo. But since France would probably also resist Greek control over the repair of the cupola, Menshikov was to offer a secret, defensive alliance to protect the Sultan’s exercise of his ‘sovereignty’ in favour of his Orthodox subjects. And what could the Turks offer in return for Russian troops? The sened that was demanded as reparation for the keys. Circular logic at its best!

The draft sened prepared in St Petersburg went far beyond the original quarrel over the Holy Places. Not only did it confirm all former grants to the Greeks concerning the sanctuaries, the peculiar rights of the Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem, and, as an extra, the permission to the Russians to construct a church and a hospice near Jerusalem under the control of their local Consul General. It also extended Russia’s treaty rights protecting the Orthodox Churches of Moldavia, Wallachia and Serbia to all of the Ottoman Orthodox, confirmed all the existing privileges, and restored the ancient electoral principle for prelates, including life tenure for the patriarchs, which Byzantine Emperors as well as Turkish Sultans had often disregarded. Given the functioning of the Ottoman millet system, these reforms, if taken to their logical conclusion, would have created a Russian-protected network of ecclesiastical bailiwicks for civil matters and limited the application to the Orthodox population of the Tanzimat reforms. Reshid, who had initiated these reforms, could not possibly have envisioned the present set of Russian demands, if indeed he had suggested some amendments to the Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji to give Russia legal parity with the French and their 1740 document.

Operationally these instructions led to a rupture or a war in some fashion or other. Menshikov was to snub Fuad as the designated disloyal villain of the affair, next raise the demands concerning the Holy Places, and then find out from Mehmed Ali what modifications might have to be made in the draft sened. At the same time, having bribed the Dowager Sultana Validé and her circle who dominated the palace, Menshikov was to inform the Sultan during their first or second interview of Russia’s full demands. It is nowhere clear how Menshikov was to coordinate negotiations with the Grand Vizier and the Sultan or prevent leaks. But if the Sultan’s ministers vetoed an agreement (could Nesselrode have thought otherwise?) Menshikov was to depart, followed in three days by Ozerov and the rest of the legation, except for the Commercial Secretary, Viktor Balabin.

Curiously, although the Emperor empowered Menshikov to threaten the Turks with the independence of the Danubian Principalities, Nesselrode conceded that it was not so simple as in the past to employ force. A military shock would explode the Ottoman Empire, carry unforeseen political complications and compromise the desired religious solution. Nicholas, on the other hand, seems to have considered the diplomacy of the mission a charade and trusted only in military coercion;² he never grasped Leiningen’s genuine compromise.

The instructions also outlined the settlement of a set of minor and not-so-minor problems, some of which might well have been left to lower-ranking diplomats to solve over an extended period. Two of these, however, touched upon Ottoman sovereignty, liberal principles and the rights of other Europeans. Menshikov was to demand an end to Turkish sufferance of heterodox Christian propaganda among the Balkan Orthodox Christians and to the progressive Garashanin ministry in Serbia. It seems as well that Menshikov was empowered to try to get the Turks to cede the East Anatolian border lands of Kars and Lazistan, including Batum, if not Trebizond.³

Menshikov’s portfolio of instructions prepared him mentally and operationally not for negotiations, but for a diktat. The packet included a special historical sketch of the Holy Places dispute, which was supposed to enlighten Menshikov, but reflected entirely Titov’s and Ozerov’s one-sided dispatches, which had influenced the Tsar’s decisions in the first place. The political analysis in the instructions simply assumed that British anti-Bonapartism and the persuasive words of Russian diplomacy in St Petersburg, London and Constantinople would serve to prevent combined Anglo-French opposition.⁴

Taken together, Menshikov’s instructions were an elaborated version of the blank cheque explicit in the Tsar’s December message via Brunnow to tell the British they must support Russia in Constantinople ‘or face a general conflagration in the Orient’. The British could now write of three outcomes on this cheque: ‘Turkey becomes a Russian satellite’; ‘Turkey is partitioned’, or, ‘Turkey, aided by France and England, fights Russia.’ Menshikov’s diplomatic ‘dilettantism’, to use the expression of a contemporary Russian historian,⁵ had little to do with the outcome of his mission. A better diplomat would have had to negotiate mainly with the Tsar to get him to change course. So long as Menshikov followed his instructions, Turkey, France and Britain would have to accept one of these choices, and the first two were wholly unacceptable. Reflective Russian Foreign Ministry officials hoped against hope that he could pull something off before Stratford and the new French ambassador arrived, and before the dichotomy between Russian assurances and reality became manifest.⁶ British statesmen did not seek war with Russia in the first part of 1853 and therefore reacted with disbelief to the inner logic of Russian policy as long as possible. Even Palmerston and Stratford did. The entire diplomatic history of the Eastern Question for the next year followed from Menshikov’s instructions and the reaction to them. They represented both the completion of Kuchuk-Kainarji and its death knell.

FOOLISH INTIMIDATION

Menshikov immediately tried scare tactics, though his suite of reconnoitring high military and naval officers might have been interpreted by others as show or bluff. Certainly the absence from their posts of Vice-Admiral Kornilov, Commander-in-Chief of the Black Sea squadron, and General Nepokoichitsky, Chief-of-Staff of the Fifth Corps, implied that no attack was imminent. But the appearance of a Russian fleet off the Bosphorus was as little as four days away from a rupture, so the Turks were now negotiating under the gun.⁷

Menshikov’s first week was an ostensible success, but in fact a disaster. Two days after he arrived, he broke all diplomatic precedent by appearing at the Porte for his initial visit unexpectedly in civilian dress.⁸ Refusing to see Fuad and threatening to close down the mission if he remained in office, Menshikov demanded, as a preliminary to negotiations, the appointment of a new Foreign Minister, ‘who had the confidence of the Sultan’.⁹ Within two days the Turks acquiesced. Menshikov had Argyropoulos interview Fuad’s prospective successor, Rifaat Pasha, a former Foreign Minister and envoy to Vienna, who had ties to the Austrian legation. By 6 March, not without the influence of the Sultana, Rifaat was installed and ready to receive Menshikov the next day. Prince Alexander of Serbia, moreover, had fired Garashanin despite the opposition of the British and French consuls in Belgrade. Not bad for a first week of activity, except for the reactions of the French, the British, the Turks, and even the Serbs to Russian diplomatic tactics.¹⁰

The new French chargé, Vincent Benedetti, was ready under any circumstances to invoke France’s standard claims and the 1841 Treaty against Russia. So was Rose, who assumed that Russian demands precluded any genuine settlement and told London that to invalidate the 1740 Franco-Turkish treaty would undercut the capitulations that constituted the legal basis of English influence in the Ottoman Empire. They were both ready to hold Menshikov to Russian assurances of peaceful intentions. If he and Ozeròv could claim that London had promised to support Russian demands, Rose could counter that he needed to know what they were in order to help.¹¹ Thus all of Nesselrode’s and Brunnow’s laborious attempts to obtain Anglo-Russian cooperation in Constantinople simply served as a pretext for Rose to hound Menshikov, rather than for the Russian to hoodwink the British.

The Turks were not sleeping either. They knew how to turn Russian assurances and the fiction of the alliance between the Sultan and the Tsar into ammunition to fire at Menshikov. The Porte prepared for him a splendid reception, attended by the native Greek élite, who had a stake in peace and would just as soon make their own deal with the French over the cupola. If Menshikov really came to settle the Holy Places dispute, the crisis could end, and Russian bribe money would make everybody happy.¹² Russia would achieve a resounding symbolic victory without offending the French; Ottoman ceremony would flatter Russia’s self-esteem; they would concoct an acceptable status quo; and the Turks could continue to sandbag the Tanzimat. But if he had some tricks up his sleeve, such as the expected humiliation of the Sultan’s foreign minister, then the Ottomans would seize the moral high ground, and the myth that Russia protected the Ottoman Orthodox would be exposed as a cynical bid for influence. There was only one danger: the Russians might launch an attack, and the British and French, for some reason or other (such as a strong adverse current in either the Turkish Straits or the London newspapers) might just sit back or join in the kill.

In the event, Menshikov’s treatment of Fuad set off a flurry of activity in Constantinople and firmed up a de facto Anglo-French entente which Russian diplomacy had worked so hard to prevent. Thanks to the money and connections of some of the rich Ottoman Greeks, Rose and Benedetti were aware of the gist and implications of Menshikov’s instructions. The two chargés immediately consulted and agreed that Menshikov’s initial demand could lead to a new Unkiar-Skelessi and hence the abrogation of the 1841 Treaty, and on this basis urged the Porte to keep Fuad in office. Russell’s belated, confidential instructions of 19 February to Rose to stay neutral if Menshikov sought Fuad’s dismissal thus remained without any effect. The day after the snub of Fuad, Rose and Benedetti immediately sought out Menshikov, but he avoided them. Rose was especially persistent with his ‘assault’, to use Menshikov’s term, in order to ascertain his instructions. At any rate Rose saw Ozerov no less than four times and told him that London’s directives to help Russia to obtain an acceptable accord with the French were no secret. Therefore Menshikov should either be candid now or wait until Stratford returned.¹³

Benedetti and Rose did not limit themselves to containing Menshikov diplomatically. Rose especially was either a good actor or else he shared Turkish fears of a surprise attack. So Mehmed Ali, Mehmed-Rüshdi – the Seraskier or Minister of Defence, Benedetti, Rose and Captain Adolphus Slade – a Englishman serving in the Turkish navy, consulted about defensive measures, not so secretly as it turned out. The Turks were ready to dispatch Omer’s army to Shumla, the central fortress in Eastern Bulgaria, and redeploy the Adriatic squadron near the Bosphorus. Slade and Borelace, another English captain, started to train Turkish gunners for defence of the capital. Menshikov dismissed these preparations as a lot of’bravado’, but still reported them.¹⁴

Mehmed Ali also asked the two chargés for concrete aid in the form of their Mediterranean naval squadrons. Rose, who seemed to Benedetti most eager to call up the fleets, officially replied that he could only refer the request to London. The Grand Vizier in turn officially insisted and used the old blackmail tactic of the weak: the Porte might be compelled to submit to Russian demands. Rose officially compromised. Admiral Dundas was due to leave Malta with the British squadron on 20 March and cruise first in the lower Adriatic and then come to Vourla. On the 8th Rose requested by fast steamer that the Admiral leave a week earlier and come immediately to his second destination, which was slightly closer than Sevastopol or Odessa to Constantinople in terms of distance, but effectively downstream. The civilian Benedetti let ‘Colonel’ Rose take the lead in these matters and simply sent word of the latter’s request on to Paris.

Rose’s action had far reaching consequences. In the short run, his request for the squadron, if immediately executed, would have limited Menshikov to less than two weeks to do something spectacular: force a rupture followed by a descent on the Bosphorus, or launch a totally secret attack. Dundas, however, followed his instructions and referred to London for orders. By heeding Rose, the British might have shattered the Tsar’s illusions before he committed what could be seen as an act of war. The Russians, however, were not about to attack, and the British were not about to show pre-emptive resolve, so Rose’s request was superfluous, except in one major respect. It provided the new Napoleon with an opportunity to call the question.

NAPOLEON’S REACTION – ROSE’S SWEET VICTORY

March may have come in like a lion in Constantinople, but European diplomacy was rather calm. There were post-mortems of the Leiningen mission and pre-game analyses of Menshikov’s. The latter, of course, might prove tricky, but the new French ambassador would defend French interests, and Stratford would soon see that no harm came to Britain or Europe. Not Russia’s mobilization, but the refugee question and Austria’s diplomatic offensive against British policy, dominated the scene in London. The Home Secretary Palmerston, with the support of much of public opinion, was indulgent towards revolutionary exiles, while Aberdeen sympathized with the Continental conservatives and wished to meet them more than halfway.¹⁵ On the Continent, the impending exchange of high-level envoys between St Petersburg and Brussels was another capital event. King Leopold already got on well with every major monarch except for Napoleon, while the latter felt the projected modernization of the Antwerp fortifications looked like an invitation to foreign intervention in France.¹⁶ The Bonapartists thus had concrete reasons to make the most in London of Russia’s mobilization and Menshikov’s scare tactics.

The first news of Menshikov’s doings and Rose’s summons to Dundas reached Paris on 16 March, and the French were ready. Drouyn wired Walewski and the next day sent him a sombre dispatch arguing that Menshikov was undoubtedly authorized to summon the Russian fleet and asking for some Anglo-French response in kind. The British temporized, waiting to learn what Dundas had done, but agreeing with Drouyn that Rose had called for the fleet in order to preserve the integrity of the Ottoman Empire, as per the 1841 Treaty. Official news via Dundas reached the new Foreign Secretary Lord Clarendon only on the 19th. By then, however, the French had already made up their minds. On the 18th or possibly the 19th Napoleon and some of his ministers and advisors decided that Rose’s move was too good to be true and that they would force Britain’s hand by dispatching their Mediterranean squadron from Toulon to Salamis near Athens. To pre-empt British objections, the French prepared an official announcement of the move for the Le Moniteur without consulting either Cowley or Clarendon.¹⁷

The events in London were equally dramatic. On the evening of the 18th Clarendon and Brunnow squared off at Buckingham Palace. Leaving his options open, Clarendon said to Brunnow: ‘I hope that our fleet has not moved, but you should understand as well that such circumstances could arise, when the Porte would have to request our support.’ Brunnow bluffed, but gave away the Russian game: ‘The question will not be decided at sea. Ten battleships cannot save the Ottoman Empire from the consequences of its blindness, if it chooses to march to its perdition.’ The next day he tried this line on Aberdeen too, who outwardly concurred, but also backed Graham’s notion that the Malta squadron had to be beefed up to match the size of the French flotilla in order to keep an eye on it.¹⁸

Graham requested a meeting of the ‘inner Cabinet’ for 20 March at the Admiralty, and Clarendon demanded that Palmerston join the other four leading ministers. Russell for his part had an ambitious, ready answer for his more cautious colleagues in order to buy time for a showdown later. Let the Russians dare advance into Ottoman territory, even to Constantinople, and then not evacuate when so summoned, and they will have a war at the Dardanelles and the Baltic against Britain and France. The five ministers decided, however, not to dispatch the Malta squadron or threaten Russia with words, but officially to trust Nesselrode’s assurances, hide behind Brunnow’s argument about the ten battleships, and dissuade the French from escalating the strategic confrontation.¹⁹

This approach squared with London’s outlook and present policy. The French were naughty children for initiating the scrape; Russia deserved a concession in Jerusalem; Stratford should be given a chance to guide everyone to a settlement; if the Russians really threatened Turkey, then the English, not the French, should lead; and, finally, mere chargés d’affaires do not call up fleets and decide matters of war and peace. On the other hand, the British did not repudiate Rose, but justified his request and the French response with reference to Menshikov’s actions and to the Russian failure to be as candid with the French as with the British.

The French sensed Britain’s inaction and disapproval from the start, so they peppered the pot by having Count Butenval, their representative in Brussels, declare that if Russian or Austro-Russian aggression toward Turkey led to war, the French would be freed from their treaty obligations too. Some analysts interpreted this move as a way to extort British support in the East, by showing how dangerous the French could be in the West.²⁰ In fact this was, under the conditions of Russian and Austrian mobilization, the logical extension and update of France’s standing threat to treat the flouting of the 1740 Treaty as the signal to violate the 1815 settlement. The Anglo-French interpretation of the 1841 Treaty was Paris’s hook.

The French may not have realized it, but they actually gave the Russians a splendid opportunity, which they did not seize, to back down with honour. Leopold immediately urged the Tsar, as ‘Europe’s arbiter’, to exercise moderation in the East. Then on 25 March, Walewski showed France’s hand by offering to renounce any designs on Belgian territory in return for an Anglo-French alliance. The British, though, played at reactivating their preventive entente with Russia. The Tsar, however, did not believe that the British would ‘be deceived [into allying with Napoleon] by such stupidity’, and indeed they were not. The French instead apologized to London for unilaterally sending the squadron, which, however, could not be recalled without injury to their Emperor’s prestige. They also quickly made it clear that they had been misunderstood concerning Belgium. On the diplomatic field of combat following Butenval’s loose talk, not France, but England had prevailed.²¹

Diplomacy, of course, was not the only thing that counted – public opinion did too, and here Brunnow had to report that the British press was criticizing the government for not sending Dundas to join the French, and that patience might run out. Back in St Petersburg, meanwhile, Nesselrode needed only Menshikov’s first reports about Rose’s game with Ozerov, Mehmed Ali and Dundas to work out what was going on in Constantinople. Expressing his disbelief at the English envoy’s being so ‘French’ and mixing German and French, Nesselrode exclaimed to Brunnow on 19 March: ‘this Rose is a crude Englishman, who wishes to play a political role, for which Heaven did not create him’.²²

The Russian Chancellor was wrong in both the long and the short run. ‘Heaven’ had prescribed for Rose a splendid future in the service of British imperialism, first in the Crimea, then India and finally Ireland. His work as chargé was his springboard, and his greatest aide was Menshikov. The two of them, in one week of March, overthrew a Turkish foreign minister, summoned the French fleet, brought Palmerston back into the thick of British foreign policy formation, and induced Russell to outline Britain’s strategy for a two-front Anglo-French naval war against Russia.

Menshikov and Rose also stimulated Brunnow to develop a new political-legal concept to deny Turkey’s sovereignty and pave the way for partition. He announced to the British that the Anglo-French fleets in Turkish waters, as in 1849, would both stiffen the Tsar’s position and be the equivalent of a terrestrial occupation of Turkish provinces and hence of treating the Sultan like one of the Indian princes, whom Britain protects. Without revealing the meat of Menshikov’s instructions, Brunnow also outlined Britain’s three choices: Russia’s clientization of Turkey, partition, or war. Small wonder that the periodically astute Queen Victoria wrote to Aberdeen on the 23rd: ‘Everything appears to her [the queen] to depend upon the real nature of the demands made by Russia.’ She was right, since they did, in English eyes, ‘justify the reproach of … hostile ambition’, despite her hopes.²³ So the real winners in March were the Roses, the Palmerstons and the Bonapartists, who started to operationalize the incipient Anglo-French alliance.

The stodgy political establishments pretended that the colonel-chargé had overstepped his bounds, that the fleets were unnecessary, as it so appeared for a while, and that the Tsar was a ‘gentleman’, but they did not neglect to arm themselves. The issue of when and where Dundas would sail remained a bone of contention in April among Brunnow, Walewski, Aberdeen and Graham. But when Menshikov finally laid his cards on the table in May, the British were ready with the Malta squadron, and Rose, whom the more politic Stratford despised, was back in London briefing Clarendon on the Turkish military.²⁴

MENSHIKOV’S SOUND ADVICE

May was still almost two months away when Rifaat replaced Fuad and Menshikov could get down to business. He operated on three planes. Hoping, perhaps, that bribe money could produce an answer from the Sultan before the regular steamer left for Odessa on 16 March, Menshikov worked in vain on the palace to achieve the alliance and/or the convention. At the same time he went through normal channels, followed his formal instructions, and negotiated with Rifaat. He also continued reconnoitring, dispatching Kornilov and Nepokoichitsky on the 11th to inspect the Dardanelles and to visit Smyrna and Greece.²⁵ Nevertheless, the Turks became calmer, and Mehmed Ali told Rose on the 15th that the squadron was now not needed.

Benedetti and Rose had done their homework prior to Menshikov’s negotations. Rose concluded that the original compromise of early 1852 was now unworkable. The Russians insisted on a clear decision from the Porte on the cupola, but for the French to allow this would be like having the ‘squadron under sail with the broken treaty of 1740 on her mainmast-head, and Porte’s unexecuted Notes of February and September on her fore and mizen masts’.²⁶ The best hope was a vague agreement with mental reservations on both sides.

Benedetti decided to get to the heart of the matter. On the 14th he asked Menshikov for a preliminary entente, but the latter could envision this only as a delaying tactic and had other plans. He would see Rifaat concerning the Holy Places, give him a few days to think it over, and then ‘decide how to use more or less energetically’ other means at Russia’s disposal. On the 16th they had their first working session. Menshikov offered bribes, but submitted a haughty note verbale outlining a settlement for the Holy Places and demanding a ‘sure and inviolable guarantee … which cannot be restricted to sterile and incomplete assurances that could be invalidated in the future’.²⁷ In other words, there was money to throw around, but no room for those vague formulas that often terminate sticky quarrels; and the threat of rupture or worse lurked in the background.

It was the early days of March all over again. As usual, someone leaked the essentials, but the Turks would not reveal the contents of the note verbale to the charges. Benedetti thereupon thought the worst, and so exacted the standard Turkish promise from Rifaat not to make any engagement with Menshikov without first clearing it with the French legation. Rose ‘pestered’ Menshikov again, tried to ‘interfere’ with his mission, and once more started to sound the military alarm about a quick Russian seizure of the Dardanelles. And Rifaat, aware of the elasticity of the demand for the guarantee, came clean to Argyropoulos on the 19th: ‘You know us well enough to know correctly what we can accept and what we cannot.’²⁸

Knowing is one thing, doing is another. Menshikov had already concluded that it would be difficult to procure the sened, but he calculated that the Turks could not resist serious threats. He also had two unrealistic tricks up his sleeve. One was to concede a few more Holy Places in return for the sened, as if the French would double-cross both the Turks and the British over the keys and the cupola and ally with Russia. The other scheme was to engineer Reshid’s return to office in order to have ‘an Aberdeen in Turkey’ as well as in Britain, as if the one could sign away Turkey’s sovereignty over most of its Christians and keep his head, and the other could let this happen and remain Prime Minister of the world’s premier power.²⁹

Not to be daunted, Menshikov followed his design and proceeded to see Rifaat on the 22nd. First came detailed discussions concerning the Holy Places, where Rifaat upheld the 1740 Treaty and French concerns over the cupola. At the end Menshikov showed him the draft sened (convention) prepared in January by St Petersburg and stated that it represented ‘no new privilege’, but that without such a ‘solid and durable basis’, there could be no Russo-Turkish relations. Together the note verbale of the 16th and the draft sened constituted an open-ended ultimatum without an expiration date. Rifaat knew that such a demand might be coming, but may have been genuinely shocked that the Russians had the audacity to make this move in such an essentially take-it-or-leave-it fashion. At any rate he was sombre and speechless, and this had an effect on Menshikov and led to some serious parleys.³⁰

The Turkish Cabinet authorized Rifaat to commence simultaneous negotiations with Benedetti and the Russians over the detailed draft, which the Russian legation had prepared to regulate the Holy Places. On 31 March Menshikov, Ozerov, Argyropoulos, Aristarchi, Rifaat and Arif Effendi – a mufti, an expert on the Christian sanctuaries and a member of the Turkish Council – met for five to seven hours and hammered out an Eight-Point draft. Once more Menshikov also asked for a convention and an alliance. To test French and British resolve, Rifaat resorted to the detested Turkish tactic of hinting acceptance of the other side’s demands, even while assuring the charges again that the Porte would not make an agreement with Russia without first checking with their legations.³¹

Benedetti immediately protested against four points that seemed to invalidate the 1740 Treaty: denial of Latin ownership of Nativity; failure to restore the pre-1808 status quo at the Holy Sepulchre; implied Greek precedence at the Virgin’s Tomb; and the guarantee that would preclude future Catholic claims. Rose did not openly interfere, but fed useful information to the French. The advertised forthcoming arrival of the Toulon squadron – on 2 April – further undercut the already weak position of the pro-Russian Turks.³²

Meanwhile, Kornilov and Nepokoichitsky had returned from their cruise, consulted with Menshikov, and concluded by the 24th that with eighteen Anglo-French-Turkish battleships in the vicinity to bolster Turkish defences, a coup de main by sea was impossible. They decided that the Tsar should direct his attention to Varna and Burgas on the Bulgarian coast and maybe use them as a decoy while attacking the capital. Menshikov, moreover, who earlier argued that a surprise attack would require a launch from a normal cruising pattern, soon lampooned Russia’s open preparations and practising with assault ladders, which were the talk of the town. At home, meanwhile, Paskevich urged just an invasion of the Principalities and warned that Russia could not fight a Turkish war and a European war at the same time.³³ The Turks and their British supporters, however, still took Russia’s preparations very seriously and even exaggerated the danger of the Burgas option. Raising as well the ephemeral spectre of Austria’s joining Russia, Rose implored his superiors to send a squadron to Besika Bay to ‘protect the keys …of the East’.³⁴

Menshikov figured by now that without serious modifications of his demands he would have to force a rupture, as if this would result in the sought-after plenary talks and the guarantee. He thought, or was so led to believe by clever Turkish negotiators, that the main Ottoman objection was to the form of the convention/sewed or treaty, not to its content, and he asked St Petersburg’s permission to substitute a diplomatic note. He was also worried. On the day Stratford took over for Rose, Menshikov warned Nesselrode in a private letter, which was for the Tsar’s eyes too, that the pressure necessary to obtain the guarantee might provoke the formation of a Turkish-Western alliance.³⁵

Menshikov’s most serious advice, though, went further than Paskevich’s in the direction of common sense. Regarding the sequel to the rupture, which had to result from the demands as they stood, Menshikov suggested that Russia should seize not the Danubian Principalities but rather East Anatolian Kars or Bayazid or Batum on the Turkish Black Sea Littoral. Such a move would not threaten the interests of other Continental European powers or provoke the Turks to declare war.³⁶ The ‘General-Admiral’, who found, when he negotiated with an Ottoman minister, that ‘there was only a mask, behind which one could perceive the end of a big mustache [Rose] and a fine nose [Benedetti]’,³⁷ had come to a logical strategic conclusion. He was also admitting that even with two army corps and a naval squadron activated and with the maritime powers represented in Constantinople only by charges d’affaires, an extraordinary ambassador of the Emperor of All the Russias could not cow the Turks. And, like most good advice that runs against the flow of current operations, it was barely acknowledged.³⁸ Menshikov himself continued to act as if he never warned against bullying the Turks.

NOTES

1.Travers to vH., 26 Feb., 3 March 1853 (NRA 2.05.01 BZ 2769 Const.); Nesselrode’s various instructions and memos, dated 20–28 Jan./l-9 Feb. 1853, are published in ZP 1.104–11.

2.DM 28 Jan/9 Feb. 1853 (oral instructions from the Emperor).

3.Nes. to Mnsh., 20 Jan./1 Feb. 1853 (AVPR GA V-A2 523:40–53, not in ZP I); also Arg. to Oz., 24 Aug./5 Sept. 1853 (AVPR K 20); cf. Rose to Cm., 6 March 1853 (CORR 1.169); Dmitry Nesselrode to Longinov, 10/22 May 1853 (NLP X). The lesser issues concerned a disagreement concerning two villages on the Russo-Turkish frontier in Transcaucasia, the specifics of the contribution of non-native Orthodox Church properties to the state budgets of Moldavia and Wallachia, and the establishment of a joint venture – a Russo-Turkish ferry service across the Bosphorus.

4.PHQSL; cf. Nes. to Mnsh., pr., 3/15, 13/25 Jan., 28Jan./9 Feb. 1853 (TsGAVMF 10/3/204, TsGADA XI/1228, ZP 1.109).

5.V. N. Vinogradov, ‘The Responsibility of Nicholas I for the Crimean War’, The Traditions of Imperial Russian Foreign Policy (ed. Hugh Ragsdale, forthcoming).

6.Longinov to Dmitry Nesselrode, 19/31 March 1853 (NLP X).

7.My basic sources for the Menshikov mission are first: Menshikov’s official and private correspondence and diary, and the reports of Ozerov, Argyropoulos, and Aristarchi in AVPR, TsGADA, and TsGAVMF: second the correspondence of the French and English legations, with Stratford’s private letters; third, dispatches of the Austrian, Belgian, Dutch and Swedish missions.

8.DM 18 Feb./2 March 1853: ‘en frac’: cf. Benedetti to Drn., Travers to vH., 4–5 March 1853 (AMAE CP Turq. 311; NRA 2.05.01 BZ 2769 Const.).

9.Travers to vH., 10 March 1853 (NRA 2.05.01 BZ 2769 Const.).

10.Also MacKenzie, Ilija Garasanin, pp. 129–35.

11.Rose to Rus., Benedetti to Drn., 6, 14 March 1853 (CORR 1.170; AMAE CP Turquie 312).

12.Oz. to Sen., 5/17 March 1853 (AVPR GA V-A2 523); Aristarchi’s ‘current account’ received 1,200 ‘half-imperials’.

13.DM 19 Feb./3 March 1853; Mnsh. to Nes. 25 Feb./9 March 1853 (AVPR K 19).

14.Mnsh. to Nes. 25 Feb./9 March 1953 (AVPR K 19/HHSA PA X 38); Rose to Rus., 8 March 1853 (PRO FO 78/390.78, not in CORR).

15.Leopold I to Ab., 2 March 1853 (AbC X); Wal.-Drn. correspondence, 4–11 March 1853 (AMAE CP Angl. 688); cf. Schroeder AGBCW: 36–7.

16.Leopold I to QV 25 Feb. 1853 (ARB VI I: 64251–55); de Jonghe-Bkr. correspondence, 24 Feb.-13 Apr. 1853 (AMAE Big. Russ. I); cf. Thomas: 120–1.

17.Besides the regular Drouyn-Walewski and Clarendon-Cowley correspondence, Clarendon’s private letters to Cowley (CIDp. c. 125); there is no reason to accept Fialin Persigny’s self-serving account, that he alone convinced Napoleon, over Drouyn’s caution, to send the squadron at a council meeting on 19 March, though this is normal in historiography: Bapst: 352–4; Wetzel: 73–4.

18.Brw. to Ab., Nes., 7/19, 11/23 March 1853 (AbC X, AVPR K 73).

19.Wal. to Drn., 19 March 1853 (AMAE CP Angl. 689); Cln. to Ab., Rus. to CL, 20 March 1853 (AdMss 43188, Walpole II: 181); cf. Lambert CW: 17–8., Herbert C. F. Bell, Lord Palmerston (2 vols, London 1888) II: 85.

20.Puryear ERSQ: 242–9.

21.Bohl: 62–3; Brw. to Nes. with Nich. I gloss, 19/31 March 1853 (AVPR K 73); Howard (Brussels) to Cln., Apr. 1853 (PRO FO 10/173).

22.Brw. to Nes., with Nich. I ‘NB’, 19/31 March 1853; Nes to Brw., pr., 14/26 March 1853 (TsGADA III/115): ‘… dass der Rose ein ungeschlachter Englander ist, qui veut jouer un role politique pour lequel le Ciel ne l’a pas cree.’

23.LQV II.

24.Inter alia, Cln. to Str., 5 April 1853 (PRO 352/36/1).

25.DM27 Feb./ll March 1853.

26.CORR 1.200 (Rose to Rus., 10 March 1853).

27.DM 2/14 March 1853; Mnsh. to Rifaat, Nes., 4–5/16–17 March 1853; with Note Verbale (ZP 1.113, AVPR, K 19).

28.Benedetti to Drn. 24 March 1853 (AMAE CP Turq. 311); DM, 4–6/16–18 March 1853; Rose to Cln., 21 March 1853 (CORR 1.223); Arg. to Mnsh., 7/19 March 1853 (TsGADA XI/1234).

29.Mnsh. to Nes., pr., 7/19 March 1853 (TsGADA III/124).

30.Mnsh. to Nes., Rifaat, 10/22 March 1853 (AVPR K 19), partially also ZP 1.115.

31.The reports of Menshikov, Benedetti and Rose’s informants do not quite square with each other; also Saab’s assertion that the Turks negotiated jointly with the French and Russians throughout April is not evident in their dispatches: OCA: 35.

32.Benedetti to Drn., 31 March, 5 April 1853 (AMAE CP Turq. 312).

33.Nepokoichitsky to Mnsh., ‘March’ 1853; Mnsh. memo, 12/24 March 1853 (TsGAVMF 19/2/72); Kornilov to Const., 19/31 March 1853, Nich. I, Psk., memos 22–23, 24 March/3–4, 5 Apr. 1853 (ZP 1.210, 214–16).

34.Rose to Cln., 31 March, 11 April 1853 (CORR 1.231, 261).

35.Mnsh. to Nes., reg. and pr., 24 March/5 April (AVPR K 19; TsGADA III/124).

36.Mnsh. to Nes., pr., 14/26 March 1853 (TsGADA III/124).

37.B1C. to Bkr., 25 March 1853 (AMAE Big. Turq. V).

38.DM 22 May/3 June 1853.