A History of Modern Europe, 1792-1878 Part 39

The Queen Regent, who from the necessities of her situation had for awhile been the representative of the popular cause, gradually identified herself with the interests opposed to democratic change; and although her name was still treated with some respect, and her policy was habitually attributed to the misleading advice of courtiers, her real position was well understood at Madrid, and her own resistance was known to be the princ.i.p.al obstacle to the restoration of the Const.i.tution of 1812. It was therefore determined to overcome this resistance by force; and on the 13th of August, 1836, a regiment of the garrison of Madrid, won over by the Exaltados, marched upon the palace of La Granja, invaded the Queen's apartments, and compelled her to sign an edict restoring the Const.i.tution of 1812 until the Cortes should establish that or some other. Scenes of riot and murder followed in the capital. Men of moderate opinions, alarmed at the approach of anarchy, prepared to unite with Don Carlos. King Louis Philippe, who had just consented to strengthen the French legion by the addition of some thousands of trained soldiers, now broke entirely from the Spanish connection, and dismissed his Ministers who refused to acquiesce in this change of policy. Meanwhile the Eastern Powers and all rational partisans of absolutism besought Don Carlos to give those a.s.surances which would satisfy the wavering ma.s.s among his opponents, and place him on the throne without the sacrifice of any right that was worth preserving. It seemed as if the opportunity was too clear to be misunderstood; but the obstinacy and narrowness of Don Carlos were proof against every call of fortune. Refusing to enter into any sort of engagement, he rendered it impossible for men to submit to him who were not willing to accept absolutism pure and simple. On the other hand, a majority of the Cortes, whose eyes were now opened to the dangers around them, accepted such modifications of the Const.i.tution of 1812 that political stability again appeared possible (June, 1837). The danger of a general transference of all moderate elements in the State to the side of Don Carlos was averted; and, although the Carlist armies took up the offensive, menaced the capital, and made incursions into every part of Spain, the darkest period of the war was now over; and when, after undertaking in person the march upon Madrid, Don Carlos swerved aside and ultimately fell back in confusion to the Ebro, the suppression of the rebellion became a certainty. General Espartero, with whom such distinction remained as was to be gathered in this miserable war, forced back the adversary step by step, and carried fire and sword into the Basque Provinces, employing a system of devastation which alone seemed capable of exhausting the endurance of the people. Reduced to the last extremity, the Carlist leaders turned their arms against one another. The priests excommunicated the generals, and the generals shot the priests; and finally, on the 14th September, after the surrender of almost all his troops to Espartero, Don Carlos crossed the French frontier, and the conflict which during six years had barbarised and disgraced the Spanish nation, reached its close.

[End of the Regency, Isabella, Queen, Nov., 1843.]

The triumph of Queen Christina over her rivals was not of long duration.

Confronted by a strong democratic party both in the Cortes and in the country, she endeavoured in vain to govern by the aid of Ministers of her own choice. Her popularity had vanished away. The scandals of her private life gave just offence to the nation, and fatally weakened her political authority. Forced by insurrection to bestow office on Espartero, as the chief of the Progressist party, she found that the concessions demanded by this general were more than she could grant, and in preference to submitting to them she resigned the Regency, and quitted Spain (Oct., 1840). Espartero, after some interval, was himself appointed Regent by the Cortes. For two years he maintained himself in power, then in his turn he fell before the combined attack of his political opponents and the extreme men of his own party, and pa.s.sed into exile. There remained in Spain no single person qualified to fill the vacant Regency, and in default of all other expedients the young princess Isabella, who was now in her fourteenth year, was declared of full age, and placed on the throne (Nov., 1843).

Christina returned to Madrid. After some rapid changes of Ministry, a more durable Government was formed from the Moderado party under General Narvaez; and in comparison with the period that had just ended, the first few years of the new reign were years of recovery and order.

[War between Mehemet Ali and the Porte, 1832.]

The withdrawal of Louis Philippe from his engagements after the capitulation of Maria Christina to the soldiery at La Granja in 1836 had diminished the confidence placed in the King by the British Ministry; but it had not destroyed the relations of friends.h.i.+p existing between the two Governments. Far more serious causes of difference arose out of the course of events in the East, and the extension of the power of Mehemet Ali, Viceroy of Egypt. The struggle between Mehemet and his sovereign, long foreseen, broke out in the year 1832. After the establishment of the h.e.l.lenic Kingdom, the island of Crete had been given to Mehemet in return for his services to the Ottoman cause by land and sea. This concession, however, was far from satisfying the ambition of the Viceroy, and a quarrel with Abdallah, Pasha of Acre, gave him the opportunity of throwing an army into Palestine without directly rebelling against his sovereign (Nov., 1831). Ibrahim, in command of his father's forces, laid siege to Acre; and had this fortress at once fallen, it would probably have been allowed by the Sultan to remain in its conqueror's hands as an addition to his own province, since the Turkish army was not ready for war, and it was no uncommon thing in the Ottoman Empire for one provincial governor to possess himself of territory at the expense of another. So obstinate, however, was the defence of Acre that time was given to the Porte to make preparations for war; and in the spring of 1832, after the issue of a proclamation declaring Mehemet and his son to be rebels, a Turkish army led by Hussein Pasha entered Syria.

[Ibrahim conquers Syria and Asia Minor.]

Ibrahim, while the siege of Acre was proceeding, had overrun the surrounding country. He was now in possession of all the interior of Palestine, and the tribes of Lebanon had joined him in the expectation of gaining relief from the burdens of Turkish misgovernment. The fall of Acre, while the relieving army was still near Antioch, enabled him to throw his full strength against his opponent in the valley of the Orontes. It was the intention of the Turkish general, whose forces, though superior in number, had not the European training of Ibrahim's regiments, to meet the a.s.sault of the Egyptians in an entrenched camp near Hama. The commander of the vanguard, however, pushed forward beyond this point, and when far in advance of the main body of the army was suddenly attacked by Ibrahim at Homs. Taken at a moment of complete disorder, the Turks were put to the rout. Their overthrow and flight so alarmed the general-in-chief that he determined to fall back upon Aleppo, leaving Antioch and all the valley of the Orontes to the enemy. Aleppo was reached, but the governor, won over by Ibrahim, closed the gates of the city against the famis.h.i.+ng army, and forced Hussein to continue his retreat to the mountains which form the barrier between Syria and Cilicia. Here, at the pa.s.s of Beilan, he was attacked by Ibrahim, outmanoeuvred, and forced to retreat with heavy loss (July 29). The pursuit was continued through the province of Cilicia.

Hussein's army, now completely demoralised, made its escape to the centre of Asia Minor; the Egyptian, after advancing as far as Mount Taurus and occupying the pa.s.ses in this range, took up his quarters in the conquered country in order to refresh his army and to await reinforcements. After two months' halt he renewed his march, crossed Mount Taurus and occupied Konieh, the capital of this district. Here the last and decisive blow was struck. A new Turkish army, led by Reschid Pasha, Ibrahim's colleague in the siege of Missolonghi, advanced from the north. Against his own advice, Reschid was compelled by orders from Constantinople to risk everything in an engagement. He attacked Ibrahim at Konieh on the 21st of December, and was completely defeated. Reschid himself was made a prisoner; his army dispersed; the last forces of the Sultan were exhausted, and the road to the Bosphorus lay open before the Egyptian invader.

[Russian aid offered to the Sultan.]

[Peace of Kutaya, April, 1833.]

In this extremity the Sultan looked around for help; nor were offers of a.s.sistance wanting. The Emperor Nicholas had since the Treaty of Adrianople a.s.sumed the part of the magnanimous friend; his belief was that the Ottoman Empire might by judicious management and without further conquest be brought into a state of habitual dependence upon Russia; and before the result of the battle of Konieh was known General Muravieff had arrived at Constantinople bringing the offer of Russian help both by land and sea, and tendering his own personal services in the restoration of peace. Mahmud had to some extent been won over by the Czar's politic forbearance in the execution of the Treaty of Adrianople. His hatred of Mehemet Ali was a consuming pa.s.sion; and in spite of the general conviction both of his people and of his advisers that no possible concession to a rebellious va.s.sal could be so fatal as the protection of the hereditary enemy of Islam, he was disposed to accept the Russian tender of a.s.sistance. As a preliminary, Muravieff was sent to Alexandria with permission to cede Acre to Mehemet Ali, if in return the Viceroy would make over his fleet to the Sultan. These were conditions on which no reasonable man could have expected that Mehemet would make peace; and the intention of the Russian Court probably was that Muravieff's mission should fail. The envoy soon returned to Constantinople announcing that his terms were rejected. Mahmud now requested that Russian s.h.i.+ps might be sent to the Bosphorus, and to the dismay of the French and English emba.s.sies a Russian squadron appeared before the capital. Admiral Roussin, the French amba.s.sador, addressed a protest to the Sultan and threatened to leave Constantinople. His remonstrances induced Mahmud to consent to some more serious negotiation being opened with Mehemet Ali. A French envoy was authorised to promise the Viceroy the governors.h.i.+p of Tripoli in Syria as well as Acre; his overtures, however, were not more acceptable than those of Muravieff, and Mehemet openly declared that if peace were not concluded on his own terms within six weeks, he should order Ibrahim, who had halted at Kutaya, to continue his march on the Bosphorus. Thoroughly alarmed at this threat, and believing that no Turkish force could keep Ibrahim out of the capital, Mahmud applied to Russia for more s.h.i.+ps and also for troops. Again Admiral Roussin urged upon the Sultan that if Syria could be reconquered only by Russian forces it was more than lost to the Porte. His arguments were supported by the Divan, and with such effect that a French diplomatist was sent to Ibrahim with power to negotiate for peace on any terms.

Preliminaries were signed at Kutaya under French mediation on the 10th of April, 1833, by which the Sultan made over to his va.s.sal not only the whole of Syria but the province of Adana which lies between Mount Taurus and the Mediterranean. After some delay these Preliminaries were ratified by Mahmud; and Ibrahim, after his dazzling success both in war and in diplomacy, commenced the evacuation of northern Anatolia.

[Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, July, 1833.]

For the moment it appeared that French influence had decisively prevailed at Constantinople, and that the troops of the Czar had been summoned from Sebastopol only to be dismissed with the ironical compliments of those who were most anxious to get rid of them. But this was not really the case.

Whether the fluctuations in the Sultan's policy had been due to mere fear and irresolution, or whether they had to some extent proceeded from the desire to play off one Power against another, it was to Russia, not France, that his final confidence was given. The soldiers of the Czar were encamped by the side of the Turks on the eastern sh.o.r.e of the Bosphorus; his s.h.i.+ps lay below Constantinople. Here on the 8th of July a Treaty was signed at the palace of Unkiar Skelessi, [401] in which Russia and Turkey entered into a defensive alliance of the most intimate character, each Power pledging itself to render a.s.sistance to the other, not only against the attack of an external enemy, but in every event where its peace and security might be endangered. Russia undertook, in cases where its support should be required, to provide whatever amount of troops the Sultan should consider necessary both by sea and land, the Porte being charged with no part of the expense beyond that of the provisioning of the troops. The duration of the Treaty was fixed in the first instance for eight years. A secret article, which, however, was soon afterwards published, declared that, in order to diminish the burdens of the Porte, the Czar would not demand the material help to which the Treaty ent.i.tled him; while, in subst.i.tution for such a.s.sistance, the Porte undertook, when Russia should be at war, to close the Dardanelles to the war-s.h.i.+ps of all nations.

[Effect of this Treaty.]

By the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, Russia came nearer than it has at any time before or since to that complete ascendency at Constantinople which has been the modern object of its policy. The success of its diplomatists had in fact been too great; for, if the abstract right of the Sultan to choose his own allies had not yet been disputed by Europe at large, the clause in the Treaty which related to the Dardanelles touched the interests of every Power which possessed a naval station in the Mediterranean. By the public law of Europe the Black Sea, which until the eighteenth century was encompa.s.sed entirely by the Sultan's territory, formed no part of the open waters of the world, but a Turkish lake to which access was given through the Dardanelles only at the pleasure of the Porte. When, in the eighteenth century, Russia gained a footing on the northern sh.o.r.e of the Euxine, this carried with it no right to send war-s.h.i.+ps through the straits into the Mediterranean, nor had any Power at war with Russia the right to send a fleet into the Black Sea otherwise than by the Sultan's consent. The Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, in making Turkey the ally of Russia against all its enemies, converted the entrance to the Black Sea into a Russian fortified post, from behind which Russia could freely send forth its s.h.i.+ps of war into the Mediterranean, while its own ports and a.r.s.enals remained secure against attack. England and France, which were the States whose interests were princ.i.p.ally affected, protested against the Treaty, and stated they reserved to themselves the right of taking such action in regard to it as occasion might demand. Nor did the opposition rest with the protests of diplomatists. The attention both of the English nation and of its Government was drawn far more than hitherto to the future of the Ottoman Empire. Political writers exposed with unwearied vigour, and not without exaggeration, the designs of the Court of St. Petersburg in Asia as well as in Europe; and to this time, rather than to any earlier period, belongs the first growth of that strong national antagonism to Russia which found its satisfaction in the Crimean War, and which has by no means lost its power at the present day.

[France and Mehemet Ali.]

In desiring to check the extension of Russia's influence in the Levant, Great Britain and France were at one. The lines of policy, however, followed by these two States were widely divergent. Great Britain sought to maintain the Sultan's power in its integrity; France became in an increasing degree the patron and the friend of Mehemet Ali. Since the expedition of Napoleon to Egypt in 1798, which was itself the execution of a design formed in the reign of Louis XVI., Egypt had largely retained its hold on the imagination of the leading cla.s.ses in France. Its monuments, its relics of a mighty past, touched a livelier chord among French men of letters and science than India has at any time found among ourselves; and although the hope of national conquest vanished with Napoleon's overthrow, Egypt continued to afford a field of enterprise to many a civil and military adventurer. Mehemet's army and navy were organised by French officers; he was surrounded by French agents and men of business; and after the conquest of Algiers had brought France on to the southern sh.o.r.e of the Mediterranean, the advantages of a close political relation with Egypt did not escape the notice of statesmen who saw in Gibraltar and Malta the most striking evidences of English maritime power. Moreover the personal fame of Mehemet strongly affected French opinion. His brilliant military reforms, his vigorous administration, and his specious achievements in finance created in the minds of those who were too far off to know the effects of his tyranny the belief that at the hands of this man the East might yet awaken to new life. Thus, from a real conviction of the superiority of Mehemet's rule over that of the House of Osman no less than from considerations of purely national policy, the French Government, without any public or official bond of union, gradually became the acknowledged supporters of the Egyptian conqueror, and connected his interests with their own.

[Rule of Mehemet and Ibrahim.]

Sultan Mahmud had ratified the Preliminaries of Kutaya with wrath in his heart; and from this time all his energies were bent upon the creation of a force which should wrest back the lost provinces and take revenge upon his rebellious va.s.sal. As eager as Mehemet himself to reconstruct his form of government upon the models of the West, though far less capable of impressing upon his work the stamp of a single guiding will, thwarted moreover by the jealous interference of Russia whenever his reforms seemed likely to produce any important result, he nevertheless succeeded in introducing something of European system and discipline into his army under the guidance of foreign soldiers, among whom was a man then little known, but destined long afterwards to fill Europe with his fame, the Prussian staff-officer Moltke. On the other side Mehemet and Ibrahim knew well that the peace was no more than an armed truce, and that what had been won by arms could only be maintained by constant readiness to meet attack. Under pressure of this military necessity, Ibrahim sacrificed whatever sources of strength were open to him in the hatred borne by his new subjects to the Turkish yoke, and in their hopes of relief from oppression under his own rule. Welcomed at first as a deliverer, he soon proved a heavier task-master than any who had gone before him. The conscription was rigorously enforced; taxation became more burdensome; the tribes who had enjoyed a wild independence in the mountains were disarmed and reduced to the level of their fellow-subjects. Thus the discontent which had so greatly facilitated the conquest of the border-provinces soon turned against the conqueror himself, and one uprising after another shook Ibrahim's hold upon Mount Lebanon and the Syrian desert. The Sultan watched each outbreak against his adversary with grim joy, impatient for the moment when the re-organisation of his own forces should enable him to re-enter the field and to strike an overwhelming blow.

[The commerce of the Levant.]

With all its characteristics of superior intelligence in the choice of means, the system of Mehemet All was in its end that of the genuine Oriental despot. His final object was to convert as many as possible of his subjects into soldiers, and to draw into his treasury the profits of the labour of all the rest. With this aim he gradually ousted from their rights of proprietors.h.i.+p the greater part of the land-owners of Egypt, and finally proclaimed the entire soil to be State-domain, appropriating at prices fixed by himself the whole of its produce. The natural commercial intercourse of his dominions gave place to a system of monopolies carried on by the Government itself. Rapidly as this system, which was introduced into the newly-conquered provinces, filled the coffers of Mehemet Ali, it offered to the Sultan, whose paramount authority was still acknowledged, the means of inflicting a deadly injury upon him by a series of commercial treaties with the European Powers, granting to western traders a free market throughout the Ottoman Empire. Resistance to such a measure would expose Mehemet to the hostility of the whole mercantile interest of Europe; submission to it would involve the loss of a great part of that revenue on which his military power depended. It was probably with this result in view, rather than from any more obvious motive, that in the year 1838 the Sultan concluded a new commercial Treaty with England, which was soon followed by similar agreements with other States.

[Campaign of Nissib, June, 1839.]

The import of the Sultan's commercial policy was not lost upon Mehemet, who had already determined to declare himself independent. He saw that war was inevitable, and bade Ibrahim collect his forces in the neighbourhood of Aleppo, while the generals of the Sultan ma.s.sed on the upper Euphrates the troops that had been successfully employed in subduing the wild tribes of Kurdistan. The storm was seen to be gathering, and the representatives of foreign Powers urged the Sultan, but in vain, to refrain from an enterprise which might shatter his empire. Mahmud was now a dying man. Exhausted by physical excess and by the stress and pa.s.sion of his long reign, he bore in his heart the same unquenchable hatreds as of old; and while a.s.suring the amba.s.sadors of his intention to maintain the peace, he despatched a letter to his commander-in-chief, without the knowledge of any single person, ordering him to commence hostilities. The Turkish army crossed the frontier on the 23rd of May, 1839. In the operations which followed, the advice and protests of Moltke and the other European officers at head-quarters were persistently disregarded. The Turks were outmanoeuvred and cut off from their communications, and on the 24th of June the onslaught of Ibrahim swept them from their position at Nissib in utter rout. The whole of their artillery and stores fell into the hands of the enemy: the army dispersed.

Mahmud did not live to hear of the catastrophe. Six days after the battle of Nissib was fought, and while the messenger who bore the news was still in Anatolia, he expired, leaving the throne to his son, Abdul Medjid, a youth of sixteen. Scarcely had the new Sultan been proclaimed when it became known that the Admiral, Achmet Fewzi, who had been instructed to attack the Syrian coast, had sailed into the port of Alexandria, and handed over the Turkish fleet to Mehemet Ali himself.

[Relations of the Powers to Mehemet.]

[Quadruple Treaty without France. July, 1840.]

The very suddenness of these disasters, which left the Ottoman Empire rulerless and without defence by land or sea, contributed ultimately to its preservation, inasmuch as it impelled the Powers to combined action, which, under less urgent pressure, would probably not have been attainable. On the announcement of the exorbitant conditions of peace demanded by Mehemet, the amba.s.sadors addressed a collective note to the Divan, requesting that no answer might be made until the Courts had arrived at some common resolution. Soon afterwards the French and English fleets appeared at the Dardanelles, nominally to protect Constantinople against the attack of the Viceroy, in reality to guard against any sudden movement on the part of Russia. This display of force was, however, not necessary, for the Czar, in spite of some expressions to the contrary, had already convinced himself that it was impossible to act upon the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi and to make the protectorate of Turkey the affair of Russia alone. The tone which had been taken by the English Government during the last preceding years proved that any attempt to exercise exclusive power at Constantinople would have been followed by war with Great Britain, in which most, if not all, of the European Powers would have stood on the side of the latter. Abandoning therefore the hope of attaining sole control, the Russian Government addressed itself to the task of widening as far as possible the existing divergence between England and France. Nor was this difficult. The Cabinet of the Tuileries desired to see Mehemet Ali issue with increased strength from the conflict, or even to establish his dynasty at Constantinople in place of the House of Osman. Lord Palmerston, always jealous and suspicious of Louis Philippe, refused to believe that the growth of Russian power could be checked by dividing the Ottoman Empire, or that any system of Eastern policy could be safely based on the personal qualities of a ruler now past his seventieth year. [402] He had moreover his own causes of discontent with Mehemet. The possibility of establis.h.i.+ng an overland route to India either by way of the Euphrates or of the Red Sea had lately been engaging the attention of the English Government, and Mehemet had not improved his position by raising obstacles to either line of pa.s.sage. It was partly in consequence of the hostility of Mehemet, who was now master of a great part of Arabia, and of his known devotion to French interests, that the port of Aden in the Red Sea was at this time occupied by England.

If, while Russia accepted the necessity of combined European action and drew nearer to its rival, France persisted in maintaining the claim of the Viceroy to extended dominion, the exclusion of France from the European concert was the only possible result. There was no doubt as to the att.i.tude of the remaining Powers. Metternich, whether from genuine pedantry, or in order to avoid the expression of those fears of Russia which really governed his Eastern policy, repeated his threadbare plat.i.tudes on the necessity of supporting legitimate dynasties against rebels, and spoke of the victor of Konieh and Nissib as if he had been a Spanish const.i.tutionalist or a recalcitrant German professor. The Court of Berlin followed in the same general course. In all Europe Mehemet Ali had not a single ally, with the exception of the Government of Louis Philippe. Under these circ.u.mstances it was of little avail to the Viceroy that his army stood on Turkish soil without a foe before it, and that the Sultan's fleet lay within his own harbour of Alexandria. The intrigues by which he hoped to s.n.a.t.c.h a hasty peace from the inexperience of the young Sultan failed, and he learnt in October that no arrangement which he might make with the Porte without the concurrence of the Powers would be recognised as valid. In the meantime Russia was suggesting to the English Government one project after another for joint military action with the object of driving Mehemet from Syria and restoring this province to the Porte; and at the beginning of the following year it was determined on Metternich's proposition that a Conference should forthwith be held in London for the settlement of Eastern affairs. The irreconcilable difference between the intentions of France and those of the other Powers at once became evident. France proposed that all Syria and Egypt should be given in hereditary dominion to Mehemet Ali, with no further obligation towards the Porte than the payment of a yearly tribute. The counter-proposal of England was that Mehemet, recognising the Sultan's authority, should have the hereditary government of Egypt alone, that he should entirely withdraw from all Northern Syria, and hold Palestine only as an ordinary governor appointed by the Porte for his lifetime. To this proposition all the Powers with the exception of France gave their a.s.sent. Continued negotiation only brought into stronger relief the obstinacy of Lord Palmerston, and proved the impossibility of attaining complete agreement. At length, when it had been discovered that the French Cabinet was attempting to conduct a separate mediation, the Four Powers, without going through the form of asking for French sanction, signed on the 15th of July a Treaty with the Sultan pledging themselves to enforce upon Mehemet Ali the terms arranged. The Sultan undertook in the first instance to offer Mehemet Egypt in perpetuity and southern Syria for his lifetime. If this offer was not accepted within ten days, Egypt alone was to be offered. If at the end of twenty days Mehemet still remained obstinate, that offer in its turn was to be withdrawn, and the Sultan and the Allies were to take such measures as the interests of the Ottoman Empire might require. [403]

[Warlike spirit in France, 1840.]

The publication of this Treaty, excluding France as it did from the concert of Europe, produced a storm of indignation at Paris. Thiers, who more than any man had by his writings stimulated the spirit of aggressive warfare among the French people and revived the wors.h.i.+p of Napoleon, was now at the head of the Government. His jealousy for the prestige of France, his comparative indifference to other matters when once the national honour appeared to be committed, his sanguine estimate of the power of his country, rendered him a peculiarly dangerous Minister at the existing crisis. It was not the wrongs or the danger of Mehemet Ali, but the slight offered to France, and the revived League of the Powers which had humbled it in 1814, that excited the pa.s.sion of the Minister and the nation. Syria was forgotten; the cry was for the recovery of the frontier of the Rhine, and for revenge for Waterloo. New regiments were enrolled, the fleet strengthened, and the long-delayed fortification of Paris begun. Thiers himself probably looked forward to a campaign in Italy, antic.i.p.ating that successfully conducted by Napoleon III. in 1859, rather than to an attack upon Prussia; but the general opinion both in France itself and in other states was that, if war should break out, an invasion of Germany was inevitable. The prospect of this invasion roused in a manner little expected the spirit of the German people. Even in the smaller states, and in the Rhenish provinces themselves, which for twenty years had shared the fortunes of France, and in which the introduction of Prussian rule in 1814 had been decidedly unpopular, a strong national movement carried everything before it; and the year 1840 added to the patriotic minstrelsy of Germany a war-song, written by a Rhenish citizen, not less famous than those of 1813 and 1870. [404] That there were revolutionary forces smouldering throughout Europe, from which France might in a general war have gained some a.s.sistance, the events of 1848 sufficiently proved; but to no single Government would a revolutionary war have been fraught with more imminent peril than to that of France itself, and to no one was this conviction more habitually present than to King Louis Philippe. Relying upon his influence within the Chamber of Deputies, itself a body representing the wealth and the caution rather than the hot spirit of France, the King refused to read at the opening of the session in October the speech drawn up for him by Thiers, and accepted the consequent resignation of the Ministry. Guizot, who was amba.s.sador in London, and an advocate for submission to the will of Europe, was called to office, and succeeded after long debate in gaining a vote of confidence from the Chamber. Though preparations for war continued, a policy of peace was now a.s.sured. Mehemet Ali was left to his fate; and the stubborn a.s.surance of Lord Palmerston, which had caused so much annoyance to the English Ministry itself, received a striking justification in the face of all Europe.

[Ibrahim expelled from Syria, Sept.-Nov., 1840.]

[Final settlement, Feb., 1841.]

[The Dardanelles.]

The operations of the Allies against Mehemet Ali had now begun. While Prussia kept guard on the Rhine, and Russia undertook to protect Constantinople against any forward movement of Ibrahim, an Anglo-Austrian naval squadron combined with a Turkish land-force in attacking the Syrian coast-towns. The mountain-tribes of the interior were again in revolt. Arms supplied to them by the Allies, and the insurrection soon spread over the greater part of Syria. Ibrahim prepared for an obstinate defence, but his dispositions were frustrated by the extension of the area of conflict, and he was unable to prevent the coast-towns from falling one after another into the hands of the Allies. On the capture of Acre by Sir Charles Napier he abandoned all hope of maintaining himself any longer in Syria, and made his way with the wreck of his army towards the Egyptian frontier. Napier had already arrived before Alexandria, and there executed a convention with the Viceroy, by which the latter, abandoning all claim upon his other provinces, and undertaking to restore the Turkish fleet, was a.s.sured of the hereditary possession of Egypt. The convention was one which the English admiral had no authority to conclude, but it contained substantially the terms which the Allies intended to enforce; and after Mehemet had made a formal act of submission to the Sultan, the hereditary government of Egypt was conferred upon himself and his family by a decree published by the Sultan and sanctioned by the Powers. This compromise had been proposed by the French Government after the expiry of the twenty days named in the Treaty of July, and immediately before the fall of M. Thiers, but Palmerston would not then listen to any demand made under open or implied threats of war. Since that time a new and pacific Ministry had come into office; it was no part of Palmerston's policy to keep alive the antagonism between England and France; and he readily accepted an arrangement which, while it saved France from witnessing the total destruction of an ally, left Egypt to a ruler who, whatever his faults, had certainly shown a greater capacity for government than any Oriental of that age. It remained for the Powers to place upon record some authoritative statement of the law recognised by Europe with regard to the Bosphorus and Dardanelles. Russia had already virtually consented to the abrogation of the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi. It now joined with all the other Powers, including France, in a declaration that the ancient rule of the Ottoman Empire which forbade the pa.s.sage of these straits to the war-s.h.i.+ps of all nations, except when the Porte itself should be at war, was accepted by Europe at large. Russia thus surrendered its chance of gaining by any separate arrangement with Turkey the permanent right of sending its fleets from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean, and so becoming a Mediterranean Power. On the other hand, Sebastopol and the a.r.s.enals of the Euxine remained safe against the attack of any maritime Power, unless Turkey itself should take up arms against the Czar. Having regard to the great superiority of England over Russia at sea, and to the accessibility and importance of the Euxine coast towns, it is an open question whether the removal of all international restrictions upon the pa.s.sage of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles would not be more to the advantage of England than of its rival. This opinion, however, had not been urged before the Crimean War, nor has it yet been accepted in our own country.

[Turkey after 1840.]

[Legislation of Reschid.]

The conclusion of the struggle of 1840 marked with great definiteness the real position which the Ottoman Empire was henceforth to occupy in its relations to the western world. Rescued by Europe at large from the alternatives of destruction at the hands of Ibrahim or complete va.s.salage under Russia, the Porte entered upon the condition nominally of an independent European State, really of a State existing under the protection of Europe, and responsible to Europe as well for its domestic government as for its alliances and for the conduct of its foreign policy. The necessity of conciliating the public opinion of the West was well understood by the Turkish statesman who had taken the leading part in the negotiations which freed the Porte from dependence upon Russia. Reschid Pasha, the younger, Foreign Minister at the accession of the new Sultan, had gained in an unusual degree the regard and the confidence of the European Ministers with whom, as a diplomatist, he had been brought into contact. As the author of a wide system of reforms, it was his ambition so to purify and renovate the internal administration of the Ottoman Empire that the contrasts which it presented to the civilised order of the West should gradually disappear, and that Turkey should become not only in name but in reality a member of the European world. Stimulated no doubt by the achievements of Mehemet Ali, and anxious to win over to the side of the Porte the interest which Mehemet's partial adoption of European methods and ideas had excited on his behalf, Reschid in his scheme of reform paid an ostentatious homage to the principles of western administration and law, proclaiming the security of person and property, prohibiting the irregular infliction of punishment, recognising the civil rights of Christians and Jews, and transferring the collection of taxes from the provincial governors to the officers of the central authority. The friends of the Ottoman State, less experienced then than now in the value of laws made in a society where there exists no power that can enforce them, and where the agents of government are themselves the most lawless of all the public enemies, hailed in Reschid's enlightened legislation the opening of a new epoch in the life of the Christian and Oriental races subject to the Sultan. But the fall of the Minister before a palace-intrigue soon proved on how slight a foundation these hopes were built. Like other Turkish reformers, Reschid had entered upon a hopeless task; and the name of the man who was once honoured as the regenerator of a great Empire is now almost forgotten.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Europe during the Thirty-years' Peace--Italy and Austria--Mazzini--The House of Savoy--Gioberti--Election of Pius IX.--Reforms expected-- Revolution at Palermo--Agitation in Northern Italy--Lombardy--State of the Austrian Empire--Growth of Hungarian National Spirit--The Magyars and Slavs--Transylvania--Parties among the Magyars--Kossuth--The Slavic National Movements in Austria--The Government enters on Reform in Hungary--Policy of the Opposition--The Rural System of Austria-- Insurrection in Galicia: the n.o.bles and the Peasants--Agrarian Edict--Public Opinion in Vienna--Prussia--Accession and Character of King Frederick William IV.--Convocation of the United Diet--Its Debates and Dissolution--France--The Spanish Marriages--Reform Movement--Socialism-- Revolution of February--End of the Orleanist Monarchy.

The characteristic of Continental history during the second quarter of this century is the sense of unrest. The long period of European peace which began in 1815 was not one of internal repose; the very absence of those engrossing and imperious interests which belong to a time of warfare gave freer play to the feelings of discontent and the vague longings for a better political order which remained behind after the convulsions of the revolutionary epoch and the military rule of Napoleon had pa.s.sed away.

During thirty years of peace the breach had been widening between those Governments which still represented the system of 1815, and the peoples over whom they ruled. Ideas of liberty, awakenings of national sense, were far more widely diffused in Europe than at the time of the revolutionary war. The seed then prematurely forced into an atmosphere of storm and reaction had borne its fruit: other growths, fertilised or accelerated by Western Liberalism, but not belonging to the same family, were springing up in unexpected strength, and in regions which had hitherto lain outside the movement of the modern world. New forces antagonistic to Government had come into being, penetrating an area unaffected by the const.i.tutional struggles of the Mediterranean States, or by the weaker political efforts of Germany. In the homes of the Magyar and the Slavic subjects of Austria, so torpid throughout the agitation of an earlier time, the pa.s.sion of nationality was every hour gaining new might. The older popular causes, vanquished for the moment by one reaction after another, had silently established a far stronger hold on men's minds. Working, some in exile and conspiracy, others through such form of political literature as the jealousy of Governments permitted, the leaders of the democratic movement upon the Continent created a power before which the established order at length succ.u.mbed. They had not created, nor was it possible under the circ.u.mstances that they should create, an order which was capable of taking its place.

[Italy. 1831-1848.]

Italy, rather than France, forms the central figure in any retrospect of Europe immediately before 1848 in which the larger forces at work are not obscured by those for the moment more prominent. The failure of the insurrection of 1831 had left Austria more visibly than before master over the Italian people even in those provinces in which Austria was not nominally sovereign. It had become clear that no effort after reform could be successful either in the Papal States or in the kingdom of Naples so long as Austria held Lombardy and Venice. The expulsion of the foreigner was therefore not merely the task of those who sought to give the Italian race its separate and independent national existence, it was the task of all who would extinguish oppression and misgovernment in any part of the Italian peninsula. Until the power of Austria was broken, it was vain to take up arms against the tyranny of the Duke of Modena or any other contemptible oppressor. Austria itself had twice taught this lesson; and if the restoration of Neapolitan despotism in 1821 could be justified by the disorderly character of the Government then suppressed, the circ.u.mstances attending the restoration of the Pope's authority in 1831 had extinguished Austria's claim to any sort of moral respect; for Metternich himself had united with the other European Courts in declaring the necessity for reforms in the Papal Government, and of these reforms, though a single earnest word from Austria would have enforced their execution, not one had been carried into effect. Gradually, but with increasing force as each unhappy year pa.s.sed by, the conviction gained weight among all men of serious thought that the problem to be faced was nothing less than the destruction of the Austrian yoke. Whether proclaimed as an article of faith or veiled in diplomatic reserve, this belief formed the common ground among men whose views on the immediate future of Italy differed in almost every other particular.

[Mazzini.]

Three main currents of opinion are to be traced in the ferment of ideas which preceded the Italian revolution of 1848. At a time not rich in intellectual or in moral power, the most striking figure among those who are justly honoured as the founders of Italian independence is perhaps that of Mazzini. Exiled during nearly the whole of his mature life, a conspirator in the eyes of all Governments, a dreamer in the eyes of the world, Mazzini was a prophet or an evangelist among those whom his influence led to devote themselves to the one cause of their country's regeneration. No firmer faith, no n.o.bler disinterestedness, ever animated the saint or the patriot; and if in Mazzini there was also something of the visionary and the fanatic, the force with which he grasped the two vital conditions of Italian revival--the expulsion of the foreigner and the establishment of a single national Government--proves him to have been a thinker of genuine political insight. Laying the foundation of his creed deep in the moral nature of man, and constructing upon this basis a fabric not of rights but of duties, he invested the political union with the immediateness, the sanct.i.ty, and the beauty of family life. With him, to live, to think, to hope, was to live, to think, to hope for Italy; and the Italy of his ideal was a Republic embracing every member of the race, purged of the priestcraft and the superst.i.tion which had degraded the man to the slave, indebted to itself alone for its independence, and consolidated by the reign of equal law. The rigidity with which Mazzini adhered to his own great project in its completeness, and his impatience with any bargaining away of national rights, excluded him from the work of those practical politicians and men of expedients who in 1859 effected with foreign aid the first step towards Italian union; but the influence of his teaching and his organisation in preparing his countrymen for independence was immense; and the dynasty which has rendered to United Italy services which Mazzini thought impossible, owes to this great Republican scarcely less than to its ablest friends.

[Hopes of Piedmont.]

Widely separated from the school of Mazzini in temper and intention was the group of politicians and military men, belonging mostly to Piedmont, who looked to the sovereign and the army of this State as the one hope of Italy in its struggle against foreign rule. The House of Savoy, though foreign in its origin, was, and had been for centuries, a really national dynasty. It was, moreover, by interest and traditional policy, the rival rather than the friend of Austria in Northern Italy. If the fear of revolution had at times brought the Court of Turin into close alliance with Vienna, the connection had but thinly veiled the lasting antagonism of two States which, as neighbours, had habitually sought expansion each at the other's cost. Lombardy, according to the expression of an older time, was the artichoke which the Kings of Piedmont were destined to devour leaf by leaf.

Austria, on the other hand, sought extension towards the Alps: it had in 1799 clearly shown its intention of excluding the House of Savoy altogether from the Italian mainland; and the remembrance of this epoch had led the restored dynasty in 1815 to resist the plans of Metternich for establis.h.i.+ng a league of all the princes of Italy under Austria's protection. The sovereign, moreover, who after the failure of the const.i.tutional movement of 1821 had mounted the throne surrounded by Austrian bayonets, was no longer alive. Charles Albert of Carignano, who had at that time played so ambiguous a part, and whom Metternich had subsequently endeavoured to exclude from the succession, was on the throne. He had made his peace with absolutism by fighting in Spain against the Cortes in 1823; and since his accession to the throne he had rigorously suppressed the agitation of Mazzini's partizans within his own dominions. But in spite of strong clerical and reactionary influences around him, he had lately shown an independence of spirit in his dealings with Austria which raised him in the estimation of his subjects; and it was believed that his opinions had been deeply affected by the predominance which the idea of national independence was now gaining over that of merely democratic change. If the earlier career of Charles Albert himself cast some doubt upon his personal sincerity, and much more upon his constancy of purpose, there was at least in Piedmont an army thoroughly national in its sentiment, and capable of taking the lead whenever the opportunity should arise for uniting Italy against the foreigner. In no other Italian State was there an effective military force, or one so little adulterated with foreign elements.