PART TWO
CHAPTER FOUR
THE CONTRADICTIONS OF 1848
A popular liberal revolution broke out in Palermo in January 1848. Before the reigning Bourbon king could get any outside help, he was forced to grant separate constitutions to Naples and to Sicily. This stimulated the simmering nationalist movements throughout the rest of Italy. A negotiated compromise between Italian nationalists and Austria was out of the question. By April, the Austrians had been driven by popular power from Venice and from all of Lombardy except the Quadrilateral of fortresses. Piedmont now had a liberal-monarchist constitution, and its king was leading a combined Italian army of 90,000–135,000 regulars and irregulars against the 115,000 trained men of the Austrian commander, General Joseph Wenzel Radetzky.1
Meanwhile, a new French Revolution erupted in Paris in February, sending King Louis-Philippe fleeing for his safety to England and creating misplaced fears throughout Europe’s establishments of a new edition of the wars of 1792–1815. The Republicans who came to power promised to respect the borders of 1815, so long as there was no foreign intervention in France, but they also openly supported the principle of the ‘reconstruction’ of nationalities.2 Thus encouraged, revolutionary fervour spread throughout Central Europe and was at the gates of Tsarist Poland. By the end of March, Metternich had resigned in Vienna, popular forces controlled Pest (right bank Buda-Pest), and the Prussian army had relinquished Berlin to democrats.
The Habsburg and Ottoman Empires, those seeming ‘gaudy-birds made up of borrowed feathers’, as the Prince of Serbia would call Austria,3 faced the supreme danger of disintegrating into national states. The Habsburg Croat-Serb movement incited passions among the Ottoman Serbs, Bosnians, Montenegrins, and Bulgarians. The Porte, partly out of fear of Russia, even took it upon itself to urge Vienna to take control of the situation. Moldavia and Wallachia were inspired by events in Paris, Budapest and the Habsburg Romanian lands. South Slavic strivings and Czech Panslavism, moreover, inspired anti-Tsarist feelings among Ukrainians and even some Russians, while Poles everywhere, including in St Petersburg, could stir up not only the mixed Polish, Lithuanian, Belarusian, Ukrainian and Jewish populations in all the lands Russia had acquired from Poland from 1772 to 1815 but also young Russians.
The incompatibility of nationalism and liberalism came right to the surface. A Prussian conflict with the Poles of Poznan (Prussian Poland) led the German Liberals to abandon the Polish cause as early as April 1848. The Danes forced their new king to grant a genuine constitution, but attempts to incorporate wholly German Holstein and mostly German Schleswig into the Danish state produced uprisings among the local populace with support throughout Germany. By early April Prussian and Danish regulars were fighting each other in Schleswig. In the Habsburg lands Hungarian and German revolutionaries tended to suppor| each other, but would not compromise with the aspirations of most Slavs. Viennese radicals tried to prevent the separation of Croatia from Hungary in April, and Germans in Germany and Austria applauded the Imperial Army’s suppression of Czech nationalists. Real civil war raged between Hungary’s Magyars (ethnic Hungarians) and its Croats and Serbs.
Revolutionary sentiment and class interests also clashed. The French peasants would not pay for social programmes in the cities, and propertied elements supported the brutal suppression of insurgent Republicans and socialists in June. The German middle classes feared the social radicalism of some of the masses and generally preferred the traditional reactionary domestic alliance with the privileged classes that supported absolutism to a democratic domestic alignment with plebeians. The peasantry of the Habsburg lands returned to traditional political docility once the feudal dues were abolished in September 1848, and even the Hungarian nationalists would not fully support the extreme Viennese radicals. In France the one person who could best reconcile city and countryside, peasant and merchant, worker and capitalist, Republican and Catholic, revolution and order – Louis Napoleon – got himself elected president in December.4
GREAT POWER DILEMMAS AND URGES
The revolutionary movements and the Italian-Austrian and Prusso-Danish wars created peculiar dilemmas and opportunities for the new French Republic, for the Whig (Liberal) government in Britain, for the Russian autocracy, and even for Turkey.
The French had to prove that they did not represent a new edition of the First Republic, with a provocative set of foreign policies almost certain to lead to war, as in 1792. But they could not sit back and let Austria or any other state increase its power in Italy or elsewhere. The enemies of Russia, Austria and the counter-revolution in general, moreover, looked to France for help. All the same, domestic concerns kept France vigilant, but relatively inactive throughout 1848.5
Britain was a different matter. The court supported the German dynasts; public opinion backed liberalism and moderate nationalism; the bankers and merchants favoured stability; and the government did not want the political goals of the larger or smaller peoples to upset the balance of power and strategic relations on the Continent or in the Baltic and Black Seas. So long as France was quiet, Palmerston could afford to follow British public opinion, which was favourable to the Italian national cause, as toward the Greeks in the 1820s. He seems to have believed, cynically enough, that Austria, without the burden of Lombardy and Venetia, would constitute a better barrier against Russia. On the other hand, Swedish and Danish control over the Sound and the Belts between the North and Baltic Seas was not to be threatened by Prussia or Germany fighting for co-nationals in Holstein and Schleswig.6
Tsar Nicholas had much to fear besides the simple collapse of Austria and European Turkey. Theoretically, Russia could attempt to establish a bloc of small client states in East-Central Europe and the Balkans, but the road to such a happy outcome for the nationalist or Panslav was treacherous. Even if he kept the European revolution from spreading to Russia in the short term, the repercussions could be ominous. A victorious revolutionary Italy might ally with a revolutionary France in the Mediterranean and support either the Balkan nationalities or the Turks, or both. The French could do this on their own if they wished. A revived Hungary or a Wallachia or Moldavia free to give expression to Romanian nationalism were bound to be permanent magnets for Polish nationalists. On the other hand, either a reformed Prussia or a triumphant Austria could place herself at the head of German nationalism and destroy Russia’s regional preponderance. Whatever the domestic outcome in Germany, Russia had the same interest as Britain in preventing Prussia or the Confederation from taking Schleswig from Denmark. Ergo, Europe’s senior monarch and aristocrat had to lead the counter-revolution or relinquish the international position he had acquired for himself and Russia since 1826.
The Tsar’s immediate reaction was to act as if Russia herself were threatened at home and abroad and thus institute repressive policies toward dissidents, as well as to alert up to 400,000 troops. Attempting to mobilize the Prussian and Austrian governments, he worked out contingency plans for the German states and Russia to invade France, as if the events of 1813 or 1815 were about to be repeated.7
The French manifesto of 2 March, repudiating the conservatism but not the territorial settlement of 1815, satisfied London but not St Petersburg. Distraught at the unwillingness of the King of Prussia to use his army against rebel civilians, Nicholas responded with his own 14/26 March manifesto, where he stated: ‘God is with us. Take heed ? Nations and Submit.’8 The diplomatic community in St Petersburg saw it as a warning to revolutionaries and to France. Devout Russians could recognize ‘God is with us’ (s nami Bog) as a common liturgical formula – which was also used as a patriotic rallying cry. Nesselrode, now Chancellor, soon had to announce that Russia did not intend to intervene unless threatened – a mirror image of the French disclaimers.
It was also understood that Nicholas was willing to send troops to wherever he was invited. He was serious about protecting Denmark and even worked out a plan for an invasion of Germany. Once more he thought in terms of 1813 and hoped that he would be able to make a special arrangement with one faction of the Prussian army, which would allow him to help restore a strong Prussian monarchy as the cornerstone of German order. He also made ready the Baltic fleet. As it turned out, combined Anglo-Russian pressure induced the Prussians to call off an invasion of Danish Jutland and make an armistice in July.
RESCUING THE OTTOMAN AND HABSBURG REALMS
Turkey and the Balkans were a different matter. The ‘Big Three’ of those days went to work on the Porte, each singing a variation of his old tune. Stratford pushed the realization of the Tanzimat, and with this a British loan – which would be the new vehicle of British influence, once the capitulations were replaced by a uniform rule of law. Tito v pressed for a hard, reactionary line, and had the ear of the Sultan and the conservatives, who removed Reshid and his coterie from office. Titov and his consuls used all of their powers of persuasion to keep the Serbs and Montenegrins from helping the Habsburg Serbs and Croats. This also kept Turkey’s Bosnians and Bulgarians quiet. The French Republic eventually sent a new envoy, General Jacques Aupick, to propose an outright alliance.9
The Principalities and especially Bucharest, the capital of Wallachia and centre of Romanian nationalism, posed a unique challenge to all. Ever since the Russians evacuated in 1834, there had been, by treaty, no foreign soldiers in either Principality. However, the Russians let the Turks know that Imperial troops would enter Moldavia if disturbances occurred,10 and in fact helped nip a revolt in the bud there in April, as General Diugamel was given plenary powers. Then a radical Bucharest uprising in June, supported by peasants and favouring union with Moldavia, became the signal for part of the Fifth Corps (army of Bessarabia) to occupy Jassy, the Moldavian capital.
The Ottomans now sung a new version of their old imperial tune. The Turkish elite was split between those like the Sultan, who desired to cooperate with Russia in repressing the Romanians, and those like Reshid, who courted British and French support and were willing to compromise with the Romanian democrats. In both cases, the Ottoman authorities, like the Austrians, hoped to use the threat of revolution to strengthen the power of the centre at the expense of the provinces. The Porte found its own solution, namely to suppress the Bucharest radicals, but at the same time weaken Russian power in the Principalities by subverting the Organic Statutes of 1834 and introducing the Tanzimat reforms, a package that could attract anti-Russian Romanian moderates. Reshid returned to power as Grand Vizier. Omer Pasha was sent with 15,000 regulars to crush the insurgents, which he did in September. Fuad Effendi, a partisan – in theory at least – of sorely needed agrarian reforms in the Principalities, was sent to restructure them under Turkish auspices, but was liberal with repressive measures.11
Russian troops eventually entered Wallachia to assist the Turks. Palmerston wanted it clear that the occupation was only temporary. Fearing for a moment the possibility of war with Russia, the Turks started to mobilize 200,000 troops in July, half in the Balkans and half for the Asiatic frontier, where there had been serious action in the 1806–12 and 1828–29 wars. Now the Russians desired a counterrevolutionary alliance with Turkey. Nicholas himself had advised the Sultan and the Romanian Hospodars to follow the Russian policy of recalling all students who were abroad. The Turks instead sounded out London for an alliance, but Palmerston was not prepared for such a commitment.12
By November, Stratford, fearing the Russian navy, was urging Palmerston to send a British squadron, with or without French participation. Palmerston was less nervous and wished to compromise with the Russians. Nicholas sent General P.Kh. Grabbe as a special envoy to Constantinople to make a new arrangement for the Principalities. He was also to try to conclude a new alliance, get the Turks to contribute 10,000-odd troops to the intervention in Hungary, and allow for a prolonged occupation of the Principalities.13 Had the Turks agreed, Nicholas would have obtained under his leadership the perfect reactionary Holy Alliance of Tsar, Kaiser and Sultan. The best Grabbe could extract, however, was the compromise Convention of Balta Liman, whereby the Moldavian and Wallachian assemblies lost some of their powers, the Hospodars were again to be appointed only for seven years, the Turks could oversee administrative reform, and both powers could send troops in case of disorders.14
Meanwhile, in Central Europe the Austrian and Prussian high commands regained their confidence. In June General Alfred Windischgrätz put down insurgent Czechs in Prague. In July Radetzky smashed the Italian army, drove it back to Piedmont, reoccupied Milan, and besieged Venice. The loyal Croat general, Josip Jelačič, gained ascendancy over the Croats and Serbs by supporting those who fought for the Empire in Italy and Hungary. In September he invaded ethnic Hungary in the name of their common sovereign, fought one indecisive battle, and retreated. Windischgrätz and Jelacic now turned to subdue rebellious Vienna, and held off a detachment of Hungarians coming to help the insurgents. This heartened the Prussian king, who authorized the army to take charge in Berlin in November.15
Windischgrätz’s brother-in-law, Prince Felix Schwarzenberg, took charge in Austria, effected the abdication of the Emperor Ferdinand and his replacement by the young Francis Joseph II, and resolved to bring Hungary to heel. In December Windischgrätz invaded Hungary from the north and south-west with 120,000 troops against an equal number of Magyars, aided by some emigré Polish officers, including Henryk Dembinski, one of the heroes of the 1830‘31 uprising against Russia. Windischgrätz took Budapest, but could not defeat the main Hungarian army and needed reinforcements. In Transylvania, a foray by about 6,000 Russians under General Lüders failed against another emigré Polish general, Józef Bern.16
Italian affairs were complicated by the competing forces for revolution and order. Radicals and Republicans in Venice, Rome, Tuscany, and the south were allied as nationalists with the King of Piedmont. But he, as a force for stability, was socially allied with the Pope, the Austrians, and King of Naples, who had regained control of his state with some Spanish help. When Republicans took power in Rome in February 1849, the Pope appealed to four Catholic powers: Naples, Spain, Austria and France. Meanwhile, encouraged by Hungarian successes, the Piedmontese, under General Bernard Chrzanowski, a Polish emigré who had earlier served the Porte, tried to renew the war with Austria. This time Radetzky beat them even more badly at Novara in eastern Piedmont. Austrian arms now assured the restoration of the other North Italian dynasts, and this put the French on the spot: either they intervened in Rome, or the Austrians would. Joint Franco-Austrian action was another option, but President Louis Napoleon and the National Assembly decided in April just to send French troops to Rome in order to ‘save liberty’. The Austrians moved into Ancona and Bologna in the north-eastern parts of the Papal States, and the Italians at Rome had to make terms with the French by July.17
In the meantime the Magyars reduced the Habsburgs to only three strongholds in Hungary proper. Schwarzenberg would have loved to be able to reduce Hungary single-handed and go on to dominate Germany and owe nothing to Russia, but in April the Magyars threatened Vienna again. Nicholas already had armies in Tsarist Poland, Volhynia and Wallachia to prevent the spread of revolution from Galicia, Hungary and Transylvania into his domains. In quick, tough negotiations, the Austrians accepted Russian terms regarding the aid. The King of Prussia obliged with the use of his Silesian railroads to help transport Russian troops. Russia eventually sent in 320,000 men, more than had crossed the borders in 1812–13 to chase Napoleon, but engaged in very little actual combat. Instead the Russian commanders accepted surrendering rebels with grace and mercy, while the Austrians, under General Haynau (recently called in from North Italy), did most of the necessary hard fighting. By early September it was all over.18
Up to this point 1849 had been an excellent year for imperialism and expansion. The Prussian army dispersed the German constitutionalists (who were meeting at Frankfurt) in the spring, and suppressed the popular movements in Baden, Saxony and the Palatinate (Rhenish Bavaria) in the autumn. Austria saved Lombardy and Venetia, invaded Tuscany, Modena and (papal) Romagna, while the French took Rome itself. The Russians kept the Principalities quiet and helped save Hungary for Austria, while the Americans were rushing to (formerly Mexican) California for gold. The British, besides keeping restless Ireland under control and suppressing a rebellion in the Ionian Islands, finished subjugating the Punjab without a word of protest from the Russians. The cynical Palmers ton also had not wished to see Austria disintegrate or reduced to a Russian client-state, so telling Brunnow to ‘do it quickly’, did not help the Hungarians. Neither did Louis Napoleon, and he received his pay-off too. Nicholas recognized the French Republic, that temporary conquest of French democracy, the day his troops crossed the Hungarian frontier. This helps explain the ‘unexpectedly calm’ reaction of Paris and London to Russia’s intervention in Hungary.19
Counter-revolutionary cooperation among the Great Powers could not and did not last. General Haynau’s harsh reprisals in Hungary created a terrible press for Austria in the West. A stream of more than 5,000 Polish, Hungarian and Italian refugees into a sympathetic Turkey created a new diplomatic problem. Russia, Austria and Prussia were already physically mobilized. The French and British publics were spiritually mobilized. And the Turks, seeing how Austria had almost fallen apart and how poorly organized the Russian army in Hungary had been, exuded uncharacteristic confidence. All six powers were in a position, to quote Shakespeare: ‘from ancient grudge [to] break to new mutiny’.20 The question was: which mutiny or mutinies?
AVERTING A WAR OF GERMAN UNIFICATION
Neither the Danish nor the German issues had been resolved, when the last Hungarian units surrendered in August and September 1849. The Danes had renewed the war in Schleswig in February and defeated the native German troops from the Duchies. However, in May, Palmerston warned the Prussians that if they did not accept British good offices, they would have to face French and Russian mediation, and Nicholas wrote to the king that a Russian fleet was on the way to protect Jutland. He gave way, but it took another year before the Russian fleet convinced Berlin to accept a British compromise that excluded a Prussian military presence from the Duchies.21
The renewal of the Austro-Prussian rivalry in Germany made the Prussian-Danish issue even more tense. Once the Italians, Hungarians and radical Germans were suppressed, Berlin and Vienna squared off against each other. One could forget about the dreams of a united, democratic Germany: it was ‘Greater Prussia’ vs ‘Greater Austria’. On paper, Austria and her German allies had about 450,000 mobilized troops, but some of them were needed in Italy and Hungary. Prussia could levy up to 300,000 soldiers, so the position of the other German states and the outside powers was crucial. During the counterrevolutionary fighting in 1849, Prussia had secured the adherence of all of the north and central German states and Baden in the south-west to the federal Erfurt Union. With social peace established, however, Hanover and Saxony defected in October and joined with Bavaria and Wurttemburg to form the ‘League of the Four Kings’ in favour of the old Confederation. The Prussians were not so ready to abandon their goals, but Schwarzenberg cleverly promoted the reassertion of Confederation powers in Holstein. The Tsar’s position was decisive. He activated his Baltic fleet and his armies in Poland as a signal to Prussia. Berlin gave way in late June 1851, allowing all the Great Powers and Sweden to work out a solution to the tricky questions of royal and ducal succession in Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein.
The Austro-Prussian rivalry now concentrated on the north German state of Electoral Hesse (Hesse-Cassel), which faced revolutionary upheavals and also possessed military roads vital for Prussia. The Tsar’s insistence that Hesse also lay within the purview of the Confederation once more forced Prussia’s hand. Berlin’s remaining options were war or capitulation. The king would fight only if England would join as Prussia’s ally, an impossibility over this issue. When Schwarzenberg pressed with an ultimatum, the king ordered a mobilization, but the conservative partisans of capitulation to the Tsar and subordination to Austria had no heart for such a fight. Austria’s rapid concentration of 75,000 troops by rail to Bohemia convinced the king to back down. However, uncertain of what either the French or the British would do if Austria attempted to press its advantages in northern Germany to the hilt, Schwarzenberg agreed to see Prussia’s Otto von Manteuffel at Olmiitz. Nesselrode’s friend Peter Meyendorff, the Russian minister in Berlin, came too and helped to reconcile the parties at the end of November.22
A war of German unification between Central Europe’s two Great Powers was averted for three basic reasons: (1) the strategic considerations of Britain and France; (2) the attitude of Russia; and (3) the reluctance of the Prussian conservatives and king to break with the Tsar and the Habsburgs. The British and French would not support Prussia’s expansion, but neither would they countenance her reduction by an Austro-Russian combination. Nicholas favoured the status quo ante of 1847 and saw Prussia as the aggressor over Schleswig-Holstein and the Erfurt Union. Prussia’s own elite was too divided to carry out a credible mobilization, and without one, the king had to back down.
Neither Austria’s small German allies nor France nor Russia favoured Schwarzenberg’s plan to bring the entire Habsburg realm into the Confederation and create an ‘Empire of Seventy Millions’, which could be the most powerful state on the Continent. Consequently, he had to accept the next best deal from Prussia, a defensive alliance, covering all of Austrian territory for the first time, including Lombardy and Venetia.23 This at least put Austria in a fine position to settle her outstanding issues in the Balkans. However, with the Danish and German problems moved to the negotiating table, Russia, Britain and also France felt free to press for their goals in the Near East.
THE REFUGEE CRISIS: DRESS REHEARSAL FOR 1853?
The immediate issue after the collapse of Hungary was that of the refugees, many of whom under General Bern joined Omer Pasha in Wallachia and talked of clearing the Principalities of Russian troops. St Petersburg wanted Omer to hand over all Poles who were originally the Tsar’s subjects, especially four veteran revolutionary generals. The Austrians wanted the Russians to evacuate the Principalities, but wanted the Hungarian leader Kossuth even more and so joined the Russians in formally demanding extradition on 28–29 August. Both powers relied on extradition clauses found in the Treaties of Belgrade (1739) and Kuchuk-Kainarji (1774) that had ended the eighteenth-century wars.24 International Law normally provided for extradition of criminals, but the Turks liked anti-Russian refugee soldiers and were prepared to counter with the right of political asylum, just as the liberal states of Western Europe had generally exempted political offenders since 1830.25 The normal procedure in such cases was for the receiving government to reconcile the two principles by curbing the political activities of the refugees, as France did with some Poles after the 1830–31 revolt against Russia. On 30 August the Turkish Council, with strong Anglo-French support, decided in principle in favour of incarceration far from the Austrian and Russian frontiers of all refugees who did not become Muslims.26
Neither St Petersburg nor Vienna was pleased. Nicholas had already decided to dispatch Prince Michail Radziwill, a loyal Polish aristocrat, with an autograph letter urging the Sultan to respect the demand of his ‘ally’ and to ask for a categorical answer regarding extradition. Radziwill arrived on 4 September, and immediately he and the Austrian Internuncio (ambassador), Count Barthelemy Sturmer, stepped up the pressure with threats to break relations. The Russians, Austrians and Turks engaged in heated debates over whether the rebels were criminals, and the Turks relied on a Metternich memorandum to confound the Austrians. French and British support for resistance was very strong, so on the 17th, Sturmer and Titov submitted notes demanding a favourable response within forty-eight hours. Nothing of the sort materialized, so they officially suspended relations with the Porte, but remained in Constantinople nevertheless.27
This pressure was sufficient for Stratford to invite Admiral William Parker and the British Malta squadron to cruise in Greek waters. Stratford’s appeal reached London about 1 October, the same time direct Turkish requests for material aid arrived in London and Paris. Palmerston immediately warned Brunnow that Britain considered Turkey to be guaranteed by the 1841 Convention and would help the Porte against an outside threat. Brunnow got the message and informed Nesselrode that the British might pass the Dardanelles. Word of this reached St Petersburg about 12 October, four days after Palmerston authorized Parker to sail to Besika Bay, just outside the Straits. Louis Napoleon jumped at the opportunity to please the British, bypassed his own Cabinet, and ordered a French squadron to accompany the British ships. The British and the French also urged both Vienna and St Petersburg to be moderate, and the Austrians quickly decided to separate their diplomatic pressure from Russia’s.28
The Turks, however, did not wait for word from London, but rather dispatched Fuad to St Petersburg to work out a compromise outside of the treaties: a simple promise to keep the refugees far from the Russian border. By the time he arrived on 5 October, the Russians had worked out their compromise position that upheld the ‘treaties’. According to Orlov, the Porte had the right to choose among extradition, expulsion and incarceration, but in this third case, Austria and Russia had the right by treaty to have a commissioner supervise the confinement. The Foreign Ministry’s operational plan was to ascertain if Fuad had brought a satisfactory response. If not, the Tsar would refuse to see him. Then Titov would close down the mission except for the commercial section, announce that the army in Moldavia was being strengthened, and communicate these moves to Austria. On 1 October the Tsar approved and amended this plan to include a threat to remove the Principalities from Ottoman jurisdiction.29
Fuad saw Nesselrode on 8 October and presented the Sultan’s letters, which Nesselrode saw as a refusal to execute the Russo-Turkish treaties. Fuad replied that he came with an explanation and that the right of asylum was sacred to Orientals, so Nesselrode reported to the Tsar that Fuad was trying to be conciliatory. At a second interview, Nesselrode suggested expelling Poles who would not embrace Islam and incarcerating those who would. Fuad promised to refer this to the Porte and then had a positive working session with Nesselrode’s deputy, Seniavin, on the 15th and a satisfactory interview with Nicholas the next day. Two days later Fuad promised Seniavin not to allow any British involvement; rather the Russians and Turks ‘would wash their dirty laundry en famille’ Then a deal worked out on the side by Titov and the Turks for relocation away from the borders arrived, and it met with the Tsar’s approval. On the 19th he officially dropped the demand for extradition, but then immediately took up the issue of the British and French fleets. He ordered a powerful rejoinder to Palmerston’s message, and urged Fuad to tell his government to send the fleets away.30
Despite the fears of the Austrian ambassador, Count Buol, Nicholas was eager for peace and was working out the timetable for the withdrawal of the troops from the Principalities when really alarming news from Constantinople arrived. Titov did not know all the details, but he knew enough. Stratford and Calvert, the British consul at the Dardanelles, had improvised a reading of the 1841 Treaty to allow Calvert and Parker to bring the fleet into the Dardanelles at their discretion, if the physical conditions in Besika Bay so dictated. Parker arrived on 27 October, discovered that ‘the wind set in very strong’, and entered on 1 November. Titov immediately complained to Stratford, who, soon learning of the impending Austro-Turkish settlement, wanted the squadron out too. So Stratford, like Palmers ton, did not seek war, but interpreted the 1841 Treaty in a British sense, the implicit goal of protecting Turkey taking precedence over the explicit provision for Straits closure.31
Meanwhile, Nicholas said that he would not be intimidated and was not mollified by the news that the French fleet was being recalled. ‘What is done is done’, he wrote. While Brunnow was instructed to get Palmerston to disavow Parker, Titov was told to inform the Porte that Russia had the same rights regarding the Bosphorus as did Britain in the Dardanelles. This notion convinced Palmerston in January to apologize and reaffirm Britain’s commitment to the 1841 Treaty.32
The Tsar could not hide his continued displeasure over this incident. Before Palmerston’s apology arrived, Nicholas told the departing British envoy, Bloomfield:33
I do not understand the conduct of Lord Palmerston. If he chooses to wage war against me, let him declare it freely and loyally. It will be a great misfortune for the two countries, but I am resigned to it and ready to accept it. But he should stop playing tricks on me right and left. Such policy is unworthy of a great power. If the Ottoman Empire still exists, this is due to me. If I pull back the hand that protects it and sustains it, it will collapse in an instant.
Nesselrode, for his part, was optimistic about Turkey’s future cooperation with Russia and was satisfied with Palmerston’s retreat. Relations with Turkey were restored at the end of the year, though not all the issues were settled. While Stratford thought that Russia wanted to keep up the dispute only in order to exert pressure for an alliance, the Tsar’s attitude was not so simple. He was happy that the ‘mauvaise affaire’ with Turkey had ended, but not so hopeful. On 17 December he instructed Admiral Putiatin to prepare a plan for a pre-emptive, surprise attack on the Straits the next time a crisis erupted, to prevent another British entry. The plan, which was ready the next July, envisioned seizing the Dardanelles as well and forcing the Turks into a defensive alliance. It required eight new war steamers, four of which the Tsar authorized.34
Nicholas was not alone in his readiness to use his navy to secure an alliance with Britain in November 1849, and Stratford hoped thereby to obtain an open door for British commerce. The natural passing of Egypt’s Mehmed Ali and his redoubtable son, Ibrahim, from the scene in 1848 had created conditions for opening up that land as well. Palmerston, however, rejected any fully-fledged alliance with such a fragile entity as Turkey, favouring instead a more cautious cooperation in building up the Ottoman fleet.35 In either case Russia and Britain were engaged in a new, heated round of their competition over Turkey, while once more an Eastern crisis showed that Austria would not back Russia and that some Vienna statesmen looked upon Russian support as a Trojan horse.
Other explosive problems also loomed in the Near East. Schwar-zenberg, while opposed to Russian tactics, refused until April 1850 to accept mere Austrian inspection of incarcerated Hungarians – and this agreement soon broke down. Meanwhile, the French legation in Constantinople had another ploy for increasing influence without simply trailing after the British. At the end of 1849, prompted by the French, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem went to Paris to ask for aid against the local Orthodox.36
A new chapter in the struggle of four of Europe’s six great imperialisms for influence in the domains of the ‘sickest’ of their number was about to begin. The Turks, Austrians and French were more assertive, and England and Russia had probed a hostile armed diplomacy. Ideologies and interpretation of the 1841 Straits Convention differed. But nothing so far had occurred to make an armed showdown over Turkey or the Balkans inevitable. If the already fragile Concert of Europe was even more weakened by the events of 1848–49, the balance of power mechanisms that had helped to prevent war since 1815 were still in fine working order.
NOTES
1.Hearder, Italy in the Age of the Risorgimento, 1790–1870 (London/New York 1983), pp. 142–203, passim; for the numbers, EB 1911 XV: 52–3.
2.Lawrence C. Jennings, France and Europe in 1848. A Study of Foreign Affairs in Time of Crisis (Oxford 1973), pp. 1–23.
3.Fonblanque to Rose No. 7, 29 Jan 1853 (PRO FO).
4.Cf. Barrington Moore, Jr, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Boston 1966); Karl Marx, ‘The Class Struggles in France’ (first published 1850), Marx and Engels, Selected Works I: 139–242.
5.Jennings, France and Europe in 1848, especially pp. 24–43, 251–3; cf. T.C.W. Blanning, The Origins of the French Revolutionary Wars (London/New York 1986), pp. 1–163.
6.Charles Sproxton, Palmerston and the Hungarian Revolution (Cambridge UK 1919), pp. 21–2; QV to Pirn., 5 July 1848 (LQV II), seeing a contradiction in Palmerston’s principles; on attitudes toward Germany, see W.E. Mosse, The European Powers and the German Question, 1848–1871 (Cambridge UK 1958), p. 20.
7.For Russia in 1848, Schiemann, IV: 140–62; A.S. Nifontov, ‘Rossiia i Revoliutsiia 1848 g.’ Revoliutstii 1848–1849gg. (2 vols, F. Potemkin and A.I. Moloka (eds), Moscow–Leningrad 1952), II: 272–3; A.S. Nifontov, 1848god v Rossii: ocherkipo istorii 40-kh godov (Moscow/Leningrad 1931), pp. 155–61; Sydney Monas, The Third Section, pp. 238–42.
8.Schiemann IV: 143–4; A ‘counter-revolutionary crusade’ is discounted by Fuller: 232.
9.For Turkey and the Principalities in 1848–49, Sheremet: 125–52, supplemented by the reports of Blondeel van Cuelebroeck (AMAE Big. Turq. II).
10.Nes. to Tit., 2/14. April 1848 (AVPR Pos. Konst. 204).
11.N.V. Berezniakov, ‘Osvoboditel’skie dvizheniia v Moldavii i Valakhii v 1848 g.’ Revoliutsii 1848–1849gg., p. 367.
12.Nes. to Tit., 7/19 Feb. 1848 (AVPR GA-V2 518); Pirn, to Brw., 21 Jul. 1848 (AVPR Pos. Konst. 204); Temperley ENEC: 260.
13.Sproxton, Palmerston and the Hungarian Revolution, p. 15; Florescu, The Struggle against Russia in the Roumanian Principalities, 1821–1854, pp. 212–13.
14.Nouradounghian II: 389–91, CTS CIII (Russ.-Turk. Conv., 19 April/1 May 1849), trans. Hertslet 11.209.
15.Gordon Craig, The Politics of the Prussian Army, 1640–1945 (Oxford 1955), p. 119.
16.Kenneth W. Rock, ‘Schwarzenberg vs Nicholas I, Round I: the Negotiations of the Habsburg-Romanov Alliance against Hungary in 1849’, AHY VI–VII: 114–23.
17.Rothenberg, The Army of Francis Joseph, p. 34; Echard: 181; Hearder, Italy in the Age of the Risorgimento, 1790–1870, pp. 116–19.
18.Rock, ‘Schwarzenberg vs Nicholas I, Round 1’, pp. 124–41; CTS CIII (Aus.-Russ. Conv., 29 May/10 June 1849); Curtiss, The Russian Army under Nicholas I, 1825–1855, pp. 295–313.
19.Messerschmidt, Handbuch zur Deutschen Militargeschichte, 1648–1939 II: 18–22; Lawrence Sondhaus ‘Prince Felix zu Schwarzenberg and Italy’, AHY XXII (1991): 65–6; Martens XII: 254; Sproxton, Palmerston and the Hungarian Revolution, p. 101; Heindl: 43.
20.William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Prologue.
21.Holger Hjelholt, British Mediation in the Danish-German Conflict, 1848–1850. 2 Pts, Historisk-filosofisk Meddelelser (Det Konglige Danske Viden-skabernes Selskab, Bind 41. nr. 1, Copenhagen, 1965–6) I: 103, 110, II: 242–6.
22.Schiemann IV: 156–62; Mosse, The European Powers and the German Question, 1848–1871, pp. 33–42; Craig, The Politics of the Prussian Army, 1640–1945, pp. 129–31; Manfred Messerschmidt, Handbuch zur deutschen Militärgeschichte II: 21–3; Rothenberg, The Army of Francis-Joseph, pp. 48–9; PM II: 347.
23.Joseph Wieskirchner, Die Dresdener Konferenzen, 1850/1851 (diss, phil., Vienna, 1928), pp. 260–3 (Aus.-Pruss. Tr., 16 May 1851), cited in AGK 11:1: 331.
24.CTS XXXV (Aus.–Turk. Tr. of Belgrade, 18 Sept. 1739), art. XVIII; CTS LXV/MENA 1.32 (Tr. of Kuchuk-Kainarji), art. II.
25.S. Prakash Sinha, Asylum and International Law (The Hague 1971), pp. 172–5.
26.Sheremet: 145–6.
27.B1C. to Hoffschmidt, 15, 19 Nov. 1849 (AMAE Big. Turq. II); Lane-Poole II: 191–2; Bapst: 85–90.
28.Sheremet: 148; Temperley ENEC: 263–4; Martens XII: 258; Bapst: 96–8; Heindl: 60–1; the Russian sources belie Heindl’s claim that St Petersburg only demanded the four generals. The French Foreign Minister at this time was Alexis de Tocqueville of Democracy in America fame.
29.Orl. et al., memos, with Nich. I gloss dated 20 Sept./l Oct. 1849 (AVPR K 469 204: 150–4, 168–9).
30.Orl. and anon., memos, with Nich. I gloss, 20 Sept./l Oct. 1849; Nes. to Nich. I with some glosses, 26 Sept./8 Oct. 4/16, 6/18, 8/20, 12/24 Oct. 1849; memos of parleys with Fuad, undated; Sen. memo, 5/17 Oct. 1849 (AVPR K 204); cf. Mdf. to Nes., 2/14 Oct. 1849 (PM II); Temperley ENEC: 267–8.
31.Nes. to Nich. I, 24 Oct./5 Nov. 1849 (AVPR K 204); Heindl: 70–1; Temperley ENEC: 264–5; Puryear ERSQ: 170–1.
32.Nes. to Nich. I with glosses, 2/14, 3/15 Nov. 1849, to Brw., 19 Nov./1 Dec. 1849 (AVPR K 204); cf. Puryear ERSQ: 174–80.
33.Nes. to Brw., 8/20 Dec. 1849 (TsGADA, III/115).
34.Nes. to Nich. I with gloss, 19 Nov./l Dec. 1849, 24 Dec. 1849/ 5 Jan. 1850 (AVPR K 204); Martens XII: 272; B1C. to Hoffschmidt, 25 Dec. 1849, 5 Jan. 1850 (AMAE Big. Turq. II); Putiatin memo with Nich. I’s gloss, 8/20 July 1850 (TsGAVMF) 19/l/276b).
35.Puryear ERSQ: 183–6; Temperley ENEC: 269; Sheremet: 151–2.
36.B1C. to Hoffschmidt, 5 May, 15 Dec. 1850 (AMAE Big. Turq. II).