CHAPTER SIX
SERIOUS COMPLICATIONS
While the Russians and the Greeks appeared to have ‘won’ the initial struggle over the firman to Hafiz Ahmad, the French and the Catholics benefited from other aspects of the Eastern Question and European politics. Turkish opposition to Stratford's schemes to introduce the Tanzimat and railroads to Egypt and then use Egyptian assets to guarantee a loan to shore up the Turkish currency weakened Reshid. When Stratford left Constantinople in late June for what was assumed to be his final departure, his relations with the Porte were very chilly and local newspapers were attacking his ‘utopian’ concepts of reform and the practice of granting British passports to revolutionary refugees.1
Meanwhile Turkish-Austrian problems were intensifying. Schwarzenberg had feared that discontent in Bosnia and Herzegovina would spread across the border and that Omer’s use of Hungarian and Polish exiles in his army might stimulate more unrest. The release of interned Hungarians against Austrian wishes in September 1851 added fuel to the fire. Schwarzenberg’s death and Buol’s succession in April changed nothing, as both saw the current Turkish moves to create a naval presence in the lower Adriatic and use brute force to disarm their Balkan subjects as provocative. Newly reported Turkish atrocities made things worse, as 4,000–5,000 refugees fled from Bosnia to Austrian territory in 1851–52. Omer’s redeployment to Herzegovina then set the stage for a confrontation over Montenegro and wider Great Power, especially, Russian involvement.2
Russia had treated Montenegro as a historically sovereign entity since Peter the Great’s second war with Turkey. In reality, for most of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries Montenegro had been an effective buffer between Ottoman and Venetian domains, but had been ruled by prince-bishops or vladykas invested by an Ottoman subject, the Archbishop or Patriarch of Pec (Ipek). Vladyka Petar I (1782–1830), however, was invested in Austria by a refugee Patriarch. During the Russo-Turkish alliance of 1799–1805, Selim III had issued a firman recognizing that ‘the Montenegrins have never been subject to our Sublime Porte’, but the Turks did not treat this as binding. The Austrians also temporarily recognized the independence of Montenegro during their 1788–91 war with Turkey, but then hedged and simply treated it as de facto free but dejure under the Porte. Finally, Vladyka Petar II (1830–51) was ordained in St Petersburg at a time when the Turks were too weak to make serious objections.3
Petar II died in October 1851, and his designated successor Danilo and the local elite secularized the principality. In keeping with Austrian Balkan policy, Vienna supported this change in early 1852. The Turks then challenged Austria by supplying Omer via Suttorina, one of two tiny enclaves in the Bay of Cattaro in the southern Adriatic, which were Herzegovina’s outlets to the sea and also facilitated Turkish maritime communications with the northern border of Montenegro. During the 1832–33 crisis, when the Porte desperately needed Russian aid, the Austrians claimed to be heirs to Venice’s former control over the enclaves and wanted the Turks to cede them.4
In January 1851, just as Aupick was demanding of the Porte categorically whether the 1740 treaty was still valid, Schwarzenberg revived Austria’s claims to Suttorina and the other enclave, Klek. The Turks, however, defiantly dispatched warships to the lower Adriatic. By the end of April 1852 Vienna in turn had empowered the local military and naval commanders in Dalmatia to act unilaterally to prevent Turkish landings. France stood to gain from all of this, since Russia was also bound to support Montenegro, and Stratford’s relations with the Porte were shaky.
Bonapartism now enhanced France’s position. Since the coup of 2 December 1851, St Petersburg and Vienna sought to contain France, Nesselrode fearing that Napoleon, having smashed ‘the ideologues and the reds, would force upon us a guerre de l’Empire’.5 Talk of revival of the Empire and a Franco-Belgian Customs Union was enough to involve all the other Great Powers in secret military feelers. Nicholas wanted a humiliating French disclaimer of aggressive intentions, and engineered an Austro-Russian demarche to dissuade Napoleon from reestablishing at least the dynasty. The Tsar also activated Russia’s standing offer of 60,000 troops for such eventualities. Nesselrode was more discreet, sending a top assistant, Ksaverii Labenski, to make an on-the-spot report regarding Napoleon’s external designs.6 The French response to this posturing was to maintain good relations with the other powers, especially Britain, but they made it clear that France would brook no external meddling in domestic matters.
FRENCH NAVAL PERSUASION
The Mediterranean Sea and the Eastern Question were the perfect arena for the French to show their colours with impunity, if they did so intelligently. Apart from the Holy Places dispute, the Turkish Admiralty had invited the French in March 1852 to demonstrate at the Golden Horn the virtues of their latest model, and Sabatier had been working out the tricky details of the invitation that stretched the 1841 Treaty to its limits. By late April, the Smyrna and Constantinople newspapers were reporting the future visit of the Charlemagne and the impending departure of Omer and his army for Herzegovina. Stratford and Ozerov, however, invoked the 1841 Treaty to block the permission for the vessel to pass the Dardanelles.7
The news of this blow reached Paris in late May on the heels of Sabatier’s reports concerning the altered firmans. Napoleon’s reaction was angry, but calculated. He made it clear to the Turks that to follow through with this decision would destroy his affection for them. He convinced London and St Petersburg not to back Stratford and Ozerov to the hilt. And he sent la Valette back in the enhanced capacity of ‘Ambassador’ on the Charlemagne to make it harder for the Turks to decline, while signalling the greater ability of Western navies to plough the Sea of Marmora upwind and upstream. Sabatier for his part threatened to break relations over the insult if the Porte did not allow the warship to come. The Turks then reversed course again, but at the same time affirmed their commitment to the 1841 Convention, as also did the French.8
The brief stopover of the Charlemagne in early July was pulled off with great eclat, if not perfect harmony. The British in turn muscled their own passage of the Dardanelles by an eighteen-gun corvette. Ozerov had to be contented with Turkish gratitude for the infrequency of Russian naval stopovers at Turkish ports. He admitted that Russia’s reputation for rancour at Constantinople kept him from protesting the Charlemagne too loudly – an indication of Russia’s weak position. All Nesselrode could obtain was a meaningless admission by the British and other powers that the 1841 Treaty had been violated.9
The Charlemagne incident was not an isolated event. Napoleon’s government had decided to use its Mediterranean squadron to settle outstanding problems with Ottoman provincial authorities. The French wished to obtain a reparation for an insult in Epirus, maintain autonomous Tunisia as a buffer between Algeria and Ottoman Tripoli (Libya), and get the pasha of Tripoli to relinquish two French deserters. A demonstration with six battleships and six frigates took place off Tripoli just as the Turks were about to depose Reshid and finalize their decision not to give the Russians what they wanted in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, moves that had been in the works even before the French resorted to naval diplomacy. Aali replaced Reshid as Grand Vizier, and the French-leaning Fuad became Foreign Minister. Ozerov, his English counterpart Colonel Hugh Henry Rose, and subsequent historians believed the Turks had bowed to French menaces.10
Meanwhile St Petersburg reached its own conclusions in July. Another Ozerov demarche to a frightened Aali would be fruitless, even though the French had no rights to the cupola. As soon as it became clear that the Turks were using delaying tactics, the Emperor himself would appeal directly to the Sultan – which probably meant a special mission of some sort, since the latest personal letters had been fruitless. Nevertheless, Ozerov was to continue to utilize Titov’s unofficial channels, and the Tsar was preparing to send 25,000 silver roubles to grease the Ottoman wheels.11
Simultaneously Nicholas was both hostile and friendly to France. He intensified his efforts to create a united front with Vienna and Berlin against Bonapartism and to normalize relations with Belgium, the focal point of any action against France. On the other hand, he was friendly to Castelbajac and other Frenchmen and repeated his standard line concerning the collapse of Ottoman power. He did not want Constantinople for himself, but would not allow anyone else to occupy it.12
MOUNTING UNCERTAINTIES
Ozerov obtained a copy of the long-awaited instructions to Commissioner Afif Bey in August and was not pleased with the planned execution of the firman. The Greek, Latin and Armenian Patriarchs would all have to approve of the plans for the repair of the cupola, and the Latins would obtain keys to the big door of the Bethlehem Church.13 In Russian eyes this was a violation of promises regarding both major sanctuaries. La Valette, however, was still insistent that the firman be altered to allow Latin services and use of the main portals in the Bethlehem church. He hinted that war with Turkey and/or Russia might ensue on the grounds of the 1740 Treaty and that France might blockade the Dardanelles and would certainly occupy them, if the Russians aided Turkey.
The British Mediterranean squadron now paid a surprise visit to Vourla, near Smyrna, and Rose, who ceded to no one when English interests were at stake, warned la Valette that France could also be on the receiving end of armed intimidation. Rose also told Ozerov that la Valette had grounds to complain and, grasping the heart of the issue, informed London that the Russian arguments were false: ‘the general opinion here [is correct] that the Porte committed a breach of faith, and indeed an error in policy, in inserting into the Firman to the Greeks terms at variance with the understanding which had just before been come to between the Porte and the French Embassy’.14
French efforts resulted in a new Note to la Valette from the Porte on 7 September with a promise to execute the firman in such a way as to uphold the February promises and respect the 1740 treaty. Both Ozerov and Rose believed that the Porte had bowed to French threats, but Rose attributed the modest French success to patience.
The French did not, though, get away so easily with their gunboat diplomacy, and Napoleon took some heat for the Tripoli incident, once the British learned of it. The Turks themselves made no secret of their distaste for French muscling and instructed their envoy Callimachi in Paris to make a quiet protest. Callimachi and his British counterpart Cowley then joined forces to work on the French Cabinet in September, where Drouyn de Lhuys had resumed the portfolio of Foreign Affairs. Drouyn retreated by assuring the English that he would be satisfied with a Turkish declaration that the firman did not contradict earlier promises, but covered his position by telling Callimachi that the Turks ought to prefer France’s friendship to Russia's.15 The statement to Callimachi was more honest, since the Russians were not ready to compromise, and Paris could gain simply by curtailing the naval antics to please the British and the Turks, without curbing la Valette’s minimal demands.
Positioning for British support, la Valette told a delighted Rose that France did not seek a general protectorate over the Sultan’s Catholic subjects along with the religious protectorate at Jerusalem. Rose now hoped to extract a similar denial from Russia concerning the Ottoman Orthodox. For la Valette, however, the real issue for the moment remained the Catholics’ use of a key to the main portal at Bethlehem for religious processions. Once more he threatened war in case Greek pressure were to prevail. The French squadron was expected to arrive off the coast of Judaea when Commissioner Afif arrived, but the Turks knew that the Russian consul Bazili was instructed to ensure that they did not retreat from their promises to Russia. Rose thus hit the nail on the head with his contemptuous and suggestive remark: ‘The question will probably make its exit out of the Great Door.’16
Ozerov sought Turkish allies in building a case against the French and wanted to believe Reshid and the other Turks who cast the blame on French intimidation for ‘annulling a part of the hatt-i sheriff’. This would explain why they were reneging on Fuad’s and Aali’s earlier reassurances to Patriarch Cyrill against the Latins’ obtaining new concessions. Actually, Ozerov’s dispatches from early and mid October reveal that a genuine fog of diplomacy had set in for the Russian mission. Aristarchi reported that the ‘solemn word’ to the Emperor would be kept, while Aali said to the First Russian Dragoman, Emmanuel Argyropoulos, that the Porte wished to satisfy the French. Then the Sultan’s anti-reformist brother-in-law, Mehmed Ali, replaced Aali as Grand Vizier and enticed Russia by blaming the concessions to the French on Aali and telling Argyropoulos that he (Mehmed) ‘recognized no rival of Russia in the Orient’,17 whatever that meant.
A NEW ‘GREEK PROJECT’?
Meanwhile, the international politics of the Balkans and the Black Sea were hotting up. In early July the Tsar agreed that Danilo of Montenegro could become a secular prince and appoint another bishop. The Turks concurred, so long as Danilo go to Constantinople for investiture. The Russians retorted that Russia was the sole protector of Montenegro.18
Buol now presented a package of Austrian demands to the Porte: an apology for the release of Kossuth and other Hungarian refugees, an end to the ‘persecution’ of Bosnian Christians, compensation for Austrian losses during the latest Turkish pacification campaign, and the authority to veto individual Turkish ships docking at Klek and Suttorina. The Porte was willing to talk, but not to accept diktats, and while Omar wished to subdue Montenegro by force, Fuad said that Ottoman policy would depend upon the Tsar’s decision concerning investiture.
The answer came back rather quickly and was circulated to the other major Cabinets: the Porte had never exercised any sovereignty or investiture rights over Montenegro. This meant that unless the Porte backed off, two Turkish showdowns were in the works: de jure with Russia and de facto with Austria. The French cleverly alerted the British to the possible ‘dangers’ of Austria’s demands, and neither Western power allowed their eager financial circles to dictate a loan-foisting policy that might drive the Turks into Russian and/or Austrian arms.
The Tsar was more interested in the Balkans than Western Europe, and, while renewing his pledges to a frightened Belgium, urged Brussels not to provoke France. On the other hand, he journeyed to Odessa and Sevastopol and back during 10 September-21 October, evoking shadows of Catherine II’s expansionist policies of the 1780s. He had recently turned his attention to the development of Sevastopol as ‘another Kronstadt’, and to the commissioning of his own ninety-gun screw. On this trip he was accompanied by the Austrian ambassador Mensdorff, giving the impression of an Austro-Russian alliance that could only be directed against the Turks. In addition, the Tsar wished to receive the Hospodars of Moldavia and Wallachia as ‘vassals render homage to a sovereign’ en route. Unsubstantiated rumours of increased Russian armaments in the Black Sea reached as far as Paris and London.19
Under these conditions, European backing for Russia against France in the Near East could only result from a Bonapartist threat to the European status quo. Louis Napoleon’s celebrated Bordeaux speech on 9 October, where he declared defiantly that ‘the Empire means peace’, was thus crucial in obtaining international support for his domestic plans. He favourably impressed several key elements of British public opinion which feared Russia and America, as well as French Bonapartism, screw steamers and Near Eastern policy. The logical response to Napoleon was to avoid provocative combinations and use the potential French threat to justify naval expansion, which only Britain could afford.20
THE LAW’S DELAY
The saga of the Holy Places continued to proceed at a snail’s pace. Two months passed after the Tripoli incident, and nothing occurred inside or outside the Ottoman Empire to produce the decisive victory that the Greeks and the Latins each desired. When Afif Bey finally arrived in Jerusalem on 18 October, he summoned the Greek, Latin and Armenian patriarchs to the Holy Sepulchre and proceeded in the face of obstruction of the local clergies to execute his instructions. These satisfied no one. The Latin Star for Bethlehem did not materialize. The Orthodox prevented the Catholics from obtaining use of keys to officiate at the Church of the Nativity as they wished. Bazili had trouble convincing the Jerusalem Greeks even to allow the Latins to officiate in the Tomb of the Virgin on their own altar in order to facilitate the minimal Tomb-Chapel compromise.21 On the other hand, the Turkish engineer, who was to determine how to repair the cupola under Greek supervision, had not arrived; but when he did, he would, as Ozerov had been forewarned, consult with a representative of each Patriarch, not just with Cyrill. And as for the firman, which would put the Latins in their place and secure the new status quo for the Greeks? Afif, upon questioning by Bazili, allegedly declared: ‘I have no [official] knowledge of the firman … I only have [official] knowledge of my instructions, and it is not prescribed there either to execute the firman or to authorize its reading.’22 The promised day of execution thus came and went, and the impasse still continued.
Mixed news concerning the non-execution and the instructions to the Turkish engineer kept St Petersburg in suspense. Ozerov’s mid-November dispatch had to be both disturbing and enticing to the Tsar. The Turks admitted to having promised the French not to read the firman. Fuad haughtily dismissed the complaints of Patriarch Cyrill with: ‘He is our raya; how dare he utilize an employee of a foreign mission!’ On the other hand, Mehmed Ali had allowed that the Porte had been forced by the French to act as it did; moreover: ‘to treat cheaply the solemn word of the Sultan given to a Sovereign who is our strongest and most generous ally … was a despicable act of treason’. Ozerov also admitted his own failure as well as his absolute lack of confidence in Fuad and his promises. At the same time la Valette reported his own frustration at the non-execution of what was promised him earlier by Aali, as well as Fuad’s admission that Ottoman good faith toward the Prince-President was on the line.23 Nevertheless, la Valette, and Ozerov to a lesser extent, were trying to cool local religious tempers; so each was working to control the situation and to effect the compromise solution that he felt was due.
The simultaneous rise of controlled Russian and French ire put the British mission in an excellent position to engage in fact-finding and unofficial action and to try to separate the Greeks from the Russians. Fuad told Rose that he foresaw the need for official British mediation, since Ozerov had said that Russia would accept a keys-cupola (cum status quo) exchange, but would otherwise break relations with Turkey. La Valette confided that France would, if necessary, accept such mediation, but first make a Very lively’ demonstration. Rose then told the Greek prelates that Louis Napoleon would accept British mediation.
To Rose, the Russian and French threats signified occupation of the Danubian Principalities (precisely what Russia eventually did) and an occupation of Jerusalem (precisely what France never dared). The prescient English charge also understood Turkey’s greater fears of Russia, as he saw the Tsar’s September 1851 letter and Russia’s view of the firman implying an inadmissible protectorate over the Sultan’s Orthodox subjects. To Ozerov, however, Rose’s unofficial intervention meant: ‘the Greeks were profoundly alarmed because they could see that the Porte will bend before the united action of two big embassies’24 – a convenient excuse for Russian failure.
Ozerov had an additional cause for complaint. The British legation sub rosa had prevented the selection by the Porte of Russia’s candidate to be Patriarch of Constantinople. The Tsar let this pass for the moment without comment, but from his later actions it is clear that foreign influence over the patriarchate, as well as Turkish Balkan policies, contributed to his escalation of the latest round of armed diplomacy that France had initiated. However, it would be Ozerov’s exaggerations regarding the Holy Places dispute that ignited the explosion.
NOTES
1.Oz. to Sen., 14/26 June 1852 (AVPR K 38).
2.Unckel: 57–62, and for Austro-Turkish relations, 1852–53.
3.Peter I, Manif., 3 March 1711; Mikhail Miloradovich., Manif., 16 April 1712, Catherine II, Procl., 20 Jan. 1769; Aus.-Mont. Conv., 1788; Tr. of Sistova, Art. I, 4 Aug. 1791; Paul I, Rescr., 11 Jan. 1799; Selim III, Firman, 1799 (Testa IX: 158, X: 297–302); ES 38.2: 620–2.
4.Oettenfels, Note, 13 Feb. 1833 (Testa IX: 202–5).
5.Nes. to Brw., 15/27 Jan. 1852 (TsGADA 111/115).
6.Schwarzenberg to Lbz., memo, 15 Feb., 4 April 1852; Three-Power Prot., May 1852; Labenski to Nes., 2/14 May 1852 (ZP 1.41, 45–7); Nes. to Brw., 5/17 Apr. 1852 (AVPR K 80); Martens XV: 255–6; Thomas: 114–18.
7.The main sources for Constantinople events, May–Nov. 1852, are the correspondence of Ozerov, Sabatier, and la Valette, AVPR K and GA-V2, and AMAE CP Turq., supplemented by Rose: CORR I, originals in PRO FO 78. Here, also Echard: 27–8.
8.Oz. to Sen., 16/28 June 1852 (AVPR K 38); Turgot to Wal., 1, 26 July 1852 (AMAE CP Angl. 686); Bapst: 258–61; cf. Temperley’s different interpretation based on Cowley’s reports: ENEC: 467.
9.Nes. to Brw., 12/24 July 1852 (AVPR K 80).
10.Temperley, using only British sources, was certain that Paris dispatched the Tripoli expedition to block the execution of the firmans as the Russians desired: ENEC: 293–4; cf Rose to Mlm., 10 Aug 1852 (PRO FO 78/893, not in CORR).
11.Sen. to Oz., 10/22 July 1852 (AVPR GA V-A2 522). Some of the money was to go toward buying two ‘harems’, which were next to the Holy Sepulchre and which the French and Austrians were also attempting to purchase.
12.Bapst: 243; on Russia’s Belgian policy in 1852, de Jonghe’s correspondence with Hoffschmidt, AMAE Big. CP Russ. I.
13.Porte to Afif by Aug. 1852 (AVPR GA V-A2 522).
14.Rose to Mlm. No. 55, 16 Aug. 1852 (PRO FO 78/893).
15.Cwl. to Mlm., 12 Sept. 1852 (CORR 1.62).
16.Rose to Mlm., 1 Oct. 1852 (CORR 1.71).
17.Oz. to Sen., 14/26 Sept., 4/16 Oct. 1852 (AVPR K 38).
18.Sources for this phase of the Balkan crisis include Ozerov’s correspondence in AVPR K and GA-V2 and Unckel.
19.Const, to Nich. I., 17/29 Sept., 1/13 Oct. 1852 (TsGAVMF 224/2/317); de Jonghe to Hoffschmidt., 7, 10 Sept., 23 Oct. 1852 (AMAE Big. Russ. I); Lav. to Drn. 25 Oct. 1852 (AMAE CP Turq. 310); Seym. to Mlm., 3 Oct. 1852 (CORR 1.69); Bohl: 9–10.
20.Cf. La Gorce HSE I: 97–9; Bapst: 276–7; Case, Edouard Thouvenel, p. 56.
21.Oz. to Nes., 14/26 Oct. 1852 (AVPR GA V-2 522) is better than Finn to Mlm., 27 Oct. 1852 (CORR 1.73).
22.Bazili to Oz., 7/19 Oct. 1852 (AVPR GA V-2 522); cf. PHQSL, whose slightly distorted account has entered scholarship: ‘Afif-Bey responded, that he had no knowledge of the firman – and that his instructions made no mention of it’ (ZP 1.88).
23.Oz. to Nes., 4/16 Nov. 1852 (AVPR GA V-A2. 522); Lav. to Drn., 14 Nov. 1852 (AMAE CP Turq. 310).
24.Rose to Mlm., 23 Nov. 1852 (CORR 1.76); Oz. to Nes., 15/27 Nov. 1852 (AVPR GA V-A2 522).