PART FOUR
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE LOGIC OF THE SITUATION
The Russians had insisted upon negotiations that would be bilateral and would take place in Constantinople only. These negotiations had failed. Now military considerations were at the forefront of everybody’s thinking. Russia was already almost on a local war footing, ready to send an army into the undefended Principalities, and maybe a fleet, with or without a landing force, into the Black Sea. The Turks were moving to a war footing too, but desired at least a guarantee against the certain Russian victory that would result from a one-to-one military contest. The British and French were morally committed and eager to protect Turkey, but neither government sought war at this time. Vienna fervently desired a peaceful settlement between her two traditionally hostile allies, but her Foreign Ministry ‘Oriental Section’ experts concluded that Russian demands regarding Ottoman Greek clergy represented a threat to Austria.1
The negotiations between Russia and Turkey thus continued, but now with the active participation of the other Great Powers and also without any real coordination. This was because Turkey and the three strongest states were negotiating for peace and for war simultaneously, and everybody hoped to mobilize a coalition behind specific national goals. The best linkages were between Paris and London to prepare to defend Turkey, and between Vienna and Berlin to keep Germany out of any Eastern embroglio. Vienna got on well with Paris and St Petersburg, but not with London, whose ambassador remained the most influential figure in Constantinople. Curiously, the Russians and the Turks understood each other very well.
Russia, virtually isolated, had a problem that was simple to diagnose, but impossible to solve, unless someone could engineer a diplomatic settlement. Otherwise a prolonged occupation of the Principalities would deliver Austria over to the Western powers. Even before Menshikov departed, Buol had told the Turkish representative in Vienna, Ahmad Arif Pasha, that the Porte was the proper judge of what it could concede.2 If Austria, pressured by Britain and France, stuck to this position, then either Russia had to back down, or the Turks could commit the British and French to a coalition war against Russia. The minute the first Russian soldier crossed the Bessarabian-Moldavian frontier, the blank cheque that Nicholas had sent to Malmesbury in early December 1852 would be transferred to the Porte. The Tsar, thereby, to use Walewski’s conceited and incorrect vision of his own influence, would deliver England ‘hog-tied’ to an alliance with France.3 The Belgian issue simply faded into the background, even though Butenval once more asserted that the partition of Turkey would free France from any obligations.4
The above considerations explain a good deal: why the issue of the Anglo-French fleets was immediately topical; why the Great Powers, but not Turkey, urged the Russians not to occupy the Principalities; why, once the Russians went ahead and occupied them, the Great Powers urged Turkey not to declare war; why these powers tried time and again to find the elusive formula that would satisfy the two opponents who talked past each other; why the Turks could veto any four-power proposal that did not conform to their Notes of 10, 18 and 20 May, representing Ottoman concepts of the Porte’s sovereign rights; and why Russia was reduced to desperate diplomatic strategies of trying to make the London Cabinet disavow Stratford, orchestrate favourable Austrian and British policies, or pull off a deal based on a French double-cross of England and Turkey.
The Russians were still caught in the contradictory cul de sac into which their mendacious diplomacy of 1852 had led them. Now they were trying to prove opposites: that their demands were really not an attack on Ottoman sovereignty, but that nobody else respected Ottoman sovereignty either.5 It was a cul de sac with variants of the same three possible exits that had been around since December: a four-power diktat satisfying Russia; a five-power diktat for partition; or a war, which Turkey would lose to her opponents or to her stronger and richer allies. Russia, though, would at least win the argument, if not the contest, since, as Clarendon told Walewski: ‘hostilities with Russia will not promote Turkish independence’.6 If nothing else, the invisible hand of capitalist imperialism was in full working order.
TAKING STOCK
The news of Menshikov’s first ultimatum reached London and Paris on the evening of 16 May, and both Cabinets were ready. Clarendon immediately wrote to Seymour that Stratford’s comportment matched his instructions and that the French had been correct in predicting that Menshikov’s mission would come down to the demand for the protectorate. Napoleon was polite to Kiselev, extracted a copy of the earlier draft sened from him, and then informed him that it infringed on Ottoman sovereignty. The French promised the British not to act alone, but immediately went public with a critique of Menshikov’s demands in Le Moniteur. Then the cross-Channel cat-and-mouse game continued, the French pressing for a genuine commitment and Clarendon holding back, but already calculating how to make Russia initiate hostilities.7
Aberdeen had already told Brunnow that the other British leaders agreed with Stratford’s interpretation of the original draft sened. As more alarming news from Constantinople arrived, Aberdeen concocted draft modifications to safeguard Ottoman sovereignty, and Brunnow composed a letter on Russian policy for the British Cabinet. Russell, however, insisted upon trusting Stratford’s judgements and associated with Palmerston and Walewski in favour of vigorous action.8
The Russians had no reason to be surprised with the British, since Menshikov had given a good indication of what Stratford would report, and Brunnow had been telling Aberdeen the truth about Menshikov’s basic demands in order to quell even more damaging rumours. Brunnow himself was visibly shaken by the British response to Stratford’s first dispatches and support of his views. By the end of April Nesselrode knew from Brunnow that Aberdeen opposed the draft sened and that Russell, Palmerston, and the majority of both Houses opposed any bilateral Russo-Turkish transaction. Soon word reached St Petersburg that Brunnow expected Aberdeen to cede to anti-Russian public opinion. Similar critical reports came in from a variety of quarters, and this led to unpleasant conversations between Nesselrode and the leading foreign diplomats.9
Some Russians, indeed, were worried. Baron Peter Meyendorff, Buol’s brother-in-law who was on leave from the Russian embassy in Vienna, criticized Menshikov’s initial showmanship and Nicholas’s policy of mobilizing ‘150,000’ men on the Danube, as detrimental to Russia’s position in Europe. The Foreign Ministry official, Dmitrii Longinov, lamented the prevalent mood among those who ‘distrust the rest of us’, and he decried the irrational drive for ‘a total protectorate, the appointment of the Patriarch, territorial concessions, monetary indemnities, and finally … a something, an idea, a fiction, a shadow, or a vapour without form … that X which is the basis and goal of Prince Menshikov’s mission’.10
ESCALATIONS: RUSSIA
The Tsar, true to form, paid serious attention only to the military side of affairs. As early as 20 April he served notice to Francis Joseph that without the desired guarantee from Turkey Russia would resort to arms. On 28 May Nicholas received Menshikov’s final reports from ‘the fatal courier’ and met with Nesselrode, Seniavin, War Minister Dolgorukov and the ever present Minister of the Court, Adlerberg. By the next day the Tsar had resolved upon a three-stage plan: (1) to give the Porte another chance to accept the ‘Treaty’ or immediately occupy the Principalities; (2) in the event of the Turks refusing to accept, to block the Bosphorous and maybe recognize the independence of the Principalities; (3) if the Turks continue to be stubborn, then either Austria occupies Serbia and Herzegovina or Russia proclaims them and the Principalities independent too. This plan envisioned requesting at least Francis Joseph’s moral support and offering him chunks of the Western Balkans and reciprocity in the protection of Catholics and Orthodox in the other’s sphere of influence.11 Nicholas assumed French opposition and Austrian compliance, and only worried that London might not repudiate Stratford, when the truth (according to Menshikov’s reports) was known. In that case: ‘it would be the greatest breach of faith. But even this would not stop me. I shall march along my own path on the strength of my convictions, as Russia’s dignity demands.’12
The immediate task now was to set into motion the logical sequel to Menshikov’s departure, a final ultimatum from St Petersburg itself to Constantinople. This took the form of a letter from Nesselrode to Reshid, which announced a forthcoming occupation of the Principalities – as a material pledge, but not an act of war – if the Porte did not accept Menshikov’s final draft note within eight days of receipt of the letter.13
Nesselrode, well aware that with British backing the Turks might choose to fight rather than to submit, and certain that Stratford held the key cards, played at enlisting Seymour’s aid in the interest of peace by having him request an interview with the Tsar to delay the marching orders. The latter may have felt that by letting the partition initiatives drop, by retreating from the original draft sened to Menshikov’s final note, and by postponing a declaration of war and an attack on the Bosphorus, he had taken British sensitivities sufficiently into account. Nicholas certainly acted as if these measures should have sufficed. In his meeting with Seymour on 30 May, however, Nicholas stonewalled, evaded and bluffed. He attacked Stratford’s conduct and alleged breach of instructions, but dared not formally ask London to account for his behaviour. The Tsar referred to rights granted by Kuchuk-Kainarji, but would not be pinned down over chapter and verse. He brushed off Seymour’s warnings that only Stratford’s reports would carry weight in London and that an irresolute government there would fall. As for a delay, the Tsar retorted that London had received enough reports of his conversations to know his thinking, as if to say that he would not allow the British to deflect his orders. Could the draft note be altered to make it more palatable to the Porte? Not at all! The eight-day ultimatum would be dispatched on the morrow. And if war between Russia and Britain (and, presumably, her allies) were the likely result, and this was general war that lasted a quarter of a century? Nicholas was so certain of his right that he would fight ‘as long as there should be a rouble in the Treasury, or a man in the country’.14
ESCALATIONS: TURKEY
The Turks did not sit by passively, waiting for the next Russian move. The military intelligence reaching Constantinople after Menshikov left was that the Russian forces of the Fourth and Fifth Corps would be poised to march by 6 June, about a week and a half before the earliest time envisioned by the Tsar. Under Stratford’s guidance, the Ottoman government directed Turkish resentment and bellicosity in fruitful directions. One was to resume the intensive military preparations, which Rose had first encouraged, but Stratford had later tempered. These included shoring up the Bosphorus batteries and Balkan defences at the expense of the fortifications at the Dardanelles, calling up the irregular redifs in order to free all regular soldiers for duties in the Balkans or north-eastern Anatolia, applying to the Sultan’s Egyptian vassals for extra troops and ships, and asking the British and French for war steamers.15
On the domestic front, Stratford followed his own script, as per the instructions he had authored, and induced the Porte to issue new firmans to all the non-Moslem communities and to communicate these charters to all the great powers so as to gain further favour for Turkey in European eyes. His not-so-hidden goal was to undercut the Treaties of Kuchuk-Kainarji and Adrianople and establish de facto a general European protectorate over all Ottoman Christians. The timing was perfect, since Russia was on the verge of invalidating these bilateral treaties by means of an act of war, the invasion of the Principalities.16
The public diplomacy of mobilization linked these measures. Reshid issued memoranda to the local diplomats and his envoys abroad to explain that Menshikov’s demands and threats had necessitated countermeasures, to assure the safety of the native Christians, and to appeal for support on the basis of the 1841 Convention.17 All of this meant that whatever Russia did the Porte was prepared.
Turkish policies after Menshikov left represented a great victory, not only for Stratford personally, but also for British-led European imperialism in the Ottoman Empire. There was only one sound way for the Turks to finance mobilization against Russia in 1853 – from abroad. The Sultan’s government, having just authorized the creation of a new Ottoman bank in late May, applied for a short-term loan of £450,000, and the bank had to turn to British backers. Neither the loan nor the bank worked out as planned, and Turkish finances remained a mess and the troops’ pay in arrears, but Nicholas’s threats and armed diplomacy forced the previously reluctant Ottoman Empire to begin in earnest to open their doors to British and West European moneymen.18
ESCALATIONS: BRITAIN
The British Cabinet this time, however, was less concerned with the distant prospects of finance imperialism in the Near East, but rather felt the heat of the press and various MPs and peers, who were plainly worried about Russian designs on Turkey. Queen Victoria herself was ‘shocked and grieved’ over Russia’s policies. The pressure mounted, partially due to Drouyn’s transmission of la Cour’s telegraphic dispatch of 19 May announcing the Russo-Turkish rupture. Parliament debated the Eastern Question on the 27th, and Lord Malmesbury presented an interpellation, castigating the Cabinet for inaction. Clarendon and Russell had to hold off demands in both Houses to reveal the diplomatic correspondence. Then that evening, just before the ‘fatal courier’ arrived in St Petersburg, the Foreign Office learned by telegram from Vienna that Menshikov had lifted anchor.19
Meanwhile Drouyn instructed Walewski to hector Clarendon about a joint plan to help the Turks protect the Dardanelles and Constantinople. Thereupon Walewski stepped up his pressure for a commitment and found Russell and Palmerston more than willing takers. The Cabinet doves resisted, since Aberdeen and Graham still feared the French more than the Russians. Clarendon did his best at first to temporize, calling for parallel British and French demands of an explanation from St Petersburg. He quickly produced a detailed memorandum for Seymour, a virtual indictment of the contradictions between St Petersburg’s assurances to Europe and actual policies towards Turkey. This pre-empted Nesselrode’s simultaneous dispatch to Brunnow justifying Russian conduct and the impending ultimatum. However, there was no Cabinet dissent about the essential question, even for Aberdeen. Rather, ‘if his [Nicholas I’s] whole conduct should have been a cheat, the case is altered’, and Stratford would have to be empowered to call up the fleet.20
As it turned out, after the news of Menshikov’s departure arrived, but before Stratford’s explanations did, public opinion, French pressure, and Palmerston’s arguments convinced Clarendon and Graham that Dundas should be dispatched to Besika Bay, and placed under Stratford’s command if war erupted between Russia and Turkey. Drouyn’s telegram that Russia’s Fourth Corps was already marching toward Moldavia added to the pressure on the British Cabinet to tarry no longer in giving Dundas his sailing orders.21 These were sent off on 3 June. The next day Napoleon authorized instructions to Admiral de la Suisse to bring the French squadron to Besika Bay and cooperate with the more experienced British there. However, even after news of St Petersburg’s ultimatum arrived on 7 June, the British Cabinet still insisted on proceeding slowly and not entering the Dardanelles if the Russians did no more than occupy the Principalities, but Clarendon finally authorized Cowley in Paris to seek ‘unity of action’ with the French.22
SITTING PRETTY: NAPOLEON
The French government at this moment had every reason to congratulate itself. It had compromised over the Holy Places and watched Russia replace France as the odd man out among Europe’s Big Five. The earlier predictions regarding Russian demands and armaments proved to be true. Dispatching the Toulon squadron in March when Rose sounded the alarm meant that the instructions to la Cour and la Suisse in late March would set the stage for French and British thinking in late May and June. Whatever the Russians might attempt with their army or fleet, the French were ready with a response and could see that the British had to join them.
For London the real question was where was the best place to send the squadrons in order aid diplomacy, rather than how to avoid provoking the Tsar. Palmerston himself told Brunnow outright that the combined Western fleets outside the Straits would in no way justify a Russian army crossing the Pruth.23 The French leadership and Palmerston wanted the warships at the Bosphorus, though at least one experienced naval expert, Captain Baldwin Walker, vastly overestimating Russian ability to move troops overland, feared for the safety of the Dardarnelles and hence entrapment. The capo di capi among the doves, Aberdeen, actually argued that if the fleets were necessary to protect Constantinople, their best location would be inside the Black Sea. Clarendon’s and Graham’s winning argument in favour of Besika Bay was that this represented a measured response to Russia’s ultimatum, did not violate any treaty, and would place the onus on Russia for such an infraction, were the troops to enter the Principalities. As long as Russian forces did not pass the Danube into Bulgaria, or the Black Sea fleet was not activated, the Anglo-French squadrons could afford to remain in Besika Bay, as Musurus and Brunnow reported to their home governments.24
At any rate, the Bonapartists finally had their entente with England and could proceed now with diplomacy to restore Paris as the centre of European politics. The key here was to take the lead in promoting a peaceful denouement, if this were possible, and at the same time continue to be Turkey’s most loyal and consistent military ally. The main diplomatic broker, if there were to be one, would be Austria, and the French were ready here as well to take the lead on behalf of the Anglo-French-Turkish side to promote a settlement. The problem, however, remained as Stratford had posed it in late April: the ‘string’ was still missing, with which to lead the ‘pig’. But if it could not be found, the French, with their superior understanding of Vienna’s needs and less complex and ambitious agenda for the Near East, would be at the centre of the war alliance and the peace efforts.
NOTES
1.Heindl: 111.
2.Buol to Klezl, 23 May 1853 (AGK I.1).
3.Wal. to Thv., 15 April 1853 (AMAE PA PT 20).
4.Cf. Wal. to Drn., Thv., 19 May 1853 (AMAE CP Angl. 689, PA PT 20): in the former, Belgium is not mentioned; in the latter (private), Clarendon replied to Walewski: ‘That’s too strong.’
5.Nes. to Fnt., 4/16 May 1853 (HHSA X 36:64–72); Seym, to Cln., 27 May 1853 (CORR 1.333).
6.Wal. to Drn., 20 May 1853 (AMAE CP Angl. 689).
7.Cln. to Ab., Seym., Str. pr.; Wal. to Drn., 17–26 May 1853 (ClDp. c. 125, AdMss 43188, PRO 352/36/1, AMAE CP Angl. 689); Kis. to Nes., 16/28 May 1853 (AVPR K 111).
8.Brw. to Ness., 13/25 May 1853 (AVPR K 74); Brw., Cln., Rus. to Ab., Ab. to Rus., 21–22 May 1853 (AbC X; PRO 30/22/11 A); Wal. to Drn. 26 May 1853 (AMAE CP 689); Conacher AC: 147; also BHSA OA IV (from London, 21 May 1853).
9.Budberg, Fnt., to Nes. 25 Apr./7 May, 9/21 May 1853 (AVPR K 11, 145); Hatzfeld to Mnt., 26 May 1853; Buol-Lbz. correspondence., 6, 26 May 1853 (AGK I; HHSA PA XII 36); Seym, to Cln., 27 May 1853 (PRO 65/427, also EP I.195).
10.Mdf. to Nes., Longinov to Dmitry Nesselrode, 7/19, 10/22 May 1853 (PM III.424; NLP X).
11.Nich. I to FJ, 8/20, 18/30 May 1853 (HHSA PA KA GA 8); KfZh 327, p. 33 (16/28 May 1853), memo and to Psk., 17/29 May 1853 (AVPR K 1853 30, ZP I.150); Schroeder appears to confuse the old and new style dates for these decisions: AGBCW: 41; Conacher’s claim that on 27 May Nicholas made the decision or gave the order to occupy the Principalities ‘until full satisfaction had been received from the Porte’ is also imprecise: AC: 148, 564; cf. AGK I.1: 195, with a different reading of the 18/30 May letter.
12.Nich. I to Psk., 17/29 May 1853 (ZP I.150).
13.Nes. to Rsh., 19/31 May 1853 (ZP I.152).
14.Seym, to Cln., 31 May 1853 (CORR 1.367–8); cf. Nes. to Brw. pr., 20 May/1 June 1853 (TsGADA 111/115).
15.Besides Str. and Lac. (CORR I, AMAE CP Turq. 313), Balabin to Oz., 24 May/5 June 1853 (AVPR K 19).
16.Str. to Cln., 30 May–18 June (CORR 1.423, 470; 11.7, 34).
17.Rsh. to Musurus, Four Legations, 26 May 1853 (CORR 1.388, 395).
18.Lac. to Drn., 21 May, 16 June 1853 (AMAE CP Turq. 313); Str. to Cln., 30 May 1853 (CORR 1.422); cf. Rodkey: 350–1; also Olive Anderson, ‘The Beginning of the Ottoman Public Debt, 1854–1855’, HJ VII.l (1964): 52.
19.Inter alia, QV to Ab., 23 May 1853 (AbC X); Cln. to Seym., Str. pr. 24, 26 May 1853 (ClDp. c. 125; PRO 352/36/1); Wst. to Cln., teleg., 27 May 1853 (ClDp. c. 10).
20.Drn.-Wal. correspondence, 26–29 May 1853 (AMAE CP Angl. 689); Ab. to Cln., Grm.; Pirn, to Grm. 29–31 May 1853 (AbC X); Cln. to Seym., Nes. to Brw., 31 May, 1 June 1854 (CORR 1.324, 378); Conacher AC: 148–9; Lambert CW: 20–1.
21.Cln. to Ab., Str., pr., Admiralty, 30–31 May, 2 June 1853 (AbC X; ClDp. c. 125, CORR 1.329).
22.Wal. to Drn., 1–3, 8 June 1853; Cln. to Cwl., 8 June 1853; Dr. to Lac, Ducos to La Suisse, 3–4 June 1853 (AMAE CP Angl. 689, Turq. 313).
23.Pirn to Grm., 29 May 1853 (AbC X).
24.Saab OCA: 71–2; AVPR K 74 (8/20 June 1853); cf. Conacher AC: 149–50 and Lambert CW: 19–22, for the various opinions, if not the same interpretation.