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 BRITISH FOREIGN 
 
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 POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
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 <A Rough Outline 
 
 BY 
 
 H. E. EGERTON, M.A. 
 iii 
 
 BEIT PROFESSOR OF COLONIAL HISTORY AND FELLOW OF 
 ALL SOULS' COLLEGE, OXFORD 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 
 ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 
 
 1917
 
 COPYK1GHT 
 
 OLASOOW : PRINTED AT THK UNIVERSITY p 
 
 BY ROBERT MACI.KHOSE AND CO. LTD,
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Ne sutor ultra crepidam is a wise maxim, to which 
 the progress of time gives increasing authority. It 
 may seem, then, to savour of presumption that one, 
 whose work has been mainly concerned with colonial 
 and imperial history, should embark upon the diffi- 
 cult waters of European politics. But, on the other 
 hand, it must be remembered that, up to the present 
 time, colonial and imperial history cannot be under- 
 stood without reference to the European system 
 from which it took its rise, just as a knowledge of 
 a particular limb is impossible without some study 
 of the body as a whole. 
 
 ' The only begetter ' of this volume was Mr. Philip 
 Kerr of The Round Table, who, in conversation, 
 suggested to me that there was room for a book 
 which, by dealing with British foreign policy apart 
 from a narrative of events, should endeavour, with- 
 out undue length, to put forward the views of past 
 British statesmen. Unfortunately Mr. Kerr has 
 been too busy for me to consult him during the pro- 
 gress of my work, so that I cannot say how far it 
 fulfils the idea that was in his mind. 
 
 The intelligent reader, who does me the honour 
 of reading this book to the end, will notice that the
 
 vi PREFACE 
 
 first two hundred years are dealt with much more 
 summarily than is the later period. 
 
 For the earlier period I have largely relied on 
 secondary authorities, together with such contem- 
 poraries as Mun, Thurloe's State Papers, Cromwell's 
 Speeches and Bishop Burnet. Coxe may have been 
 a dull man, but his Life of Sir E. Walpole is a very 
 useful book. Captain Basil Williams 's admirable 
 Life of Chatham has furnished me with several 
 quotations from that statesman. For the relations 
 of England and Holland I have made use of a 
 pamphlet with that title by Mr. E. Barker. 
 
 From the eve of the French Revolution I have 
 called in aid the actual words, written or spoken, of 
 the leading statesmen and diplomatists who were 
 responsible for British foreign policy. My main 
 authorities for the chapter on the period of the 
 French Revolution and Napoleon have been Pitt's 
 Speeches, Burke 's Works, Lord Malmesbury's Diaries, 
 The Dropmore Manuscripts, The Paget Papers and 
 Mr. J. Holland Rose's Select Despatches relating to the 
 3rd Coalition against France. Mr. Rose's volumes 
 on Pitt also contain much valuable material. For 
 the chapter on the Concert of Europe I have mainly 
 relied on the Castlereagh and Wellington Correspon- 
 dence and Despatches and on Canning's Speeches 
 and letters. I must also express my 'indebtedness to 
 Professor Alison Phillips 's suggestive Confederation 
 of Europe. 
 
 For Chapters VI., VII. and VIII. I have for the 
 most part drawn on the public dispatches, letters, 
 speeches, memoirs and biographies of the pro- 
 tagonists in the political arena and of distinguished
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 ambassadors. Fortunately English literature is 
 singularly rich in such material. 
 
 I have, however, derived much help from Sir John 
 Hall's England and the Orleans Monarchy, a work of 
 authority to which I may be allowed to pay my 
 humble tribute of respect ; and from the careful, as 
 well as brilliant, volume of Essays on Foreign 
 Politics, by Lord Salisbury, reprinted from the 
 Quarterly Review. To understand anything of Lord 
 Salisbury's own policy, when Foreign Secretary, it 
 is still necessary to consult the files of The Times 
 newspaper. Considering the position he occupied, 
 both in domestic and in international politics, it is 
 curious that no collection of Lord Salisbury's 
 speeches has been published since the two volumes 
 edited by the late Mr. Pulling, which came out as 
 long ago as 1885. 
 
 To one who, during this period of trial, considers 
 the kaleidoscope of past foreign politics, the para- 
 lysing doubt may occur, whether, possibly, the 
 present struggle might not, for some years at least, 
 have been averted ; in which case the whirligig of 
 time might have brought about a peaceful solution. 
 It would seem that in the case of a few intellectuals 
 such a belief 
 
 ' Slacks the tense nerves, saps the wound-up spring 
 Of the act that should and shall be.' 
 
 But, in fact, past history, considered in broad out- 
 line, points to no such inconclusive impasse. There 
 have been crises in British history when failure to 
 rise to the occasion would have meant the loss 
 of the whole future. Such were the times when
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 Philip II., Louis XIV. and Napoleon aimed at 
 world-supremacy ; and such, we may confidently 
 maintain, is the present time of trial, when to 
 scotch not kill the snake of Hohenzollern militarism 
 would mean the putting back of the clock of Euro- 
 pean and world progress for many a long day. 
 
 This subject, however, belongs to another book 
 and another author. There only remains to me the 
 pleasant duty of expressing my heartfelt thanks to 
 Mr. Ernest Barker, of New College, who has most 
 kindly read my proof sheets, and helped me with 
 most valuable suggestions. It is hardly necessary 
 to add that Mr. Barker is not responsible for any of 
 my opinions, nor for such faults of omission or 
 commission as may be found in the volume. 
 
 H. E. EGERTON. 
 OXFORD, May, 191 7. 

 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY - 1 
 
 II. RELIGION, TRADE AND PRIVATE GREED : 
 THEIR INFLUENCE UPON ENGLISH FOREIGN 
 POLICY. 1570-1688 31 
 
 III. THE RESISTANCE TO FRENCH WORLD- 
 
 SUPREMACY ; ANGLO-FRENCH RAPPROCHE- 
 MENTS. 1689-1789 43 
 
 IV. BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY DURING THE 
 
 FRENCH REVOLUTION AND THE EMPIRE. 
 1790-1814 94 
 
 V. THE CONCERT OF EUROPE. 1814-1830 - 136 
 
 VI. THE GROWTH OF NATIONALISM. THE 
 PECULIAR CHARACTER OF ANGLO-FRENCH 
 RELATIONS. 1830-1853 - 173 
 
 VII. THE GROWTH OF NATIONALISM. THE 
 PECULIAR CHARACTER OF ANGLO-FRENCH 
 RELATIONS (continued). 1854-1870 - 222
 
 x CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAG* 
 
 VIII. THE NEW EUROPE AND ITS PROBLEMS. 
 
 1871-1900 - 300 
 
 IX. BRITISH SEA- POWER IN ITS RELATION TO 
 
 OTHER NATIONS - - 363 
 
 INDEX 408
 
 But where shall wisdom be found ? and where is the place of 
 
 understanding ? 
 Man knoweth not the price thereof ; neither is it found in the 
 
 land of the living. 
 The depth saith, it is not in me : and the sea saith, it is not 
 
 with me. 
 It cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for 
 
 the price thereof. 
 
 Whence, then, cometh wisdom ? and where is the place of 
 
 understanding ? 
 Seeing it is hid from the eyes of aU living, and kept close from 
 
 the fowls of the air. 
 
 Destruction and death say, we have heard the fame thereof with 
 our ears. 
 
 God understandeth the way thereof, and he knoweth the place 
 
 thereof. 
 For he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the 
 
 whole heaven. 
 
 And unto man he said, Behold the fear of the Lord, that is 
 wisdom : and to depart from evil is understanding.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 IN the following pages the endeavour is made to tell 
 in brief outline, mainly out of the mouths of those 
 chiefly concerned, the story of English foreign policy, 
 so far as Europe is concerned. Questions affecting 
 America and the Far East are intentionally ignored, 
 partly because they are adequately dealt with in 
 numerous books, and partly because their inclusion 
 would have necessitated a complete alteration in 
 the scheme of the volume. For the purpose in 
 hand the use of quotations is necessary. What Tom, 
 Dick or Harry may think, in the cloistered seclusion 
 of a University town, matters very little to anyone 
 except the aforesaid Tom, Dick or Harry. But 
 what the actual parties to the conflict have said 
 and thought, amidst the heat and burden of the 
 day, matters a great deal. No attempt has been 
 made to call in aid unpublished material. The 
 amount of authority contained in the printed corre- 
 spondence and biographies of leading statesmen and 
 diplomats is so ample that, for present purposes, it 
 is unnecessary to look behind it. 
 
 This little volume is a modest attempt to answer 
 the practical question, how much of truth there is 
 
 E.F.P. A
 
 2 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 in the charge so often made by German publicists 
 and historians that the past history of British foreign 
 policy has been conspicuous for its display of perfidy 
 and unscrupulousness. The answer to this is to 
 marshal the evidence by which it can be shown 
 that, whilst British statesmen may often have been 
 mistaken and wrong-headed, the policy of the country, 
 on the whole, has been singularly honest and straight- 
 forward. 'The English,' said Napoleon III. in 1853, 
 ' are manly enemies and manly friends, and that is 
 more than I can say for others.' Again and again 
 one is reminded of the description by Henry James 
 of the English, as a very ' decent ' people. It is 
 of course possible to suggest, like the Satan of the 
 book of Job, that England's insular position and her 
 early appearance upon the world-stage have made 
 the path of honesty less difficult for her ; but with 
 regard to this we can only say that Omniscience is 
 required to adjust the scales where the respective 
 strength of temptation is to be taken into account. 
 The mere human intelligence can only judge the 
 tree by its fruit. 
 
 Before entering upon the confused darkness of 
 the individual trees, it may be well to make a brief 
 general survey of the contours of the forest. Con- 
 siderations of Trade from early times tended to 
 promote a national policy. Still, in a wider sense, 
 although Wolsey is regarded by some as the first 
 great English Foreign Minister, English foreign 
 policy, so far as it was national, may be said 
 to date from the reign of Elizabeth. Norman, 
 Angevin and Lancastrian kings in their continental 
 transactions were pursuing dynastic, not English,
 
 THE STUARTS AND CROMWELL 3 
 
 objects ; and the stimulus of a religious antinomy 
 was needed before English foreign policy could 
 become really national. Under Elizabeth, England 
 made the great venture ; and singed the beard of 
 the dreaded enemy. During her reign we have the 
 stimulating spectacle of governmental machinery 
 lagging behind the individual efforts of an un- 
 shackled people. 
 
 With the accession of James I. a new scene opens. 
 Spain is more seriously wounded than men at the 
 time recognised ; and in an age when economic 
 questions are coming to the fore, the economic 
 enmity of the Netherlands tends to modify firmly 
 held political beliefs. James I. substitutes for the 
 war a outrance against Spain and the Papacy an 
 anticipation of the doctrine of the balance of power. 
 But James, though no fool intellectually, seems to 
 have been wholly wanting in the moral and physical 
 courage which secure for intellect its due apprecia- 
 tion ; and amidst a warring and hostile Europe his 
 pregnant ideas fail to come to fruition. The foreign 
 policy of Charles I. need not detain us here. In the 
 first years of his reign, under the influence of the rash 
 Buckingham, it seemed to base itself on the model 
 of the great Elizabethans ; but at bottom it was 
 wholly dissimilar, as lacking in earnestness and con- 
 tinuity. During the last years of his reign Charles's 
 energies, such as they were, were engulfed in his 
 struggle with the Parliament. In his political beliefs 
 on questions of foreign policy Cromwell reverted to 
 the creed of Ralegh ; but the forces of the time 
 were too strong for him ; and, shocked and scan- 
 dalised, he had to look on, whilst the two champions
 
 4 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 of Protestantism fell at each other's throats. The 
 fantastic scheme of forming a federation between 
 the people of England and the people of the Nether- 
 lands proves how seriously the actual situation 
 shocked the consciences of serious men. None the 
 less, in the economic field, at any rate, the sword 
 was not sheathed ; and the Navigation Acts of the 
 Commonwealth and of Charles II. were a claim put 
 forward to the world at large of the economic 
 avrdpKeia (self-sufficiency) of the English Empire. 
 
 In his heart and in his intellect Charles II. had 
 no desire but to pursue the general policy of his 
 great predecessor, so far as it tended to imperial 
 efficiency and ascendency, but he was gravelled for 
 want of money ; and he found the line of least resist- 
 ance in accepting the bribes of Louis XIV. We 
 must freely admit that Charles cheated everyone, 
 himself perhaps most of all ; and that no words 
 can exaggerate the shamelessness of his behaviour. 
 But it would be unfair to tar the suspicious and 
 discontented English nation with the brush of 
 Charles's reputation ; and it must be remembered 
 that, what he gained by tortuous diplomacy, he 
 gained for himself, at the expense of the English 
 nation. James II. was more honest and more 
 stupid than his brother ; but he was involved in 
 the same French meshes. 1 
 
 1 Seeley in his Growth of British Policy maintains that the 
 foreign policy of the Stuarts was dictated by dynastic, as opposed 
 to national, considerations. But, though James I. had doubtless 
 always in view the interests of his son-in-law, he yet may have 
 groped, in a confused and halting way, after the principle of a 
 European balance of power. It was not, probably, because 
 he was half French and had lived abroad in exile, that Charles 
 II. became the creature of France, but because his one want
 
 PEACE OF UTRECHT 5 
 
 With the Revolution of 1688 English foreign 
 policy once more assumes a dignified and national 
 position. The question at issue in the war which 
 closed with the Peace of Utrecht was, whether 
 France should dominate Europe and the world. 
 Already it was recognised that, if France possessed 
 what is now Belgium, England would be at her 
 mercy. The victories of Marlborough put an end 
 to the pretensions of Louis in Europe ; but, inas- 
 much as the recuperative powers of France were 
 very great, and the war had only reached its first 
 stage in America, its eventual renewal was inevitable. 
 Much difference of opinion has existed with respect 
 to the adequacy of the terms obtained by Great 
 Britain at the Peace of Utrecht, but there seems 
 no foundation for the accusation, fathered by party 
 bitterness, that the signing of a separate peace was 
 a base betrayal of Dutch interests. The objects 
 of the Allies were accomplished, in so far as the 
 Spanish Netherlands were assigned to Austria and 
 not to Spain, now under a Bourbon dynasty. More- 
 over, the Barrier Treaty of 1715 recognised the 
 Dutch Sovereignty of the mouth of the Scheldt, 
 and gave to the Dutch the right to garrison a number 
 of barrier fortresses on the boundary between the 
 Austrian Netherlands and France. The fact, how- 
 ever, must be recognised that the Peace left France 
 and Spain united as they had never been in the 
 past. 
 
 was money, and money could be obtained more easily and in 
 more abundance from the French King than from other sources. 
 Moreover, Seeley does not always seem to recognise the force of 
 commercial rivalry in running athwart the natural channels of 
 English policy.
 
 6 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 But, though the renewal of war may have been 
 inevitable, it was none the less possible to postpone 
 the evil day ; and the honest attempt of Walpole 
 to secure an Anglo-French Entente, only foundered 
 on the indignation aroused in England by Spanish 
 doings in respect of trade in the South American 
 Seas, and the rapprochement brought about be- 
 tween the two Bourbon Monarchies. The Seven 
 Years' War finally gave to Great Britain the hege- 
 mony in America ; and it serves to emphasise the 
 eternal res duplex of history that the same terms 
 of peace which were condemned by Pitt as a 
 betrayal of British interests, were regarded by 
 French statesmen as so severe that they neces- 
 sitated a policy of revenge. Here again, as is 
 contended later, there seems no truth in the view 
 that the peace involved a betrayal of Frederick 
 the Great. 
 
 It is fortunately not necessary here to enter into 
 the melancholy story of blundering and mismanage- 
 ment that threatened to bring to an end the British 
 Empire. What, from our point of view, is note- 
 worthy is that, when Great Britain had to adapt 
 herself to the new state of things, the younger Pitt, 
 instead of following in the footsteps of his great 
 father, and holding France to be the inevitable 
 enemy, sought to revive the policy of Walpole 
 and to build up friendly relations between Great 
 Britain and France. The policy ended in failure, 
 through the crash of the French Revolution ; 
 but, when Pitt is blamed for going to war with 
 revolutionary France, it should be remembered 
 what a wrench a French war involved with his
 
 ENGLAND AND FRANCE 7 
 
 past policy. In truth Pitt occupied a middle 
 position between fanatics of the monarchical idea, 
 like Burke, who would have declared a Holy War, 
 on behaJf of sacred principles, and light-hearted 
 sentimentalists like Fox, who would endure any- 
 thing so long as it was the work of men pro- 
 fessing liberal principles. When France, under 
 whatever specious professions, practically annexed 
 Belgium and threatened to annex Holland, Pitt 
 recognised that it was time to interfere ; and a 
 new justification for his course was given when 
 Napoleon seized the helm, and developed his schemes 
 of world-dominion. 
 
 It is disappointing to find that so impartial and 
 wise a historian as Sorel considered that the one 
 object of Great Britain in the French War, which 
 began in 1793, was the attainment of commercial 
 and maritime supremacy. We may admit that, 
 as the horizon of the conflict widened, and British 
 statesmen recognised that they were confronted by 
 a Power which, on occasions, seemed to have behind 
 it the whole forces of Europe, they realised more 
 and more that only, by the fullest consolidation and 
 development of their ascendency at sea, could they 
 hope to oppose with any chance of success their 
 mighty enemy. But to admit this does not imply 
 that England entered into the war with a deliberate 
 intention of profiting by it. In this connection 
 there is consolation in the fact that Sorel seems to 
 have been mistaken in his view of Pitt. He con- 
 siders him as the inveterate enemy of France, and 
 ascribes his resignation in 1801 not to its true 
 cause, his opinions regarding Ireland, but to his
 
 8 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 unwillingness to enter into the negotiations for 
 peace that had become inevitable. 1 
 
 Pitt was by nature and inclination no War Minister. 
 He, however, reluctantly advised that England should 
 become a party to the war, in 1793, not from any 
 idea of world-supremacy, but because he honestly 
 believed that British interests were being sacrificed 
 by the action of France ; and because those interests 
 had received the guarantee of solemn treaties. It 
 is the stock argument of the controversialist to say 
 that what counts is the presence of selfish interests. 
 Without these, treaties would be to all men scraps 
 of paper. But, in answer to this, it must be re- 
 membered that the statesman is in the first place 
 the trustee of his own nation's interests ; and, as 
 such, would deserve punishment if he entered into 
 a treaty that was not to the interest of his own 
 country ; and next that, because a bargain is profit- 
 able, it does not follow that its enforcement may 
 not be itself a moral obligation. 
 
 Through the long twenty-two years' war, which 
 only closed after the victory of Waterloo, Great 
 Britain, alone of the allies, remained constant to 
 the cause of crushing Napoleon ; though even she 
 seemed, for a moment, to tire of the task when a 
 Ministry of Mediocrities signed the ineffectual Peace 
 of Amiens. The documents prove that, whilst 
 British statesmen showed more determination than 
 their European confreres in the time of stress and 
 strain, so also, in the hour of victory, they displayed 
 greater moderation, a more statesmanlike reasonable- 
 
 1 On Pitt's resignation see Diaries and Correspondence of the 
 1st Earl of Malmesbury, Ed. by the 3rd Earl, vol. iv. pp. 75-9.
 
 THE CONCERT OF EUROPE 9 
 
 ness, and a clearer recognition that a strong France 
 was necessary for the balance of power in Europe. 
 No one can rise from a perusal of the dispatches 
 of Castlereagh and of Wellington, during the time of 
 the new European settlement, but with feelings of 
 increased respect for these great men and for the 
 orderly society of which they were the natural 
 outcome. 
 
 It used to be supposed by some that Castlereagh 
 and Wellington truckled to the Holy Alliance ; and 
 that Canning did a glorious work in unloosing the 
 fetters of that odious system from the British body 
 politic. But we shall see that both Castlereagh and 
 Wellington recognised, from the first, the weak point 
 in the creed of the Tzar Alexander ; and, if they 
 held on as long as possible to the alliance with 
 Russia, Austria and Prussia, it was not because 
 they were reactionaries, but because, after their 
 experience of war, they knew the value of peace, 
 and believed can we say wrongly ? that in the 
 maintenance of the Concert of Europe and of the 
 settlement established in 1815 there lay the best 
 chance of its preservation. It would be idle to 
 deny that, in their opinions, Castlereagh and Well- 
 ington were much more out of sympathy with the 
 national aspirations that were beginning to come 
 to the fore, than were their successors, Canning 
 and Palmerston ; but in the actual conduct of 
 affairs the difference was not nearly so great as 
 might have been expected. Thus we find Pal- 
 merston, who above others might have been credited 
 with the desire to make sweeping changes, writing 
 to his brother in April, 1835 : ' The Duke has acted
 
 10 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 with great fairness and honour in his administration 
 of our foreign relations. . . . He made no arbitrary 
 changes in our system of policy. The truth, how- 
 ever, is that English interests continue the same, 
 let who will be in office ; and that upon leading 
 principles and great measures men of both sides, 
 when they come to act dispassionately and with 
 responsibility upon them, will be found acting very 
 much alike.' 1 And yet there was a difference in 
 the characters of public men which reacted upon 
 their methods of administration. Castlereagh and 
 Wellington were, apart from their abilities, typical 
 members of an aristocracy which took its own out- 
 standing position as a matter of course ; and was 
 content to be judged by its acts. The more showy 
 and exuberant nature of Canning necessitated mani- 
 festations of its own importance which sometimes 
 brought grandiloquence perilously near to the 
 ridiculous. Witness the famous dictum regarding 
 the Spanish American Colonies cited below. It was 
 maintained by Canning's biographer that he reduced 
 to a system the foreign policy of England ; that 
 system being to hold the balance ' not only between 
 contending nations, but between contending prin- 
 ciples ' ; 2 but, as the same authority affirms that 
 ' at the time when he assumed the direction of 
 our foreign affairs, Great Britain did not possess 
 that share of influence amongst the other Powers 
 of Europe to which she was so justly entitled by 
 
 1 Life of Lord Palmerston, by Sir H. Lytton Bulwer, vol. iii. 
 p. 6. 
 
 2 The Political Life of O. Canning, by A. G. Stapleton, vol. i. 
 p. 474.
 
 CANNING AND PALMERSTON 11 
 
 her rank and position,' x his opinion need not be 
 taken too seriously. It is true that Canning main- 
 tained that the next war in Europe would be a 
 war not so much of armies as of opinions ; that 
 it was therefore the duty of England to maintain 
 neutrality between conflicting principles, ' letting the 
 professors of violent and exaggerated doctrines on 
 both sides feel that it is not their interest to con- 
 vert an umpire into an adversary.' - But it was 
 not always easy to apply this excellent doctrine 
 to questions of practical politics. The prestige of 
 England, it cannot be too often insisted, depended 
 upon the blood and treasure she had poured forth 
 for the cause of Europe ; and not upon Parlia- 
 mentary eloquence, however fervid, or official dis- 
 patches, however deft ; and the little finger of 
 Wellington counted for more in the Councils of 
 Europe than the whole presence of Canning, with 
 his attendant figures of speech. 
 
 It is difficult to form a just estimate of Palmerston, 
 the Minister who, as Foreign Secretary or Premier, 
 directed the affairs of the country for most of the 
 years between 1830 and 1865. To some he remains 
 the embodiment of the great days of England when 
 all Europe quailed before the assertion of British 
 citizenship. Others are convinced, with Lord Gran- 
 ville, that he ' wasted the strength derived by 
 England from the great war by his brag.' 3 In the 
 negotiations connected with the subject of Mehemet 
 Ali he displayed remarkable courage and prescience ; 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 473. - Speeches of G. Canning, vol iii. p. 90. 
 
 3 Life of Lord Granville, by Lord E. Fitz Maurice, vol ii. 
 p. 63.
 
 12 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 unlike his colleagues, rating at their true value the 
 bluster of France and the ambitions of Mehemet 
 Ali. Still on occasions his restless and interfer- 
 ing diplomacy involved Great Britain in serious 
 risk of war. It would be unfair to characterise 
 the genial and jolly English country gentleman, 
 who in his old age was the idol of the English nation, 
 as a bully ; but in some of his proceedings he came 
 perilously near to deserving the title. Few who 
 have read will forget a scathing article by Lord 
 Salisbury, the burden of which was that the policy 
 of England, as understood by Palmerston and Lord 
 Russell, was to bluster and intimidate, in the case 
 of the weak ; and, in the case of the strong, to 
 bluster and then to run away. Palmerston more 
 than once fought, along with the Queen and the 
 Prince Consort, for naval and military estimates 
 more closely corresponding to Great Britain's 
 imperial obligations. Still, during most of the 
 years he was in power, those naval and military 
 resources were miserably inadequate in relation to 
 the commanding attitude assumed by Palmerston. 
 His uncivil treatment of the corps diplomatique was 
 a purely gratuitous addition to the country's diffi- 
 culties ; and, unlike Melbourne, Peel, and, at a 
 later date, Disraeli, he never learnt to accommodate 
 himself to the position of a subject, however pre- 
 eminent, who has to carry with him the approval of 
 his constitutional monarch. 1 With all his bonhomie 
 
 1 But note the verdict of Lord Clarendon : ' The Queen and 
 Prince are wrong in wishing that courtiers rather than ministers 
 should conduct the affairs of the country. . . . They labour 
 under the curious mistake that the F.O. is their particular 
 Department and that they have a right to control, if not to
 
 LOUIS PHILIPPE AND NAPOLEON III 13 
 
 and good humour the note of chivalrous respect 
 was wanting in Palmerston's character. So much 
 must be said because, in the following pages, the 
 keystone of British pob'cy will often be found 
 in the personality of this extraordinary, ordinary 
 man. 1 
 
 From 1830 onwards up to the debacle of Sedan 
 the clue to British policy will, for the most part, 
 be found in our relations with France. Different 
 as they were in every other way, Louis Philippe 
 and Napoleon III. were alike in this, that they 
 both had laid to heart the moral of Napoleon Bona- 
 parte's fall, and recognised that for France the path 
 of safety lay in friendly relations with England. 
 Oddly enough they were also alike in this, that 
 they both kicked against the pricks of their inner- 
 most conviction ; and both brought their country 
 to the verge of war with England. The story of 
 the Spanish marriages seems to us now a dingy 
 tale enough ; mainly interesting for the proof it 
 gave that the philosopher, turned practical poli- 
 tician, may outdo the latter in the shadiest side 
 of his work. Even though Louis Philippe was 
 really playing for safety and his object was the 
 obtaining of a generous army vote still, while in- 
 flammatory material is flying about, there is always 
 risk of a genuine fire ; and if Louis Philippe, as is 
 probable, always at heart adhered to an Anglo- 
 direct, the policy of England.' (Life and Letters of the 4th Earl 
 of Clarendon, by Sir H. Maxwell, vol. i. p. 341.) 
 
 1 ' Half -hornet, half -butterfly,' according to young Morier in 
 1848, indignant at the treatment by Palmereton of his father, 
 David Morier. (Memoirs and Letters of Sir R. Morier, vol. i. 
 p. 62.)
 
 14 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 French entente, he assuredly succeeded very effec- 
 tually in dissembling his preference. Yet more 
 emphatically do these words apply to Louis Napoleon. 
 Reasons are given elsewhere for the belief that he 
 remained throughout his reign at heart loyal to 
 the British connexion ; but it must be remem- 
 bered that, against this, there was always a cross 
 current making in the opposite direction. As time 
 went on Great Britain, as represented by men like 
 Palmerston and Lord John Russell, was more and 
 more carried away by the national movement 
 throughout Europe ; and, even in the so-called 
 benighted days of crude Toryism, it had not been 
 possible altogether to resist the claims of Greece. 
 Still, upon the whole, it remained true that Great 
 Britain stood for the maintenance of the existing 
 settlement of Europe, and was prepared to throw 
 her weight into the scale against any disturber of 
 that settlement. The words of Bismarck remain 
 always troe. ' It is only by European treaties that 
 European law is established.' Nor need we subscribe 
 to the cynical addendum : ' If, however, you want 
 to apply the standard of morality and justice to 
 the latter, they must, well-nigh all, be abolished.' l 
 To Napoleon III., on the other hand, the settle- 
 ment of 1815 was associated with the failure and 
 disgrace of his uncle and of France ; and one of 
 his most cherished aspirations was the holding of 
 another European Congress that should efface for 
 ever the landmarks of the old system. An estimate 
 of Louis Napoleon's character will be attempted 
 
 1 Bismarck the Man and the Statesman, Reflections and Reminis- 
 cenced of (English Trans.), vol. ii. p. 7.
 
 THE BELGIAN QUESTION 15 
 
 on a later page ; but, inasmuch as the intuitions of 
 the poet often transcend the philosophy of the 
 historian, it is disappointing to find so little light 
 and leading, for our present purposes, in Browning's 
 suggestive poem ' Prince Hohenstiel Schwangau.' 
 
 So far as Great Britain was concerned, in the 
 Europe of 1830 and in the Europe of 1852, as in 
 the Europe of 1914, the main danger spot was 
 Belgium. In 1830 the attempt to form a single 
 strong kingdom of the Netherlands ended in failure ; 
 though recent events have taught us that the 
 attempt in itself was by no means unwise ; and 
 it is far from clear that more enlightened methods 
 of carrying the Union into effect might not have 
 met with very different results. Be this as it may, 
 the separation of Belgium from Holland having 
 become inevitable, and the system of frontier for- 
 tresses having broken down, the question arose, in 
 what manner could the ends aimed at by the previous 
 settlement be equally secured ? The answer lay in 
 the treaty of 1839, guaranteeing the integrity of 
 Belgium, to which the great European Powers 
 became parties. There was one possible danger 
 against which a treaty, guaranteeing a Belgium 
 desirous to remain independent, was no protection. 
 What would have happened had the great majority 
 of the Belgian people preferred to become French 
 subjects ? Count Vitzhum wrote in June, 1860 : 
 ' The annexation of Belgium is unquestionably on 
 the tapis in Paris. Numerous agents are working 
 the clergy, the nobility and, above all, the working 
 classes and boast of exaggerated success. Napoleon 
 is said to have lately thrown out the remark that
 
 16 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 if the Belgians are bent on becoming Frenchmen, 
 he could not help it. ..." We shall live to see 
 great things in the next few weeks, and those in 
 Belgium," Lord Derby whispered to me to-day, 
 and shrugged his shoulders when I asked him what 
 England would do.' J 
 
 If Vitzhum is to be trusted, British statesmen, 
 before this danger, showed some tendency to accept 
 the inevitable. ' Lord Wodehouse ' (it is true that 
 he was only an under-secretary), ' in answer to the 
 same question, said yesterday to one of my colleagues 
 that England would look on. If the Belgians were 
 determined to be annexed, who could prevent it ? 
 It was no use reckoning on Germany. Austria 
 would leave Prussia in the lurch on the Rhine, just 
 as Prussia left Austria in the lurch in Italy. Prussia, 
 even in alliance with Germany, could not go to war 
 with France. The Bund existed only in name. 
 The best thing, therefore, would be for the readjust- 
 ment of frontier desired by France to be effected 
 without war.' 2 
 
 Fortunately, there seems to have been no little 
 exaggeration in the view that the Belgians might 
 wish to throw in their lot with France ; and the 
 question has always been able to be approached 
 without the added difficulty which would have 
 arisen, had Belgian national ideals collided with 
 the measures necessary for the safety of Great 
 Britain. As hard cases make bad law, so, in the 
 field of politics, the contemplation of hard cases is 
 mischievous, as tending to suggest the alternatives 
 of complete inaction or of undue interference. 
 
 1 St. Petersburg and London, vol. ii. p. 83. Ibid.
 
 A NEW EUROPE 17 
 
 The story of the Crimean War points the obvious 
 moral that the first thing indispensable is to know 
 one's own mind ; and that a policy of drift is not 
 likely to be very fruitful. In fact the effect of the 
 Crimean War was like that of not very antiseptic stick- 
 ing plaster applied to a wound. It proved a palliative 
 not a permanent remedy for the Eastern question. 
 
 The subject of Italian unity gives British states- 
 men the opportunity of showing their generous 
 sympathies, without endangering national interests ; 
 but in the Polish and Danish questions we note 
 how perilous is the use of strong words, unless there 
 is force behind, and the intention to use that force. 
 Whatever our views with regard to the original 
 Schleswig-Holstein question, we must all be agreed 
 that Great Britain cut a singularly sorry figure in 
 the subsequent proceedings. 
 
 On all these questions, the Crimea, Italian Unity, 
 Poland and Schleswig-Holstein, we had acted in co- 
 operation, actual, possible or intended, with France ; 
 but the war of 1870 was to bring upon the scene 
 a new Europe, wherein a new claimant for supremacy 
 would upset the balance of the past. For England 
 the issue of the war was especially unfortunate, 
 because both parties, most unfairly, accused her 
 of not having shown proper neutrality ; their only 
 point of union being a common grievance against 
 Great Britain. It is probable that Bismarck was 
 not altogether fooling him, when he expressed to 
 Mr. Odo Russell his sense of the importance of 
 friendly feelings between Germany and England. 
 But he had his own game to play which involved 
 embittering, as far as possible, relations between 
 
 E.F.P. B
 
 18 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 England and the rest of Europe. When France, 
 not unnaturally, sought some compensation for 
 European disaster in the increase and the develop- 
 ment of her Colonial Empire, Bismarck's game seemed 
 permanently successful ; as, what with hostile 
 interests in Egypt and elsewhere, there seemed no 
 point in world-politics where the interests of the 
 two countries did not meet and conflict. Not till 
 the memorable settlement of 1904, which is outside 
 the range of this volume, did this unhappy state 
 of things come to an end. 
 
 It must not, however, be thought that, at any 
 moment of time, the feeling of Great Britain was 
 otherwise than friendly to France. The great 
 majority of the British people had started, when 
 the Franco-German war began, with more or less 
 strong German sympathies ; but, as the war went 
 on, had, more and more, shifted to the other side. 
 In 1874, and again in 1875, it appears probable l that 
 Bismarck, alarmed by the rapidity with which 
 France had recovered, contemplated a further knock- 
 out blow. In 1874 a private appeal from the Queen 
 to the German Emperor was for the moment success- 
 ful ; but the danger recurred in a more threatening 
 form in the following year, when the Russian Tzar 
 and the Queen of England both exerted themselves 
 on behalf of peace. 
 
 Unhappily, on this point alone were the British 
 and Russian Governments agreed. The Eastern 
 
 1 It should in fairness be noted that Bismarck always stoutly 
 repudiated any such intention (see Bismarck, op. tit. vol. 
 ii. pp. 189-93) ; on the general question see Memoirs of Sir It. 
 Morier, vol. ii. pp. 323-55 ; Lord Lyons, by Lord Newton (Pop. 
 Ed. in one volume), pp. 328-42.
 
 THE EASTERN QUESTION 19 
 
 question was again coming to the fore, reviving the 
 old differences between England and Russia. In 
 1876 a revolt against Turkish misrule broke out 
 in Bosnia and Herzegovina ; and a rising in Bul- 
 garia was suppressed by ruthless methods. The 
 French and German Consuls at Salonica were 
 murdered by the Turkish mob ; and the general 
 unrest spread to Servia and Montenegro. Under 
 the Berlin memorandum the three Imperial Courts 
 agreed upon certain reforms to be imposed upon 
 the Turkish Government under European super- 
 vision. France and Italy adhered to this instru- 
 ment ; but Great Britain, through distrust of 
 Russian methods, refused her consent ; and thus 
 Turkey was encouraged to defy the will of Europe. 
 It is noteworthy that Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, 
 in his extreme old age, expressed his conviction 
 that ' if in the beginning England had taken her 
 place at the side of the three Emperors, the cloud 
 on the horizon would never have swelled into its 
 present colossal proportions. " It seems to me," 
 he said, "that Russia has been gradually drawn 
 into a position from which she can hardly retreat 
 with credit." ' * 
 
 Be this as it may, henceforth the opposed charac- 
 ters of the two great leaders, Gladstone and Disraeli, 
 dominated the stage and decided British policy. 
 Disraeli revolted large portions of his fellow country- 
 men by his apparent indifference to horrible wrong- 
 doing. Gladstone, 2 who seemed to forget that he 
 
 1 Life of Gladstone, by J. Morley, vol. ii. p. 163. 
 
 2 Note Sir R. Morier's general verdict of his intellectual putting 
 together. I have come to it under this similitude, that his
 
 20 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 had been a leading member of successive Ministries 
 under whom the Turkish Government had become 
 what it was, approached the question from its 
 immediate moral aspect, and seemed wholly care- 
 less of all the considerations that had hitherto 
 decided British policy. Each statesman brought out 
 and rendered more dangerous the faults of the 
 other. As the tone of Disraeli grew more and 
 more cynical, Gladstone seemed more and more to 
 claim to possess the latch-key of the Council Chamber 
 of the Almighty, and to be the bearer of His message. 
 Whether or not there was a room for a third policy, 
 which, while honestly working in favour of the 
 Christian population of Turkey, should not have 
 shown itself willing to give a blank cheque to 
 Russian ambitions, must remain an open question. 
 When the war had run its course and Turkey had 
 been beaten to her knees, Lord Beaconsfield assuredly 
 had the letter of the law on his side, in demanding 
 that the Treaty of San Stefano should not be signed 
 between Russia and Turkey, behind the back of 
 Europe. Russia at first was inclined to demur ; 
 and there was needed the threat of war to induce 
 her to accept the Congress which substituted a 
 new treaty for that of San Stefano. The course 
 of history has been so sharply altered by German 
 ambitions that it is a little difficult to realise that 
 
 mind resembles the fasces of a Roman lictor, a bundle of sticks 
 (each of them fit to beat a dog with !) with no organic vegetable 
 life binding them together, and made up promiscuously of every 
 kind of timber strong ash, oak saplings, and also rotten reeds 
 and in the middle a great axe with which he can at any moment 
 hew to pieces any opponent who personally attacks him.' 
 (Memoirs of Sir R. Morier, vol. ii. p. 302.)
 
 THE EASTERN QUESTION 21 
 
 some forty years ago it seemed worth while to 
 risk war rather than that Bulgaria should contain 
 a certain area. But, if the Treaty of San Stefano 
 left a huge Bulgaria as a virtual annexe of Russia, 
 and the Treaty of Berlin brought about, hi the 
 words of Bismarck, that Turkey in Europe once 
 more existed, then, from the traditional British point 
 of view, the attitude of the British Government 
 may be justified. Who could, then, have thought 
 that the assignment of the protection of Bosnia and 
 Herzegovina to Austria would become a boomerang 
 to British statesmen ; or that a German-led Austria 
 would prove to be the true danger in the Balkan 
 States ? At this time of day the Convention, under 
 which Great Britain entered into a defensive alliance 
 with Turkey, to guard her against a further attack 
 from Russia, seems futile enough ; but statesmen 
 are not to be condemned because they only see 
 what is immediately before them. 
 
 Moreover, another side of the question did not 
 perhaps receive the consideration which it deserved. 
 Morier was by no means alone hi holding that, 
 under certain eventualities, the presence of the 
 Russians at Constantinople might not be an un- 
 mixed calamity for British interests. Whilst Great 
 Britain possessed sea-power in the Mediterranean 
 and had control of Egypt and the road to India, 
 such presence might afford a valuable pledge, from 
 the British standpoint, in the case of Russian aggres- 
 sions in the Far East. 
 
 Lord Beaconsfield was received with acclamations 
 when he returned from the Berlin Congress, bringing 
 ' peace with honour.' But shrewd observers might
 
 22 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 have noted that not a little of his past sayings and 
 doings had shocked the consciences of the British 
 middle and working classes ; which, under demo- 
 cracy, cannot be done with impunity. Speaking 
 generally, the classes were on the side of the Govern- 
 ment, the masses were with Gladstone ; not because 
 they were necessarily more moral, but because 
 they acted more under the immediate moral impulse. 
 The result was disaster to the Conservative adminis- 
 tration and the return to power of the Gladstone 
 Ministry. In the matter of Egypt and of Gordon, 
 with which we are not here concerned, and again 
 in his narrow escape from plunging into war with 
 Russia over the Pendjeh incident, Gladstone was 
 to show that something more is required for the 
 carrying through of a wise foreign policy than a 
 general faith in the necessity of righteousness and 
 a settled conviction that the cause of righteousness 
 is identical with one's own line of conduct. Glad- 
 stone began his period of office by penning an apology 
 to Austria for his description of her ; l and in October. 
 1880, Granville ruefully confessed: 'The Concert 
 of Europe is gone to the devil.' 2 Still Lord Odo 
 Russell could claim with regard to Greece ' that the 
 cession of a beautiful province like Thessaly by one 
 country to the other without bloodshed . . . does 
 the greatest honour to the concerted diplomacy of 
 Europe, inaugurated and led by Her Majesty's 
 Government with so much ability, tact and patience.' 3 
 Lord Odo Russell (who became Lord Ampthill in 
 1 880) was a very able man, but he did not perhaps 
 
 1 Fitz Maurice, op. cit. vol ii. p. 206. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 223. 3 Ibid. p. 231.
 
 ENGLAND AND GERMANY 23 
 
 fully grasp Bismarck's policy of setting France and 
 England by the ears. No doubt Bismarck would 
 have gladly accepted Great Britain as an ally, 
 had she been willing to pay the price of agreeing 
 to preserve Alsace-Lorraine to Germany. In 1879 
 Lord Salisbury had welcomed the defensive alliance 
 between Germany and Austria as ' glad tidings of 
 great joy ' ; but no British statesman was willing 
 to become the possible cat spa w of Bismarck ; and 
 in this state of things, in his anxiety regarding ' a 
 Russo-alliance and an invasion of Germany from 
 the north and from the west, which, if it did not 
 break up the German Empire, would certainly ruin 
 Germany for years to come,' l Bismarck found 
 himself driven to measures which, indirectly, were 
 hostile to England. It may have been their mis- 
 fortune rather than their fault, but assuredly the 
 record of the Liberal Government's foreign policy 
 during the years 1880-1885 was not a brilliant one. 
 
 Nor were their Conservative successors more 
 fortunate. It may be that a kind of entente with 
 Germany, secured by conciliatory behaviour regard- 
 ing Heligoland and East Africa obtained for England 
 a half-contemptuous toleration of her informal 
 protectorate of Egypt ; but, in truth, the European 
 position of Great Britain was one of isolation, 
 ; splendid ' or otherwise ; and in the grouping of 
 the Powers which was taking place, such isolation 
 portended grave dangers. 
 
 Moreover, it must be confessed that there were at 
 this time signs of a slackening of the resolution of 
 Great Britain to support Belgian neutrality. In 
 
 ^Ibid. p. 212.
 
 24 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 1887 Sir Charles Dilke contributed a remarkable 
 series of articles on the European situation to the 
 Fortnightly Review. In the first of these he put 
 forward the question, whether or not, in the event 
 of a violation of Belgian neutrality by Germany in 
 a war between France and Germany, England would 
 come to the aid of Belgium. In fairness we must 
 remember the special circumstances of the time. 
 To ninety-nine out of every hundred Englishmen 
 Russia seemed to be the natural enemy ; and even 
 so level-headed an observer as Sir C. Dilke believed 
 that, sooner or later, a war between England and 
 Russia was inevitable. Meanwhile, in Madagascar, 
 in the New Hebrides, in Egypt and in Newfoundland, 
 causes of friction had been, or were, at work, and 
 any moment the rash behaviour of some French 
 official might have succeeded in precipitating war. 
 On the other hand, though Bismarck might affect 
 a policy of pinpricks where liberal England was 
 concerned, it is probable that, throughout his 
 political life he considered war between England 
 and Germany to be unthinkable ; nor at this time 
 had the tendencies come to the fore, which were to 
 make England a stone of stumbling to Germany in 
 its road to world-supremacy. 
 
 In this state of things, when Sir C. Dilke's question 
 was asked, though there was, naturally, no reply 
 from official sources, the unofficial answer was in 
 the highest degree unsatisfactory. 
 
 ' In January last,' wrote Sir C. Dilke, ' there was 
 the gravest doubt in my mind as to what would be 
 the response that the questions asked by me with 
 regard to Belgium would produce ; I did not know
 
 25 
 
 whether or not England meant to fight for Belgium, 
 but I did feel certain that England ought to know 
 her mind upon the point, and I thought it right 
 that marked attention should be directed to a 
 matter so important. A great discussion followed, 
 but that discussion has been all one way, and my 
 questions of last January now read like some of the 
 speculations of ancient history. The principal party 
 organ of the Conservatives of England has declared 
 that our intervention in support of Belgium, which 
 up to last year was assumed as a matter of course 
 by both parties in the state, " would be not only 
 insane but impossible." It has been suggested 
 by " Diplomaticus " and the Standard that we are 
 to allow Belgium to be temporarily utilised " as a 
 right of way," and the National Review has endorsed 
 the suggestion of " Diplomaticus," and told us that 
 " it might be possible to obtain a guarantee that the 
 territory of Belgium, if traversed for railway pur- 
 poses, should not be permanently violated, and that, 
 at the end of the struggle, the neutrality and indepen- 
 dence of that country should be religiously respected." 
 It is hardly necessary to argue seriously upon the 
 religious respect which the neutrality of Belgium 
 would receive after the non-permanent violation. 
 My belief remains as strong as when I wrote in 
 January and February last that, when once the 
 neutrality is violated, the independence of Belgium 
 is gone. It is the Belgians, who, when Germany 
 and France fall out, if the struggle is a long or 
 doubtful one, will have to pay the piper. The 
 erection of Belgian fortresses on the Meuse, and the 
 proposed adoption of personal service . . . has
 
 26 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 caused a great accumulation of books and papers 
 upon my table, but I put them aside into their 
 drawer with the feeling that a question which was 
 worth arguing at length six months ago has now 
 been solved in England.' He then goes on to discuss 
 the measures proposed to be taken by the Belgians 
 for their own defence, and adds : ' They will be 
 safer in their own hands than the outcome of the 
 recent discussion shows them to have been in ours. 
 The Morning Post, in writing upon this question, 
 has used these words : "... It is not likely that 
 we should allow treaties to be violated with impunity 
 without a protest. People may remark that pro- 
 tests are a very poor sort of compensation. But it 
 will be far more natural and far more dignified for 
 us to protest against a violation of Belgian territory 
 than to look complacently on while such Powers 
 as France and Germany march their armies across 
 Belgium ; satisfying ourselves with the assurance 
 that at the close of the conflict the territory of 
 Belgium shall remain intact as before." " Diploma- 
 ticus " and the Standard would have us to come to 
 an understanding to give the right of way, while 
 the Morning Post would have us protest against 
 its use. I do not myself think the Belgians, who 
 are after all the people most concerned, would see 
 much difference. 
 
 ' The response to my first chapter has been virtually 
 unanimous, and it is clear that my question, whether 
 we intend to fight for Belgium according to our 
 treaty obligations, or to throw treaty obligations 
 to the wind, under some convenient pretext, is 
 already answered. On the other hand, it is now
 
 ENGLAND AND BELGIUM 27 
 
 plain that Belgium desires, although still in a 
 rather tepid way, to preserve her neutrality, and 
 through it her independence. She is gradually 
 learning the lesson that she will have to preserve 
 it by the power to give hard knocks. Unfortunately 
 we have misled Belgium for many years. The 
 highest modern strategic opinion upon the existing 
 system of defences in Belgium, written only in 1884, 
 runs as follows : " All has been sacrificed to the 
 intention to afford a landing-place to the army of 
 succour to be furnished by a great naval power. It 
 is England that is meant, for the neutrality and 
 independence of Belgium have no more firm defender 
 than Great Britain." This was written three years 
 ago when a Liberal Government was in power ; 
 but it could not be repeated now, although we are 
 under the rule of the party which is supposed to be 
 the more inclined to interfere abroad. Treaties, no 
 doubt, die out in time. The treaty of 1839 with 
 regard to Belgium is after all much older than the 
 treaty of the 21st November, 1855, with regard 
 to Sweden. France and England would now think 
 it an insane idea that they should attempt to pre- 
 serve the integrity of Sweden against Russia, and 
 similarly to all appearance, thinks England with 
 regard to Belgium now.' x 
 
 I have quoted Sir C. Dilke's words, because they 
 represent the contemporary view of a singularly 
 level-headed observer. At the same time it is 
 manifest that he was wrong in interpreting a passing 
 
 1 The Present Position of European Politics, pp. 321-4. For text 
 of treaty respecting Sweden, see Hertslett, The Map of Europe 
 by Treaty, vol. ii. p. 1242.
 
 28 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 phase of despondency, due to special circumstances, 
 as a permanent change of mind ; and there is no 
 evidence that either British statesmen or the British 
 electorate deliberately at any time intended to be 
 false to their treaty obligations, though it is un- 
 doubtedly true that throughout the whole history 
 successive British Governments showed an extra- 
 ordinary levity in forgetting the old truth that qui 
 veut le fin, veui les moyens. 
 
 In 1890 Bismarck fell from power ; and the helm 
 of State in Germany was grasped by a young and 
 inexperienced ruler, fervently convinced of his own 
 capacity for rule, and determined to play a great 
 part in history. Instead of the wise caution of 
 Bismarck, who was content to aim at the consolida- 
 tion of United Germany, the Emperor William 
 soared into the empyrean of a Germany possessing 
 world-supremacy by sea as well as by land the 
 end to be obtained by peaceful means, if possible, 
 but, somehow or other, to be obtained. On one 
 side of his ambitions England blocked the way. 
 Whatever may have been the inner history of the 
 telegram addressed to Kruger on January 3, 1897, 
 by the Kaiser, with reference to the Jameson raid, 
 congratulating him on having maintained the inde- 
 pendence of his country against foreign aggression 
 ' without appealing to the help of friendly Powers,' 
 at least it threw valuable light on the workings of 
 his mind. The matter is still in obscurity ; but it 
 seems tolerably certain that informal negotiations 
 went on between Germany, France and Russia, at 
 the time of the South African War, with the object 
 of abating British naval supremacy. When the
 
 THE FUTURE OF EUROPE 29 
 
 negotiations came to nothing, it was natural that 
 the different parties should each lay the responsi- 
 bility for them on the other's shoulder ; but it is 
 probable that the rock on which they foundered 
 was the impossibility of any recognition by France 
 of the loss as irrevocable of Alsace and Lorraine. 
 
 The end of the nineteenth century has been 
 chosen for the terminus of this volume, because, 
 after this, a new horizon opened, with new methods 
 of policy, rendered inevitable by new menacing 
 dangers. In the face of a common danger England, 
 no less than France and Russia, forgot minor 
 differences ; and the gradual rapprochement took 
 place which was to bear good fruit in the Great 
 War that broke out in 1914. 
 
 Thus, from the side of self-interest, it was shown 
 that the policy of isolation, so dear to a particular 
 school of politician, was proved impossible. But 
 from a higher point of view was it not well that 
 this should be so ? For better or for worse (unfor- 
 tunately, in the past too often for worse) the great 
 World-Powers form, for certain purposes, an organ- 
 ised whole ; and have each their corresponding obli- 
 gations. For nations, no less than for individuals, 
 it is the path of shame to echo the base cry ' am I 
 my brother's keeper ? ' Somehow or other the 
 Concert of Europe and of the World must be carried 
 on. We have seen how in the past, in spite of 
 mistakes and failures, England has, upon the whole, 
 stood for respect for the plighted word and for the 
 interests of the small nations. Is there not good 
 reason to hope that, under more favourable con- 
 ditions and with a clearer insight into facts, the
 
 30 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 new democracy may be able to work still more 
 loyally on behalf of these good objects ? The 
 question is often asked whether a democracy is 
 capable of Empire ? A still more pertinent question 
 is whether any form of government except a 
 democracy, unless it be a pure autocracy, is capable 
 of carrying through a great national war ? In all 
 previous wars England has fought under a kind of 
 unacknowledged limited liability ; the governing 
 classes being held back by the fear that they might 
 not have the people behind them in their war 
 measures . Only with Labour leaders in the Ministry, 
 and with the strength of labour interests openly 
 recognised, was it possible to set up a system of 
 compulsory military service in a country where 
 life-long traditions and prejudices stood in the way. 
 
 But if, by appealing to an educated democracy } 
 it has been possible to obtain results on the military 
 side unknown before, may we not hope that the 
 international problems of peace, if confronted with 
 the same courage and the same persistency, may 
 also find their solution at the hands of a democracy 
 aiming at the right ? so that at length the vision 
 of the much-tried patriarch may be realised, and 
 the nations of the earth come to recognise in their 
 mutual relations that ' the fear of the Lord that 
 is wisdom : and to depart from evil is understanding.'
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 RELIGION, TEADE AND PRIVATE GREED; THEIR 
 INFLUENCE UPON ENGLISH FOREIGN POLICY. 
 
 1570-1688 
 
 LAMENTABLY as practice lagged behind theory, the 
 medieval world possessed methods of solving inter- 
 national difficulties no longer available. The Holy 
 Roman Empire may have been a phantom ; but 
 phantoms have, as has well been said, their import- 
 ance ; whilst the Catholic Church provided a final 
 Court of Appeal whose judgments none might 
 question. Different as were the results from what 
 might have been, still in such action as the settle- 
 ment of possible controversy between the two 
 Colonial Empires of Spain and Portugal we recog- 
 nise the power of the Church. Unhappily Rome 
 too often bartered its position as the supreme 
 head of the Christian world for the mess of pottage 
 of territorial dominion ; and thus lost the reputa- 
 tion of impartiality which was essential to the 
 maintenance of its claims. 
 
 Be this as it may, with the Reformation there 
 came an inevitable change. The countries that 
 shook themselves free from the authority of Rome
 
 in spiritual matters naturally could not complain 
 if the Church sided with their adversaries. Nor 
 was a new Court of Appeal available to take the 
 place of the past. For a time it seemed as though 
 the energies of Europe might be exhausted in a 
 Holy War directed against heresy. Assuredly it 
 was this idea which dictated English foreign policy at 
 the accession of Queen Elizabeth. Philip II. of Spain 
 had adopted a conciliatory policy ori his marriage 
 with Mary, and was ready and willing to continue 
 such a policy had Elizabeth submitted to his ad- 
 vances. But when once it was plain that Protestant 
 England had its own aims to advance, and had 
 no intention of sheltering under Spanish tutelage, 
 henceforth she became to Spain a danger to be 
 suppressed at all hazards. S. R. Gardiner was a 
 historian of extreme caution and moderation, but 
 it is thus that he describes Philip's policy : ' If 
 Philip II. had been able to carry out his schemes, 
 he would have re-established the old religion by the 
 prowess of the Spanish armies, and by the intrigues 
 of which he held the thread as he sat at his desk 
 at the Escurial. The Pope would once more have 
 been looked up to as the head of an undivided 
 Church. By his side would have stood, in all the 
 prominence of conscious superiority, the King of 
 Spain, realising in his person all and more than 
 all that in the Middle Ages had been ascribed by 
 jurists and statesmen to the chief of the Holy 
 Roman Empire, the lay pillar of the edifice of 
 Catholic Unity. Bangs would have existed only by 
 his sufferance. Political independence and religious 
 independence would have been stifled on every side.
 
 ENGLAND AND SPAIN 33 
 
 At last perhaps the symbol would have followed 
 the reality, and the imperial crown would have 
 rested on the brows of the true heir of the house 
 of Austria, the Champion of the Church, the Master 
 of the treasures of the West, the Captain of armies 
 whose unserried ranks and unbroken discipline would 
 have driven in headlong rout the feudal chivalry 
 which in bygone centuries had followed the Ottos 
 and the Fredericks through the passes of the Alps.' 1 
 
 It was the business of Elizabeth to prevent this 
 consummation, and how successfully the work was 
 achieved forms one of the best-known chapters in 
 English history. Historical parallels are generally 
 misleading, but undoubtedly the conduct of opera- 
 tions by the Great Queen closely resembled that 
 of the Roman General who, by a policy of delay, 
 saved the Roman State. By encouraging private 
 enterprise and by husbanding public resources, 
 Elizabeth was able to bring about a condition of 
 affairs under which, when Philip finally struck his 
 great blow by the despatch of the Armada, it was 
 not merely the forces of nature that caused his 
 undoing. With the defeat of the Armada, the hopes 
 of Spain for a world supremacy were for ever shat- 
 tered, though it took time for the lesson to be 
 realised. 
 
 Meanwhile a new and very different rival to 
 English interests was appearing upon the scene. 
 English privateers had laboured as much for their 
 own interests in the riches of the East and of 
 the West as for lowering the flag of Spain. To 
 their disgust they found that a new rival was 
 
 1 The History of England 1603-1642, vol. i. p. 204. 
 
 E.F.P. C
 
 34 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 surpassing them in this trade competition. ' The 
 United Provinces,' Mun wrote, ' are like a fair bird 
 suited with goodly borrowed plumes ; but if every 
 fowl should take his feather this bird would rest 
 near naked.' Again : ' Since they have cast off 
 the yoke of Spanish slavery, how wonderfully are 
 they improved in all humane policy ! What great 
 means have they obtained to defend their liberty 
 against the power of so great an enemy ? and is 
 not all this performed by their continued industry 
 in the trade of merchandise ? are not their provinces 
 the magazines and store-houses of wares for most 
 places of Christendom, whereby their wealth, ship- 
 ping, mariners, arts, people, and thereby the publique 
 revenues and excises are grown to a wonderful 
 height ? If we compare the times of their sub- 
 jection to their present estate, they seem not the 
 same people ... it seems a wonder to the world 
 that such a small country, not fully so big as two 
 of our best shires, having little natural wealth, 
 victuals, timber or other necessary ammunitions, 
 either for war or peace, should notwithstanding 
 possess their all in such extraordinary plenty, that 
 besides their own wants (which are very great) they 
 can and do likewise serve and sell to other Princes 
 ships, ordnance, cordage, powder, shot and what 
 not, which by their industrious trading they gather 
 from all quarters of the world ; in which courses 
 they are not less injurious to supplant others (especi- 
 ally the English) than they are careful to strengthen 
 themselves.' 1 
 
 1 England's Treasure by F 'arraign Trade, by T. Mun (Economic 
 Classics), pp. 101-2.
 
 THE PEACE OF 1604 35 
 
 With such a rival already in the field it seems 
 clear that English interests demanded the peace 
 of 1604, for concluding which James I. has been 
 often blamed. That peace, it must be carefully 
 noted, contained no betrayal of Dutch interests, 
 and it is satisfactory that the first of modern English 
 treaties was based upon the recognition of the 
 sacredness of the plighted word, a recognition which 
 was to be the keynote of subsequent English policy. 
 When the Spanish Commissioner invited a mutual 
 promise from the English Government not to assist 
 those who were in rebellion against the authority 
 of either sovereign, Cecil refused to discuss the 
 question whether or not the Dutch were rebels, 
 but boldly affirmed ' that the Contracts which were 
 made by the deceased virtuous and pious Princes. . . 
 with those that call themselves by the name of the 
 United Provinces were done upon very just and 
 good cause.' * It was in vain that Spain sought 
 to render impossible the service of English volunteers 
 in the forces of the United Provinces. ' His Majesty,' 
 wrote Cecil, ' promised neither to punish nor to 
 stay, but only that he will not consent a word 
 of which you know the latitude as well as I.' ' The 
 articles were so reformed as should neither import 
 any such public revocation, nor to restrain the 
 going of voluntaries thither.' 2 
 
 The Peace of 1604, like the Treaty of Ghent of 
 1815, was an indecisive document, which left the 
 main bone of contention still at issue. The Spanish 
 Commissioners tried to obtain an acknowledgment 
 of the illegality of the English trade with the Indies, 
 
 1 Gardiner, op. cit. vol. i. p. 209. * Ibid. p. 210.
 
 36 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 but the utmost they could obtain was the promise 
 of a Proclamation forbidding English subjects to 
 trade with places actually in the occupation of 
 the Spanish Government, on condition that Spain 
 would withdraw all pretensions to exclude them 
 from trading with the independent natives. This 
 condition, however, was inacceptable, so that the 
 whole question was ignored in the treaty. Mean- 
 while the Spaniards were warned ' that our people 
 were a warlike nation, and having been accustomed 
 to make purchases (i.e. prizes) on the seas, would 
 not better be reduced than by allowing them free 
 liberty of trade.' ' If Spain insisted,' comments 
 Gardiner, ' that there should be no peace beyond 
 the line, it would be better to leave her to reap 
 the fruits of a policy which before long would give 
 birth to the buccaneers.' 1 
 
 Notwithstanding the sullen silence with which the 
 Peace was received as a betrayal of national interests 
 and of the Dutch allies it was, as we have seen, 
 in consonance with true policy. At the same time 
 there was nothing in it to allay it tended rather 
 to aggravate the new danger arising from Dutch 
 rivalry. It is impossible, I think, to read the 
 history of the time without recognising that the 
 Dutch Wars of the seventeenth century were no 
 mere accidents, but the inevitable outcome of deep- 
 seated causes. But consider the scandal that was 
 caused by this division in the Protestant household. 
 It is easy for us now, from the safe security of the 
 judgment seat of history, to recognise that Spanish 
 power was on the wane, and that imperial policy 
 
 1 Gardiner, op. cit. vol. i. pp. 211-12
 
 ENGLAND AND THE NETHERLANDS 37 
 
 must be forged anew in the workshop of imperial 
 needs ; but old pieties and traditions die hard, and 
 it was a difficult task to rid men of the notion that 
 the field of foreign policy must for all time remain 
 an Armageddon between light and darkness, between 
 the Reformation and the Whore of Babylon. 
 
 No doubt it was the recognition of all this which 
 led to the strange proposal for a Union between 
 England and the Netherlands which had otherwise 
 so little in its favour. According to an intercepted 
 letter given in Thurloe : ' Our Generall (Cromwell) 
 made a long harangue to them (the Dutch ambassa- 
 dors) offering to joyne with them as one man agaynst 
 all the ungodly in the world.' They were to have 
 ' the same terms Ireland and Scotland had of us, 
 viz. that the Dutch should have men of their nation 
 sit in consell with us as we would have with them ; 
 and that all ports, harbours and trade should be 
 alyke each to other. But they refusing this I know 
 not what they would be at, unless they would be 
 our masters.' J But to the Netherlander, still 
 growing daily by leaps and bounds in wealth and 
 prosperity, there was nothing to attract in the 
 English proposal ' that the two Commonwealths 
 may be confederated friends, joined and allied 
 together for the defence and preservation of the 
 liberties and freedom of the people of each ' ; 2 and 
 so the course of mutual jealousy and distrust went 
 on unchecked in peace no less than in war, until 
 it found its quietus in the accession of a Dutch 
 
 1 A Collection of the. State Papers, by John Thurloe, vol. i. 
 p. 386. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 182.
 
 38 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 king to the English throne and the gradual exhaus- 
 tion of Dutch strength in the struggle with its 
 better-endowed rival. 
 
 That the desire for union with the Dutch was 
 no fantastic dream of some theorist, but was the 
 outcome of the political faith of practical statesmen, 
 is well shown by the explanation of his foreign 
 policy given by Cromwell on September 17th, 1656. 
 The passage is long, but nothing could so vividly 
 bring before us an extinct mode of thought : ' Why 
 truly your great enemy is the Spaniard. He is 
 a natural enemy. He is naturally so. He is natur- 
 ally so throughout by reason of that enmity that 
 is in him against whatsoever is of God. . . . With 
 this King and State, I say, you are at present in 
 hostility. We put you into this hostility. . . . You 
 could not get an honest or honourable peace from 
 him. It was sought by the Long Parliament ; it 
 was not attained. It could not be attained with 
 honour and honesty. . . . And the Spaniard is not 
 only our enemy accidentally, but he is providentially 
 so ; God having in his wisdom disposed it so to be, 
 when we made a breach with the Spanish nation 
 long ago.' He then recapitulated from his own 
 point of view the past history, and continued : 
 ' Thus a State which you can neither have peace 
 with nor reason from, that is the State with which 
 you have enmity at this time, and against which 
 you are engaged. And give me leave to say this 
 unto you, because it is truth, and most men know 
 it, that the Long Parliament did endeavour, but 
 could not obtain satisfaction from the Spaniard all the 
 time they sat. For their messenger was murdered,
 
 CROMWELL AND SPAIN 39 
 
 and when they asked satisfaction for the blood of 
 your poor people shed in the West Indies and for the 
 wrongs done elsewhere ; when they asked liberty 
 of conscience for your people who traded thither, 
 satisfaction in none of these things would be given, 
 but was denied. . . . Now if this be so, why truly 
 then here is some little foundation laid to justify 
 the war that has been entered upon with the 
 Spaniard. And not only so ; but the plain truth 
 of it is, make any peace with any State that is 
 Popish and subjected to the determination of Rome 
 and of the Pope himself, and you are bound and 
 they are loose. . . . That Peace is but to be kept 
 so long as the Pope saith Amen to it.' That such 
 reasoning was becoming out of date was shown 
 by the fact that Cromwell was himself co-operating 
 with a Roman Catholic Power, France. Cromwell's 
 explanation with regard to this is singularly lame. 
 ' We have not now to do with any Popish State 
 except France ; and it is certain that they do not 
 think themselves under such a tie to the Pope ; 
 but think themselves at liberty to perform honesties 
 with nations in agreement with them, and protest 
 against the obligation of such a thing as that, of 
 breaking your word at the Pope's bidding. They 
 are able to give us an explicit answer to anything 
 reasonably demanded of them ; and there is no 
 other Popish State, we can speak of, save this only, 
 but will break their promise or keep it as they please 
 upon these grounds, being under the lash of the 
 Pope, to be by him determined and made to decide.' 1 
 But Cromwell gives no reason why France stands 
 
 1 Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, vol. iv. pp. 180-184.
 
 40 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 on this different footing from other nations. In 
 truth wars for religion were becoming an ana- 
 chronism, and in the new formation of alliances 
 religious considerations counted for little ; though 
 even as late as 1673 we find Coventry connecting 
 in argument religious with political questions. ' In 
 former days,' he said, ' Spain was more rigorous 
 in religion, now it is France. Spain now assists 
 Holland. France in the last war would conclude 
 no capitulation with any town unless the priests 
 were considered in it. It becomes thereby powerful 
 among the Catholics ; and we read in the French 
 Gazette that the Papal Nuncio has received the 
 order not to oppose the progress of the French 
 arms.' 1 
 
 It is unnecessary for our present purpose to 
 attempt to thread the tortuous maze of Charles 
 II. 's foreign policy. The explanation of that policy 
 is well given by the great historian Ranke. ' He 
 was capable of proposing offensive alliances simul- 
 taneously to the three neighbouring Powers, to the 
 Dutch against France, to the French against Spain 
 and Holland, to the Spaniards against France to 
 the detriment of Holland ; but in these propositions 
 two fundamental views always recur demands for 
 money, supplies, and assurance of world-wide com- 
 merce to England.' 2 It must always be remembered 
 that the same King whose role was that of the 
 bribed tributary of France was the active promoter 
 of the commercial and colonial interests of his 
 
 1 Hist, of England principally in the Seventeenth Century, by 
 L. von Ranke (Engl. Trans.), vol. iii. p. 548. 
 
 2 Ibid. pp. 471-2.
 
 CHARLES II. AND FRANCE 41 
 
 country. Even when Charles was preparing to 
 submit himself to Louis XIV. and to Rome, he made 
 it a condition that France should help England 
 to obtain the possession of the countries and places 
 in South America. Besides this England was to 
 receive Minorca and Ostend. 1 
 
 But while Charles II. was sincerely desirous of 
 promoting English interests so far as they were 
 compatible with his own, his most pressing anxiety 
 was how to make himself secure from the interference 
 of Parliament, and to achieve this he saw no other 
 way than to accept the money of Louis XIV. De- 
 pendence upon foreign support, however, was a game 
 at which two parties could play. Whilst Charles 
 was becoming the creature of France, influential 
 Members of Parliament were forming a close con- 
 nexion with his nephew the Prince of Orange. 
 Nor was Charles himself altogether opposed to such 
 a connexion. When the office of Captain-General 
 and Admiral of the United Netherlands was made 
 hereditary in the Prince's male line, Charles was 
 willing that his brother, the Duke of York, should 
 give his daughter in marriage to the Prince of 
 Orange. Such a marriage, the King believed, would 
 be a security for the Duke of York himself and 
 for the throne generally. The French indeed were 
 quick to see how fatal to the ideals of Louis XIV. 
 was the proposal ; but Charles was not accustomed 
 to look far ahead, and the warnings were disregarded. 
 
 The foreign policy of James II. was of necessity 
 a replica of that of his brother. Even less than 
 Charles, who had successfully favoured English 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 497.
 
 42 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 expansion, commercial and colonial, was James in 
 his heart a traitor to English interests. His work 
 on behalf of the navy proves the contrary. But 
 distrusted and disliked by his own people, separated 
 from the majority by the insurmountable barrier 
 of an alien religion, James had no alternative 
 but to continue dependent upon France. In 
 attempting, however, to reconcile the claims of an 
 imperative though narrow conscience with the 
 Protestant via media of the England of his day, 
 James was compassing his own fall, and his removal 
 opened the way to a more determined, as well as 
 more costly, English foreign policy.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE RESISTANCE TO FRENCH WORLD-SUPREMACY ; 
 ANGLO-FRENCH RAPPROCHEMENTS. 1689-1789. 
 
 WITH the coming of William of Orange, who, 
 crowned King of England, along with his wife Mary, 
 embodied the parliamentary character of the mon- 
 archy, begins the history of modern English foreign 
 policy. Prince William had already risen to the 
 position of representative and active champion of 
 the idea of the balance of power which the great 
 German historian recognised to be ' necessary to 
 the existence of the States of Europe.' 1 But with 
 the sword of England thrown into the scales, that 
 idea could be much more effectively and success- 
 fully vindicated. Still the military strength of 
 France was very great, and the provisional settle- 
 ment of Ryswick (1697) was in the nature of a 
 draw. William obtained, however, from Louis XIV. 
 the separate undertaking that he would no longer 
 support the Stuart claim to the throne of England, 
 an undertaking of no little importance with regard 
 to English domestic politics. ' England,' Bishop 
 Burnet informs us, ' and the States had no other 
 
 1 Ranke, op. cit. vol. iv. p. 384.
 
 44 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 concern in the Treaty but to secure their allies 
 and to settle a Barrier in the Netherlands ; and 
 this object was, at least to a very great extent, 
 attained. William III. by this Peace concluded 
 the great design of putting a stop to the progress 
 of the French arms which he had constantly pursued 
 from his first appearance on the stage in the year 
 1672. There was not one of the Allies who com- 
 plained that he had been forgot by him or wronged 
 in the Treaty ; nor had the desire of having his 
 title universally acknowledged raised any impatience 
 in him, or made him run into this Peace with any 
 indecent haste. The terms of it were still too much 
 to the advantage of France ; but the length and 
 charge of the war had so exhausted the Allies that 
 the King saw the necessity of accepting the best 
 conditions that could be got. It is true that France 
 was more harassed by the war, yet the arbitrary 
 frame of that Government made this King the 
 master of the whole wealth of his people, and the 
 war was managed on both sides, between them and 
 us, with this visible difference, that every man who 
 dealt with the French King was ruined by it ; 
 whereas, among us, every man grew rich by his 
 dealings with the King ; and it was not easy to 
 see how this could either be prevented or punished. 
 The regard that is shewn to the Members of Parlia- 
 ment among us makes that few abuses can be 
 enquired into or discovered ; and the King found 
 his reign grow so unacceptable to his people, by 
 the continuance of the war, that he saw the necessity 
 of coming to a peace. The States were under the 
 same pressure ; they were heavier charged and
 
 WILLIAM III. AND ENGLISH PUBLIC OPINION 45 
 
 suffered more by the war than the English. The 
 French, indeed, got nothing by a war which they 
 had most perfidiously begun.' 1 
 
 But easy as it now is to recognise that the balance 
 of European power was an English interest and that 
 the predominance of France would have threatened 
 ruin to England, at the time men's thoughts in 
 England were mainly directed elsewhere. Hostility 
 to the principle of a standing army and distrust 
 of a foreign King, whose Dutch interests might 
 lead him to throw away the benefits obtained by 
 England's insular position, counted for more in the 
 decisions of Parliament than deep-laid schemes of 
 statesmanship. In this state of things, however, 
 as has so often happened in English history, the 
 blundering of the adversary atoned for domestic 
 short-sightedness. The English nation was willing 
 to overlook the violation of the Partition Treaties, 
 to which Louis XIV. had given his solemn 
 assent, and to condone his acceptance of the 
 bequest of the Spanish throne, made under the 
 will of the King of Spain, to the younger 
 son of the Dauphin. The news, indeed, was like 
 a blow in the face to William. Although it did not 
 move him from his wonted outward composure he 
 wrote to his friend Hensius : ' Might I but follow 
 my own instinct I would call on all the Courts of 
 Europe to raise an energetic opposition. But I 
 feel humiliated at not being able to set them a 
 good example in the matter.' 2 In fact the terms of 
 the Second Partition Treaty had been most unpopular 
 
 1 Bishop Burners History of hie own Time, vol. ii. pp. 201-2. 
 * Ranke, op. cit. vol. v. p. 238.
 
 in England. By securing for France ascendency 
 in the Mediterranean it seemed to threaten the 
 maritime position of England. At the same time 
 it was generally recognised that the division be- 
 tween Spain and France must be fully maintained, 
 and no opportunity given to the French to injure 
 the commerce of England, either in the Spanish 
 Peninsula or in the West Indies. ' On this point 
 all were agreed. If this condition were observed 
 many were indifferent as to what else might happen 
 on the Continent ; yet all were not so satisfied ; 
 more experienced persons added a second condition 
 that the French King should not presume to en- 
 croach upon the Netherlands.' 1 How serious the 
 situation there had become was soon to be demon- 
 strated. The maintenance of the Dutch garrisons 
 in the Spanish Netherlands seemed indispensable for 
 their security ; but now Louis XIV. could coolly 
 write : ' The Spanish fortresses in the Netherlands 
 are full of foreign troops ; if the Spaniards need 
 any support in ejecting them, the help they might 
 desire would be forthwith at their command.' 2 
 
 ' William III. saw the blow coming and yet 
 thought it better not to resist. He clearly foresaw, 
 as is plain from one of his letters, the serious loss 
 it would entail on England it was equivalent to 
 handing the Netherlands over to France and at the 
 first moment it might perhaps have been possible for 
 the garrisons to make themselves complete masters 
 of the fortresses and to defend them with success ; 
 but then he said, if this were done, war would break 
 out ; and for that they were not prepared. 
 
 1 Ranke, op. cit. vol. v. p. 239. z Ibid. p. 243.
 
 THE BARRIER FORTRESSES 47 
 
 ' Sick at heart, chagrined and fully persuaded that 
 war must come, William nevertheless at this moment 
 receded a step ; what he could not prevent he 
 would not resist. Without hesitation Louis XIV. 
 pushed forward. . . . The French troops which 
 appeared on the 6th of February, 1701, before the 
 seven fortresses (amongst which were Luxemburg, 
 Mons and Charleroi) were at once admitted into 
 them ; the Dutch garrisons had already received 
 instructions to withdraw without resistance if this 
 were done. Louis XIV. did not hesitate to send 
 French troops also to occupy the seaports Ostend 
 and Nieuport. 
 
 ' Hitherto the Spanish Netherlands had been meant 
 to be a barrier against France ; and under the idea 
 that Spain and France were to continue to be 
 completely distinct Powers, there had been some 
 thought of strengthening the Dutch Garrisons with 
 English troops : but how utterly different had the 
 position of affairs become in a moment ! These 
 strongholds, for the possession of which there had 
 been a struggle with the French King for half a 
 century, that is for the whole term of his reign, 
 now as good as fell into his hands without resistance, 
 and became so many points from which Holland 
 might be attacked.' * 
 
 So far all had gone well with French policy ; 
 but now a blunder was made which at once changed 
 the whole situation. James II. died in exile in 
 March 1701, and Louis at once recognised his infant 
 son as lawful successor to the throne of England. 
 Already public opinion in England had been not 
 
 1 Ibid. pp. 242-5.
 
 48 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 a little stirred by the rumour that the South Ameri- 
 can harbours were to be closed against England and 
 Holland, whilst they were left open to French traders. 
 A genera] panic took place, and there was on all sides 
 a feeling of unrest. It was in this state of things 
 that the news arrived that the King of France 
 had chosen to hold of none effect the solemn acts 
 and engagements of the English Parliament and 
 nation. The insult to William was a personal 
 insult to each one of his subjects. Tories anxious 
 to prove that they were not Jacobites at heart, 
 vied with Whigs in clamouring for war. Com- 
 mercial influences were also powerful in the same 
 direction. The publication in France of ordinances 
 directed against the import of English manufactures 
 showed what was to be expected should Spain come 
 under the sway of France. ' It was thought that 
 in that case they would neither get the silver from 
 the galleons nor the Spanish wool, still indispens- 
 able in England ; not merely would the trade with 
 the Spanish Colonies be lost, but English ships 
 would be entirely excluded from the Mediterranean.' * 
 When things had reached this point, the death 
 of William, which at another time might have been 
 a veritable misfortune, made no difference to the 
 course of events. Indeed, by giving full play to 
 the transcendent military abilities of Marlborough 
 it proved a blessing hi disguise. For it was not 
 merely as General that Marlborough was able to 
 replace William. He was able also to carry on his 
 work as diplomatist. We all know how on the 
 plains of Blenheim (1704) a limit was set once for 
 
 1 Ranke, op. cit. vol. v. p. 281.
 
 THE PEACE OF UTRECHT 49 
 
 all to the supremacy of Louis XIV. on the continent. 
 Through the battle of RamilJies (1706) the fortresses 
 of the Netherlands fell once more into the hands 
 of the Allies, and the battle of Turin decided the 
 fate of Upper Italy. Much controversy has taken 
 place over the Peace of Utrecht. No doubt the 
 motives of the Tories in the negotiations of that 
 Peace did not solely regard English interests. They 
 wished for peace because only by peace could they 
 shake themselves free from the yoke of their enemy 
 Marlborough. Nor can it be maintained that the 
 results were altogether commensurate with the 
 victories won in the War. Still, when we realise 
 that the settlement at Utrecht meant the death- 
 blow to French ambitions in so far as the Austrian 
 Netherlands became a buffer State between France 
 and Holland, and Dutch garrisons protected the 
 barrier fortresses, and that the trade interests of 
 England in the South Seas were carefully assisted, 
 we cannot look upon the treaty as a betrayal 
 of the cause of England. ' After a bloody contest 
 of many years,' writes Ranke, ' the Peace of 
 Utrecht was a return to pretty much the same 
 agreement as had been taken into consideration in 
 the Partition treaties before it. Spain and the 
 Indies remained in the hands of the French prince, 
 Italy was assigned to Austria, Holland was pro- 
 tected by a boundary, though a diminished one, 
 England obtained a firm position in the Mediter- 
 ranean, just as William III. had proposed in his 
 first conference with Tallard.' (In addition to this, 
 the Netherlands were assigned to the Austrian 
 Empire.) ' The state of the world, however, was
 
 50 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 not thus made exactly the old one over again. 
 Louis XIV. had been conquered in the interval. 
 If the English did not utterly overthrow him, 
 that was only because they were not united among 
 themselves, and the maintenance of the Bourbon 
 power seemed necessary to the Tories, in order to 
 prevent the Whigs from obtaining the supremacy 
 in England.' l 
 
 But if Louis XIV. had been indeed conquered 
 and his pretensions to world supremacy finally 
 overthrown, was there any necessity to continue a 
 bloody and expensive war for objects which were 
 not essentially British ? Upon the material side, 
 it must be remembered that, besides Gibraltar and 
 Minorca, which were retained as the fruits of victory, 
 the Peace of Utrecht gave Great Britain Nova 
 Scotia, the Hudson Bay and its Territories, and 
 Newfoundland ; that it recognised British supremacy 
 over the Iroquois ; that it gave the English special 
 privileges in the Spanish South Seas through the 
 Assiento, or right to furnish the Spanish South 
 American dominions with slaves and to carry on 
 with them a general trade to a limited extent. 
 (It may be thought that these things were really 
 evils in disguise as tending to future war, but 
 such, assuredly, was not the public opinion of the 
 time.) Turning to moral considerations, we are 
 told that the Peace was a betrayal of the interests 
 of Great Britain's Allies. But if the condition was 
 once fulfilled that the Crowns of France and Spain 
 should never be combined, it was surely not necessary 
 that Great Britain should prolong the war inde- 
 1 Ranke, op. cit. vol. v. p. 345.
 
 THE PEACE OF UTRECHT 51 
 
 finitely to secure that Spain should be an appanage 
 of the Austrian Hapsbergs. Again, with regard to 
 the Dutch, it was of course essential that Great 
 Britain should not make peace without securing for 
 them a sufficiently strong barrier to resist possible 
 attack from France ; but this did not imply that 
 the Netherlands were to become virtually a Dutch 
 vassal, or that the system of barrier towns should 
 be organised in a manner detrimental to British 
 interests. Because the Whig Ministry had made an 
 improvident bargain with regard to the Barriers in 
 1709, 1 it did not follow that their successors should 
 adopt their mistakes. Nor was there any reason 
 why Great Britain ; who had borne far more than 
 her fair share of the burdens of the War, should 
 be under an obligation to share with Holland what- 
 ever commercial benefits her labours had secured 
 from Spain. No doubt mean motives were at work. 
 But if the Tories wanted peace mainly because 
 thereby they might humiliate and confound their 
 enemy, Marlborough, the Dutch no less sought their 
 own private ends in playing the game of the Whig 
 opposition ; whilst they were quite ready to make 
 a separate peace with the French had the oppor- 
 tunity occurred. The conduct of the British General 
 Ormonde, in ceasing to co-operate with the Allies, 
 was a strong measure ; but it seems to have been 
 justified by a policy on the part of the Allies that 
 can only be described as one of blackmail. It is 
 
 1 Under the Barrier Treaty of 1709 the Dutch obtained the 
 right to hold a number of fortresses in the Netherlands ' to an 
 extent which surpassed all expectations,' in return for guaran- 
 teeing the succession of the House of Hanover. (Ranke, op. cit. 
 vol. v. pp. 339-40.)
 
 52 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 noteworthy that in a treaty negotiated by Tory 
 statesmen, the recognition by France of the Hano- 
 verian succession took a prominent place, and it 
 is difficult to say how Great Britain would have 
 gained by continuing the war. 
 
 In addition to the points already mentioned the 
 undertaking to destroy Dunkirk, as a French 
 fortified position, was an apparent gain to Great 
 Britain. Dunkirk as an English possession had been 
 the heritage of Cromwell's co-operation with France 
 against Spain. Its secret sale to France had been 
 one of the most damning counts in the indictment 
 of Lord Clarendon. At the same time it is very 
 doubtful how far English interests were really bene- 
 fited by a continental possession such as Dunkirk. 
 Cromwell had supported it as a bulwark of Pro- 
 testantism amidst the Catholic Provinces ; but the 
 Restoration Government had no wish that the 
 Church of England should be identified with Con- 
 tinental Protestantism ; and no doubt Clarendon 
 honestly believed that the 130,000 spent on the 
 Dunkirk Garrison would be better spent at home 
 against possible insurrections. Still it was one 
 thing that Dunkirk should cease to be British, 
 another that it should be a French place of arms 
 threatening England. Accordingly the undertaking 
 to raze its fortifications was a distinct triumph for 
 British diplomacy ; though in fact the undertaking 
 was very imperfectly fulfilled. 
 
 The chief change made in the map of Western 
 Europe was that the Spanish Netherlands now fell 
 under the sway of the Emperor. Inasmuch as 
 the Emperor had no fleet, this arrangement was
 
 ENGLAND AND HANOVER 53 
 
 most beneficial to British interests. The people 
 who continued to suffer were the unfortunate in- 
 habitants of the Netherlands. In the past, the 
 short-sighted jealousies of their Spanish masters had 
 forbidden their having any share in the American 
 trade, and, at the Peace of Westphalia (1648), the 
 Dutch had jealously insisted that the mouth of 
 the Scheldt should be closed to their shipping. 
 The Peace of Utrecht made no difference in this 
 respect, except that the guarantee of Great Britain 
 was added to that of the other Powers to maintain 
 this state of things. When, under the new regime, 
 the Emperor, Charles VI., sought to develop a 
 new trade by means of the Ostend Company, he 
 found his efforts unavailing against the steady 
 pressure of the Maritime Powers. 
 
 The accession to the British throne of the House 
 of Hanover made an inevitable change in British 
 foreign policy. Hitherto, except so far as the 
 impecuniosity or treachery of kings or the ambi- 
 tion or party exigencies of politicians had deflected 
 its course and the exception is a big one English 
 interests had decided English policy. But now the 
 King of England was also the King of a German 
 principality ; and, as such, more watchful of 
 Hanoverian than of British interests. The first two 
 Georges were almost wholly ignorant of English ; and 
 George I. and his ministers held their communica- 
 tions in dog Latin. It is impossible, without entering 
 into great detail, to show the part played by Hano- 
 verian interests in the foreign policy of the time. 1 
 
 1 Mr. J. F. Chance, however, writes : ' The politics of Hanover 
 became subordinate to those of England. True that George
 
 54 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 As an example we may note the acquisition of 
 Bremen and Verden by Hanover in 1716. These 
 places, situated between the territories of the 
 House of Brunswick and the sea, had been ceded 
 to Sweden by the Peace of Westphalia. Having 
 been conquered by Denmark, they were ceded 
 to George I., as Elector of Hanover, on the con- 
 dition of paying 150,000, and declaring war against 
 Sweden. In consequence of this treaty a British 
 fleet was sent to the Baltic. The Pretender 
 proclaimed, ' by taking possession of the Duchy 
 of Bremen, in violation of the public faith, a door 
 is opened by the Usurper to let in an inundation 
 of foreigners from abroad, and to reduce these 
 nations to a state of dependence on one of the most 
 inconsiderable provinces of the Empire.' 1 It is 
 fair, however, to note that Horace Walpole, Sir 
 Robert's brother, maintained that it was ' the 
 interest of this country that those two provinces 
 which command the navigation of the Elbe and 
 the Weser, the only two inlets from the British 
 Seas into Germany, and which, in case of any 
 disturbance in the north, are most capable of pro- 
 tecting or interrupting the British trade to Ham- 
 burgh, should rather be annexed to the King's 
 Electoral dominions than remain in the hands of 
 Denmark, who has frequently formed pretensions 
 
 utilised the British quarrel with Charles XII. to promote his 
 German interests, but it was his British Ministers who forced 
 upon Sweden and Prussia their treaties with Hanover in 1719. 
 Sweden only consented to give Bremen and Verden in return 
 for British help against Russia.' (' Germany in the time of 
 George I.,' Royal Hist. So. Trans., 3rd series, vol. x. p. 46.) 
 1 Memoirs of Sir R. Walpole, by W. Coxe, vol. i. p. 148.
 
 55 
 
 on that city, or of Sweden, who has molested our 
 commerce in the Baltic.' l 
 
 As a general rule, however, the need for Naval 
 Stores directed, to a great extent, British policy 
 towards the Baltic Powers : the attempt, by means 
 of bounties to the American Colonies, to make the 
 Empire self-sufficing in this respect, not meeting 
 with any great success. 
 
 There is a striking passage in Coxe's Memoirs 
 of Sir Robert Walpole which throws light on the 
 foreign policy of the time : ' The only popular 
 objection,' we are told, under the date 1730, 'to 
 the management of foreign affairs now was that 
 England was entangled in a multiplicity of treaties 
 and guarantees ; that no rupture could take place 
 in Europe, in which we should not be obliged to 
 interfere as principals ; that it was the steady 
 interest of Great Britain to contract no burthen- 
 some engagements, and to trust to her naval strength 
 and insular situation for repelling all foreign 
 attempts. 
 
 ' To this general objection a general answer was 
 returned ; that a nation whose strength depends 
 upon the flourishing state of trade and credit, 
 (inseparable from that of public tranquillity), whose 
 commerce extends to all parts of the world and is 
 founded on compacts and stipulations with Powers 
 of different and incompatible interests ; who has 
 as many enviers as neighbours, as numerous rivals 
 as there are commercial Powers, must have a more 
 extensive and particular interest to foresee and 
 obviate those troubles which, if not prevented in 
 
 1 Ibid. pp. 149-50.
 
 56 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 time, might occasion great disturbances, might place 
 so large a share of dominion in the hands of one 
 prince as to endanger the liberties of the rest, and 
 consequently interrupt her trade. A people thus 
 situated must provide themselves with foreign sup- 
 port, proportionable to the attempts that may be 
 apprehended from the Continental Powers to their 
 prejudice, which cannot possibly be secured but by 
 reciprocal engagements on their part, and by inter- 
 esting themselves as deeply in the welfare of other 
 nations, as they expect those nations to interest 
 themselves on their behalf.' 1 
 
 But if this were really so, it was fortunate that 
 the government of England was in the hands of 
 a Minister deeply convinced of the necessity of 
 peace. Walpole assuredly did not approach the 
 question from the humanitarian standpoint. He had 
 begun his public life by fiercely attacking the Tories 
 for negotiating the Peace of Utrecht. But he cared 
 deeply for two things, the prosperity of Great Britain 
 and the security of the Hanoverian Succession ; 
 and he recognised that, for both these objects, 
 the maintenance of peace, so far as possible, was 
 a necessity. France was the natural enemy ; and 
 therefore, if Great Britain and France could become 
 friendly, the maintenance of European peace would 
 be much easier. For a moment it had seemed as 
 though Great Britain, fresh from her triumph over 
 France, would be overwhelmed. Alberoni, the 
 Prime Minister of Spain, formed a grandiose plan, 
 with the co-operation of Russia and Sweden, to 
 effect this object ; but the English anticipated the 
 
 1 Memoirs of Sir B. Walpole, by W. Coxe, vol. ii. pp. 137-8.
 
 ENGLAND AND SPAIN 57 
 
 blow by almost annihilating the Spanish fleet near 
 Syracuse (August 22, 1718) ; and the death of 
 Charles XII. of Sweden gave its quietus to the plan. 
 By the Peace of Utrecht the possession of Minorca, 
 as well as Gibraltar, had been secured to England, 
 so that henceforth she was directly concerned with 
 Mediterranean questions. For some years Walpole 
 and Fleury were able to work together for the 
 common object of peace ; but when the former 
 saw that Fleury's pacific tendencies were being 
 countermined at the French Court, he was quick 
 to seize the opportunity of new alliances. The 
 greatest difficulty had been with Spain. No country 
 had more reason to resent the outcome of the War 
 of the Spanish Succession. She was burning to 
 retake Gibraltar. In 1727, war was only averted 
 by the extreme patience of Walpole, a patience which 
 had its uglier side when soldiers and sailors wasted 
 away in the West Indies in enforced inactivity. 
 During these years the British Government was 
 always willing to restore Gibraltar for an equivalent, 
 preferably Florida ; but the grasping haughtiness of 
 Spain neglected to make use of the opportunity. 
 It appears that George I., in a letter, held out hopes 
 of its restoration, without mentioning conditions, 
 but such was assuredly not the intention of the 
 British Government. 
 
 Although the influence of Walpole could postpone 
 a breach with Spain, the causes at work were not 
 removed and were bound to produce results. So 
 long as Spain and Great Britain had been main- 
 taining a common cause against France, English 
 trade in the South American Seas received, as
 
 58 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 was natural, toleration. But, with the undisputed 
 supremacy of a Bourbon King in Spain, the attitude 
 of its Government became very different. At the 
 same time the Assiento treaty and the limited right 
 to trade gave a position of security, under the shelter 
 of which unauthorised trading by British ships from 
 the West Indies flourished exceedingly. In their 
 efforts to put a stop to this trade the Spanish 
 authorities made use of the right of search ruth- 
 lessly. The case was well put by Benjamin Keene, 
 the British Minister at Madrid : ' Upon the whole 
 the state of our dispute seems to be that the com- 
 manders of our vessels always think that they are 
 unjustly taken, if they are not taken in actual 
 illicit commerce, even though proofs of their having 
 loaded in that manner be found on board of them ; 
 and the Spaniards, on the other hand, presume 
 that they have a right of seizing not only the ships 
 that are continually trading in their ports, but 
 likewise of examining and visiting them on the 
 high seas, in order to search for proofs of fraud, 
 which they may have committed ; and till a medium 
 be found out between these two notions, the Govern- 
 ment will always be embarrassed with complaints, 
 and we shall ever be negotiating in this country 
 for redress, without ever being able to procure it.' * 
 Walpole was himself most anxious to find such 
 a medium ; but he was thwarted in his efforts, 
 in Spain, by the hostile character of the Govern- 
 ment, in England, by the action of the opposition 
 in Parliament and by the growing public opinion 
 of which that opposition made use. He admitted 
 
 1 Memoirs of Sir R. Walpole, by W. Coxe, vol. iii. p. 9.
 
 ENGLAND AND SPAIN 59 
 
 that British subjects had met with unjust treat- 
 ment from Spanish Governors and officials such as 
 deserved the highest resentment, but still ' if proper 
 satisfaction and full reparation can be obtained by 
 peaceable means, we ought not to involve the nation 
 in a war from the event of which we have a great 
 deal to fear.' 1 The elder Pitt was especially active 
 in opposing Walpole's conciliatory measures. ' Is 
 this/ he exclaimed, ' any longer a Nation ? or where 
 is an English Parliament if with more ships in our 
 harbours than in all the navies of Europe, with 
 more than two millions of people in the American 
 Colonies, we will bear to hear of the expediency of 
 receiving from Spain an insecure, unsatisfactory, 
 dishonourable Convention, which carries downright 
 subjection in every line.' Again : ' The complaints 
 of your despairing merchants, the voice of England 
 has condemned it ! Be the guilt of it upon the 
 head of the adviser ! God forbid that this Com- 
 mittee should share the guilt by approving it ! ' 2 
 For the moment Walpole's argument that to insist 
 upon the right to hover on the Spanish coasts, so 
 long as we pleased, without being stopped or searched 
 was, in effect, to claim full liberty of trade, secured 
 a small parliamentary majority ; but, with the 
 Spanish Government determined not to yield an 
 inch, and with his own colleagues working for war, 
 Walpole's position became an impossible one, and 
 in 1739 War was formally declared. 
 
 No doubt there was much to be said for Walpole's 
 attitude. ' The British nation listened only to one 
 side of the question, gave implicit credence to all 
 
 1 Ibid, p 46. 2 Ibid. pp. 80-1.
 
 60 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 the exaggerated accounts of the cruelties committed 
 by the Spaniards without due evidence and without 
 noticing the violations of express treaties by the 
 British traders.' l The man whose alleged wrongs 
 most fiercely inflamed English public opinion, the 
 owner of ' Jenkins' ear,' was perhaps a truculent 
 impostor, though there has been a reaction in favour 
 of the truth of his story. 2 Difficult as was the 
 preservation of peace, it is not clear that even 
 then war was absolutely necessary. But wherein 
 Walpole deserves condemnation is that, advocate 
 as he was of peace, he did not, when his policy 
 was defeated, resign, but continued the nominal 
 head of a Government of whose measures he dis- 
 approved. Nor did the mischief end here. The 
 more sincerely a Minister may have been an advo- 
 cate of peace, the more necessary is it that, if he 
 enters on war, he should conduct it vigorously. In 
 Polonius's words : 
 
 ' Beware 
 
 Of entrance to a quarrel ; but, being in, 
 Bear"t that th' opposed may beware of thee.' 
 
 But Walpole proved as futile a War Minister 
 as he had been a capable protector of British in- 
 terests in times of peace. The story is familiar 
 how Sir Robert Walpole, hearing the bells ringing 
 for the declaration of war, remarked : ' They now 
 ring the bells, but they will soon wring their hands ! ' 
 But what a confession of weakness did the remark 
 
 1 Memoirs of Sir R. Walpole, by W. Coxe, vol. iii. p. 110. 
 
 2 A learned and able account of ' The Causes of the War of 
 Jenkins' ear, 1739,' by H. W. V. Temperley, will be found in Royal 
 Hist. Soc. Transactions, Third Series, vol. iii. pp. 198-236.
 
 THE WAR OF THE AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION 61 
 
 imply from one who had, to a large extent, the 
 means of making of none effect his own prophecy. 
 The feebleness of the British operations in the first 
 years of the war encouraged the French to give 
 play to their sympathies, and to appear upon the 
 scene as the open ally of Spain. 
 
 On other grounds it proved impossible to isolate 
 the Anglo-Spanish War and to concentrate British 
 energies on objects purely British. However squalid 
 may have been the immediate causes of that war, 
 its real raison d'etre was altogether rational, the 
 expansion of British trade and shipping. More 
 doubtful were the gains to be got from entrance 
 into the land war which was the outcome of the 
 violation of the Austrian Pragmatic Sanction. 
 Under that Sanction the inheritance was secured to 
 Maria Theresa, the Queen of Hungary, of all the 
 territories possessed by her father, the Emperor. 
 At least twelve European Governments had given 
 their guarantee to this document ; but, when it 
 came to the point, Great Britain was left in solitary 
 state, in insisting upon its enforcement. Frederick 
 of Prussia saw in the question the opportunity for 
 the use of blackmail ; and undertook to support 
 Maria Theresa if he received Silesia as compensation. 
 On her refusing, he invaded, and finally conquered, 
 that province. His action has been excused by 
 Carlyle on the ground that a large proportion of 
 the inhabitants was Protestant ! It is tempting to 
 ascribe the attitude of Great Britain to British 
 fidelity to a solemn undertaking ; but probably 
 the political and personal interests of George II. 
 were the main factors in deciding British policy.
 
 62 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 In any case Great Britain found herself whirled 
 into the vortex of European politics and compelled 
 to conclude alliances a.gainst the Confederation 
 opposed to her. Although England and France 
 were from the first opposed to each other as auxili- 
 aries of other Powers, it was not till 1744 that they 
 became formally at war. So far as Great Britain 
 was concerned, the War of the Austrian Succession 
 was a day of very small things. Inasmuch, however, 
 as in 1746 the French conquered the Austrian Nether- 
 lands and in 1747 invaded Holland, British interests 
 were materially at stake. Great Britain and Holland 
 were connected by mutual guarantees. In 1716 the 
 Dutch had aided in the suppression of the Jacobite 
 rebellion ; and in 1727 British co-operation had 
 succeeded in securing the suspension of the Ostend 
 Company started by Charles VI. In the war of 
 the Austrian succession English and Dutch fought 
 side by side, and English and Dutch subsidies fur- 
 nished the thirty thousand Russian troops who were 
 marching to relieve the Netherlands, when peace was 
 agreed to by the French on the basis of the status 
 quo ante helium. 
 
 The Maritime War against Spain seemed to lose 
 itself in a morass, though in fact booty gamed in it 
 by privateers added not a little to the wealth of the 
 country. On the continent the gallantry and deter- 
 mination of the rank and file could not atone for the 
 absence of leadership. In this state of things the 
 practical restoration of the status quo ante bellum 
 was a success for British diplomacy. Even in 
 India, through the genius of Dupleix, the French 
 had won the superiority ; and at the Peace Madras
 
 THE RISE OF PRUSSIA 63 
 
 could only be regained by the sacrifice of Louis- 
 bourg, the one substantial gain of the war in North 
 America. It had been won by the men of New 
 England ;. and their success encouraged in them 
 that inordinate sense of their superiority which 
 became so great a menace to the British connexion. 
 Still more lamentable in its results on American 
 public opinion was the restoration of Louisbourg 
 to the French, however it may have been justified 
 from the standpoint of world-politics. 
 
 But if Great Britain had created for herself 
 future difficulties by her action in this war, France 
 had also laid the seed of a peril the full harvest of 
 which is still now being reaped. By allying herself 
 with the rising power of Prussia she was assisting 
 in the development of her most dangerous future 
 enemy. Frankenstein was calling into life the 
 monster that would one day threaten his existence. 
 And yet more was at stake than the future interests 
 of France. The claims of morality had not assuredly 
 been very much regarded in the past international 
 relations of the various Powers ; but men had 
 gone on groping their way in a fog of self-deception 
 and confusion. It was reserved for Frederick the 
 Great to put in practice, by the dry light of logic, 
 unblushing and unashamed, that creed of Machia- 
 velli which he himself had, on paper, confuted. 
 The whole law and the prophets of the doctrine 
 that the State is Power, that consequently Might 
 is Right, and the strong arm of the Prussian the 
 inspired instrument of the right hand of the God 
 of history, as enforced by Bismarck, and taught 
 by Treitschke. was first proclaimed, when Frederick
 
 64 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 swooped on Silesia. Time was needed for the 
 manifestation of its full results ; and the mighty 
 doings of the French Revolution, followed by the 
 career of Napoleon, together with the weakness and 
 inferiority of individual Hohenzollerns, were for a 
 long time to bring other issues to the fore. None 
 the less the dragon's teeth had been sown ; and 
 sooner or later a new Europe would have to deal 
 with the consequences. 
 
 Meanwhile, in blissful ignorance of what the future 
 had in store, eighteenth century statesmen dealt 
 with the problem of foreign policy. So far as 
 Great Britain and France were concerned, both 
 countries naturally reverted to the old policy which 
 had held the field till the pacific tendencies of Walpole 
 and Fleury had sought to build European peace 
 upon the foundations of an Anglo-French Entente. 
 Henceforth, for many years British statesmen 
 regarded France as the enemy, and France had the 
 same feeling towards Great Britain. Still the work 
 of Walpole was by no means all undone. Carteret, 
 though a very able and brilliant man and persona 
 grata with George II., was too impatient of the 
 arts of the politician for his administration to 
 have been other than short-lived ; and Pelham, 
 who soon succeeded him as first Minister, inherited 
 Walpole's mantle and worked loyally for peace. 
 It takes two, however, to make a bargain ; and, 
 apart from the fact that Pelham had not the moral 
 strength of Walpole, and could not always speak 
 for his colleagues, and the fact that the King had 
 his opinion on foreign policy, there was the in- 
 surmountable obstacle in the way that French
 
 PITT ON RELATIONS WITH FRANCE 65 
 
 statesmen did not want to be on good terms with 
 England. At the same time there was general agree- 
 ment that for the time being peace was a neces- 
 sity. The elder Pitt was now becoming of political 
 importance. The sheet anchor of his foreign policy 
 was always distrust and dislike of the Bourbons. 
 But hi 1750 he declared that ' no man in his senses 
 would provoke a combat when he is just recovered 
 from a violent fever, and his adversary is full of 
 strength and vigour.' 1 On this ground he was able 
 to support the peaceful policy of Pelham and New- 
 castle, and in his zeal for the stability of the Pelham 
 Ministry carried complaisance so far as to support 
 some of Newcastle's German bargains. When the 
 ever-recurring complaint was made of the non- 
 fulfilment by France of her undertaking with regard 
 to Dunkirk, ' Nations,' Pitt said, ' as well as indi- 
 viduals, must sometimes forbear from the vigorous 
 exaction of what is due to them. Prudence may 
 require them to tolerate a delay, or even a refusal 
 of justice, especially when their right can in no 
 way suffer by such acquiescence. ... I think that 
 no gentleman after due consideration of the question 
 whether it would be prudent in us to declare war 
 against France in case she should not, on the first 
 demand, instantly begin to demolish the port of 
 Dunkirk, can agree to this motion.' 2 It may be 
 held that in his course during these years Pitt was 
 directly bidding for the favour of the King and a 
 place in the Ministry ; but his latest biographer 
 
 1 The Life of W. Pitt, Earl of Chatham, by Basil Williams, 
 vol. i. p. 177. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 178. 
 
 K.r.p. R
 
 66 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 gives a spirited justification of his essential con- 
 sistency on broad lines of policy and his carelessness 
 about consistency in details. ' Throughout his life 
 the danger to England of the Bourbon power 
 dominated his mind. He hated the Bourbons 
 because they represented to him all the intolerance 
 and arbitrary rule which his soul most abhorred. 
 United, he dreaded their strength for evil against 
 the land of liberty he loved, and he spent a large 
 part of his life in attempts to keep them apart, 
 or raising a counterpoise to their union. During 
 the period that Spain kept France at arm's length 
 by a reconciliation with us, he was all for humour- 
 ing her. a policy which he consistently followed 
 until Spain returned to the French alliance in 1761. 
 This intense hatred of the Bourbons and of the 
 spirit they represented was one great source of 
 Pitt's power with his countrymen. It was a simple 
 idea which they could easily grasp ; it was one 
 they shared and in which Pitt never failed them.' l 
 But Pitt was quick to recognise that by attaching 
 herself to the fading fortunes of Austria in the last 
 war, Great Britain had, to use Lord Salisbury's 
 expression, backed the wrong horse. As early as 
 December, 1747, he had written to the Duke of 
 Newcastle : ' I will sum up my whole political creed 
 in two propositions : this country and Europe are 
 undone without a secure, lasting peace : the alliance 
 as it now stands has not the force even to obtain 
 it without the interposition of Prussia.' 2 A year 
 
 1 The Life of W. Pitt, Earl of Chatham, by Basil Williams, 
 vol. i. p. 179. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 167.
 
 THE EUROPEAN SYSTEM 67 
 
 later Frederick himself wrote : ' The system of 
 Europe has changed so entirely that I should find 
 myself soon on a good footing with Great Britain, 
 for there is great divergence of interests between 
 England and the Queen of Hungary.' x There were 
 still, however, grave difficulties in the way of such 
 a rapprochement. George II. cordially disliked his 
 powerful nephew. ' The King of Prussia,' he told 
 the French ambassador, ' is a mischievous rascal , 
 a bad friend, a bad ally, a bad relation and a bad 
 neighbour ; in fact the most dangerous and evil- 
 disposed Prince in Europe.' 2 Pitt, with the rope 
 round his neck of his old utterances against Hanover, 
 could not obtain forgiveness for himself from the 
 King, much less secure the adoption of a new foreign 
 policy. Still things were working in the direction 
 that he desired. One effect of Newcastle's system 
 of making alliances all round to secure the European 
 balance was that Frederick, with the fear of a 
 Russian attack from the East, found it necessary 
 to come to terms with England. The result of 
 Great Britain and Prussia being allies was to throw 
 Austria into the arms of France (1756). By which 
 means ' the whole edifice of foreign politics, labori- 
 ously built up by Newcastle during the last eight 
 years, collapsed like a pack of cards.' 3 ' We have 
 provoked,' said Pitt, ' before we can defend, we have 
 neglected after provocation, and in every quarter 
 of the world we are inferior to France.' 4 Disasters 
 abroad led to weakness in Parliament ; and the 
 King in his own despite was forced to make use 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 168. * Ibid. p. 180. 
 
 * Ibid. p. 281. 4 Ibid. p. 279.
 
 68 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 of the one man who knew that he could save the 
 country and that no one else could. 
 
 The King's speech of December 2, 1756, with which 
 Pitt inaugurated his first Ministry, contained a direct 
 appeal to the people which ' marks a revolution in 
 the conduct of the country's foreign policy. Foreign 
 affairs had always been treated as the peculiar 
 concern of the King and one or two trusted Ministers. 
 With one stroke Pitt made them the concern of the 
 public. By this publicity he did away once for all 
 with the old system. Foreign policy had long con- 
 sisted chiefly in abstruse calculations of checks and 
 alliances to secure a balance of power on the Con- 
 tinent, a matter of profound indifference to the 
 country. "We pay all and fight all," said Pelham, 
 echoing the popular view ; ... all our efforts 
 were devoted to bolstering up some other Power 
 Hanover, the Empress Queen, or, at best, Holland 
 while the national interests and the national 
 enemy were alike lost sight of. To these Pitt 
 recalled Parliament and the Nation. While Carteret 
 and Newcastle were bothering their heads with 
 Pragmatic Sanctions and Kings of the Romans 
 and other such Will-o'-the-Wisps, Pitt . . . had 
 been learning the real needs of the time through . . . 
 leaders of the great Commercial Community, too 
 long ignored or looked down upon by the Whig 
 Magnates. . . . The two great obstacles to our 
 growing trade were the Bourbon Powers. With 
 Spain there was a temporary understanding since 
 the last war ; but France was everywhere aggres- 
 sive. . . . Pitt, therefore, instead of making the 
 King's speech turn on Hanover and treaties to
 
 PITT'S FOREIGN POLICY 69 
 
 defend Hanover, pointed out the one object of the 
 war, the defeat of " the ancient enemy of these 
 Kingdoms," and that it should be waged chiefly 
 where her aggreasions had been most dangerous 
 in America. He took the nation into his confidence, 
 he put to it a plain issue, and in return he asked 
 it to fight its own battles. . . . Pitt's first Ministry 
 would have been justified had he done nothing more 
 than clear the decks for action by the plain state- 
 ment of policy and courageous appeal for national 
 exertion.' 1 
 
 The cleavage was not perhaps so clear cut as 
 seems from the above passage ; and when a few 
 months later Pitt at last obtained the power to put 
 his policy in action, he was found, like his pre- 
 decessors, sending troops to the Continent and 
 declaring that America was to be won in Germany. 
 Still it was one thing to fight side by side with the 
 Great Frederick, another to depend upon the broken 
 reed of petty German principalities. 
 
 With Pitt's conduct of the war we have here 
 nothing to do, but merely with the policy of which 
 it was the outcome. That policy, we have seen, 
 involved the destruction of the Bourbon power ; and 
 therefore when, in spite of the long-suffering of Great 
 Britain, Spain showed signs of joining with France, 
 Pitt's policy was to anticipate matters by striking 
 the first blow. It was because the Cabinet refused 
 to agree with this resolution that he resigned. 
 
 Considering his hostility to the Bourbon Powers 
 and his own past treatment, it was natural that 
 
 1 The Life of W. Pitt, Earl of Chatham, by Basil Williams, 
 vol. i. pp. 288-9.
 
 J 
 
 70 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 the terms of the Peace of Paris, 1763, should have 
 received his strongest condemnation. ' He saw in 
 them the seeds of a future war. The Peace was 
 insecure because it restored the enemy to her former 
 greatness. The Peace was inadequate because the 
 places gained were no equivalent for the places 
 surrendered.' x On the other side ' Bedford stands 
 out as not only the actual negotiator of the peace, 
 but as Pitt's most worthy opponent, the only man 
 who had a clear alternative design. Pitt advocated 
 peace through war, Bedford proposed a policy of 
 conciliation. He tried to meet the difficulties of 
 a mercantilist age by an individualist policy. He 
 was something of a philosopher as well as of a 
 statesman, and declared that it was good policy 
 as well as good conscience for men to do as they 
 would be done by in public as weU as private life. 
 He thought we were in danger of over-colonising 
 like Spain : he pointed out that it was " against 
 nature " to deprive a Power with such an extensive 
 seaboard as France of the possession of an adequate 
 navy. He feared England was on the verge of 
 embarking on a policy of aggression which would 
 unite all the sea-powers of Europe against her.' 2 
 
 The author of the article from which I have 
 quoted decides against the Peace as inadequate. 
 On the other hand, its terms seemed so hard to 
 French statesmen that from the first they decided 
 to be revenged when the opportunity arose. A 
 powerful argument in favour of peace has been for 
 
 1 W. Pitt, Earl of Chatham, by A. von Ruville, vol. iii. p. 91. 
 
 2 Miss K. Hotblack in Royal Hist. Soc. Transaction*, Third 
 Series, vol. ii. pp. 254-5.
 
 THE PEACE OF PARIS, 1763 71 
 
 the most part ignored by its critics. Great as were 
 Pitt's merits as a War Minister, he had little thought 
 for finance ; and the Seven Years' War left a legacy 
 of debt which others had to meet. If then, as 
 seems certain, the insistence of terms such as would 
 have satisfied Pitt meant a continuance of war, there 
 was much to be said for the action of the Ministry. 
 The main dispute at the time and afterwards was 
 over the question of the Newfoundland fisheries. 
 Assuredly the French rights proved a troublesome 
 matter until the settlement of the question in 1904. 
 But if, as was the case, the maintenance of those 
 rights seemed a matter of life or death to French 
 statesmen, was it worth while on their behalf to 
 wreck the prospects of peace ? The writer in the 
 Annual Register for 1762, who was probably Burke, 
 dealt with the matter with much force and good 
 sense : ' This was a point of infinite importance, 
 and a subject of much controversy. In a commercial 
 view it is certainly of great estimation. But it has 
 been considered as even more material in a politi- 
 cal light. Everybody knows that these extensive 
 fisheries are the life of many maritime places, which 
 would otherwise be of no sort of value ; that they 
 are the great nurseries of seamen, and consequently 
 the great resources of the Marine. Scarce any 
 object could be of more importance to two nations 
 who contended for a superiority in naval power. 
 
 ; The more clearly, therefore, it was the interest 
 of Great Britain to acquire the exclusive Exercise 
 of this fishery, the more strongly and evidently it 
 became the interest of France to oppose themselves 
 to such a pretension. Not only a large part of her
 
 72 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 foreign trade depended on this fishery, but a great 
 part of her domestic supply. Besides, every hope 
 of the strength and almost of the existence of a 
 naval power must vanish with the cession of the 
 fishery. 
 
 ' The English administration probably saw that 
 France would rather run all hazards of war than 
 totally relinquish this object. Since, therefore, they 
 despaired of driving the French entirely from the 
 J fishery, they endeavoured as much as possible to 
 diminish its value to them. In this respect they 
 followed the plan of the former negotiation, except 
 that some improvements were added.' 1 
 
 But it was not merely on the ground of its adequacy 
 as a settlement that the Peace was condemned, it 
 was also described as a base betrayal of Frederick. 
 ' After amusing that great and wonderful prince,' 
 Pitt declared, ' during four months with promises of 
 a subsidy, he had been deceived and disappointed.' 2 
 The writer in the Annual Register explains the diffe- 
 rent attitude of the English negotiators in 1761 
 and 1762 in the following manner : 
 
 ' The spirit of the two negotiations, so far as 
 regarded the peculiar interests of Great Britain, 
 seems to have been perfectly similar. . . . But with 
 regard to some of our allies the principle was greatly 
 varied ; and we imagine that this change was 
 sufficiently justified by the alteration which happened 
 in the affairs of Germany during the interval between 
 the two treaties. Those who conducted the nego- 
 tiations in 1761 were steady in rejecting every 
 
 1 Annual Register, 1762, pp. 56-7. 
 
 2 von Ruville, op. cit. vol. iii. p. 91.
 
 THE PEACE OF PARIS, 1763 73 
 
 proposition in which they were not left at liberty to 
 aid the King of Prussia with the whole force of 
 Great Britain. Those who concluded the Peace in 
 1762 paid less attention to the interests, though 
 they did not wholly neglect the safety of that 
 Monarch. . . . Circumstanced as affairs then were, 
 this conduct on our side was as defensible as the 
 conduct which we held in 1761. At that time the 
 affairs of the King of Prussia were at the lowest 
 ebb ; he was overpowered by the whole weight 
 of Austria, of Sweden, of the Empire of Russia as 
 determined as ever in her enmity and then success- 
 ful, to say nothing of France. Neither generosity, 
 nor perhaps sound policy, ought to have permitted 
 us to desert him in that situation. But when the 
 last treaty was made, the condition of his affairs 
 was absolutely reversed. He had got rid of the 
 most powerful, and one of the most implacable, of 
 his enemies. He had concluded a Peace with 
 Sweden. The treaty itself freed him from all appre- 
 hensions of France. He had then none to contend 
 with but a nominal army of the Empire, and one 
 of Austria, which, though something more than 
 nominal, was wholly unable to oppose his progress. 
 His situation, from being pitiable, was become 
 formidable. It was good policy to prevent the 
 balance of Germany from being overturned to 
 his prejudice : it would have been the worst in 
 the world to overturn it in his favour.' x When 
 Frederick was in a position to secure for himself, as 
 in fact he did, a perfectly honourable Peace, there 
 was surely nothing disgraceful in Great Britain 
 
 1 Annual Register, 1762, pp. 54-5.
 
 74 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 discontinuing the subsidies the tendency of which 
 was to feed a perpetual war in Germany ! A German 
 historian, von Ruville, has set himself to disprove the 
 accusation of treachery charged against the British 
 Ministry ; but tradition dies hard, and we are still 
 solemnly told that that severe moralist in the field 
 of international politics, Prince Bismarck, attri- 
 buted his distrust of England to the desertion of 
 Frederick in 1762. He charitably concluded, in 
 direct contradiction to the facts stated above, 
 that but for the victories of Frederick the Great, 
 the cause of the King of Prussia would have 
 been abandoned by England earlier than it was : 
 respect for the rights of other States in England 
 lasting only so long as English interests are not 
 touched. 1 
 
 Whatever may have been the truth in all this, 
 it is at least clear that the foundations of the elder 
 Pitt's foreign policy were laid deep in the hatred 
 of France. The doctrine delenda est Carthago may 
 have been an impossible one to carry out in practice, 
 but it was the doctrine of Pitt ; and, as the con- 
 temporary of Louis XIV. J and Louis XV., and 
 the father of the statesman whose life was to be 
 worn out in the struggle with Napoleon, it would 
 be pharisaical to condemn him. The last act of 
 Chatham's life was occasioned by the French peril. 
 Convinced that the revolting colonies were in the 
 right, he would not stir a finger to assist in their 
 subjection ; but, when once France appeared upon 
 the scene, and the old struggle had to be reopened, 
 
 1 Bismarck, op. cit. vol. ii. pp. 252-3. 
 
 z Pitt was born in 1708. Louis XIV. died in 1715.
 
 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA 75 
 
 he recognised that the claims of imperial patriotism 
 came first and foremost ; though how far even he 
 could have brought back the temper which prevailed 
 in the colonies during the Seven Years' War is open 
 to much question. In any case he died before he 
 could give effect to his policy ; and the wheels 
 of history ground their way to the tragic finale 
 of the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. 
 
 When affairs were going badly in America the 
 bungling British Government had proposed in 1778 
 an offensive, as well as defensive, alliance with 
 Russia, 1 and were much surprised when, not un- 
 naturally, Catherine rejected their offer. Nor did 
 the bait of Minorca alter Catherine's resolution. 
 Consequently the Treaty of Versailles (1783) left 
 Great Britain in a position of extreme isolation. 
 Frederick, with the prejudice and obstinacy of old 
 age, scornfully rejected proffers of friendship from 
 his natural ally against Austria. Austria, which 
 had opposed England at her zenith, was not likely 
 to desire her friendship in the day of her adversity. 
 Moreover, Joseph was meditating a coup in the 
 Netherlands most adverse to British interests. 
 Russia, in spite of having taken the lead in the 
 ' Armed Neutrality,' was the Power most friendly 
 to England, but Catherine, with her eyes fixed on 
 Turkey and Constantinople, saw no profit in an 
 alliance with England. ' Thus the trend of European 
 politics in the East, in Germany and in the Nether- 
 lands told heavily against England, and increased 
 the natural reluctance of any Power to seek the 
 
 1 Diaries and Correspondence of the 1st Earl of Malmesbury, 
 ed. by 3rd Earl, vol. i. pp. 157-160.
 
 76 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 / friendship of a beaten nation.' 1 In any case, in 
 * the existing circumstances peace was a necessity. 
 ' Till I see this country,' wrote George III., ' in a 
 situation more respectable as to army, navy and 
 finances, I cannot think anything that may draw 
 us into troubled waters either safe or rational.' 2 
 In this state of things wrote Harris : ' The Emperor 
 dupes Russia : France makes a fool of Prussia.' 3 
 At the end of 1785 the British foreign secretary 
 wrote : ' Holland seems lost to us both in Europe 
 and the East Indies ; and should the Emperor and 
 Russia unite with France, Sweden must follow, and 
 Denmark dare not be our friend. Under such 
 circumstances what are we to look for but utter 
 ruin ? If France is disengaged on the Continent 
 and assisted by Spain, Holland and Russia (to say 
 nothing of America), we must be attacked with 
 greatly superior forces in the East and West Indies, 
 and perhaps in Canada ; but what is still worse, 
 we shall undoubtedly have the war brought into 
 Ireland, and I very much doubt whether we can 
 by any means avoid that country being divided, 
 and a large part acting against us. If any of these 
 points of attack succeed, and, above all, if our 
 Navy should meet with any disaster from superior 
 forces, the next step will be to bring war into this 
 country, and the best issue of such an event must 
 be attended with much distress. In short, the 
 natural and political advantages of France are such 
 that I very much fear the consequences.' 4 
 
 1 W. Pitt and National Revival, by T. Holland Rose, pp. 
 300-1. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 301. * Ibid. p. 311. 4 Ibid. pp. 319-20.
 
 THE EUROPEAN SITUATION 77 
 
 The friction between the English and the Dutch, 
 which culminated in actual war, at the end of 1780, 
 had been due partly to the exercise by British ships 
 of the right of Search, and partly to the fact that in 
 Dutch politics the Republican party, which was in 
 sympathy with France for the time being, had 
 defeated the Orange party, which was in favour of 
 the maintenance of the English alliance. 
 
 But the situation was not really so black as it 
 appeared. In spite of the humiliation of Great 
 Britain, Rodney had shown that her sea-power 
 was still unrivalled ; and it was to her sea-power 
 that England mainly owed her strength. France 
 had come out victorious from the late war, but 
 with crippled finances, and with a Government 
 wholly unable to read the writing on the wall. As 
 in America, so in the United Provinces, with less 
 excuse, she set herself to work against constituted 
 authority, regardless of the fact that the lesson 
 might be taken to heart nearer home. There was 
 evidence that the marvellous intellect of Catherine 
 of Russia was being sapped by her physical excesses. 
 Frederick, in his sour old age, was not the terror 
 to Europe that he had been in his prime, and his 
 successor Frederick William, as Harris wrote, re- 
 sembled Solomon only in the matter of concubines. 
 Lastly, the Emperor Joseph, in his spasmodic attempt 
 to play the part of enlightened Providence, showed 
 himself devoid of political capacity. 
 
 The politics of the United Provinces were the stage 
 which gave England the opportunity of reappearance. 
 The Emperor Joseph had chosen the time of the 
 American War to resume the control of the Dutch
 
 78 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 Barrier, the fortresses that, since the Peace of Utrecht, 
 had been deposited in the hands of the Dutch for 
 the common benefit and security of the Empire 
 and themselves, to secure a defence from the power 
 and ambition of France. Great Britain was at war 
 with Holland when the demand was made (1781) ; 
 and so the natural Guardian of the Barrier could 
 not be invoked. A general alarm was spread through 
 the United Provinces ; their own fortresses, especially 
 those on the Scheldt, were strengthened ; but they 
 were helpless by themselves to defeat Joseph's 
 purpose. 
 
 Three years later the Emperor claimed from the 
 Dutch the entire and free navigation of the Scheldt 
 from Antwerp to the sea, a measure which the 
 Dutch declared ' would be laying the inmost re- 
 cesses and the vital sources of the State open and 
 exposed : and would at once include not only the 
 immediate security, but the independence and very 
 existence of the republic.' 1 The attempted enforce- 
 ment of the claim, by a vessel dispatched by the 
 Emperor, threatened to bring about war. War was, 
 however, averted, through the mediation of France ; 
 the rights of the Dutch to the exclusive navigation 
 of the Scheldt being recognised (November 8, 1785). 
 Still Holland ' was compelled to purchase at a large 
 expense in money and present peace, a future 
 doubtful security from a new and unexpected 
 enemy.' 2 But, assuredly, the episode did not 
 redound to the credit of Joseph's reputation as a 
 man of honour, or of his skill as a politician. 
 
 Meanwhile, in another quarter Joseph had been 
 
 1 Annual Register. 1784-5, p. 110. 2 Ibid. p. 137.
 
 ENGLAND AND AUSTRIAN NETHERLANDS 79 
 
 showing his restless and unstable disposition. In 
 1784 he proposed to exchange the Austrian Nether- 
 lands for the Electorate of Bavaria. ' England and 
 Holland,' wrote Harris from the Hague, January 
 25, 1785, 'gave the Low Countries, by the Peace 
 of Utrecht, to the House of Austria, to serve as a 
 barrier against France. . . . They cannot be alien- 
 ated without the consent of these Powers. In this 
 treaty-breaking age this perhaps does not signify 
 a great deal, either to one or the other of the parties ; 
 but we shall certainly be called on upon this occasion, 
 and I scarce see how we can avoid giving something 
 like a positive answer. . . . The Elector Palatine, as 
 King of Brabant, . . . would be no contemptible 
 monarch, and ; if allied to England and the Emperor, 
 . . . would contribute to the formation of no con- 
 temptible opposition to France, and be in the new 
 system what this country (Holland) was in the 
 old : this is the bright side of the medal. 
 
 ' If his Majesty of Brabant, Burgundy, or by what- 
 ever title distinguished, should choose rather to be 
 governed by France than protected by England 
 (b'ke these Boors), why then it is the reverse of 
 the medal. In short, it is heads or tails.' 1 
 
 The main article in Harris's political creed was 
 distrust and hatred of France. He saw in the United 
 Provinces a struggle going on between the Stadt- 
 holder, representing the House of Orange, and the 
 so-called Patriot party. ' The whole tenor and the 
 conduct of the French and Patriots leaves not a 
 doubt that the principal object they aim at is to 
 
 1 Diaries and Correspondence of the 1st Earl of Malmesbury, 
 d. by 3rd Earl, vol. ii. p. 96.
 
 80 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 throw the whole weight of the Belgic Confederacy 
 into the hands of the Province of Holland. Holland 
 is to be mistress of the Republic and France is to 
 govern Holland.' l The wife of the Stadtholder was 
 the niece of Frederick the Great and the sister of 
 his successor ; and the aim of Harris was to commit 
 France and Prussia ' in a military quarrel,' and 
 short of this, to encourage Prussia in a political 
 one ' England in both cases to remain quiet.' 2 
 
 The Dutch had been joined in a close alliance 
 with France as early as 1785 ; and, as time went 
 on, Harris grew more and more eager in his desire 
 to break up this conspiracy. The Patriots were, 
 in fact, an unpopular oligarchy ; and a well-organised 
 opposition could overcome them. The main draw- 
 back was the feebleness of the Stadtholder and his 
 jealousy of his loyal and able wife. ' If we lose 
 this country,' Harris wrote to Lord Carmarthen 
 (May 1st, 1787), ' France will acquire what she has 
 always considered as the climax of her power. 
 The Low Countries must immediately after fall into 
 her clutches, and it is with this view that she is 
 fomenting the troubles that are beginning to appear 
 there. There is good stuff enough here to vanquish 
 twice the strength of our opponents ; and, if we 
 will be bold enough to assume the style and tone 
 which belong to us, / will pledge my head on the 
 event.' 3 
 
 Harris's enthusiasm fired the Home Government, 
 hi spite of the peaceful inclinations of both the 
 
 1 Diaries and Correspondence of the 1st Earl of Malmesbury, 
 ed. by 3rd Earl, vol. ii. p. 241. 
 
 * Ibid. p. 240. * Ibid. pp. 298-9.
 
 ENGLAND AND THE UNITED NETHERLANDS 81 
 
 King and Pitt ; and at a meeting of the Cabinet 
 at which Harris was present (May 26, 1787) it was 
 decided to advance 20,000 by way of loan, to 
 promote the objects of the Stadtholder's party. 1 
 A consideration which no doubt counted for much 
 with the British Government was the apparent 
 design of the French to use the Dutch interest as 
 a means of attack upon the British power in India. 
 ' The main object of the French here,' wrote Harris 
 hi April, 1787, ' seems to be to increase the number 
 of European troops they m&y dispose of in the 
 East Indies, and for this purpose there never sails 
 a ship, on account of the Dutch Company, which 
 is not crowded with recruits. M. de Vergennes has 
 agents employed at Amsterdam for no other purpose 
 than to find out persons who had been accustomed 
 to India, who know the language and habits of the 
 Country ; and wherever they could be discovered, 
 they were engaged at almost any price ; and I am 
 told there is scarcely an Indian Prince who has 
 not a French Emissary at his Court. 
 
 ' The Faction here, in pursuance of the repeated 
 request of France, are indefatigable in attempting 
 to get the direction of the (East India) Company 
 into their hands, and every possible means (to my 
 certain knowledge) has been employed to corrupt 
 the present Court of Directors/ 2 
 
 But now more powerful help came to assist Harris's 
 endeavours. The great Frederick had died in 1786 ; 
 and his successor, though no Paladin of romance, 
 was induced to espouse the cause of his insulted 
 sister. With the march of Prussian troops upon 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 307. 2 Ibid. pp. 289-90. 
 
 E.F.F. f
 
 82 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 Amsterdam, the house of cards of Dutch patriotism 
 soon collapsed. On October 2, 1787, a secret con- 
 vention was signed between England and Prussia, 
 for the defence of the States. Under this, while a 
 Prussian army marched into Holland, England was 
 to prepare forty ships of the line to support it. 1 
 On August 13, 1788, a defensive treaty of alliance 
 was signed by Great Britain and Prussia. A similar 
 treaty between Great Britain and the United Pro- 
 vinces had been signed on the 25th of April of the 
 same year. In the following month Sir James 
 Harris was raised to the peerage as Lord Malmesbury. 
 Certainly no diplomat had ever worked harder or 
 more adroitly for the interests of his country. 
 
 Moreover, in these years, whilst Pitt was carefully 
 husbanding British resources in case of need, he 
 was always zealous to maintain a strong navy. 
 His biographer, Mr. J. Holland Rose, has conclu- 
 sively shown that Pitt took the keenest interest in 
 the details of foreign policy, and often practically 
 dictated the dispatches of the Secretary of State, 
 Lord Carmarthen. 
 
 In spite, however, of natural distrust of France, 
 Pitt had sought to mend matters by an understand- 
 ing with that country. The first conception of a 
 commercial treaty between Great Britain and France 
 was formed not by him, but by Vergennes and Shel- 
 burne ; but Pitt threw himself into the scheme with 
 great zeal. 
 
 Strangely enough the younger Pitt, example as 
 he was in every way of filial piety, took as his 
 
 1 Diaries and Correspondence of the 1st Earl of Malmeabury, 
 ed. by 3rd Earl, vol. ii. p. 352.
 
 PITT AND AN ANGLO-FRENCH ENTENTE 83 
 
 model, with regard to foreign policy, during the first 
 years of his public life, not his father but the peace- 
 loving Walpole. History repeated itself in that 
 in both France and England Ministers were at the 
 helm who sincerely desired an Anglo-French rap- 
 prochement. It was the policy of Vergennes, having 
 wiped out the disgrace of the Peace of Paris, 1763, 
 to establish cordial relations with England for the 
 future ; and the younger Pitt's most earnest desire 
 was in every way to promote such a new attitude. 
 In advocating, in February, 1787, the commercial 
 treaty with France, signed in 1786. Pitt said : ' Con- 
 sidering the treaty in its political view, he should 
 not hesitate to contend against the too-frequently 
 advanced doctrine that France was and must be the 
 unalterable enemy of Britain. His mind revolted 
 from this position as monstrous and impossible. To 
 suppose that any nation could be unalterably the 
 enemy of another was weak and foolish. It had 
 neither its foundation in the experience of nations, nor 
 in the history of man. It was a libel on the constitu- 
 tion of Political Societies and supposed the existence 
 of diabolical malice in the original frame of man.' 
 ' By promoting habits of friendly intercourse and 
 of mutual benefit the treaty, while it invigorated 
 the resources of Great Britain, made it less likely 
 that she should have occasion to call forth those 
 resources. It certainly had at least the happy 
 tendency to make the two Nations enter into more 
 intimate communion with one another, to enter 
 into the same views even of taste and manners ; 
 and while they were mutually benefited by the 
 connexion, and endeared to one another by the result
 
 84 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 of the common benefits, it gave a better chance for 
 the preservation of harmony between them, while, 
 so far from weakening, it strengthened their sinews 
 of war. That we should not be taken unprepared 
 for war was a matter totally distinct from treaty. 
 It depended in no degree on that circumstance, but 
 simply and totally on the watchfulness of the 
 administration for the time being. He had heard 
 of the invariable character of the French nation, 
 and of the French Cabinet ; her restless ambition 
 and her incessant enmity and designs against Great 
 Britain ; and he noticed the particular instance of 
 her interference in our late disputes, and of the 
 result of her attack at that time. That France had 
 in that instant of our distress interfered to crush 
 us was a truth over which he did not desire to 
 throw the slightest veil. . . . But although he 
 thought France the aggressor in most of our former 
 wars, yet her assurances and frankness during the 
 present negotiation were such as in his opinion 
 might be confided in. What might be the projects 
 which wild ambition might one day dictate was 
 beyond his penetration ; but at present the Court 
 of France was governed by maxims too prudent 
 and political not to consult its own safety and happi- 
 ness beyond the ministerial aims of impracticable 
 conquest. Oppressed as this Nation was during the 
 last War by the most formidable combination for 
 its destruction, yet had France very little to boast 
 at the end of the contest, which should induce her 
 again to enter deliberately into hostilities against 
 this Country. . . . When France perceived that in 
 that dreadful contest, when with the enormous
 
 PEACE WITH FRANCE 85 
 
 combination of Powers against us, it might be truly 
 said that we were struggling for our existence, we 
 not only saved our honour but manifested the solid, 
 and, he might almost be tempted to say, the in- 
 exhaustible resources of the land ; reflecting that, 
 though she had gained her object in dismembering 
 our Empire, she had done it at an expense which 
 had sunk herself in extreme embarrassment ; and 
 reflecting also that such a combination of hostile 
 power against us, without a single friend on our 
 side, can never be imagined again to exist, may 
 I not (exclaimed Mr. Pitt) be led to cherish the idea 
 that seeing the durable and steady character of 
 our strength, and in the inefficiency as well as the 
 ruin of hostility, France would eagerly wish to 
 try the benefits of an amicable connexion with 
 us?' 1 
 
 It is idle to speculate on what might have been, 
 because the cataclysm of the French Revolution 
 upset the whole European system and brought about 
 a wholly new condition of affairs. In their desire 
 for peace, Pitt, the Foreign Secretary, Lord Grenville, 
 and the King were all agreed. When in April, 1791, 
 Grenville succeeded the Duke of Leeds, George III. 
 wrote : ' I cannot help adding that, in addition to his 
 ability and diligence, the knowledge of his decided 
 opinion how essential peace is to the welfare of 
 this Kingdom makes me think it most advantage- 
 ous that we should hold the seals of the Foreign 
 Department.' - 
 
 1 The Speeclies of the Rt. Hon. W. Pitt in the House of Commons, 
 3 vols. 2nd ed. 1808. vol. i. pp. 249-52. 
 
 2 Hist. MSS. Com., Dropmore MSS., vol. ii. p. 60.
 
 86 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 In 1789 the unnecessary innovations of Joseph II. 
 provoked a rebellion in the Belgic provinces. This 
 did not in the beginning draw its inspiration from 
 the French Revolution, and these provinces desired 
 the protection of Great Britain, being willing to 
 hand over Ostend to that Power, whilst Prussia 
 acquired Luxemburg and the Eastern provinces. 
 Prussia was desirous to encourage the movement, 
 not from sympathy with the people, but because 
 she sought in the general disturbance opportunities 
 of expansion. Pitt, however, was disinclined to 
 interfere ' in consequence of an application which 
 does not appear to be made by any regular or 
 acknowledged authority ' ; and Prussia was induced 
 to follow England's example, though reluctantly 
 and with a bad grace, the Prussian Government 
 being at the time full of ambitious schemes to extend 
 their country at the expense of Austria. The death 
 of Joseph in 1790 helped towards the solution of 
 the Belgic question ; and his successor, Leopold, 
 was able to arrive at a fairly satisfactory settle- 
 ment, 1 though events were now to take place which 
 made any previous arrangement of no value. 
 
 Pitt had not been very successful in his relations 
 with Russia and Austria. It was the misfortune 
 of Europe that in the difficult years preceding the 
 French Revolution Catherine of Russia and Joseph 
 II., by their grandiose schemes of personal ambition, 
 were already shaking the foundations of the European 
 system. These monarchs were continually trying 
 
 1 W. Pitt and National Revival, by J. H. Rose, pp. 611-17. 
 Hist, of England in the Eighteenth Century, by W. E. H. Lecky, 
 vol. vi. pp. 104-139.
 
 ENGLAND AND SWEDEN 87 
 
 to upset the balance of power as Great Britain 
 understood it. Sweden was in great danger of being 
 overwhelmed by Russia and Denmark, ' whereby 
 every idea of any future balance of power in the 
 north would be totally destroyed.' France had been 
 the traditional ally of Sweden, but now Prussia and 
 Great Britain, ' through a sudden turn of public 
 affairs, found it necessary to put themselves in the 
 place of France, to supply her imbecility by support- 
 ing her alliances, and to take up that system of 
 policy which she had so long pursued. Such were 
 the motives which induced England and Prussia 
 to become arbiters of the Peace and protectors of 
 the liberties of the north, so far as the preservation 
 of some equipoise in the state of power there might 
 produce that effect. Such likewise are the motives 
 that must ever operate upon all States in taking 
 such a part ; for the Utopian ideas that nations 
 will encounter the evils and dangers of war upon 
 the disinterested principles of preserving or restoring 
 the liberties of others must be considered by all 
 sober politicians, as well as philosophers, as " the 
 dreams of men awake." ' 1 
 
 After this rather depressing avowal of eighteenth- 
 century faith, it is consoling to find that the British 
 Minister, Mr. Elliot, could write : ' It was on the 
 acknowledged character of British veracity, staple 
 as the foundation of their island, the underwritten 
 saw a Sovereign and a Prince ready to stop the 
 effusion of blood on the point of inundating the 
 north of Europe. It was on the verbal assurances 
 of a stranger that the armies, ready to combat, 
 
 Annual Register. 1788, pp. 191-2.
 
 88 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 have resigned their hatred, and renewed their ancient 
 ties of amity and confraternity.' x 
 
 An agreement between Catherine and Joseph II. 
 for the partitioning of European Turkey excited the 
 cupidity of Frederick William II. He threatened 
 to intervene as the ally of the Turks. The opportune 
 death, however, of the Austrian Emperor mended 
 matters. His brother and successor, Leopold, signed 
 a convention at Reichenbach in July, 1790, by which 
 he undertook to make peace with Turkey ; the status 
 quo ante bellum being the basis of negotiations. In 
 the following year Great Britain and the Dutch 
 Republic entered into a guarantee of the Austrian 
 Netherlands, on condition that their constitutions 
 were restored. The main danger to peace seemed 
 at the time the attitude of Prussia. ' The King of 
 Prussia's earnestness,' wrote Lord Auckland from 
 the Hague in July, 1791, 'to add Austria to our 
 alliance will not, I hope, dimmish. ... If it should 
 succeed it probably will contribute to our system 
 of peace, and to the continuance of the present 
 state of power in Europe ; but it may be doubted 
 whether those objects, however beneficial to other 
 nations, are eligible for the Prussian Government, 
 which, being military in its composition and very 
 essence, requires the heat and energy of war to 
 maintain it.' 2 
 
 ' The conclusion of the Sistovo business ' (the 
 peace between Russia and Turkey), wrote Lord 
 Grenville in the August of the same year, ' has 
 removed every difficulty which there was in the 
 
 1 Annual Register, 1788 p. 201. 
 
 2 Hist. MSS. Com., Dropmore MSS., vol. ii. p. 139.
 
 ENGLAND AND THE EUROPEAN SITUATION 89 
 
 way of our speaking out and avowing our determina- 
 tion of the most scrupulous neutrality in the French 
 business ; and I now hold this language to all the 
 Foreign Ministers, in order that it may clearly be 
 understood that we are no parties to any step the 
 King of Prussia may take on this subject. I was 
 uneasy about the Netherlands. Every information 
 I have concurs to show that the dissentients there 
 are gaining ground. . . . This union of the Nether- 
 lands with France is the very thing that this country 
 and the Republic have most to apprehend. If the 
 Emperor's conduct had been wise, and if he had 
 known how to avail himself of his own situation, 
 the measures we had taken to prevent this union 
 would have been successful. But, as it is, I fear 
 the game is no longer in our hands. Under these 
 circumstances it is perhaps best for us that the 
 Hague Convention ' (the guarantee mentioned above) 
 ' was not ratified, and I think we shall do wisely 
 to show a great degree of reserve on that point 
 at present. In all other respects it appears to me 
 that the Maritime Powers may look with great 
 indifference and security at the new scenes which 
 are arising. Some of the principal Powers of Europe 
 seem not to have learnt that lesson which we have 
 been taught by a severe experience that no acquisi- 
 tion is worth the expense of conquering and main- 
 taining it. If, while they are gaining this experience, 
 they will leave Great Britain and Holland to the 
 undisturbed enjoyment of their external and internal 
 tranquillity I know not what more we can wish. 
 Our own danger is at home ; and for that danger 
 peace and economy are our best resources, and
 
 90 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 with them I flatter myself we . . . have not much 
 to fear.' * 
 
 Again, as late as June, 1792, Lord Auckland 
 wrote : ' With respect to the larger politics, it is 
 pleasant to observe how providentially the conduct 
 of the Prussian and Austrian Cabinets has tended 
 to separate us with credit from any participation 
 in their concerns. When in 1790 I intimated such 
 repeated and earnest objections to the project of 
 a Polish alliance, I apprehended that there were 
 many risks in that project and no adequate advan- 
 tages to compensate them : but I certainly did not 
 foresee the inextricable scrapes into which a Polish 
 alliance might soon have led us.' 2 
 
 The policy of Great Britain had been to group 
 the weaker States round Prussia and Great Britain, 
 so as to form a bulwark against the ambitions of 
 Russia and Austria, and it is possible that a formid- 
 able display of force in the Baltic in 1790 might 
 have brought Catherine to reason ; but the treachery 
 of Prussia which encouraged Catherine in resistance, 
 whilst posing as the ally of Great Britain, rendered 
 the task of maintaining the status quo in the interests 
 of Turkey well-nigh hopeless ; whilst the shifting 
 attitude of the Emperor and of Gustavus III. of 
 Sweden added to British difficulties. Still, writing 
 in September, 1791, Pitt believed that ' the general 
 state of Europe, taking in the whole, affords so 
 favourable a prospect to this country that we have 
 great reason to be contented. . . . The connection 
 between Prussia and Austria, whatever right we 
 
 1 Hist. MSS. Com., Dropmore MSS., vol. ii. pp. 171-2. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 279.
 
 THE PARTITION OF POLAND 91 
 
 have to complain of the steps which have led to 
 it, cannot, I think, produce any permanent mischief 
 to our system. . . . For the rest, in the singular 
 and uncertain state of Europe, our chief business 
 must be to watch events and keep ourselves quiet.' * 
 It can hardly, however, be admitted that the 
 Partition of Poland did not involve ' a permanent 
 mischief ' to the European System. The first Parti- 
 tion (in 1772), in the words of Lecky, 'shook the 
 political system, lowered the public morals and 
 weakened the public law of Europe.' 2 As early 
 as 1789 Prussia was in favour of wresting Galicia 
 from Austria and restoring it to Poland ; so as to 
 receive in return from Poland the important towns 
 of Dantzig and Thorn. The pretence of objecting 
 to a new Constitution was the immediate cause of 
 the second Partition (1793). Prussia, in entering upon 
 the French War, sought some indemnity, and the 
 Polish province of Posen lay ready to hand. Cathe- 
 rine was the prime mover of the game, but the part 
 played by Prussia was the basest, because she had 
 encouraged and approved the formation of the new 
 Constitution, and had recently, in forming an alliance 
 with Poland, solemnly guaranteed her integrity. 
 Austria, as usual, was prepared to act a subservient 
 part in the tragedy. ' Poland lay almost wholly 
 beyond the sphere of English interests and influ- 
 ence, and England could probably under no circum- 
 stances have prevented the partition.' 3 But it was 
 unfortunate that England's necessary allies in the 
 struggle against French aggression should have thus 
 
 1 J. H. Rose, op. tit. p. 629. 2 Op. tit. vol. vi. p. 81 
 
 3 Lecky, op. cit. vol. vii. p. 114.
 
 92 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 openly shown their credentials as vindicators of 
 European law. 
 
 In another direction more exclusively British, Pitt 
 had achieved a distinct success. In 1790 Spain set 
 up a claim to Nootka Sound or Vancouver Island. 
 Great Britain at once made it manifest that persist- 
 ence in such claim would mean war. For a short 
 time the issue between peace and war hovered in 
 the balance ; but France finally decided not to 
 support her ally, so that Pitt was able, without 
 cost or bloodshed, to secure for Great Britain the 
 untold possibilities of the future British Columbia. 1 
 
 With regard to foreign policy, there was in the 
 eighteenth century no difference between political 
 parties. The Tories, as having been generally in 
 opposition, and because of their hostility to the 
 House of Hanover, were naturally inclined to criticise 
 continental entanglements, caused by the interests 
 of that House ; but they, no more than the Whigs, 
 desired for Great Britain a position of complete 
 isolation from European alliances. The elder Pitt 
 had held his head above party connexions, thereby 
 bringing on himself the distrust of Burke, and, it 
 is probable, playing into the hands of George III. 
 His son started with the same views, though repug- 
 nance to the ideals of the French Revolution soon 
 threw him into the ranks of the Conservatives. 
 In fact, under the dissolvent force of that Revolution, 
 the British party system found itself in the crucible. 
 
 1 A secret mission of Hugh Elliot to Mirabeau, the chairman 
 of the Comite Diplomatique, seems to have been the main cause 
 of France failing to fulfil her obligations under the pacte de 
 familk. See The Despatches of Earl Oower, 1770-1792, ed. by 
 Oscar Browning, pp. 38-9.
 
 ENGLISH PARTIES AND THE REVOLUTION 93 
 
 Whig and Tory ceased to have their old connota- 
 tion ; and the Whig party of the past was torn 
 into fiercely opposed portions, the one typified by 
 Fox, which, in a somewhat dilettante fashion, was 
 genuinely Radical, the other typified by Burke, 
 which was pre-eminently Conservative. Both Fox 
 and Burke had in the past been strong advocates 
 of European alliances to secure the balance of 
 power, the difference in their later views being 
 entirely due to the differences of their attitude 
 towards the French Revolution.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY DURING THE FRENCH 
 REVOLUTION AND THE EMPIRE. 1791-1814 
 
 WHEN the storm cloud of the French Revolution 
 appeared upon the horizon, Pitt's attitude towards 
 these new and strange phenomena was eminently 
 characteristic of his cool and cautious temper. As 
 a pioneer of Parliamentary reform he was prepared 
 to welcome tentative steps in the direction of 
 popular government. As a British Minister, respon- 
 sible for British finance, he, not unnaturally, noted 
 with secret satisfaction the accumulating proofs of 
 French political impotence. As late as June, 1791, 
 the shrewd Lord Auckland wrote : ' I confess that 
 I do not know what result to wish for ; I heartily 
 detest and abhor the whole system of the Democrats 
 abstractedly considered ; but I am not sure that 
 the continued course of their struggles to maintain 
 a disjointed and unofficial government would not 
 be beneficial to our political interests, and the best 
 security to the permanence of our prosperity. 1 In 
 the previous year Pitt had declared that ' the present 
 convulsions of France must, sooner or later, ter- 
 
 1 Hist. MSS. Com., Dropmore MSS., vol ii. p. 97.
 
 PITT AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 95 
 
 minate in general harmony and regular order. . . . 
 Whenever the situation of France shall become 
 restored, it will prove freedom rightly understood, 
 freedom resulting from good order and good govern- 
 ment ; and thus circumstanced France will stand 
 forward as one of the most briliant Powers in 
 Europe.' l Even when the excesses of the Jacobins 
 damped these high hopes in 1792, he maintained 
 that there never was a time in the history of this 
 country when from the situation of Europe we might 
 more reasonably expect fifteen years of peace than 
 we may at the present moment, 2 and cut down the 
 military establishments by 200,000. Again, after 
 the execution of the King and Queen of France, 
 Pitt was careful to refrain from interfering with 
 the internal affairs of France ; and in 1796 and 
 again in 1797 he proved himself sincerely anxious 
 for peace by directing the negotiations which were 
 carried on by Malmesbury against the opinion of 
 the Foreign Secretary, Lord Grenville. 3 Pitt was not, 
 however, in favour of peace at any price, and when 
 Holland was threatened he wrote (November 13, 
 1792) : 'It seems absolutely impossible to hesitate as 
 to supporting our ally in case of necessity.' 4 It is 
 true that the final Declaration of War came from 
 France (February, 1793), but in any case, unless 
 Great Britain had repudiated her treaty obligations, 
 it could not possibly have been avoided. His rival 
 Fox from the first assumed an attitude of blind 
 
 1 Part. Hist., vol. xxviii. p. 351. 2 Ibid. vol. xxix. p. 326. 
 
 3 Diaries and Correspondence of the 1st Earl of Malmesbury, 
 ed. by the 3rd Earl, vol. iii. pp. 259-591. 
 
 4 The Life of W. Pitt, by Earl Stanhope, vol. ii. p. 173.
 
 96 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 admiration towards the Revolution and its con- 
 sequences. Hitherto his foreign policy had not 
 been very enlightened. He had opposed the Com- 
 mercial Treaty with France, on the ground that 
 Great Britain and that country must always be 
 natural enemies. In his zeal for Russia he seems 
 to have sent in 1791 an opposition envoy, Robert 
 Adair, to countermine Pitt's policy. 1 Just as, at 
 the time of the American War, with reckless, how- 
 ever generous-minded, levity he had gloated over 
 every British reverse, so now he had no thought 
 but to gratify the instincts of a vague humanitari- 
 anism. It is necessary, however, to note that, in 
 his brief periods of office, Fox appeared in a very 
 favourable light, adding to his great intellectual 
 powers good sense and a quick grasp of the situation. 
 At the opposite pole of opinion stood Edmund 
 Burke. His views on the French Revolution have 
 been criticised as the outcome of mere sentiment. 
 No judgment could be falser. In fact no man was 
 ever more actuated by principles, stretched almost 
 to the breaking point. Almost alone of his genera 
 tion he saw the full significance of the Revolution 
 and what its consequences would be. ' It is a 
 revolution of doctrine and theoretic dogma.' 2 
 Almost alone of his generation he foresaw that the 
 revolutionary system would not of necessity be either 
 weak or short lived. 3 Where he failed was in not 
 recognising the seeds of mischief in the past which 
 
 1 Hist. MSS. Com., Dropmore MSS., vol. ii. passim. 
 
 2 ' Thoughts on French Affairs,' The Works of E. Burke, 7th ed. 
 vol. iv. p. 319. 
 
 3 Ibid. p. 346.
 
 BURKE'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 97 
 
 finally produced so awful a harvest. He saw the 
 strength of a militant democracy ; but he failed 
 to see that, whilst its coming was inevitable, good 
 economic conditions, the spread of education, and 
 the apprenticeship of local self-government, might 
 draw from the dragon its fangs. Thus, with all 
 his depth of thought and wealth of expression, no 
 statesman failed more lamentably than did Burke 
 in anticipating the point of view of the British 
 Commonwealth of to-day. In the same way that 
 he opposed, to any idea of imperial federation, as 
 perpetual and irremovable, the physical barrier of 
 three thousand miles of ocean, so he denied the 
 possibility of salvation to a Europe that was not 
 based on the foundations of the existing order of 
 things. But once accept the strength of Burke's 
 premisses, and there is no resisting the strength of 
 his appeal. In fact he summoned Europe, and 
 especially Great Britain, to a new crusade against the 
 forces of atheism and anarchy. ' If,' he wrote, ' the 
 war made to prevent the Union of two Crowns upon 
 one head was a just war, this, which is made to pre- 
 vent the tearing all Crowns from all heads which 
 ought to wear them, and, with the crowns, to smite 
 off the sacred heads themselves, this is a just War. 
 
 ' If a war to prevent Louis XIV. from imposing 
 his religion was just, a war to prevent the murderers 
 of Louis XVI. from imposing their irreligion upon 
 us is just ; a war to prevent the operation of a 
 system which makes life without dignity and death 
 without hope is a just war. 
 
 ' If to preserve political independence and civil 
 freedom to nations was a just ground of war, a war
 
 98 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 to preserve national independence, property, liberty, 
 life and honour from certain, universal havoc is a 
 war just, necessary, manly, pious ; and we are bound 
 to persevere in it by every principle, divine and 
 human, as long as the system which menaces them 
 all, and all equally, has an existence in the world.' 1 
 But with all this fanaticism of thought and violence 
 of utterance Burke went down to the bedrock of 
 political principle, unknown to the opportunist 
 politician. ' In the intercourse between nations, we 
 are apt to rely too much on the instrumental part. 
 We lay too much weight on the formality of treaties 
 and compacts. We do not act much more wisely 
 when we trust to the interests of men as guarantees 
 of their engagements. The interests frequently tear 
 to pieces the engagements, and the passions trample 
 upon both. Entirely to trust to either is to dis- 
 regard our own safety, or not to know mankind. 
 Men are not tied to one another by papers and 
 seals. They are led to associate by resemblances, 
 by conformities, by sympathies. It is with nations 
 as with individuals. Nothing is so strong a tie of 
 amity between nation and nation as correspondence 
 in laws, customs, manners and habits of life. They 
 have more than the force of treaties in themselves. 
 They are obligations written in the heart. They 
 approximate men to men, without their knowledge, 
 and sometimes against their intentions. The secret, 
 unseen, but irrefragable bond of habitual inter- 
 course holds them together, even when then- perverse 
 and litigious nature sets them to equivocate, scuffle 
 
 1 ' Letters on a Regicide Peace.' Letter T. op. cit. vol. v. pp. 
 306-6.
 
 BURKE'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 99 
 
 and fight about the terms of their written obliga- 
 tions.' l 
 
 We thus arrive at the conclusion of the solidarity 
 of European interests. ' The writers on Public Law 
 have often called this aggregate of nations a Com- 
 monwealth. They had reason. It is virtually one 
 Great State, having the same basis of general law, 
 with some diversity of provincial customs and local 
 establishments.' But if so, what is the inference ? 
 ' There is a law of neighbourhood which does not 
 leave a man a perfect master on his own ground. 
 When a neighbour sees a new erection in the nature 
 of a nuisance set up at his door, he has a right to 
 represent it to the judge, who, on his part, has a 
 right to order the work to be stayed, or, if established, 
 to be removed. . . . Such is the law of civil vicinity. 
 Now when there is no constituted judge, as between 
 independent States there is not, the vicinage itself 
 is the natural judge. It is, preventively, the assertor 
 of its own rights, or, irremedially, their avenger. 
 Neighbours are presumed to take cognizance of 
 each other's acts. This principle, which, like the 
 rest, is as true of nations as of individual men, 
 has bestowed on the Grand Vicinage of Europe a 
 duty to know and a right to prevent any capital 
 innovation which may amount to the erection of 
 a dangerous nuisance.' 2 We have here in broad 
 outline an anticipation of the doctrine of the Holy 
 Alliance, dealt with below. But Burke does not deal 
 with the difficulty, suggested both by Rousseau and 
 Castlereagh, that stood in the way of such enforce- 
 ment of moral right. ' One cannot guarantee princes,' 
 
 1 Ibid. pp. 317-8. 2 Ibid. pp. 321-323.
 
 100 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 wrote the former, ' against the revolt of their sub- 
 jects without at the same time guaranteeing subjects 
 against the tyranny of princes.' 1 Similarly Castle- 
 reagh wrote : ' The idea of an alliance solidaire by 
 which each State shall be bound to support the 
 state of succession, government and possession 
 within all other states from violence and attack, 
 upon receiving for itself a similar guarantee, must 
 be understood as morally implying the previous 
 establishment of such a system of general govern- 
 ment as may secure and enforce upon all Kings and 
 Nations an internal system of peace and justice. 
 Till the mode of constructing such a system shall 
 be devised, the consequence is inadmissible, as 
 nothing could be more immoral or more prejudicial 
 to the character of Governments generally than the 
 idea that their force was collectively to be prostituted 
 to the support of established power without any 
 consideration of the extent to which it was abused.' 2 
 It is curious to note the contrast between the 
 philosopher Burke and the practical opportunist 
 Castlereagh ; but considering the enormity of the 
 danger as it presented itself to the former, it was 
 
 i 
 
 Jugement sur la paix perpetuelle. quoted by W. Alison Phillips 
 in The Confederation of Europe, p. 25. 
 
 2 ' Memorandum on Treaties presented at Aix-la-Chapelle,' 
 quoted Ibid. p. 25. Compare Wellington to Beresford (November 
 3, 1823). ' Before we can guarantee anything we must know 
 what it is. We must be sure that it will stand the test of inquiry 
 in the most acute assembly of men in the world ; and it must 
 provide not only for the rights of the monarch, but also for the 
 freedom of the person, and for the property of the subject, and, 
 above all, for the security of those advantages for the subject.' 
 Despatches and Correspondence of the Duke of Wellington, ed. by 
 his son, vol. ii. p. 164.
 
 BURKE'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 101 
 
 natural enough that in the particular case he should 
 see no possibility of non-interference. 
 
 Upon the spiritual side of the contest Burke is 
 especially illumining : ' The princes were easily 
 taught to slide back into their old habitual course 
 of politics. They were easily led to consider the 
 flames that were consuming France, not as a warn- 
 ing to protect their own buildings (which were 
 without any party-wall and linked by a contigna- 
 tion into the edifice of France), but as a happy 
 occasion for pillaging the goods, and for carrying off 
 the materials of their neighbour's house. Their 
 provident fears were changed into avaricious hopes. 
 .... They aimed, or pretended to aim, at defend- 
 ing themselves against a danger from which there 
 can be no security in any defensive plan. If armies 
 and fortresses were a defence against Jacobinism, 
 Louis XVI. would this day reign a powerful monarch 
 over a happy people.' 1 
 
 ' So long as there was any appearance of success, 
 the spirit of aggrandizement, and consequently the 
 spirit of mutual jealousy, seized upon all the 
 Coalesced Powers. Some sought an accession of 
 territory at the expense of France, some at the ex- 
 pense of each other, some at the expense of third 
 parties ; and, when the vicissitude of disaster took 
 its turn, they found common distress a treacherous 
 bond of faith and friendship.' 2 
 
 No doubt there was much force in this criticism. 
 Against the spiritual forces of the Revolution methods 
 merely material spent themselves in vain. The 
 trouble was that the spiritual creed of Burke belonged 
 
 1 Letter II. op. tit. p. 347. 2 Ibid. p. 348.
 
 102 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 to a dying epoch ; whilst the working out of a more 
 reasonable faith, to stand half-way between doctrin- 
 aire Jacobinism and reactionary absolutism, was still, 
 even in England, the most advanced, politically, 
 of European nations, in the womb of time. 
 
 But it must not be thought that, even as things 
 were, moral considerations did not enter into the 
 case set up by British statesmen. ' England,' said 
 Pitt, ' will never consent that France shall arrogate 
 the power of annulling at her pleasure, and at the 
 pretence of a natural right of which she makes 
 herself the only judge, the political System of 
 Europe, established by solemn treaties and guaran- 
 teed by the consent of all the Powers.' He had 
 already said : ' To insist upon the opening of the 
 river Scheldt is an act of itself in which the French 
 Nation had no right to interfere at all, unless she 
 was the Sovereign of the Low Countries, or boldly 
 professed herself the general arbitress of Europe. 
 This singular circumstance was an aggravation in 
 their case, because they were bound by the faith 
 of solemn and recent treaties to secure to the Dutch 
 the exclusive navigation of the Scheldt, and to 
 oppose the opening of that river if any other Power 
 had attempted it. If France were the Sovereign 
 of the Low Countries, she would only succeed to 
 the rights which were enjoyed by the House of 
 Austria : and if she possessed the sovereignty with 
 aU its advantage, she must also take it with all 
 its incumbrances, of which the shutting up of the 
 Scheldt was one. France can have no right to 
 annul the stipulation, relative to the Scheldt, unless 
 she has also the right to set aside equally all the
 
 PITT ON THE PROTECTION OF HOLLAND 103 
 
 other treaties between all the Powers of Europe, and 
 all the other rights of England and of her allies.' 1 
 
 To the argument that Holland had made no 
 appeal for Great Britain to enforce the treaty, Pitt- 
 replied that, in fact, there had been a protest by 
 the States-General against ships going up the 
 Scheldt ; but if, ' from the sudden effect and progress 
 of French ambition and of French arms, Holland 
 had just reason to be afraid to make a formal 
 requisition ; if she had seen just reason not to do 
 what she might have been well justified in doing, 
 that was no reason why we should not observe our 
 treaty. Are we to stand by as indifferent spectators, 
 and look at France trampling upon the ancient 
 treaties of the allies of this country ? Are we to 
 view with indifference the progress of French ambi- 
 tion and of French arms by which our allies are 
 exposed to the greatest danger ? This is, surely, 
 no reason for England to be inactive and slothful. 
 If Holland has not immediately called upon us for 
 our support and assistance, her forbearance ought 
 not to be supposed to arise from her indifference 
 about the River Scheldt. If Holland had not applied 
 to England when Antwerp was taken, the French 
 might have overrun her territory. And unless we 
 wish to stand by, and suffer State after State to 
 be subverted under the power of France, we must 
 now declare our firm resolution effectually to oppose 
 those principles of ambition and aggrandizement, 
 which have for their object the destruction of Eng- 
 land, of Europe, and of the world.' 2 
 
 1 The War Speeches of W. Pitt, ed. by R. Coupland, pp. 43-4. 
 - Ibid. pp. 45-6.
 
 One could wish that Great Britain had made a 
 more vigorous protest when a few years before 
 Joseph II. had equally done violence to treaty 
 rights with regard to the Scheldt ; but, as we have 
 seen, England was, at the time, completely isolated ; 
 and Holland had just been her enemy. Upon the 
 whole, it is clear that Great Britain entered upon 
 the Great War with clean hands, and that, so far 
 from having secret motives of ambition, her Prime 
 Minister recognised in peace the chief British in- 
 terest. Very different unhappily was the situation 
 of other parties to the alliance, formed against 
 revolutionary France ; and, just as the speed of a 
 battle fleet is decided by its slowest member, so 
 the moral force of the alliance was impaired by the 
 conduct of any of its members. What indeed could 
 be expected from Powers which entered upon a 
 crusade in behalf of violated treaty rights with 
 hands covered or about to be covered with the 
 stain of a partitioned Poland ? The manner of 
 conducting the war Pitt, for the most pait, left 
 to others, and, when he interfered, showed few 
 signs of ability in that direction. Finance was 
 his strong point, and he had neither his father's 
 ambition nor his capacity to be the organiser of 
 victory. Competent critics are found to maintain 
 that the policy of separate small West Indian 
 expeditions was a wise one ; and it might well 
 seem the line of least resistance, to pursue the 
 traditional course of maritime and colonial expan- 
 sion. At the same time, it seems very probable 
 that, if, in the first years of the war, the British 
 offensive had been concentrated against the north-
 
 WAR AS CONDUCTED BY THE ALLIES 105 
 
 west of France, where afterwards the forces of 
 loyalism put forward so long and so steadfast 
 resistance to the new order, the course of history 
 might have been very different. ' It is in Europe 
 only,' wrote Lord Auckland, ' that the successes of 
 the allied armies and the commanding superiority 
 of our naval force can enable us to compel the French 
 nation to such conditions and sacrifices as may 
 be thought necessary for our future safety and 
 tranquillity.' 1 In any case we must admit that 
 the war, as conducted by the Allies, did not strike 
 a note of very high moralitj'. ' The whole,' wrote 
 Burke in 1796-7, ' has been but one error. It was 
 but nominally a war of alliance. As the continental 
 Powers pursued it, there was nothing to hold an 
 alliance together. There could be no tie of honour 
 in a society for pillage. There could be no tie of 
 common interest when the object did not offer such 
 a division amongst the parties as could well give 
 them a warm concern in the gains of each other, 
 or could, indeed, form such a body of equivalents 
 as might make one of them willing to abandon a 
 separate object of his ambitions for the gratification 
 of any other member of the alliance. The partition 
 of Poland offered an object of spoil in which the 
 parties might agree. They were circumjacent and 
 each might take a portion convenient to his own 
 territory. . . . Though hereafter the whole world 
 will have cause to rue this iniquitous measure, they 
 most who were most concerned in it, for the moment 
 there was wherewithal in the object to preserve 
 peace among Confederates in wrong. But the spoil 
 1 Hist. MSS. Com., Dropinore MSS., vol. ii. p. 454.
 
 106 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 of France does not afford the same facilities for 
 accommodation. What might satisfy the House of 
 Austria in a Flemish frontier afforded no equivalent 
 to tempt the cupidity of the King of Prussia. What 
 might be desired by Great Britain in the West 
 Indies must be coldly and remotely, if at all, felt 
 as an interest at Vienna, and it would be felt as 
 something worse than as negative interest at Madrid. 
 Austria, long possessed with unwise and dangerous 
 designs in Italy, could not be very much in earnest 
 about the preservation of the House of Savoy ; 
 Sardinia, who owed to an Italian force all her means 
 of shutting out France from Italy, of which she has 
 been supposed to hold the key, would not purchase 
 the means of strength on one side by yielding it on 
 the other : she would not readily give the possession 
 of Novara for the hope of Savoy. No Continental 
 Power was willing to lose any of its continental 
 objects for the increase of the naval power of Great 
 Britain ; and Great Britain would not give up any of 
 the objects she sought for as a means to the increase 
 to her naval power, to further their aggrandizement.' 1 
 It may be said that these were the words of an 
 embittered and broken-hearted old man ; but the 
 sober and unbiassed verdict of history must approve 
 them. The first Lord Malmesbury and Arthur 
 Paget were two of the ablest men connected with 
 eighteenth-century diplomacy, and the diplomat is 
 generally cautious in his judgments. But what 
 was their opinion of the governments to which they 
 were accredited ? In September, 1794, Malmesbury 
 wrote to Paget : ' You have done a very essential 
 1 Letter II., op. cit. pp. 349-351.
 
 THE EUROPEAN COALITION 107 
 
 service in speaking of the conduct of the Prussian 
 headquarters in the way you did. It is impossible 
 for it to be more disgraceful and barefaced.' 1 In 
 December of the same year Malmesbury wrote to 
 Lord Grenville of the ' weakness, perfidy, insolence, 
 avarice and folly ' of the Prussian Government. 2 
 A few years later Paget wrote (December 11, 1798) : 
 ' The conduct of these great German Powers it is 
 beyond my capacity to calculate the wisdom of.' 3 
 Again (January 15, 1799) : ' I have the worst 
 possible opinion of the Cabinet of Vienna, and 
 apprehend that the basest and vilest motives have 
 directed its conduct.' 4 
 
 The first European Coalition against France was 
 brought to an end by the action of Prussia in sign- 
 ing the separate peace of Basle (April 5, 1795). 
 
 In 1796 a desperate attempt was made to galvanise 
 it into life, at least to the extent of working for a 
 common peace, by an appeal to the cupidity of 
 the German Powers. It was proposed that Austria 
 should receive Bavaria, and Prussia should receive 
 compensation in Germany, or the Netherlands. 
 George III. protested against these proposals, not 
 from any regard for the Netherlands, but as Elector 
 of Hanover, lest the interests of the small German 
 princes should be injured. Ministers, in fact, had 
 no great faith in the likelihood of any success for 
 
 1 The Paget Papers, diplomatic and other correspondence of the 
 Rt. Hon. Sir A. Paget, ed. by his son Sir A. Paget, 2 vols., vol. i. 
 p. 37. 
 
 - Diaries and Correspondence of the 1st Earl of Malmesbury, 
 ed. by 3rd Earl, 4 vols., vol. iii. p. 227. 
 
 3 Paget Papers, vol. i. p. 142. * Ibid. p. 152.
 
 their efforts. Pitt wrote, June 23, 1796, ' On the 
 whole my notion is that most likely, either now 
 or a few months hence, we shall be left to sustain 
 alone the conflict with France and Holland, probably 
 joined by Spain, and perhaps favoured more or 
 less openly by the Northern Powers. But with 
 proper exertion we can make our party good against 
 them all.' 1 Still it was worth while to make the 
 attempt at co-operation. Grenville replied to the 
 King in the name of the Cabinet ' that the manner 
 in which the Netherlands shall be settled at the 
 Peace, and particularly the keeping of those Pro- 
 vinces, if possible, out of the possession and depen- 
 dence of France, are so important for the interests 
 of this country that they ought to form the primary 
 objects of attention in any discussion respecting a 
 continental peace. 
 
 ' They now see little hope of obtaining this point, 
 either by negotiation or by force, without the 
 intervention of the King of Prussia, in concert 
 with your Majesty and the Emperor. 
 
 ' And it is not expected that such intervention can 
 be procured, without securing to that Sovereign 
 Power a considerable acquisition of territory in the 
 Netherlands or in Germany.' 2 
 
 The British Government had every reason to 
 dislike and distrust Prussia, whether represented by 
 her weak and profligate King or by his double- 
 dealing and treacherous Ministers, but they were 
 at the mercy of force majeure ; and it must be 
 remembered that it never entered into the hearts of 
 
 1 Hist. MSS. Com. Dropmore MSS., vol. iii. p. 214. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 228.
 
 THE CONDUCT OF PRUSSIA 109 
 
 eighteenth-century men to conceive that Prussia 
 might one day become a great Naval Power. 
 
 Meanwhile it is interesting to note the opinion 
 of the shrewd American, Gouverneur Morris. ' The 
 moral principles of a Prussian go to the possession 
 of whatever he can acquire. And so little is he 
 the slave of what he calls vulgar prejudice that, 
 give him opportunity and means, he will spare you 
 the trouble of finding a pretext. This liberality of 
 sentiment greatly facilitates negotiation ; for it 
 is not necessary to clothe propositions in honest 
 and decent forms.' J 
 
 The death of Frederick William II., in 1797, and 
 the accession of a young king, reported to abhor 
 the French Jacobin republic, seemed to give an 
 opportunity to restore the coalition against France ; 
 but the incurable jealousies of Prussia and Austria 
 stood in the way ; and Russia found the task of 
 mediating between them hopeless. Prussia wanted 
 to receive British subsidies and preserve in Northern 
 Germany an attitude of strict neutrality. ' Infinite,' 
 wrote Thomas Grenville, the Foreign Secretary's 
 brother, who had been sent on a special mission 
 to Berlin, ' will be the mischief resulting from this 
 conduct in Prussia, because in continuing to offer 
 to great parts of Germany the specious, though 
 fallacious, appearance of peace and neutrality, while 
 Austria and the South of Germany is separately 
 fighting for its existence, that spirit of division 
 which France is successfully pursuing in Germany 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 232. For the evidence by which Grenville's anony- 
 mous correspondent is identified as Gouverneur Morris, see Intro- 
 duction to volume, p. xliv.
 
 110 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 is powerfully assisted, the general means of defence 
 are impaired and lessened, and Prussia becomes by 
 this line of conduct a party to the measures pursued 
 by France in the moment when we are seeking to 
 engage her, under a sense of common danger, in 
 measures of common hostility.' * In complying with 
 the Prussian demands ' we should fare like the 
 Irishman in the Jubilee, who got nothing for supper, 
 and was obliged to pay double for it.' 2 
 
 When at length in 1799 the third coalition, con- 
 sisting of Great Britain, Austria and Russia, took 
 active shape, the want of cohesion between its 
 members reacted of necessity on its military opera- 
 tions. The Austrian Minister Thugut disliked and dis- 
 trusted the English. The Czar Paul was headstrong 
 to the verge of madness ; and the British Ministry 
 seem to have been aiming at objects which they did 
 not disclose to all the members of the Alliance. 
 Thus they entered upon a plan for the union of the 
 Dutch and Austrian Netherlands under the Prince of 
 Orange, without consulting the Austrian Government. 
 
 There is an illuminating note of Lord Grenville 
 with regard to the kind of alliance which prevailed 
 between England and Austria. ' The question,' 
 he wrote, ' of making peace but by common consent 
 has been bandied about in all the correspondence 
 between London and Vienna, till there is no more 
 to be said upon it. The great objection to such 
 stipulations is that they do bind us, because we 
 perform our treaties, and that they do not bind 
 
 1 Hist. MSS. Com., Dropmore MSS.. vol. iv. p. 490. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 514.
 
 THE FUTURE OF BELGIUM 111 
 
 Austria, who broke its engagements with us on 
 this very subject, at Campo Formio, at Leoben, 
 and at Rastadt, or rather at Seltz. 
 
 ' It belongs, however, to a more extensive concert 
 than there is yet a prospect of. We may combine 
 our military operations without having combined 
 our political system ; and, perhaps, after all that 
 has passed, the former is the best course to be 
 pursued for attaining the latter.' l 
 
 In this unhappy state of things it is difficult to 
 say whether the policy of statesmen or the strategy 
 of generals was most at fault. The complete failure 
 of the British expedition to Holland made of little 
 interest the various plans for dividing the bear's 
 skin. The mind of the British Ministers fluctuated 
 greatly with regard to the future of Belgium, when 
 recovered from the French. It was generally held 
 that Austria had by her own conduct forfeited her 
 rights. ' We conquered and defended them ' (i.e. 
 the Austrian Netherlands), wrote Lord Grenville 
 (August 3, 1799), ' (that is England and Holland 
 did) with our arms and money. We gave them to 
 the German branch of the House of Austria, who 
 had a doubtful title and no means of enforcing it 
 but by our aid. We gave them on certain conditions, 
 all of which Austria has broken. We were guarantees 
 of the Constitutions of these Provinces, and had a 
 strong interest, commercial and political, in main- 
 taining them. Austria violated those Constitutions, 
 and by so doing lost the Provinces and ceded them 
 to France by a definitive treaty of peace which 
 she had no power to do without our consent.' 2 
 
 1 Ibid. vol. v. p. 233. 2 Ibid. p. 235.
 
 112 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 The favourite plan was to annex these Provinces 
 to Holland. On the morality of this course, Pitt 
 wrote, September 13, 1799, ' I see nothing in what 
 is proposed that breaks in on our line of probity 
 and morality, or bears the slightest resemblance 
 to the scandalous treatment of Poland and Venice. 
 In both these cases a neutral and unoffending Power 
 was sacrificed to a wanton plan of usurpation. Here 
 a country lost in war by the weakness of its own 
 Sovereign and recovered, without his participation, 
 by the arms of a third Power, is proposed to be 
 retained by the Power, to the advantage of the 
 general system of Europe, and with an equivalent 
 provided for the former sovereign, though not 
 strictly entitled to any.' 1 A more material diffi- 
 culty in the way was that, at the time, there seemed 
 little desire amongst the Dutch for such an addition 
 of territory. 
 
 Lord Grenville, writing to Lord Minto in February, 
 1800, suggested another solution of the problem. 
 The objection to the Netherlands being attached to 
 Holland was that ' whenever the Seventeen Provinces 
 were connected with France, which would be as 
 often as they had an incapable Stadtholder or a 
 weak Government, we should, in case of war, be as 
 much shut out from the continent as we now are. 
 Whereas the existence of two separate Governments, 
 one in the Netherlands, the other in Holland, will 
 always give us a double chance of keeping our 
 communication open. ... If we throw upon him 2 
 by the treaty of Peace the whole burden of the 
 
 1 Hist. MSS. Com., Dropmore MSS., vol. v. p. 396. 
 
 2 I.e. ' a weak Prince, dependent, more or less, on Austria.'
 
 THE COLLAPSE OF THE COALITION 113 
 
 Austrian loans of which we may perhaps never 
 get any very satisfactory payment from Vienna 
 we shall compel him to have recourse to us for 
 relief. Why should this not be granted on condi- 
 tions something resembling those of the old Barrier 
 treaties ? Why should we not agree to accept as 
 payment the maintenance of a considerable body 
 of British troops, to be stationed in time of peace 
 as a garrison to the frontier of the Netherlands. 
 We should by these means correct one of the greatest 
 difficulties which belongs to our situation in Europe, 
 that of the great deficiency of our military force 
 in war, owing to the constant reduction of it at 
 the first moment of peace to skeleton regiments, 
 which train neither officers nor soldiers, and drive 
 us, on the breaking out of war, to numberless 
 expedients for sudden augmentations, which incur 
 generally an enormous expense, and give a fresh 
 blow to the composition of our army.' 1 
 
 Inasmuch, however, as the attempted coalition 
 was reduced to nothing by the military genius of 
 Napoleon, the discussion of the question proved to 
 be purely academic. Austria, with no thought of 
 her allies, signed the humiliating peace of Luneville 
 (February, 1801). The anger of the Czar Paul 
 became more directed against his ally Great Britain 
 than against his enemy France ; and Prussia joined 
 the Northern League which had revived the Armed 
 Neutrality of 1780. It was these melancholy events 
 which led to the ineffectual peace of Amiens. 
 
 Amongst the grievances that excited Paul, the 
 question of Malta occupied a leading place. By a 
 
 1 Hist. MSS. Com., Dropmore MSS., vol. vi. p. 125. 
 K.F.P. n
 
 treaty signed in December, 1798, Great Britain 
 agreed to hand that island over to the Czar 
 as Protector of the Knights of St. John, on its 
 recovery from the French ; and as late as June, 
 1800, assurances were given that this treaty would 
 be scrupulously observed. Meanwhile Napoleon, 
 anxious to placate Paul, offered to hand over 
 the island to him ; and the attention given to 
 this offer led the British Government to main- 
 tain that they were absolved from their under- 
 taking. The truth was that the British authorities 
 had come to realise the importance of Malta as 
 a basis for sea-power in the Mediterranean. Their 
 action admits of defence ; but it undoubtedly gave 
 an opening to those critics who are always ready to 
 sit in judgment on the sins of their own countrymen. 
 
 Evidence of the manner in which the war was 
 carried on is shown by the way in which the Peace 
 of Amiens was hastily concluded. Genuine states- 
 men would have recognised that then, no less than 
 to-day, it was a case of victory or downfall ; and 
 that any patched-up peace, that left the source 
 of trouble still active, could only end in disaster. 
 Fortunately the ambition of Napoleon, in again 
 precipitating the conflict, made of less consequence 
 the indiscretion of the British Government. That 
 Peace had not been the work of Pitt. At this 
 crisis of the Empire's history domestic questions 
 still decided the fate of Ministries. The Irish Union, 
 however regrettable may have been the manner of 
 its enactment, was undoubtedly a wise measure, 
 could it have been accompanied by a generous
 
 PITT AND SECURITY 115 
 
 treatment of the Roman Catholic Church. It must 
 remain a mystery why the conscience of George III., 
 which had acquiesced in the enlightened provisions 
 of the Quebec Act, remained shocked at the idea of 
 a similar policy in Ireland. But the fact remained 
 that the Union Act had to be accepted in a form 
 which caused all the future troubles. On the King 
 refusing to accept the proposals of Catholic Eman- 
 cipation which had been ' approved by the majority 
 of the Cabinet and regarded as a natural sequel 
 to the Act of Union' (Letter of January 31, 1801), 
 Pitt resigned. 
 
 What were Pitt's former views on a premature 
 peace we know from his memorable reply to Tierney, 
 who had asked him to state in one sentence, without 
 ifs and buts, the object of the War (February 17, 
 1800) : 
 
 ' I know not whether I can do it in one sentence, 
 but in one word I can tell him that it is security ; 
 security against a danger the greatest that ever 
 threatened the world. It is security against a 
 danger that never existed in any past period of 
 society. It is security against a danger which in 
 degree and extent was never equalled ; against a 
 danger which threatened all the nations of the 
 earth ; against a danger which has been resisted 
 by all the nations of Europe, and resisted by none 
 with so much success as by this nation, because 
 by none has it been resisted so uniformly and with 
 so much energy.' . . . ' Peace is most desirable to 
 this country ; but negotiation may be attended 
 with greater evils than could be counterbalanced by 
 any benefits which would result from it. And if
 
 116 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 this be found to be the case ; if it afford no pro- 
 spect of security ; if it threaten all the evils which 
 we have been struggling to avert ; if the prosecution 
 of the war afford the prospect of attaining complete 
 security . . . then I say that it is prudent for 
 us not to negotiate at the present moment. These 
 are my buts and my ifs. This is my plea, and 
 on no other do I wish to be tried by God and 
 my country.' l 
 
 It must be confessed, however, that Pitt himself 
 justified and defended the Peace of Amiens. His 
 speech of November 3, 1801, is well worth reading 
 as showing perhaps the weak places in the armour 
 of that great man. On his first point that, after 
 the dissolution of the Confederacy of the States of 
 Europe, the question of peace or war between Great 
 Britain and France became a question of terms only, 
 all that need be said is that European Confederacies 
 had previously been dissolved, and that Great Britain 
 had found it possible to secure their renewal. More- 
 over, at the time when the negotiations for peace 
 were opened, the Emperor Paul had just been assas- 
 sinated, and there was good reason to expect that 
 the new Emperor would be more favourable to 
 a Coalition with England. When, however, Pitt 
 went on to say that, compared with the East and 
 West Indies, the Mediterranean was but a secondary 
 consideration, he gave forth very questionable 
 doctrine. Of course, if peace was necessary it had 
 to be made, but it is strange to find Pitt expressing 
 smug satisfaction over the gain of a few West Indian 
 Islands when the Netherlands remained an annexe 
 
 1 Coupland, op. cit. pp. 285-6.
 
 THE PEACE OF AMIENS 117 
 
 of France. 1 In 1796, when there had been proposals 
 for peace, Lord Grenville had written to Malmesbury : 
 ' You will observe that we are very strongly impressed 
 with the impossibility of listening to any idea of 
 leaving the Netherlands to France.' 2 Austria had 
 surrendered them by the Treaty of Campo Formio 
 (October, 1797), and Great Britain now tamely 
 acquiesced. As was well said, the Treaty of Amiens 
 was concluded on two principles directly opposite, and, 
 on each, in opposition to British interests. France 
 was allowed to treat upon the uti possidetis, while 
 Great Britain was content to negotiate on the status 
 qwo ante bellum ; ' on either principle, solely acted on. 
 the balance of power might have been preserved.' 3 
 Pitt's defence of the Treaty was partly explained 
 by his loyalty to his friend and successor, Addington. 
 At the same time Pitt's disciple, Canning, wrote of 
 the Peace of Amiens as ' this most disgraceful and 
 calamitous treaty of peace ' ; ' never, never to be 
 excused or atoned for.' 4 The best judgment on 
 it is found in the manner in which it came to an 
 end. The equivocal conduct of Great Britain with 
 regard to Malta may have been justified by the 
 general European situation. But there had, in fact, 
 never been anything to lead to the conclusion that, 
 at this stage of the struggle, peace was really possible 
 between France and England ; and when, in the 
 
 1 Speeches oj W. Pitt, vol. iii. pp. 265-81. For a very able 
 criticism of the Peace of Amiens by Lord Minto, see Paget Papers, 
 vol. ii. pp. 27-32. 
 
 * Diaries of Lord Malmesbury, vol. iii. p. 338. 
 3 Annual Register, 1802, p. 166, note. 
 
 * George Canning and his Times, by A. C. Stapleton, p. 69.
 
 118 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 following May, war was resumed it was as inevit- 
 able as the advance of a flowing tide. 
 
 The Peace of Amiens may have been unwise, 
 but at least it involved no betrayal of the interests 
 of other nations. When in the autumn of 1800 
 Bonaparte had proposed to treat with England for 
 a separate peace, ' the proposition was instantly 
 rejected with a fresh declaration of His Majesty's 
 invariable and unalterable determination to fulfil 
 with punctuality all his engagements, and to treat 
 only in concert with those Allies who continued 
 to make common cause with him in the prosecu- 
 tion of the war.' l When the war was resumed the 
 weak Addington ministry was powerless to deal 
 with the situation. In the absence of a spiritual 
 union, the only method of obtaining alb'es was to 
 offer sufficient bribes. Lord Pelham's plan was 
 to give ' the Low Countries and even Holland to 
 Prussia ; all Lombardy to Austria ; and to Russia 
 whatever she might ask.' 2 
 
 In this state of things Pitt once more returned to 
 power with the understanding that Catholic emanci- 
 pation should be left in abeyance. The great act 
 of his last year of administration was the attempt 
 once more to galvanise into life the Confederacy of 
 the European States, by forming a league with Russia, 
 Austria and Sweden against France. The treaty 
 of concert between the King of England and the 
 Emperor of all the Russias signed at St. Petersburg on 
 
 1 Paget Papers, vol. i. p. 283. 
 
 8 Diaries and Correspondence of 1st Earl of Malmesbwry, vol. iv. 
 p. 279.
 
 ANGLO-RUSSIAN TREATY 119 
 
 April 11, 1805, was intended to promote 'the estab- 
 lishment of an order of things in Europe, which may 
 effectually guarantee the security and independence 
 of the different States, and present a solid barrier 
 against future usurpations.' The parties to the 
 League covenanted not to make peace with France 
 but by the common consent of each one of them ; 
 and, meanwhile, to continue the maintenance of 
 their forces ; and, in the case of Great Britain, 
 the payment of her subsidies. By a separate article 
 of the treaty of concert, ' His Majesty the King of 
 the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland 
 and His Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, 
 being disposed to form an energetic concert with 
 the sole view of ensuring to Europe a solid and last- 
 ing peace, founded upon the principles of justice, 
 equity and the law of nations, by which they are 
 constantly guided, are aware of the necessity of a 
 mutual understanding at this time upon several 
 principles. . . . These principles are in no degree 
 to control the public opinion in France, or in any 
 other countries where the combined armies may 
 carry on their operations with respect to the form 
 of government it may be proper to adopt . . . and 
 finally to assemble, at the termination of the war, 
 a general Congress to discuss and fix the provisions 
 of the law of nations on a more determined basis 
 than unfortunately has hitherto been practicable ; 
 and to insure the observance by the establishment 
 of a federative system calculated upon the situation 
 of the different States of Europe.' 1 
 
 1 Annual Register, 1806, pp. 656-9. The full text of the treaty 
 with all the secret articles is given in an Appendix to Selected
 
 120 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 This curious and interesting scheme for establish- 
 ing a new Europe upon a new basis after the war 
 was due to the inspiration of the Czar Alexander. 
 In the preceding January a Russian envoy, Novos- 
 siltzoff, had had interviews on the subject with 
 Pitt, when negotiating for a new alliance. Negotia- 
 tions were also carried on at St. Petersburg, when 
 more mundane considerations were dealt with. In 
 these there was difference of opinion between the 
 Russian and British Governments with regard to 
 the terms England had offered to Prussia and with 
 regard to the position of Malta. ' The extreme 
 importance of securing the co-operation of Prussia 
 to the common concert,' wrote Lord Mulgrave, the 
 Foreign Secretary, to the British Ambassador, 
 Lord F. L. Gower (January 21, 1805), 'renders it 
 highly essential that no effort should be omitted 
 in bringing forward any inducement that may 
 influence Prussia to enter into the common concert, 
 and at the same time to obviate whatever obstacles 
 may arise to the proposal of sufficient temptations 
 to that Power to rouze from its apathy. There is 
 some reason to apprehend that one obstacle to this 
 desirable end may be found in the indisposition . . . 
 of Russia to allow any considerable augmentation 
 of the power and resources of Prussia. . . . The 
 interested and timid policy of the Court of Prussia 
 will naturally lead that Government to weigh with 
 cautious and deliberate attention the value of the 
 dangers and advantages to be derived to her from 
 
 Despatches relating to the third Coalition against France , 1804-1805, 
 ed. by J. Holland Rose. It was not ratified till the following 
 July owing to differences as to Malta and the Maritime Code.
 
 THE POSITION OF PRUSSIA 121 
 
 the double effect of the alternatives of benefits and 
 hostility which she may expect from the contending 
 parties. France will have the advantage of long 
 established influence, and a long confirmed apprehen- 
 sion of her power. She will also have temptations to 
 offer in the Baltic and in the whole of the Electorate 
 of Hanover ; negotiations about which are certainly 
 already in train between France and Prussia and 
 which cannot easily be met by offers equally tempt- 
 ing on the part of the United Powers. The fear, 
 however, of Russia, coupled with the considera- 
 tion of the greater security of joining two great 
 Powers against one rather than of courting a 
 more equal contest by uniting with France, may 
 probably decide Prussia, provided such an acquisi- 
 tion of territory be proposed as shall add materially 
 to her power. ... To the objections that may be 
 urged at Petersburgh against the proposed addition 
 to Prussia, it may be answered that it is in every 
 way more desirable that Prussia should increase 
 towards the middle Rhine and the Netherlands 
 than towards the Baltic ; that although some danger 
 may probably exist ... to Holland from the near 
 and powerful neighbourhood of Prussia surrounding 
 her ; yet that this and every other danger . . . will 
 be of infinitely less magnitude when threatened on 
 the side of Prussia than if it were to be apprehended 
 from France ; and above all, that the hope of obtaining 
 either emancipation or security for Holland will be in- 
 comparably less if Prussia should not enter into the 
 Concert, as without her all active operations in the 
 north of Germany must necessarily be abandoned.' * 
 
 1 J. H. Rose, op. cit. pp. 88-90.
 
 122 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 In January, 1805, the British Government proposed 
 as an inducement to Prussia to join in the concert 
 to offer her ' the whole of the Netherlands (not 
 within the line to be drawn from Antwerp to Maes- 
 tricht) together with the whole of the Duchies of 
 Luxemburg and Juliers and the other territories 
 between the Meuse and the Moselle ; and further 
 (if no insuperable objection should be stated), the 
 whole of the country acquired by France on the 
 left bank of the Rhine, eastward of the Moselle.' ! 
 
 These proposals, however, were made in the con- 
 templation of a successful war ; and when the 
 Concert put forward the more modest programme 
 of the negotiation of a possible peace, they were 
 modified accordingly. It then appeared an adequate 
 arrangement that Prussia should be put in possession 
 of the fortress of Luxemburg together with such 
 proportion of the Duchy as would form an effectual 
 military line from thence to Maestricht, with the 
 fortresses necessary to be constructed and the 
 whole of the country included within that line, 
 the Meuse, the Moselle and the Rhine. 2 
 
 In October, 1805, Lord Harrowby was sent 011 
 a special mission to Berlin. In his Instructions he 
 was told that to ' secure an effectual check to the 
 future encroachments of France . . . and more 
 especially for the future security of Holland, it 
 would be desirable to assign to Prussia a military 
 line of frontier from Antwerp to Luxemburg with 
 such a proportion of territory as may be found 
 sufficient to induce Prussia to occupy that line. . . . 
 To balance this increase of Prussian dominion the 
 
 1 J. H. Rose, op. cit. p. 171. 2 Ibid. p. 172.
 
 ENGLAND AND MALTA 123 
 
 remaining acquisitions of France (south of a line 
 to be drawn from the Moselle to the Rhine as the 
 Prussian boundary) might be assigned to the Elector 
 of Salzburg. Salzburg might in that case be assigned 
 to Austria, and, in exchange for these advantages, a 
 proportion of the Austrian or Prussian territories in 
 Poland might be assigned as an arrondissement to 
 Russia.' 1 
 
 Without other evidence this sentence will be 
 enough to show how little nationalist aspirations 
 entered into the minds of the statesmen of the 
 time. As a further specimen of the international 
 morality prevailing, it should be noted that at the 
 same time when Russia was entering upon an 
 alliance with England she was making a treaty 
 with Prussia by a secret article, of which Hanover, 
 the property of George III. as Elector, was assigned 
 to Prussia. 2 
 
 A clause in the proposed treaty, provisionally 
 agreed upon at St. Petersburg, aroused considerable 
 bitterness in England. It was agreed that, if after 
 every effort the island of Malta could not be obtained 
 for Great Britain, it should be evacuated by the 
 British, and should receive a Russian garrison rather 
 than that the negotiations should be broken off. 3 
 The British Government at first refused to agree 
 to this proposal. They believed that the security 
 and tranquillity of Europe, which was sought by 
 the proposed alliance, could be most effectually 
 provided for by the continuance of the naval 
 superiority of Great Britain in the Mediterranean. 
 If Russia were to persist in her demand, ' His Majesty 
 1 Ibid. pp. 212-3. 2 Ibid. p. 232. 3 Ibid. p. 130.
 
 124 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 will . . . find himself under the necessity of relin- 
 quishing the gratifying prospect of affording im- 
 mediate relief to the sufferings of Europe, lamenting, 
 however, that a point which appears to His Majesty 
 not only peculiarly essential to Great Britain, but 
 also highly important with a view to the interests 
 of Europe should have been so differently con- 
 sidered by His Imperial Highness as to have frus- 
 trated the prospect and entire agreement which so 
 happily prevails between their majesties with respect 
 to the ultimate objects connected with general 
 security.' J 
 
 The British Government, however, at a later date 
 were prepared, under certain conditions, to assent 
 to this arrangement, provided Minorca could be 
 obtained as a substitute for Malta, although 
 Minorca provided less security against invasion or 
 capture. It was, however, expressly declared in 
 making ' this last sacrifice for the purpose of obtain- 
 ing security for this continent by negotiation rather 
 than by war,' the offer was ' binding only in the 
 event of a pacific arrangement, and that if the 
 negotiations should not take place or should not 
 prove successful, it should at no future date be made 
 a claim that this important possession should again 
 become matter of negotiation.' 2 
 
 The firmness of the British Government, however, 
 had already prevailed ; and the Treaty, as finally 
 signed, contained no mention of Malta. 3 
 
 1 J. H. Rose, op. c.it. pp. 165-6. 2 Ibid. p. 173. 
 
 3 The Russian Government, however, placed on record its 
 opinion that the restoration of Malta would be ' in conformity 
 with the principles of equity and justice ' and ' would be the
 
 ALEXANDER I 125 
 
 In all these negotiations, the attitude of British 
 statesmen was clear enough ; more difficult is it to 
 decide upon the conduct of their Russian ally. 
 
 Few characters have presented a more difficult 
 problem to the student of history than that of the 
 founder of the Holy Alliance. The grandson of 
 the ruthless Catherine, the disciple of the republican 
 La Harpe, who brought him up on the doctrines 
 of Rousseau, Alexander made his first entry into 
 public life as in effect an accessory to the murder 
 of his father. In all his subsequent career there 
 was the same constant antinomy between the claims 
 of a transcendent idealism and the brutal realities 
 of his time and situation. Alexander was not a 
 hypocrite, because he seemed a different man under 
 different circumstances and influences. He had 
 been born great, and would not otherwise have 
 attained to greatness . The picture of him in Tolstoi's 
 War and Peace, unable to put his horse over a 
 ditch, is curiously suggestive. Such a man could 
 not resist the charm and glamour of Napoleon ; 1 
 and so when the ill-omened Confederacy had been 
 blown to the winds of heaven at the close of 1805 
 at Austerlitz and finally at Friedland (June 14, 
 1807), he did violence to his past professions by 
 entering, through the Treaty of Tilsit (July 7, 1807), 
 into a league with France against Great Britain : 
 Russia pledging herself to join France in coercing 
 Sweden, Denmark and Portugal into an adoption 
 
 most efficacious means of securing the success of the cause.' 
 (Memoirs of Prince Adam Czartoryski, ed. by A. Gielgud, vol. ii. 
 p. 78.) 
 
 1 The historian A. Sorel, however, believed that he was by 
 no means the dupe we are inclined to suppose him.
 
 of the ' Continental System,' directed against the 
 Maritime Supremacy of Great Britain. 
 
 There was some excuse for Alexander in the fact 
 that he had received no assistance from England. 
 Pitt had died on January 23, 1806, his brave heart 
 at last broken by the news of Austerlitz. The Pilot 
 had not weathered the storm ; but at least he had 
 taught England how to save Europe by her example. 
 The Ministry of ' all the Talents,' which followed, 
 at first busied itself in an attempt to make peace. 
 In spite of the friendly relations between Fox, 
 the new Foreign Secretary, and Napoleon, the 
 negotiations ended in failure, those negotiations 
 being mainly remarkable for the loyalty with which 
 England refused to separate herself, in making 
 terms, from her ally Russia. A Russian Envoy was 
 less squeamish ; though it is fair to note that the 
 Russian Government repudiated the act of its 
 Emissary. ' During this critical period,' wrote a 
 shrewd judge of men and things, ' when Great 
 Britain was gradually drifting into a position of 
 isolation, the course of Parliamentary history became 
 inseparable from the course of those mighty events 
 on the Continent, which Grenville's Government 
 would fain have treated as outside the sphere of 
 British interests. . . . The leading idea of their policy 
 was non-intervention, and, at the opening of 1807, 
 there was no longer any thought of sending our 
 forces to cope with Napoleon's veterans on the 
 Continent. . . . The notion of making war on a large 
 scale, in concert with allies, on the Continent of 
 Europe, as in the days of Marlborough . . . seems 
 to have vanished from the minds of English States-
 
 THE SEIZURE OF THE DANISH FLEET 127 
 
 men, except Castlereagh, who always advocated 
 concentrated action.' l The Will o' the Wisp of 
 South American conquest diverted energies that 
 would have been more wisely concentrated in 
 Europe ; and British delays gave a just cause 
 of offence to the European allies. The Treaty of 
 Tilsit was the Nemesis, just or unjust, of such a 
 policy ; and the seizure of the Danish fleet by 
 England in a time of so-called peace only proved 
 the truth that weakness begets violence. 
 
 With the death of Fox, in 1806, it proved impos- 
 sible to carry on the Grenville administration, and 
 a new Ministry had been formed with the Duke of 
 Portland as nominal head, Percival as the real leader, 
 and Canning as Secretary for Foreign Affairs. In 
 seizing the Danish fleet, England was but anticipat- 
 ing the proposed action of Russia ; and France 
 intended to behave in an exactly similar way to- 
 wards Portugal. Nevertheless, the act was one 
 incongenial to the traditions of British fair dealing. 2 
 In spite of the somewhat cynical avowal of Lord 
 G. L. Gower, it is flattering to our past record that 
 more was naturally expected in the way of public 
 
 1 The Political History of England, 1801-37, by G. Brodrick, 
 pp. 51-2. 
 
 2 For a very hostile view of the action of the British Govern- 
 ment, see Mr. W. Fitzpatrick's Introduction to Hist. MSS. Com.. 
 Dropmore MSS., vol. ix. pp. xliv-lvi. Canning's explanation will 
 be found in Stapleton, G. Canning and his Times, pp. 129-133. 
 Lord G. L. Gower wrote from St. Petersburg (August 30, 1807), 
 ' The measure is rigorous, and perhaps scarcely reconcilable 
 to the strict rules of justice, but there are questions upon which 
 depend the existence of nations which justify a deviation from 
 the common rule of actions.' (Lord Granville Leveson Gower 
 (First Earl Granville), Private Correspondence, ed. by Castalin, 
 Countess Granville, vol. ii. p. 292.)
 
 128 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 morality from Great Britain than from other 
 countries. At the lowest scale of international 
 morality stood then, as now, Prussia. It may be, as 
 stated by a writer in the Annual Eegister, 1 that the 
 part which the King of Prussia took against France 
 in 1792 arose from a false persuasion that the 
 re-establishment of the Monarchy was necessary 
 to maintain in Europe the balance of power ; and 
 that, from this point of view, the policy of peace 
 with France could be justified. But what could not 
 be justified was the half-hearted manner in which 
 Prussia joined and betrayed both sides. ' When, 
 after the treaties of Luneville and Amiens, Buona- 
 parte began to make in the midst of peace conquests 
 more important than those which he had achieved 
 during the war. . . . Prussia was the first to guarantee 
 him in the possession of the territories he had 
 seized. . . . When the danger became greater, and 
 Russia strove to bring about a combination of the 
 Powers to oppose Buonaparte's rapid progress, 
 Prussia was invited to take part in it, but she always 
 declined, at the same time making great professions 
 of impartiality and of attachment to the Emperor's 
 person. ... To put further pressure upon Prussia, 
 Russian troops were sent to her frontier ; but the 
 only result was that Prussia protested against being 
 thus threatened, and placed her army on a war 
 footing. While the negotiations were going on, the 
 French defeated the Austrians and entered Prussian 
 territory, arriving as far as Olmiitz before the 
 Russians could come to the assistance of their 
 allies. This violation of Prussian territory on the 
 
 1 Annual Register, 1806, p. 153.
 
 THE CONDUCT OF PRUSSIA 129 
 
 part of France seemed at first to change Prussia's 
 attitude towards that Power, but she never became 
 an effective member of the Coalition. . . . Prussia 
 made an arrangement with France not only without 
 consulting Russia but even without communicating 
 to her the engagements into which she had entered. 
 The Cabinet of Berlin received from Buonaparte 
 the price of its complaisance. . . . Thus Prussia, 
 while reserving to herself up to the last moment 
 the power of employing the forces of the Allies, only 
 took advantage of their being in the field to make 
 an arrangement with France for her own benefit 
 and to their detriment.' 1 ' The ill-advised and 
 disastrous coalition of 1805 was the touchstone to 
 try the capacity, conduct and decision of the Prussian 
 Cabinet. It was clearly the interest of Prussia to 
 have preserved if possible the peace of the Con- 
 tinent ; but, when this was impossible, she should 
 have chosen her side and remained firm to it. For 
 whichever party prevailed, it was easy to foresee 
 that Prussia would be soon reduced to the necessity 
 of fighting with or receiving laws from the con- 
 queror.' In the face of all this Prussia chose to 
 remain neutral ; and then took the opportunity 
 to quarrel with France when it was almost too 
 late for her assistance to be of any use. Almost 
 immediately she entered into negotiations with 
 France, which resulted in a treaty by which ' Prussia, 
 from being the friend and ally of the Coalesced 
 Powers and almost the open and declared enemy 
 of France, became the ally of the latter, the guarantee 
 
 1 Memoirs of Prince A. Czartoryaki, ed. by A. Gielgud, vol. ii. 
 pp. 114-117. 
 
 K.F.P, I
 
 130 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 of her conquests in Germany, and her associate in 
 the spoils of the vanquished and baffled coalition.' 
 Prussia received Hanover in return for the cession 
 of these provinces. Well might Fox describe 
 Prussia's conduct as ' the union of everything that 
 was contemptible in servility with everything that 
 was odious in rapacity. Other Nations had been 
 obliged to make cessions to France ; but none of 
 them had, like Prussia, been reduced to that lowest 
 state of degradation to consent to become the 
 ministers of the injustice and rapacity of a Master.' 
 
 ' We have hitherto,' wrote the Annual Register, 
 ' contemplated Prussia unsteady and fluctuating in 
 her policy, constant only in her duplicity ; pro- 
 fessing neutrality at the commencement of the war, 
 though secretly under engagements to France detri- 
 mental to the allies ; assuming next the character 
 of a mediator, after having concluded a secret 
 treaty with the Coalesced Powers, and obtained the 
 promise of a subsidy from England ; and lastly, 
 pretending to negotiate for the neutrality of Hanover, 
 while meditating with unexampled perfidy to appro- 
 priate that country to herself. We are now to 
 behold her enraged at the disappointment of her 
 ambitious projects, impatient of the contempt with 
 which she is treated, and goaded on by the universal 
 indignation of her subjects, seeking to retrieve her 
 honour and character by resistance to France, but 
 without wisdom or foresight in her plans, and 
 constant to the last in her dissimulation.' 1 
 
 The distrust of Prussia felt by prescient minds is 
 shown by the language of Paget to Lord Mulgrave 
 
 1 Annual Register, 1806, pp. 153-63.
 
 THE ISOLATION OF ENGLAND 131 
 
 (October 24, 1805) : ' Much as I desire the co- 
 operation of that country, I cannot but feel averse 
 to the idea of its being called in to save Austria.' 1 
 
 Be this as it may, the new British Government 
 found themselves isolated in Europe, confronted with 
 a league between Prance and Russia, the aim of 
 which was to divide world power between themselves, 
 and with the United States, naturally suspicious, 
 and soon to be made actively hostile by the British 
 policy of retaliation against the measures taken by 
 Napoleon to destroy the British trade. It seemed 
 the darkest hour in English history, but it proved 
 the turning point. ' I own,' wrote Lord Paget 
 (afterwards Marquis of Anglesey), a capable soldier, 
 in July, 1807, ' I now begin for the first time to 
 wish for peace. Prussia is no more, Russia is beaten 
 and dispirited, Austria is yet too weak from former 
 blows, England is weak from the very successes of 
 her arms ; for our army is dispersed over the whole 
 face of the globe, keeping possession of countries 
 and colonies that we ought not to possess. I am 
 for peace, a reassembly of our forces, a close union 
 with the natural enemies of France no great hurry 
 in forming another coalition I mean by that, no 
 attempt at one in less than three years, and then, 
 the most united, the most formidable, the most 
 energetic one that can be imagined.' 2 At first, 
 indeed, the prospect continued gloomy. It still 
 seemed as though Great Britain was squandering 
 its strength in separate expeditions ; and, though 
 the Walcheren Expedition of 1809 is now held to 
 have been on principle defensible, the choice of the 
 
 1 Paget Papers, vol. ii. p. 231. 2 Ibid. p. 312.
 
 132 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 commander, and his failure to proceed first with 
 the more important business of Antwerp, caused 
 it to end in melancholy failure. The outbreak of 
 a revolution in Spain might well be welcomed as 
 the promise of a better day for Europe, but the 
 event showed that Sir John Moore's expedition had 
 been decided upon without adequate knowledge of 
 local conditions, or of the military obstacles in 
 its path. For these measures Lord Castlereagh was 
 responsible ; and Canning seems to have found in 
 their failure the excuse for endeavouring to oust 
 him from office. 
 
 In the political history of the time, for the next 
 twelve years these two names stand out prominent. 
 No two men were ever more unlike. Canning was 
 a brilliant and most ready speaker. His mother 
 had been an actress, and there was something in 
 him of the adventurer. His political creed had 
 begun in blind loyalty to Pitt, and there seemed 
 inconsistency in the manner in which he held 
 doctrines apparently pointing in opposite directions. 
 There is no ground, however, for doubting his political 
 honesty ; though he was not above intrigue. In any 
 case, in the years 1807-9, in which he was Foreign 
 Secretary, there was no time for a new departure 
 in foreign policy to bear fruit. By his treatment of 
 Denmark, however, and his policy with regard to 
 the Orders in Council, dealt with in another chapter, 
 Canning showed himself not wanting in boldness. 
 
 Castlereagh lacked the qualities in which Canning 
 was strong, but had others unknown to Canning. 
 A halting and indifferent public speaker, he was an 
 adroit manager of men. Denounced by his con-
 
 A NEW COALITION 133 
 
 temporaries as the incarnation of all that was 
 benighted, those best qualified to speak are the 
 loudest in their praise of his work at the War Office, 
 and later at the Foreign Office. By a measure of 
 army reform, in 1807 he created a new system, 
 under which Wellington won his victories. ' To 
 have forged such an instrument of war was no 
 mean administrative exploit. To have maintained 
 its efficiency on the whole, though sometimes with 
 a faint-hearted parsimony, and to have loyally sup- 
 ported its Commander against the cavils of a factious 
 opposition superior in parliamentary ability for a 
 period of seven years, must be held to redeem the 
 Tory Government from the charge of political weak 
 ness.' 1 It may be added that the historian of the 
 British Army, Mr. John Fortescue, finds in Castle- 
 reagh the one statesman worthy of commendation. 
 His work at the Foreign Office will be dealt with 
 later. 
 
 It was the tragedy of Napoleon's position that, 
 in order to succeed in his aim at reducing Great 
 Britain to isolation, he had continually to extend 
 the limits of his European conquests. It has been 
 held by high authorities that even at the time of 
 the Tilsit alliance, Alexander regarded that alliance 
 as a temporary makeshift. But, be this as it may, 
 with Napoleon the avowed champion of the Poles, 
 however hesitating may have been his actual 
 measures, it was impossible that Russia and France 
 should remain permanently allied. 
 
 Great Britain was quick to seize the occasion, 
 and in 1812 a renewed treaty between her and 
 
 1 Brodrick, op. cit.
 
 134 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 Russia gave the foundation to a new European 
 Coalition. The new treaty was silent with regard 
 to the magniloquent declarations of its predecessor. 
 Although acting separately, England and Russia 
 each did its share in the destruction of Napoleon's 
 power. The long wearing down of French military 
 strength in the Peninsular War was in its way as 
 necessary as the more dramatic event of the Russian 
 campaign and its resultant disasters. But even now 
 more was required to complete Napoleon's downfall ; 
 and it was not till the German Powers plucked up 
 courage, under the shelter of the Russian success, 
 to give adequate expression to the feelings that had 
 for some time been agitating their peoples, in behalf 
 of a War of Liberation, that at the battle of Leipsic 
 (October 16-19, 1813) Napoleon's power was wounded 
 to the quick. He was not, as is known to everyone, 
 finally defeated till the battle of Waterloo nearly 
 two years later ; but after Leipsic his strength was 
 never the same. 
 
 In comparing the great Napoleonic struggle with 
 that of our own times, there is one striking difference, 
 which is profoundly consoling. We all know how 
 during the present war the relations between the 
 Allied Governments and peoples have every day 
 grown closer and closer. But what a different 
 picture does the past history present. Writing in 
 1845, the Duke of Wellington declared, with regard 
 to the great Powers, at the commencement of the 
 Revolutionary War in 1793-94-95, and down to the 
 Peace of Amiens, that 'their sole object in com- 
 municating with us at all was to obtain money. 
 They negotiated peace, each of them, without
 
 THE ABSENCE OF SPIRITUAL BONDS 135 
 
 reference to us, although we declared our readiness 
 to cede our ultra mare conquests, in order to obtain 
 advantages for the Continental Powers. 
 
 ' Look at the conduct when the war recommenced, 
 and England was threatened with invasion, in the 
 commencement of the century. The only appre- 
 hension they manifested was that the project for 
 the invasion might fail, and that the French force 
 might be turned against Germany as it was. 
 
 ' But still there was no concert with England on 
 the part of any, till this country showed that she 
 had a force, and was determined to make use of 
 it ; nor, in fact, till the period of the commencement 
 of our successes in the Peninsula.' l 
 
 It is, perhaps, not presumptuous to suggest that 
 in this passage the great soldier laid too exclusive 
 a stress on the military aspect of the question. 
 It was the spiritual element lacking in the character 
 of the Alliance that was the main secret of its 
 weakness, and of the little hope, moreover, that it 
 held out for the future of the Concert of Europe. 
 
 1 Sir R. Peel, from his Private Papers, ed. by C. S. Parker, 
 vol. iii. pp. 408-9.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE CONCERT OF EUROPE. 1814-1830 
 
 I HAVE dealt in rough outline with British foreign 
 policy as it showed itself during the great war 
 which lasted, with two brief intermissions, from 
 1793 to 1815. Certain conclusions may be drawn 
 from the facts. Upon the whole the record is a 
 satisfactory one. British statesmen may sometimes 
 have been too much occupied with thoughts of 
 maritime and colonial gains to pursue with sufficient 
 persistency the general interest. Upon the other 
 hand, unless British commerce could survive and 
 extend itself under war conditions, the sinews of 
 war by which alone the common resistance could 
 be maintained would be withered. Mistakes were 
 doubtless made ; but they were due to want of 
 understanding or of courage on certain occasions ; 
 and there was no instance of the betrayal by England 
 of its allies' interests. It is a moot point how far 
 the seizure of the Danish fleet was an act of political 
 necessity ; but in any case the severe criticism which 
 it met proved the high level of the political morality 
 of the day. British principles were summarised by 
 Canning, following Sir J. Mackintosh, as 'respect 
 for the faith of treaties, respect for the independence
 
 THE POLICY OF GREAT BRITAIN 137 
 
 of nations, respect for that established line of policy 
 known as the balance of Power, and last but not 
 least, as respect for the honour and interests of this 
 country.' 1 It must be remembered that the idea 
 of nationality as a decisive factor in politics was 
 still in its infancy. Great Britain had welcomed the 
 national rising in Spain, which seemed likely to 
 sweep the French from their ascendency, and that 
 in Germany, along the lines of which rulers followed ; 
 but Europe was still in the frame of mind that 
 thought natural and, indeed, inevitable proposals 
 for settling the map of Europe, such as that of Pitt 
 in 1805 described above, 2 which took little count 
 of the feelings of the people affected by these political 
 arrangements. But granted that the creed of 
 political morality did not aim very high, it is, 
 in most ways, better to aim low and secure a hit 
 than to shoot aimlessly an arrow into the sky, 
 which in its fall may have consequences other than 
 those intended. England was, we may admit, 
 exceptionally favoured, through being an island : 
 still it is suggestive that in the frequently recurring 
 tergiversations of the time she alone remained con- 
 stant to her original purpose, ever ready to coalesce 
 with such member of the coalition as would act 
 with her. The Russian autocrat, with power behind 
 him to enforce his creed of a new Europe under 
 the guidance of a higher morality, had proved faith- 
 less to his own profession, when he stooped to divide 
 the kingdoms of this world with the denounced 
 usurper. Austria and Prussia showed in all their 
 dealings a cynical disregard for any but their own 
 
 1 Speeches oj O. Canning, vol. v. p. o. 2 Supra, pp. 122-3.
 
 138 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 private interests, acting as though the word German 
 had no significance. In this matter Prussia, as the 
 weaker and the most unfavourably situated, had 
 the blacker record ; but from neither of these Powers 
 could, at the time, much be expected in the way 
 of securing to a new Europe the paths of peace. 
 Nor did peace bring an improvement. The voice 
 of Russia still meant the hoc volo, sic jubeo of a not 
 too wise, though kindly, despot. Austria, under the 
 guidance of Metternich, was steering at full sail to 
 the rapids of 1848. Of Prussia Canning could still 
 write in 1825, ' Why is it that Prussia is so much 
 the most irrational of all the allied Powers, and 
 pronouncing herself always in the most unmeasured 
 and unsuitable terms ? . . . The government of 
 Prussia, why is it of all governments the most 
 ostentatiously unpopular in its politics ? ' 1 
 
 Still, with all its past record of failure and 
 treachery, the Concert of Europe was in 1814 a 
 fact ; and was it not reasonable for statesmen to 
 look to it for preventing a recurrence of the horrors 
 of the two last decades ? So long, then, as it was 
 possible, British statesmen worked for the main- 
 tenance of that concert. The first step was to 
 secure a peace that should not leave behind it the 
 seeds of future wars. On this question the attitude 
 of British statesmen was most reasonable. Writing 
 in November, 1813, Lord Castlereagh declared that 
 ' we are not inclined to go out of our way to interfere 
 in the internal government of France, however much 
 we might desire to see it placed in more pacific 
 hands.' At the same time ' we must not encourage 
 
 1 Some Official Correspondence of G. Canning, vol. i. p. 286.
 
 139 
 
 our allies to patch up an imperfect arrangement. 
 If they will do so, we must submit ; but it should 
 appear in that case to be their act, not ours.' l At 
 the same time Castlereagh was mindful of British 
 interests. In the hands of Napoleon, Antwerp had 
 been ' a loaded pistol held at the head of England.' 
 Accordingly ' I must particularly intreat you,' Castle- 
 reagh wrote to Lord Aberdeen, ' to keep your atten- 
 tion upon Antwerp. The destruction of that arsenal 
 is essential to our safety. To leave it in the hands of 
 France is little short of imposing upon Great Britain 
 the charge of a perpetual war establishment. After 
 all we have done for the Continent in this war, 
 they owe it to us and to themselves to extinguish 
 this fruitful source of danger to both.' 2 Castle- 
 reagh made very clear the reasons for the decision 
 to annex the Low Countries to Holland, which after- 
 wards proved so fruitful a source of trouble : 
 
 ' It is quite clear that the prevailing wish of the 
 people of Flanders is to return under the dominion of 
 the House of Austria. The Emperor has been quite 
 explicit in declaring . . . that he cannot in justice to 
 them or to himself embark in the defence of provinces 
 so distant from the mass of his dominions. 
 
 ' This inclination would perhaps have led them, 
 in the next place, to look to a separate system 
 under an Austrian Prince ; this we have all con- 
 sidered as inconsistent with the preservation of their 
 independence. They begin to understand that to 
 be free they must be strong ; to be strong they 
 
 1 Correspondence, Despatches and other Papers of Viscount 
 Castlereagh, ed. by his brother, vol. ix. p. 74. 
 
 2 Ibid.
 
 140 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 must be incorporated into a large system, and 
 under proper arrangements and securities. Holland 
 is the connexion which, failing in their being retained 
 by Austria, there is every reason to suppose will 
 be the most acceptable and congenial to the senti- 
 ments of the people.' * Again : ' There is but one 
 opinion that to make Holland and Belgium capable 
 of sustaining a real independence upon the confines of 
 France, they must form one State. To this system, 
 evidently wise and necessary in itself, the good sense 
 of both countries will speedily accommodate.' J 
 
 So long as British security could be made good, 
 Castlereagh was inclined to be very forbearing in his 
 demands from France. The restoration of the French 
 colonies and the continued recognition of the French 
 fishing rights in Newfoundland, under the Treaty 
 of Paris, have often been represented as the out- 
 come of the ascendency of ignorant and short- 
 sighted statesmanship. In fact, these measures were 
 due to a deliberate and carefully conceived policy, 
 viz. to restore France to a dignified position in the 
 Concert of Europe, and to encourage her maritime 
 and colonial interests, so that she should not con- 
 centrate her forces on continental dominion. As an 
 example of Castlereagh's moderation, take his re- 
 marks to Lord Liverpool (April 19, 1814), 'I still 
 feel doubts about the acquisition in sovereignty of 
 so many Dutch Colonies. I am sure that our 
 reputation on the Continent as a feature of strength, 
 power and confidence is of more real moment to 
 
 1 Correspondence, Despatches and other Papers of Viscount 
 Castlereagh, ed. by his brother, vol. ix. p. 3f>4. 
 Ibid. p. 356.
 
 CASTLEREAGH AND REACTION 141 
 
 us than an acquisition thus made.' 1 It is inter- 
 esting to note Castlereagh's attitude towards the new 
 trend of political opinion throughout most of Europe. 
 ' It is impossible,' he wrote in May, 1814, ' not to 
 perceive a great change coming on in Europe, and 
 that the principles of freedom are in full operation. 
 The danger is that the transition may be too sudden 
 to ripen into anything likely to make the world 
 better or happier. We have new Constitutions 
 launched in Spain, Holland and Sicily. Let us see 
 the result before we encourage further attempts.' 
 Gallio-like, he thought it ' better to retard than 
 to accelerate the operation of this most hazardous 
 principle which is abroad.' 2 At the same time he 
 cannot justly be accused of being a reactionary : 
 ' I am glad to hear,' he wrote to Sir H. Wellesley 
 on the Spanish question (May 10, 1814), ' that the 
 King is not disposed ... to aim at the restoration 
 of the ancient order of things. I am confident that 
 there is not vigour and ability enough amongst his 
 adherents to sustain such a system against the 
 temper of the times and the party which exists 
 in Spain favourable to a form of Government more 
 or less free. ... To succeed in establishing a per- 
 manent system we must speak to the nation and 
 not give it the character of a military resolution.' 3 
 Meanwhile, in the difficult negotiations both before 
 and after the return of Napoleon from Elba, England 
 proved a tower of strength to the cause of modera- 
 tion and reasonableness. Whereas Alexander was 
 an uncertain factor, apparently anxious to pose as 
 the saviour of the French people against everyone 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 474. 2 Ibid. vol. x. p. 18. 3 Ibid. p. 25
 
 142 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 else, and the Germans, especially the Prussians, 
 were determined to crush France completely, Great 
 Britain, through the mouth of Castlereagh (August 
 17, 1815), declared that it was ' not our business 
 to collect trophies, but to try if we can bring the 
 world back to peaceful habits. I do not think this 
 to be compatible with any attempt now materially 
 and permanently to affect the territorial character 
 of France, as settled by the Peace of Paris ; neither 
 do I think it a clear case (if we can, by imposing 
 a strait waistcoat upon that Power for a number 
 of years, restore her to ordinary habits, and weighing 
 the extraordinary growth of other States in later 
 times, especially of Russia) that France, even with 
 her existing dimensions, may not be found a useful 
 rather than a dangerous member of the European 
 System.' l Castlereagh clearly recognised that 
 ' neither Austria nor Prussia have any desire to 
 bring the present state of things to a speedy ter- 
 mination ; so long as they can feed, clothe and pay 
 their armies, at the expense of France, and put 
 English subsidies into their pockets besides, which 
 nothing can deprive them of previous to the 1st 
 April, 1816, but the actual conclusion of a treaty 
 with France, you cannot suppose they will be in a 
 great hurry to come to a final settlement.' 2 With 
 regard to Prussian methods, both Castlereagh and 
 the Duke of Wellington were most emphatic. Unless 
 something were arranged, the former wrote in March, 
 1815, 'the war will either degenerate, as it did 
 
 1 Correspondence, Despatches and other Papers of Viscount 
 Castlereagh, ed. by his brother, vol. x. p. 490. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 485.
 
 CASTLEREAGH AND PRUSSIA 143 
 
 last year, into an indiscriminate pillage or we shall 
 be bankrupts and driven out of the field.' l Again, 
 a few months later (July 18) : ' The immediate 
 difficulty is how to keep Bliicher and the Prussians 
 within any bounds towards this town.' 2 Bliicher 
 wished Napoleon to be killed ; whilst Wellington 
 protested against ' so foul a transaction.' 3 
 
 Still, whatever the national behaviour, Castle- 
 reagh continued to recognise in Prussia a natural 
 bulwark against French aggression. ' I am always 
 led to revert,' he wrote from Vienna (October 1,1814), 
 ' with considerable favour to a policy which Mr. 
 Pitt, in the year 1806, had strongly at heart, which 
 was to tempt Prussia to put herself forward on the 
 left bank of the Rhine more in military contact 
 with France. I know there may be objections to 
 this, as placing a Power, peculiarly military, and 
 consequently somewhat encroaching, so extensively 
 in contact with Holland and the Low Countries. 
 But as this is only a secondary danger, we should 
 not sacrifice to it our first object, which is to pro- 
 vide effectually against the systematic views of 
 France to possess herself of the Low Countries 
 and the Territories on the left bank of the Rhine 
 a plan which, however discountenanced by the 
 present French Government, will infallibly revive 
 whenever circumstances favour its execution.' 4 
 
 Practical statesmen must provide for the im- 
 mediate need, and there is nothing in Castlereagh's 
 attitude towards Prussia which need cause us to 
 deny him the gifts of political wisdom. 
 
 1 Ibid p. 286. * Ibid. p. 419. 
 
 3 Ibid. p. 386. Ibid. p. 144.
 
 144 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 Assuredly his aims, as stated by himself, were 
 enlightened. ' It is the province of Great Britain,' 
 he wrote to the British Minister at Berlin (December 
 28, 1815), 'to turn the confidence she has inspired 
 to the account of peace, by exercising a conciliatory 
 influence between the Powers rather than put her- 
 self at the head of any combination of Courts to 
 keep others in check. The immediate object to 
 be kept in view is to inspire the States of Europe, 
 so long as we can, with a sense of the dangers they 
 have surmounted by their Union ... to make them 
 feel that the existing Concert is their only perfect 
 security against the revolutionary embers more or 
 less existing in every state of Europe ; and that 
 their true wisdom is to keep down the petty con- 
 tentions of ordinary times and to stand together 
 in the support of the established principles of social 
 order.' 1 
 
 ' The wish of the Government,' he had written 
 more than a year earlier (February 6, 1814), 'is to 
 connect their interests in peace and in war with 
 those of the Continent . . . that whilst the state 
 of Europe afforded little hope of a better order of 
 things, Great Britain had no other course than to 
 create an independent existence for herself, but 
 now she might look forward to a return to ancient 
 principles, she was ready to make the necessary 
 sacrifices on her part to reconstruct a balance in 
 Europe.' 2 The treaty of Alliance the Government 
 had already decided (December, 1813) ' is not to 
 
 1 Correspondence, Despatches and other Papers of Viscount 
 Castlereagh, ed. by his brother, vol xi. p. 105. 
 
 1 Quoted by Alison Phillips, o-p. tit. pp. 68-9, note.
 
 A CONFEDERATION OF EUROPE 145 
 
 terminate with the war but is to contain defensive 
 engagements with mutual obligations to support 
 the Power attacked by France with a certain extent 
 of stipulated succours. The casus foederis is to be 
 an attack by France on the European dominions 
 of any one of the contracting parties.' It will be 
 noted that these proposed stipulations are only 
 directed against France. 
 
 It was in this atmosphere of general recognition 
 of the European Concert and of its attendant 
 obligations that Alexander launched his high-soaring 
 balloon for securing a temporal Providence for the 
 ills of the suffering nations. In 1813, ' Russia/ 
 in the words of Sorel, ' unchained the war of nation- 
 alities.' In appealing to the principle of nationality, 
 ' Alexander had no conception of the power and 
 tendencies of the forces he was unloosing forces 
 which were destined to mingle with the air his 
 day dream of a Confederated Europe.' l Meanwhile 
 Alexander declared his plan to be ' to restore to 
 each nation the full and secure enjoyment of its 
 rights and its institutions ; to place all, including 
 ourselves, under the safeguard of a general alliance, 
 in order to guarantee ourselves and to save them 
 from the ambitions of a conqueror.' 2 
 
 It is unnecessary to recapitulate here the various 
 difficulties that threatened to put an end to the 
 European Concert, but at last an agreement was 
 reached, and the Treaty of Chaumont created, 
 within certain limits, a Confederation of Europe. 
 The Preamble declares the object to be, in case 
 France should reject the proposals for a general 
 
 1 Alison Phillips, op. cit. p. 60. - Ibid. pp. 64-5.
 
 146 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 Peace, ' to strengthen the mutual obligation existing 
 between them for the vigorous prosecution of a 
 war which is designed to relieve Europe from its 
 long sufferings and to secure its future repose, by 
 the re-establishment of a just balance of power ; 
 and, on the other hand, in case Providence should 
 bless their peaceful views, to agree on the best 
 means of securing the happy result of their exertions 
 against every future attack.' The 16th article of 
 the treaty declared : ' As it is the object of the 
 present treaty of defensive alliance to maintain the 
 balance of power in Europe, to insure the repose 
 and independence of the different Powers and to 
 prevent the arbitrary violations of the rights and 
 territories of other States, by which the world has 
 suffered for so many years together, the contracting 
 Powers have agreed to fix the duration of the present 
 treaty for twenty years.' l 
 
 About the same time the Allied Powers solemnly 
 affirmed : * It is time that Princes, without alien 
 influences, should look after the welfare of their 
 peoples ; that the Nations should respect their 
 mutual independence. . . . The progress of events 
 during this epoch has given to the Allied Courts 
 sentiments of all the strength of the European 
 League. . . . Nothing remains to prevent their ex- 
 pressing the conditions necessary for the reconstruc- 
 tion of the Social Edifice. . . . England, the only 
 Power called upon to place anything in the balance of 
 compensation for France, has announced the sacrifice 
 she is prepared to make for the general pacification.' 2 
 
 1 Annual Register, 1814, pp. 387-90. 
 
 2 Quoted by Alison Phillips, op. cit. p. 80.
 
 147 
 
 The first Peace of Paris merely embodied principles 
 already accepted, leaving more doubtful points for 
 subsequent settlement. In the Congress of Vienna 
 (1814) which followed, Great Britain was the only 
 one of the Powers which was able consistently and 
 firmly to take up an attitude wholly disinterested 
 and European. With untiring industry and no 
 little skill. Gastlereagh sought to untie the tangled 
 knots of the questions relating to Poland and Saxony. 
 ' It depends exclusively.' he wrote to the Czar, 
 ' upon the temper in which your Imperial Majesty 
 shall meet the questions which more immediately 
 concern your own Empire, whether the present 
 Congress shall prove a blessing to mankind or only 
 exhibit a scene of discordant intrigue and unlawless 
 scramble for power. . . . Give to Europe that Peace 
 which it expects at your hands.' x 
 
 How thin was the ice of the Concert of Europe 
 may be seen from the fact that Castlereagh, whilst 
 the Congress was still sitting, ' feared some sudden 
 coup on the part of Russia and Prussia to coerce 
 Austria,' and protested that, since the Powers 
 were no longer deliberating ' in a state of inde- 
 pendence,' it would be better to break it up. 
 So grave was the peril that Castlereagh felt 
 himself constrained as a precautionary measure to 
 enter into a defensive alliance with Austria and 
 France. 2 The conclusions of the Vienna Congress 
 were not very striking ; on the questions of Poland 
 and of Saxony compromises were arrived at, largely 
 through the influence of Castlereagh ; but the 
 Congress, in the words of Gentz, ' resulted in nothing 
 1 Ibid. p. 109. * Ibid. p. 113.
 
 148 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 but restorations which had already been effected 
 by arms.' Still, according to him, 'the Treaty, such 
 as it is, has the undeniable merit of having pre- 
 pared the world for a more complete political 
 structure. . . . The ground has been prepared for 
 building up a better social structure.' 1 
 
 When, after Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo, 
 it was necessary once more to review the situation, 
 the adroit management of Castlereagh secured that 
 Russia and Great Britain stood combined against 
 the attempts of Prussia to effect the dismemberment 
 of France. ' By the course I adopted,' he wrote, 
 ' towards His Imperial Majesty, I not only deprived 
 him of that character of being the exclusive pro- 
 tector of the King (Louis XVIII.) a relation in 
 which, for the general politics of Europe, it is of 
 great importance he should not be permitted to 
 place himself but I have gradually brought him 
 publicly to adopt all the principles of the Allied 
 Powers as his own, and to push them, as far as it 
 is at all clear they can be pushed without a dangerous 
 reaction.' 2 
 
 But, under the influence of religion and a mystic 
 Egeria, 3 Alexander was prepared to go much farther 
 than merely to give generous terms to France ; he 
 proposed, by the Holy Alliance (September 14), to 
 apply the law of Christ to international relations. 
 Professor Alison Phillips has clearly brought out 
 that in its inception the alliance involved no attack 
 upon popular liberties. As late as 1816 Alexander 
 
 1 Quoted by Alison Phillips, op. cii. pp. 118-9. 
 
 2 Castlereagh Correspondence, vol. x. p. 485. 
 
 3 The Baronne Julia de Wietinghoff Kriidener.
 
 THE HOLY ALLIANCE 149 
 
 wrote to Castlereagh : ' There are countries where 
 the attempt is now being obstinately made to revive 
 institutions which have perished of old age. The 
 new spirit of the peoples is too little consulted.' l 
 ' The sole and exclusive object of the Alliance,' 
 he wrote in the same year to his ambassador in 
 London, ' can only be the maintenance of peace 
 and the union of all the moral interests of the 
 peoples. . . . Its only aim is to favour the internal 
 prosperity of each State and the general welfare of 
 all, which ought to be the outcome of the friendship 
 between their sovereigns, made all the more indis- 
 soluble by the fact that it is independent of acci- 
 dental causes.' 2 The actual terms of the treaty 
 between Russia, Austria and Prussia seem a mere 
 assertion of the sublime teaching of Christianity 
 to an unconverted world ; but the very vagueness 
 of the language carried danger. The British Govern- 
 ment was not prepared to be a member of this 
 mystic partnership, though the Prince Regent 
 privately gave it his blessing. In consequence there 
 were two forms of alliance. There was first the inner 
 ring of the Holy Alliance. There was, secondly, the 
 more general alliance which renewed the treaties of 
 Chaumont and Vienna and affirmed, 'in order to 
 consolidate the intimate tie which unites the four 
 Sovereigns for the happiness of the world, the 
 High contracting Powers have agreed to renew at 
 fixed intervals . . . meetings consecrated to great 
 common objects and the examination of such mea- 
 sures as at each one of these epochs shall be judged 
 most salutary for the peace and prosperity of the 
 
 1 Castlereagh Correspondence, vol. x. p. 149, note. 2 Ibid. p. 150
 
 150 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 nations and for the maintenance of the peace of 
 Europe.' 1 This treaty was signed on November 20, 
 1815. 
 
 In accordance with the plan of settling matters 
 by means of periodic conferences, the Conference of 
 Aix-la-Chapelle was held in the autumn of 1818, 
 primarily to deal with the question of putting an 
 end to the occupation of France by the Allied Armies. 
 Castlereagh wrote on October 20th, ' It is satis- 
 factory to observe how little embarrassment and 
 how much solid good grow out of these reunions 
 which sound so terrible at a distance. It appears 
 to me to be a new discovery in the European govern- 
 ment, at once extinguishing the cobwebs with which 
 diplomacy obscures the horizon, bringing the whole 
 bearing of the system into its true light, and giving 
 to the counsels of the Great Powers the efficiency 
 and almost the simplicity of a single state.' 2 It 
 is curious to note that even as late as this the Holy 
 Alliance had not shown its reactionary tendencies. 
 Otherwise Castlereagh would hardly have written 
 of Alexander (October 4) ; ' my persuasion is that 
 he means to pursue a peace policy that he aims 
 at sway, but that he has no desire to change his 
 connexion, or to render the revolutionary spirit in 
 Europe more active.' 3 
 
 But Castlereagh's colleagues, with the fear of 
 Parliament before their eyes, were seriously alarmed 
 at the idea of adjourned meetings of the European 
 Concert ' at fixed points.' The objection of the 
 Cabinet was not to the system but to the expediency 
 
 1 Castlereagh Correspondence, vol. x. p. 155. 
 
 2 Ibid. vol. xii. pp. 54-5. 3 Ibid. p. 48.
 
 CANNING AND THE EUROPEAN CONCERT 151 
 
 of declaring it publicly. The objections, however, 
 of Canning were more serious. He thought the 
 ' system of periodical meetings of the four Great 
 Powers new and of very questionable policy ; that 
 it will necessarily involve us deeply in all the politics 
 of the Continent, whereas our true policy has always ' 
 been not to interfere except in great emergencies, 
 and then with a commanding force.' He thought ' 
 ' that all other States must protest against such 
 an attempt to place them under subjection ; that 
 the meetings may become a scene of cabal and 
 intrigue ; and that the people of this country may 
 be taught to look with great jealousy for their 
 liberties, if our Court is engaged in meetings with 
 great despotic Monarchs, deliberating upon what 
 degree of revolutionary spirit may endanger the 
 public security, and therefore require the inter- 
 ference of the Alliance.' 1 The same apprehensions 
 were shown in a letter of Lord Liverpool (October 
 23rd). ' The Russians must be made to feel that 
 we have a Parliament and a public, to which we 
 are responsible ; and that we cannot permit our- 
 selves to be drawn into views of policy wholly 
 incompatible with the spirit of our Government.' 2 
 In truth the question was one of extreme difficulty. 
 On the one hand there was the danger that, by 
 withdrawing from the European Concert, Great 
 Britain might be working against the interests of 
 the permanent peace of the world. On the other 
 hand there was the very real peril of being drawn 
 into enterprises wholly foreign to British interests 
 or sympathies. A singularly acute criticism of 
 
 1 Ibid. pp. 55-6. 2 Ibid. p. 63.
 
 the whole system is found in a letter of Lord Clan- 
 carty, the British Minister at the Hague, to Castle- 
 reagh : ' What a fortunate circumstance it is that, 
 the Queen's state has enabled you to be at Aix 
 during the whole of the reunion there. However 
 much I wiJl allow you are to be pitied for the struggles 
 you have been involved in by the modern philosophic 
 rhodomontade, coupled with an eternal besoin de 
 faire of one Court and the pusillanimity of another, 
 while you have, I believe, found little true assistance 
 from the Minister of the third, always fluctuating 
 and generally weak and wrong-headed in his deter- 
 minations when made ; though I think Parliament 
 can scarcely find fault with your accession to the 
 proposed system, the invitation to which is certainly 
 flattering to Great Britain, and marks the weight 
 attached to her countenance, and this without 
 subjecting her to any onerous stipulation, yet I 
 wish the subject had not arisen or could be still 
 avoided altogether. Things seem to me to stand 
 well as they were, and I fear the doing more will 
 produce weakness rather than strength to those 
 who really seek the permanence of peace and the 
 best means of defence in the case of war. 
 
 ' In truth, I do not well understand the projected 
 measure. What is to be the state of the parties 
 inter se under it ? It should seem that they cannot 
 go to war with each other, because the principal 
 object is to maintain peace, and because the natural 
 consequence of war between Continental Powers, 
 in the vicinage of each other, is invasion, and then 
 the casus foederis arises in favour of the invaded 
 party, whose territories are guaranteed, and this
 
 CLANCARTY ON THE EUROPEAN CONCERT 153 
 
 however wrong he may have been in the outset. 
 But if they cannot vindicate themselves, each against 
 the other, must not some mode be assigned for 
 settling disputes between them ? None such is 
 stated ; and, if means for this purpose were brought 
 forward, would not the association thus raised erect 
 itself into a Confederation of States equally with 
 the Germanic body ? And what would be the effect 
 of this ? Again the parties agree to confine them- 
 selves within their actual limits does the casus 
 foederis arise if they exceed them ? If so, they 
 are equally tied up from making war on others. 
 Would this be wise, or even practicable ? If, on 
 the other hand, without impeachment from his 
 confederates, any one of the parties may make 
 war upon other States, then, as conquest is a natural 
 right of war, this part of the engagement becomes 
 a dead letter, or at most an honourable under- 
 standing, of little value. . . . 
 
 ' These and several other equally important con- 
 siderations on the construction, bearing and possible 
 effects of such a measure, it would be well for the 
 immediate parties maturely to reflect upon, pre- 
 viously to their entering upon such an engagement. 
 To prevent probable future interferences from some 
 among them, and avoid misunderstandings, loose 
 construction should of all things be avoided. The 
 more simple and the less multiplied the means by 
 which the great Powers are kept together for mutual 
 defence and the preservation of peace, the less 
 likelihood there will be, in my view, of interruption 
 to their Union.' 1 
 
 1 Castlereagh Correspondence, vol. xii. pp. 81-2.
 
 154 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 The aim of Alexander at the Conference of Aix- 
 la-Chapelle was to extend the Holy Alliance so as 
 to include the whole European Concert. Castle- 
 reagh reported that both the Emperor and his 
 Minister ' were in conversation disposed to push 
 their ideas very far indeed, in the sense of all the 
 Powers of Europe being bound together in a common 
 league, guaranteeing to each other the existing 
 order of things, in thrones as well as in territories, 
 all being bound to march, if requisite, against the 
 first Power that offended either by her ambition 
 or by her revolutionary transgressions.' 1 We have 
 already seen the fatal -objection from the British 
 point of view to any such proposal. There was 
 the less moral objection that it opened an easy 
 way to Russian ambitions. In these circumstances 
 it became necessary to meet by a Memorandum 
 the Russian proposals. ' The benign principle of 
 the Alliance of September 26, 1815,' Castlereagh 
 wrote, ' may be considered as constituting the 
 European System, in the matter of political con- 
 science. It would, however, be derogatory to this 
 solemn act of the Sovereigns to mix its discussion 
 with the ordinary diplomatic obligations which bind 
 State to State, and which are to be looked for alone 
 in the treaties which have been concluded in the 
 accustomed form. . . . 
 
 ' The problem of a Universal Alliance for the peace 
 and happiness of the world has always been one 
 of speculation and hope, but it has never yet been 
 reduced to practice, and if an opinion may be 
 hazarded, from its difficulty it never can. But you 
 
 1 A Phillips, op. cit. p. 177.
 
 THE CONCERT OF EUROPE IN ACTION 155 
 
 may in practice approach towards it, and perhaps 
 the design has never been so far realised as in the 
 last four years. During that eventful period the 
 Quadruple Alliance, formed upon principles alto- 
 gether limited, has had, from the presence of the 
 Sovereigns and the unparalleled unity of design 
 with which the Cabinets have acted, the power 
 of travelling far out of the sphere of their immediate 
 and primitive obligations, without, at the same time, 
 transgressing any of the laws of Nations or failing 
 in the delicacy which they owe to the rights of 
 other States, as to form more extended alliances . . . 
 to interpose their good offices for the settlement 
 of differences between other States, to take the 
 initiative in watching over the Peace of Europe, 
 and finally in securing the execution of its 
 treaties.' l Then follows the memorable passage 
 with regard to the impossibility of intervening in 
 the internal affairs of independent States which 
 has been quoted on a previous page. 2 The practical 
 suggestion which the Memorandum contained was 
 that France should be added to the Quadruple 
 Alliance. This proposal was accepted by all the 
 Powers. 
 
 Whatever may have been the possibilities of a 
 new Europe, actuated by obedience to a higher 
 law, such hopes were rudely dispelled by the action 
 of the various Governments. The restored Mon- 
 archies had learnt nothing from the lesson of the 
 last twenty years, and in Spain and Italy threw 
 then* peoples into the hands of the revolutionists. 
 Alexander, who had been in favour of Constitutions, 
 
 1 Ibid. pp. 181-2. 2 Supra, p 100.
 
 156 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 so long as they were given from above to deserving 
 children, changed his tone when his own Poles, 
 under harsh treatment, grew restive and disloyal. 
 Good use was made of the opportunity by Metternich, 
 whose game was to exploit the Czar's vague idealism 
 for the objects of practical and brutal reaction. 
 In this state of things the position of a British 
 Government was, indeed, difficult. It had, it must 
 be admitted, no glowing enthusiasm for nations 
 struggling to be free, but it was no less resolutely 
 determined not to be swept into the cobwebs of 
 the spider of reaction. ' If,' Castlereagh said, ' it 
 is desired to extend the Alliance so as to include 
 all objects present and future, foreseen and unfore- 
 seen, it would change its character to such an extent 
 and carry us so far, that we should see in it an 
 additional motive for adhering to our course, at 
 the risk of seeing the Allies move away from us 
 without our having quitted it.' l 
 
 About the same time the mutiny of a picked 
 regiment at St. Petersburg had further driven Alex- 
 ander into the reactionary camp ; and, at the Con- 
 ference of Troppau, held in October, 1820, he and 
 Metternich were, for the first time, of one mind. 
 At this Conference Great Britain and France were 
 only represented by subordinate officials ; and the 
 three crowned heads had it all their own way. 
 The outcome of their deliberations was the minatory 
 statement : ' States which have undergone a change 
 of government due to revolution, the results of which 
 threaten other States, ipso facto cease to be members 
 of the European Alliance, and remain excluded from 
 
 1 A. Phillips, op. tit. p. 217.
 
 CASTLEREAGH ON THE HOLY ALLIANCE 157 
 
 it until their situation gives guarantees for legal 
 order and stability. If, owing to such alterations, 
 immediate danger threatens other States, the 
 Powers bind themselves, by peaceful means, or, 
 if need be, by arms, to bring back the guilty State 
 into the bosom of the great Alliance.' l Great 
 Britain naturally refused to be a party to any such 
 undertaking : ' As for the idea,' Castlereagh wrote 
 ' ... of some general, systematic and solemn 
 declaration to be agreed upon and promulgated, 
 this is, in effect, a revival of those discussions with 
 regard to the establishment of a general system of 
 guarantee, not merely territorial but political, which, 
 at Aix-la-Chapelle, were laid aside by common 
 consent from the extreme difficulties in which the 
 whole subject was involved.' 2 
 
 ' It is proposed,' he wrote at a later date, ' to 
 create a confederacy for the exercise of a right 
 which, though undoubtedly appertaining, upon the 
 principles of self-defence, in extreme cases, to each 
 particular State, has never yet as a general measure 
 been made the subject of a diplomatic regulation 
 or conjoint effort. . . . There are extreme rights to 
 which nations, as well as individuals, must have 
 recourse for their preservation, and for the exercise 
 of which no legislation can provide. The extreme 
 right of interference between nation and nation 
 can never be made a matter of written stipulation 
 or be assumed as the attribute of any alliance.' 3 
 
 The Conference was adjourned to Laibach ; but 
 with no different results. The general effect of 
 these Conferences was that a triple understanding 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 222. - Ibid. pp. 223-4. 3 Ibid. p. 226.
 
 158 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 was effected between Russia, Austria and Prussia 
 which bound them to carry forward their own 
 views, in spite of any difference of opinion that 
 might exist between them and the two Constitu- 
 tional Powers, Great Britain and France. ' The 
 first acts of Troppau,' wrote Lord Stewart, the 
 British delegate, ' framed an alliance between the 
 three Courts which placed them entirely in a new 
 attitude from us, and they have now, I consider, 
 hermetically sealed their treaty before Europe.' 1 
 
 One of the last efforts of Castlereagh's 2 diplomacy 
 was to dissuade the Emperor of Russia from enter- 
 ing the field on behalf of the revolted Greeks. 
 Castlereagh was not wanting in sympathy with the 
 Greek cause ; but he feared any dislocation of the 
 existing balance of power and the infectious character 
 of military proceedings. In a striking dispatch to 
 the British Minister at St. Petersburg (December 
 24, 1821) he described the general situation. He 
 sought to impress Alexander with ' the wide and 
 increasing spread of the revolutionary movement 
 throughout the American, as well as the European, 
 Continent. The events of the last few months in 
 Mexico, Peru, the Caraccas and the Brazils have 
 nearly decided that both the Americas should swell 
 the preponderating catalogue of States administered 
 under a system of government founded upon a 
 representative or democratic basis. The like spirit 
 has been advancing in Europe with rapid strides ; 
 Spain and Portugal are in the very vortex of a 
 
 1 A. Phillips, op. cit. p. 232. 
 
 2 He was now Marquess of Londonderry
 
 CASTLEREAGH AND GREEK ASPIRATIONS 159 
 
 similar convulsion. France fluctuates in her policy 
 between extreme views and interests, both in their 
 very nature seriously and, perhaps, equally menacing 
 to her internal tranquillity. And Italy, including 
 the King of Sardinia's dominions, though for the 
 time recovered from the grasp of the revolutionists, 
 is held only by the presence of an Austrian army of 
 occupation and makes but very slow progress, it is 
 to be feared, in reconstructing such a native system 
 of government as may be competent to maintain 
 against the Revolutionists an independent existence. 
 
 ' The same spirit has deeply mixed itself in the 
 affairs of Greece. The insurrection throughout 
 European Turkey, in its organisation, in its objects, 
 in its agency and in its external relations, is in no 
 respect distinguishable from the movements which 
 have preceded it in Spain, Portugal and Italy, 
 except in the additional complications and embarrass- 
 ments which it presents from being associated with 
 the evils and mischiefs of another system of mis- 
 rule, under the odium of which it seeks to cloak its 
 real designs, to excite an interest, and thus to effec- 
 tuate its final purpose.' 1 In these circumstances 
 ' the Emperor of Russia ought to disavow the Greek 
 cause as one become essentially revolutionary.' 2 
 
 From the copious extracts from his correspond- 
 ence here given, we can recognise of what nature 
 were the services that Castlereagh rendered to 
 his country. If, as was the case, he was not in 
 advance of the public opinion of his day, and 
 sometimes lagged behind it, he was invariably 
 straightforward, fearless and quick to grasp the 
 
 1 CaHtlereacjh Correspondence, vol. xii. pp. 443-4. 2 Ibid. p. 445.
 
 160 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 European situation. The political reputation of 
 England stood very high owing to her services in 
 the Great War ; but undoubtedly the behaviour 
 of Castlereagh succeeded in increasing that reputa- 
 tion. But in labouring for his country he had drawn 
 too recklessly on his own powers ; and his suicide, 
 in August, 1822, ended a career to which justice 
 was never done until the last few years. 
 
 His successor, the brilliant and showy Canning, 
 was a man of a very different stamp. 1 So far as 
 actual policy was concerned, there was no great 
 gulf fixed between the two statesmen. The Duke 
 of Wellington attended the Congress of Verona in 
 1822, though under strict limitations, which, how- 
 ever, only carried on Castlereagh's policy. The 
 Congress of Verona saw the last appearance of a 
 British statesman at a Conference of the great 
 Powers emphasising their Union. From the point 
 of view of the Concert of Europe the result was dis- 
 appointing ; but considering the attitude taken up by 
 the members of the Holy Alliance, it was inevitable. 
 It is unnecessary to refute at this time of day 
 the silly fiction of Canning's official biographer, 
 that Castlereagh and the Duke of Wellington were 
 
 1 Lord Malmesbury, who knew Canning intimately, thus 
 described him in 1803: ' Canning has been forced, like a thriv- 
 ing plant in a well-managed hot-house ; he has prospered too 
 luxuriantly, he has felt no check or frost. Too early in life, 
 he has had many, and too easy advantages. This, added to very 
 acute parts, makes him impatient of control. Astonished to 
 find obstacles and difficulties in his way, angry with those who 
 conceive less quickly and eagerly than himself, or who will not 
 keep with him in his rapid plans and views ; and, indulging an 
 innate principle of vanity, he underrates others and appears 
 arrogant and contemptuous, although really not so.' (Diaries, 
 etc., vol. iv. p. 169.)
 
 WELLINGTON AND THE HOLY ALLIANCE 161 
 
 not really in sympathy with the policy they were 
 compelled to advocate. What can be stronger 
 than Wellington's language ? ' With us, therefore, 
 it had become a principle not to interfere in the 
 internal concerns of any foreign country except 
 in a case of necessity, being convinced that we 
 could not interfere with advantage to such country 
 or with honour to ourselves.' 1 ' I dislike,' he wrote to 
 Canning (November 19, 1822), 'the Spanish mutiny, 
 revolution, and everything that has been the con- 
 sequence as much as anybody, but I dislike still 
 more the conduct of the French Government ' 
 (in wishing to suppress these things by force), ' and 
 I should be sorry that we were supposed to be 
 parties to it.' 2 
 
 In fact no one except the great Duke could have 
 secured to the unpopular opinions he advocated 
 so respectful a hearing : in the face of French 
 ambitions, Europe did not altogether escape a 
 Spanish war. Nevertheless Canning's words held 
 good : ' I verily believe that if we escape the 
 Spanish war, it will be owing exclusively to your 
 experience of one ; and that any other negotiator 
 but yourself would have reasoned politically and 
 morally against it to no purpose.' 3 Wellington's 
 claim may have been well founded, on the facts 
 of the past history, ' that whatever we spoke, 
 our language was cautious and measured, because 
 we were determined to perform, and we knew we 
 must perform, what we promised ; ' but the dis- 
 trust and jealousy of England was so great that 
 
 1 Despatches, etc. (1819-1832), vol. i. p. 344. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 545. 3 Ibid, p 536. 
 
 E.F.P. L
 
 162 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 even from him such language was borne with diffi- 
 culty. Meanwhile it was something that the autocrat 
 of all the Russias should hear with patience views 
 directly contrary to his own with regard to the 
 best methods of dealing with the danger of Jacobin- 
 ism and revolution. Alexander was in himself 'the 
 whole Russian Government ' ; J but he easily fell 
 under the sway of others. The whole truth of the 
 matter was summed up by Wellington when he 
 wrote : 
 
 * I had seen great difficulties overcome by these 
 Conferences ; and I was in hopes that upon this 
 occasion, as upon former occasions, truth and good 
 sense might at last have prevailed. . . . But there 
 are points of difference in our situation at present 
 compared with that in which we stood before. 
 First the three great military Powers, particularly 
 the Emperor of Russia and King of Prussia, as well 
 as their ministers, and all their diplomatic servants, 
 and likewise those of the Austrian Government are 
 much more displeased and irritated with the line 
 which the British Government took on the Neapoli- 
 tan question than the occasion calls for. They 
 consider that it was an unnecessary display and 
 publication of a difference of opinion upon a theory. 
 This notion is quite erroneous ; but it is enter- 
 tained generally. Then another opinion prevails 
 upon this same subject, viz. that having been obliged 
 to separate from England on these revolutionary 
 questions, and having experienced no inconvenience 
 from such separation, their best chance was to 
 proceed on their own line.' Moreover a change of 
 
 1 Despatches etc. (1819-1832), vol. i. p. 566.
 
 ENGLAND AND THE EUROPEAN CONCERT 163 
 
 Ministers in Russia had thrown Russia into the 
 arms of Metternich ; but ' in order to maintain 
 the description of influence which he has acquired 
 over his Imperial Majesty's Councils, he is obliged 
 to bend his own opinions, and to guide the conduct 
 of the Austrian Government in a great degree accord- 
 ing to the views of Russia. 
 
 ' Thus, although there is no diminution of con- 
 fidence in the Russian Government, there is no 
 concert nor union of counsel or of action.' x In 
 this state of things, it cannot be denied that, however 
 gloomy might be the consequences in a remote 
 future, the Concert of Europe had for the time 
 being become an impossibility. At the moment, 
 however, the full extent of the breach was hardly 
 realised. In answer to an inquiry from the King 
 we find the Cabinet writing in January, 1 825 : ' Your 
 Majesty's servants feel it to be their duty therefore 
 to state that they fully recognise the principles 
 of policy laid down hi 1814, 1815 and 1818, in the 
 sense given to them repeatedly by your Majesty's 
 plenipotentiaries. . . . With respect to the future 
 application of these principles, your Majesty's ser- 
 vants are deeply impressed with the obligation of 
 preserving your Majesty's engagements in the sense 
 in which they have been declared on the part of 
 your Majesty, and with the advantages which may 
 result from maintaining the system of confidence 
 and reciprocal communication established with your 
 Majesty's Allies.' 2 It should be noted that Canning 
 was a party to this communication ; though he 
 added to it a separate reply. 
 
 1 Ibid. pp. 567-8. 2 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 403
 
 164 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 Nevertheless the Duke of Wellington recognised : 
 ' There is a growing disinclination in this country 
 to connect its concerns with those of the Alliance 
 to a greater degree than is rendered necessary by 
 the exact terms of our treaties. This sentiment 
 prevails among moderate well-judging men to as 
 great a degree as among political adventurers and 
 fanatics. . . . The allies ought to be aware of these 
 facts, and ought to shape their measures in such 
 a manner as to carry this country with them, which 
 is at least as necessary for their interest and welfare 
 as it is for ours.' * 
 
 The agreement arrived at between Russia, Austria, 
 Prussia and France with regard to coercing Spain 
 caused the withdrawal of Wellington from the Con- 
 ference, and Canning wrote to Sir H. Wellesley at 
 Vienna (September 16, 1823) that England was 
 under no obligation ' to interfere herself or to assist, 
 abet, or approve the interference of any other 
 Power by force or by menace in the internal concern 
 of independent nations. . . . The rule, I take it 
 to be, that our engagements have reference wholly 
 to the state of territorial possession settled at the 
 Peace ; to the state of affairs between nation and 
 nation ; not ... to the affairs of any nation 
 within itself. ... I thought the public declarations 
 of my predecessor . . . had set this question entirely 
 at rest. . . . What is the influence which we have 
 had in the Counsels of the Alliance, and which 
 Prince Metternich exhorts us to be so careful not 
 to throw away ? We protested at Laybach ; we 
 
 1 Letter to Metternich (May 4, 1824), op. cit. p. 260; see also 
 letter to Metternich (February 24, 1824), ibid. pp. 222-5.
 
 CANNING ON THE EUROPEAN CONCERT 165 
 
 remonstrated at Verona. Our protest was treated 
 as waste paper ; our remonstrances mingled with 
 the air. . . . Our influence, if it is to be maintained 
 abroad, must be secure in the sources of our strength 
 at home ; and the sources of that strength are in 
 the sympathy between the people and the Govern- 
 ment ; in the union of the public sentiment with 
 the public counsels ; in the reciprocal confidence 
 and co-operation of the House of Commons and the 
 Crown. . . . Our business is to preserve the peace 
 of the world, and therefore the independence of the 
 several nations which compose it. In resisting the 
 Revolution in all its stages from the Convention to 
 Buonaparte, we resisted the spirit of change, to be 
 sure, but we resisted also the spirit of foreign domina- 
 tion. But separate them, or still more, array them 
 against each other, and the most strenuous and con- 
 sistent anti-revolutionist may well hesitate which 
 part to choose.' At the same time England was 
 sincerely desirous of maintaining the alliance and 
 of cultivating it for its real object and purpose, 
 that of preserving the settlement of Europe, and the 
 independence of the States which it comprehends. 1 
 
 The real difference between Castlereagh and 
 Canning was that the one valued the European 
 Concert and clung to it so long as he could, while 
 the other wrote exultingly to the British Minister 
 at St. Petersburg on January 3, 1823 : ' I am 
 afraid your Excellency will owe me a grudge for 
 the issue of Verona, which has split the one and 
 indivisible alliance into three parts as distinct as 
 the Constitutions of England, France and Muscovy. 
 
 1 Stapleton, G. Canning and his Times, pp. 374-82.
 
 166 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 . . . And so things are getting back to a wholesome 
 state again. Everynation for itself and Gpd^fpr us_ 
 all. Only bid your Emperor be quiet, for the time 
 for Areopagus and the like of that is gone by.' * 
 
 The one practical result of the Holy Alliance, so 
 far as England was concerned, was to strengthen 
 the determination that, if France under its aegis 
 was allowed to coerce the revolutionary principle 
 in Spain, the Spanish Colonies at least should not 
 come under the shadow of its influence. British 
 motives were largely mercenary. A lucrative com- 
 merce had grown up with the revolted Colonies, 
 free from the restrictions of the Spanish law, and 
 the British Government did not intend that this new 
 source of gain should be dried up by any action 
 of the Continental Powers. In the August of 1823 
 Canning proposed to the American Minister in 
 London that the British and United States Govern- 
 ments should come to an understanding, so as to 
 oppose a united front to any encroachment by 
 Spam's continental supporters. Canning was not 
 yet prepared formally to recognise the independence 
 of the Spanish Colonies. The American Govern- 
 ment for a time appears to have considered favour- 
 ably the idea of joint action with Great Britain ; 
 but finally the view prevailed that was advocated 
 by the Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams ; 
 and the ' Monroe doctrine ' proclaimed to the world 
 that henceforth America must belong to the Ameri- 
 cans ; and that no interference would be allowed 
 
 1 Stapleton. Q. Canning and his Times, pp. 369-70. In an earlier 
 letter he had written . ' You know my politics well enough to 
 know what I mean, when I say that for Europe I shall be 
 desirous now and then to read England.' (Ibid. p. 364.)
 
 CANNING'S SPANISH POLICY 167 
 
 on the part of European Powers in the affairs of 
 the American States. 
 
 After the assertion of the Monroe doctrine, no 
 attempt was made by any European Power to 
 interfere with the Spanish Colonies ; and Great 
 Britain recognised the independence of Buenos 
 Ayres, Colombia and Mexico in 1824, and the rest 
 soon after. 
 
 Canning himself somewhat ludicrously claimed 
 the independence of the Spanish Colonies as a 
 triumph of his policy. 
 
 Twitted in the House of Commons (December 
 26, 1826) with having failed to repel French aggres- 
 sion, directed against Spain, Canning made the 
 amazing reply : ' Was there no other mode of 
 resistance than by a direct attack upon France, 
 or by a war to be undertaken upon the soil of Spain ? 
 What, if the possession of Spain might be rendered 
 harmless, as regarded us, and valueless to the 
 possessors ? Might not compensation for disparage- 
 ment be obtained, and the policy of our ancestors 
 vindicated, by means better adapted for our present 
 time ? If France occupied Spain, was it necessary, 
 in order to avoid the consequences of that occu- 
 pation, that we should blockade Cadiz ? No. I 
 looked another way ; I sought materials of compensa- 
 tion in another hemisphere. Contemplating Spain, 
 such as our ancestors had known her, I resolved 
 that if France had Spain, it should not be Spain 
 " with the Indies." I called the new world into 
 existence to redress the balance of the old.' l The 
 Spanish American possessions won their liberties by 
 1 Speeches, vol. vi. p. 111.
 
 168 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 their own exertions, aided, no doubt, by many 
 individual Englishmen ; and the action of Great 
 Britain was only to recognise them, when her own 
 trade interests made the decision necessary. 
 
 In reading the speeches of Canning, we are some- 
 times a little jarred by a note of exaggeration. 
 Nevertheless, his own policy seems to have been in 
 its essence moderate and reasonable. He believed 
 that ' the next war hi Europe would be a war not 
 so much of armies as of opinions.' In this state of 
 things the attitude of Great Britain should be one of 
 1 neutrality between conflicting principles,' ' letting 
 the professors of violent and exaggerated doctrines 
 on both sides feel that it is not their interest to con- 
 vert an Umpire into an adversary.' x Even here 
 he was guilty of some grandiloquence, when he 
 compared England to Aeolus, in whose custody 
 were the winds of Heaven. 
 
 Still, it is necessary to keep in mind the prestige 
 that attached itself to Great Britain through the 
 years that followed the close of the great war. 
 It was British sea-power that had given time for 
 the European Concert to do its work. It was 
 British subsidies that had made possible the con- 
 tinued resistance of the Continental Powers. The 
 Peninsular War had developed a powerful army 
 and a great general, so that, even on land, England 
 had played an important part in effecting Napoleon's 
 downfall. No doubt it was owing to this that 
 the great Continental Powers suffered patiently at 
 their meetings the presence of colleagues so alien 
 to them in temper and sympathies. Moreover, 
 
 1 Speeches, vol. vi. p. 90.
 
 CANNING'S FOREIGN POLICY 169 
 
 after more than two decades of exhausting war, 
 it was natural that men of all modes of thought 
 should regard peace as indispensable. That peace, 
 in fact, remained on so precarious a footing was due 
 to the new leaven which was beginning to work in 
 the European body politic. The treaties of the past 
 were well fitted to keep the respective Powers within 
 their due limits and to maintain the European 
 balance of power ; but they were helpless before 
 the new principle of nationality, which was begin- 
 ning to move the minds of men. Without perhaps 
 always realising the consequences, Canning, a man 
 whose public being depended upon parliamentary 
 government, gave vent to sympathies which, as 
 we have seen, his settled policy refused in some cases 
 actively to support. A very able statement of his 
 views is contained in the letter to Sir H. Wellesley 
 already quoted : ' It would indeed be a strange 
 perversion of all that was settled at the Peace that 
 the treaties and engagements which we consider 
 as providing for the state of territorial possession 
 exclusively should not only be construed to relate 
 to the internal affairs of nations as well as to their 
 external safety . . . but to relate to the former 
 so much more than to the latter that an encroach- 
 ment upon national independence, which per se would 
 have constituted a casus foederis . . . should become 
 not only innocent, but regular, if following as a 
 consequence from internal interference. . . . Now, 
 as to our influence upon the Continent. If such 
 a war as we sustained for (with a single intermission) 
 a quarter of a century, in behalf of all Europe, 
 and by turns against all Europe in its own behalf,
 
 170 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 has not taught all Europe where they are to look for 
 protection against overgrown and overbearing power, 
 I am sure no part we could take in a Congress upon 
 an insurrection of Carbonari at Naples or of Free- 
 masons at Madrid, would acquire for us the con- 
 fidence which such a war had failed to command. 
 Let the occasion come, and Prince Metternich shall 
 see ! But it is not by perpetually courting occasions, 
 it is not by incessant meddling with petty interests 
 and domestic squabbles in other countries that the 
 influence of Great Britain is to be maintained. 
 On the contrary, it is more likely to be frittered away 
 by such restless questions, and to be found exhausted 
 or disabled from acting when the real occasion may 
 arise.' 1 
 
 The death of Canning in 1827 perhaps made 
 less change in foreign policy than his admirers have 
 contended. The Duke of Wellington, who succeeded 
 him as Prime Minister, whatever his domestic policy, 
 was in foreign affairs no reactionary ; and carried 
 on the Castlereagh tradition without the liberal 
 sympathies and aspirations of Canning. 2 
 
 Whatever the sympathies of British statesmen with 
 the cause of Greek independence, fear of Russia 
 and the consequences that might arise from her 
 ' mediation,' continued to exercise a chastening 
 influence. Almost the last public act of Canning 
 was to come to an arrangement with Russia and 
 France for the settlement of the Greek question. 
 
 1 Stapleton, G. Canning and his Titnes, pp. 375-7. 
 
 2 It is true that reactionary views abound in Wellington's 
 correspondence ; but in action he was careful not to offend the 
 public opinion around him.
 
 GREECE AND THE EUROPEAN CONCERT 171 
 
 Under this arrangement Greece was to pay a tribute 
 to the Porte, in return for self-government. 1 The 
 Turks, however, having found a strong leader in 
 Ibrahim Pasha, the son of the capable and ambitious 
 ruler of Egypt, were not prepared to learn their 
 lesson. A conflict between the fleets was precipi- 
 tated, and the battle of Navarino (October 20, 1827) 
 practically decided the question of Greek independ- 
 ence ; though how little that result was the outcome 
 of British statesmanship may be seen from the 
 fact that the King's Speech (January 29, 1828) 
 described the battle of Navarino as ' a collision 
 wholly unexpected by his Majesty ' and as ' this 
 untoward event.' 2 The difficulty was that it was 
 still thought possible to maintain ' the repose of 
 Europe upon the basis on which it has rested since 
 the last general treaty of peace.' In accordance 
 with an additional Article of the Treaty of 1827 
 occasional conferences were held of the Representa- 
 tives of the three Powers, Great Britain, Russia 
 and France, which had signed the Treaty. The 
 Conference of 1830 determined that Greece should be 
 wholly independent of the Porte, and that it should 
 be governed by a Prince who should not belong to 
 the reigning family of any one of the Signatories 
 to the Treaty. 
 
 1 See Text of Protocol of April 4, 1826, and subsequent Treaty 
 of July 6, 1827, in The European Concert in the Eastern Question, 
 by T. E. Holland, pp. 5-9. 
 
 a The Duke of Wellington wrote to Lord Eldon (December 1, 
 1827) : ' I quite agree with you respecting the melancholy affair 
 of Navarino.' (Off; cit. vol. iv. p. 164.) At a later date (August 
 15, 1830), he wrote to Dean Philpotts : ' The truth is that the 
 battle was fought by our admiral under false pretences.' (Ibid. 
 vol. vii. p. 171.)
 
 172 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 A proposal to make Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg 
 Sovereign Prince broke down, through his refusal 
 of the terms offered ; and in 1832 Otho, the second 
 son of the King of Bavaria, became Sovereign of 
 Greece with the title of King.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE GROWTH OF NATIONALISM; THE PECULIAR 
 CHARACTER OF ANGLO-FRENCH RELATIONS. 
 1830-53. 
 
 THE year 1830 marks a new departure in British 
 foreign policy, not so much because the temper 
 of British statesmen altered, as because the circum- 
 stances of Europe underwent a great change. Lord 
 Palmerston, who became Foreign Secretary in that 
 year, was the pupil and follower of Canning ; and, 
 as we have seen, there was no broad gulf between 
 the policy of Canning and that of Castlereagh and 
 Wellington ; but the modified revolution in France 
 which led to the expulsion of the elder branch of 
 the Bourbon family and to the establishment of 
 the middle class Monarchy of Louis Philippe had the 
 immediate result of ranging Europe into two strongly 
 opposed camps. 
 
 The first outcome of the change in France was 
 the outbreak of a rebellion in the Low Countries. 
 Opposed in religion, language and sympathies, the 
 Belgian and Dutch peoples had never at heart 
 agreed with the political system set up by the 
 European Concert, as the necessary means for secur- 
 ing their political liberties against France. Whether,
 
 174 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 had their point of view been seriously considered 
 at the Congress of Vienna, some form of federal 
 Union might not have met the difficulty while 
 securing the military objects justly aimed at, is 
 a question that it is perhaps idle now to ask. In 
 1830 such a solution was no longer possible. But 
 what then could be done ? The Belgian people were 
 in some cases inclined to throw in their lot with 
 a reformed France. To acquiesce in this solution 
 would have meant the undoing of the work of the 
 Napoleonic War. Lord Aberdeen, who, when the 
 rebellion occurred, was still Foreign Secretary, wrote : 
 ' If the affair should be settled in the manner which 
 is desired \>y the authors of the revolt, we cannot 
 conceal from ourselves that it will be a virtual 
 annexation of the Province by France. Is this 
 country, or any party in this country, prepared to 
 submit to such a result ? We may do what we please, 
 but I feel confident that, sooner or later, we shall 
 find in the Netherlands the cause of war. Fortu- 
 nately it will be a good one.' 1 On the other hand 
 it was out of the question that the King of Holland 
 should be given military support with a view to 
 holding down unwilling subjects. The task of 
 British diplomacy was to secure a peaceful settle- 
 ment and prevent a conflict between France, support- 
 ing the Belgian people, and the three other Powers, 
 coming to the aid of the monarchical principle. The 
 situation was sufficiently dangerous, because, when 
 Holland refused the terms agreed upon by the 
 Powers, France proceeded to enforce them by arms. 
 When the Revolution occurred, the Tories were in 
 
 1 Sir R. Peel, vol. ii. pp. 159-60.
 
 THE BELGIAN QUESTION 175 
 
 office in England ; but the Duke of Wellington's 
 statement that neither Great Britain nor France 
 could attempt to pacify the parties alone, but that 
 the work must be accomplished by the five great 
 European Powers in Concert, expressed the general 
 sentiment of British statesmen. 1 
 
 The Duke of Wellington informed a Belgian 
 envoy that ' it never had been the intention of 
 England to interfere in their affairs, and that we 
 would not control Belgium in any manner in the 
 choice of its government.' Without assistance from 
 outside the King of Holland was unable to resist 
 French coercion, whilst the situation at home 
 prevented Prussia or Russia, in any case, from 
 intervening. 
 
 In August, 1831, Lord Palmerston wrote to Lord 
 Granville, the British Ambassador at Paris : ' The 
 French Government are perpetually telling us that 
 certain things must or must not be done in order 
 to satisfy public opinion in France ; but they must 
 remember that there is a public feeling in England 
 as well as in France ; and that although that feeling 
 is not as excitable upon small matters as the public 
 mind in France, yet there are points (and Belgium 
 is one) upon which it is keenly sensitive, and upon 
 which, if once aroused, it would not easily be 
 appeased.' 2 In England, at any rate, there was 
 no response to Talleyrand's cynical suggestion, that 
 the only remedy to the Belgian difficulty lay in 
 partition between France, Prussia and Holland ; 
 England's share being the recognition of Antwerp 
 
 1 Annual Register, 1830, p. 154. 
 
 2 H. Lytton Bulwer, Life, of Palmerston, vol. ii. p. 100.
 
 176 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 as a free port. 1 Palmerston gauged the public 
 temper aright when he wrote (August 17, 1831) 
 ' one thing is certain the French must go out 
 of Belgium or we have a general war, and war in 
 a given number of days.' 2 ' Let us stave off all 
 these nibblings,' he wrote a few days later ; ' if 
 once these Great Powers begin to taste blood, they 
 will never be satisfied with one bite, but will speedily 
 destroy their victim.' 3 
 
 From the first the Duke of Wellington viewed 
 with extreme misgiving Palmerston's proceedings. 
 'It is quite true,' he wrote (November 14th, 1832), 
 ' that France and England united are too strong 
 for the rest of the world. But what are the objects 
 of the Union ? Are they French objects exclu- 
 sively, or English objects, or European objects ? 
 The answer is obvious. French objects exclusively. 
 Look abroad at this moment. Holland, Portugal, 
 Spain, Italy, the Mediterranean ; all tending to the 
 establishment not only of French influence but of 
 French supremacy and rule. . . . We have no objects 
 in Europe or elsewhere excepting the independence 
 and tranquillity of all ; particularly the independence 
 of France. The object of France is dominion 
 dominion to be acquired anyhow. . . . How can 
 two such Powers, witlj such different objects, con- 
 tinue in alliance ? ' 4 
 
 The Duke held that the King of Holland had 
 been unfairly treated by the Powers. ' It appears,' 
 he wrote (November 22, 1831), 'that the Five Powers 
 
 1 H. Lytton Bulwer, Life of Palmer aton, vol. ii. p. 102. 
 2 Ibid. p. 109. * Ibid. p. 122. 
 
 4 Despatches, etc. vol. viii. p. 445.
 
 WELLINGTON ON THE BELGIAN QUESTION 177 
 
 have concluded a Treaty with Leopold, which I 
 confess astonishes me. I did not think it possible 
 that the Emperor of Austria would conclude till 
 the King of the Netherlands should be satisfied. 
 It appears to me that there is a clear injustice in 
 that part of the arrangement which regards the 
 canals, communicating from the Scheldt with the 
 Meuse and the Rhine. They are Dutch property ; 
 and the other allies had no more right to dispose 
 of them by sentence under an arbitration than 
 they had to dispose of any private property not 
 at their disposition.' * 
 
 In December, 1832, the Duke of Wellington sent 
 to Lord Francis Leveson Gower an elaborate state- 
 ment with regard to the Belgian question : ' The 
 King of the Netherlands, after the repulse of Prince 
 Frederick from Brussels, in October, 1830, asked 
 for the advice and assistance of the Powers which 
 had been parties to the union between Holland 
 and Belgium to maintain their work. 
 
 'These Powers met by their plenipotentiaries in 
 conference in London, and their first step was to 
 require a suspension of hostilities between the parties. 
 They did not take as the basis of the Act the " Uti 
 possidetis," but they allotted to the Dutch armies 
 all that formed the territory of Holland previous 
 to 1792-3, and to the Belgian army the remainder 
 of the territory forming the kingdom of the Nether- 
 lands. The Duchy of Luxembourg was considered 
 as part of the Germanic body. 
 
 'This arrangement was nothing but a suspension 
 of hostilities. The Conference dictated the Treaty 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 75. 
 
 E.F.P. M
 
 178 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 to the two parties ; but our Government declined 
 to guarantee its execution by either, knowing that 
 such guarantee might lead to war. The King of 
 the Netherlands agreed to the treaty, so did the 
 Belgian Government, but unwillingly. Under this 
 Treaty, Antwerp would have belonged to the Bel- 
 gians ; the Scheldt to the King of the Netherlands, 
 as well as Venloo and the Meuse and certain 
 territories on both banks of that river. 
 
 'We resigned on the 15th of November ; on the 
 22nd the new Ministers took possession of their 
 offices. They immediately commenced by ill-treat- 
 ing the King of the Netherlands. They enforced 
 the suspension of hostilities as against him, but 
 not hi his favour. The exchange of the citadel 
 of Antwerp for Venloo and territories upon the 
 Meuse . . . was never carried into execution. Hos- 
 tilities continued in the neighbourhood of Antwerp 
 and of Maestricht. Remonstrances were made, 
 threats of hostilities, and the blockade of the Belgian 
 ports, if not desisted from. But all in vain. These 
 continued until the King of the Netherlands invaded 
 Belgium in the summer of 1831. 
 
 'In the meantime the Conference of London, on 
 the 20th of December, 1830, recognised the inde- 
 pendence of the Belgian provinces ; thus giving 
 up at once to one party all that it had to contend 
 for, and leaving to the other all the sacrifices to 
 be made to complete the settlement between them. 
 They, then, in January, 1831, hi the twelve Protocols, 
 proposed as Mediating Powers the basis of an arrange- 
 ment for the separation of the two States, Holland 
 and Belgium. This basis was declared irre vocable
 
 WELLINGTON ON THE BELGIAN QUESTION 179 
 
 upon three separate occasions. The King of the 
 Netherlands accepted it ; the Belgian Government 
 did not. 
 
 'At this period, i.e. in May, 1831, Leopold was 
 elected King of Belgium ; and then the Confer- 
 ence proposed another basis for the separation 
 of the two States, instead of the irrevocable one of 
 January. To this basis the King of the Netherlands 
 refused his consent ; the King of the Belgians gave 
 his. . . . 
 
 ' In order to repel the various breaches of the Act 
 suspending hostilities, the King of the Netherlands 
 invaded Belgium in the summer of 1831. 
 
 ' Subsequently to the invasion, repelled by the 
 French troops, there was a fresh negotiation for the 
 suspension of hostilities between Holland and 
 Belgium, at first for a limited period. . . . Subse- 
 quently, in the autumn of 1831, the Conference, 
 which up to that time had been mediatorial, took 
 upon itself the character and assumed the course 
 of arbitrators. They proposed to the parties the 
 Treaty of November, 1831, again declared to be 
 their irrevocable decision. The King of the Nether- 
 lands declined to give his consent to this Treaty. 
 Some changes were made in this irrevocable Act, 
 and King Leopold signed it. The Treaty with 
 Leopold was ratified by England and France in 
 January, 1832. It was not ratified by the other 
 Powers till a later period, and then only on con- 
 dition that the Treaty should be modified in favour 
 of the King of the Netherlands, on some of the 
 principal points of which he complained.' l 
 
 1 Despatches, etc. vol. viii. pp. 482-4,
 
 180 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 ' The history of the world,' Wellington concluded, 
 ' does not afford another chance of abandonment of 
 its ally, as has been given by this country, in the 
 whole course of this transaction from the 22nd 
 November, 1830, to the present moment.' x 
 
 Looking, however, at the question in a broad 
 light, it is impossible not to admire Lord Palmer- 
 ston's diplomacy. His aim was to satisfy the 
 aspirations of the Belgian people, whilst he main- 
 tained the balance of power and the peace of 
 Europe. 
 
 At the European Conference held in London, the 
 frontiers of Belgium and Holland were defined on 
 January 20, 1831, and Belgium was declared to be 
 neutral, under the guarantee of the Powers. There 
 was trouble with Belgium, with Holland, with 
 France, and with the Northern Powers, and it was 
 the firm and skilful hand of Palmerston which guided 
 the European Conference through a sea of dangers to 
 the creation of a free and independent Belgium. 2 
 It was not, indeed, till 1839 that a satisfactory settle- 
 ment was at last reached ; and whatever might be the 
 value on paper of the guarantee of the Powers, it 
 was impossible to deny that the new barrier State was 
 much weaker than that formed under the settlement 
 of 1815. The barrier fortresses were dismantled, 
 it being impossible for Belgium, by itself, to main- 
 tain them ; and it was not till a short time before 
 the war of 1914 that the Belgians came to recognise 
 that the maintenance of their independence must 
 rest in great measure with themselves. 
 
 1 Despatches, etc. vol. viii. p. 485. 
 
 2 England and the Orleans Monarchy, by J. Hal], p. 143.
 
 THE POLISH QUESTION 181 
 
 More serious for the time being were the general 
 effects of the new movement. The back wash of the 
 revolutionary movement was felt in many parts of 
 Germany ; and the Polish insurrection assumed 
 serious dimensions. Whatever be the truth regard- 
 ing Poland, and granting the fact that that king- 
 dom at its zenith was in truth a narrow and 
 oppressive oligarchy, grinding down subject races, 1 
 it still cannot be denied that Alexander, under his 
 Polish friend and adviser, Prince Czartoryski, recog- 
 nised the Kingdom of Poland, and the Treaty of 
 Vienna (June 9, 1815) guaranteed to the respective 
 Polish subjects of Russia, Austria and Prussia 'repre- 
 sentative and national Institutions,' ' regulated,' it 
 was added, making the guarantee an unmeaning 
 absurdity, 'according to the degree of political con- 
 sideration that each of the Governments to which 
 they belong should judge expedient and proper to 
 grant them.' 
 
 Unhappily the friendly intentions of Alexander 
 were from the first thwarted and made of none 
 effect by the harsh and brutal conduct of his brother 
 Constantine, the Viceroy of Poland. When the 
 insurrection broke out, and at first seemed attended 
 with success, it was natural that it should arouse 
 the sympathies of the Western nations. But inas- 
 much as the matter was not a casus belli, and any 
 interference would have aroused fierce opposition 
 from Prussia and Austria, no less than from Russia, 
 it was a foolish as well as useless proceeding for 
 Palmerston to annoy the Russian Government by 
 
 1 See a brilliant article by Lord Salisbury in Quarterly Review, 
 April, 1863, republished in Essays, 1905.
 
 182 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 a dispatch, however closely reasoned, which had to 
 remain brutum fulmen. Had Alexander, been still 
 Czar, and had the British Ministers, whom he had 
 known and esteemed, been still at the helm, some- 
 thing might have been attempted by personal action ; 
 but a generation was growing up less mindful of 
 British services to Europe ; and the stern and silent 
 autocrat Nicholas was not the man to submit himself 
 meekly to liberal manifestos from a Parliamentary 
 Minister. Nothing was gained for Poland ; and the 
 task of British diplomacy was made more difficult. 
 
 We find Palmerston writing in 1836 : ' Every day 
 brings fresh proof of the complete union of the three 
 Powers (Russia, Austria and Prussia) on every ques- 
 tion of European policy, and affords additional evi- 
 dence that they are for the present, what they told us 
 three years ago they must be considered, viz. a Unity. 
 . . . The division of Europe into two camps ... to 
 which you so much object, is the result of events 
 beyond our control ; and is the consequence of 
 the French Revolution of July. The three Powers 
 fancy their interests lie in a direction opposite to 
 that which we and France conceive ours to be 
 placed. The separation is not one of words, but 
 of things ; not the effect of caprice or of will, but 
 produced by the force of occurrences. The three 
 and the two think differently, and therefore they 
 act differently, whether it be as to Belgium or 
 Portugal or Spain. 
 
 ' The separation cannot really cease till all the 
 questions to which it applies are decided just as 
 it is impossible to make a Coalition Ministry while 
 there are questions pending in which public men
 
 THE EASTERN QUESTION 183 
 
 disagree. But when An^illon (the Prussian Minister) 
 and Metternich complain of the division of Europe 
 into two camps, that which they really complain of 
 is not the existence of two camps, but the equality 
 of the two camps. The plain English of it is that 
 they want to have England on their side against 
 France, that they may dictate to France as they 
 did in 1814 and 1815 ; and they are provoked 
 beyond measure at the steady protection France 
 has derived from us. But it is that protection 
 which has preserved the peace of Europe. Without 
 it there would long ago have been a general war.' 1 
 As showing how little the Whig Ministry were 
 conscious of a change of policy, we may note that 
 when, in the same year, the Eastern Question again 
 became critical, through the action of Mehemet Ali, 
 which seemed to threaten the very existence of 
 the Turkish Empire, they turned to the Duke of 
 Wellington for advice in the hour of need. The 
 question was whether or not it would be advisable 
 to enter into any treaty for the defence of the 
 Porte. The Duke's reply is a singularly illuminat- 
 ing document : ' In respect of the Porte, I am 
 afraid that it would be found that a treaty for 
 its protection must be one of interference in all 
 its concerns. I believe that, in general, defensive 
 treaties . . . between a strong Power . . . and a 
 
 1 Lord Melbourne's Papers, ed. by L. C. Sanders, pp. 337-40. 
 'England,' Tallyrand had written (November 27, 1830), 'is 
 the country with which France should cultivate the most friendly 
 relations. Her colonial losses have removed a source of rivalry 
 between them. . . . Both Governments have adopted the prin- 
 ciple of non-intervention. Let both declare loudly that they 
 are prepared to maintain peace, and their voices will not be 
 raised in vain.' (Hall, op. cit. p. 22.)
 
 184 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 weak Power . . . have been found to be treaties 
 of protection ; and that they do and must lead to 
 interference on the part of the strong Power in 
 every act of the Government of the weak Power 
 in relation to other Powers. If such interference 
 should not take place, the question of peace or 
 war would not be in the hands of the strong Power, 
 the one which would have to incur the greatest 
 risks and nearly the whole burthen of the charges.' 
 Considering the special circumstances of Turkey, he 
 believed that ' either the treaty of protection would 
 be of no avail to the Ottoman Porte ; or it must 
 lead as certainly to war as a treaty offensive and 
 defensive with the same Power would.' After giving 
 objections to inviting France to become a party 
 to such treaty, Wellington went on : ' We must 
 not conceal from ourselves that the treaty of pro- 
 tection of the Porte would be considered, and indeed 
 is in fact a treaty of offensive alliance against Russia, 
 be its form what it may. Russia is the only Power 
 excepting England and France that can injure the 
 Porte. It is with Russia alone that the Ottoman 
 Government has questions of interest. That Govern- 
 ment is now under the protection of Russia ; and 
 the object of the treaty would be to substitute 
 the protection of England and France for that 
 of Russia. Metternich would see clearly that this 
 substitution could not be made without war ; and 
 I think that in a war between the Maritime Powers 
 and Russia there can be no doubt that Austria 
 would take the part of the latter.' He therefore 
 came to the conclusion that there was no remedy 
 but time. ' It might be possible to re-establish at
 
 THE SPANISH QUESTION 185 
 
 the Porte confidence in our intentions ; so that 
 when the period of the expiration of the defensive 
 treaty with Russia arrived, it should not be 
 renewed.' x 
 
 In Spain, where the Whigs altered the policy of 
 their predecessors so far as to enter into the quad- 
 ruple Treaty (April 22, 1834) between Great Britain, 
 France, Spain and Portugal, and to repeal the pro- 
 visions of the Foreign Enlistment Act so as to 
 encourage British volunteers to take part on behalf of 
 the Constitutional cause against the Carlists, the new 
 departure did not prove a success. The old relations 
 between England and Portugal might justify inter- 
 ference on behalf of the young Queen Donna Maria 
 against her reactionary uncle, Dom Pedro ; but 
 natural as it was that England should prefer in 
 Spain the cause of Christina to that of the Carlists, 
 none the less armed support violated that principle 
 of non-intervention in the affairs of independent 
 nations, which the Western Powers had nailed to 
 their mast. Palmerston's object in entering into 
 the Treaty was no doubt to prevent French influence 
 being predominant in Spain, an object which would 
 most effectually be promoted by the encouragement 
 of liberal tendencies. But if this was so, how could 
 he expect that Louis Philippe would see eye to eye 
 with him in his policy ? According to Villiers, the 
 British ambassador, ' we were assisting Spain hi 
 alliance with France, when France was assisting her 
 enemy.' 2 Moreover, de Lacy Evans, the leader 
 
 1 Sanders, op. cit. pp. 343-6. 
 
 2 Life and Letters of the 4th Earl of Clarendon, by Sir H. Maxwell, 
 vol. i. p. 131.
 
 186 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 of the British volunteers, and his men were a failure. 
 'Under paid and half starved,' we are told, 'the 
 British Contingent did little, and the war dragged 
 on ' ; whilst co-operation with France ended by 
 the French withdrawing their garrisons and show- 
 ing Carlist sympathies. Villiers, the future Foreign 
 Secretary Lord Clarendon, attributed the Spanish 
 difficulties more than anything else to the conduct 
 of Louis Philippe, who played false ' diabolically.' * 
 But whatever the cause, the effect was none the 
 less deplorable. 
 
 In spite of the general tendency for the Western 
 Powers to be in sympathy on questions of European 
 politics, when, once more, there was a serious risk 
 of war over the Eastern Question, Russia and Great 
 Britain were at one in their determination to support 
 Turkey against Mehemet Ali ; and France seemed 
 inclined to take the other side. Wellington 
 approved of Palmerston's policy ; but he added 
 that the present situation, occasioned by the tone 
 and armaments of France, was. most critical and 
 dangerous, and that every effort ought to be made 
 to bring her once more into the Alliance of the 
 Great Powers. 2 A comparison between the avail- 
 able naval forces of the two Powers produced the 
 humiliating confession that, for the time being, 
 superior force in the Mediterranean lay with the 
 French navy. 3 
 
 In 1832 proposals had been made by the Porte 
 for the conclusion of an alliance between England 
 and Turkey ; but whatever may have been his own 
 
 1 The Oreville Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 328. 
 
 2 Melbourne Papers, p. 461. 3 Ibid. pp. 464-5.
 
 RUSSIA AND THE EASTERN QUESTION 187 
 
 inclinations, Palmerston was unable to give his 
 assent to these proposals. 1 Meanwhile, the attitude 
 of Russia was completely misunderstood in England. 
 In 1829, when the Peace of Adrianople was concluded, 
 the view was adopted by Russia that, on the ground 
 that no Power could have a better neighbour than 
 a weak State, the preservation, not the destruction, 
 of Turkey should be the object of Russian policy. 2 
 In accordance with this view, Russia was strongly 
 opposed to the aggrandisement of Mehemet AM ; 
 and in tendering assistance to the Porte (1833) was 
 not actuated by ulterior motives. Nevertheless, 
 distrust of Russia largely contributed to the acquies- 
 cence by the Porte in the demands made by Mehemet 
 Ali with regard to Syria and Adana. By a secret 
 clause, however, of the treaty of July 8, 1833, 
 between Turkey and Russia, the Porte agreed, ' upon 
 demand and in accordance with the principle of 
 reciprocity,' to close the Dardanelles to the warships 
 of all nations ; 3 the tacit understanding being that 
 Russia should possess the right of passage to and 
 from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, which she 
 had obtained by the treaty of September 23, 1805. 
 A combined protest was made against the new treaty 
 by the representatives of England and France. 
 
 Meanwhile, a treaty between Russia, Austria and 
 Prussia, signed on October 15, 1833, had sought in 
 some measure to revive the principles of the Holy 
 Alliance. ' Should one of the three Courts see fit to 
 render material aid to any Sovereign, and should 
 such action be opposed by another Power, the three 
 
 1 England and the Orleans Monarchy, by J. Hall, pp. 155-6. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 156. 3 Ibid. pp. 163-4.
 
 188 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 Courts would consider any interference of the kind 
 in the light of an act of hostility directed against 
 them all.' 1 The boldness, however, with which 
 the due de Broglie met the claims of the reactionary 
 Powers caused them to evaporate in smoke. A 
 further agreement, signed on September 18, between 
 the Czar and the Emperor of Austria, was of much 
 greater importance. Under this the two Powers 
 pledged themselves to combine for the preservation 
 of the Ottoman Empire. 2 Had this undertaking 
 been made known to the Western Powers, much 
 unnecessary bitterness and suspicion might have 
 been prevented. 
 
 Relations between England and Russia were 
 improved during the brief period in 1834 when the 
 Duke of Wellington acted as Foreign Secretary. 
 Whereas Broglie and Palmerston had been in favour 
 of opening the Dardanelles to the fleets of all the 
 Powers, Wellington aimed at their closure to the 
 warships of all the nations. 3 Moreover, he strongly 
 objected to the instructions by which it was in the 
 power of the British ambassador at Constantinople 
 to call upon the Mediterranean Squadron to enter 
 the Dardanelles. ' It was not fitting,' he wrote, 
 that ' the King's ambassador should have the power 
 of placing the country in a state of war with another 
 Power.' 4 The wisdom of Wellington's views was 
 recognised by Palmerston on his return to the 
 Foreign Office. 
 
 The downfall of Broglie in 1836 and the accession 
 to power of Thiers caused a tension hi the relations 
 
 1 England and the Orleans Monarchy, by J. Hall, p. 167. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 168. 3 Ibid. p. 222. 4 Quoted ibid. p. 223.
 
 THE EASTERN QUESTION 189 
 
 between France and England. The grandiose 
 schemes of Thiers made possible war between 
 France and Turkey ; and therefore French interests 
 seemed to demand the strengthening of the Sultan's 
 unruly vassal, Mehemet Ali. The dominance, on the 
 other hand, of Mehemet Ali in Arabia was a direct 
 menace to British interests in India, and the occu- 
 pation of Aden (January, 1839) was a necessary 
 countermove. Unhappily the situation was further 
 complicated by British distrust of Russian intrigue 
 in Persia and Afghanistan . With Russia threatening 
 India and with the possibility that ' France in alliance 
 with Spain and Mehemet Ali might be enabled to 
 realise Napoleon's dream of converting the Medi- 
 terranean into a " French lake," ' x the prospect 
 was indeed threatening for British interests. 
 
 Russia, however, was less hostile in her views 
 than was thought, and on July 27 the Russian 
 minister became a party to the Collective Note, by 
 which ' agreement among the five Great Powers 
 on the question of the East was secured.' By this 
 agreement the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi was destroyed 
 and the days of Russia's exclusive control of Turkey 
 brought to an end. 2 
 
 This object being accomplished, Palmerston was 
 free to devote his energies to the curtailment of 
 Mehemet Ali's power. The situation would not be 
 satisfactory till Syria was completely restored to the 
 Sultan's authority. The position of France, on the 
 other hand, after becoming a party to the Collective 
 Note, was very difficult. She had been for some 
 time intriguing with Mehemet Ali, and the French 
 
 1 Ibid, p. 237. - Ibid. p. 248.
 
 190 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 admiral seems to have connived at the surrender 
 to him of the Turkish fleet, 1 but now the French 
 representative had given his formal assent to 
 Mehemet's possible coercion. 
 
 In this state of things Palmerston's path was made 
 easy by the unexpected attitude of the Russian 
 Government. Baron Brunnow was sent on a special 
 mission to London, bringing tidings of great joy. 
 Not only did Russia cordially assent to Palmerston's 
 view that Mehemet must be excluded from Syria, 
 Arabia and Crete, and declare that any military 
 assistance given by Russia to Turkey should be 
 based not on the terms of the treaty of Unkiar- 
 Skelessi, but on the general engagements of the 
 European Powers ; she further consented to accept 
 ' as a permanent principle and standing rule ' the 
 condition that the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles 
 should be closed to the warships of all nations, and 
 undertook that if Russia and England should come 
 to an understanding on these matters, the Treaty 
 of Unkiar-Skelessi should not be renewed. 2 
 
 It was still, however, far from plain sailing for 
 Palmerston. The French regarded the Russian 
 overture as merely a means of separating France 
 and England ; and a considerable party in the 
 British Cabinet cared much more for preserving the 
 Anglo-French entente than for improving the situation 
 in the East. It became necessary, therefore, to 
 modify the Russian proposals so that if a Russian 
 force entered the Bosphorus, a British force should 
 enter the Dardanelles ; whilst Mehemet Ali was 
 
 1 England and the Orleans Monarchy, by J. Hall, p. 244. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 253.
 
 THE EASTERN QUESTION 191 
 
 accorded somewhat better terms. 1 ' Brunnow,' 
 Palmerston wrote on January 5, 1840, ' is empowered 
 to negotiate with the object of bringing about a 
 permanent and definite solution of the Turkish and 
 Egyptian question, in order to insure the independ- 
 ence and integrity of the Ottoman Empire. Baron 
 Neumann has arrived from Vienna, and has expressed 
 to me that Austria is entirely with us and Russia 
 in this important affair. I think I can say for 
 certain that Prussia will look at matters in the same 
 light. It only remains for us, therefore, to secure 
 a European concord on a question which is incon- 
 testably the most serious that we have had to deal 
 with these last years. We sincerely hope that the 
 co-operation of France will not be refused.' 2 
 
 The defeat of the Soult Cabinet in France in 
 February, 1839, and the return to the Foreign Office 
 of Thiers, did not make for peace. Guizot, who was 
 ambassador in London, diagnosed more accurately 
 the situation. He expressed the opinion that ' the 
 British Government regarded the present moment 
 as a favourable opportunity for settling affairs in 
 the East, and that a sudden resolve might be taken 
 to act without us.' 3 ' It is possible,' he wrote a few 
 days later, ' we may be on the eve of important 
 decisions. . . . The British Government has two 
 interests at stake in the Eastern question the 
 wish to keep Russia from Constantinople and the 
 fear of French influence in Egypt. . . . The present 
 moment is looked upon as favourable for the attain- 
 ment of these objects. By a singular combination 
 of circumstances, Russia is both prepared to abandon 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 256. 2 Quoted -ibid. p. 258. 3 Quoted ibid. p. 262.
 
 192 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 her pretensions to exercise an exclusive Protector- 
 ship over the Ottoman Empire, and to assist England 
 to weaken the Pasha of Egypt. . . . Great Britain, 
 consequently, is far from regarding the present 
 situation as embarrassing, but, on the contrary, 
 deems it a most fortunate development, which she 
 must make use of to the best advantage. . . . She 
 is aware, however, that in prosecuting this policy 
 she may impair her good understanding with 
 France. To retain our friendship, she will make 
 some concessions, but I am disposed to think that 
 she has no intention of allowing the present oppor- 
 tunity of attaining her ends in the East to escape.' 1 
 The main obstacle to Palmerston's policy lay in 
 the attitude of his colleagues. ' Not to mention 
 Lords Holland and Clarendon,' Guizot wrote to 
 Thiers on June 1 , ' Melbourne and Lansdowne will 
 be very loath to see the French alliance dissolved.' 
 He added, however, ' Yet Palmerston, I believe, is 
 as firm as ever, and I am far from certain whether 
 those of his colleagues who disagree with him would 
 stand up to him very firmly when it comes to the 
 point.' 2 The tug-of-war came over the question 
 whether England should sign a separate treaty on 
 behalf of Turkey along with Russia, Austria and 
 Prussia, to which France would refuse its assent. 
 Unable to convince some of his colleagues, Palmer- 
 ston placed his resignation in the hands of the 
 Prime Minister. In a long letter to Lord Melbourne 
 he explained and justified his policy. To refuse to 
 co-operate with the other Signatory Powers would 
 
 1 Quoted England and the Orleans Monarchy, by J. Hall, p. 266. 
 z Ibid,
 
 ENGLAND AND FRANCE 193 
 
 drive Russia once more to resume ' her separate and 
 isolated position ' respecting Turkey. The ultimate 
 result of such a decision would be the practical 
 division of the Ottoman Empire into two separate 
 and independent states, whereof one would be a 
 dependency of France and the other a satellite of 
 Russia.' l 
 
 Very reluctantly his dissentient colleagues yielded, 
 and on July 15, ' a convention for the pacification 
 of the Levant was signed by the Plenipotentiaries 
 of Great Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia on the 
 one hand, and that of the Sublime Porte on the 
 other.' 2 By this convention the four Powers under- 
 took to assist the Porte in reducing Mehemet Ali 
 to submission, the task of intercepting all communica- 
 tion by sea between Egypt and Syria being assigned 
 to England and Austria. In the circumstances 
 it was natural enough that the terms of the treaty 
 were not at once communicated to the French 
 ambassador. It was the expectation of Louis 
 Philippe and his Cabinet that Mehemet Ali would 
 prove a hard nut for the Powers to crack. Mean- 
 while, the role of France was to put forward a 
 dignified protest and to arm to the teeth. 
 
 How near England and France were to going to 
 war is even now uncertain. Both Louis Philippe 
 and Thiers used very strong language ; but neither 
 at heart perhaps intended to proceed to extremities. 
 Meanwhile, a compromise suggested by France, under 
 which the government of Syria was to be transferred 
 to Mehemet's son, Ibrahim, for a time received the 
 
 1 Life of Lord Palmeraton, by Sir H. Bulwer, vol. ii. pp. 356-63. 
 
 2 J. Hall, op. cit. p. 276. 
 
 B.F.P. N
 
 194 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 support of Lord John Russell. In deference, how- 
 ever, to an appeal from the Queen, he abandoned his 
 intention to resign. 1 
 
 The swift successes of the British fleet in the East 
 proved the justice of Palmerston's confidence in 
 the weakness of Mehemet Ali ; whilst the line taken 
 by France showed him to have been equally prescient 
 in his views regarding the French threats. The 
 deposition by the Porte of Mehemet Ali from the 
 pashalik of Egypt, which had been advised and 
 approved by the British ambassador at Constan- 
 tinople, gave room for a compromise ; Mehemet 
 Ali remaining the ruler of Egypt, whilst he surren- 
 dered any claim to bis conquests. The resignation 
 of Thiers in October, 1840, 2 and the substitution of a 
 Ministry in which Guizot became Foreign Minister, 
 was an overt sign that France now intended to 
 maintain a peaceful policy. The return of France 
 to the Concert of Europe was made manifest when 
 French Plenipotentiaries, together with those of 
 Great Britain, Austria, Russia and Prussia, signed 
 on July 13, 1841, the Convention of the Straits, by 
 which these countries pledged themselves to uphold 
 the undertaking of the Sultan to close the Dardanelles 
 and the Bosphorus to the warships of all foreign 
 nations. 
 
 Sir John Hall, the leading authority of the period 
 in question, after vindicating the wisdom of Palmer- 
 
 1 Life of Lord John Rtiasell, by Spencer Walpole, vol. i. pp. 
 351-56. 
 
 1 According to Palmerston, ' the King gave Thiers permission 
 to bully and swagger and threaten, and to gain all he could by 
 so doing, provided he did not go to the extent of war ' (Mel- 
 bourne Papers, pp. 488-9) ; Hall, op. cit. p. 323.
 
 THE SUCCESS OF PALMERSTON 195 
 
 ston's Egyptian policy, writes : ' But whatever 
 verdict may be passed upon it, his rare skill and 
 determination hi carrying it out must command 
 universal admiration. Although ruin, disgrace and 
 perhaps impeachment must have been the penalty 
 of failure, he never wavered in his resolution to 
 execute his treaty in all its details. His indomitable 
 spirit stimulated the courage of his allies abroad 
 and triumphed over the opposition of his fellow 
 ministers at home. When he quitted the Foreign 
 Office, British prestige stood at a height which it 
 had not reached since the Battle of Waterloo. His 
 most persistent detractors had been forced to 
 admit the correctness of his military judgment and 
 his prescience hi treating as of no account the warlike 
 threats of Louis Philippe and of M. Thiers. 
 
 ' " Palmerston," wrote Reeve regretfully, " has 
 bowled out every one." Charles Greviile was 
 moved to enthusiasm. " The elder Pitt," he records, 
 " could not have manifested more decision and 
 resource ; success is much more attributable to 
 Palmerston than to our naval and military com- 
 manders, and probably only to him." ' x 
 
 Whatever may have been Palmerston's vigour 
 and courage, it is still worth noting Charles 
 Greville's criticism of him under the date Novem- 
 ber 13, 1840 : ' Where he is and always has 
 been wrong is in his neglect of forms ; the more 
 fortiter he is hi re, the more suaviter he ought to 
 be in modo. But while defending his policy or 
 attacking that of France, he has never said what 
 he might have done to conciliate, to soften, and to 
 
 1 Ibid. pp. 329-30.
 
 196 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 destroy those impressions of intended affronts and 
 secret designs which have produced such violent 
 effects on the French public. On the contrary, he 
 has constantly, in his State Papers and still more 
 in his newspapers, said what is calculated to irritate 
 and provoke them to the highest degree ; but Dedel 
 (the Dutch Minister in England) says this has always 
 been his fault, in all times and in all his diplomatic 
 dealings, and this is the reason he is so detested 
 by all the Corps diplomatique, and has made such 
 enemies all over Europe.' l Greville was no friend of 
 Palmerston. Still he again and again acknowledges 
 his great ability ; and there is much evidence in the 
 history of British diplomacy to justify his accusation. 
 With regard to Belgium, it was, as we have seen, 
 possible to preserve the Concert of Europe. In the 
 spring of 1839 Holland joined the Powers in making 
 a definite treaty, embodying the territorial provi- 
 sions of the treaty of 1831. Great Britain, Austria, 
 France, Prussia and Russia guaranteed the neu- 
 trality of Belgium in any future war. The guarantee 
 was an individual guarantee, and not merely a col- 
 lective one. It should be noted that under the treaty 
 the extreme mouth of the Scheldt was left under 
 the control of the Dutch in accordance with past 
 history ; and Antwerp remained solely a port of 
 commerce. The King of the Belgians was very far 
 from satisfied with the terms enforced. He wrote 
 to his niece, Queen Victoria (April 19, 1839): 'I 
 think old Pirsin, who said in the Chamber that, 
 if the Treaty was carried into execution, I was 
 likely to be the first and last King of the Country, 
 1 Oreville Memoirs, 2nd part, vol. i. p. 353.
 
 THE FOREIGN POLICY OF ABERDEEN 197 
 
 was not wrong. Whenever this will happen it will 
 be very awkward for England, and deservedly so.' 1 
 The grievance was that Great Britain, after having 
 spent years in endeavouring to make an unwilling 
 Holland accept the terms, should have refused to 
 aid and abet Belgium in repudiating them, when 
 at last the consent of Holland had been obtained. 
 
 For the first time since the passing of the Reform 
 Bill, the Conservative party found themselves in 
 1841 again in power. So far as foreign policy was 
 concerned, the change was one from tumult to 
 peace. Melbourne told Charles Greville that, if 
 Palmerston had continued another year in office, 
 he would have precipitated a conflict with France. 
 Sir Robert Peel and his Foreign Secretary, Lord 
 Aberdeen, were both eminently men of peace ; the 
 only danger being in the case of the latter, that the 
 bow may have been bent too far the other way ; 
 so that the Czar Nicholas, on his visit to England, 
 in 1 844, may have been misled as to how far he could 
 go without producing war. But for the years 1841- 
 1846 ' never was there a Minister for Foreign Affairs 
 who had such an easy time of it.' 2 Throughout 
 Aberdeen's foreign administration, Clarendon con- 
 stantly acted in concert with him, and thus made 
 his position in the House of Lords a bed of roses. 
 He was moreover persona grata with the Queen 
 and Prince Albert. 
 
 Lord Aberdeen's weakness was that, himself peace- 
 loving, he had a touching confidence in the good 
 faith of others. 
 
 1 Letters of Queen Victoria, vol. i. p. 163. 
 
 2 Greville Memoirs, 2nd part, vol. ii. p. 403.
 
 198 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 On January 1, 1845, Lord Aberdeen wrote to 
 protest against the defensive works recommended 
 by the Duke of Wellington, as Commander-in- 
 Chief . It was impossible for him ' to approve of 
 a system which would virtually stultify our whole 
 policy for the last three years.' The Duke replied : 
 ' It may be a very foolish opinion, but I think it 
 better to rely upon our own means for our defence 
 than upon the good faith and forbearance of France.' 1 
 
 Sir Robert Peel wrote to Lord Aberdeen on May 
 31 : 'I must say that the accounts we receive 
 from various quarters of the folly of Louis Philippe, 
 and his apparent desire on all occasions, when the 
 interests and feelings of other Powers are con- 
 cerned, to disclaim a friendly understanding with 
 England, are very embarrassing. 
 
 'What a pretty state the entente cordiale is in as 
 regards Greece if Louis Philippe, in conversation 
 with the Austrian Ambassador at Paris, professes 
 agreement with Austria and dissent from England 
 " from the unfortunate tendency of the British 
 Government at all times to support revolutions and 
 thus disturb the peace of Europe." 
 
 ' Considering by whom this is said, and of whom it is 
 said, the force of impudence cannot go much further ! ' 2 
 
 In September, Aberdeen tendered his resignation 
 on the ground that a policy of friendship and con- 
 fidence with regard to France had been converted 
 into a policy of hostility and distrust ; but he was 
 induced to withdraw his resignation. 3 
 
 1 Sir R. Peel, from his Private Papers, ed. by C. S. Parker, 
 vol. iii. pp. 396-7. 
 
 * Ibid. p. 399. 3 Ibid. p. 401.
 
 ANGLO-FRENCH RELATIONS 199 
 
 In an interesting letter, Wellington explained 
 his position. ' There is no individual,' he wrote 
 (September 22), 'connected with your Government 
 more sensible than I am of the absolute importance 
 of connecting France with the Councils of Europe, 
 and, above all, of a good understanding between 
 this country and France. These were the principles 
 on which the transactions of the Peace of 1815 
 were settled and carried into execution, connected 
 as these were with those of precaution against the 
 dangers of the hostility of France. 
 
 ' Every day's experience proves that nothing can 
 be settled in Europe or the Levant without war, 
 unless by good understanding with France ; nor 
 can any question be settled in other parts of the 
 world, excepting by the good understanding between 
 France and this country. ... I believe the King 
 and his Minister are wise men, and sincerely desire 
 the former for the sake of his dynasty, and both 
 for the sake of France to maintain peace with 
 this Country. 
 
 ' But look at the state of naval preparation in 
 France. Look at the proportion of the expenditure 
 in that department, compared with that of all 
 others. For what is that preparation made ? Is 
 it with a view to co-operate with England in joint 
 objects ? Is it to prepare for a defensive warfare 
 as against England ? The last thing ! It is with a 
 view to carry on against England offensive mari- 
 time warfare, and to make the British Empire the 
 seat of the war. 
 
 ' Who has made these preparations ? Louis 
 Philippe, and, in the latter years at least, Guizot.
 
 As Frenchmen, at the head of the new Government, 
 they are right. But don't let us deceive ourselves. 
 These preparations are not symptoms of friendli- 
 ness, or a cordial good understanding with, or even 
 of a desire of peace with England. They are symp- 
 toms of deadly hostility.' 1 Again, on October 6, 
 he wrote : ' I contend, therefore, that we must 
 begin by putting ourselves in a state of security. 
 Then show that we are strong ; and we shall again 
 be the soul of the Alliance of Europe.' 2 Sir Robert 
 himself seems to have been taken in by Guizot. 
 ' By means of reciprocal confidence, or reciprocal 
 trust in concurrence of views and purity of inten- 
 tions,' he wrote to that Minister, when the question 
 of the Spanish marriages was already in the air 
 (December 18, 1845), ' we have succeeded in elevat- 
 ing the tone and spirit of the two nations, have 
 taught them to regard something higher than paltry 
 jealousies and hostile rivalries, and to estimate the 
 full value of that social and moral influence which 
 cordial relations give to each for every good and 
 beneficent purpose.' 3 
 
 It is regrettable that events were soon to show 
 how little worthy was the Puritan-Jesuit French 
 statesman of this trust and confidence. 
 
 There was in truth need that the British Foreign 
 Secretary of State should be a man of moderation. 
 Once more the government of Louis Philippe threw 
 an ugly light on the ways of a parvenu monarchy. 
 It is impossible to enter here into the involved 
 
 1 Sir R. Peel, from his Private Papers, ed. by C. S. Parker, 
 vol. viii. pp. 404-5. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 409. 3 Ibid. p. 411.
 
 THE QUESTION OF CRACOW 201 
 
 details of the subject of ' the Spanish Marriages.' 
 It must suffice to say that whilst the matter ' had 
 been and was,' in Queen Victoria's words, ' treated 
 here as one purely and solely Spanish,' 1 Louis 
 Philippe and his Minister Guizot made it the subject 
 of underhand and discreditable intrigue, with the 
 final result that Palmerston, on returning to office 
 in 1846, informed the French Minister that ' it was 
 the first time a King of France had broken his 
 word.' 2 ' The King (Louis Philippe) should know,' 
 wrote Queen Victoria, ' that we are extremely in- 
 dignant ; and that this conduct is not the way 
 to keep up the Entente which he wishes.' 3 
 
 Other causes of friction occurred with France, so 
 that when a distinct violation of the Treaty of Vienna 
 by Russia, Austria and Prussia occurred, the Western 
 Powers were unable to speak with a single voice. 
 Under that treaty the three Powers engaged ' to 
 respect and to cause to be always respected the 
 neutrality of the free town of Cracow and its terri- 
 tory.' A Convention between them, dated Novem- 
 
 1 Letters, vol. i. p. 486. 
 
 Greville Memoirs, 2nd part, vol. ii. p. 423. 
 
 3 Letters, vol. ii. p. 100. The Spanish marriages question arose 
 from the weakness of Lord Aberdeen, who, instead of protesting 
 against the intention of the French government to limit the 
 choice of a husband to a member of the House of Bourbon, 
 contented himself with the condition that the one chosen must 
 not be heir to the throne of France. Louis Philippe had 
 solemnly promised that no son of his should marry even the 
 Infanta until the Queen was married and had issue. In spite 
 of this, on the plea that England was promoting the Queen's 
 marriage with a Coburg Prince, the engagement was formally 
 announced of the Qaeen to her cousin, the Duke of Cadiz, and 
 of her sister, the Infanta, to Louis Philippe's son, the Due de 
 Montpensier. (H. Lytton Bulwer, op. cit. vol. iii. pp. 208-314. 
 See also Hall, op. cit. ch. xi.)
 
 202 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 ber 6, 1846, revoked this article and re-united Cracow 
 and its territory to Austria. There was here no 
 question of a guarantee ; but the subject having 
 been settled by a treaty, to which France and 
 England were parties, it was doubtless a breach 
 of that treaty that it should be settled behind their 
 backs, without their assent being obtained to the 
 alteration. In the special circumstances of the case, 
 Great Britain was helpless, especially as the relations 
 with France prevented the issue of a joint note. 
 Still Palmerston felt bound to utter a protest. 
 ' Her Majesty's Government, deeply impressed with 
 the conviction that it is above all things important 
 that the engagement of treaties should at all times 
 be faithfully observed, most earnestly hope that 
 means may be devised for guarding the territories 
 of the three Powers against the dangers adverted 
 to in their identic communications without any 
 breach of the treaty of 1815.' 1 Queen Victoria 
 recognised the necessity ' of speaking out in time 
 before Russia or France may have decided on acts 
 of further infraction of the treaty of Vienna.' 2 
 
 At this time no little friction arose from the 
 habit of Lord Palmerston of sending off dispatches 
 to British foreign Ministers without previously sub- 
 mitting them to the Queen. 3 ' This was not merely 
 a matter of form, as Queen Victoria was not a little 
 disturbed at some of Palmerston 's proceedings. 
 She had reason to fear that diplomatic intrigues 
 and counter-intrigues at Madrid had robbed England 
 of its advantageous position without any compen- 
 
 1 Select Treaties and Documents, ed. by R. B. Mowat, pp. 60-65. 
 Letters, vol. ii. p. 114. 3 Ibid. p. 122.
 
 QUEEN VICTORIA AND HER MINISTERS 203 
 
 sating benefits. She entreated Lord J. Russell not 
 to underrate the importance of keeping our foreign 
 policy beyond reproach. Public opinion was recog- 
 nised as a ruling power in our domestic affairs ; 
 it was not of less importance in the society of 
 Europe with reference to the conduct of the indi- 
 vidual States. To possess the confidence of Europe 
 was of the utmost importance to this country.' 1 
 When the Revolution of 1848 swept Louis Philippe 
 from the throne of France, it was the Queen who 
 suggested that ' amongst the laudable intentions 
 of the new French Government, that of keeping 
 inviolate the European treaties should be brought 
 in in some way.' 2 ' If a Government,' she wrote 
 to her uncle, ' which has the approbation of the 
 Country be formed, we shall feel it necessary to 
 recognise it in order to pin them down to maintain 
 peace and the existing Treaties, which is of great 
 importance. It will not be pleasant for us to do 
 this, but the public good and the peace of Europe 
 go before one's feelings.' 3 
 
 Queen Victoria, who acted under the influence 
 of the Prince Consort, was prepared to forget her 
 private feelings when the interests of her country 
 were at stake. Still she was a crowned head, brought 
 up in a German milieu, and with natural sympathies 
 with those of her kind. Her Ministers, on the 
 other hand, Lord John Russell and Palmerston, 
 felt strongly the force of the new movement in 
 favour of oppressed nationalities, and recognised 
 that there might be other European obligations 
 besides the maintenance of the status quo. In this 
 
 1 Ibid. pp. 132-3. 8 Ibid. p. 155. * Ibid. pp. 155-6.
 
 204 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 state of things, apart from the brusque and some- 
 what casual methods of Palmerston, there was 
 inevitable difference of opinion betweeen the Queen 
 and her advisers. To Lord John the moral of the 
 events of 1848 was that it was impossible that 
 the exclusion of free speaking and writing which 
 formed the essence of Prince Metternich's system 
 could continue. It might have been reformed 
 quietly ; ' it has fallen with a crash which spreads 
 ruin and death around.' x The Queen and Prince 
 Albert were by no means reactionaries ; but, especi- 
 ally in the matter of Italy, they did not share their 
 ministers' enthusiasm. They objected to an offer 
 of mediation between Austria and the King of 
 Sardinia, which practically recommended that what- 
 ever the Italians asked for ought to be given them. 2 
 The Queen could not conceal from Palmerston that 
 she ' is ashamed of the policy which we are pursuing 
 in this Italian controversy in abetting wrong, and 
 this for the object of gaining influence in Italy.' 3 
 
 Before the outbreak in France, Palmerston had 
 written to the British Ambassador at Vienna : 
 ' If he (Metternich) takes upon himself the task of 
 regulating by force of arms the internal affairs of 
 the Italian States, there will infallibly be war, and 
 it will be a war of principles which, beginning in 
 Italy, will spread over all Europe. ... In that 
 war England and Austria will certainly not be on 
 the same side.' 4 In fact, in the war which ensued, 
 it was Charles Albert of Sardinia who was the 
 
 1 Letters, vol. ii. p. 170. 2 Ibid. p. 178. 3 Ibid. p. 182. 
 
 4 The Life of Lord Palmerston, 1846-65, by E. Ashley, vol. i. 
 p. 64.
 
 QUEEN VICTORIA AND ITALY 205 
 
 aggressor, by offering aid to insurgent Lombardy, 
 so that England's attitude was that of passive 
 spectator. Lord Palmerston frankly explained to 
 the King of the Belgians that he wished to see the 
 whole of Northern Italy united into one kingdom, 
 so as to interpose between France and Austria a 
 neutral State, strong enough to make itself respected, 
 and independent in its sympathies of both those 
 countries. He believed such an arrangement to be 
 inevitable, and the sooner Austria recognised the 
 necessity, the better conditions she would be able 
 to secure. 1 Palmerston was anxious to act in 
 unison with the new French Republic so as to 
 prevent it taking unauthorised action on its own 
 behalf ; but the Queen held strongly to the view 
 that ' the establishment of an entente cordiale with 
 the French Republic for the purpose of driving the 
 Austrians out of their dominions in Italy would be 
 a disgrace to this country.' 2 Again, ' How will 
 England appear before the world at the moment 
 when she is struggling to maintain her supremacy 
 in Ireland, and boasts to stand by treaties with 
 regard to her European relations, having declined 
 all this time to interfere in Italy, or to address one 
 word of caution to the Sardinian Government on 
 account of its attack on Austria, and having refused 
 to mediate when called upon to do so by Austria, 
 because the terms were not good enough for Sardinia, 
 if she should now ally herself with the arch-enemy 
 of Austria, to interfere against Tier at the moment 
 when she has recovered in some degree her position 
 in the Venetian territory ? ' 3 As showing the 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 98. 2 Letters, vol. ii. p. 186. 3 Ibid. p. 187.
 
 206 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 cleavage of opinion , we may note that Queen Victoria 
 held that ' it will be a calamity for ages to come 
 if this principle is to become part of international 
 law, viz. " that a people can at any time transfer 
 their allegiance from the sovereign of one state 
 to that of another by universal suffrage (under 
 momentary excitement)," and this is what Lord 
 Normanby (the British Minister at Paris) no doubt 
 according to Lord Palmerston's wishes has taken 
 as the basis of mediation.' 1 So far was the Queen 
 from realising the meaning of nationality that she 
 maintained that there was a better case for Danish 
 Sleswig being absorbed in the German Confedera- 
 tion than there was for Lombardy coming under 
 the rule of the King of Sardinia. ' The partiality 
 of Lord Palmerston,' the Queen wrote to Lord John 
 in October, ' really surpasses all conception and makes 
 the Queen very uneasy on account of the character 
 and honour of England, and on account of the 
 danger to which the peace of England will be ex- 
 posed.' 2 Again, writing to her uncle, she said : 
 ' What a very bad figure we cut in this mediation ! 
 Really it is quite immoral, with Ireland quivering 
 in our grasp, and ready to throw off her allegiance 
 at any moment, for us to force Austria to give up 
 her lawful possessions. What should we say if 
 Canada, Malta, etc., begin to trouble us ? It hurts 
 me terribly. This ought to be the principle in 
 all actions, private as well as public : " Wass du 
 nicht willst, dass dir geschieht, das thu' auch einem 
 andern nicht." ' 3 
 
 1 Letters, vol. ii. p. 192. 2 Ibid. p. 197. 
 
 3 Ibid. pp. 199-200.
 
 THE WEAK SIDE OF PALMERSTON 207 
 
 But moral indignation was not all on one side ; 
 and, though the forces of reaction triumphed for the 
 time, Charles Albert, being compelled to surrender 
 Milan to the ruthless Austrian General Eadetzky, 
 and the Piedmontese being afterwards defeated at 
 Novara, and though active assistance could not be 
 obtained from France any more than from England, 
 nevertheless the ball had begun rolling, which was 
 not to stand still till a United Italy had taken her 
 place amongst the European Powers. 
 
 The misfortune was, throughout these difficult 
 years, that an excellent cause was championed by 
 Palmerston in a most questionable way. There was 
 undoubted truth in Prince Albert's remark that he 
 was ' bringing the whole of the hatred which is 
 borne to him ... by all the Governments of Europe 
 upon England, and that the country runs serious 
 danger of having to pay for the consequences.' 1 
 Lord John Russell admitted to Prince Albert that, 
 while Palmerston's policy had been right and received 
 his approval, the manner of its execution had led 
 to irritation and hostility. Not only Russia and 
 Austria, but also France and the Liberal States, had 
 become decidedly hostile to England, 2 Although, 
 then, it is impossible not to admire the courage and 
 determination with which Palmerston offered the 
 support of England to the Porte when it refused 
 to give up to Austria the political refugees, the 
 victims of the Russian overthrow of the Hungarians 
 in 1848, the manner in which he treated an assault 
 hi South London upon the Austrian General Haynau, 
 notorious for his cruelty, was hardly diplomatic ; 
 1 Ibid. p. 243. Ibid. p. 262.
 
 208 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 whilst a year later he was only restrained by the 
 veto of the Prime Minister and the Queen from 
 giving Kossuth, the Hungarian revolutionary, a 
 public reception at the Foreign Office. The cup of 
 his iniquities was filled, so far as the Court was 
 concerned, by his going out of his way to welcome 
 the coup d'etat of Napoleon III., without consulting 
 his colleagues or the Queen. On December 19th 
 he received from Lord John Russell an unconditional 
 dismissal. 
 
 We may well admit that Palmerston was often 
 misguided and headstrong in his actions, and yet 
 recognise that an honest hatred of tyranny and of 
 wrong inspired his policy. Clear headed and en- 
 lightened as was Prince Albert, we must remember 
 that he was and remained a German ; and that 
 he could not thus always look on European questions 
 with a British eye. There was an element of pre- 
 judice in the way in which the Queen and the Prince 
 Consort at once agreed with the German argument 
 over the Sleswig-Holstein case, when it made its 
 reappearance, in 1848, upon the European stage. 
 Most Englishman will now agree with Palmerston's 
 trenchant criticism, written in November, 1850 : 
 ' German affairs are indeed come to a state of 
 chaos. The only thing that seems pretty clear is 
 that all parties are more or less in the wrong. But 
 Prussia seems to bear away the palm in this respect. 
 Her course has been, indeed, dishonest, inconsistent, 
 irresolute and weak. In regard to the Sleswig- 
 Holstein question she has throughout acted with 
 the greatest duplicity and bad faith. In regard to 
 German affairs her only object, from beginning to
 
 PALMERSTON ON PRUSSIA 209 
 
 end, seems to have been her own aggrandisement, 
 which, at moments when much was within her grasp, 
 she had not courage or steadiness successfully to 
 pursue. Her partisans try to make out that the 
 contest between her and Austria is a struggle be- 
 tween Constitutional and Arbitrary Government, but 
 it is no such thing ; it is only a conflict between 
 the two leading Powers in Germany as to which 
 shall be politically preponderant. We should have 
 had no objection to see Prussia take the first place ; 
 on the contrary, a German Union, embracing all 
 the smaller States, with Prussia at its head and in 
 alliance with Austria as a separate Power, would 
 have been a very good European arrangement ; 
 but when the Empire was offered to Prussia the 
 King shrank from the hazardous position. . . . The 
 Empire having been thus negatived, Prussia ought 
 to have taken at once the only other possible course, 
 and to have come to an agreement with Austria 
 for reconstructing the German Confederation on 
 the principles of 1815, with such modifications as 
 the establishment of Parliaments in Prussia and 
 Austria and all the other States might render 
 necessary. Instead of this Prussia went on potter- 
 ing about the Erfurt Union, which never could 
 end anywhere but in smoke, and then she chose 
 deliberately to expose herself to the humiliation 
 of being obliged by military threats to retreat step 
 by step from all the positions she had taken up 
 in regard to almost all pending affairs. All this is 
 lamentable, and is a fresh proof that honesty is 
 the best policy.' l 
 
 1 Ashley, op. cit. vol. i. pp. 242-3.
 
 210 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 In his great speech 1 on the Pacifico Question, 
 wherein the forces of Great Britain were employed 
 to enforce the somewhat doubtful claims of a very 
 shady Levantine Jew, 2 Palmerston was able to 
 claim that ' while we have seen . . . the political 
 earthquake rocking Europe from side to side, while 
 we have seen thrones shaken, shattered, levelled, 
 institutions overthrown and destroyed, while in 
 almost every country of Europe the conflict of civil 
 war has deluged the land with blood from the 
 Atlantic to the Black Sea, from the Baltic to the 
 Mediterranean, this country has presented a spectacle 
 honourable to the people of England and worthy of 
 the admiration of mankind. . . . 
 
 ' I therefore challenge the verdict which this House, 
 as representing a political, a commercial, a constitu- 
 tional country, is to give on the question now brought 
 before it whether the principles on which the 
 foreign policy of her Majesty's Government has 
 been conducted and the sense of duty which has 
 led us to think ourselves bound to afford protection 
 to our fellow-subjects abroad are proper and fitting 
 guides for those who are charged with the Govern- 
 ment of England ; and whether as the Roman in 
 days of old held himself free from indignity when he 
 could say civis Romanus sum, so also a British subject, 
 in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident that 
 the watchful eye and the strong arm of England 
 will protect him against injustice and wrong.' 3 
 
 1 June 25, 1850. 
 
 * Compare Palmerston 's indifference when the British Minister, 
 Mr. D. Morier, was insulted at Berne in 1 846. (Memoirs of Sir 
 R. Morier, vol. i. p. 54.) 
 
 3 Ibid. pp. 222-3.
 
 LORD GRANVILLE'S FOREIGN POLICY 211 
 
 In the anxiety occasioned by Lord Palmerston's 
 high-handed proceedings, Queen Victoria took the 
 unusual course of demanding from his successor, 
 Lord Granville, a general confession of faith with 
 regard to foreign policy. This step was not a 
 wise one. The grievance, the just grievance, was 
 that Palmerston sent off dispatches which had not 
 been duly submitted to the Sovereign. But this 
 was a definite cause for complaint, quite apart from 
 faults of manner, about which a man could hardly 
 be an impartial judge in his own case, and from 
 liberal leanings which a liberal Minister, in the middle 
 of the nineteenth century, was hardly likely to 
 disavow. Lord Granville's biographer, Lord Fitz- 
 Maurice, supplies us with an epitome of the Memo- 
 randum in reply. It appears to have been of a 
 most adroit and non-committal character. While 
 encouraging progress amongst all other nations, 
 Great Britain should practise ' justice, moderation 
 and self-respect,' in her dealings with them and 
 avoid any undue attempt to enforce her own ideas 
 by hostile threats. ' The Cabinet adhered to the 
 principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs 
 of other Countries. . . . But they did not attach 
 to the expression "non-intervention" the meaning 
 that . . . diplomacy is become obsolete ; and that 
 it is unnecessary for this country to know or to 
 take part in what passes in other Countries with 
 regard to occurrences likely to have international 
 consequences. No general rule, however, could be 
 uniformly applied.' x 
 
 But, as we have seen, it was not principles but 
 
 1 Fitz Maurice, op. cit. pp. 49-51.
 
 212 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 the manner of enforcing them which had been at 
 fault. ' I see every day,' Lord Granville wrote to 
 Lord Clarendon, ' the proofs in the Foreign Office 
 of the extraordinary ability and of the little follies 
 of my predecessor.' 1 
 
 Meanwhile the rise to power of another Napoleon 
 was bringing a new possible danger to European 
 peace. 'France was peaceful,' wrote Baron Stock- 
 mar to Lord Granville, 'from 1815 to 1848 because 
 she was during that time tant bien que mal con- 
 stitutionally governed. ... It is feared that the 
 more peaceable disposition will disappear with the 
 extinction of constitutional government. . . . Na- 
 poleon's system in foreign affairs was La France 
 et la violence. This system the nephew believes 
 himself predestined to revive. But even if this 
 was not his creed, the force of circumstances which 
 domineers him would constrain him to do it. ... 
 With regard to the attempts on the present status 
 quo of Europe, the only check really operative on 
 the President and the French will be the conviction 
 that L' Europe unie s'opposera a tout envahissement.' 2 
 Bismarck, then Prussian Minister to the German 
 Diet, hinted to the British Charge d'affairs of dark 
 designs on the part of France and Austria against 
 Belgium and Sardinia. The Prime Minister wrote 
 to Lord Granville : ' The President's assurances are 
 hardly to be trusted, but I think he has no interest 
 in going to war. The Belgians must be defended 
 by us and by Prussia.' 3 A farther subject of diffi- 
 culty was the remonstrances addressed by France, 
 
 1 Pitz Maurice, op. cit. p. 52. 2 Ibid. p. 59. 
 
 3 Ibid, p. 65.
 
 THE PRINCE CONSORT ON NAPOLEON III. 213 
 
 Austria, Germany, Prussia, Russia and Naples, 
 directed against the welcome given in Great Britain 
 to political refugees. This was a question on which 
 no British Minister could have a moment's doubt. 
 The Austrian ambassador might bluster and threaten, 
 but Palmerston, Granville and his Tory successor, 
 Lord Malmesbury, were, here at least, in complete 
 accord. 1 
 
 For some twenty years British foreign policy was 
 closely associated with the enigmatic personality 
 of Napoleon III. The Prince Consort, in conversa- 
 tion with Count Vitzhum (1860), the Saxon Envoy, 
 thus powerfully described his character : ' He is, 
 as he himself may sometimes think, the creature 
 of a fatal destiny. His actions are the logical 
 consequences of given premises. He wills far less 
 often than he must. He is more to be pitied than 
 blamed. His whole power is based upon falsehood. 
 His system rests upon unsolved and insoluble con- 
 tradictions, which assert themselves in mutual 
 antagonism, and which must bring his system, if 
 not himself, to a tragic end. To reconcile these 
 contradictions is impossible. Napoleon would like 
 to be Emperor by the grace of God, and at the 
 same time par la volonte natlonale. He can be either 
 one or the other, but never both together. In 
 France, his power, if not derived from, at least 
 rests upon, the Catholic Priesthood. In Italy he 
 is compelled, in order to escape the daggers of 
 Orsini's Confederates and to redeem the promises 
 made to the Carbonari, to threaten and attack 
 
 1 Ibid. pp. 70-7, see also Lord Malmesbury 's Memoirs of an 
 Ex-Minister, vol. i. p. 334.
 
 214 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 the Romish Church. In like manner " 1'Empire 
 c'est la paix " stands in direct contradiction to the 
 need of giving employment to his army. Eventually 
 he will not be able to live without the halo of a 
 campaign on the Rhine. . . . The most extra- 
 ordinary thing is that the Emperor is really sincere 
 in both directions. He honestly believes in what 
 he says to-day, and just as honestly hi what he 
 will say to the contrary to-morrow. That things 
 have gone tolerably hitherto is owing to his undeni- 
 able cleverness and to a certain exercise of prudence. 
 But with all his gifts he is unable to appreciate that 
 irreconcilable conflict of ideas, of which he is sure 
 in time to be the victim. He is no philosopher.' * 
 
 Bismarck's opinion of him in 1855 was that his 
 heart was better than his head. 2 
 
 There is no reason to question the opinion that 
 Napoleon III. had carried away from the study of 
 his great uncle's career the conviction that Great 
 Britain was the rock upon which the fortunes of 
 Napoleon had foundered ; and that, therefore, the 
 keynote of French policy should be an understanding 
 with England. Moreover, he was grateful for the 
 friendly reception he had received in that country ; 
 and, in spite of the successive rumours of war that- 
 occurred during the Second Empire, there is no 
 evidence that the Emperor himself ever fanned 
 the flame of resentment against Great Britain. 
 Still, from the point of view of sober British states- 
 men, his position could not be other than that of 
 a firebrand. His aim was to overturn the settle- 
 
 1 St. Petersburg and London, 1852-64, vol. ii. p. 19. 
 
 2 Bismarck, op. cit. vol. i. pp. 168-9.
 
 THE SETTLEMENT OF 1815 215 
 
 ment of 1815, a settlement always to be associated 
 with the humiliation of France, and substitute for 
 it a new Europe, the foundations of which should 
 be, in great part, laid by French wisdom and 
 magnanimity. That the settlement of 1815 was 
 from many points of view open to criticism must 
 be admitted. 'The map of Europe,' wrote Count 
 Vitzhum in retrospect, many years after, ' as it 
 issued from the Congress of Vienna, was, as everybody 
 knows, a fanciful and arbitrary piece of patchwork, 
 which bore the stamp of a frivolous and unprin- 
 cipled age. The longings of the German nation 
 for power and unity, which had been awakened by 
 the efforts made in the war of Liberation, remained 
 unsatisfied. Prussia no "satiated" State, to use 
 Metternich's own expression too strong to be a 
 vassal, but too weak to be a great Power, was 
 likewise baulked of her expectations, and had some 
 trouble to make the spoiled inhabitants of the Rhine 
 Provinces forget how well they had fared under the 
 crosier. The frontiers of the other German States 
 had been traced with ordinary caprice. . . . 
 
 ' The balance of Power in Europe, which was 
 supposed to have been restored in 1815, was a 
 fiction, and the alliance of the Five Powers, which 
 Metternich fancied he had sealed at Aix-la-Chapelle 
 for ever, soon proved an idle phantom. And to 
 this fiction and this phantom Austria had now to 
 sacrifice all her strength for three and thirty years 
 because Prince Metternich regarded the fiction as 
 the embodiment of absolute right, and the phantom 
 as the only means of making that right prevail. . . . 
 States are living organisms, not dead bodies, to
 
 216 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 be experimented upon. Not in war only, but also 
 in peace, Napoleon's gros bataillons decide the day. 
 The first requisite of a sound policy is, therefore, 
 real power. A politician who deceives himself about 
 the real power of the State he represents may be 
 ever so dexterous a juggler, ever so clever a con- 
 juror ; he will always come off second best in his 
 dealings with more powerful States, however superior 
 he may be to their leaders. 
 
 ' Prince Metternich had never been fully conscious 
 of the relative weakness of Austria, or, with his 
 intellectual superiority over most if not all of the 
 Princes and Ministers of his time, he would certainly 
 have made at least an effort to secure for Austria 
 those foundations of real power in which she was 
 wanting. . . . 
 
 'It is obvious that in 1815 there was one means 
 and one means only of giving to the Hapsburg- 
 Lotharingian Monarchy that position of power 
 which could make Metternich 's conservative prin- 
 ciple an absolute truth. This was the re-acceptance 
 of the Imperial Crown of Germany, and as an object 
 of policy the ousting of Prussia from her position 
 as a great Power, and the mediatising of all the Ger- 
 man Provinces. None but the head of the German 
 nation could ever succeed in not only curbing and 
 checking the complex Austrian State, with all its 
 various nationalities ; but also in dictating peace 
 to Europe. ... In politics the greatest evil is not 
 guilt, as Schiller says, but weakness. . . . Standing 
 still means going back, with individuals and with 
 States. A State which thinks only of keeping 
 what it has got, must necessarily go back directly
 
 THE SETTLEMENT OF 1815 AND ITS SEQUEL 217 
 
 it has to do with neighbours who look chiefly not 
 to keeping but to getting ; and are always bent on 
 enlarging their territory and strengthening their 
 sphere of power.' 
 
 'Events,' Count Vitzhum concludes, 'are stronger 
 than men. The cannon of Solferino, Sadowa and 
 Sedan tore to pieces the web spun by the Metternich 
 school. And as the Nuremberg aldermen were 
 always wiser when they left the town council, so 
 it is easier in 1886 to point out what should have 
 been done in 1815 to secure the permanent peace 
 of the world ; easier, at any rate, than it was to 
 foresee in 1815 what ought to be done if the Haps- 
 burgs were unwilling to yield to the Hohenzollerns 
 the hegemony of Germany ; to the Piedmontese the 
 whole of Italy with its capital Rome ; and to the 
 German nation, united under Prussia's leadership, 
 the honour of vanquishing the nephew of Napoleon I., 
 without the assistance of Austria. 
 
 ' The life of States revolves, like our planet, around 
 two poles the positive and the negative. The 
 positive is called " the struggle for existence," the 
 negative "the sweet habit of life." In Germany, 
 Prussia has represented the former and Austria 
 the latter. The Imperial Crown of Germany, which 
 the Emperor Francis, preferring the sweet habit 
 of life to the struggle for existence, disdained in 
 1815, King William has conquered in three bloody 
 campaigns, and placed it on his head in the palace 
 of Louis XIV., at the unanimous invitation of the 
 German Princes, and amidst the acclamations of 
 the German nation.' 1 
 
 1 Op. cit. vol. ii. pp. 256-63.
 
 218 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 And yet it was the settlement of 1815 that British 
 statesmen found themselves forced back upon, if 
 they were to avoid the unknown dangers of a Europe 
 in the melting pot. This was the respect that gave 
 caution even to liberal statesmen when they were 
 considering the claims, increasing in voice and per- 
 sistency, of the nationalist idea. 
 
 There was one field, however, in which the obliga- 
 tions of treaties corresponded with the demands of 
 reason and of legitimate national feelings. Belgium 
 was in a sense the product of treaties ; but its 
 population had known how to weld themselves into 
 a distinct and self-respecting nation. It was in this 
 quarter that many looked for danger with the success 
 of Napoleon III. The prudent Leopold had suc- 
 ceeded by a family alliance in making the France 
 of Louis Philippe his friend and ally ; but with the 
 overthrow of Louis Philippe this shelter was torn 
 away. No doubt vague dreams haunted the imagina- 
 tion of Napoleon III. of modifying the treaties of 
 1816. He threw out hints in 1849 that France 
 would not now be jealous of England gaining more 
 power in Egypt, and suggested that France and 
 England together could remodel everything. He 
 seemed to hint at the idea that France might take 
 the part of Prussia against Austria, so that, if 
 Prussia gained territory in Germany, France would 
 also advance her frontier, leaving Great Britain 
 compensations in the Levant. 1 Doubtless his mind 
 was full of grandiose schemes for the revision of 
 the map of Europe. Still there was force in Lord 
 Malmesbury's reasoning that, granted that he really 
 
 1 Malmesbury, op. cit. vol. i. p. 244.
 
 MALMESBURY ON BELGIAN QUESTION 219 
 
 meditated a war of revenge, it did not follow that 
 he should go such a round-about way to make war 
 with England, as through the Belgian guarantee. 
 Lord Malmesbury himself evidently failed to see 
 the full importance to England of the Belgian 
 question, because he added : ' We are unfortunately 
 bound by treaty and interest to protect Belgium 
 and the Scheldt, and we must do it. Russia, Austria 
 and Prussia are equally bound with us, and may, 
 or may not, do it.' * A little earlier (March 18, 
 1852) he had written to the British ambassador at 
 Berlin : ' We are not disposed to enter into any 
 offensive or defensive alliances, although we shall 
 readily acknowledge our responsibility as laid down 
 by treaties. 
 
 ' If the President ever contemplated the invasion 
 of Belgium, he has, I think, relinquished the idea 
 for the present, being made aware that from no 
 quarter will he receive encouragement, but probably 
 resistance from every Power of consequence in 
 Europe.' 2 Sir H. Seymour's private letters from 
 St. Petersburg spoke of the Czar Nicholas's fixed 
 purpose to stand by the Treaties and to look upon 
 any march into Belgium as a casus belli. 3 In this 
 state of things, whether from caution or because 
 (as it seems reasonable to hold) he never really 
 meditated aggression, Napoleon held his hands off 
 Belgium ; and a general European conflagration was 
 thus avoided. 
 
 Palmerston had doubtless gone too far in giving 
 his approval, through pique at the shady doings 
 of Louis Philippe, to the excesses of the coup d'etat. 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 356. 2 Ibid. p. 322. 3 Ibid. p. 328.
 
 220 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 It was fortunate that his successor as Foreign 
 Minister, Lord Malmesbury, was persona grata to 
 Napoleon, through having been his friend in the 
 days of his obscurity. Whatever his faults may 
 have been, Napoleon III. was no snob, and never 
 turned a cold shoulder to those who had befriended 
 him in the past. Though he incurred the contempt 
 of Disraeli, Lord Malmesbury, during his two short 
 periods of office, seems to have fulfilled the duties 
 of Foreign Secretary with competence and dignity. 
 There was assuredly no desire to launch out in a 
 new system of foreign policy ; and Malmesbury was 
 in thorough sympathy with the advice of Palmerston, 
 to keep well with France. 1 
 
 Lord Derby wrote with regard to Austria : ' Our 
 tone should be as cordial as possible, but we must 
 take care what we say, for there is rather too great 
 a desire to exhibit us as following exactly the same 
 line as Austria, and I have no idea of committing 
 the Government to another Holy Alliance.' 2 On the 
 subject of the expulsion of political refugees, the 
 Tory Government took precisely the same line as 
 their Whig predecessors. Even on the subject 
 of Italy, where his sympathies were supposed to 
 be Austrian, we find Malmesbury writing to Sir 
 James Hudson : ' I did not at all exaggerate my 
 admiration of the conduct and results of the King 
 (of Sardinia) and his Ministers since 1849. From 
 all you say, I fear that these fair promises will not 
 bring permanent liberty to Sardinia or any part 
 of Italy, but it is our interest and duty to give 
 at least all the moral force we can to assist this 
 
 1 Malmesbury, op. tit. vol. i. p. 317. 2 Ibid. p. 312.
 
 QUEEN VICTORIA ON UNPREPAREDNESS 221 
 
 Constitutional Monarchy in its development.' 1 It is 
 curious to set side by side the statement of Palmer- 
 ston to Malmesbury : ' You have no idea till you 
 know more of your office what a power of prestige 
 England possesses abroad,' 2 and the urgent letters 
 of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, of about the 
 same date, calling attention to the dangerous unpre- 
 paredness of Great Britain for war. ' The public 
 would be quite ready,' wrote Prince Albert (Novem- 
 ber 8, 1852), 'to give the necessary money for 
 armament, but they feel with justice that it is 
 unfair to ask them for large sums and then always 
 to hear, we are quite unprepared.' 3 ' With respect 
 to the financial statement,' wrote the Queen 
 (November 13), ' she must most strongly impress 
 Lord Derby with the necessity of referring to our 
 defenceless state, and the necessity of a large out- 
 lay, to protect us from foreign attack, which would 
 almost insure us against war.' 4 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 339. 2 Ibid. p. 317. 3 Letters, vol. ii. p. 398. 
 
 4 Ibid. p. 399. A few years earlier Lord Clarendon had written 
 (January 3, 1848) to Sir G. C. Lewis : ' I believe I must consent 
 to enter into your category of old women ; for, knowing as I do 
 how much the invasion of England has for the last three or four 
 years occupied the French government, I think it downright 
 insanity to remain in the invitingly defenceless condition in 
 which we now are. The papers I have read of the Duke of 
 Wellington .... leave me no doubt that at any moment after 
 the declaration of war our danger might be imminent and our 
 misfortunes irreparable.' (Life of Lord Clarendon, vol. i. p. 287.)
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE GEOWTH OF NATIONALISM. THE PECULIAR 
 CHARACTER OF ANGLO-FRENCH RELATIONS (Con- 
 tinued). 1854-1870 
 
 THROUGHOUT the eighteenth century there was no 
 special bond of connexion between England and 
 Turkey. France was the traditional ally of the 
 Porte ; and England's commercial interests were 
 largely connected with Russia. When, in 1790, 
 Catherine intended to send a great Russian fleet 
 to the Mediterranean against the Turks, she counted 
 as a matter of course on the most ' benevolent 
 neutrality,' amounting to assistance, from the 
 British Government. It is true that her request 
 was refused ; but not through any regard for 
 Turkish interests, but because Catherine, having 
 brought about the ' armed neutrality ' and having 
 rejected the proffered alliance of Great Britain, could 
 not with reason expect favourable treatment. 
 
 It was the designs of Napoleon upon Egypt, as 
 a half-way house to India, and the publication of 
 Colonel Sebastiani's Report that first vividly brought 
 home to the minds of British statesmen the vital 
 importance of the Eastern question to British 
 interests.
 
 THE EASTERN QUESTION 223 
 
 Even then the method chosen for protecting those 
 interests was not to enter into close relations with 
 the Porte, but to exert as much influence as possible 
 upon the Russian rulers, so that they should be 
 willing to maintain the status quo. Such, roughly, 
 was the policy of Canning, no less than of Castlereagh 
 and Wellington. 
 
 That, whatever ulterior aims might be held by 
 some, the Russian Government was in no hurry 
 to precipitate matters, was shown by the fact that 
 Russia joined with the other Powers, except France, 
 in protecting the Porte against the ambitions of 
 his dangerous vassal Mehemet Ali. It is of course 
 true that it was not to the interest of Russia that 
 an able and powerful usurper should become the 
 ruler of Turkey. At the same time, if Russia had 
 at the time held ulterior designs, an opportunity 
 could easily have been found, so as to fish in the 
 troubled waters. 
 
 The great difficulty in the way of British states- 
 men was the lamentable rottenness of the Turkish 
 Government. 
 
 Even though the Concert of Europe, established 
 by the four Powers, had met with success, there 
 was one danger spot to which its influence did not 
 extend. The Czar Alexander had from the first 
 explained that, in his opinion, the affairs of the 
 near East did not come within the purview of the 
 Alliance. And yet it was idle to suppose that a 
 great Maritime Power, like Great Britain, should 
 not claim a voice in decisions affecting the Eastern 
 Mediterranean. Assuredly the problem was one of 
 extreme difficulty. Close and friendly as were the
 
 224 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 relations between Russia and England, established 
 at the European Settlement of 1814, no reasonable 
 man would be content to give a blank cheque to 
 a great Military Power that might aspire to hege- 
 mony in the Mediterranean. And yet how weak 
 was the instrument by which, primarily, Russia 
 had to be resisted. The Duke of Wellington wrote 
 to Lord Aberdeen (October 4, 1829) : ' It would 
 be absurd to think of bolstering up the Turkish 
 power in Europe. It is gone, in fact ; and the 
 tranquillity of the world, or, what is the same thing, 
 the confidence of the world in the permanence of 
 tranquillity, along with it. I am not quite certain 
 that what will exist will not be worse than the 
 immediate annihilation of the Turkish power.' 1 
 Nor was it mere reactionary prejudice which led 
 him to add that no substitute could be made ' out 
 of the Greek affair.' Nevertheless, faute de mieux, 
 it proved necessary to bolster up this sick man 
 rather than to allow his place to be taken by 
 a predominant Russia. It must, moreover, be 
 acknowledged that, whether owing to its own 
 latent qualities or to the mismanagement of its 
 powerful, but somewhat clumsy, adversary, Turkey 
 had emerged from its wars with Russia with less 
 discredit and failure than might have been an- 
 ticipated. 
 
 The mind of the Russian Czar had been for a 
 long time occupied with the Eastern question ; and 
 hi his visit to London in 1844 he seems to have 
 thrown out feelers with regard to possible joint 
 action by England and Russia. These suggestions 
 
 1 Despatches, etc. vol. vi. p. 192.
 
 NICHOLAS ON THE EASTERN QUESTION 225 
 
 were made in a more direct fashion to the British 
 Ambassador at St. Petersburg in the beginning of 
 1853. In the course of conversation the Czar 
 proceeded to sketch out what would be in his 
 opinion a satisfactory territorial arrangement in 
 the event of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. 
 { The Principalities are,' he said, ' in fact an inde- 
 pendent State under my protection : this might so 
 continue. Servia might receive the same form of 
 government. So again, with regard to Bulgaria, 
 there seems no reason why this province should not 
 form an independent State. 
 
 ' As to Egypt, I quite understand the importance 
 to England of that territory. I can then only say 
 that if, in the event of a distribution of the Ottoman 
 Succession upon the fall of the Empire, you should 
 take possession of Egypt, I shall have no objections 
 to offer. I would say the same thing of Candia : 
 that island might suit j'ou, and I do not know why 
 it should not become an English possession.' 
 
 The Czar added that he did not expect an engage- 
 ment or a convention. All he wished for was a 
 free interchange of ideas, and, in case of need, the 
 word of a gentleman. 1 
 
 Lord John Russell had already written (February 
 9, 1853) : ' It will hardly be consistent with the 
 friendly feelings towards the Sultan which animate 
 the Emperor of Russia, no less than the Queen 
 of England, to dispose beforehand of the Provinces 
 under his dominion. Besides this consideration, 
 however, it must be observed that an agreement 
 made in such a case tends very surely to hasten the 
 
 1 Part. Papers, ' Eastern Papers,' part v. pp. 11-12, 1854. 
 
 K. F. V.
 
 226 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 contingency for which it is intended to provide. 
 Austria and France could not in fairness be kept 
 in ignorance of the transaction, nor would such 
 concealment be consistent with the end of prevent- 
 ing a European War. . . . An agreement, thus made 
 and thus communicated, would not be very long 
 a secret ; and, while it would alarm and alienate 
 the Sultan, the knowledge of its existence would 
 stimulate all his enemies to increased violence and 
 more obstinate conflict. . . . On the part of Great 
 Britain, Her Majesty's Government at once declare 
 that they renounce all intention or wish to hold 
 Constantinople. His Imperial Majesty may be quite 
 secure on that head. They are likewise ready to 
 give an assurance that they will enter into no agree- 
 ment to provide for the contingency of the fall 
 of Turkey without previous communication with the 
 Emperor of Russia.' 1 
 
 In a confidential memorandum, while complaining 
 of France, the Czar professed himself, upon the 
 whole, satisfied with the attitude of the British 
 Government. ' The two Sovereigns,' he wrote, ' have 
 frankly explained to each other what, in the extreme 
 case of which they have been treating, their respec- 
 tive interests cannot endure. England understands 
 that Russia cannot suffer the establishment at 
 Constantinople of a Christian Power, sufficiently 
 strong to control and disquiet her. She declares 
 that for herself she renounces any intention or 
 desire to possess Constantinople. The Emperor 
 equally disclaims any wish or design of establishing 
 himself there. England promises that she will enter 
 
 1 Parl. Papers, ' Eastern Papers ' part v. p. 7.
 
 NICHOLAS ON THE EASTERN QUESTION 227 
 
 into no arrangement for determining the measures 
 to be taken in the event of the fall of the Turkish 
 Empire, without a previous understanding with 
 the Emperor. The Emperor, on his side, willingly 
 contracts the same agreement. As he is aware that 
 in such a case he can equally reckon upon Austria, 
 who is bound by her promises to concert with him, 
 he regards with less apprehension the catastrophe 
 which he still desires to prevent and avert as much 
 as it shall depend upon him to do so.' 1 
 
 In a final Memorandum (April ^., 1853) the Czar 
 readily agreed ' that the best means of upholding 
 the duration of the Turkish Government is not to 
 harass it by overbearing demands, supported in a 
 manner humiliating to its independence and its 
 dignity. His Majesty is disposed, as he has ever 
 been, to act upon this system, with the clear under- 
 standing, however, that the same rule of conduct 
 shall be observed, without distinction and unani- 
 mously, by each of the great Powers, and that 
 none of them shall take advantage of the weakness 
 of the Porte to obtain from it concessions which 
 might turn to the prejudice of the others. This 
 principle being laid down, the Emperor declares 
 that he is ready to labour in concert with England, 
 at the common work of prolonging the existence of 
 the Turkish Empire. Setting aside all alarm on 
 the subject of its dissolution, he readily accepts 
 the evidence offered by the British Cabinet of entire 
 confidence in the uprightness of his sentiments, 
 and the hope that, on this basis, his alliance with 
 England cannot fail to become stronger.' 2 
 1 Ibid. p. 17. a Ibid. p. 26.
 
 228 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 One would like to believe in the honesty of the 
 Russian Emperor ; but Sir Theodore Martin writes : 
 ' What would the world have thought, could it 
 have known that before feeling the pulse of the 
 English ambassador as to the dismemberment of 
 Turkey, the Emperor had made similar overtures 
 to Austria, and with similar want of success ? Our 
 Government was not aware of this till long after- 
 wards.' * Moreover, at the very moment when the 
 Emperor was thus speaking to the British ambassador 
 the Russian representative at Constantinople was 
 trying by threats to extort from the Porte a secret 
 treaty having, according to Lord Stratford de Red- 
 cliffe, for its object ' to reinstate Russian influence 
 in Turkey on an exclusive basis and in a command- 
 ing and stringent form.' 2 The publication of the 
 conversations between the Czar and the British 
 ambassador was justified by the insertion of an 
 article, officially inspired, in a St. Petersburg news- 
 paper, impugning the good faith of the British 
 Government. The documents, in Lord Clarendon's 
 words, ' proved that our Ministry had been honest 
 to the Sultan, honest to the Allies, honest to the 
 Emperor himself.' 3 They showed to France, Austria 
 and Prussia that, while Russia had been actively 
 intriguing at the various Courts, the English Govern- 
 ment had resolutely refused to separate their in- 
 terests from its own. ' The French,' wrote Lord 
 Howard de Walden from Brussels, ' could hardly 
 believe their eyes when they saw such evidence of 
 our honesty and loyalty towards them, and I hear 
 
 1 The Life of the. Prince Consort, vol. iii. p. 48, note. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 49. s Ibid. p. 48.
 
 THE EASTERN QUESTION 229 
 
 that the remark very generally made was " that 
 there was an end of perftde Albion," that no one could 
 again use that hackneyed and ill-merited definition 
 of England.' 
 
 On few subjects has there been greater difference 
 of opinion than over the necessity, and therefore 
 the justice, of the Crimean War. Two questions 
 were originally at issue, the guardianship of the 
 Holy Places, and the Russian demand for a pro- 
 tectorate over the Christian subjects of the Sultan. 
 The first was satisfactorily settled ; but the second 
 was refused by the Porte, acting at the advice of 
 the British ambassador. The Russians proceeded 
 to occupy the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia 
 and Wallachia (the present Roumania) ; and the 
 British fleet was ordered to Constantinople. The 
 resources of diplomacy, however, were not yet 
 exhausted. The four Powers England, France, 
 Austria and Prussia endeavoured to arrange matters 
 by a note by which the Sultan undertook to remain 
 faithful ' to the letter and to the spirit of the treaties 
 of Kainardji and Adrianople relative to the pro- 
 tection of the Christian religion.' 'This,' comments 
 Lord Esher, ' was most unfortunately worded, but, 
 however, the clause had obtained the sanction of 
 the English Government, and the Czar expressed 
 his willingness to accept it.' Lord Stratford, how- 
 ever, saw the danger underlying the ambiguity of 
 the language, and, under his advice, the Porte 
 proposed as an amendment the substitution of the 
 words ' to the stipulations of the treaty of Kainardji, 
 confirmed by that of Adrianople, relative to the 
 protection by the Sublime Porte of the Christian
 
 230 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 religion.' i ' If the views of Russia,' wrote the 
 Prince Consort, ' were to prevail, the extension 
 of the privileges and advantages enjoyed by Chris- 
 tian communities in their capacity as foreigners, 
 to the Greeks generally with the right granted to 
 Russia to intercede for them to this effect, would 
 simply make foreigners of 10,000,000 of the subjects 
 of the Porte, or depose the Sultan as their Sovereign, 
 putting the Emperor of Russia in his place.' 2 
 
 The Crimean War may or may not have been 
 necessary ; what is certain is, that it was entered 
 upon by a divided Cabinet, united in nothing except 
 the desire to keep together. To prove this it will 
 be sufficient to call in aid Lord Aberdeen's descrip- 
 tion of a Cabinet Council held in October, 1853 : 
 ' When we met, Clarendon made a sort of resume 
 of what had taken place, but ended in no specific 
 proposal. After a few interlocutory remarks from 
 different quarters, Palmerston proposed his plan. 
 Lord John faintly supported it in general terms, 
 but did not seem much in earnest about it. I said 
 that it appeared to involve the necessity of a declara- 
 tion of war against Russia, and the calling together 
 Parliament forthwith. Gladstone strongly argued 
 against the proposal. Clarendon then read out an 
 outline of his proposed instructions, which were a 
 great abatement from Palmerston's plan. We came 
 at last to a sort of compromise ; our great difficulty 
 being how to deal with the question of entering the 
 Black Sea. I consented to this being done, pro- 
 vided it was strictly in defence of some point of 
 attack on Turkish territory. I have no fear that 
 
 1 Letters of Queen Victoria, vol. ii. p. 462, note. 2 Ibid.
 
 A DIVIDED CABINET 231 
 
 this will take place : and as long as we abstain 
 from entering the Black Sea, peace may be possible 
 between us and Russia. We have thus assumed 
 a strictly defensive position, which for the moment 
 may be sufficient and will enable us to carry on 
 negotiations ; but this cannot last long. Under 
 the character of defensive war, we should inevitably 
 become extensively engaged. Should the Turk be 
 at all worsted, which is proba.ble, of course we 
 must increase our assistance. We shall have a 
 French army and perhaps English money all for 
 defence.' 1 
 
 Well might Prince Albert comment : ' I had a 
 long interview with Sir J. Graham this morning, 
 and told him that Lord Aberdeen's last letter to 
 the Queen and him made us very uneasy. It was 
 evident that Lord Aberdeen was, against his own 
 better judgment, consenting to a course of policy 
 which he inwardly condemned, that his desire to 
 maintain unanimity at the Cabinet led to con- 
 cessions which by degrees altered the whole character 
 of the policy, while he held out no hope of being 
 able permanently to secure agreement. I described 
 the Queen's position as a most painful one. Here 
 were decisions taken by the Cabinet, perhaps even 
 acted upon, involving the most momentous con- 
 sequences, without her previous concurrence, or even 
 the means for her to judge of the propriety or impro- 
 priety of the course to be adopted, with evidence that 
 the Minister, in whose judgment the Queen placed 
 her chief reliance, disapproved of it. The position 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 454. Letter of Lord Aberdeen to Sir J. Graham 
 (Oct. 8, 1853), submitted to the Queen.
 
 232 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 was morally and constitutionally a worry. The 
 Queen . . . might now be involved in war, of which 
 the consequences could not be calculated, chiefly 
 by the desire of Lord Aberdeen to keep his Cabinet 
 together. This might then break down, and the 
 Queen would be left without an efficient Government, 
 and a war on her hands.' x Again, about a week 
 later, Lord Aberdeen ' acknowledged the disadvan- 
 tage of the course adopted by the Cabinet, which left 
 the Turks at liberty to do as they pleased. He has 
 to concede this to the Cabinet, which would other- 
 wise have been broken up by Lord John and Lord 
 Palmerston.' ' It is evident,' added Prince Albert, 
 ' that the Turks have every inducement not to let 
 this opportunity slip in going to war with Russia, 
 as they will probably never find so advantageous a 
 one again, as the whole of Christendom has declared 
 them to be in the right, and they would fight with 
 England and France actively on their side.' 2 
 
 Some months before (July 7), Lord Palmerston 
 had written to Lord John : ' I think our position, 
 waiting timidly and submissively at the back door 
 while Russia is violently threatening and arrogantly 
 forcing her way into the house, is unwise with a 
 view to a peaceful settlement, and derogatory to 
 the character and standing and dignity of the two 
 Powers.' 3 
 
 On the other hand, Lord Aberdeen wrote some six 
 months later : ' The abstract justice of the cause, 
 although indisputable, is but a poor consolation 
 
 1 Letters of Queen Victoria, vol. ii pp. 464-5. 
 
 2 Ibid. pp. 456-7. 
 
 3 Life of Lord J. Russell, by Spencer Walpole, vol. ii. p. 183.
 
 DRIFTING INTO WAR 233 
 
 for the inevitable calamities of all war, or for a 
 decision which I am not without fear may prove 
 to have been impolitic and unwise. My conscience 
 upbraids me the more, because, seeing, as I did 
 from the first, all that was to be apprehended, it 
 is possible that by a little more energy and vigour, 
 not on the Danube, but in Downing Street, it might 
 have been prevented.' 1 Count Vitzhum truthfully 
 wrote that the British Government ' were forced 
 into a position in which events, and not they, were 
 the masters. Like a ship without rigging, which is 
 drifting into a whirlpool against the will of its 
 steersman, they were being dragged reluctantly into 
 war. Very significantly, but not very flatteringly 
 to the British Government, Clarendon in the House 
 of Lords described this position by the words " we 
 are drifting into war." ' 2 
 
 But while the trumpet of the British Cabinet was 
 sounding this uncertain note, other influences were 
 at work, making war inevitable. If Lord Aberdeen 
 really wanted peace he should have accepted the 
 resignation of the masterful British ambassador at 
 Constantinople, tendered on a change of Govern- 
 ment. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe at least knew 
 his own mind, and was convinced that the preten- 
 sions of Russia must be resisted. ' He encouraged 
 the not unnatural desire of the Sultan "to strike 
 off the fetters of Kainardji and Adrianople," and 
 " settle accounts with Russia once for all " ; and 
 those about him had no doubt that he hoped for 
 a war which he believed would humiliate Russia 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 204, note. 
 
 - St. Petersburg and London, vol. i. p. 65.
 
 234 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 and give new life to the Ottoman Empire.' J Lord 
 Clarendon wrote to Sydney Herbert (September 11, 
 1853) : ' It is quite clear that the Turks don't want 
 a settlement. The titular Sultan is for peace, but 
 the real Sultan (Stratford) thinks that now or never 
 is the time for putting an end to Russia.' 2 And a 
 few days later he wrote : ' It is to Stratford's amour 
 propre froisse that the obstacles to peace must be 
 attributed.' 3 Queen Victoria wrote that Lord Strat- 
 ford's private letters clearly exhibited on his part 
 ' a desire for war and to drag us into it ' (November 
 5, 1853). 4 On the other hand, it is easy to lay the 
 blame on others, and Lord Stratford de Redcliffe 
 maintained that on his return to Constantinople 
 he found that the Turkish Government had taken 
 the bit in its mouth and was determined to try 
 conclusions with Russia at an opportune moment, 
 when, in all probability, it would have powerful allies. 
 Meanwhile the Czar, who had taken the measure of 
 Lord Aberdeen, not unnaturally thought that, with 
 him at the helm, England would not proceed to the 
 extremity of war. Again, it seemed to the in- 
 terest of Napoleon III. that France should take 
 part with Great Britain in a European War. He 
 was not as yet at home in the imperial saddle, 
 and he thought that an alliance with England 
 would give dignity and security to his position. 
 He knew England well, and had received there a 
 
 1 The Earl of Aberdeen, by Sir A. Gordon, p. 254. 
 
 2 Sydney Herbert, by Lord Stanmore, vol. i. p. 197, note. 
 
 3 Ibid. 
 
 4 Letters, vol. ii. p. 460. For an able vindication of Lord 
 Stratford de Redcliffe 's conduct, see his Life, by Stanley Lane- 
 Poole, vol. ii.
 
 APPEAL TO PRUSSIA 235 
 
 friendly welcome ; whereas the Emperor of Russia 
 had wounded his amour propre, by delaying to 
 acknowledge his title. He therefore threw the 
 whole weight of his influence in favour of war. 
 
 In any case, when once Russia and Turkey were 
 at war, the chances of preventing a European con- 
 flagration were slight. The destruction of the 
 Turkish fleet at Sinope (December, 1853), though a 
 perfectly legitimate action in time of war, appeared 
 to the British public a massacre, and aroused a 
 state of feeling in England with which henceforth 
 the Ministry had to count. 
 
 Great Britain and France being ranged in one 
 camp and Russia in the other, what chance was 
 there of enlisting the Central Powers in the ranks 
 of the allies ? The Prince Consort attempted the 
 difficult task. ' We supported Russia,' he wrote 
 (July, 1854), ' in her demands at Constantinople, 
 until it became clear that she was bent on annihilat- 
 ing the independence of the Porte. It was not 
 from mere selfishness and with a view to making 
 cat's paws of other Powers, but in order to avert 
 the possibility of war that England pressed for the 
 Concert Europeen. Austria's and Prussia's faint- 
 heartedness and regard for the Russians made our 
 efforts in this direction fruitless. Thereupon England 
 and France alone took upon themselves the burden 
 of protecting the Porte. . . . All Europe, Belgium 
 and Germany included, have the greatest interest 
 in the integrity and independence of the Porte 
 being secured for the future, but a still greater 
 in Russia being defeated and chastised. For it is 
 to weak States above all others of importance as
 
 236 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 a precedent that, if a strong neighbour seeks to 
 oppress them, all Europe should come to their aid 
 and repel the oppressor.' * 
 
 ' When your Majesty tells me,' Queen Victoria, 
 under his influence, wrote to the King of Prussia, 
 'that " you are now determined to assume an atti- 
 tude of complete neutrality. ..." I do not understand 
 you. Had such language fallen from the King of 
 Hanover, or of Saxony, I could have understood it. 
 But up to the present hour I have regarded Prussia 
 as one of the Five Great Powers, which, since the 
 Peace of 1815, have been the guarantors of treaties, 
 the guardians of civilisation, the champions of 
 right, and ultimate arbitrators of the nations ; 
 and I have for my part felt the holy duty to which 
 they were thus divinely called, being at the same 
 time perfectly alive to the obligations, serious as 
 these are and fraught with danger, which it imposes. 
 Renounce these obligations, my dear brother, and 
 hi so doing you renounce for Prussia the status 
 she has hitherto held. And if the example thus set 
 should find imitators, European Civilisation is aban- 
 doned as a plaything for the winds ; right will no 
 longer find a champion, nor the oppressed an umpire 
 to appeal to.' 2 There was an anticipation of the 
 Bismarck touch in the King's reply, which practically 
 suggested that England might count herself lucky 
 not to have Prussia as an open enemy. In fact, 
 so far from being even benevolent, the neutrality 
 of Prussia seems to have been employed in threaten- 
 ing Austria with a possible attack upon her flank 
 
 1 Life of the Prince Consort, vol. iii. pp. 20-1. 
 8 Ibid. p. 44.
 
 THE MILITARY POSITION OF ENGLAND 237 
 
 should she take part in an offensive war against 
 Russia. 1 
 
 We have seen that the war was entered into by 
 a divided Cabinet, with an avowed policy of limited 
 liability. The same hesitating, uncertain methods 
 at first marked the manner of its carrying on. In 
 the long years of peace, and under the pressure of 
 a huge debt, and the natural demand for economy, 
 the military forces of Great Britain had been to 
 a great extent neglected. Whether or not she was 
 beloved, England had emerged from the Napoleonic 
 War with a great prestige ; but men were apt to 
 forget that that prestige had been the outcome 
 of the expenditure of much blood and treasure. 
 After the exhaustion occasioned by that war, it 
 was, significantly enough, the one statesman who 
 thoroughly understood military affairs, the great 
 Duke, who was the most pacific and conciliatory in 
 his general foreign policy. No doubt, if the pledges 
 of treaties or the honour of the country had been 
 involved, he would have spoken with no uncertain 
 voice ; but on ordinary occasions he was careful 
 scrupulously to avoid causes of quarrel. It was a 
 danger to the nation that his rivals and successors, 
 such as Canning and Palmerston, adopted the grand 
 manner, without having behind them grand armies. 
 If the Roman could always have his citizenship 
 respected, it was because, in the last resort, there 
 was the ultimate sanction of the Roman legions. 
 Heaven forbid that we should minimise moral 
 considerations m the international dealings of men ; 
 nevertheless the grim truth holds good that, when 
 
 1 Life of Lord Aberdeen, by Sir A. Gordon, p. 247.
 
 238 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 you are dealing with independent Powers, unless 
 there is the presence, or the possibility witness the 
 military history of the Empire in the recent great 
 war of military strength, the assertion of moral 
 precepts may lead to difficulties. Lord John Russell 
 and Lord Palmerston were both to experience this 
 unpleasant lesson some years later in the case of 
 Poland and of Denmark. Meanwhile, if the military 
 history of the Crimean War was largely a record of 
 official failure and mismanagement, brilliantly re- 
 deemed by the valour of the British armies in the 
 field, the giant of the north proved equally vulner- 
 able ; so that a war, entered upon half-heartedly, 
 and pursued for a time half-heartedly, could be 
 ended without any loss to British honour or prestige. 
 But in the existing state of things there was need 
 first for a parliamentary debacle, and for the resigna- 
 tion of the Ministry. The new Prime Minister, 
 Lord Palmerston, doubtless embodied more than 
 any other living statesman the temper of his fellow- 
 countrymen. But, in his desire to bring the war 
 to a successful close, he was handicapped by the 
 attitude of his old friend Napoleon III. Napoleon 
 had entered into the war upon personal grounds, 
 and, when his personal interests seemed satisfied, 
 he was ready to be quit of the business. In these 
 circumstances, Lord John Russell was sent to take 
 part in negotiations at Vienna to ' serve as a proof 
 to show we are in earnest in our wish for peace 
 and in our determination to have satisfactory terms.' 1 
 Lord John was ' instructed that the end to be held 
 
 1 Life of Lord Palmerston, 1846-1865, by E. Ashley, vol. ii. 
 p. 77. Letter to his brother.
 
 LORD JOHN RUSSELL AT VIENNA 239 
 
 in view was the admission of Turkey into the great 
 European family, and that there were certain points 
 which must be insisted upon as necessary fully to 
 attain this object. They lay under four principal 
 heads, viz. the Principalities, the free navigation of 
 the Danube, Russian supremacy in the Black Sea, 
 and the independence of the Porte.' x Austrian 
 propositions of peace, which had been accepted 
 by Lord John at Vienna, were held to be unsatis- 
 factory by the Home Government. In this con- 
 nexion we may note the powerful protest of Disraeli 
 against the combination of ' an aggressive war with 
 a protective diplomacy.' ' By this chronic diplo- 
 macy,' he said, ' you not only check and destroy 
 the spirit of the nation upon which, after all, you 
 must rely, but by those very Conferences you are 
 paralysing your allies and preventing that energy 
 and exertion on the part of the European Powers 
 which may be necessary to enable you to carry on 
 your aggressive warfare, and to extricate you from 
 the dangers which you must meet.' 2 Lord John 
 Russell was willing to modify the British demands 
 with regard to the Black Sea, in return for obtain- 
 ing the guarantee of Austria to the terms of the 
 treaty. ' After all,' he wrote in a memorandum, 
 ' the security of the Porte is not with England 
 a vital question like the independence of Belgium 
 or of Portugal. It is a European object, to attain 
 which Great Britain is bound to contribute her full 
 share but no more.' 3 
 
 The French representative at Vienna had been in 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 84. 2 Selected Speeches, vol. ii. pp. 76-7. 
 
 3 Life of Lord J. Russell, vol. ii. p. 259.
 
 240 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 agreement with Lord John, but the Emperor of 
 the French was warned by his generals that it would 
 not be safe to make peace before securing the fall 
 of Sebastopol. 1 Consequently France fell into line 
 with Great Britain in the rejection of the Austrian 
 terms. 
 
 With the fall of Sebastopol the situation was 
 altered ; and henceforth France was eager for peace. 
 England, even under Lord Palmerston, had no 
 desire to extort harder terms than such as would 
 have been sanctioned at Vienna ; and accordingly, 
 on March 30, 1856, the treaty of Paris was signed. 
 Under that treaty Great Britain, Austria, France, 
 Prussia, Russia, and Sardinia declared the Sublime 
 Porte admitted to participate in the advantages 
 of the public law and system (concert) of Europe. 
 They engaged each on her part to respect the in- 
 dependence and the territorial integrity of the 
 Ottoman Empire, and guaranteed in common the 
 strict observance of that engagement. Any act 
 tending to its violation should be regarded as ' a 
 question of general interest.' If there should arise 
 between the Porte and any one of the signatory 
 Powers any misunderstanding, before having re- 
 course to coercive measures, the Power concerned 
 pledged itself to afford the other contracting parties 
 the opportunity of preventing such an extremity by 
 means of their mediation. 
 
 The Black Sea was neutralised ; its waters and 
 its ports being thrown open to the mercantile marine 
 of every nation and, formally and in perpetuity, 
 interdicted to ships of war. 
 
 1 Life of Lord J. Russell, vol. ii. p. 264.
 
 TURKEY AND HER CHRISTIAN SUBJECTS 241 
 
 The navigation of the Danube was entrusted to 
 the regulation of a European Commission ; and the 
 Principalities were placed under the guarantee of 
 the Contracting Powers, no exclusive protection 
 being exercised over them by any of the guaran- 
 teeing Powers. 1 The conclusions arrived at were 
 singularly unfortunate with regard to the treatment 
 of Turkish subjects. If it was necessary, from the 
 point of view of the balance of power, to guarantee 
 the security of the Turkish Empire, it was absolutely 
 necessary that measures should be taken and main- 
 tained to enforce the proper behaviour of Turkey 
 as a member of a civilised Community. And yet 
 consider the ostrich-like and cowardly manner in 
 which this subject was burked. 
 
 ' His Imperial Majesty the Sultan, having, in his 
 constant solicitude for the welfare of his subjects, 
 issued a Firman, which, while ameliorating their 
 condition, without distinction of religion or of race, 
 records his generous intentions towards the Christian 
 populations of his Empire, and wishing to give a 
 further proof of his sentiments in that respect, has 
 resolved to communicate to the contracting parties 
 the said Firman emanating spontaneously from his 
 Sovereign Will.' 2 
 
 On paper the Firman was all that could be desired. 
 ' The Contracting Powers recognise the high value 
 of this communication. It is clearly understood 
 that it cannot, in any case, give to the said Powers 
 the right to interfere, either collectively or sepa- 
 
 1 The European Concert and the Eastern Question, by T. Holland, 
 pp. 245-51. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 246, Article IX. 
 E.F.P. Q
 
 242 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 rately, in the relations of his Majesty the Sultan 
 with his subjects, nor in the internal administration 
 of his Empire.' 
 
 Contrast with this smooth language the words 
 of Lord Stratford, the Turks' best friend, addressed 
 to the Turkish Prime Minister a very few years 
 before. ' I have frequently had occasion of late, 
 and indeed for some years past, to bring to the 
 knowledge of the Porte such atrocious instances 
 of cruelty, rapine, and murder, as I have found 
 with extreme concern in the Consular Reports, 
 exhibiting generally the disturbed and misgoverned 
 condition of many parts of Roumelia, and calling 
 loudly for redress from the Imperial Government. 
 The character of these disorderly and brutal outrages 
 may be said in truth to be in general that of Mussul- 
 man fanaticism, excited by cupidity and hatred 
 against the Sultan's Christian subjects. . . . The evil 
 nevertheless has not been permanently removed, and 
 the effect of every partial check has been of short 
 duration.' 1 
 
 By then* acquiescence in this neglect, when the 
 opportunity occurred, of the interests of the Christian 
 subjects of the Porte, the British Government were 
 laying the seed of the future troubles, which occurred 
 when, some twenty years later, political interests, 
 through the mouth of Disraeli, demanded one policy, 
 and the claims of morality, passionately voiced by 
 Gladstone, seemed to necessitate another. The rule 
 is always made good : by shirking difficulties, when 
 they can be met, a situation arises in which what- 
 ever is done can be shown to have bad consequences. 
 
 1 Life of Lord J. Russell, vol. ii. p. 193.
 
 NAPOLEON III. AND ITALY 243 
 
 The problem of the near East had been for the 
 time solved, in however temporary and unsatis- 
 factory a manner ; but a new question arose to 
 disturb the dovecotes of European diplomacy. As 
 early as July, 1846, Palmerston had written to 
 Lord John Russell : ' Italy is the weak part of 
 Europe, and the next war that breaks out in Europe 
 will probably arise out of Italian affairs. The 
 government of the Papal States is intolerably bad ; 
 nothing can make men submit to such misrule but 
 physical force and despair of external assistance.' l 
 
 In February, 1858, the British Ministry was 
 defeated in an attempt to amend the law of con- 
 spiracy to meet the wishes of Napoleon III., and a 
 Tory Administration returned again to office, if not 
 to power. Meanwhile relations between France and 
 Austria were becoming strained. The French 
 Emperor used language to the Austrian Ambassador 
 at the New Year's day reception of the diplomatic 
 corps which seemed to threaten war. Lord Malmes- 
 bury, who had again become Foreign Secretary, 
 assured the Queen (December 10th, 1858) that war 
 was not contemplated by the French Emperor. 
 ' Your Majesty may be assured that no warlike 
 preparations are making in France, such as must 
 precede such a plan as an Italian War.' 2 Neverthe- 
 less, in the preceding July, an interview at Plombieres 
 between Louis Napoleon and Cavour paved the way 
 for a confederacy between the two Powers. In 
 the Spring of 1859 Sardinia prepared for war with 
 
 1 Life of Lord Palmerston, by Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, vol. iii. 
 p. 915. 
 
 * Letters of Queen Victoria, vol. iii. p. 306.
 
 244 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 Austria. Austria retaliated by a curt summons to 
 disarm ; and, when this was disregarded, invaded 
 Piedmont. Meanwhile an attempt by the British 
 Ministry to mediate between France and Austria, 
 through Lord Cowley, the ambassador at Paris, 
 met with failure, and the French forces entered 
 upon a successful campaign. Even the Queen, 
 who was strongly pro-German in her sympathies, 
 recognised that Austria had put herself in the wrong. 
 ' Though it is originally the wicked folly of Russia 
 and France that have brought about this fearful 
 crisis,' she wrote to her Uncle Leopold, ' it is the 
 madness and blindness of Austria which have 
 brought on the war now. It has put them in the 
 wrong, and entirely changed the feeling here, which 
 was all that one could desire, into the most vehement 
 sympathy for Sardinia.' 1 
 
 Undoubtedly the general belief that the Conser- 
 vative Ministry supported the Austrian pretensions 
 did them no little harm at the General Election of 
 1859. For some reason, which is not yet clear, 
 Disraeli delayed the publication of the Blue Book, 
 which, when it afterwards appeared, proved to be a 
 complete vindication of their proceedings. Lord 
 Malmesbury suggests that the reason is to be sought 
 in Disraeli having postponed the reading of the 
 documents. 2 But laziness was not characteristic 
 of Disraeli ; whilst the suggestion of his biographer 
 that he may have been influenced by his general 
 distrust of Lord Malmesbury is still less credible. 3 
 
 1 Letters of Queen Victoria, vol. iii. p. 344. 
 
 3 Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, vol. ii. p. 189. 
 
 3 Life of B. Disraeli, by G. E. Buckle, vol. iv. pp. 252-3.
 
 ENGLAND AND THE ITALIAN QUESTION 245 
 
 Malmesbury wrote to Disraeli : ' The policy of 
 insisting and threatening is Palmerstonian, and 
 would commit us to one side or the other. From 
 the moment we show a bias to one side our influence 
 is gone, because they are now bidding for our friend- 
 ship. We never can, I hope, be induced to join a 
 protectorate of Italy. We have enough of the 
 Protectorate, Belgium, who will probably be in- 
 vaded by one of its protectors, and now, of the 
 Principalities, whose protectors are all pulling diffe- 
 rent ways. England always acts de bonne foi in 
 these cases, and therefore has the disadvantage of 
 being like a respectable clergyman, co-trustee with 
 five horse-dealers.' 1 
 
 The policy of the British Government was expressed 
 in the following Dispatch addressed to the various 
 German Courts. ' I have to acquaint you that Her 
 Majesty's Government witness with great anxiety 
 the disposition shown by the States of Germany to 
 enter at once into a contest with France. Her 
 Majesty's Government cannot perceive that, at the 
 present moment, Germany has any grounds for 
 declaring war against that Power, and still less 
 would the Confederation, in their opinion, be justified 
 in prematurely adopting any course which would 
 bring on a European War. 
 
 ' It is desirable, however, that the Governments of 
 Germany should entertain no doubt as to the course 
 which in such a case Her Majesty's Government 
 would pursue, and therefore you are accredited that 
 if Germany should at present, and without a casus 
 foederis, be so ill-advised as to provoke a war with 
 
 1 Ibid. pp. 228-9.
 
 246 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 France, and should, without any sufficient cause, 
 make general a war which, on every account, ought, 
 if possible, to be localised, Her Majesty's Government, 
 determined to maintain a strict neutrality, can give 
 to Germany no assistance, nor contribute by the 
 interposition of the naval forces of this country to 
 protect her coast from hostile attack.' (May 2, 
 1859.) 1 
 
 No doubt this attitude of the British Government 
 was perfectly correct, and probably represented the 
 views of the majority of the British electorate. 
 Still there were thousands of Englishmen to whom 
 the land of Virgil, of Dante, and of Petrarch was 
 not as other lands, and to whom its redemption 
 seemed a cause more sacred than the strict enforce- 
 ment of legal documents. Apart from the sym- 
 pathies of foreigners, the courageous opportunism 
 of Victor Emmanuel, the subtle statesmanship of 
 Cavour, and the romantic foolhardiness of Garibaldi 
 were working for a common object. Intimidated, 
 as seems certain, by the Carbonari, Louis Napoleon, 
 the self -elected champion of the Church, fought for 
 an anti-Papal Italy, and, as the cynical asserted, 
 worked to create for France another Prussia on the 
 south-east. Napoleon III., however, did not work 
 for nothing ; and the a6quisition of Savoy and Nice, 
 whether or not the result of previous bargaining, 
 shocked the conscience of Europe, and caused the 
 French to appear to the people of Italy in a light 
 other than that of disinterested deliverers. 
 
 During this time the Ministry of Lord Derby had 
 been succeeded by an Administration, the leading 
 1 Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, vol. ii. p. 205.
 
 BRITISH MINISTER AND ITALY 247 
 
 members of which were as Italian in their sympathies 
 as were the Italians themselves. The Prime Minister, 
 Palmerston, was, an unkind critic might suggest, 
 always a reformer in every country but his own. 
 Lord John Russell believed that the sacred principles 
 of 1688 were always and everywhere applicable, 
 and another minister, who did not often see eye to 
 eye with these veterans on questions of foreign 
 policy, had been made, by special circumstances, a 
 devoted adherent to the cause of a United Italy. 
 Mr. Gladstone, as a casual visitor in 1850, had had 
 the opportunity to put his hands into the open 
 wounds of persecuted Naples, and the impression 
 left upon him was great and lasting. 1 ' I little 
 thought,' he wrote in July, 1859, ' to have lived to 
 see the day when the conclusion of a Peace should 
 in my mind cause disgust rather than impart relief. 
 But that day has come. I appreciate all the 
 difficulties of the position both of the King of 
 Sardinia and of Count Cavour. . . . The duties of 
 England in respect to the Italian Question are 
 limited by her powers, and these are greatly con- 
 fined. But her sentiments cannot change, because 
 they are founded upon a regard to the deepest 
 among those principles which regulate the intercourse 
 of men and their formation into political societies.' 2 
 But the proposed settlement of Villa Franca proved 
 unworkable. An Italian Confederation, with several 
 of the Italian States Austrian puppets, was an 
 absurdity ; and the reinstatement of the Grand 
 Duke of Tuscany and the Duke of Modena against 
 
 1 Garibaldi and the Thousand, by G. M. Trevelyan, pp. 48-54. 
 1 Life of Gladstone, by J. Morley, vol. i. pp. 647-8.
 
 248 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 the wishes of their inhabitants could not be effected. 
 Venetia had to remain Austrian till a later date ; but 
 Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and the Romagna, along 
 with Lombardy, became peacefully incorporated in 
 the Kingdom of Victor Emmanuel. Apart from 
 Venice there still remained Naples and Sicily and 
 the States of the Church to be dealt with, and then 
 the dream would be fulfilled of a United Italy. 
 
 Palmerston and Lord John were prepared to join 
 with France in resisting Austria should she determine 
 to prevent by force the inclusion of the Duchies in 
 the Kingdom of Piedmont ; and the Queen wrote 
 (December 2, 1859) : ' The Queen was extremely 
 sorry to find from Lord John Russell's letter of 
 yesterday that he contemplates the possibility of 
 our joining France in a fresh Italian War or demon- 
 stration of war against Austria, which the Queen 
 had put entirely out of the question. If the Emperor 
 of the French were allowed to believe in such a 
 possibility, he would have it in his power to bring 
 it about, or obtain a just cause of complaint against 
 us, if we abandoned him. It would be just as 
 dangerous and unfair towards the Emperor to 
 mislead him in this respect as it would be for the 
 Queen to conceal from Lord John that under no 
 pretence will she depart from the position of neu- 
 trality in the Italian quarrel, and inflict upon her 
 country and Europe the calamity of war on that 
 account.' x Again : ' The Queen is determined to 
 hold to her neutrality in the Italian intrigues, 
 revolutions, and wars. It is true Lord John says, 
 " it becomes a great Power like Great Britain to 
 
 1 Letters of Queen Victoria, vol. iii. pp. 374-5.
 
 LORD JOHN RUSSELL AND ITALY 249 
 
 preserve the peace of Europe by throwing her great 
 weight into the scale which has justice on its side." 
 But where justice lies admits of every variety of 
 opinion.' The Queen added shrewdly enough : 
 ' Has Lord John ever contemplated the probability 
 of Austria not being abandoned a second time by 
 Germany, when attacked by France ? The Emperor 
 is sure to have calculated upon this, and has 
 not played his game badly, if he can get the 
 alliance of England to sanction and foster his 
 attack upon the Rhine which would inevitably 
 follow.' ! 
 
 In September, 1860, whilst declaring that the 
 state of affairs in Italy was very distressing, Queen 
 Victoria confessed that ' the miserable, weak, and 
 foolish conduct of the King of Naples and the 
 squabbles of the whole family take away all one's 
 sympathy.' 2 She does not therefore seem to have 
 protested as strongly as might have been expected 
 against the famous dispatch of October 27, 1860, 
 in which Lord John gave expression to the views 
 of liberal England. ' There appear to have been 
 two motives,' he wrote, ' which have induced the 
 people of the Roman and Neapolitan States to have 
 joined willingly in the subversion of their Govern- 
 ments. The first of these was that the Government 
 of the Pope and the King of the two Sicilies provided 
 so ill for the administration of justice, the protection 
 of personal liberty, and the general welfare of the 
 people, that their subjects looked forward to the 
 overthrow of their rulers as a necessary preliminary 
 to all improvement in their condition. 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 376. 2 Ibid. pp. 407-8.
 
 250 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 ' The second motive was that a conviction had 
 spread, since the year 1848, that the only manner 
 in which the Italians could secure their independence 
 of foreign control was by forming one strong Govern- 
 ment for the whole of Italy. . . . 
 
 * Looking at the question in this view, Her 
 Majesty's Government must admit that the Italians 
 themselves are the best judges of their own 
 interests. . . . 
 
 ' Her Majesty's Government do not feel justified 
 hi declaring that the people of Southern Italy had 
 not good reason for throwing off their allegiance to 
 their former Governments. Her Majesty's Govern- 
 ment, therefore, cannot pretend to blame the King 
 of Sardinia for assisting them. . . . 
 
 ' Such having been the causes and concomitant 
 circumstances of the revolution of Italy, Her Majesty's 
 Government can see no sufficient grounds for the 
 severe censure with which Austria, France, Prussia, 
 and Russia have visited the acts of the King of 
 Sardinia. Her Majesty's Government will turn their 
 eyes rather to the gratifying prospect of a people 
 building up the edifice of their liberties and con- 
 solidating the work of their independence amid the 
 sympathies and good wishes of Europe.' 1 
 
 ' Ever since your famous dispatch,' wrote Mr. 
 Odo Russell, Lord John's nephew, from Rome, ' you 
 are blessed night and morning by twenty millions 
 of Italians. . . . The moment it was published in 
 Italian thousands of people copied it from each other 
 to carry it to their homes and weep over it for joy 
 
 1 Life of Lord J. Russell, by Spencer Walpole, vol. ii. pp. 
 325-7.
 
 PRUSSIA, ENGLAND AND ITALY 251 
 
 and gratitude in the bosom of their families, away 
 from brutal mercenaries and greasy priests.' l 
 
 On the other hand, the Prince Regent of Prussia 
 was ' very unhappy about Lord John Russell's last 
 published Despatch, which he calls a tough morsel to 
 digest, in which he sees a disruption of the law of 
 nations, as hitherto recognised, and of the holy ties 
 which bound peoples and sovereigns, and a declaration 
 on the part of England that, wheresoever there exists 
 any dissatisfaction among a people, they have the 
 privilege to expel their sovereign, with the assured 
 certainty of England's sympathy. The Prince sees 
 great difficulty in the way of future agreement with 
 England, if that is to be the basis of her policy.' 2 
 Palmerston had written on the previous January 
 that the policy of England was to ' take our stand 
 upon the principle that no force should be employed 
 for the purpose of imposing upon the people of Italy 
 any form of government or constitution ; that is 
 to say, that the people of Italy, and especially of 
 Central Italy, should be left free to determine their 
 own condition of political existence.' 3 
 
 Moreover, it proved possible for Great Britain to 
 help Italy by means other than generous words. 
 After the conquest of Sicily by Garibaldi, Napoleon 
 was desirous of preserving the Bourbon dynasty on 
 the mainland, under French direction, and therefore 
 planned a naval combination between France and 
 England to hold the Straits of Messina against the 
 passage of Garibaldi's forces. Lord John, puzzled 
 by the tortuous conduct of Victor Emmanuel and 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 428. * Life of the Prince Consort, vol. v. p. 226. 
 
 3 Life of Lord Palmerston, 1846-65, vol. ii. p. 175.
 
 252 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 Cavour regarding the invasion of Calabria by Gari- 
 baldi, was nearly falling into this trap ; and it was 
 only the intervention of Mr. James Lacaita, an exile 
 from Naples, who was the intimate friend of the 
 Russell family, that saved the situation. ' If France 
 chose to interfere alone,' Lord John finally wrote, 
 ' we shall merely disapprove her course and protest 
 against it. In our opinion the Neapolitans ought to 
 be masters either to reject or to receive Garibaldi.' 
 
 ' Napoleon was not prepared,' Mr. Trevelyan adds, 
 ' to take a course against which England would 
 protest, and the project of foreign intervention fell 
 dead.' l Accordingly, Naples along with Sicily fell a 
 ripe fruit into the hands of Victor Emmanuel. 
 
 It is pleasant to note the course of British policy 
 towards Italy, because here, at least, material 
 interests were not involved. It is easy in a world 
 wherein the victory too often seems to belong to 
 brute power to decry the influence of sentiment. 
 Nevertheless, amongst men capable of feeling senti- 
 ment counts for a great deal ; and the close sympathy 
 that has always existed between the peoples of united 
 Italy and of Great Britain may have had something 
 to do with Italy's final decision to break with the 
 Triple Alliance and to seek safety in the company 
 of the Western Powers. 
 
 The annexation of Savoy and Nice to France 
 killed for the time the possibility of an Anglo-French 
 alliance. Louis Napoleon resented so bitterly the 
 criticisms of the London press that he used language 
 to Lord Cowley which seemed almost to presage war. 
 
 1 Garibaldi and the Making of Italy, pp. 104-9.
 
 NAPOLEON III. AND PRUSSIA 253 
 
 His subsequent behaviour, however, proved that he 
 had acted under momentary pique, and Lord Cowley 
 was able to vindicate the honour of his country, 
 without embittering the quarrel. Still, the Emperor 
 was undoubtedly in an unsettled frame of mind, 
 and, disappointed with England, was busy meditating 
 new schemes by which he could help forward his 
 root idea of remodelling, peacefully, if possible, the 
 map of Europe. Palmerston informed the Queen 
 in November, 1861, that he had heard from a source 
 likely to be well informed that at the interview 
 between the Emperor and the King of Prussia at 
 Compiegne, the Emperor said to the King ' that 
 there were three systems of alliance between which 
 France and Prussia might choose : an alliance of 
 France with England, an alliance of Prussia with 
 England, an alliance of France with Prussia. The 
 first, the Emperor said, now to a certain degree 
 exists, but is precarious, and not likely to last long, 
 because England is too exacting ; the second would 
 not be useful to Prussia, but might be dangerous, 
 inasmuch as it would look like hostility to France, 
 and England would not be likely to back Prussia effec- 
 tually if a rupture took place between Prussia and 
 France. The last was the system best for Prussia, 
 and was calculated to promote her interests ; at all 
 events the Emperor hoped that if at any time there 
 should be a rupture between France and England, 
 Prussia would remain neutral.' 1 
 
 Prussia was not at this time in the least inclined 
 to listen to the voice of the French charmer ; and 
 the only result of the French intrigue was to draw 
 
 1 Letters of Queen Victoria, vol. iii. p. 467.
 
 254 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 closer the links between England, Prussia, and 
 Austria, in the interests of the maintenance of the 
 status quo. The Queen had written to Palmerston 
 in the preceding June : ' What is required and is 
 now attainable for the general security is a mutual 
 agreement between the three Powers, that each 
 should make known to the other two any overture 
 or proposition, direct or indirect, which either of 
 the three may receive from France, tending to any 
 change of the existing state of territorial possession 
 in Europe, and that no answer should be given to 
 such overture or proposal until the Government to 
 which it may have been made shall have had an 
 answer from the other two to the communication so 
 made. Anything short of this will not affect the 
 object of giving absolute confidence.' * An agree- 
 ment substantially to this effect seems to have been 
 arrived at by the three Powers. 2 
 
 To the Prince Consort, the state of things in Europe 
 caused no little alarm. ' Our Ministers,' he wrote 
 to Baron Stockmar in 1860, ' have waked up at last. 
 . . . Now, however, the weak and distracted state 
 of Europe, and of Germany in particular, which is 
 simply due to the fact that the Napoleonic policy 
 has been allowed full swing, will be put forward by 
 many as imposing upon England as a duty not to 
 engage in any Continental struggle with France, as 
 this would be to turn round upon an approved ally. 
 In Germany the condition of things must be deplor- 
 able. Austria in a state of decomposition, and 
 Prussia without energetic guidance and force of 
 
 1 Life of the Prince Consort, vol. v. p. 121. 
 * Ibid. pp. 121-2.
 
 NAPOLEON III. 255 
 
 conviction.' l Here, at any rate, this shrewd judg- 
 ment was soon proved to be at fault. Prussia was 
 assuredly no longer ' without energetic guidance ' 
 when she obtained Bismarck for her chief Minister, 
 and Von Moltke as the organiser of victory. 
 
 How far Louis Napoleon was really a danger to 
 the peace of Europe must always remain one of the 
 unsolved problems of history. Without doubt vague 
 plans for the remodelling of Europe, by France 
 obtaining the frontier of the Rhine, and Prussia 
 obtaining compensation in other directions ; by the 
 Danubian Principalities being assigned to Austria, 
 or by the formation of a new Eastern Kingdom, 
 Belgium becoming at the same time incorporated 
 with France dreams such as these haunted his 
 active mind ; and in the case of an autocrat the 
 dream of to-day may find its accomplishment on 
 the morrow. On the other hand, Louis Napoleon's 
 will power was much weaker than his intellect. He 
 belonged to the order of men 
 
 " Letting ' I dare not' wait upon ' I would,' 
 Like the poor cat i 5 the adage." 
 
 He clung to friendship with England as the sheet 
 anchor of his policy, and maintained a chivalrous 
 loyalty and devotion to Queen Victoria. In spite 
 of his revolutionary wanderings, he was at heart 
 Conservative ; and it probably needed the bait of 
 the Prussian tempter to cause him to appear upon 
 the surface as the disturber of the peace of Europe. 
 
 We have seen how, in 1832, Otho of Bavaria 
 became King of Greece. Unhappily, he proved to 
 
 1 Ibid. pp. 87-8.
 
 256 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 have been a most unfortunate choice ; and, in 
 October, 1862, he was deposed. The National 
 Assembly offered the vacant throne to Prince 
 William, the second son of the King of Denmark, 
 in 1863, and at a conference held in London the 
 three guaranteeing Powers confirmed this choice. A 
 Treaty was signed at London on July 13, 1863, 
 declaring Prince William to be ' King of the Greeks ' 
 under the title of George I. It should be noted, in 
 the light of recent controversy, that it was affirmed, 
 in the 3rd Article of the Treaty, ' that Greece, 
 under . . . the guarantee of the three Courts, forms 
 a monarchical, independent, and constitutional 
 State.' 1 
 
 Under a Convention of 1800 between Russia and 
 the Porte it had been agreed that the Ionian Islands, 
 which had been recently seized by the French, 
 should form a self-governing tributary republic 
 under the suzerainty of the Porte. By the Treaty 
 of Paris of 1815 they were recognised as ' an indepen- 
 dent state ' ' under the immediate and exclusive 
 protection of the King of Great Britain and Ireland.' 
 
 There was agitation in the islands in favour of 
 union with Greece ; and England, having no desire 
 to coerce them, became a willing party to the 
 Treaty of November 14, 1863, by which the Five 
 Powers, signatories to the Treaty of Paris, accepted 
 the renunciation of the Protectorate of the Ionian 
 Islands by the Queen of England, and recognised 
 their union with the Hellenic kingdom. 2 
 
 1 See Text of Treaty in The European Concert in the Eastern 
 Question, by T. G. Holland, pp. 40-44. 
 
 2 Ibid. pp. 45-50.
 
 ENGLAND AND POLAND 257 
 
 Elated by the success which had attended the 
 efforts for the redemption of Italy, the British 
 Government found themselves in 1863 confronted 
 with a very different problem. We have already 
 seen that, though Poland came within the purview 
 of the Treaty of Vienna, the terms with regard to 
 it were so vague as practically to preclude the inter- 
 ference of the Parties to the treaty. Even the more 
 definite provisions as to Cracow had not, in fact, 
 admitted such interference . When, therefore, trouble 
 again arose in Poland and a Polish insurrection 
 aroused the sympathies of liberal Europe, there were 
 two courses possible. Either the British Govern- 
 ment could have made clear to the world that, 
 regrettable as might be what was happening, it 
 was no concern of England, and a policy of non- 
 intervention would be strictly maintained, or else 
 the Russian doings should have been openly pro- 
 claimed such a crime against civilisation as called 
 for abatement from the civilised Powers. Assuredly, 
 if the first course was intended to be taken, it was 
 most urgent that the unfortunate Poles should not 
 be buoyed up with the hopes of British assistance. 
 According to the British Ambassador at St. Peters- 
 burg, the measure which provoked the insurrection 
 was ' a simple plan by a clean sweep of the revolu- 
 tionary youth of Poland to kidnap the opposition 
 and to carry it off to Siberia or the Caucasus.' 1 We 
 may, then, freely admit that the Polish insurrection 
 of 1863 was the result of cruel provocation. But 
 granting all this, the hard fact remained that on 
 the Polish Question, Russia and Prussia would stand 
 
 1 Life of Lord Palme.raton, 1846-65, vol. ii. p. 130. 
 E.F.P. R
 
 258 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 united ; so that, in case of war, the two Western 
 Powers would find themselves confronted with their 
 old adversary of the Crimean War, now supported 
 by a powerful assistant. Moreover, the agreement 
 of Austria with the Western Powers was, of necessity, 
 half-hearted. In this situation, unless honour or 
 duty imperatively compelled intervention, the path 
 of safety doubtless lay in standing aside. Nor does 
 it seem that the British Ministry ever really 
 meditated war. Unhappily, Lord Russell 1 was so 
 enamoured of his own liberal sermonising that he 
 forgot that it might not be so welcome to other 
 ears. To suggest that the Russians should restore 
 to the Poles the constitution of Alexander I. was a 
 vain proceeding, unless he could first have felt the 
 pulse of the Russian Government. After having 
 ineffectually endeavoured to put in force the 
 Concert of Europe, Lord Russell next launched a 
 dispatch which, if it meant anything, involved the 
 threat of war. 
 
 ' The question, then,' he wrote, ' having arisen 
 whether the engagements taken by Russia by the 
 Treaty of Vienna have been and are now being 
 faithfully carried into execution, Her Majesty's 
 Government, with deep regret, feel bound to say 
 that the question must be answered in the negative. 
 . . . Her Majesty's Government, therefore, most 
 earnestly entreat the Government of Russia to 
 give their most serious attention to all the fore- 
 going considerations : and Her Majesty's Govern- 
 ment would beg, moreover, to submit to the Imperial 
 
 1 Lord John entered the House of Lords as Earl Russell in 
 1861.
 
 ENGLAND AND POLAND 269 
 
 Government that, besides the obligations of treaties, 
 Russia, as a member of the community of European 
 States, has duties of comity towards other nations 
 to fulfil. The condition of things which has now 
 for a long course of time existed in Poland is a 
 source of danger, not to Russia alone, but also to 
 the general peace of Europe. 
 
 ' The disturbances which are perpetually breaking 
 out among the Polish subjects of His Imperial 
 Majesty necessarily produce a serious agitation of 
 opinion in other countries of Europe, tending to 
 excite much anxiety in the minds of their Govern- 
 ments, and which might under possible circum- 
 stances produce complications of the most serious 
 nature.' 1 
 
 (A little earlier the Prime Minister had written 
 to the Russian Ambassador, who was a personal 
 friend, that the Polish insurrection was a just punish- 
 ment from heaven for Russian conduct, in encourag- 
 ing insurrection in Moldo-Wallachia, Servia, and 
 Bosnia, and trusted that Prince Gortschakoff would 
 be told the impression made by his doings in 
 England.) 2 
 
 Following on this dispatch, Lord Russell had a 
 conversation with the Russian Ambassador : ' When 
 I told him that the dispatch of Her Majesty's Go- 
 vernment was chiefly founded on the stipulations of 
 the Treaty of Vienna, he expressed some satisfaction 
 that we still founded our demands on the basis of 
 that treaty. But there was one question he felt he 
 
 1 Quoted in Essays on Foreign Politics, by Lord Salisbury, 
 p. 197. 
 
 *Life of Lord Palmerston, 1846-65, vol. ii. pp. 230 1.
 
 260 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 was entitled to ask, and that was whether the com- 
 munication Her Majesty's Government was about 
 to make at St. Petersburg was of a pacific nature. 
 I replied that it was ; but that, as I did not wish to 
 mislead him, I must say something more. Her 
 Majesty's Government had no intentions that were 
 otherwise than pacific, still less a Concert with other 
 Powers for any but pacific purposes. But the state 
 of things might change. The present overture of 
 Her Majesty's Government might be rejected, as the 
 representation of March 2 had been rejected, by 
 the Imperial Government.' If this meant anything 
 it threatened war in case of rejection. 
 
 Lord Russell's representations were rejected 
 politely but plainly. The resources of his eloquence 
 were then concentrated on demanding six definite 
 concessions. These were (1) an amnesty, (2) a 
 Representative System, (3) a Polish administration, 
 (4) Liberty of Conscience, (5) the use of the Polish 
 language, and (6) a regulation of the system of 
 Conscription. These six points were to be dealt 
 with at a Conference of the Powers which signed 
 the Treaty of Vienna. 
 
 Such a dispatch was in the nature of an Ultimatum, 
 and it was so regarded throughout Europe. The 
 traditional enthusiasm of the French for the Poles 
 was great ; and Napoleon III. seemed ready to 
 embark in a war in which he would have had the 
 whole of France behind him. When, however, the 
 British claim was treated by Prince Gortschakoff 
 with refusal and contempt, it appeared that Lord 
 Russell had shot his last bolt ; and nothing was 
 left but a humiliating retreat. One last effort was
 
 ENGLAND AND POLAND 261 
 
 indeed made to retrieve the situation. A final dis- 
 patch was launched containing the wonderful state- 
 ment that in the opinion of the British Government, 
 Russia had forfeited the title to Poland which she 
 had acquired by the Treaty of Vienna. ' When 
 the dispatch reached St. Petersburg it was shown 
 to Prince Gortschakoff before being formally pre- 
 sented. " You had better not present this con- 
 cluding sentence to me," is reported to have been 
 the Prince's brief but significant observation. The 
 hint was taken ; the dispatch was sent back to 
 England and submitted anew to the Foreign Sec- 
 retary. Doubtless with disgust, but bowing to his 
 inexorable destiny, he executed this new act of 
 self-abasement. The offending sentence was erased 
 by its author with the resolution of a Christian 
 martyr. In this form it was sent back to Russia ; 
 and it still bears as published to the world, in the 
 bald mutilation of the paragraph with which it 
 concludes and in the confusion of its dates, the marks 
 of its enforced and reluctant revision.' 1 
 
 Lord Salisbury was, as we all know, a strong 
 opponent of the Whig Ministry, but the quotations 
 from the Parliamentary Papers, apart from his 
 scathing comments, prove his case to the hilt. More- 
 over, the four pages in which the Polish episode is 
 treated by Mr. Spencer Walpole in his Life of Lord 
 Russell, do not set up a very plausible defence. To 
 bluster and then give in ; to excite fervent hopes 
 and then to disappoint them ; to threaten and then 
 to bow meekly before a note of warning such was 
 British foreign policy as practised by men whose 
 
 1 Essays on Foreign Politics, pp. 203-4.
 
 262 
 
 minds lived in the spacious days of British pre- 
 dominance, but whose military estimates were, to 
 a great extent, regulated by Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 It would be almost incredible were it not proved 
 to be the fact that Lord Russell learnt nothing from 
 the lesson of 1863. The Sleswig-Holstein question 
 found him equally truculent on paper and equally 
 impotent in fact. In one respect the question 
 was much simpler than that of Poland. By the 
 Treaty of London of May, 1852, the high con- 
 tracting Parties (Great Britain, Austria, France, 
 Prussia, Russia, Sweden, and Norway, on the one 
 part, and Denmark, on the other part) acknowledged 
 as permanent the principle of the integrity of the 
 Danish Monarchy. ' The Powers who signed that 
 treaty/ Lord Russell wrote (December 17, 1863), 
 ' must recollect that they bound themselves thereby 
 not to Denmark alone, but to Great Britain, France, 
 Russia, and Sweden . . . and that the declared object 
 and purpose of that treaty was not to regulate the 
 reciprocal relations of Denmark and Germany, but 
 to serve as an arrangement essential for the general 
 interests of Europe. 
 
 ' A violation of the engagements taken by Denmark 
 in 1851-2 is fair subject of complaint, and for which 
 redress may justly be demanded. But such viola- 
 tion cannot cancel a solemn European engagement 
 taken towards other parties. The promises made 
 by Denmark in January, 1852, regarding Holstein 
 and Sleswig may have been the prevailing motive 
 with Austria and Prussia for entering into the treaty 
 of May, 1852 ; but these Powers cannot with any
 
 THE SLESWIG-HOLSTEIN QUESTION 263 
 
 show of reason allege, as an excuse for not remaining 
 faithful to the obligations of that treaty, that their 
 expectations as to the fulfilment by Denmark of her 
 engagements (taken at another time in other docu- 
 ments) have been disappointed. 
 
 ' The whole foundations of the Treaty Stipulations 
 of Europe would be subverted if such a reason could 
 be admitted as an excuse for breaking a plain and 
 simple treaty engagement. Any Sovereign when 
 called upon to fulfil his engagements might say : 
 " My motive for concluding that Treaty with you 
 was that I had other engagements with one of the 
 parties of that Treaty. Those other engagements 
 have not been kept, and, therefore, my Treaty with 
 you will be null and void." 
 
 ' Her Majesty's Government are convinced that 
 the Court of Berlin will see that such a process of 
 reasoning, if admitted to be valid, might shake to 
 pieces any existing treaty. . . . Let it suffice at 
 present for Her Majesty's Government to declare 
 that they would consider any departure from the 
 Treaty of Succession of 1852 by Powers who signed 
 . . . that Treaty as entirely inconsistent with good 
 faith.' ! 
 
 It will be noted that the question is here argued 
 quite apart from the wrongs or rights of the Sleswig- 
 Holstein controversy ; nor indeed is it necessary to 
 enter into that Serbonian bog in order to pronounce 
 judgment upon the policy of Lord Russell. Robert 
 Morier, who maintained with great learning and 
 ability the justice of the German claim, was still far 
 from being convinced by ' the cynical sophistries of 
 
 1 Select Treaties and Documents, ed. by R. B. Mowat, pp.68-69.
 
 264 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 Bismarck.' l We know from their own mouths the 
 considerations affecting the German people with 
 regard to the question. A report of the Committee 
 of the House of Representatives in Berlin recognised, 
 in 1860, that ' without these Duchies an effectual 
 protection of the coasts of Germany and of the 
 North Sea is impossible.' The Reporter of another 
 Committee declared that ' the Duchies are for Ger- 
 many and Prussia a strong bulwark under all cir- 
 cumstances against any attack coming from the 
 North. This, as well as their maritime position, is 
 an advantage which Prussia can never relinquish.' 
 ' What interest,' said another distinguished German, 
 ' has Prussia in the maintenance of the London 
 Protocol ? Since the time of the great Elector 
 Prussian policy has always been rightly directed 
 towards gaining the north German Peninsula for 
 Germany.' 2 
 
 In the face of utterances such as these, it is not 
 uncharitable to suggest that the learned arguments 
 of Max Miiller and others to prove the justice of the 
 German case were so much dust thrown in the eyes 
 of an ignorant Europe. If the choice of the people 
 could decide, it would seem that Sleswig, with the 
 exception of certain German immigrants, would 
 certainly have thrown in its lot with Denmark, and 
 Holstein, in all probability, with Germany. But 
 they were solemnly dealt with as Siamese twins, who 
 would perish by being cut apart ; and because 
 Holstein no doubt belonged to the Germanic Con- 
 federation (though in no way to Prussia), Sleswig 
 
 1 Memoirs and Letters of Sir R. Morier, vol. i. p. 410. 
 
 2 Quoted by Lord Salisbury, op. cit. p. 72.
 
 THE SLESWIG-HOLSTEIN QUESTION 265 
 
 must also be drawn into the same political arrange- 
 ments. 
 
 Moreover, whatever may have been the rights of 
 the Germanic Confederation, Austria and Prussia, 
 as separate states, had no locus standi in the Sleswig- 
 Holstein controversy ; but it was Prussia and Austria, 
 not the Confederation, by whom the Gordian knot 
 was cut. 
 
 The lot of Denmark was indeed an unhappy one. 
 The first German interference in 1848 had been of a 
 genuinely nationalist character, the Germans in the 
 Duchies being anxious to share with their brethren 
 in the new revolutionary movement, whilst the 
 German Governments were not averse to using this 
 ground as a safety valve for the discontent seething 
 around them. In 1851 Austrian and Prussian troops 
 appeared upon the scene, to restore the authority 
 of the Danish King, upon terms. These terms 
 were the guarantee against the incorporation of 
 Sleswig with Denmark. The King had granted to 
 the Danes a liberal Constitution ; and it was the fear 
 of the influence such a Constitution might exer- 
 cise in Germany that led the reactionary Powers 
 to make the non-incorporation of Sleswig a condition 
 precedent to the restoration of Hoist ein. In this 
 state of things, anxious above all else to secure a 
 satisfactory settlement with regard to the succession 
 to the Danish throne, Denmark abandoned, if she 
 ever held, the idea of a homogeneous Danish king- 
 dom north of the Eyder, and agreed to the Austrian 
 conditions. The Imperial Government ' learnt with 
 satisfaction the resolution of H.M. the King of 
 Denmark to revive, not only in the Duchy of Sleswig
 
 266 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 but in that of Holstein, the institution of Provincial 
 Estates, which still largely exists ; and when H.M. 
 at the same time announces his intention of intro- 
 ducing an organic and homogeneous constitutional 
 connection of all the parts of the country into one 
 United Monarchy . . . the Imperial Court can only 
 recognise this intention of the King as being directed 
 to the fulfilment of a duty that cannot be declined. 
 
 ' H.M. the Emperor expresses his confident expec- 
 tation that the King, both in the future organisation 
 of the monarchy and in the provisional conduct of 
 affairs, will know how, with equal solicitude to all, 
 to preserve, by appropriate arrangements, to all the 
 various parts of the country the position which 
 belongs to them as members of a whole, in which no 
 part is subordinate to another. . . . The mainten- 
 ance of independent constitutional administrative 
 institutions in the various parts of the country, 
 without prejudice to the combined government of 
 their common affairs at the Centre, is, in our belief, 
 an indispensable condition of the establishment of 
 the internal tranquillity of the Monarchy.' l 
 
 So long as Sleswig was kept clear of Denmark the 
 Austrian Government was quite willing that the 
 political separation between the two Duchies should 
 be as marked as possible. The true meaning of the 
 Austrian attitude was brought out by the following 
 paragraph : 
 
 ' As H.M. the Emperor sincerely desires to see the 
 peace and prosperity of the Danish Monarchy estab- 
 lished as soon as possible by a definite organisation 
 adapted to its needs, he allows himself confidently 
 
 1 Quoted by Lord Salisbury, op. cit. pp. 98-9.
 
 THE SLESWIG-HOLSTEIN QUESTION 267 
 
 to hope that the Danish Government, in their efforts 
 towards the important end, will perhaps not give 
 an exclusive preference to those Institutions which 
 have been bestowed upon the Kingdom of Denmark 
 proper, but that they will keep before their eyes as 
 their sole sure guide the permanent relations of the 
 Collective Monarchy, and the object of strengthening 
 internally its union as a whole. Once at ease upon 
 this point, H.M. will not delay, in conjunction with 
 other friendly Powers, to exert himself to secure 
 that Union by an international guarantee of a 
 common succession.' 1 
 
 The meaning of this is clear enough. Once fall 
 into the line of the politics of the German Monarchies, 
 and we will treat you as one of ourselves. 
 
 But these undertakings were of necessity vague ; 
 and when the Danish Government proceeded to 
 endeavour to establish a moderate constitutional 
 system for the whole Monarchy, the Holstein 
 Estates (1853) met it with the non possumus ' that a 
 beneficial co-existence of all parts of the state could 
 not be obtained, except by the re-establishment of 
 an absolute government with only Consultative 
 assemblies in all parts of the Monarchy.' 2 In 1858 
 the Committee of the German Diet declared that the 
 Parliamentary Government of Denmark involved ' a 
 limitation of the liberty of action of the Royal Ducal 
 Government, scarcely reconcilable with the principles 
 of the Confederation.' 3 
 
 The Danish Government chose to persist in its 
 course ; and thenceforth all parties in Germany were 
 agreed in maintaining the German pretensions. 
 1 Ibid. pp. 102-3. z Ibid. p. 105. 3 Ibid.
 
 268 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 Because the Duchies had been promised equal treat- 
 ment, it was seriously maintained that the little 
 German duchy of Lauenburg should have equal 
 representation with Denmark proper in the Danish 
 Parliament. At last Denmark yielded so far as to 
 revoke the Constitution of 1855, to the extent of 
 not making it applicable to Holstein and Lauenburg. 
 But its enemies were not thus to be appeased. Ger- 
 man Nationalist feeling was running high ; and not 
 even the decision wholly to separate the government 
 of Denmark and Sleswig from that of the German 
 Duchies served to placate the enemy. From 1860 
 onwards the wrongs of Sleswig made their appearance 
 upon the scene. It was affirmed that a German 
 community was being oppressed and that Sleswig 
 was being incorporated with Denmark. Upon the 
 first point the British Minister at Copenhagen 
 reported, ' It appeared . . . that the populations of 
 the mixed districts were in many instances subject 
 to much petty annoyance and vexation on the part 
 of the subordinate officials of the Danish Govern- 
 ment ; that there was much discontent regarding 
 the language question ; but that there was no 
 inclination or desire, except on the part of some 
 individuals suspected of being agents of the German 
 party, for a junction with Holstein, and still less 
 with Germany. 1 
 
 The second question, with regard to the incorpora- 
 tion of Sleswig with Denmark, is much more difficult. 
 It is certain that the new Constitution of 1863 
 recognised the principle of administering common 
 affairs by a general Constitution, and provincial affairs 
 
 1 Quoted by Lord Salisbury, op. cit. pp. 121-2.
 
 THE SLESWIG-HOLSTEIN QUESTION 269 
 
 by a provincial Constitution ; and the Danes might 
 reasonably maintain that it fell under the provisions 
 of the Austrian undertaking to ' acknowledge the 
 full legitimacy of the endeavours (by proper modi- 
 fication or enlargement) to adapt the existing 
 political institutions of all parts of the Monarchy 
 to the organisation of the collective State to be 
 established in the future upon conservative prin- 
 ciples.' But, when the strong man is determined 
 to pick a quarrel with his weak neighbour, it was 
 not likely that such arguments should prevail ; and 
 the accession to the throne of Denmark of a new 
 dynasty in 1863 applied the match to the piled-up 
 timber. So far as the right of Christian IX. to 
 succeed also to the Duchies was concerned, the 
 question had on paper been set at rest by the direct 
 words of the Treaty of London, 1852, to which both 
 Prussia and Austria were parties ; but treaties 
 counted for little with German statesmen or German 
 nationalists. ' The London Treaty,' wrote the dis- 
 tinguished historian, Von Sybel, ' is contra bonos 
 mores. ... It proposes to rivet a German popu- 
 lation to the poisoned chain of Danish rule ' ; 1 and 
 whether or not Denmark was wise in all its doings, 
 it is extremely improbable that by any means it 
 could have averted the final consummation. 
 
 It should be noted, moreover, that although, by 
 the 5th Article of the Treaty of Prague (August 23, 
 1866), it was agreed that, under the transfer of 
 Austrian rights in Sleswig and Holstein to Prussia, 
 the inhabitants of Northern Sleswig were given the 
 right to be reunited to Denmark should they so 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 138.
 
 270 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 decide by a free vote, Prussia refused to carry out 
 this undertaking. 1 
 
 In this state of things, whilst Germany and Den- 
 mark stood on the brink of war and Lord Russell 
 was writing anxious and ingenious dispatches, Great 
 Britain put herself technically in the wrong by 
 refusing the suggestion of the French Emperor to 
 deal with the European situation by means of a 
 European Congress. No doubt the reasons which 
 led to this decision were sound ; but the fact of the 
 refusal none the less showed how vain and unreal a 
 thing had become the Concert of Europe. The 
 letter to the King of the Belgians, in which Lord 
 Palmerston explained his objections to the Congress, 
 is from our point of view of extreme interest : 
 
 ' The truth is that the assembling of a Congress 
 is not a measure applicable to the present state of 
 Europe. 
 
 'In 1815 a Congress was a necessity. France had 
 overrun all Europe, had overthrown almost all the 
 former territorial arrangements, and had established 
 a new order of things. Then came the returning 
 tide of the Allied armies overturning everything 
 which France had created, and establishing for the 
 moment military occupation of the greater part of 
 Europe. It was absolutely necessary to determine 
 when and in what proportions, and on what con- 
 ditions, the vast regions reconquered from France 
 should be thenceforward possessed. The Powers 
 whose armies bad made this reconquest were the 
 natural and, indeed, the only arbiters ; and they 
 
 1 The text of the Treaty is in Lett grands Traites Politiques, 
 par P. Albin, pp. 34-8.
 
 PALMERSTON ON A EUROPEAN CONGRESS 27 1 
 
 had, by their armies, the means of carrying their 
 decisions into effect. 
 
 ' Nothing of the kind exists in the present state of 
 Europe. There are no doubts as to who is the owner 
 of any piece of territory, and there are not even any 
 boundary questions in dispute. 
 
 ' The functions of a Congress, if now to be assembled, 
 might be twofold, and would bear either on the past 
 or on the future, or on both. Drouyn says tjiat the 
 Congress might take up the Treaties of 1815, go 
 through them article by article, strike out whatever 
 has been repealed or set aside, and re-enact the 
 remainder as the Treaty of 1863-4, the name of 
 which would be less disagreeable to France than 
 that of the Treaty of 1815, which brings to mind 
 Waterloo and St. Helena. This may be a natural 
 feeling for France ; but it is no good reason why all 
 the rest of Europe should meet round a table to 
 please the French nation ; and those who hold their 
 estates under a good title, now nearly half-a-century 
 old, might not be particularly desirous of having it 
 brought under discussion with all those alterations 
 which good-natured neighbours might wish to sug- 
 gest in their boundaries. 
 
 ' No doubt there have been some not unimportant 
 changes made in the territorial arrangements of 
 Europe established by the Treaty of 1815 ; but 
 some of these were made regularly by treaty at 
 the time, and the others, not so made, some of the 
 parties to the Congress might not like to sanction 
 by treaty acknowledgment. 
 
 ' Chief among the first class is the separation 
 of Belgium from Holland. . . . That transaction
 
 272 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 requires no confirmation. Chief among the second 
 class was the absorption of Cracow by Austria 
 without any treaty sanction ; and to that trans- 
 action the British Government, which protested 
 against it at the time, would not be greatly desirous 
 of giving retrospective sanction by treaty now. 
 Then come the cession of Lombardy to Italy, and 
 of Savoy and Nice to France. These were legally 
 made by the rightful owners of the ceded territory, 
 and no confirmation can be required. . . . 
 
 ' Then comes the absorption into the Kingdom of 
 Italy of Tuscany, Parma, Modena, Emilia, Naples 
 and Sicily. These were all violations of the Treaty 
 of Vienna done without treaty sanction ; but they 
 were the will of the people of those countries. Those 
 transactions have been virtually sanctioned by all 
 the Powers who have acknowledged the King of 
 Italy ; and if Victor Emmanuel is wise, he would 
 be content with leaving those matters as they are, 
 the more especially because if a new European 
 treaty were to describe the Kingdom of Italy as 
 it now is, that treaty would be a virtual renunciation 
 by the King of Italy to any claims to Venetia and 
 Rome. On the other hand, Austria and the Pope 
 would hardly be prepared to give their formal 
 sanction to the acquisitions made by the Italian 
 Kingdom. 
 
 ' As to the past, then, the functions of the Congress 
 would either be unnecessary or barred by insur- 
 mountable difficulties. But, then, as to the future ? 
 Would the Congress have to range over the wide 
 and almost endless extent of proposed and possible 
 changes, or would it have to confine itself to questions
 
 PALMERSTON ON A EUROPEAN CONGRESS 273 
 
 now practically pending ? There are but two such 
 questions : the one relating to Poland ; the other 
 to the difference between the German Confederation 
 and Denmark about Holstein and Lauenburg and 
 about Sleswig. As to Poland, would Russia be more 
 likely to yield to a Congress than she has shown 
 herself to be in a negotiation ? I much doubt it. 
 And as to the question between Germany and Den- 
 mark, a smaller machinery than a European Congress 
 might surely be sufficient to solve that question. 
 
 ' But if the Congress were to enter upon the wide 
 field of proposed and possible changes of territory, 
 what squabbles and animosities would ensue ! 
 Russia would ask to get back all she lost by the 
 Treaty of Paris ; Italy would ask for Venetia and 
 Rome ; France would plead geographically for the 
 frontier of the Rhine ; Austria would show how 
 advantageous it would be to Turkey to transfer to 
 Austria Bosnia or Moldo-Wallachia ; Greece would 
 have a word to say about Thessaly and Epirus ; 
 Spain would wonder how England could think of 
 retaining Gibraltar ; Denmark would say that Sles- 
 wig is geographically part of Jutland, and that as 
 Jutland is an integral part of Denmark, so ought 
 Sieswig to be so too ; Sweden would claim Finland ; 
 and some of the greater German States would strongly 
 urge the expediency of mediatising a score of the 
 smaller Princes. 
 
 ' If the members of the Congress should be 
 unanimous in agreeing to any of these proposals, 
 of course there would be no difficulty in carrying 
 a unanimous decision into effect ; but if a majority 
 were one way and a minority, however small, the
 
 274 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 other way, that minority, including the party by 
 which a Concession was to be made, is it intended 
 that force should be used, or is the Congress to remain 
 powerless to execute its own decrees ? 
 
 ' In the face of all these difficulties, my humble 
 opinion is that no Congress will meet ; and I shall 
 be glad to think that the Emperor will have mended 
 his position at home by making the proposal, while 
 its failure will have saved Europe from some danger 
 and much embarrassment.' J 
 
 This reasoning may be conclusive, and Napoleon 
 may have had ulterior designs with regard to Rome 
 of a dangerous character, still the fact remains that 
 the Concert of Europe was non-existent, and that if 
 treaty rights were to be maintained it must be by 
 the exertions of individual Powers. With the Polish 
 question fresh in their minds, it was not possible that 
 the Russian Government would be willing to co- 
 operate with England. That unfortunate affair had 
 produced its inevitable results. ' England,' ex- 
 claimed a Prussian deputy, ' is always full of con- 
 sideration for those that can defend themselves.' 
 
 ' The tension of the public mind,' our ambassador 
 reported from Frankfort, ' is very great, and I am 
 bound to say that there is a wonderful indifference 
 to our representations, while they are at the same 
 time resented as interfering with a cherished project. 
 There is an absolute persuasion that England will 
 not interfere materially, and our counsels regarded 
 as unfriendly have no weight.' 2 The French, too, 
 had learnt the same lesson. When Lord Russell 
 
 1 Life of Lord Palmerston, 1846-65, vol. ii. pp. 237-42. 
 
 2 Quoted by Lord Salisbury, op. tit. pp. 205-6.
 
 THE SLESWIG-HOLSTEIN QUESTION 275 
 
 proposed ' that England and France should remind 
 Austria, Prussia and the German Diet that any act 
 on their part, tending to weaken the integrity and 
 the independence of Denmark, would be at variance 
 with the treaty of May 8, 1852,' the French Govern- 
 ment replied : ' The mode of proceeding suggested 
 by your lordship would be in a great measure 
 analogous to the course pursued by Great Britain 
 and France on the Polish question. He had no 
 inclination (and he frankly avowed that he should 
 so speak to the Emperor) to place France in the same 
 position with reference to Germany as she had been 
 placed with regard to Russia. If France and Eng- 
 land were to address such a reminder as that proposed, 
 they must be prepared to go further.' 1 
 
 Undeterred by this snub, Lord Russell again made 
 proposals which received from the French Minister 
 the crushing reply : ' That he had not forgotten that 
 when Russia had been warned by France, Great 
 Britain and Austria of the responsibility which she 
 was incurring by her conduct towards Poland, 
 Prince Gortschakoff had replied, "That Russia was 
 ready to assume that responsibility before God and 
 man." He for one did not wish to provoke another 
 answer of the same sort to be received with the same 
 indifference.' 2 
 
 Meanwhile Palmerston wrote to Lord Russell : 
 ' Schleswig is no part of Germany, and its invasion 
 by German troops would be an act of war against 
 Denmark, which would in my clear opinion entitle 
 Denmark to our active military and naval support.' 3 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 208. * Ibid, pp. 208-9. 
 
 3 Life of Lord J. Russell, vol. ii. p. 388.
 
 276 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 And yet, when the Prime Minister could write thus, 
 we are solemnly assured that the Danish expectations 
 of help from England were due entirely to the action 
 of the English press and the unauthorised action of 
 private agents. The truth was that the Cabinet was 
 far from unanimous, and that the warlike proposals 
 of the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary seem 
 to have been overruled by the majority. Times had 
 changed, lamented Palmerston, from the days of 
 Pitt, when mediocrities surrounded a great man. 
 The rise in the intellectual level of the individual 
 members of the Cabinet made it more difficult to 
 secure their adhesion to any policy. 
 
 A little rift in the darkness appeared when the 
 various Powers agreed to attend a Conference in 
 London ; but in the circumstances its proceedings 
 were foredoomed to failure. 
 
 With regard to French co-operation it seems 
 pretty clear that, if we had taken the lead, they would 
 have followed ; but then the object for which they 
 would be fighting, the securing of the frontier of the 
 Rhine, might not be an object favoured by British 
 statesmen ; so that here there was undoubtedly 
 reason for pause. 1 
 
 Could statesmen have looked into the future, the 
 policy of Great Britain and France might well have 
 appeared to be the nipping in the bud of Prussian 
 pretensions, before they had dangerously developed. 
 But would a war thus undertaken have necessarily 
 met with success ? The Seven Weeks' War was soon 
 to show how strong already was Prussian military 
 
 1 See Lord Cowley's report of conversation with M. Rouher, 
 Life of Lord J. Russell, 1846-65, vol. ii. pp. 394-5.
 
 THE SLESWIG-HOLSTEIN QUESTION 277 
 
 power , and nothing less than the exertion of their whole 
 forces would have enabled France and Great Britain 
 to win. But would a war, undertaken at this time and 
 by the men who then governed, have been able to call 
 forth the whole energies of the country ? Assuredly a 
 war conducted, as had been the Crimean, against Prus- 
 sian efficiency would have shown strange surprises ; 
 and most probably a patched-up peace would have 
 completely failed in arresting the development of 
 Prussia. Moreover, there are strong moral objections 
 to a preventive war, such as the most honest among 
 the Germans admit that they undertook in 1914. 
 
 On. the general question how far we were bound 
 by treaty or by undertaking to assist Denmark, 
 the answer seems to be that, inasmuch as there was 
 no direct guarantee contained in the Treaty of 1852, 
 we were not bound to come to her aid. Neither does 
 there ever seem to have been a direct promise to 
 that effect. But Lord Russell's fussy and interfering 
 diplomacy undoubtedly led to the impression in 
 Denmark that England would intervene by arms 
 on her behalf ; so that no average Englishman can 
 look back on the history of the business without 
 shame. Lord Russell's biographer was not too 
 proud to call in aid Punch's cartoons when they 
 told in favour of his hero ; he carefully refrains from 
 mentioning the famous cartoon which depicted a 
 little boy chalking up impudent remarks and then 
 running away when a big policeman appears in 
 the background. It was, of course, true that we 
 had ' a right to take into consideration the duty, 
 honour and interests of this country, and not to 
 make that duty and that honour and those interests
 
 278 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 subordinate to interests of any foreign Power what- 
 ever.' But this begged the question how far our 
 previous conduct had really compromised our honour 
 in relation to Denmark. 
 
 Upon the whole the judgment of history seems to 
 support the scathing indictment of Disraeli : ' I 
 see that three results have accrued. The first is, 
 that the avowed policy of Her Majesty's Government 
 has failed. The second is, that our just influence in 
 the Councils of Europe has been lowered. Thirdly, 
 in consequence of our just influence in the Councils 
 of Europe being lowered, the securities for peace are 
 diminished. ... I need not, I think, trouble the 
 House with demonstrating that the Government 
 have failed in their avowed policy of upholding the 
 independence and integrity of Denmark. The first 
 result may be thrown aside. I come, therefore, to 
 the second. By the just influence of England in the 
 Councils of Europe I mean an influence contra- 
 distinguished from that which is obtained by intrigue 
 and secret understanding ; I mean the influence that 
 results from the conviction of Foreign Powers that 
 our resources are great, and that our policy is 
 moderate and steadfast. Since the settlement that 
 followed the great revolutionary war, England, who 
 obtained at that time as she deserved to do, for 
 she bore the brunt of the struggle who obtained at 
 that time all the fair objects of her ambition, has on 
 the whole followed a conservative foreign policy. I 
 do not mean by a conservative foreign policy a 
 policy that would disapprove still less oppose 
 the natural development of nations. I mean a 
 foreign policy interested in the tranquillity and
 
 DISRAELI ON BRITISH POLICY 279 
 
 prosperity of the world, the normal condition of 
 which is peace, and which does not ally itself with 
 the revolutionary party of Europe. Other countries 
 have their political systems and public objects, as 
 England had, though they may not have attained 
 them. She is not to look upon them with unreason- 
 able jealousy. The position of England in the 
 Councils of Europe is essentially that of a moderating 
 and mediatory power. Her interest and her policy 
 are, when changes are inevitable and necessary, to 
 assist so that these changes if possible may be 
 accomplished without war, or, if war occurs, that 
 its duration and asperity may be lessened. That is 
 what I mean by the just influence of England in the 
 Councils of Europe. It appears to me that that 
 just influence of England in the Councils of Europe 
 has been lowered. . . . Sir, it does appear to me 
 impossible to deny, under these circumstances, that 
 the just influence of England in the Councils of 
 Europe is lowered. And now I ask what are the 
 consequences. . . . The consequences are to use a 
 familiar phrase in the Despatches " most serious," 
 because in exact proportion as that influence is 
 lowered, the securities for peace are diminished. I 
 lay this down as a great principle, which cannot be 
 controverted, in the management of our foreign 
 affairs. If England is resolved upon a particular 
 policy, war is not probable. If there is, under these 
 circumstances, a cordial alliance between England 
 and France, war is most difficult ; but if there is 
 a thorough understanding between England, France 
 and Russia, war is impossible.' l 
 
 1 Selected Speeches, vol. ii. pp. 121-2.
 
 280 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 (Fortunate orator, who spoke before the days of an 
 all-powerful Germany.) 
 
 The peroration was one of Disraeli's finest efforts : 
 ' We will not threaten and then refuse to act. We 
 will not lure on our allies with expectations that we 
 do not fulfil. And, sir, if ever it be the lot of myself 
 or any public man with whom I have the honour to 
 act to carry on important negotiations on behalf of 
 this country ... I trust that we at least shall not 
 carry them on in such a manner that it will be our 
 duty to come to Parliament to announce to the 
 Country that we have no allies, and then declare 
 that England can never act alone. Sir, those are 
 words which ought never to have escaped the lips 
 of a British Minister. They are sentiments which 
 ought never to have occurred even to his heart. I 
 repudiate, I reject them. I remember there was a 
 time when England, with not a tithe of her present 
 resources, encountered a world in arms. And, Sir, 
 I believe now, if the occasion were fitting, if her 
 independence or her honour were assailed, or her 
 Empire endangered, I believe that England would 
 rise in the magnificence of her might, and struggle 
 triumphantly for those objects for which men live 
 and nations flourish. But I, for one, will never 
 consent to go to war to extricate Ministers from the 
 consequences of their own mistakes.' l 
 
 Disraeli was a consummate courtier ; and to this 
 may be to some extent due the distinctness with 
 which he made it manifest that he had not been in 
 favour of war with Germany. To Queen Victoria, 
 brooding in the sad isolation of her lonely widowhood, 
 
 8 Selected Speeches, vol. ii. pp. 126-7.
 
 QUEEN VICTORIA ON PRUSSIA 281 
 
 every opinion of her husband was naturally treasured 
 as a revelation from on high. 1 
 
 In February, 1864, the Queen wrote to Lord Gran- 
 ville : ' Lord Palmerston and the Emperor Nicholas 
 are the cause of all the present trouble by framing 
 that wretched Treaty of 1852.' 2 Again, in May : 
 ' All this naturally increases the feeling of distrust 
 with which Lord Russell has contrived to inspire 
 her.' 3 But the Prince Consort had assuredly been 
 no blind admirer of Prussia and its methods ; and 
 the last letter of the Queen on the Sleswig-Holstein 
 question, printed in Lord Granville's Life, runs : 
 ' Her Majesty thinks that it is quite right we should 
 not now mix ourselves up in the question, and that 
 Prussia should at least be made aware of what she 
 and her Government and every honest man iji 
 Europe must think of the gross and unblushing 
 violation of every assurance and pledge that she 
 had given, which Prussia has been guilty of.' 4 
 Apart from this, Queen Victoria was a great Con- 
 stitutional Monarch ; and, had her advisers been 
 agreed as to the necessity of war, she would have 
 acquiesced, however regretfully. 
 
 Lord Russell contented himself with issuing a 
 circular which solemnly recorded that ' all rights, old 
 and new, whether founded on the solemn compact 
 of Sovereigns or on the clear expression of the 
 popular will have been set at naught by the conven- 
 
 1 See a singularly striking and pathetic letter to the King of 
 the Belgians, Letters, vol. iii. p. 476. 
 
 2 Life of Lord Granville, by Lord E. Fitz Maurice, vol. i. 
 p. 459. 
 
 8 Ibid. p. 464. Ibid. p. 476.
 
 tion of Gaste^i\; and the dominion of force is the 
 sole power acknowledged and regarded.' 1 
 
 When the spoilers proceeded to quarrel among 
 themselves, the French and British Governments 
 at first endeavoured, by the proposal of a European 
 Congress, to settle the questions at issue. By a 
 protocol of the Conference of Paris (April 14, 1856), 
 the Plenipotentiaries had solemnly expressed the 
 wish that States between which any serious mis- 
 understandings may arise should, before appealing 
 to arms, have recourse, so far as circumstances 
 might allow, to the good offices of a friendly Power.' 2 
 
 Whatever may have been the inner truth, on the 
 surface Prussia was not averse to such friendly 
 interference from outside. It was Austria that 
 made a European settlement impossible, by excluding 
 from discussion the question of any fresh territorial 
 arrangements, thus stereotyping the status quo in 
 Italy, and by transferring to the German Diet the 
 whole subject of the Elbe Duchies. 
 
 The holding of a Congress or Conference was 
 accordingly made impossible, but Lord Clarendon 
 placed on record the willingness of the British 
 Government ' at all times ... to contribute to the 
 utmost of their ability ... to the readjustment not 
 only of the questions which now divide the litigant 
 States, but of any others which may arise between 
 them in the prosecution of hostilities.' 3 
 
 More drastic methods had, indeed, found advo- 
 cates. Queen Victoria, who had been the mainstay 
 of the peace party in 1864, was now in favour of 
 
 1 Hertslett, The Map of Europe by Treaty, vol. iii. p. 1645. 
 
 2 Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 1277-9. 3 Ibid. vol. iii, pp. 1655-85.
 
 POLICY OF QUEEN VICTORIA AND RUSSELL 283 
 
 intervention against Prussia. ' I send you,' wrote 
 Lord Russell to Lord Clarendon (March 30, 1866), 
 ' a Memorandum written at her desire. It proposes 
 clearly to interfere by force against Prussian designs 
 in the Duchies. Agreeing fully in the iniquity of 
 the war undertaken by Prussia in the pretence of 
 delivering the Duchies from Danish oppression and 
 converted into a forcible appropriation of the Duchies 
 to aggrandise Prussia, I cannot acquiesce in the 
 proposed course.' x A little later, however, we find 
 Russell writing (May 17) : ' We cannot go to war 
 with 2 Austria, because she defends herself in 
 Venetia ; but we can promise her, in case she gives 
 up Venetia for twenty or thirty million sterling, 
 to give her moral, diplomatic, and, if necessary, 
 material aid in her quarrel in Sleswig-Holstein.' 
 Austria, he explained, was wrong in Italy, right in 
 Germany. 3 
 
 With the resignation of Lord Russell in 1866, 
 it seemed as though British foreign policy would 
 fall into new channels. Lord Stanley, the Foreign 
 Secretary, in the short-lived Conservative admini- 
 stration (1866-8), was at heart a disciple of the 
 Manchester School ; and Mr. Gladstone, who 
 now dominated the Liberal party, had had little 
 sympathy with many of the proceedings of his 
 veteran colleagues, and, except on occasions when 
 his whole nature was deeply stirred, regarded 
 ' peace, retrenchment and reform ' as a sufficient 
 ' credo ' for civilised men. And yet, what do we 
 
 1 Life of Lord Clarendon, vol. ii. p. 311. 
 
 2 I.e. Along with. 3 Ibid. p. 312.
 
 284 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 find ? The community of European interests was 
 so inevitable that statesmen, who would naturally 
 have desired to bask in the sunshine of insular 
 estrangement from continental entanglements, found 
 themselves involved in the bustle of treaty obliga- 
 tions. When Lord Stanley's name was submitted 
 to the Queen as Foreign Secretary, she commented, 
 ' May Lord Stanley not be inclined to go too far in 
 the line of non-intervention ? ' * and subsequent 
 events proved that there was force in the criticism. 
 Lord Stanley, however, was still under the influence 
 of his powerful colleague, who had his own views on 
 questions of foreign policy. Those views were too 
 much tinged with party possessions ; but they were 
 none the less genuine. ' Non-intervention might 
 have been successfully opposed to Palmerston,' 
 Disraeli wrote on September 1, 1866, ' but it is 
 impossible for us to gain any popularity in this wise 
 which could not be obtained in a greater degree by 
 Gladstone.' The danger was, lest the Tories should 
 be ' colourless, neither Cobdenite nor imperial ; a 
 little more expensive than Gladstone, and not a 
 whit more glorious and national.' 2 
 
 There was, indeed, good reason, had they known 
 it, why British statesmen had every need for special 
 courage and wisdom. In 1866 a secret treaty was 
 discussed between France and Prussia by which, 
 under certain eventualities, in case the emperor of 
 the French should be led by circumstances to cause 
 his troops to enter Belgium or to conquer it, the 
 King of Prussia should ' grant armed aid to France ' 
 and ' support her with all his forces, military and 
 
 1 Life of Disraeli, vol. iv. p. 443. 2 Ibid. p. 468.
 
 ENGLAND AND BELGIUM 285 
 
 naval, in the face of and against every other Power 
 which should in this eventuality declare war.' 1 
 
 From our point of view it matters nothing whether 
 the perfidy was Napoleon's, or whether, as seems 
 likely, the crafty Bismarck acted as agent provocateur 
 to the foolish Frenchman. 2 The result in either case 
 would have been the same, the isolation of England 
 and the settlement of the Belgian question, behind 
 the back, not only of Great Britain, but of the people 
 of Belgium. 
 
 Disraeli heard ' from a first-rate quarter ' news of 
 the proposal ; but Lord Stanley took the easy line 
 of dismissing the whole story as a canard ; 3 and told 
 Disraeli in the following April : ' I am ready to go 
 as far as may be necessary in support of Belgium, 
 short of giving an absolute pledge to fight for its 
 independence. Suppose we gave such a pledge, that 
 France and Prussia came to an understanding, 
 Russia and Austria standing aloof, where should 
 we be ? ' Well may Mr. Buckle comment : ' It was 
 a prudent rather than a generous or even a states- 
 manlike view. According to general belief we had 
 given such a pledge ; in any case, it was the tradi- 
 tional policy of England not to permit the Low 
 Countries to be controlled by a dominant military 
 Power.' 4 
 
 Contrast with Stanley's hesitating language the 
 
 1 Life of Lord Qranville, vol. ii. pp. 39-40 ; Life of Lord Lyons, 
 by Lord Newton, pop. ed., pp. 214-5. 
 
 2 In November, 1867, the Queen of Holland wrote to Lord 
 Clarendon that Louis Napoleon had told her that Bismarck had 
 invited him to take Belgium (Life of Lord Clarendon, vol. ii. 
 p. 339). 
 
 3 Life of Disraeli, vol. iv. p. 469. 4 Ibid. p. 471.
 
 286 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 firm line taken by Queen Victoria. ' Prussia,' 
 General Charles Grey wrote on her behalf, in July, 
 1867, ' isn't likely to violate either the neutrality of 
 Luxemburg or the independence of Belgium indeed 
 she has no interest to do so unless she sees reason to 
 believe that England means her guarantee of both these 
 objects to remain a dead letter ; in 'which case she might 
 think it to her interest to come to an agreement with 
 France fatal to the independence of the rest of Europe. 
 . . . The Queen is confirmed in her opinion of the 
 expediency of our acting firmly on a well-defined and 
 well -understood principle of foreign policy by the 
 result of our intervention on the Luxemburg question. 
 It is not only that peace was preserved chiefly by 
 our means, but that our action on that question went 
 far towards restoring to England the prestige there 
 can be no doubt she had lost. It is neither for our 
 national credit nor for the interest of the world that 
 we should again fall into the state of absolute dis- 
 regard from which we have now partially recovered. 
 H.M. will, therefore, strongly urge the necessity of 
 your giving your best attention to our whole system 
 of foreign policy, so as to secure to England the 
 respect and influence due to her as the Power who, 
 above all others, can have no ambitious views of 
 her own, nor any interest but in the preservation of 
 peace.' l 
 
 The facts with regard to the Luxemburg question 
 were as follows. Luxemburg had been a member 
 of the Germanic Confederation, but its Grand Duke 
 was the King of Holland, from whose Dutch 
 dominions it was altogether separated. With the 
 
 1 Life of Disraeli, vol. iv. p. 473.
 
 THE LUXEMBURG QUESTION 287 
 
 dissolution of the Germanic Confederation, after the 
 defeat of Austria by Prussia, the status of Luxemburg 
 was in doubt. It was garrisoned by Prussian troops, 
 and these seemed a menace to France. Napoleon 
 III. opened negotiations for the sale by Holland 
 of the Grand Duchy to France ; Prussia naturally 
 resented this course ; and for a time war seemed 
 imminent. ' As the Grand-Duchy had been guar- 
 anteed to the King of Holland by a Treaty, in 1839, 
 to which Great Britain with the other Great Powers 
 was a party, this country was directly interested ; 
 and the Queen's personal intervention and Stanley's 
 urgent efforts prevailed to make both sides reason- 
 able.' l 
 
 With regard to Luxemburg, Stanley rightly saw 
 that its neutralisation was ' the one indispensable 
 condition of peace ' ; but he was very reluctant to 
 give the guarantee which would alone make neutral- 
 isation effect ive. The Queen could not understand 
 this hesitation. ' We are already parties to the 
 guarantee of Belgian neutrality and independence,' 
 wrote General Grey on her behalf to Disraeli on 
 May 5, ' and to extend the guarantee of neutrality 
 to Luxemburg does not seem to entail upon us any 
 great additional responsibility .' Her Majesty's argu- 
 ments, which Disraeli reinforced, prevailed ; and at 
 a conference in London in May a treaty was signed 
 by which the Duchy was neutralised, under the 
 guarantee of the Powers, and the Prussian garrison 
 withdrawn. Stanley was very insistent in the House 
 of Commons that the guarantee was a collective and 
 not a separate one ; that the liability was limited, 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 470.
 
 288 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 and amounted rather to a moral sanction than to a 
 contingent liability to go to war. Derby laboured 
 the same point in the House of Lords. Under a col- 
 lective guarantee, he said, if there was a difference 
 of opinion among the guarantors, no one party was 
 called upon to take the duty of enforcing it. Both 
 statesmen had in view the contingency which Stanley 
 had discussed in writing to Disraeli, of France and 
 Prussia combining to violate the treaty. But their 
 language was unfortunate. The real point was : 
 would England assist France or Prussia to support 
 the neutrality of Luxemburg if the others proceeded 
 to violate it ? As the Queen and Disraeli under- 
 stood the treaty, the answer was, yes.' 1 
 
 The best that Disraeli could say for Stanley was 
 that, 'although ... of a reserved and rather 'morose 
 temper . . . he is really au fond truthful and impartial; 
 and if convinced that he has erred or miscalculated 
 is never blind to the result, and, often unavowedly, 
 and to a certain degree perhaps unconsciously, will 
 assuredly modify his conduct. So, in the present 
 state of affairs, it is far from improbable that Lord 
 Stanley will ultimately be the Minister who will 
 destroy, and shatter to pieces, the decaying theory 
 and system of non-interference.' 2 The wish was 
 doubtless father to the thought ; otherwise the 
 prophecy must be dismissed as singularly unfor- 
 tunate. 
 
 Upon the defeat of Disraeli's Government in 1868, 
 Lord Clarendon became Foreign Secretary in Glad- 
 stone's Ministry. He was, according to Mr. Glad- 
 
 1 Life of Disraeli, vol. iv. pp. 471-2. - Ibid. pp. 473-4.
 
 GLADSTONE ON BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY 289 
 
 stone, ' the only living British statesman whose name 
 carried any influence in the Councils of Europe. 
 Only eighteen or twenty months remained to him ; 
 they were spent in useful activity.' l Lord Morley 
 prints a very interesting letter of Mr. Gladstone to 
 General Grey, which expresses his considered views 
 on the general subject of foreign policy. 
 
 ' I do not believe that England ever will or can 
 be unfaithful to her great tradition, or can forswear 
 her interest in the common transactions and the 
 general interests of Europe. But her credit and her 
 power form a fund, which, in order that they may 
 be made the most of, should be thriftily used. 
 
 ' The effect of the great revolutionary war was to 
 place England in a position to rely upon the aid of 
 her own resources. This was no matter of blame 
 to either party ; it was the result of a desperate 
 struggle of over twenty years, in which every one 
 else was down in his turn, but England was ever on 
 her feet ; in which it was found that there was no 
 ascertained limit either to her means or to her dis- 
 position to dispense them ; in which, to use the 
 language of Mr. Canning, her flag was always flying 
 " a signal of rallying to the combatant, and of shelter 
 to the fallen." The habit of appeal and of reliance, 
 thus engendered by peculiar circumstances, requires 
 to be altered by a quiet and substantial, though not 
 a violent, process. For though Europe never saw 
 England faint away, we know at what a cost of 
 internal danger to all the institutions of the country 
 she fought her way to the perilous eminence on 
 which she undoubtedly stood in 1815. 
 
 1 Life of Gladstone, vol. i. pp. 888-9. 
 E.F.P. T
 
 290 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 ' If there is a fear abroad that England has forever 
 abjured a resort to force other than moral force, is 
 that fear justified by facts ? In 1853, joining with 
 France, we made ourselves the vindicators of the 
 peace of Europe ; and ten years later, be it remem- 
 bered, in the case of Denmark, we offered to perform 
 the same office, but we could get no one to join us. 
 Is it desirable that we should go further ? Is Eng- 
 land so uplifted in strength above every other nation 
 that she can with prudence advertise herself as 
 ready to undertake the general redress of wrongs ? 
 Would not the consequences of such professions and 
 promises be either the premature exhaustion of her 
 means, or a collapse in the day of performance ? Is 
 any Power at this time of day warranted hi assur- 
 ing this comprehensive obligation ? Of course the 
 answer is, no. But do not, on the other hand, 
 allow it to be believed that England will never 
 interfere. For the eccentricities of other men's 
 belief no one can answer ; but for any reasonable 
 belief in such an abnegation on the part of England, 
 there is no ground whatever. As I understand Lord 
 Clarendon's ideas . . . they proceed upon such grounds 
 as these : That England should keep entire in her 
 own hands the means of estimating her own obliga- 
 tions upon the various states of facts as they arise ; 
 that she should not foreclose and narrow her own 
 liberty of choice by declarations made to other 
 Powers, in their own or supposed interests, of which 
 they would claim to be at least joint interpreters ; 
 that it is dangerous for her to assume alone an 
 advanced, and therefore an isolated, position in 
 regard to European controversies ; that, come what
 
 GLADSTONE ON BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY 291 
 
 may, it is better for her to promise too little than 
 too much ; that she should not encourage the weak 
 by giving expectations of aid to resist the strong, 
 but should rather seek to deter the strong, by firm 
 but moderate language, from aggressions on the 
 weak ; that she should seek to develop and mature 
 the action of a common, or public, or European 
 opinion, as the best standing bulwark against wrong, 
 but should beware of seeming to lay down the law 
 of that opinion by her own authority, and thus 
 running the risk of setting against her, and against 
 right and justice, that general sentiment which 
 ought to be, and generally would be, arrayed in 
 their favour. I am persuaded that at this junc- 
 ture opinions of this colour, being true and sound, 
 are also the only opinions which the country is 
 disposed to approve. But I do not believe that on 
 that account it is one whit less disposed than it has 
 been at any time to cast in its lot upon any fitting 
 occasion with the cause it believes to be right.' * 
 
 The statement of general principles is compara- 
 tively easy ; the difficulty lies in their application, 
 and the moment was soon to come when the Govern- 
 ment's capacity for courage and statesmanship would 
 be severely tested. In 1 869 the purchase by a French 
 Company of the Luxemburg Railway again raised 
 the alarm of French designs upon Belgium. The 
 King of the Belgians was seriously perturbed ; and 
 General Grey wrote for Queen Victoria to Lord 
 Clarendon that she had ' invariably expressed the 
 strongest opinion that England was bound, not only 
 by the obligations of treaties, but by interests of 
 
 1 Ibid. pp. 951-2.
 
 292 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 vital importance to herself, to maintain the integrity 
 and independence as well as the neutrality of Belgium ; 
 and that the best security for these essential objects 
 would be found in the knowledge that any pro- 
 ceedings which seemed to threaten their violation 
 would bring England at once into the field.' l 
 
 Mr. Gladstone soon after informed the French 
 Government that ' the independence of Belgium was 
 an object of the first interest to the mind of the 
 British people ' ; and ' that the suspicion even of 
 an intention on the part of France to pay less 
 respect to the independence of Belgium than to the 
 independence of England would at once produce a 
 temper in the country which would put an end to 
 the good understanding and useful and harmonious 
 co-operation of the two governments.' 2 
 
 ' Bismarck,' wrote Lord Clarendon, ' is biding his 
 time quietly. If France annexes Belgium and we 
 take no part he will be delighted, as France could 
 no longer complain of Prussian aggrandisement. If 
 we do take a part, he would be equally delighted at 
 the rupture between England and France, and would 
 come to our assistance. Either way he thinks 
 Prussia would gain.' 3 
 
 In fact it would seem that Napoleon III.'s real 
 designs were not otherwise than peaceful ; but he 
 was playing a dangerous game. A man broken in 
 health, though making a brave show, he was sur- 
 rounded by schemers and intriguers ; and there was 
 the fatal need of maintaining the Napoleonic legend, 
 by paper, if not by blood and treasure. 
 
 1 Life of Lord Lyons, p. 148. z Ibid. pp. 148-9. 
 
 Ibid. p. 151.
 
 BISMARCK AND DISARMAMENT 293 
 
 What was the true temper of the French Govern- 
 ment was shown by an episode which has obtained 
 little notice. 
 
 A proceeding by Lord Clarendon in the beginning 
 of 1870, whether wise or unwise, at least proved 
 that selfish isolation was not the attitude of British 
 Ministers. Without consulting his colleagues, except 
 Mr. Gladstone, Lord Clarendon, at the request 
 of the French Government, urged Bismarck to 
 agree to a simultaneous measure of disarmament 
 along with France. The proposal naturally met 
 with complete failure, and Lord Clarendon might 
 as well have appealed to the advancing tide to retire. 
 Bismarck pertinently asked what British statesmen 
 would say, were they asked to limit their fleet ? and 
 a few months were to throw a grim light on what 
 Lord Clarendon considered ' unnecessary ' forces. 
 
 It is curious that, neither in Bismarck's Remini- 
 scences nor in Busch's calculated indiscretions, is 
 there any allusion to this proposal. The explanation 
 may be that , with all his faults, Bismarck was human ; 
 and, when he met with respect and appreciation, 
 genuinely reciprocated those feelings. Thus, though, 
 as a politician, he may sometimes have hoodwinked 
 Lord Odo Russell, as a man he gave him his cordial 
 friendship. In spite of his brutal ways, he was 
 himself very sensitive ; and what especially grated 
 on him was the ignorant superciliousness of lesser 
 men. 1 
 
 In 1870 the acceptance by a prince of the Hohen- 
 
 1 Lord Stanley, when Foreign Secretary, on one occasion spelt 
 Bismarck's name 'Bismark.' Ibid. p. 113. On the secret pro- 
 posals for disarmament, see Ibid. pp. 169-96
 
 294 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 zollern family of the throne of Spain was resented 
 by the French as an outrage. The candidature was, 
 however, withdrawn ; and had Napoleon III. fol- 
 lowed the road of safety, he would have consigned 
 as quickly as possible to oblivion so dangerous a 
 subject. Instead, claims were put forward cal- 
 culated to wound Prussia's susceptibilities. Bis- 
 marck, who held that the time had come for the 
 assertion by Germany of her proper place in the 
 European system, saw his opportunity ; and, by 
 tampering with a telegram received from the King, 
 made the outbreak of war inevitable. 1 
 
 To this extent Bismarck may be called the author 
 of the war ; though the weakness of Napoleon III. 
 and the bluster of his Ministers gave him his oppor- 
 tunity. History presents few sadder spectacles than 
 the last months of Napoleon's rule. A man broken 
 in health and vigour, this restless schemer entered 
 upon war without an ally. 2 The nephew of the 
 great Napoleon waged war with soldiers, the soles of 
 whose boots were of paper, and whose armament 
 was altogether inferior to that of the Prussians. In 
 this state of things there could only be one issue. No 
 individual general may have been a traitor ; but 
 there was a real truth behind the vague complaints 
 
 1 Bismarck, Reflections and Reminiscences of, Engl. trans., 
 vol. ii. p. 96, note, and p. 99. 
 
 2 This was, however, perhaps not due to any fault of Napoleon 
 III. There seems good ground for the view that Austria had 
 entered into undertakings which she failed to fulfil. Beust 
 wrote on July 20, 1870, ' Faithful to our engagements as laid 
 down in the letters exchanged last year between our Emperors, 
 we consider the cause of France our own, and will as far as 
 possible contribute to the success of her arms.' (The Present 
 Position of European Politics (1887), by Sir C. Dilke, pp. 241 
 and 366-7.)
 
 ENGLAND AND BELGIUM 295 
 
 that France had been betrayed. What individual 
 valour or elan could effect was done ; and, when her 
 regular armies were put out of action, France main- 
 tained for some time a heroic, if unprofitable, 
 resistance. Bismarck and the Prussians mistook for 
 permanent national decadence the temporary and 
 accidental dry-rot of a vicious system ; and the 
 German General Staff, by insisting on the cession 
 of Alsace and Lorraine, secured that in any future 
 grouping of the European Powers, France and 
 Germany should always remain in permanent 
 opposition. 
 
 These things, however, belonged to a later date. 
 When the war was threatening, the immediate danger 
 zone was, from the point of view of Great Britain, 
 the position of Belgium. In order to inflame Euro- 
 pean, and especially British, public opinion against 
 France, Bismarck published to the world, through 
 the medium of the Times Paris correspondent, the 
 text of the proposed treaty regarding Belgium men- 
 tioned above. In this difficult position of affairs 
 Lord Granville acted with promptitude and judg- 
 ment. Instead of wasting time in useless complaint, 
 he at once availed himself of the opportunity offered 
 by the anxiety of both parties to exclaim, ' Thou 
 canst not say I did it.' 
 
 ' As each party,' writes Lord Fitz Maurice, ' was 
 trying to throw the responsibility of the draft treaty 
 on the other, both thereby placed themselves in the 
 position of having to show the most extreme eager- 
 ness to accept the invitation which Lord Granville 
 at once addressed to them to join in a treaty which, 
 while maintaining all the guarantees of 1839 in
 
 296 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 regard to Belgium, gave a new and special guarantee 
 to her territorial integrity. Separate treaties to that 
 effect were accordingly signed on August 9, 1870, 
 between her Majesty on the one side and the King of 
 Prussia and the Emperor of the French on the other, 
 to continue during the war and for twelve months 
 afterwards. At a slightly later date, an analogous 
 arrangement was made in regard to Luxemburg.' l 
 
 ' The publication of the treaty/ wrote Gladstone 
 to Bright, ' has thrown upon us the necessity either 
 of doing something fresh to secure Belgium, or else 
 of saying that under no circumstances would we take 
 any steps to secure her from absorption. This pub- 
 lication has wholly altered the feeling of the House 
 of Commons, and no Government could at this mo- 
 ment venture to give utterance to such an intention 
 about Belgium. But neither do we think it would 
 be right, even if it were safe, to announce that we 
 would in any case sit by with folded arms, and see 
 actions done which would amount to a total extinc- 
 tion of public right in Europe.' 2 
 
 In reply to remonstrances from Bright, whose 
 individualist creed naturally recoiled from the vindi- 
 cation of European rights, Gladstone wrote : ' You 
 will, I am sure, give me credit for good faith when 
 I say, especially on Lord Granville's part as on my 
 own, who are most of all responsible, that we take 
 this step in the interest of peace. . . . The recom- 
 mendation sent up in opposition to it generally is, 
 that we should simply declare we will defend the 
 neutrality of Belgium by arms, in case it should be 
 
 1 Life of Lord Oranville, vol. ii. pp. 41-2. 
 
 2 Life of Gladstone, vol. i. p. 975.
 
 BRITISH NEUTRALITY 297 
 
 attacked. Now the sole or single-handed defence 
 of Belgium would be an enterprise which we incline 
 to think quixotic ; if these two great military Powers 
 combined against it that combination is the only 
 serious danger ; and this it is which by our proposed 
 engagements we should, I hope, render improbable 
 to the very last degree. I add, for myself, this con- 
 fession of faith . If the Belgian people desire, on their 
 own account, to join France or any other country, I 
 for one will be no party to taking up arms to prevent 
 it. But that the Belgians, whether they would or 
 not, should go " plump " down the maw of another 
 country, to satisfy dynastic greed, is another matter. 
 The accomplishment of such a crime as this implies 
 would come to an extinction of public right in 
 Europe, and I do not think we could look on while 
 the sacrifice of freedom and independence was in 
 course of consummation.' x 
 
 Both Germany and France bitterly complained 
 of the action of England during the war. What each 
 really seemed to expect was that British neutrality 
 should be ' benevolent,' where their interests were 
 concerned, a contradiction in terms, unknown to 
 international law. Bismarck pretended to believe 
 that England should have prevented the war, by 
 bringing pressure upon France, and France con- 
 sidered that, by attempting to circumscribe the area 
 of hostilities, England had shown herself hostile. 
 In fact, there was no reason why England should 
 have played the decoy duck to Bismarck ; and if 
 France was left without allies, the reason lay else- 
 where than in the suggestions of British Ministers. 
 1 Ibid. p. 976.
 
 298 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 Few at this time of day will be found to agree with 
 Morier, who held that England had covered herself 
 with disgrace by not announcing to Napoleon that, 
 in case he went to war, he would have against him 
 England as well as Germany. Apart from the 
 morality of such a course which is very doubtful, it 
 may be urged that, on the ground of expediency, 
 such interference, even if it had met with immediate 
 success, would ultimately have precipitated the 
 Belgian question, and brought about that ' deal ' 
 between France and Bismarck which haunted the 
 thoughts of the more prescient British statesmen. 
 
 ' We pressed as strongly as possible upon the Em- 
 peror,' wrote Lord Granville (in 1880), ' that he had 
 no cause for war with Germany. When he declared 
 it, we announced our neutrality with the full consent 
 of Parliament and the country. The French now 
 complain, as they did then, naturally but not reason- 
 ably, that we did not come to their help when they 
 were down. They say we did not even interfere 
 to prevent the bombardment of Paris. We did 
 indirectly try to prevent it ; but how could we 
 have officially insisted, without a total abandon- 
 ment of our neutrality, that the victorious 
 Germans were not to do so, when the French 
 Government declared their irrevocable decision 
 not to yield a stone of a fortress or an inch of 
 territory ? 
 
 ' When peace was made, we remonstrated on the 
 enormous indemnity claimed by the Germans. After 
 we had done so, that indemnity was considerably 
 reduced. We cannot say whether it was done in 
 consequence of our remonstrances or not, or merely
 
 BRITISH NEUTRALITY 299 
 
 after them, but the French Ambassador thanked us 
 for the service we rendered. 
 
 ' The great complaint of the French is that we cir- 
 cumscribed the war. This was no injury to France ; 
 for, if Austria had joined her, Russia would have 
 joined Germany, and the conflagration would have 
 been general. In any case this was no proof of our 
 inactivity and indifference.' 1 
 
 There was some difference of opinion between 
 Granville and Gladstone on the question whether 
 the British Government should declare their views 
 on the conditions of peace. 2 Gladstone and Goschen 
 were in favour of doing so ; Granville was on the 
 other side, and carried the day. His objection was, 
 that it was impossible to do so ' without being con- 
 sidered to throw our weight into the French side 
 against Germany, with consequent encouragement 
 on one side or on the other. Palmerston wasted the 
 strength derived by England from the great war by 
 his brag. I am afraid of our wasting that which we 
 at present derive from moral causes, by laying down 
 general principles when nobody will attend to them, 
 and when in all probability they will be dis- 
 regarded.' 3 Given the character of Bismarck, 
 nothing is more certain that moral lectures might 
 have done harm and could not possibly have done 
 any good. 
 
 1 Life of Lord Granvitte, vol. ii. p. 70. 
 * Ibid. p. 62. 3 Ibid. p. 63.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE NEW EUROPE AND ITS PROBLEMS. 1871-1900 
 
 HOWEVER successfully the immediate pitfalls may 
 have been avoided, the result of the Franco-German 
 War embarked Europe upon an unknown sea, where 
 the old bearings could no longer help. ' There is no 
 longer a Europe,' Count Beust is reported to have 
 said ; and in any case, instead of a Europe wherein 
 Prussia was the humble jackal of Russia or of Austria, 
 a new Europe had evolved, wherein Germany would 
 claim a pre-eminent position. Unfortunately the 
 German problem had been always ignored or mis- 
 understood by British statesmen. Whereas Italian 
 unity had appealed to the hearts and sympathies of 
 most generous Englishmen, the idea of a united 
 Germany left the English practical man or theorist 
 singularly cold. 
 
 In 1860, at the request of Lord John Russell, the 
 Prince Consort wrote a Memorandum on the general 
 German situation. It is unnecessary to enter here 
 into the details of his diagnosis, because the course 
 of the subsequent history ran in another direction. 
 But his remarks regarding Prussia and English views 
 with regard to her are still of interest. 'Austria and 
 Prussia, as European Powers, were admitted as two
 
 THE PRINCE CONSORT ON GERMANY 301 
 
 out of the five great arbiters of Europe, and are by 
 implication supposed to represent the interests of 
 Germany when those are affected. The minor States, 
 dreading the moral and national (German) power of 
 Prussia, have transferred their old allegiance from 
 Napoleon to Austria, in the assurance that she has 
 the same interest which he had to maintain their 
 quasi-independence, and keep Germany divided. . . . 
 
 ' The Austrian policy is still identically the same 
 which it was in the time of the Holy Roman Empire ; 
 caring nothing for Germany, but much for her in- 
 fluence over it which she exercises through the minor 
 States, and the priests who are hostile to political 
 and religious progress of any kind. . . . 
 
 ' The dissatisfaction of the German nation at the 
 fact of its internal development being stinted, but, 
 above all, at being reduced to a non-entity in Europe, 
 and, more than that, at being at the mercy of the 
 other European nations, and particularly of her 
 natural enemy, France, is the main feeling which 
 caused the Revolution of 1848, and is even now 
 working deeply in the public mind. The events of the 
 last year have shown how helpless Germany is in its 
 divided state, and how broken down is the power of 
 Austria. As the minor States and the national 
 feeling throughout Germany were ready and de- 
 manded to support Austria in her late struggle with 
 France, and even to sacrifice themselves for her, and 
 were only prevented from doing so by the opposition 
 of Prussia, increased hatred towards her, whom 
 they make responsible for their present helplessness 
 and danger, is the immediate and natural conse- 
 quence. As Austria is at the same time no longer
 
 302 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 able to protect them, their natural tendencies must 
 drive them towards France. ... If Prussia chose 
 to act the perfidious part towards the other States 
 of Germany, which Sardinia has just acted towards 
 her neighbours, she could hi a short time, by pre- 
 tending to be the violent advocate of an advanced 
 Liberal policy, by undermining in their own States 
 the different small Governments, which are not 
 free from many sins, and by conspiring against them 
 with the Radical party, bring about at the same 
 time their destruction by revolution and the union 
 of those States under her own sceptre. The Prus- 
 sian royal family, however, is too timid to play so 
 bold a game, too honourable to play so false an one. 
 No one can object to the latter consideration, and 
 with regard to the former it must be borne in mind 
 that Prussia has no chance of finding an ally like 
 the one who did the work of Sardinia, and would 
 probably have France, Russia and Austria fighting 
 against her, and even England hostile. 
 
 ' Where Prussia is to blame, however, is that she, 
 from whom alone salvation can come for Germany, 
 has no fixed view as to how the task is to be accom- 
 plished. According to my notion, she was in the 
 right track when she established the Zollverein. 
 Without interfering with the Federal Constitution, 
 and the external form of Germany, which is recog- 
 nised by Europe, she ought to proceed by treaties with 
 the separate States, to effect that union which other- 
 wise is impossible without a convulsion, and in which 
 treaties the minor States would find security for their 
 non-absorption in Prussia. . . . But if Prussia is to 
 act upon that line, she must act without any refer-
 
 THE PRINCE CONSORT ON GERMANY 303 
 
 ence to Austria, who will impede her in every way 
 in her power. Being in her perfect right, she need 
 not quarrel with Austria, whom her policy does not 
 attack ; but no worse advice could in my opinion 
 be given by us to Prussia than that she should make 
 up to Austria. . . . Should Germany be attacked, 
 all that can be hoped for from Austria ... is that 
 she will furnish her contingent to the federal army. 
 But this she is bound to do by the federal Act, and 
 could hardly dare to refuse because of a dislike to 
 the German policy pursued by Prussia. Nothing, 
 therefore, can be gained by truckling to her. 
 
 ' Foreign Powers, and England in particular, can 
 do little good by advice. We ought, therefore, in 
 my opinion, to confine ourselves to inculcating con- 
 fidence in Prussia at the minor courts, showing that 
 from her alone can be expected efficient support 
 and protection, and that the efficacy of that support 
 will be in proportion to their adherence to her. Of 
 this our diplomatic agents do everywhere diametri- 
 cally and systematically the, reverse.' * At a somewhat 
 later date Morier, who had for years made a special 
 study of the Germanic question, recognised, in spite 
 of his dislike of Bismarck and of his methods, that 
 only by means of Prussia could the goal be reached 
 of a united Germany, and that, from such a Germany, 
 Austria must be carefully excluded. Morier was 
 seriously alarmed at the indifference shown in Eng- 
 land to the subject of German unity. ' Why can 
 England find sympathy for the wars of oppressed 
 Venetians and Lombards, and none for oppressed 
 Germans ? Why is it a noble sentiment to feel 
 
 1 Life of the Prince Consort, vol. v. pp. 65-9.
 
 304 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 the touch of kith and kin on the Po, and mere dream- 
 ing sentimentality to feel the same on the Eider ? ' 1 
 Three years before he had written (1860) to Lord 
 J. Russell : * He (the Grand Duke of Baden) had 
 derived the most indescribable pleasure from . . . 
 discovering that you did not seem to share the 
 general contempt for everything German which is 
 universally in Germany ascribed to English states- 
 men.' 2 
 
 In this state of things the melancholy fact was that, 
 when the unity of Germany was accomplished by 
 blood and iron, there were no grateful associations 
 linking the evolution of Germany with the kindly 
 words and generous acts of English sympathisers. 
 In truth, Germany was absorbed in Prussia ; and 
 the new Power came into being in so questionable 
 a shape that men instinctively realised that the 
 forces of reaction in Europe had received a new 
 mainstay. 
 
 The bursting of the European floodgates in 1870-1 
 had its first outcome in the repudiation by Russia of 
 the clause in the Treaty of Paris, 1856, by which she, 
 as well as Turkey, was restrained from maintaining 
 ships of war in the Black Sea. Many British states- 
 men recognised that such a provision could not be 
 permanently maintained ; nevertheless, the cynical 
 manner in which Russia acted, without consultation 
 with the other parties to the treaty, boded ill for 
 the future sanctity of European obligation. Though 
 Bismarck may not have been privy to the Russian 
 intentions, it was well understood that German 
 acquiescence in the step was the quid pro quo for 
 
 1 Memoirs of Sir R. Mori-er, p. 372. z Ibid. pp. 243-4.
 
 THE BLACK SEA QUESTION 305 
 
 Russia's neutrality in the Franco-German War. 
 Moreover, in accordance with his favourite principle 
 divide ut imperes, Bismarck welcomed anything that 
 tended to keep asunder the different European 
 Powers. 
 
 In this difficult situation Lord Granville took the 
 wisest measure possible. The British Ambassador 
 at Berlin, Lord Augustus Loftus, was without in- 
 fluence. Mr. Odo Russell was, therefore, despatched 
 on a special mission to the German headquarters in 
 France. Bismarck could recognise a man when he 
 met him, and was not a little attracted by Mr. Odo 
 Russell's firmness and plain speaking. He was 
 probably honest in declaring that ' the natural allies 
 of Germany were England and Austria/ Accord- 
 ingly, whilst resolutely refusing to allow Prussia to 
 become a party to the tripartite treaty, he made the 
 suggestion that a Conference on the Black Sea 
 question should be held at St. Petersburg. 
 
 ' In the negotiations which followed, and ultimately 
 led to the assembling of the Conference in London, 
 in January, 1871, Lord Granville in the first place 
 refused to recognise the separate position of Russia 
 in the matter, and obtained a practical retractation 
 of the Circular by an express recognition of the 
 doctrine by all the Powers represented, including 
 Russia, that no European treaty can be modified 
 or declared to be no longer binding by the action of 
 one of the parties to it alone. . . . Russia, along 
 with the other Powers signed a recognition, " that 
 it is an essential principle of the law of nations, that 
 no Power can liberate itself from the engagement of 
 a treaty, nor modify the stipulations thereof, unless 
 
 E.F.P.
 
 306 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 with the consent of the contracting Powers, by 
 means of an amicable arrangement." ' l Moreover, 
 while the provisions of the treaty affecting the Black 
 Sea were abrogated, the new treaty contained an 
 article maintaining the principle of the closing of 
 the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, established by 
 the separate convention of March 30, 1856, with an 
 additional power expressly given to the Sultan, ' to 
 open the said straits in time of peace to the vessels 
 of war of friendly and allied Powers, in case the 
 sublime Porte should judge it necessary, in order to 
 secure the execution of the stipulations of the Treaty 
 of Paris of March 30, 1856.' 2 
 
 In fact, by no fault of its own, the result of the 
 Franco-Prussian War produced a situation of no 
 little difficulty for the British Government. That 
 war ' had alienated both the late belligerents 
 from Great Britain, and the constant ill-will of 
 Russia . . . had to be reckoned with. The Czar, so 
 Lord Odo Russell informed Lord Granville, when 
 on a visit to Berlin, had said that he had made a 
 special study of the institutions and policy of Great 
 Britain, and that he had convinced himself of the 
 danger to which European government would be 
 exposed by following her " downward course." The 
 Czar also felt it his duty to utter a warning note to 
 the Royal Family of Germany because " the sacred 
 cause of Royalty must suffer from any imitation of 
 the pernicious example given by the growing 
 republicanism and socialism of England. Germany, 
 Austria and Russia should hold together to resist 
 those dangerous and evil influences of England, if 
 
 1 Life of Lord Granville, vol. ii. pp. 73-6. - Ibid. p. 76.
 
 GERMANY AND FRANCE 307 
 
 order was to be maintained in Europe." ' 1 It is 
 certain that Bismarck did not spare his colours in 
 retailing these confidences to Lord Odo. Never- 
 theless, the possible reappearance of the Holy 
 Alliance, in a more menacing and militant shape, 
 was a sinister portent in the European sky ; nor was, 
 in the circumstances, the entrance of Italy into an 
 informal alliance (1873) with the German Powers a 
 cause for congratulation. 
 
 Added to all this, there was the danger, as has been 
 seen in the opening chapter, that Germany should 
 intervene to crush France before she had recovered 
 from the late war. The action of Queen Victoria 
 hi appealing to the better nature of the German 
 Emperor to prevent such a war, in 1874, and to the 
 Czar, in 1875, tactful and, indeed, necessary as it 
 was, was not of a nature to endear the Queen or her 
 subjects to Bismarck or his followers. Bismarck 
 himself protested vigorously to the end of his life 
 that there was no cause for such suspicions ; and 
 that the scare in 1875, which enabled Russia to 
 appear in the role of an Olympian deity, deciding 
 the destinies of nations, had its origin in the vanity 
 of Prince Gortschakoff. 2 
 
 However this may have been, the fact remained 
 that in the new Europe which had emerged from the 
 Franco-Prussian War, the road to permanent peace 
 was even more insecure than it had been when 
 France was the danger spot. Granted that we 
 accept the view, for which much may be said, that 
 
 1 Ibid. pp. 110-11. 
 
 8 Bismarck, Reflections o/, vol. ii. pp. 1 86-9. But see authorities 
 on p. 18.
 
 308 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 Germany, through the mouth of her great Minister, 
 was honestly desirous of peace, having obtained all 
 that she desired and requiring time to consolidate 
 her gains, still that Minister was haunted by the 
 fear of possible combinations against Germany ; and, 
 to prevent such combinations, might encourage 
 measures detrimental to the interests of other Powers. 
 The Belgian Minister at Berlin was under the im- 
 pression that, in the event of war, Bismarck intended 
 to occupy Belgium. 1 Upon the whole, after mature 
 reflection, Bismarck was inclined to prefer a close 
 alliance with Austria rather than one with Russia. 
 At the same time, he recognised in Russia a most 
 dangerous possible enemy to Germany ; and, there- 
 fore, considered it to be the interest of Germany that 
 Russia's energies should be diverted to directions 
 where no German issue was at stake. He believed 
 that, ' as regards Austria and Germany, Russia 
 would be less dangerous so long as it remained in 
 Constantinople.' 2 Considering the traditional policy 
 of England respecting Turkey, it is obvious how 
 great a danger this attitude involved to British 
 interests. Not only was an Anglo-German entente 
 out of the question with regard to the affairs of the 
 near East, but it might even be to the interest of 
 Germany that Russia and Great Britain should fall 
 out over this question. 
 
 In 1874 there occurred a change of Ministry in 
 England, and the new Prime Minister, who, physi- 
 cally and, perhaps to some extent, intellectually, 
 was hardly the Hector of the past, when at length he 
 
 1 Life of Lord Lyons, p. 333. 
 
 2 Bismarck, Reflections of, vol. ii. p. 286.
 
 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY 309 
 
 acquired power as well as office, might reasonably hold 
 that British public opinion had moved in the direc- 
 tion of a more imperialist and vigorous foreign policy. 
 
 It is true that in 1866 Disraeli had spoken of 
 England as having ' outgrown the European con- 
 tinent.' ' Her position,' he said, ' is no longer 
 that of a mere European Power. England is the 
 metropolis of a great maritime Empire, extending 
 to the boundaries of the furthest ocean. . . . She 
 is as ready, and as willing even, to interfere as in 
 the old days when the necessity of her position 
 requires it. There is no Power, indeed, which 
 interferes more than England. She interferes in 
 Asia, because she is really more of an Asiatic than 
 an European Power.' 1 But Disraeli was himself 
 to recognise that you cannot divide the affairs of 
 continents into water-tight compartments, and if 
 the key of India was London, India might equally 
 be lost or retained on some European battlefield. 
 In any case the Disraeli of 1874 struck a somewhat 
 different note from the Disraeli of 1866. 
 
 What were the views on British foreign policy of 
 a singularly thoughtful and able man who had the 
 best opportunities of seeing the inner working of the 
 European system may be gathered from the letters 
 of Morier. ' It is the curse,' he wrote to Jowett 
 (January 21, 1873), ' of living in an island that foreign 
 politics take hold of our imagination in the dreamy 
 sort of way that all things were taken cognisance of 
 by the Laputans. If a magician would for a minute 
 or two lend me his wand, I would dry up the waters 
 
 1 Quoted in The Political History of England (1837-1901) by 
 S. Low and L. C. Sanders, pp. 210-11.
 
 310 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 of the Channel, with a great portion of the North 
 Sea and the Atlantic, and I would give England a 
 land frontier towards France, Belgium, Holland, 
 Germany and America. We should then be forced 
 to shake ourselves out of dreamland, and the neces- 
 sities that would then press on us would, I believe, 
 shape us into the grandest nation the world ever 
 saw, because every day convinces me that the raw 
 material, both moral and physical, of the English- 
 man is enormously superior to that of any other exist- 
 ing nation. We are the only truthful people in the 
 world, the only people who are able to produce a 
 gentleman, as an ethical being, raised in virtue of 
 the general climatic conditions of society, and not 
 the product of a caste, the only people who are not 
 petty and pettifogging in their international dealings, 
 and the only people who, with great self-assertion 
 and a bull-dog kind of courage, have yet a singular 
 amount of gentleness and tenderness. But living 
 as we do in Laputa, with three-quarters of our real 
 estate not situated in Laputa but down below in 
 terra firma, we are in a hopelessly false position, which 
 will most undoubtedly end by taking us to the dogs. 
 . . . You might as well expect an ox to reproduce 
 his species and lord it over a herd of bulls as a nation 
 to maintain an imperial position which cultivates 
 the virtue of resignation. England can maintain 
 her empire, if she wills to do it, but unless she will 
 it with all her heart and soul she will find it difficult 
 to keep even the Isle of Wight. This strange spec- 
 tacle is now being presented to the world, that at the 
 moment when our planet is for practical purposes 
 . . . shrinking to the proportions of a middle-sized
 
 MORIER ON BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY 311 
 
 mediaeval state . . . and when the most distant 
 nations are thereby being brought into a closer con- 
 tact than were formerly the inhabitants of distant 
 countries, England, which is equipresent in Europe, 
 Asia, Africa and America, and omnipresent in 
 Australia, which has more neighbours and a larger 
 land boundary than any nation ever had before, has 
 convinced herself that she lives alone in a little 
 island whose parochial concerns are aD in all to her, 
 and turns away with contempt and disgust from 
 the affairs of a world in which she has ten times the 
 stake of any other nation.' 1 
 
 Again, a little later Morier wrote : ' There are 
 things which appear to me infinitely worse than war, 
 worse than an unsuccessful war even. And as one 
 of these very much worse things I consider the 
 national habit of looking at war as the summum 
 malum as the very worst. Unless a nation in its 
 collective capacity retains the power of feeling that 
 death and ruin are preferable a hundred fold than 
 life and prosperity under certain conditions, unless 
 in a word it can, U cas echeant, be moved by the feel- 
 ing so splendidly described in the conversation 
 between old Talbot and young John in Henry IV., 
 it is lost, hopelessly lost. Now, the way in which 
 the Alabama negotiation (the negotiation, mind 
 you, not the principle of indemnity) and the Black 
 Sea negotiation were carried on and were acquiesced 
 in, and even boasted of by the Liberal party in Eng- 
 land, goes far to prove that England has got into 
 this stage of national decrepitude, and I would 
 consider the worst war preferable to this.' ! 
 
 1 Memoirs of Sir R. Morier, vol. ii. pp. 276-7. 3 Ibid. p. 293.
 
 312 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 Holding these views, Morier, though a strong 
 Free Trader and maintaining Liberal views on many 
 questions, was delighted when the general election 
 of 1874 gave the Conservatives the opportunity of 
 showing that they were less parochial in their politics 
 than had been their opponents. 
 
 ' The frequent allusions to foreign politics,' he 
 wrote on April 1, 1874, ' made in his electioneering 
 speeches by Mr. Disraeli, the cheers with which they 
 were received, above all, the golden definition with 
 which the present Premier has once for all rescued 
 the Queen's foreign affairs from the limbo to which 
 they had been consigned by the shop-keeping class 
 of English politicians, when he described them as 
 England's home affairs in foreign parts, have induced 
 the belief that the accession of H.M.'s present 
 Ministers will go far to restore the desired equilibrium 
 between the forces of war and the forces of peace.' l 
 
 The purchase of the Khedive's shares in the Suez 
 Canal Company (1875) was the first fruits of the 
 new imperialism. When, therefore, in 1876, dis- 
 turbances broke out in the Turkish empire, which 
 were repressed ruthlessly, any shrewd observer must 
 have recognised that it was highly probable that 
 the conflagration would spread. In this state of 
 things, Disraeli assumed a serious responsibility in 
 refusing his assent to the Berlin Memorandum of 
 May, 1876, the object of which was to impose certain 
 reforms on Turkey, to be carried out under European 
 supervision. If the end to be aimed at was the pre- 
 vention of Russian predominance in the East, surely 
 the safest means of securing this was to cling, so long 
 
 1 Memoirs of Sir R. Morier. vol. ii. pp. 331-2.
 
 GLADSTONE ON THE EASTERN QUESTION 313 
 
 as possible, to the not very sea- worthy craft of the 
 concert of Europe. The Berlin Memorandum in its 
 origin was the work of the three Empires ; but 
 France and Italy adhered to it ; and doubtless 
 Great Britain, by refusing, helped to stiffen the backs 
 of the Turks and thus to make more probable the 
 outbreak of war. 
 
 The British refusal had the further effect of arous- 
 ing to fever heat the indignation of Gladstone. 
 'From that time forward (1876), till the final con- 
 summation in 1879-80, I made the Eastern question 
 the main business of my life,' wrote Mr. Gladstone 
 in a fragment of reminiscences. In a private letter 
 he described the Government's foreign policy as 
 ' the most selfish and least worthy I have ever 
 known.' x ' I am entirely in harmony with you,' 
 he wrote to the Duke of Argyll, ' as to your view 
 of the Eastern policy. It has been depressing and 
 corrupting to the country ; a healthier air has been 
 generated by indignation at the Bulgarian massacres, 
 which has thrown us back on our rather forgotten 
 humanity.' 2 ' I had a long talk,' he wrote to his 
 wife in September, with Delane (the editor of the 
 Times). We, he and I, are much of one mind in 
 thinking the Turks must go out of Bulgaria, though 
 retaining a titular supremacy if they like. Between 
 ourselves, Granville a little hangs back from this.' 3 
 
 The situation was further complicated because 
 Gladstone had in 1874 retired from the leadership 
 of the Liberal party ; and he was now informally 
 holding the reins, whilst the nominal leaders, Lord 
 
 1 Life of Gladstone, vol. ii. p. 158. 
 
 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. p. 160.
 
 314 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 Hartington and Lord Granville, were placed in an 
 altogether false position. 
 
 In his famous pamphlet on the Bulgarian atrocities, 
 Gladstone wrote : ' But I return to, and end with 
 that which is the omega, as well as the alpha, of this 
 great and most mournful case. As an old servant of 
 the Crown and State, I entreat my countrymen, 
 upon whom far more than perhaps any other people 
 of Europe it depends, to require and to insist that 
 our Government, which has been working in one 
 direction, shall work in the other, and shall apply all 
 its vigour to concur with the other States of Europe 
 in obtaining the extinction of the Turkish executive 
 power in Bulgaria. Let the Turks now carry away 
 their abuses in the onty possible manner, viz. by 
 carrying off themselves . . . one and all, bag and 
 baggage, shall, I hope, clear out from the province 
 they have desolated and profaned ? " 1 
 
 In December, 1876, at the suggestion of Great 
 Britain, a conference of the great Powers was held 
 at Const antinople. It ended in failure, because 
 Turkey rejected the demands of the Powers ; but Glad- 
 stone recognised that it had been of some use, because 
 it had re-established the European concert, and ex- 
 tricated Great Britain ' from a disgraceful position 
 of virtual complicity with Turkey.' 2 In truth, sus- 
 picion was everywhere ripe. ' I am amused,' wrote 
 Lord Derby to Lord Odo Russell, ' by your descrip- 
 tion of the Russo-German suspicions entertained 
 against us ; these fellows make us act as they would 
 act in our place. They can neither deal straight- 
 forwardly themselves nor give anybody else credit 
 
 1 Life of Gladstone, vol. ii. pp. 161-2. 2 Ibid. p. 168.
 
 GERMANY AND THE EASTERN QUESTION 315 
 
 for doing so.' In 1877 an organ of the reptile press, 
 intended to further Bismarck's interests, quoted 
 from an Austrian paper to the effect that Queen 
 Victoria had written some time before direct to 
 Prince Bismarck, urging upon him to prevent the 
 war between Russia and the Porte. The answer 
 was evasive. Then followed a second letter, repeat- 
 ing the request more urgently. This time the reply 
 was somewhat more positive in form, but was still 
 not to the taste of the Queen, who then turned to 
 the Emperor and made him and Germany responsible 
 for the outbreak of war. ' Let us suppose/ com- 
 mented the Journal, ' that Germany had allowed 
 herself to be " nobbled "... had struck an attitude 
 and shouted " Peace in Europe ! " and that Russia 
 had not halted at the word of command, but let 
 her troops advance what would have happened 
 then ? Why we should then, for the maintenance 
 of peace, have been obliged to wage war against 
 Russia, which at the best would serve to pull the 
 chestnuts out of the fire for magnanimous Albion, 
 or our word of command would have proved to be 
 impotent, and we should have made ourselves ridi- 
 culous and ridiculous merely in the service of Eng- 
 land, a Power that has never honestly wished us 
 well, and has only accepted our position in Europe 
 in the hope that it may some day be utilised for the 
 furtherance of its own mercenary policy.' l 
 
 In April, 1877, Russia declared war against Turkey, 
 and the question became pressing what was to be 
 the attitude of Great Britain. On this subject Glad- 
 
 1 Bismarck, Some Secret Pages of hi* History, by M. Busch, 
 vol. ii. pp. 297-99.
 
 316 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 stone at least had no doubts. In one of his greatest 
 parliamentary efforts (May 7) he said : 
 
 ' Sir, There were other days when England was 
 the hope of freedom. Wherever in the world a high 
 aspiration was entertained, or a noble blow was 
 struck, it was to England that the eyes of the op- 
 pressed were always turned to this favourite, this 
 darling home of so much privilege and so much 
 happiness, where the people who had built up a 
 noble edifice for themselves would, it was well 
 known, be ready to do what in them lay to secure 
 the benefit of the same inestimable boon for others. 
 You talk to me of the established tradition and 
 policy in regard to Turkey. I appeal to an estab- 
 lished tradition, older, wider, nobler far a tradition 
 not which disregards British interests, but which 
 teaches you to seek the promotion of those interests 
 in obeying the dictates of honour and justice. And, 
 Sir, what is to be the end of this ? Are we to dress 
 up the fantastic ideas some people entertain about 
 this policy or that policy in the garb of British in- 
 terests, and then, with a new and base idolatry, fall 
 down and worship them ? or are we to look not at 
 the sentiment but at the hard facts of the case . . . 
 that it is the populations of those countries that will 
 ultimately possess them, or that will ultimately 
 determine their abiding condition ? It is to this fact, 
 this law, that we should look. There is now before 
 the world a glorious prize. A portion of those un- 
 happy people are still, as yet, making an effort to 
 retrieve what they have lost so long, but have not 
 ceased to love and to desire. I speak of those in 
 Bosnia and Herzegovina. Another portion in a land
 
 GLADSTONE ON THE EASTERN QUESTION 317 
 
 of heroes such as the world has rarely seen stand 
 on the rocks of Montenegro, and are ready now, as 
 they have ever been during the 400 years of their 
 exile from their fertile plains, to sweep down from 
 their fastnesses and meet the Turk at any odds, for 
 the re-establishment of justice and of peace in those 
 countries. Another portion still, the 5.000,000 of 
 Bulgarians, cowed and beaten down to the ground, 
 hardly venturing to look upwards, even to their 
 father in heaven, have extended their hands to you ; 
 they have sent you their petition, they have prayed 
 for your help and protection. They have told you 
 that they do not seek alliance with Russia, or 
 with a foreign Power, but that they seek to be 
 delivered from an intolerable burden of woe and 
 shame. That burden of woe and shame the greatest 
 that exists on God's earth is one that we thought 
 united Europe was about to remove ; but to remov- 
 ing which, for the present, you seem to have no effica- 
 cious means of offering even the smallest practical 
 contribution. But, Sir, the removal of that load of 
 woe and shame is a great and noble prize. It is a 
 prize well worth competing for. It is not yet too 
 late to try to win it. ... But be assured that whether 
 you mean to claim for yourselves even a single leaf 
 in that immortal chaplet of renown, which will be 
 the reward of true labour in that cause, or whether 
 you turn your backs upon that cause and upon your 
 own duty, I believe, for one, that the knell of Turkish 
 tyranny in these provinces has sounded. So far as 
 human eye can judge, it is about to be destroyed. 
 The destruction may not come in the way or by 
 the means which we should choose ; but come this
 
 318 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 boon from what hand it may, it will be a noble boon, 
 and as a noble boon will be gladly accepted by 
 Christendom and the world.' x Translated into the 
 language of everyday life all this meant that, what- 
 ever the danger to British interests of Russian ascen- 
 dency in Turkey, this danger must be risked sooner 
 than that the Slav peoples should continue to be 
 ground down under the axe of Turkish misrule. 
 
 The attitude of the Government had been ex- 
 plained by Disraeli in the preceding August. ' We 
 are always treated as if we had some peculiar alliance 
 with the Turkish Government, as if we were their 
 peculiar friends, and even as if we were expected to 
 uphold them in any enormity they might commit. 
 . . . We are, it is true, the allies of the Sultan of 
 Turkey. So is Russia, so is Austria, so is France 
 and so are others. We are also their partners in a 
 tripartite treaty, in which we not only generally but 
 singly guarantee with France and Austria the terri- 
 torial integrity of Turkey. These are our engage- 
 ments, and they are the engagements that we 
 endeavour to fulfil. And if these engagements, 
 renovated and repeated only four years ago by the 
 wisdom of Europe, are to be treated ... as idle wind 
 and chaff, and if we are to be told that our political 
 duty is by force to expel the Turks to the other side 
 of the Bosphorus, then politics cease to be an art, 
 statesmanship becomes a mere mockery, and instead 
 of being a House of Commons faithful to its 
 traditions, and which is always influenced, I 
 have ever thought, by sound principles of policy, 
 whoever may be its leaders, we had better at once 
 
 1 Life of Gladstone, vol. ii. pp. 174-6.
 
 DISRAELI ON THE EASTERN QUESTION 319 
 
 resolve ourselves into one of those revolutionary 
 clubs which settle all political questions with the 
 same ease as the honourable and learned member 
 (Sir William Harcourt). Sir, we refused to join in 
 the Berlin Note, because we were convinced that if 
 we made that step we should very soon see a 
 material interference hi Turkey ; and we were 
 not of opinion that by a system of material 
 guarantees the great question which the honour- 
 able and learned gentleman adverted to would 
 be solved either for the general welfare of the world 
 or for the interests of England, which after all must 
 be our sovereign care. The Government of the 
 Porte was never for a moment misled by the arrival 
 of the British fleet in Besika Bay. They were per- 
 fectly aware when the fleet came there, it was not 
 to prop up any decaying, obsolete Government, nor 
 did its presence there sanction any of those enormities 
 which are the subject of our painful discussion 
 to-night. What may be the fate of the Eastern part 
 of Europe it would be arrogant for me to speculate 
 upon, and if I had any thoughts on the subject I 
 should not be so imprudent or so indiscreet as to 
 take this opportunity to express them. But I am 
 sure that, so long as England is ruled by English 
 parties who understand the principles on which our 
 Empire is founded, and who are resolved to main- 
 tain that Empire, our influence in that part of the 
 world can never be looked upon with indifference. 
 If it should happen that the Government which con- 
 trols the greater portion of those fair lands is found 
 to be incompetent for its purpose, neither England 
 nor any of the great Powers will shrink from
 
 fulfilling the high political and moral duty which 
 will then devolve upon them. But, Sir, we must not 
 jump at conclusions so quickly as is now the fashion. 
 There is nothing to justify us in talking in such 
 a vein of Turkey, as has and is being at this moment 
 entertained. The present is a state of affairs which 
 requires the most vigilant examination and the most 
 careful management. But those who suppose that 
 England ever would uphold, or at this moment par- 
 ticularly is upholding, Turkey from blind supersti- 
 tion and from a want of sympathy with the highest 
 aspirations of humanity, are deceived. What our 
 duty is at this critical moment is to maintain the 
 Empire of England. Nor will we ever agree to any 
 step, though it may obtain for the moment compara- 
 tive quiet and a false prosperity, that hazards the 
 existence of that Empire.' 1 
 
 It was the opinion of Lord Granville, who himself 
 objected to the veiled support of the Porte which 
 seemed to characterise the policy of the Government, 
 that Gladstone ' made too light of giving Russia a 
 material standpoint in European Turkey.' 2 Lord 
 Hartington wrote to Lord Granville : ' / don't 
 feel the slightest confidence in Russia, and I think 
 that it would be a mistake to base our policy in any 
 degree on Russian assurances. If Russia should 
 occupy the Provinces, I doubt whether, under cer- 
 tain circumstances, the Government would be 
 wrong in taking some steps for the protection of 
 Constantinople and the Bosphorus. . . . Are we in 
 any case to look on at Russia establishing a footing 
 
 1 Selected Speeches, vol. ii. pp. 159-60. 
 
 2 Life of Lord Granville, vol. ii. p. 165.
 
 THE EASTERN QUESTION 321 
 
 in Turkey and more or less threaterfiing Constanti- 
 nople, without any security for the Emperor's assur- 
 ances ? The danger with the present Government 
 seems to be that they may encourage the Turks, 
 and lead them to expect that we shall do more than 
 this.' x On the other hand, Mr. Gladstone and his 
 adherents were ' so anxious to get rid of the Turks, 
 and so confident in the good intentions of Russia, 
 that they don't care to look at what may follow the 
 destruction of the Turkish Government.' 2 
 
 The defeat of the Turkish armies in January, 
 1878, and the advance of the Russian army into the 
 immediate neighbourhood of Constantinople, called 
 forth a strong anti-Russian feeling in England. When 
 Turkey was beaten to its knees, and the treaty of 
 San Stefano exacted from her, under which her 
 European possessions would have been an appanage 
 of her conqueror, hatred and distrust of Russia 
 seemed to overwhelm the hatred that had been felt 
 for Turkey ; though, in fact, amongst large classes 
 of the community the latter feeling was still very 
 strong, and only waited its opportunity to assert 
 itself vigorously. 
 
 Such being the temper of the nation, and when we 
 consider what had been the traditional policy of 
 England regarding Turkey, it was natural enough 
 that a statesman of imperialist proclivities, bent on 
 redeeming England from any connexion with the 
 Manchester School, should have cried ' halt ' to the 
 Russian advance, and insisted that the terms of 
 the peace between Russia and Turkey should be 
 submitted to the examination of a European Con- 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 168. * Ibid. 
 
 E.F.P. X
 
 322 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 ference. Under the treaty of San Stefano, 1 signed 
 March 17, 1878, Turkey in Europe, for all practical 
 purposes, ceased to be. The treaty, in the words 
 of Lord Beaconsfie]d, created ' a large state which, 
 under the name of Bulgaria, is inhabited by many 
 races not Bulgarian. This Bulgaria goes to the 
 shores of the Black Sea and seizes the ports of that 
 sea ; it extends to the coast of the Aegean and 
 appropriates the ports of that sea. The treaty pro- 
 vides for the government of this new Bulgaria, 
 under a prince who is to be selected by Russia; its 
 administration is to be organised and supervised 
 by a commissary of Russia, and this new state 
 is to be garrisoned, I say for an indefinite 
 period, but at all events for two years certain, by 
 Russia.' 2 
 
 Russia at first seemed inclined to play with the 
 English demand ; but when the reserves were called 
 out, and it became apparent that Great Britain 
 would risk a war rather than draw back, she yielded ; 
 and the Berlin Congress substituted a new treaty 
 for that of San Stefano. But even when a Congress 
 had been decided upon, the situation was still 
 critical. ' Russia,' wrote Lord Salisbury on April 
 24, 1878, ' gives me the impression of a Govern- 
 ment desperately anxious for peace, and driven on 
 by some fate towards war.' 3 At the Congress of 
 Berlin. Russia had to submit to the resettle- 
 ment of her contract with Turkey, from the 
 
 1 The text is set out in The European Concert and the Eastern 
 Question, by T. E. Holland, pp. 335-48. 
 
 2 Selected Speeches, vol. ii. p. 170. 
 
 3 Life of Lord Lyons, p. 372.
 
 THE BERLIN CONGRESS 323 
 
 point of view of the general interest of Europe. 
 The keynote to the Congress was given by 
 Prince Bismarck, when he explained that the 
 stipulations of the Treaty of San Stefano were 
 in several points of a nature to modify ' the 
 state of things as fixed by former European Con- 
 ventions,' and that the business of the meeting was 
 to submit that treaty ' to the free discussion of the 
 Cabinets, signatories of the Treaties of 1856 and 
 1871.' The Russian plenipotentiary, Count Schou- 
 valoff, himself admitted a little later that the treaty 
 of San Stefano had been merely ' a preliminary 
 convention, having obligatory force only upon the 
 two contracting parties, by which Russia intended 
 to let the Turkish Government know beforehand 
 the demands she would formulate later before 
 Europe.' l At the same time Russia had been 
 the victor in a great war, and it was idle to expect 
 that she would be content at obtaining nothing for 
 her pains. Her frontiers were greatly extended 
 in Asia Minor, Turkey ceding the territories of 
 Astrachan, Kars and Batoum, with the latter 
 port. 
 
 In the face of this, it was poor consolation for 
 Turkey that under the convention of June 4, 1878, 
 England engaged, if any attempt should be made 
 at any future time by Russia to take possession of 
 any further Turkish territories in Asia, to join the 
 Sultan in defending them by force of arms ; especi- 
 ally as the quid pro quo obtained by England was 
 the assignment of the island of Cyprus, to be 
 occupied and administered by Great Britain. Less 
 
 1 Parl. Papers, 1878, Turkey, No. 39, p. 242.
 
 onerous probably was the empty promise to introduce 
 necessary reforms. 1 
 
 The work of the Berlin Congress involved not 
 merely the revision of the Treaty of San Stefano but 
 that of its predecessors, the treaties of Paris and of 
 London. ' A leading idea of these treaties,' writes 
 Dr. Holland, ' had been the preservation of the inde- 
 pendence and territorial integrity of the Ottoman 
 Empire, and of its sovereign rights over the vassal 
 principalities. All this was now to be changed. 
 The Porte was to be virtually reduced to tutelage, 
 and its suzerainty over the Principalities was to be 
 finally extinguished.' 2 
 
 In the opinion of Lord Beaconsfield, the most im- 
 portant British success of the Berlin Congress was 
 the removal of the ' Great Bulgaria,' created by the 
 treaty of San Stefano. Under the new treaty Bul- 
 garia was divided into three portions. The district 
 north of the Balkans became the autonomous tri- 
 butary province of Bulgaria ; that immediately 
 south of that range became the Turkish province 
 of Eastern Roumelia, which, however, was to obtain 
 * administrative autonomy '; the most southerly 
 portion was restored to Turkey without limitations. 
 
 * My Lords,' said Lord Beaconsfield, ' in these 
 matters the Congress of Berlin has made great 
 changes. They have restored to the Sultan two-thirds 
 of the territory which was to have formed the great 
 Bulgarian State. They have restored to him upwards 
 of 30,000 geographical square miles and 2,600,000 
 
 1 The text of the Convention is in Mowat's Select Treaties, 
 pp. 78-9. 
 
 2 Op. tit. p. 222.
 
 BEACONSFIELD ON THE BERLIN TREATY 325 
 
 of population that territory, being the richest in 
 the Balkans, where most of the land is rich, and the 
 population one of the wealthiest, most ingenious, 
 and most loyal of his subjects. The frontiers of 
 this State have been pushed forward from the mere 
 environs of Salonica and Adrianople to the lines of 
 the Balkans and Trajan's Pass ; the new Principality 
 which was to exercise such an influence, and produce 
 a revolution in the disposition of the territory and 
 policy of that part of the globe, is now merely a state 
 in the valley of the Danube, and both in its extent 
 and its population is reduced to one-third of what 
 was contemplated by the treaty of San Stefano.' * 
 Lord Beaconsfield was undoubtedly wholly wrong in 
 his estimate of what the future had in store. What- 
 ever we may think of the Bulgarians of to-day, we 
 must recognise that it was foolish to expect to con- 
 fine a growing nation within the baby clothes of its 
 infancy. It was good luck, not good management, 
 that brought about that the new Bulgaria did not 
 prove the docile creature of Russia she was expected 
 to be. 'Probably at St. Petersburg,' wrote Bismarck, 
 ' they had reckoned on Bulgaria, when it was 
 separated from Turkey, remaining permanently in 
 dependence on Russia. Even if the peace of San 
 Stefano had been carried out intact, this calculation 
 would probably have proved false.' 2 
 
 We have seen that Bismarck had no preconceived 
 objections to Russia's expansion at the expense of 
 Turkey. At the same time he had no intention to 
 burn his ships and to give serious offence to other 
 
 1 Selected Speeches, vol. ii. pp. 181-2. 
 - Bismarck, Reflections, vol. ii. p. 232.
 
 326 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 Powers, on behalf of an ally who might at any 
 moment play him false. He had accordingly re- 
 sisted the wiles of Russian statesmen who had sought 
 to obtain promise of support in case of a war between 
 Russia and Austria. 1 He persisted in playing at 
 the Berlin Congress the part of the honest broker ; 
 though thereby he gave considerable offence to his 
 Russian colleagues. ' It was expected at St. Peters- 
 burg,' wrote Bismarck, ' that in the diplomatic dis- 
 cussion for carrying out the decisions of the Berlin 
 Congress we should immediately, in every case, sup- 
 port and carry through the Russian interpretation 
 as opposed to that of Austria and England, and 
 especially without any preliminary understanding 
 between Berlin and St. Petersburg.' Bismarck admits 
 that he would often have favoured the Russian 
 desires had he but known them. Even when he 
 gave his support he only received a grumbling dis- 
 approval. ' " Votre amitie est trop Platonique," 
 said reproachfully the Empress Marie to one of our 
 representatives. It is true that the friendship of 
 the cabinet of one great Power for the others always 
 remains Platonic to a certain point ; for no great 
 Power can place itself exclusively at the service of 
 another. It will always have to keep in view not 
 only existing, but future, relations to the others, 
 and must, as far as possible, avoid lasting 
 fundamental hostility with any of them. That is 
 particularly important for Germany, with its central 
 position, which is open to attack on three sides.' 2 
 
 1 Bismarck, Reflections, vol. ii. pp. 228-32. 
 
 a Ibid, pp. 234-5. According to Sir C. Dilke, ' an arrangement 
 was discussed by Lord Beaconsfield and Count Andrassy at the
 
 BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA 327 
 
 One particular provision of the Berlin treaty 
 sounds a little strange to-day, when vaunted as a 
 triumph of British diplomacy Bosnia and Herze- 
 govina were handed over to the tutelage of Austria, 
 which no doubt proved to be no bad guardian, so 
 far as material development was concerned. In fact, 
 however, this particular arrangement seems to have 
 been settled by a secret compact between Russia 
 and Austria before the beginning of the war. Accord- 
 ing to Bismarck, the treaty of January 15, 1877, 
 which embodied an agreement come to between the 
 Russian and Austrian Emperors on July 8, 1876, at 
 Reichstadt, ' and not the Berlin Congress, is the 
 foundation of the Austrian possession of Bosnia and 
 Herzegovina, and during her war with the Turks 
 secured to Russia the neutrality of Austria.' l Per- 
 haps the Balkan State, which received the most 
 unfair treatment both under the treaty of San Stf ano 
 and that of Berlin, was Roumania. Roumanian 
 troops had done yeoman service, fighting side by 
 side with Russian, against Turkey. And yet Rou- 
 mania found herself compelled to restore to Russia 
 Bessarabia, which it had obtained at the time of the 
 
 time of the Treaty of Berlin by which Austria and England 
 were jointly to guarantee the integrity of Turkish territory 
 Austria in Europe and England in Asia Minor. Turkish territory 
 ... at that time meant practically . . . Eastern Roumelia and 
 the Balkan line. Moreover there was behind this the under- 
 standing that England was to come to the assistance of Austria 
 in Europe and Austria to make common cause with England in 
 the event of Turkey being attacked in Asia Minor. But this 
 offer of an English alliance to Austria fell through in the same way 
 in which the suggestion of England in October last (1886) failed 
 to receive encouragement.' (The Present Position of European 
 Politics, p. 221.) 
 1 Ibid. p. 232.
 
 328 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 treaty of Paris. In all probability it was this rank- 
 ling sore which in some measure accounted for the 
 long delay before Roumania entered as a partner of 
 the allies into the Great War. 
 
 In extolling the provisions of the treaty of Berlin, 
 Lord Beaconsfield declared that the effect of the 
 arrangement regarding Bosnia and Herzegovina was 
 to create Austria as ' a barrier to Slav aggression.' 
 Europe was in time to learn to its cost that there 
 were greater dangers possible than ' Slav aggression.' 
 
 It is easy, however, to be wise after the event, 
 and inasmuch as the Berlin Congress had recalled 
 to life the Concert of Europe and compelled haughty 
 Russia to yield obedience to its dictates, the accom- 
 plishment of ' Peace with honour ' might fairly seem 
 a cause for congratulation. In any case, it is in- 
 teresting to compare with Lord Beaconsfield's com- 
 placent self -congratulations the gloomy forebodings 
 of our ambassador at Constantinople. Sir H. Layard 
 saw in the treaty of Berlin ' the elements of future 
 wars and disorders without number, and an upsetting 
 of all the principles of justice and right which have 
 hitherto governed the relations and intercourse of 
 states. Force and fraud have triumphed, and, when 
 Turkey has been completely destroyed and cut up 
 under the new system, it will probably be applied 
 with similar successful results to other countries. 
 Russia has gained, with the assistance of Germany, 
 all and more than she wanted. ... I anticipate no 
 end of trouble and bloodshed for years to come in 
 this unhappy country.' l Still the horrors of the 
 Bulgarian atrocities, whatever there may have been 
 
 1 Life of Lord Lyons, pp. 390-1.
 
 THE ELECTION OF 1880 329 
 
 of exaggeration in the stories, had stirred to its 
 depths the consciences of many thousands of the 
 British working and middle classes. There was an 
 uncomfortable feeling that the British Government 
 had been slack and remiss in its service to the right, 
 and had shown a Machiavellian cynicism in the pre- 
 sence of moral issues. In the introductory chapter 
 attention has been called to the action and reaction 
 of the respective characters of the two leaders, 
 Disraeli and Gladstone. Here we may gratefully 
 note that, whatever may have been Gladstone's fail- 
 ings, the line he took up proved, in the future, to be, 
 where the Balkan States were concerned, a valuable 
 asset in favour of British interests. The time came 
 when, yielding to the German tempter, Bulgaria put 
 aside all sentimental considerations. But so long 
 as sentiment held sway, the name of Gladstone and 
 of the Liberal party he led to victory, was a name to 
 conjure with at any gathering of Bulgarians. 
 
 Be this as it may, in the General Election, which 
 took place hi 1880, the Conservatives were swept from 
 power, and Gladstone was given the opportunity of 
 again showing how far his constructive abilities were 
 on a level with his powers, as moralist and agitator. 
 The first consequences of having as Prime Minister 
 one who had ' used a mode of speech and language 
 different in some degree from what I should have 
 employed had I been the leader of a party or a 
 candidate for office,' 1 was the necessity for publish- 
 ing an apology for reckless words directed against 
 Austria. 
 
 1 Gladstone's own words to the Queen, Life, vol. ii. p. 260.
 
 Still, in spite of the dislike with which Bismarck, 
 the uncrowned king of European diplomacy, re- 
 garded Gladstone, he was reassured when Lord Gran- 
 ville resumed the charge of the Foreign Office. ' I 
 think you will find,' wrote Lord Odo Russell, ' Prince 
 Bismarck all you can wish, anxious for the most 
 friendly relations with England, and willing to act 
 in concert with her Majesty's Government when 
 asked to do so. He earnestly desires peace for the 
 welfare of Germany, and he likes the Anglo-French 
 alliance, because he looks upon it as " the basis of 
 peace in Europe." He dreads a Russo-French alli- 
 ance against Germany, and makes up to France to 
 keep her out of Russia's way, and he made the 
 Austro-German defensive treaty (1879) to isolate 
 Russia more completely. His dread of Russia is 
 founded on the belief that the Panslavists are bent 
 on driving the Czar into war again, to wipe out the 
 humiliation of having had to turn back from the 
 very gate of Constantinople, at the dictation of 
 Europe, and he reckons on his defensive alliance 
 with Austria to keep the Panslavists in check until 
 the peace party returns to power in Russia, when, 
 according to circumstances, he will be equally will- 
 ing to re-establish the "Drei-Kaiser bund," if he can 
 see a guarantee of peace for Germany in it. Mean- 
 while Prince Bismarck looks to England as the 
 leading peace Power in Europe, and you will there- 
 fore find him well disposed to make common cause 
 with Her Majesty's Government if you should at 
 any time require his services.' 1 
 
 All this was perhaps sketched a little couleur de 
 
 1 Life of Lord Oranville, vol. ii. p. 209.
 
 BISMARCK AND ENGLAND 331 
 
 rose, and it does not seem that Bismarck showed any 
 great readiness to help when the Concert of Europe 
 was needed to secure the interests of Montenegro 
 and of Greece. According to Lord Odo, writing on 
 May 29, 1880 : ' Ever since I have been in Berlin, 
 Prince Bismarck has shown an earnest desire for an 
 alliance with England, but his attempts to establish 
 cordial and intimate relations with Her Majesty's 
 Government and his repeated offers of co-operation 
 were never met in a corresponding spirit. Personally 
 I regretted it, because I believed that we might have 
 derived real and lasting advantages from an intimate 
 understanding with Germany.' 1 No doubt, as Lord 
 Fitz Maurice explains, Lord Salisbury, in spite of 
 strong sympathies with the Germanic Powers, shied 
 from the prospect of an alliance, because he recog- 
 nised that the price of such an alliance might be an 
 acknowledgment of the permanency of the German 
 acquisition of Alsace-Lorraine. It is strange, how- 
 ever, to find Lord Odo writing : ' He will not under- 
 stand why England should not be on terms as 
 intimate and cordial with Germany as with France. 
 He made a last attempt at realising his wishes, when 
 he thought that Indian difficulties might lead us into 
 a serious conflict with Russia. He took the initia- 
 tive, concluded the Austro-German Alliance and 
 isolated Russia. We rejoiced "at the good tidings ! " 
 Bismarck then gave up all hope of securing the alli- 
 ance of England and turned to France.' 2 Bismarck 
 must have chuckled when he imposed upon the 
 British Ambassador the idea that the Austro-German 
 alliance had been arranged to protect British in- 
 1 Ibid. p. 211. z lbid. p. 211.
 
 332 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 terests in the East ! In fact two leading motives were 
 never far from Bismarck's thoughts, do ut des and 
 divide et impera. In this state of things, whatever 
 may have been the case regarding Russia, the British 
 statesman would indeed have had need of a long 
 spoon who went out to sup with Prince Bismarck ! 
 It was good luck rather than design which solved 
 the Montenegro difficulty, leading the Sultan to 
 comply with the demands, which he wrongly sup- 
 posed to be made by the collective Powers. Lord 
 Odo was the friend and admirer of Bismarck ; but 
 this is what is gatheied from conversations with 
 him, held in October, 1880 : ' The impression I have 
 derived from them is, that he is rather jealous of 
 Her Majesty's Government having been put forward 
 by all the Powers to take the lead in Eastern affairs. 
 His solution of the problem, when the Turkish 
 Government collapses, would be the peaceful divi- 
 sion of influence in the Balkan Peninsula between 
 Austria and Russia, the former to extend to the 
 Aegean, the latter to the Straits, and Germany 
 that is, himself to mediate between them. The 
 intervention of England as a leader of a concert of 
 Powers stands in the way of his wishes and of the 
 plan he has made for his neighbours, whom he looks 
 upon as the Sultan's natural heirs. England's in- 
 terests are in Egypt and Asia, as those of France are 
 in Syria and Tunis ; and neither England nor 
 France, he thinks, should busy themselves about the 
 Sultan's European dominions, which do not concern 
 them as they do Germany's neighbours, Austria and 
 Russia.' l When, at last, Bismarck was willing to 
 
 1 Life of Lord Granville, vol. ii. p. 225.
 
 GLADSTONE'S FOREIGN POLICY 333 
 
 put his shoulder to the wheel on behalf of Greek 
 interests, his motive seems rather to have been the 
 desire to snub France than to promote Greek in- 
 terests. Still the fact remained that the concert had 
 worked successfully ; and that Greece obtained Thes- 
 saly, that province linked with Hellas by so many 
 past associations. 1 
 
 It was on the subject of foreign policy that the 
 Liberals had gained their great triumph in 1880. It 
 was on questions of foreign policy that they gradually 
 lost the confidence of the country. The enfranchise- 
 ment of the agricultural labourers and their tem- 
 porary gratitude to the party that had given them 
 the vote served to confuse the issue ; but there can 
 be no question that in 1885 there was a great revo- 
 lution of feeling amongst the old voters. The ques- 
 tions that had come to the fore, belonging as they 
 do to the sphere of imperial and colonial policy, do 
 not directly concern us here ; but it must be noted 
 that in the handling of them there was conspicuous 
 throughout a note of uncertainty, and inability to 
 take a direct line and then to stick to it. Thus, in 
 the case of the Transvaal, rightly or wrongly, during 
 the Midlothian campaign, Mr. Gladstone had pas- 
 sionately maintained that its annexation by Great 
 Britain had been not only politically inexpedient 
 but a moral crime ; and yet, when Mr. Gladstone 
 came to power, this pretended iniquity was not at 
 once dealt with ; and there was needed the 
 stimulus of British defeat and disgrace before 
 the British Government took the line which, from 
 
 1 For text of Convention of May 24, 1881, see The European 
 Concert in the Eastern Question, pp. 60-9.
 
 334 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 their point of view, had been, from the first, 
 obligatory. 
 
 It is impossible to summarise in a few words the 
 successive blunders in Egypt ; but no one can read 
 Lord Cromer's Modern Egypt or even the apology 
 for the conduct of affairs by the Liberal Government 
 contained in Lord Morley's Life of Mr. Gladstone 
 without recognising that the secret of their failure 
 lay largely in this, that they were unable or unwilling 
 to look facts in the face ; that they tried to think 
 that things were as they wished them to be, and so 
 brought on themselves successive disappointments 
 which culminated in the martyrdom of Gordon. It 
 gives, surely, serious food for thought that the same 
 Government which had so long resisted sending an 
 expedition to the Soudan, when Gordon's life was 
 in danger, was prepared to make a sudden volte face 
 after his death at the dictation of a wholly unin- 
 formed British public opinion. That the expedition 
 was not sent was due to the emergence of a war cloud 
 in a new quarter. 
 
 In 1884 Bismarck had concluded with Russia a 
 secret treaty of neutrality ' without the knowledge 
 and behind the backs of the other parties of the 
 triple alliance, viz. Austria-Hungary and Italy. It 
 was intended to protect Germany, in the event of 
 Austria-Hungary becoming reconciled with Russia, 
 or of the long-talked-of alliance between France and 
 Russia taking effect. Russia, however, interpreted 
 this treaty, which secured her western frontier, as 
 also giving her a free hand in Asia, and Prince 
 Bismarck gave a tacit approval, as part of the new 
 policy to a system of persistent annoyance against
 
 RUSSIA AND THE FAR EAST 335 
 
 Great Britain.' l Mr. Gladstone believed that 
 Russian energies, turned from their natural channel 
 in south-east Europe, had taken the direction of 
 expansion in Asia. But in fact such expansion was 
 natural, and, indeed, inevitable, and on similar lines 
 to that of our Indian Empire. In either case ex- 
 pansion would go on till it reached a strong consoli- 
 dated country, capable of protecting its own interest. 
 Unfortunately the matter had been complicated by 
 querulous complaints on the part of British states- 
 men, and mendacious statements by responsible 
 Russian officials. Still reasonable men agreed with 
 Disraeli (1876) that Asia was large enough for the 
 destinies of both Russia and England. 
 
 At the same time it was necessary that Afghanistan 
 should remain independent, and in July, 1880, the 
 Ameer received a distinct promise of help, in case of 
 interference by any Foreign Power. The advance 
 of Russia made necessary the delimitation of the 
 frontiers of Afghanistan. But after that the Com- 
 mission had been appointed, the Russian represen- 
 tative delayed his appearance, and Russian troops, 
 meanwhile, penetrated further south into what had 
 been recognised as Afghan territory. On March 29 
 a collision occurred between Russian and Afghan 
 troops. The British fleet occupied Port Hamilton, off 
 the southern coast of Korea, and Mr. Gladstone pro- 
 posed a vote of credit for 11,000,000. War seemed 
 inevitable ; but Russia, no more than England, 
 really desired another war ; so that a compromise 
 was arrived at, under which the disputed responsi- 
 bility for the 'incident' was referred to an arbitrator, 
 
 1 Life of Lord OranviUe, vol. ii. p. 422.
 
 336 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 the Russian advance, meanwhile, coming to a halt. 
 Although it was at the time severely criticised, the 
 arrangement arrived at seems to have secured to 
 Afghanistan a strategical frontier ; and there was 
 no evidence in the conduct of the matter by the 
 Government of that indecision which was so apparent 
 in other quarters of the world. 
 
 The Pendjeh 'incident,' along with the Transvaal 
 and Egypt, and the question of German colonisa- 
 tion, which from 1884 onwards played so leading a 
 part in creating Anglo-German relations, do not 
 directly concern us here. But it is impossible 
 wholly to ignore these matters because of the light 
 they throw on European policy. 
 
 In 1882 we find Bismarck still professing the most 
 friendly feelings towards England. Lord Fitz Maurice 
 is able to print an interesting private letter which 
 said : 
 
 ' In the absence of any direct German interests 
 in the future settlement of Egyptian affairs, and with 
 the certainty that France and the probability that 
 Russia would, under given circumstances, become 
 our opponents, I have advocated with the Emperor 
 the necessity of avoiding independently of the occa- 
 sionally astounding policy of the succeeding English 
 cabinets every conflict with the English nation, and 
 public opinion in England, which will influence 
 national feeling in England against us, so long as 
 we are not forced into it by paramount German 
 interests. . . . We can only give positive support to 
 English wishes within very narrow limits, unless 
 we are prepared to take up a more hostile position 
 than necessary towards Russia, and to call forth not
 
 BISMARCK ON ANGLO-GERMAN RELATIONS 337 
 
 only in France, but in a great majority of the people 
 of England, the unfounded suspicion that our policy 
 tends to disunite the two great Western Powers and 
 to " manoeuvre " them into war with each other, 
 which both fear and dread the cost of. 
 
 ' I have encountered no difficulties in my endea- 
 vours with the Emperor to render our policy friendly 
 to England, but I have had to overcome opposition 
 and contradiction at every single succeeding step 
 at Vienna, partly from Mr. Gladstone's former 
 unfounded menaces against Austria, partly from 
 Austrian Turkophilism, not only political but also 
 speculative and financial, in regard to contemplated 
 railway enterprises, and partly also from the want 
 of habit at Vienna to consider the future of political 
 questions beyond the current week. 
 
 ' I am not yet thoroughly well informed in regard 
 to the causes of the violent antagonism of a great 
 part of our German press against England. When 
 it is not merely the innate German tendency always 
 to " find fault " and to " know better," I am inclined 
 to think it is partly due to the financial sorrows 
 of great financiers connected with the larger news- 
 papers, and partly to the large sums of money 
 expended by the French, and the still larger sums 
 of money expended by the Russians to bribe the 
 German press. 
 
 ' The greatest difficulty, however, we encounter, 
 in trying to give a practical expression to our sym- 
 pathies for and our relations with England, is in the 
 absolute impossibility of confidential intercourse, in 
 consequence of the indiscretion of English statesmen 
 in their communications to Parliament, and in the
 
 338 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 absence of security in alliances, for which the crown 
 is not answerable in England, but only the fleeting 
 cabinets of the day. It is therefore difficult to 
 initiate a reliable understanding with England other- 
 wise than publicly and in the face of all Europe. 
 Such public negotiations from their initiation, and 
 even without arriving at any definite result, will be 
 highly detrimental to most of our European rela- 
 tions ; but all these difficulties should not be allowed 
 to stand in the way of our cordially entertaining 
 any advances made to us, and to prevent us from 
 cultivating the consolidation of our and Austria's 
 friendship with England.' l 
 
 It was a peculiarly Bismarckian touch to recognise 
 openly the existence of suspicions, which in fact were 
 almost certainly justified. With regard to the press, 
 if Busch is to be trusted, the tone adopted by his 
 chief, when giving suggestions in the same year, was 
 not too friendly to England. 2 It may be counted 
 to Mr. Gladstone for righteousness that he at least 
 knew how to resist the voice of the stalwart siren. 
 ' I am afraid,' he wrote to Lord Granville in 1883, 
 ' that none of the three "Northern " Powers are to 
 be trusted, in respect to the Balkan Peninsula and 
 
 1 Life of Lord Granville, vol. ii. pp. 274-6. On January 26, 
 1889, Bismarck said in the Reichstag : ' I regard England as our 
 old traditional ally, with whom we have no conflicts of interest. 
 When I say " ally " I do not use the word in its diplomatic sense ; 
 we have no treaty with England ; but I wish to preserve the 
 close relationship with England which we have had now for 
 over 150 years, even in colonial questions. And if I was satisfied 
 we were in danger of losing it, I should be careful to try and 
 prevent that happening.' (Quoted in The Round Table, No. 26, 
 p. 256.) 
 
 2 O-p. cit. vol. iii. pp. 51-4,
 
 BISMARCK'S POLICY 339 
 
 the Emancipated States. Austria has been osten- 
 tatiously taught to turn her eyes eastwards by friends 
 and pretended friends in the west, and I fear that 
 Bismarck only waits his opportunity to egg her 
 onwards in this direction, taking compensation in his 
 own neighbourhood. It is, I am convinced, a mad 
 policy for her. She has difficulty enough with the 
 Slavs she has, who differ in race only. To take Slavs 
 of another religion will be a yet more hazardous 
 experiment, unless she will become a real Slav Power, 
 and I do not see that this is possible. . . . Austria 
 seems to have a notion, probably a false one, that 
 she can strengthen herself by extension eastwards. 
 Unfortunately it has been her besetting sin to make 
 light of the sympathies of the populations. On the 
 whole, any fear I have of Austria is in the main a 
 fear that Bismarck may think fit to propel her.' 1 
 
 There can be no question that Bismarck encour- 
 aged Jules Ferry, who became French Prime Minister 
 in 1883, in his colonial adventures, so as to keep 
 England and France at arm's length. In June, 1884, 
 Lord Lyons wrote from France : ' Generally speak- 
 ing, I am very unhappy about the growing ill-will 
 between France and England which exists on both 
 sides of the Channel. It is not that I suppose that 
 France has any deliberate intention of going to war 
 with us. But the two nations come into contact 
 in every part of the globe. In every part of it ques- 
 tions arise which, in the present state of feeling, excite 
 mutual suspicion and irritation. Who can say when 
 and where, in this state of things, some local events 
 may not produce a serious quarrel, or some bigh- 
 
 1 Life of Lord QranviUe, vol. ii. pp. 276-7.
 
 340 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 handed proceedings of some hot-headed officials 
 occasion an actual collision.' l 
 
 In 1885 Bismarck began openly to bluster and 
 complain bitterly of England, when an event took 
 place that gave him pause. Jules Ferry fell from 
 power, March 30, on a vote of credit for the Chinese 
 War. ' Ferry,' wrote Lord Granville, ' is certainly 
 no loss to us. He arrived at the Quai d'Orsay quite 
 ignorant of foreign affairs ; and the more he learnt 
 of them the more subservient he became to Bismarck 
 and the more tricky to us.' 2 In this state of 
 things Bismarck adopted a more conciliatory policy. 
 As early as 1884 the subject of Heligoland was 
 broached, and in the following year Lord Granville, 
 as part of a friendly arrangement with regard to 
 Egypt and colonial questions, was ' prepared to ask 
 the cabinet to enter into a friendly consideration of 
 the suggested plans respecting Heligoland and of the 
 necessary conditions which should attach to it.' 3 
 It should be noted that Bismarck had openly de- 
 clared the need of a great harbour at Heligoland as 
 part of a scheme for opening a way into the Baltic ; 
 so that, when an unoffending pleasure resort became 
 afterwards converted into a powerful place of arms, 
 it did not come about without previous warning 
 to England. With the resignation of the Liberal 
 Government in 1885, Lord Granville's time at the 
 Foreign Office came to an end. What great personal 
 charm and popularity could effect, he had done ; 
 but it was felt, when Lord Rosebery became Foreign 
 Secretary in the short-lived administration of 1886, 
 
 1 Life of Lord Granville, vol. ii. p. 333. 
 
 2 Ibid. pp. 434-5. '" Ibid. p. 425.
 
 LIBERAL IMPERIALISM 341 
 
 that a new generation had grown up, requiring new 
 men and new methods. 
 
 Still it proved impossible for either party to escape 
 from the blind alley of constant friction with France, 
 and constant attempts at the promotion of real 
 friendly feelings between England and Germany, 
 which never quite met with success. 1 In 1890, as 
 part of a friendly arrangement settling outstanding 
 East African questions in a manner not unfavour- 
 able to Great Britain, Lord Salisbury undertook, 
 subject to the assent of Parliament, to cede to Ger- 
 many the sovereignty over the Island of Heligoland, 
 together with its dependencies. Henceforth British 
 proceedings in Egypt received the half -sulky sanction 
 of Germany ; but there was no cordiality in the 
 mutual relations of the two countries. 
 
 Writing of 1893, Lord Cromer thus describes the 
 state of feeling in England : ' The position of English 
 parties was at this time somewhat peculiar. . . . 
 An important section of the Liberal party, whilst 
 ready to follow Mr. Gladstone's guidance in internal 
 affairs, was disposed to support the foreign policy 
 of Lord Salisbury. For some years previously the 
 influence of what used to be known as the Manchester 
 or peace-at-any-price school had been waning. This 
 
 1 In October, 1886, according to Sir C. Dilke, 'two great re- 
 fusals of alliances took place. France, I am told, declined a 
 formal alliance with Russia and Austria declined an alliance with 
 Great Britain. . . . France was anxious not to take any steps that 
 might precipitate a war, and Austria thought that she could 
 accomplish the task which both her statesmen and Lord Salisbury 
 had in view, viz. the prevention of war with Russia better by re- 
 maining free. . . . The Austro-British alliance would, in my belief, 
 practically have secured peace, as Russia knows that whatever 
 her earlier victories . . . England would fight on until she con- 
 quered.' (Op. cit. p. 16.)
 
 342 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 school had been created by Cobden, and was the 
 natural outcome of the rebound from the somewhat 
 aggressive attitude and excessive interfering in the 
 affairs of Continental nations which characterised 
 the foreign policy of Lord Palmerston. Experience 
 had shown that a policy of complete isolation was 
 detrimental to British interests, and might even be 
 fraught with more dangers to the peace of the world 
 than one of undue interference. A happy and rational 
 mean between the two extremes had been found by 
 Lord Salisbury, whose foreign policy was approved 
 by many Liberals, and was even vaunted by Mr. 
 Gladstone himself. More than this, the defeats which 
 British arms and policy had of late years sustained 
 in South Africa, and still more the mismanagement 
 of the affairs in the Sudan, had left a deep impres- 
 sion on the mind of the British nation. It was 
 discovered that the indecision of a weak Government 
 which did not know its own mind might be more 
 dangerous to the interests of peace than the decisive 
 action of a relatively strong Government, which 
 allowed all the world to know that the dignified and 
 rational defence of British interests abroad formed 
 an essential part of its political programme. ... A 
 stern recognition of facts was better than the most 
 pacific intentions. Recent experiences had shown 
 that it was wiser to steer the ship of state than to 
 allow her to drift rudderless down a dangerous 
 channel. Thus the school of Liberal Imperialists 
 came into being. The Liberal Imperialists looked 
 to Lord Rosebery as their leader. It was thought 
 that at the General Election of 1892 many waverers 
 had decided to vote for the Gladstone candidate on
 
 LORD SALISBURY'S FOREIGN POLICY 343 
 
 reflecting that, under Lord Rosebery's guidance, a 
 foreign policy of which they could approve would be 
 adopted.' 1 
 
 During the last fifteen years of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury Lord Salisbury was, with two short intervals, 
 responsible for British foreign policy. There is a 
 consensus of opinion that he did his work wisely and 
 well. But it is difficult to draw from the history of 
 these years general conclusions. In Lord Salisbury's 
 words : ' The emblem of the Foreign Office ought 
 to be the ancient Egyptian emblem of silence.' 2 
 Accordingly it follows that ' it is the misfortune of 
 a foreign minister that the more the subject matters 
 with which his diplomacy is concerned prosper and 
 succeed, the less interest will his fellow-subjects 
 take in the matter of that department ! ' 3 On the 
 same occasion he declared : ' Our policy is well 
 known to all the world. Our treaty obligations are 
 matters of public property and our policy with 
 respect to Europe and the Mediterranean has been 
 avowed again and again to be a policy of peace, of 
 maintaining things as they are, because we believe 
 that in the state of things as they are there is a suffi- 
 cient opportunity for the progress and prosperity of 
 all those who inhabit those countries, without trust- 
 ing anything to the sinister and hazardous arbitra- 
 ment of war. That is our policy to retain things 
 as they are hi Europe and the shores of the Medi- 
 terranean ; and, if there is any particular change 
 which I might indicate is in my opinion more per- 
 
 1 Abbas II. pp. 28-30. 
 
 1 Speech at Mansion House, The, Times, August 11, 1887. 
 
 3 Speech at Guildhall, The Times, November 12, 1889.
 
 nicious than another, it is a change which will increase 
 the territory of any of the Powers of Europe, because 
 such a change would have the infallible effect of 
 raising dread and apprehension and jealousy in other 
 Powers, and of precipitating us into a catastrophe 
 which we are all anxious to avoid. But when you 
 pass from policy to the precise measures, diplomatic 
 or material, which on some future occasion it may 
 be the duty of this country to adopt, then I 
 say, if I could foresee them I would not tell you 
 what they were, and I tell you frankly that it is 
 impossible for any Government to foresee them. 
 They depend on conditions which we cannot foresee 
 and on the actions of men over whom we have no 
 control.' 
 
 The one aim and object of Lord Salisbury's policy 
 was to secure the peace of Europe. When, whether 
 or not through Lord Beaconsfield's proceedings, to 
 which Lord Salisbury had given his assent, there was 
 fear of war with Russia, he had sought safety in an 
 informal alliance with Austria and Germany. ' I 
 believe,' he had said in October, 1879, ' that in the 
 strength and independence of Austria lie the best 
 hopes of European stability and peace. What has 
 happened within the last few weeks justifies us in 
 hoping that Austria, if attacked, would not be alone. 
 The newspapers say I know not whether they say 
 rightly that a defensive alliance has been established 
 between Germany and Austria. I will not pronounce 
 any opinion as to the accuracy of that information ; 
 but I will only say this to you and all who value 
 the peace of Europe and the independence of nations, 
 I may say, without profanity, that it is " good tidings
 
 LORD SALISBURY'S FOREIGN POLICY 345 
 
 of great joy." ' l He valued the Triple Alliance 
 because he believed that it conduced to peace. ' The 
 limits of his relations with the Triple Alliance,' we 
 are told, ' were marked in February, 1887, when, in 
 order to prevent Italy from withdrawing from the 
 Treaty, he guaranteed her against a naval attack by 
 France, in an agreement for maintaining the status 
 quo in the Mediterranean to which Austria was a 
 party.' 2 
 
 Lord Salisbury, however, had no prejudice against 
 Russia, and rejoiced whole-heartedly when the sub- 
 ject of Afghanistan was no longer a subject of 
 difference between the two Governments. There 
 was, he insisted, ' abundant room for both Govern- 
 ments, if they would think so, for two generations to 
 come to occupy themselves in civilising and increasing 
 the prosperity of the vast regions they had brought 
 under their sway.' 3 Some years later he protested 
 against the assumption made by Bismarck, doubtless 
 for his own ends, that there was a permanent, neces- 
 sary antagonism between Russia and Great Britain. 
 Such an idea was ' the superstition of an antiquated 
 diplomacy.' 4 
 
 With regard to Lord Salisbury's policy towards 
 France, Lord FitzMaurice writes : ' Encouraged in 
 1886 by the existence of a friendly ministry in France, 
 he, like Lord Granville, began by attempting a 
 rapprochement with France ; and, in order to gain 
 her good-will, even went so far as to negotiate a 
 treaty with the Porte for the evacuation of Egypt. 
 
 1 Quoted, FitzMaurice, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 211. 
 
 2 Quarterly Review, October, 1902. 
 
 3 The Times, August 11, 1887. 
 
 4 Speech at Guildhall, The Times, November 10, 1896.
 
 346 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 But Lord Salisbury, like Lord Granville, soon dis- 
 covered that the susceptibilities of France in regard 
 to Egypt were by no means yet allayed, and that the 
 ephemeral character of French ministries still pre- 
 sented a hopeless obstacle to any continuity of policy 
 on their part.' 1 
 
 There was in Lord Salisbury a combination of 
 honesty and of cynicism which was peculiar to him. 
 'We exaggerate,' he said in 1891, 'too much the 
 importance and the effect of treaties. In this age 
 of the world, and in view of the fearful risk which 
 every disturbance brings upon any nation concerned 
 in it, I do not think that we must rate too highly the 
 effect of the bonds constituted by signatures upon 
 a piece of paper. If nations in a great crisis act 
 rightly, they will so act because they are in unison 
 and in cordiality with each other, and not because 
 they have bound themselves by protocols. Do 
 not therefore pay too much attention to this talk 
 you may have heard of alliances and treaties. For 
 ourselves we have a simple rule. Our allies are 
 those who wish to maintain territorial distribution 
 as it is, without risking the fearful dangers of the 
 terrible arbitrament of war. Our allies are those 
 who desire peace and good- will.' 2 
 
 To Lord Salisbury belonged the credit or good 
 fortune of lifting foreign affairs above the contests 
 of party politics. But even with this advantage the 
 conduct of the foreign affairs of a democracy was 
 ticklish work. ' Everything is said here freely,' he 
 told a Scottish audience, ' with respect to the affairs 
 
 1 Op. cit. vol. ii. p. 453. 
 
 8 Speech at Mansion House, July 30, 1891.
 
 LORD SALISBURY'S FOREIGN POLICY 347 
 
 of the Foreign Office. . . . The effect of the double 
 consumption of all that is said, the effect of our, as 
 it were, speaking in a public place where every one 
 hears us is most embarrassing. When it is my good 
 fortune to conclude a treaty, I desire my fellow- 
 subjects shall approve it, but I desire no less ardently 
 that they shall abstain from saying so, because, if 
 they do, it necessarily follows that the people on the 
 other side think there is something very bad for them 
 in it and immediately resist it.' J 
 
 We have seen that the sheet anchor of Lord Salis- 
 bury's policy was peace, because peace was the foun- 
 dation of confidence, and confidence was the end 
 and object of his political creed. 2 But, in order that 
 peace should prevail, there was need of two things : 
 first, that each individual nation should be willing 
 to agree to a policy of give and take, and secondly, 
 that the Concert of Europe should be a reality. It 
 was because of his recognition of the necessity of 
 the first condition that he put forward this general 
 plea. ' Consider our foreign work altogether. You 
 should not consider this one case, or this other case, or 
 the third case, but what has been the result when 
 the whole issue is hung together. When the account 
 books are totted up and the balance ascertained, 
 then form your judgment, but do not form your 
 judgment on the individual passing items. It may 
 be quite true that there are matters on which you 
 would do right to go to war, and yet the extreme 
 step was not taken. But you must be sure, before 
 you take that action, that there was no other possible 
 
 1 Speech at Glasgow, The Times, May 21, 1891. 
 
 1 Speech at Nottingham, The Times, November 27, 1889.
 
 348 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 or immediate complication within view which made 
 it necessary to economise the force that was at the 
 disposal of the Government.' 1 With regard to the 
 Concert of Europe no one was better fitted by tem- 
 perament and intellect than was Lord Salisbury to 
 recognise its limitations and imperfections. Still, 
 in spite of those limitations and those imperfections, 
 it was ' the embryo of the only possible structure of 
 Europe which can save civilisation from the deso- 
 lating effects of a disastrous war ' ; and, as such, must 
 in every way be supported and encouraged. 
 
 It would be idle to claim for Lord Salisbury in- 
 fallibility of judgment. He has been proved to have 
 been wrong in his belief that wars henceforth would 
 in all probability be precipitated by the madness of 
 peoples and not by the malice prepense of their 
 rulers. He may have exaggerated, even at the time 
 when he was minister, the strength of the forces mak- 
 ing for the maintenance of the status quo in Europe, 
 and shown some lack of political insight in failing to 
 apprehend the future trouble likely to be caused by 
 Powers not yet satisfied and desiring their place in 
 the sun. Nevertheless, whatever may have been 
 Lord Salisbury's shortcomings, in his moral and 
 intellectual strength, in his splendid contempt for 
 the meaner tricks of politics, and in his single-hearted 
 devotion to the interests of his country and of peace 
 with honour, he was a British asset in the Councils 
 of Europe, the value of which could only be appre- 
 ciated when it was removed. No one more fitly 
 represented before the monarchs and statesmen of 
 Europe the kind of British Foreign Minister which 
 
 1 Quoted Quarterly Review, October 1902, p. 675.
 
 ANGLO-FRENCH RELATIONS 349 
 
 in our occasional moods of self-satisfaction we hope 
 and believe to be typical. 
 
 Whilst it was easy to recognise that a policy of 
 complete isolation might be detrimental to British 
 interests, it was less easy to see how that isolation 
 could be avoided. In 1885 and 1887 Lord Salisbury 
 had risked handing over the Egyptian fellaheen to 
 the tender mercies of the Turk in the endeavour to 
 placate France and Turkey. But, happily for 
 Egyptian interests and for the interests of the 
 British Empire, his offer had been rejected with 
 scorn. At any moment throughout these years 
 a storm cloud might burst which would involve 
 England in a war with France and Russia ; and 
 British statesmen were not so simple as to expect, 
 should such a crisis take place, much help from 
 Germany. 
 
 The darkest hour, however, is that which precedes 
 the dawn ; and there was needed the serious risk 
 of an actual collision at Fashoda (1898) to bring home 
 to the minds of responsible statesmen both in France 
 and in England how harmful to the vital interests 
 of either country would be a war between them. 
 Where there is a will to bring about a remedy 
 there is nearly always a way. And so at last, 
 in 1904, an agreement was arrived at, from which 
 has blossomed the close Anglo-French alliance of 
 to-day. 
 
 Meanwhile, what were the relations between Eng- 
 land and Germany ? In 1900 Prince Bismarck 
 retired, the young Emperor being unable to bear a 
 rival near the throne. He intended to ' govern 
 alone with his own genius and be able to cover
 
 350 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 himself with glory.' l The extreme caution of the 
 wise old chancellor was thrown to the winds ; and 
 the first fruit of the new regime was the non-renewal 
 of the secret treaty with Russia, which the Emperor, 
 perhaps rightly, held to be inconsistent with the 
 close alliance between Germany and Austria. There 
 has been much controversy over the question, what 
 were the Emperor's feelings towards England ? On 
 the one hand, he had shown himself an unkind son, 
 and the family associations to which he had done 
 violence were closely bound up with love of English 
 constitutional and social ideals. On the other hand, 
 William himself showed by the frequency of his visits 
 to England how much in many ways the English 
 habits of life appealed to him. Upon the whole, it 
 seems probable that his political ideals embraced 
 Great Britain as a kind of naval Austria attached 
 to Germany. But these ideals involved the truth 
 of the assumption that England was to a very great 
 extent a played-out Power, her people decadent, and 
 herself reclining unworthily on a position of honour 
 which the forbears of the present effete generation 
 had won by toil and sacrifice. Far, then, as he pro- 
 bably was from ever contemplating even the possi- 
 bility of a great European War, in which the two 
 Teutonic peoples would take different sides, the 
 megalomania that was ever growing in volume under 
 the flattering prophecies of historians and professors, 
 and the interested ambitions of great commercial and 
 shipping interests on the make, led inevitably to a 
 state of things full of danger to the peace of Europe. 
 
 1 Bismarck's words to Busch, March 17, 1880, op. cit. vol. iii. 
 p. 313,
 
 THE TELEGRAM TO KRUGER 351 
 
 Still the English people and their leaders went on 
 their way, severely indifferent to danger signals that 
 seemed to practical men to be somewhat theoretic. 
 The first time when the British public began to realise 
 what might be in store for them from the new regime 
 was when, on the collapse of the Jameson raid, the 
 German Emperor telegraphed to Kruger his congra- 
 tulations, adding words which, if they meant any- 
 thing, meant that in case of need, Germany would 
 throw her sword into the scales on the side of the 
 Boers against a common enemy. It had been a 
 settled maxim among politicians of all schools in 
 England that, whatever the wrongs or the rights of 
 any particular controversy, South African questions 
 must be settled by England alone and the people 
 on the spot, without outside interference. The 
 language of the telegram, therefore, seemed like an 
 unexpected blow in the face. It is interesting to 
 note the manner of its reception by Mr. Chamberlain, 
 who belonged to a new school of British statesmen. 
 It must be remembered that a flying squadron of 
 powerful ships had already been made ready for 
 possible developments ; and the scattered portions 
 of the Empire at once declared their readiness to 
 stand by Great Britain in case of need. 
 
 In these circumstances, Mr. Chamberlain, the 
 Secretary of State for the Colonies, when taking the 
 chair at a dinner to a newly appointed Governor of 
 Queensland, on January 21, 1896, spoke as follows : 
 
 ' A few weeks ago England appeared to stand 
 alone in the world, surrounded by jealous competi- 
 tors and by altogether unexpected hostility. Differ- 
 ences between ourselves and other nations, which
 
 352 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 were of long standing, appeared suddenly to come 
 to a head and assume threatening proportions ; and 
 from quarters to which we might have looked for 
 friendship and consideration having regard to our 
 traditions and to a certain community of interests 
 we were confronted with suspicion and even with 
 hate. We had to recognise that even success itself, 
 however legitimate, was imputed to us as a crime ; 
 that our love of peace was taken as a sign of weak- 
 ness ; and that our indifference to foreign criticism 
 was taken as an invitation to insult us. The pros- 
 pect of our discomfiture was regarded with hardly 
 disguised satisfaction by our competitors, who at 
 the same time must have been forced to own that 
 we alone held our possessions throughout the world 
 in trust for all, and that we admit them to our markets 
 as freely as our own subjects. I regret that such a 
 feeling should exist and that we should be forced 
 to acknowledge its existence ; but, as it does exist, 
 I rejoice that it has found expression. No better 
 service was ever done to this nation, for it has enabled 
 us to show, in face of all, that, while we are resolute 
 to fulfil our obligations, we are equally determined 
 to maintain our rights. 
 
 ' Three weeks ago, in the words of Mr. Foster, the 
 leader of the House of Commons of the Dominion 
 of Canada, " the Great Mother Empire stood splen- 
 didly isolated." And how does she stand to-day ? 
 She stands secure in the strength of herown resources, 
 in the firm resolution of her people without respect 
 to party, and in the abundant loyalty of her children 
 from one end of the Empire to another.' * 
 
 1 Mr. Chamberlain 1 a Speeches, ed. by C. Boyd, vol. i. pp. 361-2-
 
 A COMBINATION AGAINST ENGLAND 353 
 
 This was all very well ; but it must be remembered 
 that twenty years ago the power of the Dominions 
 was not what it is to-day ; and ' isolation,' however 
 ' splendid,' presented many points of danger. What 
 if the great European Powers, forgetting for the 
 time their mutual dislike and jealousies, should com- 
 bine to pull down the high places of that island home 
 whose past good fortune and present prosperity 
 contained so much that might move the envy of less 
 fortunate peoples ? It would seem, as has been already 
 stated, that about the time of the beginning of the 
 South African War this danger really came within 
 the range of practical politics. What must be the 
 feelings of French and Russian statesmen, if such 
 there be, who look back with a knowledge of the 
 facts on the peril so narrowly averted in which 
 they had almost plunged the most vital interests 
 of their nations ? What would have been the 
 position, in case of war, had Behoboam succeeded 
 Solomon in the exercise of sea power ? If , as seems 
 probable, the scheme of coalescing against England 
 fell through owing to the inevitable refusal of French 
 statesmen to recognise as part of the acknowledged 
 public law of Europe the provisions of the treaty 
 of Frankfort, securing Alsace and Lorraine to Ger- 
 many, then we may truthfully say that the Gods 
 were just, and from the unpleasant, no less than 
 from the pleasant, vices of men knew how to make 
 whips to scourge them. By rendering impossible a 
 future reconciliation between France and Germany, 
 the German General Staff created the political 
 situation, the final outcome of which we are 
 witnessing to-day.
 
 354 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 But, though British statesmen might use brave 
 language about splendid isolation, just as a schoolboy 
 whistles when returning through a churchyard on a 
 dark night, when once European combinations came 
 again within the range of probability, it was necessary 
 to reconsider the whole basis of British policy and 
 to mould it anew. These things belong to a new 
 century and are outside our range. We may note, 
 however, that whilst past prejudices were too strong 
 to allow of Great Britain forming a definite alliance 
 with any European state, still the ententewtih France, 
 as time went on, took more and more the character 
 of a genuine alliance ; and in the Far East the Anglo- 
 Japanese alliance of August, 1905, openly gave the 
 quietus to the doctrines of the past. 
 
 The present writer has already ventured to ex- 
 press his satisfaction that these things have been so. 
 The final concert, not of Europe only, but of the 
 world, to which we must look forward as the ultimate 
 goal, however slow and laborious may be the road 
 to its attainment, can only be reached by attending 
 to the old truth that, 'Precept must be upon precept, 
 precept upon precept ; line upon line, line upon line ; 
 here a little and there a little.' It may sound a para- 
 dox, but it is probably true that in the present temper 
 of the world the best prospect of durable peace lies 
 in the existence of strong alliances of Powers, ready 
 to wage a defensive war on behalf of each other's 
 interests if attacked. It is highly probable that, had 
 England been joined in a close alliance with France 
 and Russia, so as to necessitate her intervention, 
 Germany might have held back Austria from pre- 
 cipitating the Great War ; though whether, without
 
 BISMARCK ON TREATY OBLIGATIONS 355 
 
 a change in the German spirit, that would have been 
 in the long run a blessing either to Great Britain 
 or to Europe must remain very doubtful. Consider 
 the force that would reside in a federation of the 
 English-speaking nations of the world, were such a 
 consummation to become possible ; especially as 
 that federation would be in close connexion with 
 the Allied Powers in the Great War. Next to con- 
 verting the temper that desires war, the best thing 
 is to make war so dangerous a game that even those 
 inclined to wax wanton will consider carefully before 
 they embark upon it. 
 
 Meanwhile, the immediate need is to uphold 
 the sanctity of treaty rights, the obligation of the 
 solemnly given undertaking. Bismarck declared 
 that ' all contracts between great states cease to be 
 unconditionally binding as soon as they are tested 
 by " the struggle for existence." No great nation 
 will ever be induced to sacrifice its existence on the 
 altar of fidelity to contract when it is compelled 
 to choose between the two. The maxim " ultra 
 posse nemo obligatur " holds good in spite of all 
 treaty formulas whatsoever, nor can any treaty 
 guarantee the degree of zeal and the amount of 
 force that will be devoted to the discharge of obliga- 
 tions, when the private interests of those who lie 
 under them no longer reinforce the text or its earliest 
 interpretation.' 1 Yes ; but surely treaties do not 
 become obsolete in the flash of an eye ; and, when 
 they no longer seem applicable to existing condi- 
 tions, the crudest public law obviously demands 
 that they should be repudiated solemnly and with 
 
 1 Bismarck, Reflections, vol. ii. p. 276.
 
 356 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 due notice, so that those affected by the change 
 should be damnified as little as possible. For in- 
 stance, there was nothing to prevent Germany from 
 announcing, while peace prevailed, that the circum- 
 stances under which she had become a guarantor 
 of Belgian neutrality had so changed that hence- 
 forth she could no longer be a party to such under- 
 taking. The concert of Europe, duly apprised of 
 such an intention, whether at a European Conference 
 or otherwise, would have been able to make the 
 arrangements necessitated by the new state of 
 things. Of course Germany would never have taken 
 such a method of going to work, because the element 
 of surprise would then have been wanting, and, 
 without that element, the violation of Belgian 
 neutrality would have missed its meaning. Now 
 the surprise in such circumstances is like the action 
 of a trustee who takes advantage of his position to 
 defraud the beneficiary of the trust. 
 
 It has been sought, without extenuation and 
 without malice, to tell in rough outline the compli- 
 cated story of British policy in its connexion with 
 European affairs. The story is by no means one 
 of unchequered success or virtue ; and, as a nation, 
 no less than as individuals, we have often done 
 those things which we ought not to have done, and 
 left undone those things which we ought to have 
 done. Still, upon the whole, England has stood for 
 two principles, both in themselves sacred, yet often 
 apparently inconsistent with each other : fidelity to 
 existing treaty undertakings, and sympathy with 
 national aspirations. It is because we can, with 
 proud confidence, maintain that, during this great
 
 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY 357 
 
 War, we have been fighting on behalf of these objects, 
 that we look forward hopefully to a better day, when 
 the sunshine of peace shall bring to luxurious bloom 
 the seed, with difficulty preserved alive through the 
 stress and strain of the conflict. 
 
 In dealing with the statements and views of indi- 
 vidual British statesmen we have inevitably been 
 mainly concerned with matters of detail. States- 
 men, especially under a democratic system, must 
 perforce work for the immediate present and live 
 from hand to mouth. Still, though we admit this, 
 we may recognise throughout the course of the 
 history general tendencies at work, influencing the 
 direction of events, even when the individual agents 
 were, for the most part, unconscious of them. The 
 Zeitgeist moves, though men may not recognise 
 whither it is taking them. 
 
 It seems now generally accepted that the Wars 
 of the Spanish and of the Austrian Succession, and 
 the Seven Years' War, were, from the point of view 
 of British history, mainly trade wars, signposts 
 along the road of commercial and imperial develop- 
 ment ; though they were also defensive wars, necessi- 
 tated by the French aim at world-supremacy. The 
 war against the French revolutionary Government 
 and Napoleon, though it added to the extent of the 
 British Empire, was, according to the view here 
 supported, in its inception and in its general character 
 mainly a defensive war, directed against Napoleon's 
 vast ambitions. Accordingly, at the Peace of Paris 
 Great Britain found herself, for the time being, a 
 ' satiated ' State. A colonial empire was proving 
 an expensive luxury, and though the cause of Free
 
 358 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 Trade did not triumph till 1846, for many years 
 business men, no less than theorists, were looking 
 forward to a system under which commerce should 
 no longer be shackled by the gyves of the old colonial 
 system. 1 
 
 In this state of things a new outlet was sought 
 by the Time Spirit. It is true that the old rallying 
 cry still held its ground, viz. the principle of the 
 maintenance of treaty obligations ; but to the more 
 adventurous minds of a new generation too often 
 this meant the seeking the living among the dead. 
 A new inspiration had to be found ; and, hesitatingly 
 with Canning, in full swing with Palmerston and 
 Russell, a new breeze swelled the sails of British 
 foreign policy and led to new Eldorados. That 
 breeze was the principle of nationality which aroused 
 sympathy for its every manifestation, at least by 
 thought and word, if not by action. We have seen 
 the heartburnings thereby occasioned to Queen Vic- 
 toria and Prince Albert ; but what was more opera- 
 tive in arresting, for the time being, the movement 
 than the disapproval of crowned heads was the sorry 
 figure cut by sentiment, unprepared for action, when 
 it found itself confronted in 1863 and 1864 with the 
 solid forces of militarism in Russia and Prussia. 
 
 It must not, however, be supposed that at any 
 moment of time tendencies were ever at work in a 
 single direction. The business of the historian must 
 always be to survey a stream in which he has to note 
 many cross currents. Thus, throughout the period 
 of Palmerston's ascendency, the Manchester school 
 
 1 See ' Merchants' Petition of 1820,' Tooke, History of Prices, 
 Appendix 1, pp. 331-44.
 
 THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL 359 
 
 had its numerous and active supporters. Their views 
 were expressed by Bright, when he said (October 29th, 
 1858) : ' The more you examine the matter, the more 
 you will come to the conclusion . . . that the foreign 
 policy, this "regard for the liberties of Europe," 
 this care at one time for " the Protestant interests," 
 this excessive love for the " balance of power," is 
 neither more nor less than a gigantic system of out- 
 door relief for the aristocracy of Great Britain.' J 
 The Manchester school, however, though they won 
 popular approval by being the means through which 
 was cheapened the people's bread, remained, it may 
 be contended, in a backwater of English political 
 thought. At a time when things were moving more 
 and more in the direction of State interference and 
 supervision, they were individualists, of a singularly 
 crude and unattractive type. At a time when centri- 
 petal tendencies were already silently at work in the 
 British Empire, no less than in Germany, their views 
 on colonies were still based on Turgot and Joseph 
 Hume. The combination of Quaker Christianity 
 with capitalist worldliness had little to attract the 
 English working-man, whose instinct is to return a 
 blow with a blow, but who, on questions of money, 
 is, so far as his own class is concerned, a genuine 
 altruist. The Manchester School was, it seems, of 
 importance not because of its direct influence upon 
 politics, but because indirectly it undoubtedly in- 
 fluenced the views of men like Lord Stanley and 
 Lord Granville. 
 
 Moreover, apart from such purely negative atti- 
 tude, the tendencies at work were often, no doubt, 
 
 1 Speeches, ed. by J. Thorold Rogers (Pop. Ed.), p. 470.
 
 360 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 mixed and confused. Thus Palmerston was the main 
 champion of the national idea ; but he was also a 
 strong supporter of British imperial claims. The 
 Crimean War was, according to the view here adopted, 
 to a great extent, an accident, due to the Czar's 
 misunderstanding of Lord Aberdeen and to the policy 
 of drift on the part of British statesmen ; but, assum- 
 ing that Palmerston was right in believing that 
 Russia was aiming at an ascendency in the Near 
 East which threatened British interests in the Medi- 
 terranean and India, then the Crimean War can be 
 justified as one waged on behalf of imperial interests. 
 (It added, no doubt, to its popularity that to the 
 average Englishman Russia represented the forces 
 of darkness and reaction.) 
 
 In spite, howevei, of the complexity of the subject 
 it remains true that at particular times particular 
 tendencies are predominant. Thus when, as we 
 have seen, the wave of enthusiasm for the national 
 idea seemed for the moment to have spent itself, 
 with the triumph of nationality in a singularly 
 ominous shape within the new German Empire, 
 henceforth a new tendency becomes very active, 
 guiding the course of English history. Men began 
 slowly, and often half-consciously, to realise that in 
 the new Europe Great Britain could only hold her 
 own if she spoke as the British Empire and not as 
 a little island. We have here nothing to do with 
 the movement which gradually, in the case of the 
 self-governing colonies, converted a precarious owner- 
 ship into an active partnership of free nations. So 
 far as European politics were concerned, it was India 
 and the position of India as a British possession that
 
 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY 361 
 
 dominated the situation. The whole story of our 
 disputes and misunderstandings with Russia has its 
 explanation in British fears of Russian intrigues and 
 movements directed against India. (It was an 
 accident that here again dislike of Russian autocracy 
 reconciled many to an anti-Russian policy who would 
 have recoiled from a policy which avowed itself 
 purely self-interested.) Again, because Egypt was 
 on the road to India, British statesmen were bound 
 to recognise the special claims of Egypt upon their 
 attention and care. If Tory imperialism first bought 
 his shares in the Suez Canal Company from the 
 Khedive, it was Liberals of the type of Lord Gran- 
 ville and Gladstone who found themselves compelled 
 most reluctantly to maintain a virtual British Pro- 
 tectorate over Egypt. There is here no ground for 
 party recriminations. Lord Salisbury, no less than 
 Lord Granville, sought to shake himself free from 
 what, at the time, seemed a Sindbad's burden. But 
 since an Egypt secure from domestic or foreign 
 intrigue was a necessity for British India, British 
 statesmen proceeded, gloomily and reluctantly, with 
 their inevitable task. We can gauge the strength 
 of the tendency at work when we remember that it 
 went on unchecked whilst Gladstone was supreme 
 in domestic politics, a minister whose one article of 
 faith, so far as foreign policy was concerned, was the 
 principle of nationality, and by whom conscious 
 imperialism was met with anathema. 
 
 We may dislike the word imperialism and yet 
 recognise that the affairs of Great Britain abroad 
 must inevitably gain in importance and volume. 
 In these days of rapid communication by post and
 
 362 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 telegraph, as well as by steamer and railroad, the 
 unity of imperial interests is more and more brought 
 home to our understanding. The conquest of Meso- 
 potamia on behalf of India is as much a British 
 interest as is the recovery of Antwerp on behalf 
 of England. The subject is outside our range, 
 but incidentally we may note that the general ten- 
 dency, which for want of a better term we call im- 
 perialist, was the underlying cause which, apart from 
 the case of Belgium, must eventually have brought 
 about a collision between Germany and Great Britain, 
 unless the latter was prepared to yield the pride of 
 place to her younger and upstart rival. In saying 
 this, we may none the less recognise that, in the eyes 
 of the British democracy and of its leaders, it was 
 the violation of Belgian neutrality that alone made 
 the war of 1914 justifiable and, indeed, necessary. 
 Happily for the interests, both of Great Britain and 
 the world at large, we can hope and believe that 
 whilst the wave of imperialist tendency has not spent 
 its strength, it has joined its forces with that other 
 wave of enthusiasm for the national idea, which at 
 last may find its outcome in a new map of Europe.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 ENGLISH SEA-POWER IN ITS RELATION TO 
 OTHER STATES 
 
 BUT, the Satan of the Book of Job may still suggest, 
 granted that English policy on land has upon the 
 whole been moderate and reasonable, may not this 
 be because England has never been a great military 
 state ? If we turn to the element where she has 
 for long been pre-eminent, the case is very different ; 
 and here we see the full measure of British vfipis and 
 o verbearingness . 
 
 Now, it is impossible to deny that sometimes Great 
 Britain has used her power in such a way as to 
 alarm and alienate Neutral States. Still there are 
 numerous considerations to be carefully weighed 
 before we need assume the white sheet. In the 
 first place, we must remember the historical back- 
 ground from which British sea-power started. Ger- 
 man writers seem to consider that the oceans of the 
 world were peacefully open to the nations, till the 
 selfishness and hostility of England stepped in and 
 claimed a monopoly. In fact, at the time when 
 English sea-power began its course, two nations 
 claimed to possess the monopoly of both the Eastern 
 and the Western seas. The same papal grant which
 
 364 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 gave to Spain and Portugal the possession of the 
 unknown land to the East and the West entitled them, 
 it was maintained, to say ' hands off !' to every 
 trespasser who should find himself on the waters 
 which led to such territories. Grotius's treatise, 
 Mare Liberum, was first written, it should be 
 remembered, to vindicate the right of the Dutch 
 to penetrate the Indian Seas. The English kings 
 were content to claim ' sovereignty,' dominium maris, 
 in the ' Narrow Seas ' or mare Britannicum. This 
 seems at first to have meant only the Channel, the 
 narrow sea between England and France. It soon, 
 however, became the accepted interpretation of 
 English statesmen, jurists, and writers, that ' the 
 Narrow Seas ' meant the two seas between England 
 and France, and England and the Netherlands. 1 
 Friction arose with the Dutch, who claimed the 
 freedom of fishing on two grounds, (1) that of the 
 privileges granted by ancient treaties still in force ; 
 (2) that of abstract right because the sea, like the air, 
 is for the common use of all and cannot be private 
 property. The weak point in the case lay in the 
 fact that these two grounds, that of treaty right 
 and that of the Mare Liberum, seemed to be in a 
 certain sense contradictory. The English, how- 
 ever, would not admit that the question of the 
 immemorial ' claims of the Kings of England to 
 sovereignty and jurisdiction in the seas adjoining 
 the British coasts was open to discussion, and, seizing 
 upon the argument placed in their hands by the 
 Dutch Memorandum itself, pleaded with great force 
 that the granting of privileges implied the power 
 
 1 Anglo-Dutch Rivalry, by G. Edmundson, Appendix B, p. 161
 
 THE NAVAL POLICY OF CHARLES I. 365 
 
 to take them away and modify them, should the 
 King deem such a step necessary to protect the 
 interests of his own subjects.' 2 
 
 The judicious historian S. R. Gardiner treats with 
 short shrift the extreme pretensions of James and 
 Charles I. Selden's Mare Clausum, which was written 
 as a counterblast to the work of Grotius, ' would 
 meet,' he writes, ' with nothing but scorn and derision 
 at the present day. Its very premisses would be 
 contemptuously set aside. Selden did not trouble 
 himself to inquire whether the authority which he 
 claimed was in accordance with the well-understood 
 interests of England itself, to say nothing of the 
 interests of other nations. It was enough for him 
 to natter the vanity of his countrymen by a long 
 and elaborate compilation of precedents exhibiting 
 the rights claimed over the seas by early English 
 Sovereigns.' Again : ' No doubt there was much 
 that was fascinating in the splendid position which 
 he (Charles) claimed amidst warring nations. As 
 he kept the peace on land, so would he keep the 
 peace at sea. All through the German Ocean, all 
 through the English Channel, not a shell should be 
 fired in anger. Merchants should ply hither and 
 thither freely, unvexed by pirates, by blockading 
 squadrons, or by inquisitorial searchers for contra- 
 band goods. All these belligerent rights which 
 Charles had himself exercised so freely and so 
 oppressively in the beginning of his reign were to 
 be interdicted to the navies of Spain and France 
 and of the Dutch Republic. He never thought of 
 asking whether other Powers would willingly admit 
 ^Ibid. p. 28.
 
 366 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 an authority so unlimited, any more than he thought 
 of asking whether his subjects would willingly admit 
 the authority which he claimed at home. It was 
 for him to lay down the law, and for others to follow. 
 He alone was disinterested, just and wise : all others 
 were selfish, pugnacious and grasping.' l 
 
 The aberrations of Charles I., like the turpitude 
 of his son, can hardly with justice be laid to the 
 charge of the whole English nation. It must be 
 noted, moreover, that the special circumstances, 
 under which naval power took its rise, coloured 
 greatly its whole subsequent history. On land, as 
 the strong national state replaced feudal anarchy, a 
 national army took the place of the feudal levies, 
 the service being only for the particular campaign, 
 and the human element, in the absence of an 
 elaborate artillery, counting for much more hi 
 the proportional cost of military expenses than 
 it costs in a modern army. On the sea, on the other 
 hand, though crews might be obtained from the 
 compulsory service of fishermen, the actual cost of 
 building ships was too great for the state, in the 
 absence of a proper system of taxation, to under- 
 take a navy, except on a small scale ; so that private 
 initiative came to the rescue of the public weakness 
 and inefficiency. The English fleet that, aided by 
 the weather, routed the Armada, was a fleet largely 
 composed of vessels belonging to private owners. 
 But, obviously, private owners could not exist 
 unless they could obtain some return for their 
 outlay. That return was obtained by preying upon 
 the enemy's commerce, the very word ' privateer ' 
 
 1 History of England, 1603-42, vol. viii. p. 165.
 
 SEA-POWER AND NEUTRALS 367 
 
 taking us back to a time when private war by sea 
 was the rule, not the exception. All rules, then, 
 with regard to naval warfare took their start under 
 conditions in which the idea of a monopoly of par- 
 ticular seas was only gradually dying out, and in 
 which the main objective of naval warfare was the 
 destruction or pillage of enemy goods and commerce. 
 Even now the recognition by International Law, 
 under certain conditions, of private war by sea, 
 suggests how different has been the historical evolu- 
 tion at sea from that which has taken place on land. 
 For years, it may be said without exaggeration, the 
 state of things in the Eastern and the Western Seas 
 was one of uninterrupted war. Hence the necessity 
 of those powerful corporations, such as the English 
 and, above all, the Dutch East India Company, 
 which were both associations for trading purposes, 
 and naval and military organisations, able to hold 
 their own hi the struggle for life. Even when the 
 notion of neutrality emerged in the case of con- 
 tending belligerents, the circumstances were not such 
 as to lend it much importance. In the wars which 
 culminated in the Peace of Paris, 1763, the naval 
 Powers, speaking generally, were for the most part 
 grouped with either England or France. 
 
 The rights of neutrals first became a practical 
 subject of dispute in the war of American Indepen- 
 dence. * The claim of England to seize enemy's 
 goods in neutral ships bore hard upon neutral Powers, 
 and especially upon those of the Baltic, and upon 
 Holland, into whose hands and those of the Austrian 
 Netherlands the war had thrown much of the 
 European carrying trade ; while the products of the
 
 368 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 Baltic, naval stores and grain, were those which 
 England was particularly interested in forbidding 
 to her enemies.' J 
 
 In this state of things the neutral Powers, Russia, 
 Sweden and Denmark, determined to assert their 
 rights ; and, under the lead of Russia, proclaimed 
 the ' Armed Neutrality ' of 1780. The declaration 
 of the Empress of Russia, which formed its basis, 
 announced the following principles : 
 
 Article I. That all neutral vessels ought to navi- 
 gate freely from one port to another, as well 
 as upon the coasts of the Powers now at war. 
 
 Article II. That the effects belonging to the sub- 
 jects of the belligerent Powers shall be free 
 in neutral ships, excepting always contraband 
 goods. 
 
 Article III. That Her Imperial Majesty, in conse- 
 quence of the limits above fixed, will adhere 
 strictly to that which is stipulated by the 
 10th and llth articles of her Treaty of 
 Commerce with England, concerning the 
 manner in which she ought to conduct 
 towards all the belligerent Powers. 
 
 Article IV. That as to what concerns a port 
 blocked up, we ought not, in truth, to consider 
 as such any but those which are found so well 
 shut up by a fixed or sufficient number of 
 vessels belonging to the Power which attacks 
 it, that no one can attempt to enter into such 
 port without evident danger. 
 
 1 Influence of Sea-Power upon History, by Capt. Mahan, p. 405.
 
 SEA-POWER AND NEUTRALS 369 
 
 Article V. That these principles above laid down 
 ought to serve as a rule in all proceedings, 
 whenever there is a question concerning the 
 legality of prizes. 1 
 
 The first article, in effect, declared that neutral 
 vessels had a right to maintain the coasting trade 
 of a belligerent. 
 
 The second enunciated the now familiar doc- 
 trine, ' free, i.e. neutral, ships, free goods.' 
 
 Under a treaty between Great Britain and Russia 
 provisions and horses were excluded from the list 
 of contraband goods, but the treaty of 1766 is silent 
 with regard to the character of naval stores. Still 
 one effect of the third article was to maintain that 
 no articles were contraband except arms, equipments 
 and munitions of war. This ruled out naval stores 
 and provisions, unless belonging to the Government 
 of a belligerent. 
 
 Apart from the undertakings of treaties, the 
 common sense of the law of contraband had been 
 long ago asserted by Grotius. He placed all com- 
 modities under three heads. Some were of use in 
 war alone, for instance, arms. With regard to these, 
 there could be no controversy. Some were useless 
 for purposes of war, serving only for purposes of 
 luxury. The rule with regard to these was equally 
 obvious. Others are of use both in peace and in 
 war ; for instance, money, provisions, ships and 
 articles of naval equipment. With regard to this 
 category the state of the war must be considered. 
 
 1 History and Digest of the International Arbitration* to which 
 the United States has been a Party, by J. B. Moore, vol. ii. 
 p. 993, note. 
 
 E.F.P. 2 A
 
 370 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 * If seizure is necessary for defence, the necessity 
 confers a right of arresting the goods, under the 
 condition, however, that they shall be restored 
 unless some sufficient reason interferes.' ' The prac- 
 tice of different nations,' Mr. Hall writes, ' has been 
 generally determined by their maritime strength, and 
 by the degree of convenience which they have found 
 in multiplying articles the free importation of which 
 they have desired to secure for themselves or to deny 
 to their enemy. Frequently they have endeavoured 
 by their treaties to secure immunity for their own 
 commerce, when neutral, and have extended the list 
 of prohibited objects by Proclamation so soon as 
 they became belligerent.' 1 
 
 Vattel enunciates as contraband ' arms and muni- 
 tions of war, timber and everything which serves 
 for the construction and armament of vessels of war, 
 horses, and even provisions, on certain occasions, 
 when there is hope of reducing the enemy by famine' 
 
 ' It is evident,' writes Captain Mahan, ' that no 
 great maritime state, situated as England then was, 
 could submit ' to the provisions regarding the coast- 
 ing trade and contraband ' as a matter of right.' 2 
 
 * It is usual,' writes Mr. Hall, ' for foreign publicists 
 to treat the formation of the Armed Neutrality as 
 a generous effort to bridle the aggressions of Eng- 
 land, and as investing the principles expressed in 
 the Russian declaration with the authority of such 
 doctrines as are accepted by the body of civilised 
 nations. It is unnecessary to enter into the motives 
 which actuated the Russian Government ; but it 
 
 1 International Law, by W. E. Hall, 6th ed. p. 641. 
 
 2 Op. cit. p. 406.
 
 THE ARMED NEUTRALITY 371 
 
 is impossible to admit that the doctrines which it 
 put forward received any higher sanction at the 
 time than such as could be imparted by an agreement 
 between the Baltic Powers. The accession of France, 
 Spain, Holland and the United States was an act 
 of hostility directed against England, with which 
 they were then at war, and valueless as indicating 
 their settled policy, and still more valueless as mani- 
 festing their views of existing international right.' 
 ' All the signatories to the Declaration of the Armed 
 Neutrality violated one or other of its provisions 
 when they were themselves next at war.' ' What- 
 ever authority the principles of the Armed Neutrality 
 possess, they have since acquired by inspiring to a 
 certain but varying extent the policy of France, the 
 United States, Russia and the minor Powers.' x 
 
 In this connexion we may note that, according to 
 Harris, the Russian admiral Greig, 'as soon as he read 
 the declaration and saw the grounds on which the in- 
 structions were to be made, collected the various sen- 
 tences which had been pronounced during the last war 
 in the Archipelago by the Russian tribunal, instituted 
 for that purpose, and at which he frequently pre- 
 sided, on neutral ships. After proving in the clearest 
 manner that they confiscated and condemned Turkish 
 property wherever they found it, and that the only 
 prizes they made were such property on board neutral 
 ships, he gave in the whole to Count Czernicheff, 
 signifying that, as a faithful and affectionate servant 
 of the Empress, he thought himself obliged to set 
 before her eyes that, if she carried her present mea- 
 sures into execution, she would act in direct contra- 
 
 1 Op. cit. pp. 647-8.
 
 372 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 diction to herself. . . . He assured me, and he spoke 
 in the name of all his countrymen, that if ever the 
 Empress should require of them to serve in a manner 
 hostile to us, they would, to a man, quit her service.' l 
 
 The ' Armed Neutrality ' was directed against 
 England, not because her conduct had been different 
 from what might have been expected, but because 
 the omens seemed to point to the breaking up of the 
 haughty Island Power ; and the other nations, not 
 unnaturally, desired to wreak their vengeance on its 
 self-confident arrogance. 
 
 In truth, it was not England alone which was the 
 sinner ; though, because of her opportunities, she 
 excited the bitterest animosity. In all naval wars 
 we find the same exorbitant pretensions on the 
 part of the belligerent Powers to regulate and control 
 the trade of neutrals. Thus, in the war of the French 
 Revolution we find that, by a Decree of the National 
 Convention of May 9, 1793, the commanders of 
 French ships of war and privateers were ' authorised 
 to seize and carry into the ports of the Republic 
 merchant vessels which are wholly or in part laden 
 with provisions, being neutral property, bound to 
 an enemy's port, or having on board merchandise 
 belonging to an enemy.' Merchandise belonging to 
 the enemy was declared to be ' lawful prize, seizable 
 for the profit of the captor.' Provisions, if belong- 
 ing to a neutral, were to be paid for at the price they 
 would have otherwise obtained, and neutral vessels 
 were to be released when their cargoes had been dealt 
 with. 
 
 1 Diaries and Correspondence of the 1st Earl of Malmeabury, 
 vol. i. pp. 306-7.
 
 THE POSITION OF NEUTRALS 373 
 
 It is true that American vessels were excepted 
 from these conditions. But on what grounds ? 
 Because of the thorough confidence felt by the 
 French Republic ' that the Americans would not 
 abuse this privilege by carrying to her enemies those 
 productions by which they ought to assist in the 
 defence of a cause as much their own as hers.' The 
 French minister had been ' informed that the English 
 Government have declared their determination to 
 carry into the English ports all the American vessels 
 laden with provisions for the ports of France.' The 
 French Republic expected that the United States 
 would ' hasten to take the most energetic measures 
 to procure a recall of this decision ; or, if the 
 measures taken should prove to be " insufficient 
 or fruitless " and the neutrality of the United 
 States " serviceable only to the enemies of France," 
 France would exercise a very natural right in 
 taking measures to prevent a consequence so 
 injurious to her.' 1 
 
 The British Government sought to justify the Order 
 in Council of June 8, 1793, which proclaimed a similar 
 procedure, on the ground that by the ' law of nations 
 all provisions were to be considered as contraband, 
 and as such liable to confiscation in the case when 
 " the depriving of an enemy of then* supplies is one 
 of the means intended to be employed in reducing 
 him to reasonable terms of peace." The actual 
 situation is notoriously such as to lead to the em- 
 ploying this mode of distressing her by the joint 
 operation of the different Powers engaged in the 
 war, and the reasoning . . . which applied to all cases 
 
 1 Moore, op. tit. pp. 299-300.
 
 374 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 of this sort is certainly much more applicable to the 
 present case, in which the case results from the un- 
 usual mode of war, employed by the enemy himself, 
 in having armed almost the whole labouring class of 
 the French nation, for the purpose of commencing 
 and supporting hostilities against all the Govern- 
 ments of Europe ; but this reasoning is most of all 
 applicable to the circumstances of trade, which 
 is now in a great measure entirely carried on by the 
 actually ruling party of France itself, and which is 
 therefore no longer to be regarded as a mercantile 
 speculation of individuals, but as an immediate 
 operation of the very persons who have declared 
 war, and are now carrying it on against Great 
 Britain.' J 
 
 Jefferson, on the other hand, maintained that 
 the position that provisions were contraband ' in 
 the case where the depriving the enemy of these 
 supplies is one of the means intended to be employed 
 for reducing him to reasonable terms of peace,' or 
 in any case but that of a place actually blockaded, 
 was ' entirely new ' ; that reason and usage had 
 established ' that when two nations go to war, those 
 who choose to live in peace retain their natural 
 right to pursue their agriculture, manufactures or 
 other ordinary vocations ; to carry the produce of 
 their industry, for exchange, to all nations, belli- 
 gerents or neutral, as usual ; to go and come freely, 
 without injury or molestation ; and, in short, that 
 the war among others shall be, for them, as if it did 
 not exist.' To these mutual rights nations had 
 
 1 Dispatch of Mr. Hammond, Sept. 12, 1793, quoted ibid. 
 pp. 301-2.
 
 THE POSITION OF NEUTRALS 375 
 
 allowed one exception that of furnishing imple- 
 ments of war to the belligerents, or anything what- 
 ever to a blockaded place. Corn, flour and meal 
 were not of the class of contraband, and consequently 
 remained articles of free commerce. The state of 
 war between Great Britain and France furnished 
 neither belligerent with the right to interrupt the 
 agriculture of the United States, or the peaceable 
 exchange of its produce with all nations. Such an 
 act of interference tended directly to draw the United 
 States from the state of peace in which they wished 
 to remain. If the United States permitted corn to 
 be sent to Great Britain and her friends, and refused 
 it to France, such an act of partiality might lead to 
 war with the latter Power. If they withheld sup- 
 plies of provisions from France, they should in like 
 manner be bound to withhold them from her enemies 
 also, and thus to close to themselves all the ports of 
 Europe where corn was in demand, or else make 
 themselves a party to the war. This was a dilemma 
 into which no pretext for forcing the United States 
 could be found. Great Britain might indeed ' feel 
 the desire of starving an enemy nation ; but she 
 could have no right of doing it at our loss, nor of 
 making us the instrument of it.' x 
 
 A further Order in Council, giving effect to the rule 
 of the war of 1756, forbidding all trade to neutrals 
 in time of war that was not open to them in 
 times of peace, was afterwards limited so as to 
 permit the importation of the produce of the French 
 West India Islands into the United States, and its 
 exportation from thence to European ports. 2 
 1 Ibid. pp. 302-3. * Ibid. pp. 304-6.
 
 376 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 It was recognised that some of the enactments of 
 this Order in Council were of too strong a character, 
 and they were modified. After Jay's Treaty an 
 Anglo-American Commission was instituted to give 
 compensation to those who had been unfairly 
 treated under it. Still, no doubt, John Quincy 
 Adams' remark ' that the maritime law of nations 
 recognised in Great Britain is all comprised in 
 one line of a popular song, " Rule Britannia ! 
 Britannia rules the Waves ! " ' 1 represented the 
 general feeling of neutrals with regard to British 
 sea-power. 
 
 The only plea that can be made in abatement is 
 that the practice of other nations when they had the 
 opportunity was just as overbearing. The American 
 Secretary of State wrote in May, 1798 : ' However 
 much reason the Neutral Nations have to complain 
 of her (Great Britain's) measures, the little finger of 
 France in Maritime depredations is thicker than the 
 loins of Britain, and the safety of the portion of the 
 civilised world, not yet subjugated by France, 
 greatly depends on the barrier opposed to her bound- 
 less ambition and rapacity by the navy of England. 
 If this navy were crushed or subjected to the power 
 yof France, she would instantly become the tyrant 
 of the sea, as she is already of the European conti- 
 nent. At present her rapacity is confined by the 
 inferiority of her naval force, which therefore exerts 
 itself chiefly in acts of piracy on neutral commerce. 
 But were the English navy subdued, France would 
 
 1 The Writings of John Quincy Adams, vol. ii. p. 33. Adams 
 was successively Minister at the Hague, Berlin, and St. 
 Petersburg.
 
 THE POSITION OF NEUTRALS 377 
 
 insultingly prescribe law to the whole maritime 
 world.' 1 Of a truth may we say, 
 
 ' Mutato nomine de te 
 
 fabula narratur.' 
 
 In 1801 a second Armed Neutrality, consisting 
 of Russia, Prussia, Sweden and Denmark, was formed, 
 in J. Q. Adams's words, 'to avenge the violence and 
 injustice they had suffered from her (Great Britain's) 
 navy, to secure some respect for their flags for the 
 future, and to curb that supremacy upon the seas 
 which, it must be acknowledged, she enjoys, not 
 with the most exemplary moderation.' 2 At the 
 same time he recognised that the principles of the 
 Armed Neutrality counted for little with the leading 
 members of it, Russia and Prussia. Beaten at sea, 
 they might connect themselves, the one with Con- 
 stantinople, the other with Hanover. It was Sweden 
 and Denmark, who had been coaxed and dragged 
 and pushed into the measure, who would pay for 
 it at a tremendous cost. 
 
 'When this plan of a new armed neutrality,' Adams 
 wrote, January 27, 1801, ' was first in agitation, 
 I was inclined to think we might take a part in it 
 as far as could be consistent with our engagements, 
 and so wrote home. The principles are more liberal 
 than those of England, and, if generally adopted, 
 would prove a real benefit to humanity. But from 
 the moment when the drift of the two Great parties 
 to this league was evident, I have been convinced 
 that our policy is to have nothing to do with it.' 3 
 His conclusion was : ' England has not enjoyed her 
 naval superiority with moderation. And the others 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 259. * Ibid. p. 492. 3 Ibid. pp. 496-7.
 
 378 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 hate her at once for her prosperity and her elation 
 under it. To indulge their passions they are all 
 running to their ruin, while the Frenchman claps 
 his wings and crows.' 1 
 
 Very suggestive are Adams's reasons for opposing 
 the entrance of the United States into the Armed 
 Neutrality. ' It would not be just, because the 
 Government of the United States have long since 
 declared their opinion, that by the law of Nations, 
 independent of the stipulations of treaties, an 
 enemy's cargo cannot be protected by a neutral 
 bottom ; and though always anxious to establish 
 the contrary by voluntary agreement, they have 
 ever disavowed all pretence of a right to force its 
 , adoption upon other Powers, and by the positive 
 ^ engagement of a treaty are bound to acquiesce in 
 the practice of the rule as it originally stood. It 
 is true that Sweden and Denmark are bound by 
 the stipulations of their treaties with England in 
 the same manner, nor do I know upon what grounds 
 those Powers can reconcile their ancient with their 
 modern stipulations. But, even if the question 
 was considered as doubtful, the fundamental prin- 
 ciples of this League seem unjust ; it has itself 
 the radical defect against which it proposes 
 to contend. It assumes a right of legislation upon 
 the sea. It is an enactment by the nations 
 of laws upon objects of common concern to all, 
 with a declaration that, if other nations will not 
 consent to them peaceably, they shall be forced 
 upon them at the mouth of the cannon. It is im- 
 possible to assume the supremacy of the seas more 
 
 1 The Writings of John Quincy Adams, vol. ii. p. 499.
 
 THE POSITION OF NEUTRALS 379 
 
 plainly and arrogantly than this. The inconsist- 
 ency of the League with the liberty which it 
 proposes to support is striking in the very expression 
 of the third article. The two Sovereigns say that 
 to prevent the liberty of trade and navigation from 
 depending upon arbitrary construction, dictated by 
 a partial and momentary interest, they understand 
 and will (what else is that but that arbitrary con- 
 struction ?) that in time of war all neutral ships 
 shall neutralise all property on board, except a 
 specific list of contraband. It is well known that 
 this idea of being the legislatrix of the ocean and 
 giving the world a code of naval laws was the lure 
 of flattery by which the Empress Catherine was first 
 drawn into the original Armed Neutrality, the nature 
 and tendency of which she so little understood that 
 she thought it pointed against Spain and to the 
 advantage of England.' J 
 
 Hard as bad been from the first the position of 
 neutrals in the War of the Revolution, it became 
 much harder after the brief respite of the Peace of 
 Amiens. Between the shock of Napoleon's conti- 
 nental system, which was based on the idea of 
 subjugating England by destroying her commerce, 
 and the British Orders in Council, the aim of which 
 was to prevent neutral commerce from contributing 
 to the support of the enemy, neutral nations found 
 themselves between the hammer and the anvil. 
 
 In reply to a blockade declared by Great Britain 
 
 of the Continental coast from the Elbe to the port 
 
 of Brest (afterwards slightly modified), Napoleon on 
 
 November 21, 1806, issued the famous Berlin Decree 
 
 1 Ibid. pp. 503-4.
 
 380 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 which proclaimed that its provisions would ' con- 
 tinue to be looked upon as embodying the funda- 
 mental principles of the Empire,' until England 
 should return to the observance of the law of nations 
 on land and sea. The preamble asserted that Eng- 
 land did not recognise the law of nations ; that she 
 made prisoners of war of non-combatants and con- 
 fiscated private property ; that she declared places 
 in a state of blockade before which she had not even 
 a single ship of war, and assumed to extend the right 
 of blockade to entire coasts and the whole Empire ; 
 that the object of these measures was to raise the 
 commerce and industry of England upon the ruins 
 of that of the Continent ; and consequently, that 
 whoever dealt on the Continent in English goods 
 rendered himself an accomplice of her designs. To 
 oppose an enemy with such arms as he made use of 
 was a natural right ; and it was therefore decreed : 
 
 1. That the British Isles were in a state of blockade. 
 
 2. That all commerce and all correspondence with 
 
 them was prohibited. 
 
 3. That every English subject found in the coun- 
 
 tries occupied by French troops or by those 
 of her Allies should be made a prisoner of war. 
 
 4. That all property or merchandise belonging to 
 
 British subjects should be regarded as lawful 
 prize. 
 
 6. That all trade in English goods was forbidden, 
 and that all merchandise belonging to Eng- 
 land, or coming from her factories or her 
 colonies, was lawful prize.
 
 ORDER-IN-COUNCIL OF JANUARY, 1807 381 
 
 6. That half the product of confiscation under 
 
 the preceding articles should go to indem- 
 nify merchants for losses suffered by the 
 capture of their merchant vessels by British 
 cruisers. 
 
 7. That no vessel coming directly from England 
 
 or the English colonies, or which should have 
 been there since the publication of the Decree, 
 should be received in any port. 
 
 8. That any vessel contravening the preceding 
 
 provision by a false certificate should be seized, 
 and the vessel and cargo confiscated as if they 
 were English property. 1 
 
 ' To the imperial measures the British Government 
 quickly responded. On January 7, 1807, Lord 
 Howick issued an Order in Council by which Neutral 
 vessels were forbidden to trade from one port to 
 another, both of which were in the possession or 
 control of France or her Allies. On the llth of 
 November further Orders were issued. These 
 Orders, which were issued on the advice of Spencer 
 Percival and George Canning, and against the remon- 
 strance of Lord Bathurst, President of the Board 
 of Trade, prohibited neutral vessels from trading 
 with the ports of France and her Allies, and with 
 all ports in Europe from which, though they were 
 not at war with His Britannic Majesty, the British 
 flag was excluded, unless such vessels should clear 
 from a British port under regulations to be pre- 
 scribed in the future. By these Orders the ships 
 were required to import their cargoes into England 
 
 1 Moore, op. cit. pp. 4447-8.
 
 382 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 subject to the laws regulating the payment of 
 customs, and thus to carry on their commerce by way 
 of England. 
 
 On the 17th December, 1807, Napoleon issued 
 at Milan, in retaliation for the British Order in 
 Council of the llth of the preceding November, a 
 decree by which he declared : 
 
 1. That every ship that had submitted to be 
 
 searched by an English ship or had consented 
 to a voyage to England, or had paid any tax 
 to the English Government, was ipso facto 
 denationalised and was to be deemed good 
 prize. 
 
 2. That the British Isles were in a state of blockade, 
 
 and that every ship that should sail from or 
 be destined to a port in Great Britain or the 
 British possessions, or in any country occu- 
 pied by the British troops, should be good 
 prize.' x 
 
 As Jefferson ruefully explained to Congress, the 
 various Decrees and Orders in Council practically 
 amounted ' to a declaration that every vessel found 
 on the high seas, whatsoever be her cargo, and what- 
 soever foreign port be that of her departure or desti- 
 nation, shall be deemed lawful prize.' The only 
 remedy lay in the embargo on ships in American 
 ports which had been enacted in December, 1807, 
 by which American vessels, seamen and property 
 were retained within American harbours, until the 
 dangers to which they were exposed could be 
 removed or lessened. 2 
 
 1 Moore, op. cit.. p. 4450. 2 Ibid. p. 4461.
 
 THE ATTITUDE OF THE UNITED STATES 383 
 
 ' When this Act took effect, many American vessels 
 were in foreign seas, and it was notorious that they 
 subsequently remained abroad in order to escape 
 the operation of the embargo. Nevertheless, Napo- 
 leon, exhaustless in resources, saw in the Act a new 
 opportunity. Up to this time the measures of the 
 belligerents had applied equally to all neutral vessels. 
 Napoleon now struck a blow at American commerce 
 alone. By an Edict of April 17, 1808, commonly 
 known as the Bayonne Decree, he ordered the seizure 
 of all American vessels which should enter the ports 
 of France, Italy, or the Hanse Towns. This measure 
 he justified on the ingenious pretence that, since 
 the laying of the embargo in the United States, no 
 American vessel could navigate the seas without 
 violating the laws of its own country, and thus fur- 
 nishing a presumption that it was doing so on British 
 account or in British connection. 
 
 1 By an Act of Congress of March 1, 1809, the 
 embargo was repealed, and a policy of non-intercourse 
 as to Great Britain and France was substituted for 
 it. By this Act public ships of these countries were 
 forbidden to enter the ports of the United States ; J 
 and their merchant vessels were forbidden to enter, 
 on penalty of forfeiture, after the 20th of the follow- 
 ing May. From and after the same date the impor- 
 tation of merchandise from British and French ports 
 was forbidden. The President was authorised by 
 proclamation to suspend these prohibitions in respect 
 of either nation, in case it should revoke or modify 
 its Orders or Decrees so that they should cease to 
 violate the neutral commerce of the United States. 
 This Act was to remain in force only to the end of
 
 384 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 ^ the next session of Congress. It was continued in 
 force by the Act of June 28, 1809.' x 
 
 Napoleon's reply to this Act was to seize American 
 vessels in the ports of Holland, Spain, Italy and 
 Naples. The Rambouillet Decree, dated March 23, 
 , 1810, ordered that all American vessels entering any 
 port in France or her colonies or in any country 
 occupied by the French arms after the coming into 
 force of the Non-intercourse Act should be seized 
 and sold. 2 
 
 The reported revocation by Napoleon of the French 
 Decrees was one of the main causes of the war with 
 England of 1812. Two years later, A. Gallatin, while 
 Minister to France, discovered a secret Decree dated 
 
 t August 5, 1810, the same day that the Duke of Cadore 
 wrote, promising the re vocation of the former Decrees. 
 Of this secret Decree, Gallatin said : ' It is not a con- 
 demnation either in form or in substance ; but it 
 certainly announces the intention to condemn. It 
 bears date on the very day on which it was officially 
 communicated to our Minister that the Berlin and 
 Milan Decrees would be revoked on the 1st day of 
 the coming November, and no one can suppose that, 
 if it had been communicated or published at the 
 same time, the United States would, with respect 
 to the promised revocation of the Berlin and Milan 
 Decrees, have taken that ground which ultimately 
 led to war with Great Britain. It is indeed un- 
 necessary to comment on such a glaring act of 
 combined injustice, bad faith and meanness, as the 
 enactment and concealment of that Decree exhibits.' 3 
 
 1 Moore, op. cit. p. 4552. ? Ibid. p. 4453. 
 
 s Writings of Gallatin, ed. by H. Adams, vol. ii. p. 196.
 
 THE WAR OF 1812 385 
 
 The late Mr. G. T. Warner propounded in Black- 
 wood's Magazine l the gloomy view that, as it took 
 nearly twenty years for American commercial griev- 
 ances in the Napoleonic war to issue in war between 
 England and America, so the constant frictions in 
 the war of 1914 between belligerent and neutral 
 interests might finally end in the same manner. 
 The facts, however, hardly pointed in this direction. 
 In the first place, in the years before the war of 1812 
 the great grievance which counted for much more 
 than the interference with American commerce was 
 the question of impressment. There were numerous 
 desertions from British ships ; and the British claim 
 to search American ships indiscriminately for such 
 runaways was felt as a direct blow in the face by 
 thousands of Americans. That trade grievances did 
 not count so much in precipitating the war, as is 
 generally believed, is suggested by the following 
 considerations. The New England States were pre- ,/ 
 eminently the centre of shipping and overseas trade 
 interests. It was they which had resented most 
 bitterly the interference with them caused by the 
 embargo and Non-intercourse Acts ; and it was they 
 which might have been expected to suffer the most 
 from the action taken by the British navy. And 
 yet it was in these States that the feeling against 
 the war of 1812 was the strongest. They refused 
 to allow their militia to be employed ; and, for a 
 moment, it seemed as though New England was 
 prepared to go the length of separation, in its hos- 
 tility to the policy of the dominant party. Moreover, 
 if the cause of the war was only the Orders in Council, 
 
 1 August, 1916, pp. 230-41. 
 E.F.P. 2s
 
 386 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 why did it not come to an end with their revocation ? 
 The truth was, that from the first there had been an 
 active and numerous party that sympathised with 
 the French cause, as representing democratic ideas. 
 The prestige of Washington and the truculent folly 
 of the French agents, Genet and Adet, for a time 
 kept this party in check, and, when it gained the 
 day with the presidency of Jefferson, the pacific 
 character of Jefferson himself, and the manner in 
 which the French sought to out-Herod the most 
 aggressive performances of British ' navalism,' kept 
 the United States neutral. But when a weaker man 
 succeeded Jefferson, and when the French seemed, 
 at last, inclined to mend their ways, the stream of 
 national policy poured its waters into the channel 
 that had been long prepared for it. From many 
 points of view France might have seemed to the 
 United States its natural ally. It speaks volumes 
 for the antagonism created by French methods 
 that, when the war with England at last broke out, 
 the Americans did not term themselves the allies of 
 the French. 
 
 It has been only necessary to speak of the United 
 States, because, during the long years of the Napo- 
 leonic War, the whole of Europe became engulfed 
 in its maelstrom, so that in the case of European 
 nations neutrality became practically impossible. 
 
 Great Britain was fighting with her back to the 
 wall, and often against terrible odds. In these cir- 
 cumstances she had no intention to let go a single 
 weapon that might be of use to her in the long-drawn 
 conflict. The British case was well put in the 
 Annual Register of 1801, 'No politician thinks it
 
 THE BRITISH CASE 387 
 
 worth while to oppose ethics, or religion herself, to 
 the partitioning plans of France, Prussia, Austria 
 and Russia. If murmurs against violence and 
 usurpation are heard for a time, they soon subside 
 into a tacit acknowledgment of the right acquired 
 by possession. Yet attempts are constantly made 
 to convince the world that it is immoral in any 
 great naval Power not to relinquish the advantages 
 she derives from her maritime supremacy in favour 
 of her enemies. All land rights are obtained by 
 conquest ; usurpations are legalised by time ; pro- 
 perty grows out of possession. Rivers, lakes, moun- 
 tains, deserts and other natural boundaries define 
 and ascertain, in the imaginations of many, a right 
 of dominion in those who are able to bear rule in the 
 enclosed regions. Because the main ocean is not 
 interjected by natural barriers, and dotted with 
 forts, but, like the air we breathe, one continuous 
 expanse, it is imagined that the law of force and 
 occupancy, which does everything on land, should 
 do nothing at sea. But the law of major vis, if it is 
 tolerated in one case, should be equally tolerated in 
 the other. The only difference is that the fortified 
 places fortified whether by nature or art that 
 confer continental dominion are of a fixed, whereas 
 the fleets and navies of a great and preponderating 
 maritime state are of a movable nature. In the 
 present state of the world, which is in truth little 
 better than a state of war, the conduct of Govern- 
 ments cannot be squared in every instance by meta- 
 physical accuracy. Great indulgence must be, and 
 indeed is, given to measures of state, in the mutual 
 transactions of nations. Nor are there many among
 
 388 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 these that admit of so fair an apology as the right 
 of visiting and searching the vessels of Neutral 
 Powers, claimed and maintained by the English.' 1 
 The British Government, at least, had no doubts 
 that the objects of the Armed Neutrality, whether 
 in 1780 or in 1801, were in fact ' nothing less than 
 to place themselves in a situation to maintain by 
 force pretensions which are so obviously inconsistent 
 with the principles of justice that those Powers 
 which when neutral brought them forward were the 
 first to oppose them when they became belligerent, 
 and the establishment of which, if it should be effected, 
 would be one of the principal means of overthrowing 
 the strength and security of the British Empire. 
 On the knowledge of these circumstances His Majesty 
 the King would act contrary to the interests of his 
 people, the dignity of his crown, and the honour of 
 his flag . . . were he to delay the adoption of the most 
 effectual measures to repel the attack he has already 
 experienced and to oppose the hostile effects of the 
 Confederacy armed against her.' 2 
 
 With regard to this subject, the last word, in the 
 absence of an International Court of Appeal, with 
 power to enforce its decisions, has probably been 
 said by the great writer, who first brought home to 
 the ordinary reader the doctrine of sea-power, him- 
 self a patriotic American, and, as such, not unduly 
 prejudiced in favour of Britain. 
 
 * As regards the rightf ulness of the action of the 
 two parties viewed separately from their policy, 
 
 1 Annual Register, 1801, pp. 89-90. 
 
 2 Note of Lord Grenville (Jan. 16, 1801) to the Danish and 
 Swedish ambassadors. Ibid. p. 234.
 
 MAHAN'S VERDICT 389 
 
 opinions probably will always differ, according to 
 the authority attributed by individuals to the data 
 of international law. It may be admitted at once 
 that neither Napoleon's Decrees nor the British 
 Orders can be justified at that bar, except by the 
 simple plea of self-preservation, the first law of 
 States even more than of men ; for no Government 
 is empowered to assent to that last sacrifice, which 
 the individual may make for the noblest motives. 
 The beneficent influence of the mass of conventions 
 known as International Law is indisputable, nor 
 should its authority be lightly undermined ; but it 
 cannot prevent the interests of belligerents and 
 neutrals from clashing, nor speak with perfect clear- 
 ness in all cases where they do. Of this the rule of 
 1756 offered, in its day, a conspicuous instance. 
 The belligerent claimed that the neutral, by cover- 
 ing with his flag a trade previously the monopoly 
 of the enemy, not only inflicted a grave injury by 
 snatching from him a lawful prey, but was guilty 
 likewise of a breach of neutrality ; the neutral con- 
 tended that the enemy had a right to change his 
 commercial regulations, hi war as well as in peace. 
 To the author, though an American, the belligerent 
 argument seems the stronger ; nor was the laudable 
 desire of the neutral for gain a nobler motive than 
 the solicitude about their national resources of men, 
 who rightly believed themselves engaged in a struggle 
 for national existence. The measure meted out 
 to Austria and Prussia was an ominous indica- 
 tion of the fate Great Britain might expect if her 
 strength failed her. But, whatever the decision 
 of our older and milder civilisation on the merits of
 
 390 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 the particular question, there can be no doubt 
 of the passionate earnestness of the two disputants 
 in their day, nor of the conviction of right held 
 by either. In such a dilemma, the best answer of 
 International Law has to be that every State is 
 the final judge as to whether it should or should 
 not make War ; to its own self alone is it responsible 
 for the rightfulness of this action. If, however, 
 the conditions of injury entailed by the neutral's 
 course is such as to justify war, it justifies all lesser 
 means of control. The question of the rightfulness 
 of these disappears, and that of policy alone 
 remains. 
 
 ' It is the business of the neutral, by his prepared 
 condition, to make impolitic that which he claims 
 is also wrong. The neutral which fails to do so, 
 which leaves its ports defenceless and its navy 
 stinted until the emergency comes, will then find, 
 as the United States found in the early years of 
 this century, an admirable opportunity to write 
 State Papers.' 1 
 
 No doubt the action of the British ships was 
 not a little galling to neutral Powers. To be held 
 up and searched is never a pleasant experience ; 
 though it must be remembered that life was seldom 
 endangered, as it is to-day, by the action of 
 German submarines. Moreover the ' right of search ' 
 is indispensable for the carrying on of naval warfare, 
 and has always been so recognised. The general 
 feeling of Europe was expressed by the Prussian 
 statesman Haugwitz, who said that the sea dominion 
 
 1 Influence of Sea-power on the French Revolution and Empire, 
 vol. ii. pp. 356-7.
 
 of Great Britain was a hard thing to bear, but that 
 the land dominion of Napoleon was a harder. 
 
 Such being the action of British sea-power in time 
 of war, what was its record in time of peace ? And 
 here we may justly put forward the claim that in 
 the years of peace that power was used indefatigably 
 to put an end to that blot upon civilisation, the 
 Slave Trade. It is, we must confess, true that no 
 country in the past had profited more by the 
 Slave Trade. It is melancholy to reflect that great 
 sailors, like Lord St. Vincent and Nelson, honestly 
 believed that the continuance of the Slave Trade 
 was bound up with the supremacy of the British 
 Navy. But for nations, no less than for individuals, 
 there is surely room for repentance ; and it is un- 
 doubtedly the fact that, when, by the Act of 1807, 
 the plunge had been made, Great Britain threw 
 herself eagerly into the work of abolishing the Slave 
 Trade, without any feelings of regret for its past 
 advantages. 
 
 It must be remembered that the power afterwards 
 exerted by philanthropic bodies in England had 
 already begun to show itself in the beginning of 
 the nineteenth century. Those who are familiar 
 with colonial history will know how in the second 
 quarter of the century the course of British rule 
 in South Africa was dictated by the Missionary 
 Societies ; and it was eager as well as able philan- 
 thropists who, from official positions, directed the 
 policy of the country in the West Indies with regard 
 to slaves and slavery. But even at an earlier date 
 men like Wilberforce exercised a great influence 
 over British policy ; and no one can read the corre-
 
 spondence of statesmen such as Castlereagh and 
 the Duke of Wellington, assuredly not men of the 
 type of the ordinary philanthropist, without recog- 
 nising the power of the new modes of thought that 
 were permeating the British middle classes. 1 It was 
 in this atmosphere of genuine repentance for past 
 misdoings, which it would be stupid as well as wicked 
 to call hypocritical, that the solemn declaration 
 relative to the Slave Trade was signed at Vienna, 
 February 8, 1815, by the Plenipotentiaries who 
 signed the treaty of Paris of May 3, 1814. Probably 
 many of the signatures were appended as a compli- 
 ment to Great Britain, without much attention to 
 the matter. Still the wording of this document is 
 none the less impressive and significant. ' The 
 Plenipotentiaries assembled at this Congress,' it 
 was said, ' cannot better honour their mission, fulfil 
 their duty and manifest the principles which guide 
 their august sovereigns, than by labouring to realize 
 this engagement (to put down the Trade), and by 
 proclaiming in the name of their sovereigns the 
 desire to put an end to a scourge which has so long 
 desolated Africa, degraded Europe, and afflicted 
 humanity. 
 
 ' The said Plenipotentiaries have agreed to open 
 their deliberations as to the means of accomplishing 
 so salutary an object by a solemn declaration of the 
 principles which have guided them in this work. 
 
 ' Fully authorized to such an act, by the unani- 
 mous adherence of their respective courts to the 
 
 1 Thus we find Castlereagh proposing (1814) that Trinidad 
 should be given to France on condition that the French would 
 put down the Slave Trade. (Correspondence, Despatches, etc., 
 vol. x. p. 132.)
 
 THE WAR AGAINST THE SLAVE TRADE] 393 
 
 principles announced in the said separate articles 
 of the Treaty of Paris, they in consequence declare, 
 in the face of Europe, that looking upon the uni- 
 versal abolition of the Slave Trade as a measure 
 particularly worthy of their attention, conformable 
 to the spirit of the age, and to the general principles 
 of their august sovereigns, they are animated with 
 a sincere desire to concur, by every means in their 
 power, in the most prompt and effectual execution 
 of this measure, and to act in the employment of 
 those means with all the zeal and all the perseverance 
 which so great and good a cause merits. 
 
 ' Too well informed of the sentiments of their 
 sovereigns not to foresee, that, however honourable 
 may be their object, they would not pursue it with- 
 out a just regard to the interests, the habits and 
 even the prejudices of their subjects, the said Pleni- 
 potentiaries at the same time acknowledge that 
 this general declaration should not prejudge the 
 period which each particular Power should look 
 upon as expedient for the definitive abolition of the 
 traffic in slaves. Consequently the determination 
 of the period, when this traffic ought universally 
 to cease, will be an object of negotiation between 
 the different Powers ; it being, however, well under- 
 stood that no means proper to ensure and accelerate 
 its progress shall be neglected ; and that the re- 
 ciprocal engagement contracted by the present 
 declaration between the sovereigns who have taken 
 part in it, should not be considered as fulfilled 
 until the moment when complete success shall have 
 crowned their united efforts. 
 
 ' In making the declaration known to Europe,
 
 and to all the civilised nations of the earth, the said 
 Plenipotentiaries flatter themselves they shall engage 
 all other Governments, and particularly those who, 
 in abolishing the traffic in slaves, have already 
 manifested the same sentiments, to support them 
 with their suffrage in a cause of which the final 
 triumph will be one of the greatest monuments of 
 the age which undertook it, and which shall have 
 gloriously carried it into complete effect.' l 
 
 So far as legislation was concerned, the result 
 obtained was not unsatisfactory. In 1819 Wilber- 
 force was able to say that 'there was now but one 
 single power, Portugal, which had not declared the 
 Slave Trade a mass of injustice and cruelty, and 
 fixed a definite time for its termination. Spain had 
 abolished it absolutely to the north of the line, and 
 fixed a period for its abolition to the south of it.' 
 
 There was unfortunately another side to the 
 shield ; and Wilberf orce had to confess that ' not- 
 withstanding the laws passed in several countries 
 for its abolition, it was still carried on ; it had been 
 found impossible to sweep away at once that in- 
 curable race of free-booters who infested Africa. 
 The persons carrying on the trade were of all nations, 
 English, Dutch, French, Spanish, Portuguese and 
 Americans.' 2 A system of international police, 
 however, had been recently adopted, the main 
 instrument of which was the British Navy, so as 
 to put an end to the nuisance. It is significant 
 that the two Powers, next to Great Britain in 
 maritime strength, stood out from this agreement ; 
 
 1 Annual Register, 1816, pp. 368-60. 
 
 2 Ibid. 1819, pp. 85-6.
 
 THE WAR AGAINST THE SLAVE TRADE 395 
 
 while not themselves taking adequate measures for 
 rendering effectual the abolition of the trade. 
 Wilberforce seemed to think that this conduct was 
 due to tenderness for the Slave Trade ; but the 
 main motive at work was undoubtedly jealousy of 
 the British Navy. The French at any rate were not 
 inclined to encourage the continuance of the trade 
 on its merits. With legard to the Americans, the 
 United States had the glory of having been the 
 first among the Powers of the world to enact its 
 abolition. It is true that at the time the feeling 
 against slavery in general was much stronger in the 
 south, when men like Jefferson influenced thought, 
 than it became later under the pressure of the 
 economic demands of the Cotton States. Still, at 
 the time in which Wilberforce spoke, the Congress 
 had passed a law appointing a large naval force, 
 and giving a bounty for bringing in ships engaged 
 in the trade. The reason why the United States 
 had held aloof from international agreements was 
 that they distrusted the right of search as exercised 
 by English ships against America ; but without such 
 right it was impossible to make effective any such 
 agreement. 
 
 At the Congress of Verona, 1823, the Duke of 
 Wellington solemnly appealed to the Concert of 
 Europe to put pressure to bear upon France to fall 
 in line with the other European Powers. He had 
 the means of proving that the traffic since 1815 had 
 been and was carried on to a greater extent than 
 formerly. In seven months of the year 1821 not 
 less than 38,000 human beings had been carried off 
 from the coast of Africa into slavery. The traffic did
 
 396 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 not assume the usual secrecy of a contraband trade, 
 but was carried on generally under the protection 
 of the flag of France ; for the obvious reason that 
 France was the only one of the great maritime 
 European Powers which had not entered into inter- 
 national agreements for giving a limited power of 
 search and capture of ships engaged in the Slave 
 Trade. The reply of the French Government was 
 not encouraging. ' The French Constitution,' it was 
 said, ' abolishes confiscation. With regard to the 
 right of search, if the French Government could 
 ever consent to it, it would have the most disastrous 
 consequences. The national character of the two 
 peoples, French and English, forbids it ; and if 
 proofs were necessary to support this opinion, it 
 would suffice to call to mind that even in this year, 
 in profound peace, French blood has flowed on the 
 coasts of Africa. France acknowledges the liberty of 
 the seas to all foreign flags, to whatever legitimate 
 power they may belong. She only demands for 
 herself that independence which she respects in 
 others and which belongs to her own dignity.' l 
 
 The other Powers were at the time not inclined 
 to give offence to France, on behalf of liberal and 
 recalcitrant England ; though the humanitarian 
 disposition of Alexander caused Russia's reply to be 
 much more sympathetic in tone than that of Austria 
 or Prussia. 
 
 Well might the African Institution bitterly express 
 their disappointment at the result of these Confer- 
 ences. ' The prospect of a total suppression of 
 the increased and increasing horrors of that odious 
 
 1 Annual Register, 1823, pp. 80*-84*.
 
 THE WAR AGAINST THE SLAVE TRADE 397 
 
 traffic seems indeed more distant than ever.' With 
 regard to the French, ' when acting in concert with 
 the Allied Powers they concur in all those vague 
 generalities of verbal reprobation which . . . bind 
 them to no specific efficient measures . . . but when 
 pressed by the Duke to prove their sincerity by 
 adopting such a line of action as shall be really 
 efficient, their answer is a mere tissue of excuses, 
 founded, some of them, on misrepresentation of fact, 
 others on circumstances of which the existence may 
 be protracted to an indefinite extent, and of a nature 
 which they pretend not to have the power, and cer- 
 tainly do not exhibit the least inclination to alter 
 or remove viz. " to apply to the Slave Trade the 
 punishment of piracy is beyond the limits of political 
 conference. To affix to it the penalty of death is 
 a judicial or legislative measure, and must therefore 
 wait the approbation of public opinion . . . the regis- 
 tration of slaves will be taken into consideration 
 when the time for so doing shall have arrived, and 
 then possibly may be permitted ; but would be a 
 violation of the right of property, which the laws 
 of Great Britain respect even in its extravagance 
 and caprices. 
 
 ' " The rights of mutual search, however limited, 
 would have the most disastrous consequences." 
 
 ' Wnat expectation, after this, of any good from 
 that quarter can be rationally indulged ? ' 1 
 
 Meanwhile, side by side with the meannesses and 
 trivialities of diplomacy, the British Navy was, as 
 usual, performing to the full the task allotted to it. 
 Ab uno disce omnes. As an example of its ceaseless 
 
 1 Ibid. pp. 86*-7*.
 
 398 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 work of watch and ward take the following 
 instance : 
 
 * Sir Robert Mends was commander of a squadron 
 on the coast of Africa, stationed there by the British 
 Government to prevent the infraction of the laws 
 for the abolition of the Slave Trade. He sent Lt. 
 Mildmay with the boats belonging to his vessel to 
 reconnoitre the river Bonny, a place notorious for 
 carrying on this traffic. The boats having crossed 
 the bar about 7 o'clock, six sail, two schooners and 
 four brigs, were observed lying at anchor off the 
 town of Bonny. When the boats were about four 
 miles off, they displayed their colours ; and, as 
 they advanced, the slave vessels were soon moored 
 across the stream with springs on their cables, all 
 armed, with apparently about 400 slaves on board, 
 and the crews fully prepared to resist any attack 
 that might be made upon them. The two schooners 
 and three of the brigs opened a heavy fire of canister 
 and grape shot and musketry upon the English boats 
 as they advanced. 
 
 ' When the latter were near enough for their shots 
 to take effect, the firing was returned. They 
 advanced, and in a short time took possession of 
 all the vessels. . . . Many of the slaves jumped over- 
 board during the engagement and were devoured 
 by sharks.' On board one of the ships ' Lt. Mildmay 
 observed a slave girl about 12 or 13 years of age, in 
 irons to which was fastened a thick iron chain, 10 
 feet in length, that was dragged along as she moved. 
 He ordered the girl to be instantly released from the 
 fetter ; and that the captain who had treated her 
 so cruelly might not be ignorant of the pain inflicted
 
 THE WAR AGAINST THE SLAVE TRADE 399 
 
 upon an unprotected and innocent child, the irons 
 were ordered to be put upon him.' l 
 
 In 1824 an Act of Parliament was passed declaring 
 it to be piracy to be concerned in the Slave Trade, 
 and a convention was concluded between Great 
 Britain and the United States for making the enact- 
 ments of the two countries operate reciprocally on 
 the subjects and citizens of each other. The Senate 
 of the United States, however, only ratified the 
 convention upon condition that the reciprocity of 
 the measure were destroyed, so that American 
 cruisers would have the right to detain and examine 
 British ships, whilst their own were protected from 
 similar treatment. Canning was therefore prema- 
 ture in expressing his gratification ' that the two 
 greatest maritime nations in the world should so far 
 compromise their maritime pride as to act together 
 for the accomplishment of such a purpose.' 2 On 
 the other hand, by a treaty between Great Britain 
 and Brazil, the latter undertook within four years 
 to forbid the subjects of the Empire of Brazil from 
 carrying on the trade in slaves on the coast of Africa 
 under any pretext or hi any manner whatever. 3 
 
 Although the Slave Trade had been formally 
 abolished by France, the traffic was carried on for 
 some years in the French colonies, notwithstanding 
 the presence of a naval force to prevent it ; and 
 vessels were fitted out at Nantes, Bordeaux and 
 other ports, which were allowed by the carelessness 
 or connivance of the authorities to proceed un- 
 molested to their destination. ' The law of Britain 
 
 1 Annual Register, 1823, pp. 88*-9*. 2 Ibid. 1824, pp. 80*- 1*. 
 Ibid. pp. 72*-5*.
 
 400 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 might be violated occasionally in a remote colony ; 
 but it was never suspected that slave ships were 
 fitted out from Liverpool or Bristol ; while in France 
 both the public voice and judicial proceedings proved 
 that individual love of gain was too powerful for 
 the law.' 1 
 
 There can be no question that jealousy of England 
 stood in the way of reform. When, in 1827, the 
 Government brought forward a bill to deal more 
 stringently with the evils, the Marquis de Marbois, 
 in emphasising the fact that England, which now 
 moved heaven and earth for the general abolition 
 of the Slave Trade, had once waged war with Spain 
 to secure a monopoly of it, added, ' In this apparent 
 change of policy it is just to acknowledge that 
 England is ever consistent, ever commercially wise ; 
 for her proscription of the trade has still for its 
 object the promotion of her shipping interest the 
 advantages of trade and navigation. These interests 
 would be injured if England, having deprived 
 herself of the Slave Trade, allowed the ships and 
 mariners of other nations to continue engaged in 
 it.' This reasoning extorted an indignant protest 
 from the Due de Broglie. * There are men,' he said, 
 ' in that country (England) whom I love, men whom 
 I revere, and among them I assign the first rank to 
 those who have consecrated the best years of their 
 lives to the abolition of the Slave Trade, and who 
 now hi the declining vigour of their days devote 
 what yet remains to the abolition of slavery. I 
 take actions as I find them, not tracing their motives 
 with a malicious satisfaction, as if to find out, when 
 
 1 Annual Register, 1826, pp. 241-4,
 
 no necessity requires it, the reasons of professions 
 decidedly honourable, or to endeavour to surprise 
 in the workings of the human heart interested 
 motives and the selfish impulses of our nature. At 
 all events in this case, when the British ministry 
 zealously seeks to effect the abolition of the Slave 
 Trade, when it urges and begs and prays others to 
 abate its efforts, I do not see any reason to impute 
 to its motives any other interest than that of justice 
 and humanity. Gracious God ! of what importance 
 is it to England, mistress as she is of the sea, mistress 
 of India, mistress of seven-eighths of all the colonies 
 of the world ... of what importance to her can be 
 the internal government of affairs in two petty 
 islands, such as Martinique and Guadeloupe . . . 
 of two islands of which scarce a person in France 
 knows anything except that it costs thirty millions 
 a year to keep them in some sort of beggarly exist- 
 
 ence.' 1 
 
 At last, in the councils of the French the en- 
 lightened view gained the day. In 1831 and again 
 in 1833, France and England agreed that their 
 cruisers should stop and overhaul any suspected 
 vessel, whether flying the French or the British flag. 
 Palmerston, however, desired to go further and, in 
 combination with France, made representations to 
 the other Powers which succeeded in inducing them 
 to agree to the principle adopted by the British and 
 French Governments. The new convention, to 
 which all the chief European Powers were to be 
 parties, was ready for signature when it became 
 evident that a change of government would take 
 
 1 Ibid. 1827, pp. 207-8. 
 E.F.P. 2c
 
 402 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 place in England. Guizot, to punish Palmerston 
 for his attitude towards France, refused his signa- 
 ture. With the coming into office of Lord Aberdeen, 
 Guizot's objections ceased ; and on December 20, 
 1841, the Treaty, regulating the right of search, was 
 signed in London. The French Chamber, however, 
 proved to be opposed to its ratification ; and in 
 November, 1842, the definite withdrawal of France 
 was announced. Three years later the question was 
 reopened ; and in May, 1845, a new Treaty was 
 signed, providing that in future the right of search 
 in African Waters should be exercised by a joint 
 Franco-British Squadron. 1 Henceforth, with the 
 growth of a more sensitive public opinion through- 
 out the civilised world, the horrors of the Slave 
 Trade became, for the most part, a thing of the 
 past ; and the evils of the system were concen- 
 trated on the slave raids in Africa, which transferred 
 their unhappy victims from one part of the Con- 
 tinent to another. None the less the work done by 
 the British Navy in setting the standard, to 
 which other nations gradually conformed, can 
 never be overrated ; and has, perhaps, escaped 
 its due meed of recognition by the general body 
 of men. 
 
 In the years that followed the settlement of 1816, 
 whatever were the sins of Great Britain, she did not 
 assuredly manifest a presumptuous pride in her mari- 
 time supremacy. More than ever the French Navy 
 was allowed to approach perilously near a position 
 of equality with that of England. Guizot ex- 
 pounded to Lord Aberdeen's willing ears the folly 
 
 1 England and the Orleans Monarchy, by J. Hall, pp. 332-4.
 
 CHANGE IN BRITISH ATTITUDE 403 
 
 of the old doctrine si vis pacem para bellum ; * and 
 meanwhile France armed to the teeth. There was 
 no eminent sailor in public life ; so that the great 
 soldier-statesman who watched, with extreme caution 
 and diffidence, over the defences of the country, 
 was allowed to allocate a greater portion of the 
 moneys voted for fortresses and stationary posts, 
 and less for a mobile fleet, than would have been 
 the case had there been at the time influential up- 
 holders of the Blue Water doctrine. Although good 
 work was done by ships and sailors in the Black 
 Sea during the Crimean War, it cannot be said that 
 sea-power played a very leading part in the opera- 
 tions ; and the great expedition to the Baltic which 
 started with un-English fanfaronade and boasting 
 from Lord Palmerston and Admiral Napier proved 
 in the result a fiasco. 
 
 Very striking is the difference between the attitude 
 of Great Britain in 1805, 1814-5 and her attitude in 
 1856. When in 1805 the Russian Government pro- 
 posed that a revision of the Maritime Code should be 
 entrusted to the European Congress which it was 
 intended to hold, the British reply was that ' next 
 to the fundamental laws on which the free and 
 happy constitution of our Government is built, 
 the received and established principles of maritime 
 law, by which the power and prosperity of the 
 country is supported and promoted, are nearest 
 to the heart and most rooted to the attachment 
 of every British citizen, and that no statesman could 
 be found in this country who would ^recommend or 
 justify the referring of these great and essential 
 1 Sir R. Peel, from his Papers, vol. iii. pp. 409-10.
 
 404 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 principles to any mediation or revision.' 1 Again, 
 at the European Settlement of 1814-5, Great 
 Britain openly declared that she could not tolerate 
 the rules of war at sea being made the subject of 
 discussion by the Allied Powers. In 1856 we find 
 her meekly accepting from a Conference the revoca- 
 tion of those rules which she had formerly declared 
 to be essential for her very existence. The four 
 rules of the Declaration of Paris, 1856, were as 
 follows : 
 
 1. Privateering is and remains abolished. 
 
 2. The neutral flag covers enemy's goods, with 
 
 the exception of contraband of war. 
 
 3. Neutral goods, with the exception of contra- 
 
 band of war, are not liable to capture under 
 the enemy's flag. 
 
 4. Blockades, in order to be binding, must be 
 
 effective ; that is to say, maintained by a 
 force sufficient really to prevent access to the 
 coast of the enemy. 
 
 We are not here discussing the wisdom or the 
 unwisdom of these concessions, but merely noting 
 them as signs of the chastened temper of the times. 
 The reason lay partly in the time-spirit which was 
 against militarism in all its manifestations, and 
 partly in the fact that men did not seriously realise 
 what was the significance of sea-power. The wise 
 few may have known ; but, if so, they failed to 
 impart their knowledge to others ; and so resem- 
 bled the men in the Epistle who, having the gift of 
 
 1 Selected Despatches relating to the Formation of the 3rd Coalition, 
 1804-1805, ed. J. H. Rose, p. 162.
 
 MORIER'S VIEW OF BRITISH INTERESTS 405 
 
 tongues, were without interpreters of their utter- 
 ances. It is certain that Captain Mahan was the 
 first to bring home to the man in the street, and, 
 after all, the ordinary cabinet minister is only the 
 man in the street writ large, the meaning of the 
 influence of sea-power upon history. Still, when 
 that meaning had been realised, British statesmen 
 continued to think that the claims of civilisation 
 demanded a less ruthless system of naval warfare 
 than the system which had been practised in the 
 past. 
 
 Sir Robert Morier, whose mind always refused to 
 run in prescribed channels, maintained that * after 
 binding ourselves by the Declaration of Paris it was 
 little less than suicide on our part not to carry it out 
 to its logical consequences, by declaring all private 
 property at sea inviolable, irrespective of the 
 character of the ship by which it was conveyed. . . . 
 As matters now stand, we are in the peculiar posi- 
 tion of having twice the fighting power, balanced 
 by probably not less than six or seven times the 
 amount of the vulnerability of any other Maritime 
 State ; by the proposed alteration in Maritime Law 
 it is true that, commercially speaking, all parties will 
 become equally invulnerable, but the manner in 
 which this general invulnerability would affect the 
 various Maritime Powers would be very unequal 
 and, in my opinion, altogether to our advantage ; 
 for we should obtain the double benefit of getting 
 rid of more vulnerability than any one else, whilst 
 adding to our fighting power in a far larger 
 proportion than any one else, the amount of 
 force required for the purpose of defending our
 
 406 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN EUROPE 
 
 commerce (and which would otherwise become 
 available for offensive purposes) being proportionate 
 not to the amount of fighting to be got through, 
 which remains a fixed quantity, but to the extent 
 of our commerce, and therefore bearing a much 
 larger ratio to the actual offensive apparatus than 
 that borne by the navies of other Powers, who, 
 with the possibility of the same amount of offensive 
 work on their hands have six times less commerce 
 to look after.' 1 
 
 Morier recognises that there was ' at present on 
 the part of the public in England a want of caring 
 for international questions and ... an ignorance 
 in regard to them, combined with a definite will not 
 to be enlightened, which is truly appalling.' 2 
 
 The last paragraph of a letter to Lord Derby 
 (July 1, 1874) connects the subject with the general 
 subject of this volume. ' In your late speech at 
 the Merchant Taylors, to my inexpressible joy and 
 delight, you told Europe that the present Govern- 
 ment considered the maintenance of the peace of 
 the world as a concern second in importance only 
 to that of maintaining the peace of England. You 
 thus formally repudiated the Manchester doctrine 
 of England's international outlawry or standing 
 outside of the European peace. We have, there- 
 fore, thank God, returned to what our Anglo-Saxon 
 forefathers would have called the Fridborg or 
 Frank-pledge (pads plegium) of the European com- 
 munity. But to carry out the simile we find our- 
 selves standing in the European ' folkmote ' as 
 
 1 Memoirs of Sir It. Morier, vol. ii. pp. 384-5. 
 1 Ibid. p. 392.
 
 GERMAN METHODS 407 
 
 having given security, whose value is absurdly in 
 excess of that given by our peers. Could a new 
 policy be better initiated than by recovering those 
 pledges and thus putting ourselves on a footing of 
 equality with our neighbours ? ' 1 
 
 The course taken in the present war, wherein 
 Germany has thrown to the winds the recognised 
 practices of war, as well by sea as by land, renders 
 the discussion an academic one ; but, as things 
 seemed at the time, there was much force in Morier's 
 reasoning. 
 
 In fact, the Declaration of London, which is out- 
 side our ken, extended yet further, in favour of 
 neutral Powers, the rules of naval warfare. It is 
 true that the Declaration was not finally accepted 
 by Great Britain, the House of Lords having re- 
 jected the Naval Prize Bill ; but that it came so 
 near to adoption shows what was the temper of 
 British statesmen. It was not their fault that the 
 ruthlessness of German methods forbade that the 
 war should be waged with kid gloves, and that in 
 the general melee neutrals have had a difficult time 
 between the hammer and the anvil of contending 
 Empires. 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 392.
 
 INDEX 
 
 ABKKDEEN.Earl of, Foreign policy 
 of, 197-8, 234, 360, 
 402 ; and the Spanish 
 marriages, 201 n.3 
 on Belgian affairs (1830), 174; 
 on the Cabinet Coun- 
 cil of Oct. 1853 and 
 the Crimean War, 
 230-3 
 
 Abdul Mejid, Sultan, and his 
 Christian subjects, 
 241 ; and the Revolt 
 of Mehomet Ali, 189. 
 
 Adair, Robert, 96 
 
 Adams, John Quincy, 376<fcw.i, 
 on the Monroe Doc- 
 trine, 166 ; on the 
 Second Armed Neu- 
 trality, 377-9 
 
 Adana, and Mehemet Ali, 187 
 
 Addington Ministry, the, 118 
 
 Aden, British occupation of, 189 
 
 Adet, P. A., 386 
 
 Afghanistan ; frontier delimita- 
 tion ; and Russo-Brit- 
 ish friction, 335-6, 345 
 
 African Institution, the, on the 
 Slave Trade, 396-7 
 
 Alabama affair, Morier on, 311 
 
 Alberoni, Cardinal, attempt of, to 
 crush England, 56-7 
 
 Albert, Prince Consort, 197, 203, 
 
 204, 281 cfcn. i, 358 
 German predilections of, 208 
 on Austrian policy (I860), 300 
 et sqq. ; on the Cri- 
 mean War, 231-2 
 
 Albert, Prince Consort, on atti- 
 tude of CentralPowers, 
 235-6 ; on European 
 conditions in 1860, 
 254-5 ; on Germany 
 (1860), 300 et 5^. ; on 
 NapoleonllL, 213-14; 
 on National Defence, 
 221; on Palmerston's 
 unwisdom, 201 ; on 
 Russian Protectorate 
 of Turkish Christian 
 subjects, 230. 
 
 Alexander I. , Emperor of Russia, 
 
 162, 166 
 
 Character and policy of, at 
 
 different periods, 125, 
 
 141-2, 150, 155, 156, 
 
 181, 396 
 
 Founder of the Holy Alliance 
 
 (q.v.), 9 
 and the Greek Revolution 
 
 (1821), 158-9 
 
 and the League against 
 France, 118, 120; 
 the Malta difficulty, 
 120, 123-4 
 
 Polish constitution granted by, 
 181, 268 
 
 Alexander II. on British Institu- 
 tions and Policy, 306 
 
 "All the Talents" Ministry, and 
 the drift into Isola- 
 tion, 126-7 
 
 Alliances and Treaties, British 
 one-time policy of, 
 62, 67, 93, 144
 
 INDEX 
 
 409 
 
 Allies, the, in the War against 
 France (1793 et sqq), 
 101, 104, 105-7 
 
 Alsace-Lorraine, cession of, re- 
 sults of, 23, 29, 295, 
 331, 353 
 
 America, British hegemony in, 6 
 French intrigues in, 77 
 French power in, aimed at by 
 
 Pitt, 69, 74-5 
 United States of, 
 
 Attitude of, to the Decrees, 
 and Orders in Coun- 
 cil, 382 et sqq. 
 
 British convention with, on 
 
 the Slave Trade, 399 
 
 First nation to abolish the 
 
 Slave Trade, 395 
 and the French Navy (1793), 
 
 373 
 
 Hostility of (circa 1 806-7), 1 31 
 Monroe Doctrine promul- 
 gated by, 166-7 
 and the Second Armed Neu- 
 trality, Adams on, 
 378-9 
 
 American Colonies, Revolt of, 
 see American War of 
 Independence 
 Vessels and the Bayonne 
 
 Decree, 383 
 
 War of Independence, Pitt's 
 attitude to, 74-5 ; the 
 sacrifice of Louis- 
 bourg, 63 ; the effect 
 on Sea-rights of Neu- 
 trals, 267 
 
 Americas the, Revolutionary 
 movement in (1821), 
 158 
 Ampthill, Lord, see Russell, Lord 
 
 Odo 
 
 Anfillon, , 183 
 Anglo-American War of 1812, 
 
 causes of, 384 
 
 Anglo-Austrian relations at dif- 
 ferent periods, 66-7, 
 75, 86, 90, 110-11, 
 207-8, 220, 326 ; 
 Gladstone's apology 
 (1880), 329 
 
 Anglo-Belgian Policy and rela- 
 tions at various 
 periods, 5, 15, 16, 
 23, 24: et sqq., 89, 117, 
 178-9,180,196-7,212, 
 239, 285, 286, 291-2, 
 295-7, 341, 362, see 
 also Belgium 
 
 Anglo-Dutch relations at differ- 
 ent periods, Alliances, 
 &c., 37, 38, 40, 53, 
 62,77,82,89,95,219; 
 Federation scheme, 4, 
 37 et sqq. 
 
 Anglo-French Commercial Treaty 
 Fox's attitude to, 96 
 
 Anglo-French Agreement of 1904, 
 
 18 
 
 Relations at various periods ; 
 Alliances, Ententes, 
 Friction, &c., 6, 13 et 
 sqq., 17, 18, 29, 39-42, 
 56 et sqq., 64, 83-5, 
 89, 90, 138, 142, 147, 
 175 et sqq., 192, 198, 
 214 et sqq., 339-40, 
 341, 345-6, 349 
 
 Wars, before the Revolution 
 (1744), 62-3; after- 
 math of, 63 
 
 During Revolutionary and 
 Napoleonic times, 95, 
 97 et passim 
 
 Anglo-German relations, 137 ; 
 after 1870, 18 & n., 
 23, 330, 331, 332, 336 
 et sqq. ; after fall of 
 Bismarck, 349 et sqq. 
 
 Anglo-Italian relations, before 
 and after the Struggle 
 for Unity, 17, 159, 
 204 etsqq., 220-1, 246, 
 250, 300, 303-4 
 
 Anglo- Japanese Alliance (1905), 
 354 
 
 Anglo-Polish Alliance, project 
 for, 90 
 
 Anglo-Prussian relations, Alli- 
 ances, &c., at differ- 
 ent periods, 67, 69, 
 82, 87, 130-1
 
 410 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Anglo - Russian relations, Alli- 
 ances, rapprochements 
 &c., at different 
 periods, (see also Cri- 
 mean War), 19 et sqq.; 
 28, 29, 75, 90, 113-14, 
 133-4, 154-5, 233-4, 
 321, 335-6, 345 
 
 Anglo-Scandinavian relations, see 
 Charles XII., Den- 
 mark, db Sweden 
 Anglo-Spanish relations at dif- 
 ferent periods ( see al^o 
 Armada), 3, 4, 6, 6, 
 35-6, 57 et sqq., 61-2 
 War of 1739, 59 et sqq. 
 Anglo-Turkish relations in pre- 
 Napoleonic times, 
 222, later, see Eastern 
 Question 
 
 Disraeli on, 318 et sqq. 
 Annual Register 
 
 1762, on French Fishing-rights 
 at Newfoundland, 
 71-2 
 
 Peace of Paris, 72-4 
 1801, on the Case for Great 
 
 Britain, 386 et sqq. 
 1806, on Prussian Political 
 morality, 128 et sqq. 
 1823, 1824 and 1826, on Anti- 
 Slave Trade Conven- 
 tions, Treaties, &c., of 
 Great Britain, 399, 
 400 
 
 Antwerp, and the Conference of 
 London (1830), 177-8 
 as Menace to England, 139 
 Recovery of, British interest 
 
 in, 362 
 
 Status of (1831), 196 
 Talleyrand's suggestion on, 
 
 175-6 
 and the Walcheren expedition, 
 
 132 
 Arabia, and Mehemet Ali, 189, 
 
 190 
 
 Armed Neutrality of 1780, the, 
 113, 368-9 et sqq., 
 379, 388 
 Second, 377-9, 388 
 
 Asia, Russian Activities in, 323 
 (1884 & after), 334-5 
 Assiento Treaty, 50, 58 
 Auckland, Lord, on the French 
 Revolution as affect- 
 ing England, 94 ; on 
 Prussia and Austria 
 (1791), 88 ; on the 
 Seven Years' War, 
 105 
 
 Austerlitz, Battle of, 125, 126 
 Austria, after the Congress of 
 Vienna, 215 et sqq. 
 
 Bismarck's views on (1874), 
 308 
 
 Conduct of, in the French 
 War (1793 et eqq.), 
 104-7 
 
 and the Eastern question, 188, 
 191 
 
 Failure to support France in 
 1870, 294 n. 2 
 
 and the League against France, 
 118 
 
 and the Peace of Luneville, 113 
 
 Peace proposals of (circa 1854), 
 239 
 
 and Poland, 91, 104, 105, 257, 
 258 
 
 Policy of, features of, 111, 
 137-8, 300 et sqq. 
 
 and the Scheldt, 104 
 
 and the Sleswig - Holstein 
 question, 262 et sqq., 
 282 
 
 and the Spanish Netherlands, 
 see Austrian Nether- 
 lands 
 
 Territorial re-arrangements 
 suggested for (1800), 
 188, (1805), 123 
 
 Austrian Netherlands, 5, 77-8, 
 79, 110-11, 112-13, 
 139-40 
 
 French conquest of (1746), 62 
 
 Rebellion in (1789), 86 ; sur- 
 render of, to France 
 (1797), 117 ; scheme 
 for uniting with 
 Dutch, 110 ; future 
 of, discussed, 14, 112
 
 INDEX 
 
 411 
 
 Austrian Succession, War of, 62, 
 66, 357 
 
 Austro-French Alliances and 
 relations at different 
 periods, 67, 243, 
 (1870), 294 n.2 
 
 Austro-German Defensive Alli- 
 ance (1879), 23, 330, 
 
 331 344 
 
 Possibilities (I860), Queen Vic- 
 toria on, 249 
 
 Austro-Italian relations at dif- 
 ferent periods (see 
 also Italo-Austiian), 
 106; struggles of 1848 
 and after, 204 et sqq., 
 1864 & 1866, 282, 283 
 
 Austro-Prussian relations at dif- 
 ferent periods, 73, 75, 
 86, 88, 91, 109, 142, 
 see also Holy Alliance 
 
 BALANCE of Power, the, 2, 3, 4 ., 
 5, 9, 10-11, 14, 17, 
 43, 86-7, 92, 93, 128, 
 137, 144, 180, 183, 215 
 
 Balkan Politics (see also Bulgaria, 
 Principalities, &c.)> 
 Bismarck's views on, 
 
 332 ; Gladstone and, 
 329 
 
 States, after the Treaty of San 
 
 Stefano, 21 
 Unrest (1876), 19 
 
 Baltic Sea, British interests in 
 
 (1716 circa), 54, 55 
 British fiasco in, 403 
 Prussian expansion towards, 
 121 
 
 Bathurst, Earl, and the Orders 
 in Council, 381 
 
 Barrier Fortresses of Holland, 5, 
 15, 16, 47, 49, 51 <fc n., 
 79, 180 ; Austrian 
 interference with, 78 
 
 Barrier Treaties, the (1709, & 
 1715), 5, 51 ti- n., 113 
 
 Bavaria, proposed exchange of, 
 for Austrian Nether- 
 lands, 79 
 
 Bayonne Decree, the (1808), 383 
 
 Beaconsfield, Earl of, see Disraeli 
 Bedford, Duke of, Foreign Policy 
 
 of, 70 
 
 Belgium, see also Anglo-Belgian 
 relations; Low Coun- 
 tries ; Netherlands, 
 Austrian and Spanish, 
 <fcc. 
 
 as Barrier State, 180 
 Danger spot to England, 19th 
 and present Cen- 
 turies, 15 
 Franco-Prussian designs on 
 
 (1866), 284 et sqq. 
 German menace to (1874), 308 
 Independence and Neutrality 
 of, guaranteed by the 
 Powers, 15, 16, 23, 
 178, 179, 180, 196-7, 
 291-2, 295, 296-7, 
 356, 362 
 Dilke on British attitude to 
 
 (1887), 24 et sqq. 
 German violation of (1914), 
 356, and British inter- 
 vention in the War, 
 362 
 
 Importance of, to England, 
 239 ; Queen Victoria 
 on, 291-2 
 Nation and Nationality of, 
 
 origins of, 217, 218 
 Position of, before Franco- 
 Prussian War, 295 et 
 sqq. 
 
 Revolt of, 1830, 174-5 ; and 
 Separation from Hol- 
 land, 271-2 ; see also 
 Independence, supra 
 Belgic Revolution (1789), 86 
 Belgo-French relations at differ- 
 ent periods, 7, 15-16, 
 111,117,139,143,173 
 et sqq., 218, 284, 292 
 Berlin Decree (1806), see Con- 
 tinental System 
 
 Berlin Memorandum of 1876, 
 Disraeli's attitude to, 
 312-13 319 
 
 Besika Bay, British fleet at, 319 
 Bessarabia, retrocession of, 327-8
 
 412 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Beust, Count von, on Austro- 
 
 French relations 
 
 (1870), 294 n. 2; on 
 
 Europe after 1870,300 
 
 Bismarck, Count Otto von 
 
 Attitude of, towards 
 
 Belgian question, 285 <fe n. 2, 
 
 292 
 
 Black Sea question, 305 
 Concert of Europe, 138 el sqq. 
 Disarmament (1870), 293 
 Great Britain, 18, 23, 24, 25, 
 74, 330, 331, 332, 336 
 etsqq., 338 n.i 
 Sleswig-Holstein, 263, 264 
 
 Character of, 293 & n.i, 299 
 
 Designs of, against France, 
 1874 & 1875, how 
 checked, 18 cfc n. 
 
 and the Ems telegram, 294 
 
 Fall of, 28 
 
 and the proposed Franco- 
 Prussian anti- Belgian 
 treaty, 295 
 
 Relations of, with Odo Russell, 
 305, 307 
 
 on Anglo-German relations, 
 17-18 ifc 7i,, 297, 330, 
 331, 332, 336 et sqq., 
 338 n.i ; on the Ber- 
 lin Congress, 323, 
 325-6; on Bulgaro- 
 Russian relations, 
 325 ; on Essential 
 Antagonism between 
 Russia and Britain, 
 346 ; on European 
 Law as established by 
 Treaties, 14, 355 ; on 
 French designs (temp. 
 Napoleon III. ), 212 ; 
 on Great Britain and 
 the War of 1870, 297; 
 on Heligoland, 340; 
 on Napoleon III., 
 214; on the War- 
 scare of 1875, 307 
 
 Political principles and Domes- 
 tic and Foreign policy 
 of, 18, 23, 28, 63, 305, 
 322, 339, 355 
 
 Bismarck, Count Otto von (contd. ) 
 Press organ of, on Anglo- 
 German relations 
 (1877), 315 
 
 Views of, on European politics 
 after 1870, 308 
 
 Black Sea Question, the (see 
 also Dardanelles),231, 
 239, 240, 304-6, 311, 
 403 
 
 Blenheim, Battle of, 48-9 
 
 Blockade of Continental Coasts, 
 see Orders in Council 
 
 Bliicher, Marshal, and his troops, 
 143 
 
 Bordeaux, and the Slave Trade, 
 399 
 
 Bosnia-Herzegovina, revolt in 
 (1876), 19 ; Austrian 
 Protectorate over, 21, 
 327, Disraeli on, 328 ; 
 Gladstone on, 316 
 
 Bourbon family, the Elder Pitt's 
 distrust of, 65, 66, 69 
 Rule of, in Spain, 5. 45, 58, 
 see also Spanish Mar- 
 riages 
 
 Brazil and Great Britain, Anti- 
 Slave Trade Treaty 
 between, 399 
 
 Bremen, sale of, by Denmark, 54 
 
 Bright, John, and Belgian Inde- 
 pendence, 296 ; on 
 the views of the Man- 
 chester School, 359 
 
 British attitude to the Concert of 
 
 Europe, 1 38 et sqq. 
 Convention with U.S.A. on the 
 
 Slave Trade, 399 
 Foreign Policy, passim, see 
 Anglo-Austrian and 
 similar relations, 
 Kings, Ministers, 
 Writers, &c., under 
 Names 
 
 Change in,madebyPitt,68-9 
 Characteristics, Keynotes, 
 Principles, and 
 
 Strength of, 2, 13, 
 17, 35, 136-7, 165, 
 187-8, 356-7
 
 INDEX 
 
 British during French Revolution 
 and Empire (1791- 
 1814), 94 et sqq., 136 
 et sqq., et alibi 
 
 Modern period begun, 391 ; 
 temp. William III., 
 43 
 
 Good faith, inconveniences of, 
 245 
 
 Imperialism, growth and bear- 
 ings of, 360-2 
 
 Influence on the Continent, 
 168 ; Canning on, 
 164-5, 169-70, see also 
 Prestige 
 
 Loyalty to Allies, 61-2, 118, 
 126 
 
 Military Forces, 113, 131 
 
 Naval Supremacy, menace to, 
 in 1897, 28 ; and the 
 Malta question, 123-4, 
 see also Sea power 
 
 Navy, in Baltic and Black 
 Seas, 403 
 
 Neutrality in French affairs 
 
 (1791), 89 
 
 During Franco - Prussian 
 War, 17 ; various 
 views on, 297-9 
 
 Parliamentary Parties, and 
 Foreign policy, 92 
 
 Political character, 29, 61-2, 
 87-8, 110, 118, 126, 
 136, 221, 341n.i 
 
 Policy concerning the Belgian 
 revolt of 1830, 174-5, 
 see also Belgium, In- 
 dependence 
 
 Protection of France, Palmer- 
 ston on, 183 
 
 Share in the Suppression of 
 the Slave Trade, 391 
 et sqq., 399-402 
 
 Statesmen, as distinguished 
 from British Policy, 
 2, 10 
 
 Subjects abroad, Protection of, 
 210 
 
 Trade with the Indies, 33-6 
 British Columbia, secured by 
 Pitt, 92 
 
 Broglie, Duo de, and the Reac- 
 tionary powers, 188 ; 
 on Great Britain and 
 the abolition of the 
 Slave Trade, 400-1 
 Brunnow, Baron, 190 
 Buckle, , on British policy as 
 
 to Belgium, 285 
 Buffer or Barrier States 
 Belgium as, 180 
 Turkey as, 187 
 
 Bulgaria, Nicholas I. on, 225; 
 and the Treaty of 
 San Stefano, 20-1, 
 322 
 
 Bulgarian and other Turkish 
 atrocities, Gladstone 
 on, 313, 314, 516 et sqq. 
 Bund, the, in 1860, 16 
 Burke, Edmund 
 
 Attitude to and sayings on 
 
 the 
 
 European alliances, 93 
 French Revolution, 7, 93, 
 
 96 et sqq.; 
 Party Politics, 92 
 Conservatism of, 93 
 on European solidarity,98-100; 
 on International Law, 
 99 ; on Treaties, 98 
 Burnet, Bishop, on the Peace of 
 Ryswick, 43-5 
 
 CADIZ, Duke of, 201 n. 3 
 Calabria, Garibaldi's invasion of, 
 
 252 
 Candia, and England, Nicholas 
 
 I. on, 225 
 
 Canning, George, 127, 132 ; and 
 Castlereagh (q. v. ) com- 
 pared, 132, 165, 173 
 Character of, 10, 132, 160 <L- n., 
 
 168, 169, 
 Death, 170 
 
 Foreign Policy of, 9-11, 127, 
 
 132, 160, 165, 237, 
 
 170,173, et alibi; as to 
 
 Eastern question, 223 
 
 Holy Alliance (q.v.), 163, 
 
 165-6 
 Nationalities, 358
 
 414 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Canning, George (contd.) 
 
 on the Concert of Europe, 163, 
 164, 165-6; on the 
 Flag, 289 ; on Inde- 
 pendence of the Span- 
 ish Colonies, 167 ; on 
 International Confer- 
 ences, 151 ; on Non- 
 intervention, 164, 169, 
 170, and on British 
 influence on the Con- 
 tinent, 169 ; on the 
 Peace of Amiens, 117; 
 on Prussia in 1825,138 
 Orders in Council and, 132, 
 381-2 
 
 Carbonari, the, and Napoleon III. , 
 213-14, 246 
 
 Carlist rising in Spain, 183 
 
 Carlyle, T., on the Conquest of 
 Silesia, 61 
 
 Carteret, Lord, 64 
 
 Castlereagh, Viscount, character- 
 istics, 132-3, 158-60 ; 
 death, 160 
 
 Favouring concentrated (mili- 
 tary) action, 127 
 Foreign Policy of, 133, 172, 
 
 in reference to 
 Concert of Europe, 165 
 Eastern Question, 223 
 Holy Alliance, 9, 10, 154-5, 
 
 166 
 
 on Alexander I.'s Liberalism, 
 150 ; on Annexation 
 of Netherlands to 
 Holland, 139-40 ; on 
 Antwerp and British 
 interests, 139 ; on 
 the Balance of Power, 
 144; on British desire 
 for Peace (1815), 144 ; 
 on the Greek Revolu- 
 tion (1821), 158-9; on 
 International Confer- 
 ences, 150 ; on Na- 
 tionality and Re- 
 action, 141, 150, 157; 
 on Political change 
 of views in Europe 
 (1814),*141 
 
 Castlereagh (contd.) 
 
 on retention of Dutch Colonies, 
 140-1; on the Rhine's 
 left bank, 143 ; on 
 Russia, and the Con- 
 gress of Vienna, 147 ; 
 on the Slave Trade, 
 392cfc.; on Universal 
 Alliance for Peace, 
 154-5 
 
 Catherine II. of Russia, 77, 125 
 and the Armed Neutrality, 
 
 368, 371-2, 379 
 Attitude of, to England, 75, 90 
 Designs of, on Turkey, 88, 222 
 Menace of, to the Balance of 
 
 Power, 86-7 
 
 and the Second Partition of 
 Poland, 91 
 
 Catholic Emancipation, Pitt's 
 attitude to, 115, 118 
 
 Cavour, Count, and Napoleon 
 III, 243; Statesman- 
 ship of, 246 
 
 Cecil, Robert, on the Sacredness 
 of Contracts (temp. 
 James I.), 35 ; on 
 Peace with United 
 Provinces, 35 
 
 Central Powers, and the Crimean 
 War, 225 et sqq. 
 
 Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J., and 
 the Kruger telegram, 
 351; onBritain's posi- 
 tion, in 1896, 351-2 
 
 Charleroi, 47 
 
 Charles Albert, of Sardinia, and 
 Italian affairs, 204-5, 
 207, 220 
 
 Charles I., claims as to Sea-power, 
 
 365-6 
 Foreign policy of, 3 
 
 Charles II., character of, 366 
 Foreign Policy of, 4 <fc n., 40-1 
 
 Charles VI., Emperor and the Os- 
 tend Company, 53, 62 
 
 Charles X. of France and the 
 1830 Revolution, 173 
 
 Charles XII. of Sweden, British 
 quarrel with, 53 n. ; 
 death of, 57
 
 INDEX 
 
 415 
 
 Chatham, Earl of, see Pitt, 
 William, the elder 
 
 Chinese War (1885), 340. 
 
 Christian IX. of Denmark and 
 Sleswig - Holstein, 
 269 
 
 Christian subjects of the Sultan, 
 Russian claim to Pro- 
 tectorate over, and 
 the Crimean War,229 
 
 Christina, Queen of Spain, 183 
 
 Clancarty, Earl of, on the Holy 
 Alliance and the Con- 
 cert of Europe, 152-3 
 
 Clarendon, Earl of (Edward 
 Hyde, Lord Chancel- 
 lor), and Dunkirk, 52 
 
 Clarendon, 4th Earl of, 185, 186, 
 
 197 
 Foreign Policy of, in reference 
 
 to 
 
 Disarmament (1869), 293 
 French Alliance, 192 
 as Foreign Secretary, 288-9 ; 
 
 Gladstone on, 289 
 on Bismarck and Belgium 
 (1869), 292 ; on 
 British good faith on 
 the Eastern Question, 
 228; on British willing- 
 ness for Arbitration, 
 282 ; on the Crimean 
 War, 230, and on 
 " drifting into war," 
 233 ; on National 
 Defence, 221 71.4 ; on 
 the Quadruple Treaty, 
 185 ; on Queen Vic- 
 toria and the Foreign 
 Office, 12 n. ; on 
 Stratford de Red- 
 cliffe, and the Cri- 
 mean War, 233-4 
 
 Coalitions of European Powers 
 against France 
 
 1. First, 101-7 
 
 2. Second, attempt at, 108-9 
 
 3. Third, 110 et gqq. 
 
 4. Fourth, 134-5 
 
 Coasting Trade in War, 368, 
 369 
 
 Collective Note, the, of 1839, 
 and the Eastern 
 Question, 189 
 
 Colonial Erpansion of France, 18 
 Interests, promoted by Charles 
 
 II., 40, 41, 42 
 Commercial Treaty with France, 
 
 Pitt's, 82, 83 
 Commonwealth Foreign Policy, 
 
 see Cromwell 
 Compulsory Military Service in 
 
 Britain, 30 
 
 Concert of Europe, the, 9, 22, 29, 
 135, 136 et sqq., 145, 
 152 
 " Become an impossibility," 
 
 163 
 
 France's return to, 194 
 and the Great War of 1914-, 
 
 356 
 
 Maintenance essential, 29 
 Meetings of, views on, of 
 Castlereagh, Canning 
 and others, 150-1 
 and Montenegrin affairs, 331 
 Salisbury on, 347-8 
 Widening of, 354 
 Confederation, German, recon- 
 struction of, Palmer- 
 ston on, 209 
 Conferences of, and at 
 
 Aix-la-Chapelle (1818), 150, 
 
 154, 157, 215-16 
 Laibach, 157 
 London (1831), 177-8, 179, 
 
 180 
 
 London (1871), 305 
 Paris (1856), 282 
 Powers comprising the Holy 
 Alliance, plans for, 
 140 
 Powers, suggested, on Polish 
 
 affairs, 260 
 
 Troppau (1820), 156, 158 
 Wellington on, 162-3 
 Congresses of 
 
 Berlin (1878), 323, 324-5 
 Constantinople (1876), 314 
 Laibach, 164 
 
 Verona (1822), 160, 165, 395 
 Vienna, 147-8, 174, 392 et tqq.
 
 416 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Constantino, Viceroy of Poland, 
 
 181 
 Constantinople, British fleet at 
 
 (1854), 229 
 
 British policy as to (1839), 191 
 Russia at, as affecting British 
 
 interests, 21 
 
 Russian attitude to (1783), 75 
 Russian and British attitude 
 
 to, 226, 235 
 
 Constitutions, Alexander I.'s, 
 attitudes towards, 
 155-6, 181 
 Continental attitude to England 
 
 (1783), 75-6 
 Engagements, why needful, 
 
 56, 57 
 
 and Intervention, policy, 2 et 
 
 sqq.,Il-14:,n,53etsqq. 
 
 System of Napoleon I., 126, 
 
 379 et sqq. 
 War, changed British attitude 
 
 to (1806), 126-7 
 Contraband of War 
 Grotius on, 369-70 
 Orders in Council on, 373-4 
 Conventions of, at, and for 
 Gastein, 281-2 
 June (1878), 323 
 Pacification of the Levant 
 
 (1839), 193 
 
 Reichenbach (1790), 88 
 Straits, the (1841), 194 
 Cornwallis, Lord, surrender of, 75 
 Coup -d'etat, the, and Palmer- 
 ston's attitude, 208, 
 219 
 Coventry, H., on Religion and 
 
 Politics, 40 
 Cowley, Earl, and Napoleon III., 
 
 252, 253 
 Cracow, Question of, 201-2, 257, 
 
 272 
 
 Crete, 190 
 
 Crimean War, the, causes, 229, 
 360; course, 230 et 
 sqq. ; conclusion, 240 
 et sqq. ; lessons of, 17 
 Cromor, Earl of, on Liberal 
 Imperialism (1893), 
 341-3 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver, Foreign Policy 
 of, 3-4; in reference to 
 Dunkirk, 52 
 France and Spain, 38, 39, 
 
 40 
 
 Union between England and 
 the Netherlands, 37, 
 38-40 
 
 Cyprus, the quid pro quo for, 323 
 Czartoryski, Prince, 181 
 Czernicheff, Count, 371 
 
 DANISH Constitutions of 1855 
 and 1863, 265, 266, 
 267, 268 
 Fleet, British seizure of (1807), 
 
 127 &n.z, 132, 136 
 Question, see Sleswig-Holstein 
 
 Question 
 
 Dantzig, and Prussia, 91 
 Danube Navigation, 239, Euro- 
 pean Commission for 
 regulation of, 241 
 Dardanelles Closure, 187, 190 
 Conventions on (1841), 194, 
 
 (1856), 306 
 
 Russian rights controverting 
 closure, Treaties ac- 
 cording (1805 and 
 1833), 187 ; surren- 
 der of (1839), 190 
 Wellington's views (and others) 
 
 on, 188 
 Declaration of 
 
 London, in relation to Neu- 
 trals, 407 
 Paris (1856), on Naval Laws, 
 
 404 
 Vienna on the Slave Trade 
 
 (1815), 392 et sqq. 
 Decrees of Napoleon I. to counter 
 British Orders in 
 Council, 379 et sqq. 
 Mahan on, 389 
 
 Reported revocation of, as 
 main cause of Anglo- 
 American War of 
 1812, 384 
 
 Dedel, Dutch Minister, on Pal- 
 merston's errors of 
 Manner, 196
 
 INDEX 
 
 417 
 
 Delane, , of the Times, and the 
 Eastern Question,313 
 Democracy, Burke's lack of In- 
 sight on, 97 
 Diplomacy and Foreign Affairs, 
 
 30, 346-7 
 and Empire, 30 
 Modern British, and the Con- 
 cert of Europe, 29-30 
 Denmark (see also Danish), 238 
 Bremen and Verden sold by, 54 
 British relations with, 1716-19, 
 54, (1807), 127 JL-n.2, 
 132, 136, 290 
 
 and the Sleswig-Holstein ques- 
 tion, 262 et sqq. 
 Treaty guaranteeing Integrity 
 
 of, 262 
 
 Derby, 14th Earl of, 246; on 
 Anglo-Austrian rela- 
 tions,220; on the Lux- 
 emburg question, 288 
 Derby, 15th Earl of (see also I 
 Stanley, Lord), on < 
 Peace of Britain, and 
 Peace of Europe, 406; , 
 onRusso-Germansus- | 
 picions (1876), 314 
 Dilke, Sir Charles, on an Austro- 
 British guarantee of 
 Turkish Integrity, 
 326 n.z; on British 
 support of Belgium 
 (1887), 24 et sqq. ; on 
 Suggested Alliances 
 in 1886, 341 n. i 
 Disraeli, Benjamin (later Earl of 
 
 Beaconsfield), 220 
 Foreign Policy of, 19 et sqq., in 
 
 relation to 
 Belgium (1866), 285 
 Eastern Question, 242, 
 
 312-13 
 
 Italian Question, 244 
 Luxemburg Question, 287 
 on British Policy and the Sles- 
 wig - Holstein Ques- 
 tion, 278-9, 280 ; 
 on British position 
 in Europe and Asia 
 (1866), 309 
 
 Disraeli (contd.) 
 
 on Bulgaria and the Treaty 
 of San Stefano, 
 322 ; on Combining 
 Aggressive War with 
 Protective Diplo- 
 macy, 239 ; on the 
 Eastern Question 
 (1876), 312-13; (1877), 
 318 et sqq. ; on Non- 
 intervention, 284 ; on 
 Results of Berlin 
 Congress, 324-5 ; on 
 Stanley's character, 
 288 
 
 Drouyn de L'Huys, , on Revi- 
 sion of the Treaty of 
 1815, 271 
 
 Duchies, the Italian, after the 
 settlement of Villa 
 Franca, 247-8 
 
 Dunkirk, dismantling of, 52, 65 
 Dupleix, J., successes of, 62 
 Dutch, the, see also Anglo-Dutch, 
 Holland, Netherlands 
 <fcc. 
 
 Colonies, British retention of, 
 Castlereagh on, 140 
 
 Expansion in 17th centuiy, 34 
 
 Federation with Britain, 
 Scheme for, 4 
 
 Frontier Forts, see Barrier 
 Fortresses 
 
 Interests, as affected by the 
 Peace of Utrecht, 5 
 
 Invasions of Belgium (1831), 
 178, 179 
 
 Rights to the Scheldt-Meuse- 
 Rhine Canals, 177 ; 
 see also Scheldt 
 
 Rivalry with English trade, 
 34 et sqq. 
 
 Sea Power, 364 
 
 Wars of 17th century, 36-7 
 Dutch East India Company, 
 81, 367 
 
 EAST, the, Pitt's view on, 116 
 East Africa, and Heligoland, 23 
 East India Companies, Dutch 
 and English, 81, 367
 
 418 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Eastern Question, the, see also 
 Crimean War, Darda- 
 nelles, Mehemet Ali, 
 Ottoman Empire, 
 Porte, Turkey, <fec. 
 Attitude to, of various coun- 
 tries, ministers,ruler8, 
 dec. 
 
 Disraeli, 312-13, 318 et sqq. 
 France, 106, 190, 191-2, 193 
 Gladstone (q.v.), 313 
 Hartington, 320-1 
 Howard de Walden, 228-9 
 Nicholas I., 225-8 
 Palmerston, 183 et sqq. 
 Russell, 225-6 
 Russia, 18-19 et sqq., 186-7, 
 
 223 
 
 Thiers, 193 et sqq. 
 Wellington, 183 
 Treaty of San Stefano and, 20-1 
 Egypt, British interests in, and 
 control of, in relation 
 to the Eastern Ques- 
 tion, and to British 
 Imperialism, 21, 22, 
 23, 191, 193-5, 222, 
 225,334,340-1,345-6, 
 349, 361 ; see also 
 Mehemet Ali 
 Elba, 141 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen, and the be- 
 ginning of a National 
 Foreign Policy, 2-3; 
 ideals and methods 
 of, 32, 33 
 Elliot, Hugh, on British political 
 
 character, 87-8 
 
 Embargo on Ships in American 
 ports (1807), 382-3, 
 385 
 England, Bismarck's distrust of, 
 
 basis of, 74 
 and Philip II., 3, 32 
 Proposed Union of, with the 
 
 Netherlands, 4, 37 
 and the Treaty of Chaumont, 
 
 146 
 
 English Foreign Interests, Con- 
 tinuity and Similarity 
 of, 10 
 
 English History, a dark hour in, 
 (circa 1805-7), 131 
 
 Entanglements in Treaties, Brit- 
 ish Objection to, and 
 the Reply, 55-6 
 
 Entente Cordiale, 1848 (see 
 afooAnglo-FrenchEn- 
 tentes), 198, 200, 205 
 
 Erfurt Union, the, 209 
 
 Esher, Lord, on the Quadruple 
 Note to the Sultan, 
 229 
 
 Europe, after the Settlement of 
 1815, 215 et sqq., 271 
 et aqq. ; after the 
 Second French Re- 
 volution, 173 et sqq. 
 Balance of Power in, see 
 
 Balance of Power 
 Concert of, see Concert of 
 Europe 
 
 European Interests, intrinsic soli- 
 darity of, Burke on, 
 98, 99, 100 
 
 Rights, Gladstone on means of 
 securing, 296 
 
 Evans, Sir George de Lacy, and 
 the British Anti-Car - 
 list contingent, 185-6 
 
 FASHODA affair, the (1898), 349 
 
 Ferdinand VII. of Naples, Queen 
 Victoria on, 249 
 
 Ferry, Jules, and his Colonial 
 Policy, 339 ; Bis- 
 marck's influence on, 
 339-40 ; Fall of, 340 
 
 Fitz-Maurice, Lord, on the draft 
 Franco - Prussian 
 Anti-Belgian Treaty, 
 295-6 ; on Salisbury's 
 policy as to France, 
 345-6 ; on Salisbury's 
 view on an Anglo- 
 German alliance, 331 
 
 Fleury, Cardinal, and Walpole, 
 efforts of, for Peace, 
 57, 64 
 
 Florida, 57 
 
 Force, in relation to prestige, 11, 
 237-8
 
 INDEX 
 
 419 
 
 Foreign Domination, and British 
 Resistance to the 
 French Revolution, 
 165 
 
 Foreign Office, the, Queen Vic- 
 toria's attitude to,12 
 Foreign Policy, Queen Victoria's 
 constant heed to, 202 
 et sqq., et alibi 
 Fort v. Fleet, 403 
 Fox, Charles James, attitude of, to 
 American War, 96 
 Balance of Power, 93 
 Continental Alliances, 93 
 French Revolution, 7, 95-6 
 as Minister, 96 
 Peace negotiations of, with 
 
 Napoleon I., 126 
 Politics of, 93, 96 
 on the Political Degradation of 
 
 Prussia, 130 
 Death of, 127 
 
 France, see also Anglo-French 
 Ententes, Relations, 
 Wars ; Franco-Bel- 
 gian, French, <fcc. 
 Accession of, to Quadruple 
 
 Alliance, 155 
 
 Acquisitions by, after Italian 
 
 War (1858), 246, 252 
 
 Attitude of, to Polish Question, 
 
 260, 275 
 Coast, Blockaded by Orders in 
 
 Council, 132 
 
 Colonies of, Post-war restora- 
 tion of, 140 
 
 and Disarmament (1869), 293 
 Dominance of, in Europe, risk 
 of, before Peace of 
 Utrecht, 5 
 and the Eastern Question, 106, 
 
 189, 193 et sqq. 
 
 Elder and Younger Pitt's 
 Policy as to, 74-5, 
 82-5 
 
 European League against 
 (1805), 118 et sqq. ; 
 see also Coalitions 
 Extending Influence of (1832), 
 
 176 
 Finances of (1780), 77 
 
 France (contd.) 
 
 Intrigues of, in America and 
 Holland, 77, and in 
 India, 81 
 
 Occupation of, by Allied 
 Armies, 150 
 
 and Prussia, in 1792, 128, 129 
 Alternative alliances possi- 
 ble for, Napoleon III. 
 on (1861), 253 
 
 Recuperative Powers of, 5 
 
 Religion and Politics in, 40 
 
 Revolution in (see also French 
 Revolution) (1830), 
 changes in Europe 
 due to, 173 
 
 Rhine-bank lands of, offered 
 to Prussia, 122-3 
 
 and Russia, importance of a 
 British understand- 
 ing with, Disraeli on, 
 279 
 
 Safety of, where lying, 13 
 
 Salisbury's policy as to, 345-6 
 
 and the Slave Trade, 394, 395-6, 
 397, 399-402 
 
 Strength in, essential to Bal- 
 ance of Power, 9 
 
 and the Treaty of Chaumont, 
 
 145-6 
 
 Francis I., Emperor of Austria, 
 the Crown of Ger- 
 many declined by 
 (1815), 217 ; on the 
 Spanish Netherlands, 
 139 
 
 Francis Joseph I., Emperor of 
 Austria, on the Sles- 
 wig-Holstein Ques- 
 tion, 265-7 
 
 Franco- Austrian War (1858), 244 
 Franco-Belgian and Franco- 
 Dutch relations at 
 various periods ; Al- 
 liances, designs on, 
 incursions into, men- 
 aces to, &c., 7, 15-16, 
 17, 47, 51, 77, 80, 81, 
 89, 102-3, 111, 117, 
 139, 143, 173 et sqq., 
 213, 284, 291, 292
 
 420 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Franco-British joint squadron 
 for Anti-Slave Trade 
 work, 402 
 Franco-German War, British 
 
 policy as to, 17, 297 
 Effects on European relations, 
 
 300 
 
 Proximate causes of, 294 
 Recrudescence menaced (1874 
 
 & 1875), 207 
 
 Franco-Prussian plans as to Bel- 
 gium ( 1866), 284 et sqq. 
 Franco-Russian League (1805), 
 131, see also Treaty 
 of Tilsit 
 
 Franco-Spanish relations, Alli- 
 a,nces,rapprochements, 
 at various times, 5, 6, 
 66, 69, 161 
 
 Franco-Turkish relations ante 
 
 Napoleon I., 222 ; 
 
 see also Crimean War, 
 
 and Eastern Question 
 
 Frederick II. (the "Great") of 
 
 Prussia ; and the 
 
 Peace of Paris, 72-4 
 
 British alliance with, 67, end 
 
 of, 72 et sqq. 
 Renewal rejected, 75 
 Policy of, 63 
 Victories of, 74 
 Waning Influence of, 77 
 on Europe in 1748, 67 ; on 
 
 Might as Right, 63 
 Relations with George II., 67 
 Swoop of, on Silesia, 61, 64 
 Death, 80, 81 
 Frederick, Prince, 177 
 Frederick VII., King of Denmark, 
 
 265 
 
 Frederick- William II. of Prussia, 
 77, 80, 81 ; Attack 
 of, on Amsterdam, 
 81-2 ; attitude to the 
 partition of Turkey, 
 88, 89 ; Vacillating 
 policy of, 90, 128-30 ; 
 Death of, 109 
 
 Frederick- William III. of Prus- 
 sia, Accession of, 
 109 
 
 Frederick- William IV. of Prussia, 
 on the Neutrality of 
 Prussia, 236 
 
 " Free Ships, free Goods," doc- 
 trine of, 369 
 Free Trade, 357-8 
 French Fishing Rights in New- 
 foundland, 71-2, 140 
 Naval position in the Mediter- 
 ranean, 46, 48, 1 86, 1 89 
 Rapacity (1798), 376-7 
 Navy, Revolutionary, and 
 
 Neutrals, 372 
 Revolution, the, 64 
 
 Attitude to, of Burke, and 
 
 of Fox, 93 
 British Resistance to, nature 
 
 of, 165 
 
 Changes effected by, 85 
 Effect on British Foreign 
 
 Policy, 6-7 
 
 Spiritual Forces of, 101 
 Supremacy in Europe ended 
 at Blenheim, 48-9, see 
 also Mediterranean 
 Sea, <fc Napoleon I. 
 
 GALICIA, Prussian plans concern- 
 ing, 91 
 
 Gallatin, A., on the Napoleonic 
 Decrees and the War 
 of 1812, 384 
 
 Gardiner, S. R., on the Policy of 
 Philip II., 32-3 ; on 
 Sea-power under the 
 Stuarts, 365-6 
 
 Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 246, 251 
 
 Genet, French Minister to U.S.A., 
 386 
 
 George I. of Great Britain, 
 Foreign Policy of, 
 53 & n., 54 et sqq.. 57 
 
 George II., Foreign Policy of, 64 
 Relations of, with Frederick 
 the Great, 67 ; with 
 Pitt, 67-8 
 
 George III., 92 ; Hanoverian 
 possessions awarded 
 to Prussia by Secret 
 Russo Prussian 
 
 Treaty, 123
 
 INDEX 
 
 421 
 
 George III. (contd. ) 
 Objections of, to Catholic Eman- 
 cipation, 115, 118 
 on Peace, 76, 81, 85 ; on the 
 Netherlands(1796),107 
 George IV., 163 ; attitude of, 
 when Regent, to the 
 Holy Alliance, 149 
 George I., King of Greeks, 
 
 election of, 256 
 
 Gentz, F. von, on the results of the 
 Congress of Vienna, 
 147-8 
 German affairs, 1850, Palmer- 
 
 ston on, 208-9 
 Aims on Baltic shores, see 
 
 Sleswig-Holstein Question 
 Guarantee of Belgian Neu- 
 trality, 356 ; Vio- 
 lation of, 1914, 362 
 Powers, Baits offered to 
 
 (1796), 107 
 
 Conduct of, in the wars after 
 1793, 101, 105, 106-7 
 and the Final overthrow of 
 Napoleon I., 134, 142 
 Situation (1860), Prince Con- 
 sort on, 254,300 et sqq. 
 States, and the Italian Ques- 
 tion, British Dispatch 
 to, 245-6 
 
 Unity, British lack of Interest 
 in, 300, 303 ; Palmer- 
 ston on, 209 
 Germany after 1815, 215 
 
 and the Black Sea Question, 
 
 304-5 
 
 East Africa and Heligoland, 
 transaction over, with 
 Great Britain, 23 
 Risings and Revolutions in, 
 
 137, 181 
 
 Naval ethics of, 407 
 Gibraltar, British possession of, 
 
 50, 57 
 
 Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W. E., 
 Foreign Policy of, 
 19 et sqq., in refer- 
 ence to 
 Bulgaria, 329 
 Eastern Question, 242 
 
 Gladstone (contd.) 
 
 Foreign Policy of, in reference 
 
 to 
 
 Egypt, 334 
 Imperialism, 361 
 Nationality, 361 
 Transvaal, 333 
 
 on Belgian Independence, 292, 
 296 ; on Bismarck's 
 policy, 338-9 ; on 
 British Foreign Pol- 
 icy, 289-91 ; on 
 British Neutrality 
 (1870), 299 ; on 
 Clarendon's status as 
 Foreign Minister, 
 288-9 ; on the Cri- 
 mean War, 230 ; on 
 the Eastern Question, 
 242, 313 et sqq., 339 ; 
 on the Italian Ques- 
 tion (1859), 247 ; on 
 Montenegro, 317 ; on 
 the Russo - Turkish 
 War (1877), 313 etsqq. 
 Political ideals of, 283 
 Gordon, General, and the Glad- 
 stone government,22; 
 fate of, 334 
 
 Goschen, G. M. P. (afterwards 
 Viscount) , and British 
 Neutrality (1870), 299 
 Gortschakoff, Prince, 307 ; and 
 Russell, 259, 260, 261; 
 on Russia's Polish 
 policy, 275 
 
 Gower, Lord G. Leveson, on the 
 seizure of the Danish 
 Fleet, 127 n. 2 
 Granville, Earl, 175, 340 
 
 Foreign policy of, in reference to 
 Belgian Independence, 295-6 
 Black Sea Question, 305-6 
 Egypt, 361 
 
 on British Neutrality in 1870, 
 298-9 ; on the Eastern 
 Question,320; on Non- 
 intervention, 211 ; on 
 Foreign policy, 211 ; 
 on Palmerston, 1 1, 
 and his work, 212
 
 422 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Great Britain, see also Anglo- 
 Belgian, &c., British, 
 England, English, <fcc. 
 
 Bismarck's attitude to (1879 
 & later), 330 et sqq. 
 
 " Business of, to preserve 
 Peace of the World," 
 165 
 
 Case for, in 1801, 386 et sqq. 
 
 Continental objects of (1832), 
 176 
 
 at the Congress of Vienna, 147 
 
 During the Revolutions in 
 Europe, Palmerston 
 on, 210 
 
 in Europe, as affected by India, 
 360-1 
 
 Foreign attitude to, prejudiced 
 by Palmerston's me- 
 thods, 207 
 
 and the Holy Alliance, 149 et 
 sqq. 
 
 Isolation of, in event of Bel- 
 gium's loss of Na- 
 tionality (1866), 285 
 
 Objects of, in the wars against 
 Napoleon, 7 et sqq. 
 
 Political position after Water- 
 loo, 11, 160, 168, 207, 
 221, 278-9 
 
 Quadruple treaty with France, 
 Spain, Portugal, 183 
 
 Results to, of the 
 
 Peace of Utrecht, 49, 50, 53 
 Seven Years' War, 6 
 
 Sea Supremacy (see also Sea 
 Power), as used by, 
 Adams on, 377 
 
 True Policy of, as defined by 
 
 Canning, 151 
 
 Great War, see Napoleonic War, 
 see also War, the 
 Great (1914-) 
 Greece, Bismarck and, 331, 333 
 
 British relations with, 14 
 
 First king dethroned, 256 
 New king elected, 256 
 Treaty confirming election 
 and defining nature of 
 the state, 256 
 
 Gain by, of Thessaly, 22 
 
 Greek Independence, British 
 official snare in, 
 170-1 &n. 
 Revolution (1821), Castlereagh 
 
 on, 158-9 
 
 Throne, declined by Leopold of 
 Saxe-Coburg, 172 
 
 Greig, (Russian) Admiral, on the 
 articles of the Armed 
 Neutrality, 370-1 
 
 Grenville, Hon. Thomas, on 
 Austro-Prussian rela- 
 tions (1797), 109-10 
 
 GrenvilIe,Lord,Foreign Policy of, 
 85, 95,127, Non-inter- 
 vention as key of, 126 
 on the Armed Neutrality 
 and British Security 
 (1801), 388; onBritish 
 and Austrian obser- 
 vation of Treaties, 
 110-11 ; on British 
 Military Forces, 113 , 
 on British Neutrality 
 (1791), 88-90; on 
 the Future of the 
 Austrian Netherlands 
 111, 112, 117; on 
 the Proposed Union 
 of Holland and the 
 Netherlands, 112-13 
 
 Greville, Charles, on Palmerston, 
 195 
 
 Grey, General Charles, 286, 287, 
 291 
 
 Grotius, on Sea-power and the 
 Dutch, 364 
 
 Guarantees, Mutual, of Princes 
 and Subjects, 100 
 
 Guarantors of Belgian Indepen- 
 dence, see Belgian 
 Independence 
 
 Guizot, F. P. G., 200 ; and Franco- 
 British action against 
 the Slave Trade, 402 ; 
 on the Eastern Ques- 
 tion, 191-2 ; on the 
 unwisdom of Armed 
 preparedness, 403 
 
 Gustavus III. of Sweden, vacilla- 
 tions of, 90
 
 INDEX 
 
 423 
 
 HAGUK Convention (ctrcal790),89 
 
 Hall, Sir John, on Palmerston's 
 Egyptianpolicy, 194-5 
 
 Hall, W. G., on Armed Neutrality, 
 370-1 ; on Contra- 
 band by Sea, 370 
 
 Hammond, G. , Minister to U.S. A., 
 on the Order in Coun- 
 cil (1793), 373-4 <fc n.i 
 
 Hanover, acquisition by, of Bre- 
 men and Verden, 54 
 Handed to Prussia by Sec- 
 ret Russo - Prussian 
 Treaty, 123, 130 
 
 Hanoverian succession, 52 ; as 
 affecting British pol- 
 icy, 53-4 
 
 Harris, Sir James, see Malmes- 
 bury, 1st Earl of 
 
 Hartington, Marquis of, on Rus- 
 sia, and the Eastern 
 Question, 320-1 
 
 Harrowby, Earl of, and his Mis- 
 sion to Berlin, 122-3 
 
 Haugwitz, C. H., Count von, on 
 British, and Napoleo- 
 nic domination, 390-1 
 
 Haynau, General, 207 
 
 Heligoland, cession of, 23, 341 ; 
 Bismarck's frankness, 
 on, 340 
 
 Herbert, Hon. Sydney, 234 
 
 Holland, Lord, 192 
 
 Holland, see also Anglo-Dutch, 
 Anglo-BelgianjDutch; 
 Franco-Belgian ; Ne- 
 therlands, Austrian 
 and Spanish ; United 
 Provinces 
 
 and Belgium, 110; Union of, 
 139-140 ; Castlereagh 
 on, 139, 140; Gren- 
 villeon, 112-13; Pitt 
 on, 112 
 
 Belgian union with, 139-40, 
 and revolt against 
 (1830), 15, 174 ; atti- 
 tude of the Powers, 
 177 et sqq.; Belgian 
 Neutrality guaran- 
 teed by (1839), 196 
 
 Holland (contd.) 
 
 French designs on, 7 ; intri- 
 gues in and invasions 
 of, 7, 77, 89, 117, 
 174 
 Pitt's loyalty to (1792), 95 et 
 
 sqq. passim. 
 
 Proposed Union between, and 
 the Austrian Nether- 
 lands (q.v.), 112-13 
 
 Holy Alliance, the, Inception, 
 composition, aims, 
 working and failure 
 of, also attempted 
 revival, 9, 99, 148, 
 149, 154, 155, 162, 
 166-7, 187-8, 215, 307 
 
 Holy Places, Guardianship of, and 
 the Crimean War, 229 
 
 Holy Roman Empire, the, 31 
 
 Howard de Walden, Lord, on 
 French satisfaction 
 at British good faith 
 on the Eastern Ques- 
 tion, 228-9 
 
 Howick, Viscount, and the Order 
 in Council of Jan. 
 1807, 381 
 
 Hudson Bay Territories, 50 
 
 Hume, Joseph, 359 
 
 IBRAHIM PASHA, 171, 193 
 Imperialism, British, 360-2 ; 
 
 Liberal form, 341-5 ; 
 
 Palmerston's attitude 
 
 to, 360 
 Impressment of Seamen, as 
 
 cause of war of 1812, 
 
 38 
 India, Anglo-French contest in, 
 
 62,81 
 British policy in Egypt and 
 
 Europe as influenced 
 
 by, 21, 189, 225, 309, 
 
 360 
 Conquest of Mesopotamia, in 
 
 relation to, 362 
 Indies, the, see West Indies 
 Interference, policy of (see also 
 especially Palmerston and 
 
 Russell), 11-14
 
 424 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Internal Affairs of Independent 
 States, British policy 
 as to, 100, 138, 155 ; 
 see also Non-inter- 
 vention 
 
 International Conferences, views 
 
 on, of Castlereagh, 
 
 Canning and others, 
 
 150-1 
 
 Law, Burke on, 99 ; Mahan 
 
 on, 389, 390 
 
 Questions, British public in- 
 difference to, 406 
 
 Intervention, Verbal, see Russell 
 & Palmerston 
 
 Ionian Islands, restoration of, to 
 Greece, 256 
 
 Ireland, and Pitt's resignation 
 (1801),7; danger from 
 in case of Coalition 
 against England, 76 
 
 Irish Union, the, 114-15 
 
 Iroquois, the, 50 
 
 Isabella II., Queen of Spain, 
 Marriage of (1846) 
 200-1 
 
 Isolation, desired and undesired, 
 and Laissez faire 
 phases of British 
 policy, 17, 19, 23 et 
 sqq., 29, 55, 75, 89-90, 
 91, 126-7, 133, 144, 
 219, 353 ; dangers of, 
 23, 342 ; impossi- 
 bility of, proved, 
 29-30 ; gradual aban- 
 donment of, 354 
 
 Italian affairs, 1821, 159 ; 1846 
 and after, 204 et sqq., 
 243 et sqq. ; 1858 et 
 sqq., 244 et sqq. ; 
 1864 & 1866, 282, 283 
 British attitude to, at different 
 periods, 17, 205,220-1, 
 252, 300, 303-4 ; 
 views on, of Queen 
 Victoria, 204 et sqq.; 
 and of Russell, 250 
 
 Italy, Alliance of, with Germany 
 
 (1873), 307 
 Kingdom of, 248, 272 
 
 JACOBINISM, Burke on, 101 
 
 Jacobins, the, 95 
 
 Jacobite Rebellion, Dutch aid 
 
 against, 62 
 James I., Foreign Policy of, 3, 
 
 4 n. ; Sea-sovereignty 
 
 claimed by, 365 
 and the peace of 1604, 35-6 
 James II., Foreign Policy of, 
 
 4 & n., 41-2 ; French 
 
 policy at Death of, 
 
 47-8 
 
 Jameson Raid, the, 351 
 Jefferson, President, and Ameri- 
 can Neutrality, 386 ; 
 
 and Slavery, 395 
 on Contraband, 374-5 
 " Jenkins' Ear," and the Spanish 
 
 War of 1739, 60 
 Joseph II. of Austria, and the 
 
 Belgic revolution of 
 
 1789, 86 
 Designs of, on Turkey, 86, 87, 
 
 88 
 Menace of, to the Balance of 
 
 Power, 86-7 
 Political incapacity of, 77 et 
 
 sqq. 
 Violation of the Scheldt by, 
 
 104 ; death of, 86 
 Jowett, Benjamin, 309 
 Juliers, Duchy of, 122 
 Just War, a, Burke on, 97-8 
 
 KEENE, Benjamin, on Spanish 
 Exercise of the Right 
 of Search, 58 
 
 Kossuth, Louis, and Palmerston, 
 208 
 
 Kriidener, Baronne, and Alex- 
 ander I., 148 & w.3 
 
 Kruger, President, and the Kai- 
 ser's Telegram, 28, 351 
 
 LACAITA, JAMES, Public service 
 
 rendered by, 252 
 La Harpe, and Alexander I., 125 
 Lansdowne, 3rd Marquis of, 192 
 Lauenburg, Duchy of, 268 
 Layard, Sir H., on the Treaty of 
 Berlin (1878), 328-9
 
 INDEX 
 
 425 
 
 Lecky, W. H., on the First Parti- 
 tion of Poland, 91 
 
 Leeds, Duke of, 86 
 
 Leipsic, Battle of, 134 
 
 Leopold I. of Belgium, 244 ; 
 election of, 179 ; 
 alarm of, at French 
 designs on Belgium, 
 and the Treaty of 
 Nov. 1831, 177, 179 ; 
 on the Treaty of 
 Belgian Neutrality 
 (1839), 196-7 
 
 Leopold of Saxe-Coburg (Leo- 
 pold I. of Belgium), 
 and the Greek throne, 
 172 
 
 Leopold II. of Austria, and the 
 AustrianNetb erlands, 
 86 ; Peace made by, 
 with Turkey, 88 ; 
 Political shiftiness of, 
 90 
 
 Leveson-Gower, Lord Francis, 
 177 
 
 Liberal Foreign Policy (1880 & 
 after), 333 et sqq., 
 341 et sqq. 
 
 Liverpool, Earl of, on Meetings 
 of the European Con- 
 cert, 151 
 
 Loftus, Lord Augustus, 305 
 
 Lombardy, 118 ; and Italian 
 Unity, 205, 206, 272 
 
 Louis XIV., 74 ; Continental 
 Supremacy of, how 
 ended, 49, 50 ; re- 
 lations of, with the 
 Stuarts, exiled and 
 reigning, 4, 40-1, 43, 
 45, 47 ; religious 
 character of the 
 Wars against, 48-9, 
 50, 97 ; Spanish 
 Netherlands raided 
 by, 47 ; on French 
 aims in the Nether- 
 land, 46 
 
 Louis XV., 74 
 
 Louis XVI., Execution of, 95, 97 
 
 Louis XVIII., 148 
 
 Louis Philippe, King of the 
 French(1830-48),173, 
 203 ; relations with 
 England, 13-14,185-6, 
 193, 198, 200 et sqq.; 
 see also Entente 
 Cordiale; and Mehe- 
 met Ali, 193; Policy 
 of, as to Spain and the 
 Spanish Marriages, 
 165-b, 200, 201 <fc n.3 
 
 Louisbourg, Exchange of, for 
 Madras, 67 
 
 Low Countries, see Anglo-Bel- 
 gian, Anglo - Dutch, 
 Belgium, Holland, 
 Netherlands 
 
 Luxemburg, garrisoned by Louis 
 XIV., 47 
 
 Luxemburg Question, the, 86, 
 122, 177, 286 et sqq. 
 
 Lyons, Lord, on Franco-Britishre- 
 lations (1884), 339-40 
 
 MAOHIAVELLI, creed of, acted 
 on, by Frederick the 
 Great, 63 
 
 Madras, how secured, 63 
 
 Mahan, Admiral, on the Decrees, 
 the Orders in Coun- 
 cil,International Law, 
 and Neutral Sea 
 Trade, 388 et sqq.; on 
 Sea-power, Coasting 
 trade, and Contra- 
 band, 370 
 
 Malmesbury, 1st Earl of, 
 
 Foreign policy of, 79-82, 95 ; 
 
 as to France, 79-80 
 on the Armed Neutrality, 
 371-2 ; on the Bel- 
 gian question, 79-80 ; 
 on Canning, 160 n.i ; 
 on the Conduct of 
 Prussia (1794), 106-7; 
 on the Dutch Fron- 
 tier Fortresses, 79 ; 
 on European condi- 
 tions, circa 1783-7, 
 76, 79-81 ; on Frede- 
 rick William I., 77
 
 426 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Malmesbury, 3rd Earl of, and 
 
 'Disraeli, 244 
 Foreign policy of, 218-20 
 on the Belgian question, 219, 
 245; on Franco-Italian 
 relations (1858), 243; 
 on the Italian ques- 
 tion, 220-1, 243, 245; 
 on Napoleon III.'s 
 policy, 218-19, 243 
 Relations of, with Napoleon 
 III., 220 
 
 Malta question, the, 19.i, 120, 
 123-4 
 
 Manchester School, policy of, 
 358-9, 406-7 
 
 Marbois, Marquis de, on English 
 aims in abolishing the 
 Slave Trade, 400 
 
 Mare Liberum the, of Grotius, 364- 
 
 Marie, Empress of Russia, 326 
 
 Marie-Antoinette, Execution of, 
 95 
 
 Maritime Code, British attitude 
 to in 1801 and in 
 1814-15 and 1850, 
 387-8, 403-4 
 
 Marlborough, 1st Duke of, as 
 Diplomatist, 48 et 
 sqq. ; as General, 5, 
 48 et sqq., 126 
 
 Maria, Queen of Portugal, 183 
 
 Maria-Theresa and the War of 
 the Austrian Succes- 
 sion, 61 
 
 Martin, Sir Theodore, on Nicho- 
 las I. and the Eastern 
 Question, 228 
 
 Mary II., 43 ; Marriage of, 41 
 
 Mary Tudor, Queen, 32 
 
 Mediterranean Sea, in relation to 
 British Sea-power, 21, 49, 114, 
 116, 123-4, 223, 343, 
 345 
 
 Eastern Question, 223 
 French Sea-power, 46, 48, 186, 
 189 
 
 Mehemet Ali, the Eastern Ques- 
 tion and the Powers, 
 11-12, 183, 186, 187, 
 193, 194, 223 
 
 Melbourne, 2nd Viscount, atti- 
 tude of, to Palmer- 
 ston's French Policy, 
 192 ; on ita danger 
 to Peace, 197 
 
 Mends, Sir Robert, and the Slave 
 Trade, 398-9 
 
 Messina, Straits of, Napoleon 
 III.'s plan on, 251-2 
 
 Metternich, Prince, 164, 170 
 Policy of, 138, 156, 204, 215-17 
 Relations of, with Alexander 
 I, 156, 163 
 
 Meuse, the, Belgian fortresses on, 
 25, 178 
 
 Milan, surrender of, to Austria, 
 207 
 
 Milan Decree of Napoleon I. 
 (1807), on Prizes, 
 382 
 
 Mildmay, Lieutenant, and the 
 Bonny Slaver, 398-9 
 
 Military expeditions, Small, crit- 
 icisms on, 104-5, 131-2 
 Forces, British, Grenville on, 
 
 113 
 
 Position of Great Britain,<erap. 
 Crimean War, 237 
 
 Minorca, Charles II.'s aims on, 
 41 ; offered to Cathe- 
 rine II., 75 ; sug- 
 gested as substitute 
 for Malta, 124 ; se- 
 cured to Great Bri- 
 tain by Peace of 
 Utrecht, 50 
 
 Minto, Earl of, 112 
 
 Mirabeau, H. G. R., and thepacte 
 de famille, 92 n. 
 
 Moldavia, .see Principalities 
 
 Montpensier, Due de, Marriage 
 of, with the Infanta, 
 201 n. 3 
 
 Monroe Doctrine, the, inception 
 and scope of, 166-7 
 
 Mons, 47 
 
 Montenegro, and the Eastern 
 Question, 317, 331, 
 332 
 
 Moore, Sir John, Spanish expedi- 
 tion of, 132
 
 INDEX 
 
 427 
 
 Moral Considerations in the 
 English case against 
 France (1793), 102 
 
 Morality, Political and Inter- 
 national, circa 1805, 
 118, 123, 127-8 
 
 Morier, D., and Palmerston, 
 
 21071.2 
 
 Morier, Sir Robert, on the Ala- 
 bama affair, 311 ; on 
 the Black Sea Ques- 
 tion, 311 ; on Bri- 
 tish Foreign politics 
 (1873), 309 et sqq. ; 
 on British Neutrality 
 in 1870, 298 ; on the 
 Declaration of Paris 
 (1856), 405-6 ; on the 
 German Question and 
 British indifference, 
 303 ; on Palmerston, 
 13 ra.; on the Re- 
 pudiation of the Man- 
 chester policy (1874), 
 406-7 ; on Russia at 
 Constantinople in its 
 effects on British 
 interests, 21 ; on 
 the Sleswi^-Holstein 
 Question, 263 ; on 
 Gladstone, 19n.2 
 
 Morris, Gouverneur, on the Moral 
 Principles of a Prus- 
 sian, 109 
 
 Mulgrave, 1st Earl of, on Prussia 
 and the League 
 against France, 120-1 
 
 Miiller, Max, and the Sleswig- 
 Holstein Question, 
 264 
 
 NANTES, and the Slave Trade, 399 
 Napier, Admiral, Baltic fiasco 
 
 of, 403 
 
 Napoleon I., 64 ; and Alexander 
 I., 125-6 ; attempt to 
 Isolate Britain, 133, 
 see also Decrees ; at- 
 tempt at separate 
 Peace with England, 
 118 
 
 Napoleon I. 
 
 Blucher's wish to kill, 143; De- 
 crees of, 379 et sqq., 
 384 ; effect on, of tfie 
 Battle of Leipsic, 134; 
 Fall and end of, 14, 
 148, 168 
 
 Foreign policy of, 212 ; Malta 
 offered by, to Czar 
 Paul, 114; Peace of 
 Luneville, signed by, 
 113 
 
 Pitt's struggle with, 74, 114 
 Return of, from Elba, 141 
 Schemes of, for World-domin- 
 ion, 7 
 
 Napoleon III. (see also Franco- 
 Prussian War), char- 
 acter of, 213-14, 255; 
 his Coup tfEtat, 219 ; 
 Fall of, 294-5 
 Political aims of, 212, 214-15, 
 
 218, 253, 255 
 
 as President, misgivings con- 
 cerning, 212-3 
 Foreign Policy of, as to 
 Austria (1858), 243 
 Belgium, 284, 292 
 Black Sea Question, 260 
 Crimean War, 234, 238 et 
 
 sqq. 
 
 Great Britain (see also Cri- 
 mean War), 13-15, 
 214 et sqq., 243, 252, 
 253, 255 
 Italy, 243, 246 
 Luxemburg, 287 
 Polish Question, 260 
 Sleswig-Holstein Question, 
 
 274 et sqq. 
 
 Spanish Crown, 294 cfc n. 2 
 on the English character, 2 
 on Possible Alliances for 
 France and Prussia 
 (1861), 253 
 
 Relations with Mahnesbury, 
 220; and with Rome, 
 274 
 
 Napoleonic Wars (begun 1793), 
 93 et sqq., Ill, 139 
 174
 
 428 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Napoleonic Wars (contd.) 
 
 Britain's position during, 386 
 
 et aqq. 
 
 Comparison of, with the pre- 
 sent War, 134-5 
 
 Naples, united to the Italian 
 kingdom, 252 
 
 Narrow Seas, definitions of, 364 
 
 National Aspirations, see Nation- 
 alities, Principle of 
 British Foreign Policy, birth 
 of, 2, 3, as modified by 
 Hanoverian interests, 
 63 
 
 Defence, Attitude to, of 
 Aberdeen, Wellington, 
 and Queen Victoria, 
 198-200, 221 
 
 Nationalities, and their aspira- 
 tions ; the Allied 
 Powers on, 146 ; 
 British attitude to, 
 at various times, 9, 
 29, 123, 157, 165, 
 360 ; general Euro- 
 pean attitude to circa 
 1805, 123 ; Leaven 
 of, at work, 169 
 Principle of, recognized by 
 Alexander I., 145, 
 149, 181 
 and the Settlement of 1815, 
 
 141, 215-18 
 Triumphs of, 360, 361-2 
 
 Navigation Acts, the, 4 
 
 Naval Ethics of Germany, 401 
 Power of Great Britain, see 
 
 Sea Power 
 
 Prize Bill, rejection of, 407 
 Strength, Britishreliance on, 55 
 
 Navarino, Battle of, 171 & n.2 
 
 Navy, devotion to, of James II., 
 42 ; Pitt's care for, 82 
 
 Nelson, Admiral Lord, and the 
 Slave Trade, 391 
 
 Netherlands (see also Anglo- 
 Dutch,Anglo-Belgian, 
 Belgium, Holland, 
 United Provinces, also 
 Austrian, and Spanish 
 Netherlands), 3 
 
 Netherlands (contd.) 
 
 Proposed Federation between, 
 and England, 4, 
 37 
 
 Prussia as balance to French 
 designs on, 107-8, 
 118, 121, 143 
 
 Union with, and Separation 
 from, of Belgium 
 (1830), 15, 139-40 
 
 Neumann, Baron, 191 
 
 Neutrality of Belgium, see Inde- 
 pendence and, under 
 Belgium 
 
 Neutrals, Position of, after Peace 
 
 of Amiens, 379 
 
 Sea-Power as affecting, 367 et 
 sqq., 381-2 ; Mahan 
 on, 390 
 
 Newcastle, T. Pelharn-Hollea, 
 Duke of, Foreign 
 Policy of, 65, 67 
 
 New England States, attitude 
 of, to War of 1812, 
 385 
 
 Newfoundland, 50 
 
 Fisheries and French Rights, 
 71-2, 140 
 
 Nice, gained by France, 246 
 
 Nicholas I. of Russia, attitude 
 of, to Belgian Inde- 
 pendence, 219 ; mis- 
 led by Aberdeen's 
 Pacificism, 197, 234, 
 360 ; attitude of, to 
 Napoleon III., 235; 
 and Poland, 182 ; 
 Tentatives towards 
 Anglo-Russian Under- 
 standing on the 
 Eastern Question 
 (1844), 224, outlined 
 by himself (1853), 
 225-8 
 
 Nieuport, 47 
 
 Nineteenth Century, British 
 Danger Spot in 
 Europe during and 
 after, 15 
 
 Non -intercourse Act, of U.S.A. 
 (1809), 383-4, 385
 
 INDEX 
 
 429 
 
 Non-intervention Policy of 
 Great Britain in In- 
 ternal affairs of Con- 
 tinental Nations, 1 26, 
 138, 151, 155, 161, 
 164-5, 169, 170, 174, 
 175, 183 n., 185, 211, 
 251, 284, 288, 385 
 
 Nova Scotia, 50 
 
 Novara, Battle of, 207 
 
 OLMUTZ, 128 
 
 Opinions, War of, Canning on, 
 
 168 
 Orange, Prince of, see William 
 
 III. 
 Orders in Council, the 
 
 (1) 1793, on Contraband, 373-4 
 
 (2) 1807, 132 ; effect on Neu- 
 
 trals, 375-6, 379 et sqq. 
 
 (3) Mahan on, 389 
 Ormonde, 2nd Duke of, and the 
 
 Allies, 51 
 
 Orsini, , 213 
 
 Ostend, Charles II.'s designs on, 
 
 41 
 
 French troops in, 47 
 Offer of, to Great Britain, 86 
 
 Ostend Company, the, 53 
 
 Otho of Bavaria, King of Greece, 
 172, 255 ; Deposition 
 of, 256 
 
 Ottoman Empire, see also Cri- 
 mean War ; Danube ; 
 Dardanelles ; Eas- 
 tern Question ; Porte; 
 Principalities ; Tur- 
 key, &c. 
 
 Dissolution of, Territorial re- 
 arrangements after, 
 discussed by Nicho- 
 las I., 225, 226-8 
 Independence of : Powers 
 Guaranteeing and 
 Conditions of, 240 
 
 Oversea Nations and the South 
 African War, 351-3 
 
 PACTS defamille, 92 n. 
 Pacifico, Don, Palmerston's 
 speech on, 210 
 
 Paget, Lord (1st Marquis of 
 Anglesey) , on Political 
 conditions in 1807, 
 131 
 
 Paget, Rt. Hon, Sir A., on the 
 behaviour of German 
 Powers in the War 
 with France (1799), 
 107 
 
 Palmerston, Viscount, Character- 
 istics and conduct of, 
 11-13; Ability, 212; 
 " Brag," 11, 299 ; 
 Defects of Manner, 
 &c., 181, 187, 195-6, 
 207, 211, 212 
 
 Dispatches sent by, without 
 submission to the 
 Queen, 202, 211 ; 
 anxiety caused to her 
 by his actions, 201, 
 202-3 
 
 Foreign Policy of, 11-13, 173 
 et sqq., 237, 245, 299, 
 342 ; with reference 
 to 
 
 Baltic naval fiasco, 403 
 
 Belgium, 175-6, 180 
 
 British Imperialism, 360 
 
 Crimean War, 230, 232, 
 238-40 
 
 Eastern Question, 11-12, 
 186-7, 192, 194-5 
 
 Egypt, 193-5 
 
 France, 173 et sqq. ; and the 
 Coup tfEiat, 208, 219 
 
 Italian Question, 247, 248 
 
 Quadruple Treaty, 185-6 
 
 Russia, 181-2 
 
 Slave Trade, 401-2 
 Liberal leanings of, 211 
 National idea supported by, 
 
 14, 203, 360 
 
 on British Prestige (circa 1852), 
 221 ; on the Congress 
 of the Powei s in 1815, 
 270 ; on the Crimean 
 War, 232 ; on the 
 Eastern Question and 
 Prospects of Settle- 
 ment (1840), 191
 
 430 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Palmerston (contd.) 
 
 on Europe as re- arranged 
 by the Treaty of 
 1815, 271 et sqq.', on 
 Europe and its divi- 
 sion into Camps in 
 1836, 182-3 ; on a 
 European Concert,270 
 et sqq. ; on German 
 Union of States, 209 ; 
 on Italy and Italian 
 Unity, 205, 243 ; on 
 Napoleon III.'s dic- 
 tum on European 
 alliances, 253 ; on 
 Non - intervention, 
 181-2, 251 ; on the 
 PolishQuestion.181-2, 
 273 ; on the Power of 
 Public Opinion, 175; 
 on the Sleswig- Hoi- 
 stein Question, 208-9, 
 270 et sqq. ; on the 
 Treaty of Paris of 
 1815, 270 et sqq. ; on 
 Wellington's Foreign 
 Policy, 9-10 
 
 Resignation, ground for, 192 
 Revised views of, on the Dar- 
 danelles Question, 188 
 
 Pan-slavism, Bismarck's fear of, 
 320 
 
 Papal States, government of 
 (1846), 243, 249 
 
 Party System, English 18th cen- 
 tury Foreign Policy 
 unaffected by, 92 
 Modified by French Revolu- 
 tion, 92-3 
 
 Paul, Czar, 110 ; assassination of, 
 116 ; and the Malta 
 Question, 113-14 
 
 Peace, European, British efforts 
 to maintain, 83, 95, 
 144,183,197,3436^. 
 Insecurity enhanced by 
 Franco-German War, 
 307 
 
 Threatened by the awaken- 
 ing of Nationalities, 
 169 
 
 Peace, European, 
 
 after Franco-German War, 
 British silence on, 
 298-9 
 Premature, Pitt's views on, 
 
 115-16 
 
 Present guarantee of, 354 
 Problems, and Democratic 
 
 Solutions, 30 
 
 " Regicide," Burke on, 98-100 
 " Peace with Honour," 21, 328 
 Peaces, List of 
 
 Aix-la-Chapelle (1748), 62 
 Adrianople (1829), 187 
 Amiens, 8, 113-18, 134 
 Basle (1795), 107 
 Luneville, 113 
 
 Paris (1763), 70, 72-4, 83, 367 
 Paris (1815), 142, 147, 357 
 Ryswick (1679), 43, 44 
 Sistovo (1791). 88 
 with Spain (1604), 35, 36 
 with Sweden, made by Frede- 
 rick the Great, 73 
 Tilsit (1807), 125, 133 
 Utrecht (1713), 5, 49-53, 56, 
 
 57, 79 
 
 Westphalia (1648) 
 Pedro, Dom, of Portugal, 185 
 Peel, Sir Robert, Peace views of, 
 
 197 
 
 Pelham, Lord (2nd Earl of Chi- 
 chester), Peace Policy 
 of, 64-5, 118; on Pitt's 
 Foreign Policy, 68-9 
 Peninsular War, 134, 135, 168 
 Penjdeh Incident, the, 22, 335, 
 
 336 
 Percival, Spencer, 127 
 
 and the Orders in Council, 381 
 Philip IT. of Spain, Political 
 
 aims of, 32 
 Pitt, William (Earl of Chatham), 
 
 above Party, 92 
 Foreign Policy of, 8, 66, 69 
 on Newcastle's Foreign Policy, 
 67 ; on Peace ques- 
 tions, 65, 66 ; on the 
 Peace of Paris (1763), 
 70 ; on Prussia's aid, 
 66
 
 INDEX 
 
 431 
 
 Pitt, William, 
 
 on Spanish dealings with 
 British ships, 59 ; on 
 the War of the Aus- 
 trian Succession, 66 
 
 Political creed of, 66 
 
 Relations withGeorge II., 67-8 
 
 Resignation of, true cause, 69 
 
 Pitt, William, the younger ; care 
 
 of, for the Navy, 82 ; 
 
 dislike of, for Party, 92 
 
 Foreign Policy of, 82-3 et sqq.; 
 
 in relation to 
 
 France, 6, 8, 74, 83-5, 94 et sqq. 
 and the Peace of Amiens, 
 
 114 et sqq. 
 
 Map of Europe, 122-3, 137 
 Reviving the Confederacy of 
 Europe, 118 et sqq. 
 
 on the Anglo-French Commer- 
 cial Treaty of 1786, 
 83-5 ; on European 
 conditions (1791), 
 90-1 ; (1796), 108 ; 
 on France's action as 
 to the Scheldt, 102-3 ; 
 on the Peace of 
 Amiens, 116, 117 ; 
 on Premature Peace, 
 115-16 ; on Proposed 
 Union of Belgium and 
 Holland, 112 ; on 
 Treaties, 102-3 
 
 Resignation of (1801), 7, 116 
 
 as War Minister, 104 
 
 Death of, 126 
 
 Plombieres, Meeting at, of Napo- 
 leon and Cavour, 243 
 Poland, and the Polish Question, 
 238 
 
 Alexander I. and, 156, 181 
 
 British attitude to, 1 7, 257 et sqq. 
 
 Congress of Vienna in relation 
 to, 147 
 
 Insurrection of 1863 in, 17, 
 181-2, 257 
 
 Kingdom, character of, 181 
 
 Partitions of, effect on Balance 
 
 of Power, 91 
 
 Second (1793), objects and 
 pretext of, 91 
 
 Poland, Third Partition of (1795), 
 
 104, 105-6 
 
 Political Morality, 136 
 Refugees, welcome to, in Great 
 Britain ; Foreign 
 protests ; firmness of 
 the Government, 
 212-13, 220 
 
 Popish States, Cromwell on, 39 
 Port Hamilton, British occupa- 
 tion of, 335 
 
 Porte, the, see also Eastern 
 Question, Ottoman 
 Empire, Turkey, & 
 Turkish affairs 
 
 and a Protective Treaty, Wel- 
 lington on, 183-4 
 Portland, 3rd Duke of, Ministry of, 
 and Policy, 127 et sqq. 
 Portugal, Independence of, "a 
 vital question to Eng- 
 land," 239 
 Revolution in, 159 
 Sea Power of, 364 
 and the Slave Trade, 394 
 Posen ; grabbed by Prussia, 91 
 Powers participating in the 
 Treaty of Paris of 
 1856, 240 
 
 Pragmatic Sanction, the, 61-2 
 Prestige, British, basis of, 11, 237 
 Conflicting views on, 221 
 Decline in, 75-6, 278-9 
 Injured by Palmerston, 207 
 Preventive War, 277 
 ' Prince Hohenstiel Schwangau,' 
 
 by Browning, 15 
 Prince Regent of Prussia, on Bri- 
 tish Foreign Policy, 
 (1860), 251 
 Principalities, the Turkish, 239, 
 
 245 
 
 Nicholas I. on, 225 
 Russian occupation of, 229 
 Privateers, English, and Dutch, 
 
 33-4 
 
 and King's ships, 366-7 
 Wealth gained by, 62 
 Prizes at Sea, Milan Decree on, 
 effect on American 
 trade, 382-3
 
 432 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Prussia, see also Anglo-Prussian, 
 Franco-Prussian War, 
 Frederick the Great, 
 German, Germany, 
 Luxemburg, Sleswig- 
 Holstein, William I., 
 William II., <Soc. 
 
 and the Austrian Succession, 
 62 
 
 British views on that country 
 (1860), Prince Con- 
 sort on, 300 et sqq. 
 
 Attitude of, to 
 
 Belgian Rebellion, 86 
 Coalition (1805), 129 
 Crimean War, 235 
 France, 142, 236-7 
 
 as Bulwark against France, 
 143 
 
 Conduct of, in the French 
 War (1793 sqq.), 101, 
 104-7 
 
 and the Eastern Question 
 (1840), 191; (1854), 
 236 
 
 Rise of her Great Men (after 
 1860), 254, 255 
 
 Expansion of, towards the 
 Netherlands, 107-8, 
 118, 120-1, 122, 123, 
 143 
 
 French alliance with, and the 
 aftermath, 63 
 
 Greed of (1797), 109-10 
 
 International Morality of, 18th 
 and 19th centuries, 
 128-30 
 
 Northern League joined by, 
 113 
 
 Policy of, cynicism of, and 
 scope, 63, 64,128, 129, 
 130, 137-8, 208-9 
 
 Russian Secret Treaty with 
 (circa 1805), 123 
 
 and the Seven Weeks' War, 
 276-7 
 
 War-methods of (1814-15), 
 
 142-3 
 
 Prussians, the, Moral Principles 
 of, Gouverneur Morris 
 on, 109 
 
 Public Opinion, British.Influence 
 of, on Foreign Policy, 
 58, 165, 175, 176, 
 235, 244, 246, 252, 
 329, 334 
 Importance of, Queen Victoria 
 
 on, 203 
 
 Publicity of British Diplomacy 
 Bismarck on, 337-8 
 Salisbury on, 346-7 
 Started by elder Pitt, 68-9 
 Punch, on Lord Russell and 
 the Sleswig-Holstein 
 Question, 277 
 
 QUADRUPLE League, against 
 France, 118 ; Prussia 
 in relation to, 120-3 
 Note to the Sultan before the 
 
 Crimean War, 229 
 Treaty, see Treaties 
 Quebec Act, the, 115 
 
 RADETZKY, General, 207 
 Radical and Conservative Parties, 
 
 birth of, 93 
 Rambouillet Decree (1810) on 
 
 American Shipping, 
 
 384 
 
 Ramillies, Battle of, 49 
 Reeve, Henry, on Palmerston's 
 
 successful Egyptian 
 
 Policy (1841), 195 
 Reformation, the, effect of, on 
 
 European Politics, 31 
 
 et sqq. 
 ' Regicide Peace,' Burke on, 
 
 98-100 
 Religion, Influence of, on Foreign 
 
 Policy, 3, 31-2 et sqq., 
 
 36-40, 97 
 Revolutionary movements in 
 
 Old and New Worlds, 
 
 early 19th century, 
 
 155, 156, 158 e* sqq. 
 Attitude to, of the Holy 
 
 Alliance, 151, 154, 
 
 155-7 
 Revolutionary War, action 
 
 during, of the Great 
 
 Powers, 134-5
 
 INDEX 
 
 433 
 
 Rhine, East Bank of, Pitt and 
 Castlereagh's views 
 on, 143 
 Right of Search 
 
 British Exercise of and Claim 
 
 to, 77, 388, 390-1 
 French attitude to, 396 
 Franco-British, to stop the 
 Slave Trade (1833), 
 401 
 
 Indispensableness of, 390-1 
 Spanish Exercise of, 58-9 
 Rodney, Admiral Lord, Sea 
 
 successes of, 77 
 Rome, Charles II.'s relations 
 
 with, 41 
 
 as Court of Appeal for " Me- 
 diaeval Wrld," 31 
 Napoleon III.'s attitude to, 274 
 Roman Citizenship, why re- 
 spected, 237 
 
 Rose, J. H., on Pitt's active share 
 
 in Foreign Policy, 82 
 
 Rosebery, Earl of, as Foreign 
 
 Secretary, 340, 342, 
 
 343 
 
 Roumania, Principalities con- 
 stituting, 229 ; effect 
 on, of the Treaty of 
 San Stefano, 327 
 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, influence 
 of, on Alexander I., 
 125 
 " Rule Britannia," and Neutrals, 
 
 376 
 Russell, Lord John, later Earl 
 
 Russell 
 Foreign Policy of, 14, 203, 237; 
 
 in relation to 
 Crimean War, 230, 232 
 Eastern Question, 194 
 Italian Question, 247-9 
 Polish Question, 258, 
 
 259-61, 275 
 Disraeli's indictment of, 
 
 278-80 
 Queen Victoria's attitude to 
 
 (1864), 248-9, 281 
 Instructions to, for Negotia- 
 tions at Vienna ( 1 855 ), 
 238-9 
 
 E.F.P. 2E 
 
 Russell, Lord John (contd. ) 
 
 on the Convention of Gastein, 
 281-2 ; on the Eas- 
 tern Question, 225-6; 
 on the Italian Ques- 
 tion, 249-51, 283 ; on 
 Garibaldi's invasion 
 of Calabria 252; on 
 the Sleswig-Holstein 
 Question, 262-3, 275 
 283 
 
 Resignation (1866), 283 
 Russell, Lord Odo (later Lord 
 Ampthill), 17, 22 ; 
 and Bismarck, 293, 
 305 ; on Bismarck's 
 Policy (1880), 330 et 
 sqq. ; on the Czar's 
 views of English 
 Policy, 306 ; on the 
 effect of the Dispatch 
 of Oct. 1860, in Italy, 
 250-1 
 
 Russia, see also Constantinople, 
 Crimean War, Darda- 
 nelles, Eastern Ques- 
 tion, &c. 
 
 and the Armed Neutrality of 
 1780, 368-9 
 
 Bismarck's attitude to (1879), 
 320 
 
 and the Black Sea Question, 
 239, 304-6 
 
 Claim of, to Protectorate over 
 Christian subjects of 
 the Porte, and the 
 Crimean War, 229 
 
 and the Eastern Question, 
 184-5,186-7,190,320-1 
 
 attitude of, to Mehemet Ali, 
 190 
 
 Expansion of, in Asia, 323, 
 334-5 
 
 Fox's zeal for, 96 
 
 and the Holy Alliance (<?..), 
 149, 158 
 
 and the League against France 
 (1805), 118 et sqq. 
 
 League of, with France against 
 Great Britain (1807), 
 125-6
 
 434 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Russia (contd.) 
 Menace of, to 
 India, 189, 361 
 Prussia, circa 1756, 67 
 and Poland, 257 et sqq. 
 Salisbury's attitude to, 345 
 Russian Campaign of Napoleon 
 
 I. (1812), 134 
 Policy, in Palmerston's view, 
 
 360 
 
 Share in War of Austrian Suc- 
 cession, 62 
 
 Russo-Austrian Secret Treaty 
 (1833) for preserva- 
 tion of Turkey, 188 
 Russo-British relations at various 
 times, 9, 19, 21, 22, 
 24,28.75, 133-4, 148, 
 181-2, 187 etsqq., 244, 
 306 
 Russo-Bulgarian relations, 21, 
 
 322-3, 325 
 Russo-French Alliance, see 
 
 Treaty of Tilsit 
 
 Russo-German relations at differ- 
 ent times, 307, 314, 
 326, 334 
 Russo-Prussian Secret Treaty 
 
 (1805), 123 
 Russo-Roumanian relations, 229, 
 
 327-8 
 
 Russo-Turkish relations (see also 
 Eastern Question) in 
 1790 and onwards, 
 222 et sqq., et proevi 
 Bismarck's views on, 308 
 Russo-Turkish Wars of 
 1853, 229, 235 
 1877, British attitude to, 315 
 
 et sqq. 
 
 Ruville, A. von, and German 
 distrust of Britain, 74 
 
 SADOWA, Battle of, 217 
 
 St. Helena, 271 
 
 St. Vincent, Admiral Lord, 
 and the Slave Trade, 
 391 
 
 Salisbury, 3rd Marquis of, Char- 
 acter of, 346 
 as Foreign Minister, 348-9 
 
 Salisbury, 3rd Marquis of 
 Policy of, as to 
 
 East Africa and Heligo- 
 land, 23, 340 
 Egypt, 345-6, 349, 361 
 Germany, 331 
 Mediterranean, the, 343, 
 
 345 
 
 Polish Question, 261 
 Liberal support of, 341 et sqq. 
 on Foreign Policy, 343 et sqq., 
 346-7 ; on Palmer- 
 ston's Foreign Policy, 
 12 ; on Russia and the 
 Berlin Congress, 322; 
 on Treaties, 346 ; on 
 Wars, 348 
 Salzburg, 123 
 Sardinia, 106, 240 ; and the War 
 
 with Austria, 244 
 Savoy, House of, 106 
 Savoy and Nice, ceded to France, 
 
 246, 272 
 Saxony, and the Congress of 
 
 Vienna, 147 
 
 Scheldt, Mouth of, Dutch Sove- 
 reignty over, 5, 53, 
 78, 177, 178, 219 ; 
 as affected by Treaty 
 of 1831, 196 
 Violations of, 
 Austrian, 104 
 French, 102-3 
 
 Schouvaloff, Count, on the 
 Treaty of San Stefano, 
 323 
 
 Sea Power, influence of, on His- 
 tory, Mahan's ex- 
 position of, 405-7 
 British, see also Naval, and 
 
 Navy 
 
 Case for, 1801, 386 et sqq. 
 and the Defeat of Napoleon 
 
 I., 168 
 Growth and Early History 
 
 of, 363 et sqq. 
 in the Mediterranean, 21, 
 
 114, 116, 123-4 
 as Political asset, 7, 68, 77, 
 105, 106, 114, 194, 
 353
 
 INDEX 
 
 435 
 
 Sea Power (contd.) 
 Record of 
 
 (a) in War, 168, 367 el 
 
 sqq. 
 
 (b) in Peace, 391 el sqq. 
 in Relation to 
 
 Neutrals, 367 et sqq., 376, 
 
 381-2, 390 
 
 Other States, 362 et sqq. 
 Dutch, Grotius on, 364 
 Portuguese, 364 
 Span ish,aeeoAso Right of Search, 
 Heyday of, 364 
 
 Search, Right of, see Right of 
 Search 
 
 Sebastopol, fall of, 240 
 
 Sedan, 217 
 
 Selden's Mare Clausum, 365 
 
 Seltz, 111 
 
 Servia, Nicholas I. on, 225 
 
 Seven Weeks' War, the, 276-7 
 
 Seven Years' War, Cost of, 71 ; 
 Nature of, 357 ; Re- 
 sults of, to Great 
 Britain, 6, 75 
 
 Seymour, Sir H., on Russia's 
 attitude to Belgium, 
 219 ; on Conversa- 
 tions with Czar (1853), 
 225-7 
 
 Shelburne, Lord, and the Anglo- 
 French Commercial 
 Treaty (1786), 83 
 
 Shirking R esponsibility ; Results 
 of, 242 
 
 Sicilies, the Two, and their King, 
 249 
 
 Sicily, Garibaldi's Conquest of, 
 251 ; and Union of 
 with Italy, 252 
 
 Silesia, Conquest of, 61, later 
 results of, 64 
 
 Sinope, Destruction at, of Turk- 
 ish fleet, 235 
 
 Slav Aggression, Beaconsfield on, 
 328 
 
 Slave Trade, British rights in, 50 
 British Sea-power directed 
 against, 391 et sqq. 
 
 Slave Traders, nationalities of, 
 394 
 
 Sleswig-Holstein Question 
 
 British Policy on, 17, 206, 
 208-9, 262 et sqq., 273 
 German Policy on, 264, 265 
 Napoleon III., and, 274 et sqq. 
 Rights of Population dis- 
 regarded, 269 
 Solferino, Battle of, 217 
 Sophia, Queen of Holland, on Bis- 
 marck, Napoleonlll. , 
 and Belgium, 285 n.z 
 Sorel, A., on Alexander I. and 
 Napoleon I., 125 n.i ; 
 on British objects in 
 the Napoleonic Wars 
 (circa 1793 et sqq.), 7; 
 on Pitt's attitude to 
 France, 7-8 
 
 Soult Ministry, defeat of, 191 
 South Africa I see also Transvaal), 
 British mismanage- 
 ment in, 333, 342 
 British rule dictated by 
 Missionary Societies, 
 391 
 
 and the Kaiser's Kruger tele- 
 gram, 351 
 South African War, and the 
 
 Powers, 28, 353 
 South America, English interests 
 
 in, 6, 41, 48, 49, 50 
 South American Conquest, visions 
 
 of, 127 
 
 South Seas, English Trade on, 
 48 ; and the Peace 
 of Utrecht, 49, 50 
 Spain, Attempt of, to Crush Eng- 
 land (1718), 56-7 
 Carlist rising in (1834), 185 
 Claims of, to Nootka Sound, 
 
 92 
 Coercion of, by Holy Alliance, 
 
 165 
 
 Cromwell on, 38-9 
 Crown of, Hohenzollern Candi- 
 date for, 293-4 
 
 Elder Pitt's attitude to, 65, 69 
 Political changes in (1814), 
 
 Castlereagh on, 141 
 and the Slave Trade, 394 
 and the United Provinces, 35
 
 436 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Spanish American Colonies, Can- 
 ning's dictum on, 10, 
 167 
 
 Spanish Armada, defeat of, 33, 
 35-6, 366 
 
 Spanish Colonial Independence, 
 166-8 ; Canning on, 
 167 
 
 Spanish Foreign Policy under 
 Philip II., 32, 35-6 
 
 Spanish Marriages, 13 ; pro- 
 blems connected with, 
 200, 201 <few-3 
 
 Spanish Netherlands, relations 
 of, with Austria, &c., 
 5, 46-7, 49, 52-3 
 
 Spanish rapprochement with 
 France, 6 
 
 Spanish Revolutions, 132, 137, 
 155, 161, 166 
 
 Spanish Sea-power, heyday of, 
 364 
 
 Spanish Succession, Wars of the, 
 46 et sqq., 57, 357 
 
 Spiritual Force lacking in Coali- 
 tion against France, 
 134-5 
 
 Stanley, Lord (15th Earl of 
 Derby), Character of, 
 Disraeli on, 288 
 and Bismarck, 293 n.i 
 Foreign Policy of, 283, 284 ; 
 in relation to Belgium 
 (1866), 285 
 Influence on, of the Manchester 
 
 School, 359 
 ontheLuxemburgQuestion,287 
 
 States excluded from the Euro- 
 pean Alliance, 156-7 
 as Living Organisms, 215 
 Two Poles of, 217 
 
 Stewart, Lord (3rd Marquis of 
 Londonderry), on the 
 Conference of Trop- 
 pau, 158 
 
 Stockmar, Baron, 254 ; on 
 -LjSJ France and Napoleon 
 
 III., 212 
 
 Stratford de Redcliffe, Lord, and 
 the Crimean War, 
 233-4 
 
 Stratford de Redcliffe (contd. ) 
 on Christian Subjects of the 
 Porte after the Cri- 
 mean War, 242 ; on 
 the Eastern Question, 
 circa 1876, 19 ; on 
 the Quadruple Note, 
 229-30 ; on Russian 
 attempts at Secret 
 Treaty with Turkey, 
 228 
 
 Stuart Exiles, attitude to, of 
 Louis XIV., 45, 47 
 
 Stuart Kings, Foreign Policy of, 
 3, 4 <fe n. 
 
 Subsidies, British, and the defeat 
 of Napoleon I., 168 
 
 Sudan, Mismanagement in, 334, 
 342 
 
 Suez Canal Shares, Purchase of, 
 312, 361 
 
 Sweden, 118; Anglo-Prussian re- 
 lations with (1788), 87 
 British relations with (circa 
 
 1716-19), 53 & n. 
 Integrity of, Treaty guaran- 
 teeing (1855), 27 ; 
 causes leading up to 
 (1788), 87 
 
 and the League against France, 
 118 
 
 Sybel, H. C. von, on the Treaty 
 of London (1852), 269 
 
 Syracuse, Naval Battle at, 57 
 
 Syria, and Mehemet Ali, 187, 189, 
 190, 193 
 
 TALLAKD, Count, French Am- 
 bassador, and William 
 III., 49 
 
 Talleyrand- Perigord, C. M. de, and 
 the Belgian problem, 
 175 ; on Friendship 
 between England and 
 France, 183 n. 
 
 Thessaly, secured by Greece, 333 
 
 Tbiers, Louis A., as Foreign Minis- 
 ter, 188 ; in relation to 
 the Eastern Question, 
 189, 191, 195 et sqq. 
 
 Thorn, Fortress of, 91
 
 INDEX 
 
 437 
 
 Thugut, Baron von, Austrian 
 Minister, and his 
 policy, 110, 191 
 
 Trade as Influencing Foreign 
 Policy, 2, 4., 46, 
 57-9, 60, 166-8 
 Promoted by Charles II., 40, 
 
 41,43 
 
 Trade Wars, 357 
 Transvaal Annexation and Glad- 
 stone's policy, 333-4 
 Treaties, Abrogation of, Circular 
 on, of the Powers 
 (1871), 305-6 
 Bismarck on, 14, 355 
 British attitude to, 8, 26, 98, 
 102-3, 110, 202, 203, 
 219, 263, 264, 346 
 List of, see also Congresses 
 
 Adrianopld, 229, 233 
 
 Amiens, 128 
 
 Anglo-Brazilian Anti-Slave 
 Trade, 399 
 
 the Assiento, 50. 58 
 
 Austro-German Defensive 
 (1879), 330 
 
 "Barrier" (1709), 51<fen. 
 
 Berlin (1878), 21, 324, 328 
 
 Campo Formio (1797), 111, 
 117 
 
 Chaumont (1814), 145-6, 149 
 
 Coalition (1813), 144-5 
 
 Constantinople (1833), 187 
 
 Franco-British and Franco- 
 Prussian of 1870, 
 guaranteeing Belgian 
 Independence, 296 
 Same Powers, regarding 
 Luxemburg, 296 
 
 Franco-Prussian, proposed 
 (1866), 284-5, 295 
 
 Frankfort, 353 
 
 Ghent (1815), 35 
 
 Jay's, 376 
 
 Kainardji, 229, 233 
 
 Leobeh, 111 
 
 London (1827), 171 
 
 London ^1831), 179 
 
 London (1852), 262, 263, 
 269, 281, 324 
 
 London (1863), 256 
 
 Treaties, Luneville, 128 
 
 Paris (1814-15), 14, 256, 
 
 270 et sqq., 392, 393 
 Paris (1856), 240-1, 304, 324, 
 
 327-8 
 
 Partition (1698-1700), 45 
 Prague (1866), 269 
 Quadruple (1834), 185 
 Rastadt, 111 
 Reichstadt (1876), 327 
 Russo-British (1812), 133-4 
 Russo-German Secret(1884), 
 
 334 
 Russo - Prussian, Secret 
 
 (1805), 123 
 St.Petersburg(1805), 118-19, 
 
 123 
 San Stefano(1878), 20-1,321, 
 
 322, 323, 324, 327 
 Stockholm (1855), 27 
 Tilsit., 125, 127, 133, 137 
 Unkiar-Skelessi, 189, 190 
 Versailles (1783), 75 
 Vienna (renewed), 149 ; vio- 
 lations of, 201-2, 257, 
 258, 259, 261 
 Villa Franca, 247-8 
 What secures them, 8 
 Treitschke, H. von, on Might as 
 
 Right, 63 
 Trinidad, and the French Slave 
 
 Trade, 392 n.i 
 
 Triple Alliance of 1883, Basis of, 
 187 ; Salisbury on 
 relations with that 
 of Germany, Austria 
 and Italy, in 1887, 345 
 Turgot,A.,French statesman, 359 
 Turin, Battle of, 49 
 Turkey, Admission of, into Euro- 
 pean Concert, aimed 
 at, in Vienna negoti- 
 ations, 239, 240 
 Austria, on Peace with (1790), 
 
 88 
 
 Bismarck's foresight on, 332 
 British attitude to (see also 
 Eastern Question), 
 19; Alliance proposed 
 (1832), 186-7 ; in 
 1876,312-13,318 etsqq.
 
 438 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Turkey (contd. ) 
 
 British and French Protection 
 of, Prince Consort on, 
 235-6 
 
 as Buffer State, 187 
 
 Christian subjects of, Russian 
 claims concerning, 
 229 ; war resulting, 
 229,235; status after 
 the Crimean War, 
 241-2 
 
 in 1829, Wellington on, 224 
 
 Fleet, Destruction of, at Sinope 
 235 
 
 Gladstone's Indictment of, 316 
 et sqq. 
 
 and Russia (q.v.), 225 et sqq. 
 
 Russo - Austrian . designs on 
 
 (circa 1788), 88 
 
 Turkish affairs, see Black Sea ; 
 Bulgarian atrocities ; 
 Crimean War, Dan- 
 ube ; Dardanelles ; 
 Eastern Question 
 
 UNITED Provinces, see also Bel- 
 gium, Holland, Ne- 
 therlands, Austrian 
 <fc Spanish 
 Peace with, 35-6 
 Scheme for British Union with, 
 
 4, 37 et sqq. 
 
 State of, in 1604, Mun on, 34 
 United States, sec America, U.S. 
 Unity of Mankind, Burke on, 98 ; 
 see also Germany, and 
 Italy, Unity of 
 
 Universal Alliance for Peace, 
 Castlereagh on, 154-5 
 
 VANCOUVER Island, 92 
 Vattel,E. de, on Contraband, 370 
 Verden, Sale of, by Denmark, 54 
 Vergennes, M. de, Policy of, as 
 
 to England, 81, 83 
 Venloo, 178 
 Venetia, 248 
 Victor Emmanuel I., 246, 250, 
 
 251 ; and the growth 
 
 of the Kingdom of 
 
 Italy, 272 
 
 Victoria, Queen, 194, 196, 197 ; 
 
 Anxiety caused to, by Palmer- 
 ston, 201,202-3, 211 
 
 Appeal by, to William I. and 
 the Czar, on behalf of 
 France (1874 & 75), 
 307 
 
 Attitude of, to the 
 Foreign Office, 12 n. 
 Italian Question, 204 el sqq. 
 Principle of Nationalities, 
 
 203 ft sqq. 
 
 Russo-Turkish War, 315 
 Sleswig-Holstein Question, 
 208, 282-3 
 
 Difficulties of, due to the 
 Crimean War, 231-2 
 
 and Granville, 211 
 
 a Great Constitutional Mon- 
 arch, 281 
 
 on an Agreement between 
 England, Prussia 
 and Austria, as 
 to overtures from 
 France (1860), 254; 
 on Austria and Italy 
 (1858), 244; on the 
 Belgian and Luxem- 
 burg Questions, 286, 
 287; on Britain's duty 
 to Belgium (1869), 
 291-2 ; on British 
 Unpreparedness for 
 War, 221 ; on the 
 Franco-Austrian War 
 (1858), 244; on the 
 Italian Question, 204, 
 244, 248-9 ; on Obser- 
 vance of Treaties, 202, 
 203 ; on Palmerston's 
 Indiscretions, 206 ; on 
 Prussia, and the Sles- 
 wig - Holstein Ques- 
 tion, 206, 281, 283 ; on 
 Prussian Neutrality 
 (1855), 236; on the 
 Spanish Marriages, 
 201 ; on Stanley's 
 Foreign Policy, 284 ; 
 on the status quo in 
 Europe (1859), 254
 
 INDEX 
 
 439 
 
 Victoria, Queen, on Stratford de 
 Redcliffe's eagerness 
 for War, 234 
 
 Vienna, Negotiations at, towards 
 Peace (1855), 238-40 
 
 Villiers, see, Clarendon, Earl of 
 
 Vitzhum, Count C. F. von Eck- 
 stadt, on Belgian j 
 Annexation (1860), 
 15-16; on the Cri- 
 mean War, 233 ; on 
 Europe after the Con- 
 gress of Vienna, 215 
 etsqq. 
 
 Vox, et preterea Nihil, see. Rus- 
 sell's policy 
 
 WALCHEREN Expedition, the, 
 131-2 
 
 Wallachia, see Principalities 
 
 Walpole, Horace, brother of 
 Sir R., on the Acqui- 
 sition of Bremen and 
 Verden, 54-5 
 
 Walpole, Sir Robert, Foreign 
 Policy of, 55 et sqq. ; 
 Attempts at an Anglo- 
 French entente, 6, 56 
 et sqq. 
 as War Minister, 60-1 
 
 Walpole, Spencer, on Lord Rus- 
 sell and the Polish 
 Question, 261 ; on 
 Lord Russell and 
 the Sleswig-Holstein 
 Question, 277 
 
 War, how best Prevented, 
 
 354-5 
 of 1800, object of, Pitt on, 
 
 115-16 
 
 Great (1914-) and the rap- 
 prochement between 
 England, France and 
 Russia, 29 
 
 Sole reasons for making, 18th 
 century views on, 
 87 
 
 Warner, G. T., on the Relations 
 with U.S.A. during 
 the War of 1914-, 
 385 
 
 Wars (see also Napoleonic), of 
 Defence andTrade.see 
 Austrian Succession, 
 and Spanish Succes- 
 sion, Wars of, see. also 
 Seven Years' War 
 by Governing Classes, and by 
 Educated Democra- 
 cies, 30, 348 
 Washington, George, and the 
 
 French party, 386 
 Waterloo, Battle of, 8, 148 
 Weak States, and the Concert of 
 
 Europe, 235-6 
 Wellesley, Sir H. (1st Baron 
 
 Cowley), 164, 169 
 Wellington, 1st Duke of, 168 
 Character of, 10 
 Foreign Policy of, 170 & ., 
 173, 188, 237 ; on the 
 Eastern Question, 223 
 Congress of Verona, 160, 165 
 Holy Alliance, 9, 10, 160-1 
 on Abandonment of an Ally, 
 180 ; on Anglo- 
 French relations in 
 1845, 199-200 ; on 
 the Belgian problem 
 (1832), 176 et sqq. ; 
 on British attitude 
 to Belgian affairs 
 (1830), 175; on British 
 Foreign Policy, 161 ; 
 on Conferences of the 
 Powers, 162-3 ; on 
 the Eastern Question 
 (1836), 183-5, and on 
 the Closure of the 
 Dardanelles, 188 ; on 
 the 4th Coalition, 
 134-5 ; on the Great 
 Powers in the Revolu- 
 tionary War, 134-5 ; 
 on Home Defence, 
 198,403; onNavarino, 
 171; on Non-inter- 
 ference in Internal 
 Concerns of other 
 Countries, 161 ; on the 
 Public attitude to the 
 Holy Alliance, 164 ;
 
 440 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Wellington (contd.) 
 
 on the Slave Trade, 392, 395-6, 
 397 ; as Statesman, 
 9-10, 11 
 
 West Indian Expeditions (circa 
 1793), 104, 106 
 
 West Indies, the, British Trade 
 
 and Interests in, and 
 
 Spanish Objections, 
 
 33-4, 35-6, 57, 58 
 
 Philanthropy, and the Slave 
 
 Trade, 39 
 Younger Pitt's Estimate of, 116 
 
 Whig and Tory, changes in, 93 
 
 William I. , first German Emperor, 
 217 ; appeals to, of 
 Queen Victoria during 
 Crimean War, 235-7 ; 
 on menaced War in 
 (1874), 307, and on 
 the Russo - Turkish 
 War, 315 ; disappro- 
 val when Prince Re- 
 gent, of Russell's 
 policy towards Italy, 
 251 
 
 William of Orange, see William III. 
 
 William II., Kaiser, Foreign 
 Policy of, with special 
 reference to Britain, 
 28, 350 et sqq. 
 
 Telegram of, to Kruger, 28, 351 
 1 Weltpolitik' of, 28 
 
 William III. of England (William 
 of Orange), and his 
 Wife, 41 
 Anglo-Dutch rivalry ended 
 
 with his reign, 37-8 
 English Foreign Policy under, 
 5, 39 et sqq. ; the 
 Balance of Power 
 supported by, 43 ; 
 effects thereon, of his 
 death, 48 et sqq. 
 
 William I., King of the Nether- 
 lands, and the Revolt 
 of the Low Countries, 
 176-9 
 
 William III., King of the Nether- 
 lands, and Luxem- 
 burg, 286, 287 
 
 William IV., Stadholder, and his 
 Prussian wife, 80 
 
 Wilberforce, William, and the 
 Slave Trade, 391, 
 394-5 
 
 Wolsey, Cardinal, as Foreign 
 Minister, 2 
 
 Wodehouse, Lord (1st Earl of 
 Kimberley), on Bel- 
 gian Annexation, 16 
 
 YORKTOWN, Surrender of ; effect 
 on British Prestige, 
 75-6 
 
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