The Policy of Austria. The War Debates in The House of Commons

Add a subpage to this text

Read the help page for usage.

 

This article was entered in the Notebook as "Freitag. 28 July. Treaty vom 14. Juni. Oesterreich. Walachei. Serbien. Italien. Sitzung Parl. Montag, Dienstag, Mittwoch, Dr. Peithman". It was included in abridged form by Eleanor Marx in The Eastern Question.

London, Friday, July 28, 1854

In one of my former letters I gave you an analysis of the Austro-Turkish Treaty of the 14th of June, and stated as the purposes aimed at by that curious diplomatic transaction: 1st. To give the allied armies a pretext for not crossing the Danube, and for not confronting the Russians; 2d. To prevent the Turks from reoccupying the whole of Wallachia, and forcing them out of that part which they had already conquered: 3d. To restore in the Principalities the old Reactionary Government, forced upon the Roumans by Russia in 1848. We are now actually informed from Constantinople, that Austria has protested against Omer Pasha's presumption in crossing the Danube; that she claims an exclusive occupation of the Principalities for herself, and the right of shutting them not only against the Anglo-French troops, but equally against the Turks. Upon this remonstrance, the Porte is said to have forwarded orders to Omer Pasha not to cross the Danube for the present, while refusing to admit, in principle, the exclusive occupation of the Principalities by Austria. Wretched Pasha who has learned something from his master and contriver, Lord Palmerston, has of course little objection to admitting in fact what he refuses In principle. You may perhaps think that Austria has already violated as well as practically canceled the treaty of the 14th June, by not entering Wallachia at the moment when the Russian army was disorderly retreating in three different directions, and was exposed in the flank and the rear to an Austrian attack, if it had failed to retire at once behind the Sereth. Only remember that by the very words of this famous treaty Austria is bound neither to enter the Principalities at once, nor to leave them at any exact epoch, nor even to force the Russians to evacuate them within any definite term. It is now stated that the Austrians are really entering Little Wallachia, and that the Russians are recalling their troops from the Carpathian passes and concentrating them at Fokshani. This, however, means nothing but that the Austrians, instead of expelling the Russians from Great Wallachia, have resolved to eject the Turks from Little Wallachia, thus preventing their operations on the banks of the Aluta. It is evident that no better contrivance could have been imagined to work up a military insurrection in Turkey than their exclusion from the territory conquered by the Turkish army, and by an occupation of Bulgaria through Anglo-French troops, who are fully avoiding the Russians, keep the Turks under a sort of state of siege as you may see from the common proclamation of the Anglo-French commanders to the inhabitants of Bulgaria —a proclamation almost literally copied from a Budberg, a Gorchakoff and tutti quanti. I have told you long before this that the western powers would render one service to progress the service of revolutionizing Turkey, that keystone of the antiquated European system.

Besides the protest against the Turkish presumption of occupying Turkish territories, Austria demands the reinstallation of the two hospodars now residing at Vienna, whose return to Wallachia and Moldavia, along with the first Austrian troops, Herr von Bruck has announced to the Porte. Reshid Pasha replies that the Porte will take the propriety of their restoration into consideration—Herr von Bruck, on his part, insisting, however, on the fulfillment of Article III of the Convention, which stipulates the reestablishment of the late Government. It will be remembered that I called attention to the ambiguous construction liable to be put on this article. Reshid Pasha retorts that this reestablishment could not take place before the Porte had made sure that the hospodars had not failed in their duty as loyal subjects. The Porte had no serious complaints against Prince Ghica of Moldavia, but the conduct of Stirbey, the hospodar of Wallachia, had been very compromising, having proved himself a partisan of Russia in the most scandalous manner, so that his expulsion had been imposed upon the Porte. Herr von Bruck then appealed to the Sultan, who assembled an extraordinary Council, in which the compromise was made that both hospodars should be recalled to their posts provisionally, while the Porte would appoint a High Commissioner to inquire into their conduct, and then come to a definitive resolution. Now it will be at once understood that Prince Ghica, against whom Reshid pretends to have no serious objections, is only nominally recalled, Moldavia remaining in the hands of the Russians. The recall of Prince Stirbey, expelled by the Porte itself, and stigmatized as a Russian agent, is, on the contrary, a real restoration, as a portion of Wallachia is already evacuated by the Russians, and the other likely to become so at no distant time.

But the action of Austrian diplomacy does not stop there. We read in yesterday's Morning Post, dated Belgrade, July 19:

"An order arrived yesterday, from Constantinople, immediately to suspend all armaments and military exercises. It is confidently stated that there is another order for disarmament. The intelligence was forwarded at once to Prince Alexander."

This, then, is the answer of the Porte to the Servian protest against an Austrian occupation. Thus that miserable Turkish Government is simultaneously prevented from thwarting its avowed enemy, and driven into hostile and usurpatory acts against its own loyal dependencies. By the treaty of the 14th June it broke its Conventions with the Principalities, and by the order for disarmament it breaks the fundamental laws of Servia. By the same stroke of policy, the Turkish army is worked into a state of insurrection, and Servia and the Principalities are thrown into the arms of Russia. The Austrian summons for the evacuation of the Principalities turns out to be a prohibition to the Turks to enter them, and the boasted armaments of Austria to be the disarmament of Servia.

With all that stupid Austria, a mere tool in the hands of the Czar and his English confederates, is only preparing the elements of a general revolution, the first victim of which she herself will he, and of which nobody can complain except utopian reactionaries like David Urquhart.

You are already informed of the first movements in Italy. The public papers speak of riots at Genoa, Modena, Parma, &c.; but, in my opinion, the scenes which have occurred at Ferrara remind us more of the general insurrection of 1848 than all the rest.

That I have justly characterized, from the first, the patriotic voluntary loan of the arrogant and bankrupt Austrian Government, you will see from the notification Chevalier le Burger has lately addressed to the loyal subjects of Lombardy. He informs them that the quota the Lombardian territory has to pay to the voluntary loan will amount to 40,000,000 florins, equivalent to 104,400,000 francs, which, divided among the population, makes 40 francs per head.

"This voluntary loan," says the Unione, "resolves itself into a gigantic confiscation—every province, every commune and every individual being assigned a quota which it must pay voluntarily."

In order to leave no doubt as to the true meaning of this voluntary loan, the notification of Chevalier Burger ends in the following terms:

"It must be more than evident, that in case the voluntary loan should not succeed, an extraordinary and forced contribution must be levied upon the various elements of the produce of land, capital, commerce and industry in the most convenient proportions."

At Monday's sitting of the Commons, for the first time in the annals of Parliament, the Lord President of the Ministry and Leader of the House rose on the pretext of giving a deliberate exposition of the intentions of the Cabinet, which he completely recanted six hours later in the same place. At 7 P.M. Sevastopol was bombarded, dismantled, destroyed and dismembered from Russia. At 1.15 A.M. the Russian fleet at Sevastopol was to be reduced by one or two sail of the line, and "Russia by no means to be disturbed in her present rank and position." During six hours little Johnny brawled, swaggered, bullied, hectored, rodomontized, cheered, congratulated, amplified to his Commoners; during six hours he caused Parliament to revel in "a fool's paradise," when, by no more than one sting of Mr. Disraeli's tongue, this bubble speech suddenly shrunk together, and the false lion was forced to hang his usual calf-skin round his shoulders. This was a "day of humiliation" for the Ministry, but they carried their three millions of pounds.

At Tuesday's sitting the debate on Lord Stuart's motion for the non-adjournment of Parliament took place. They had voted away the money of the country; they could not but vote their confidence in the Ministry. This being generally understood by the honorable members, the House was but thinly attended, the debate dull, the Ministry more provoking than ever, and the motion of Dudley negatived without a division. The Ministry contrived to turn their very disgrace into a victory over the Commoners. This was the "day of humiliation" for Parliament. Nevertheless, the sitting became important from the defense of the warfare furnished by Mr. Herbert, the British Secretary at War, and Woronzoff's brother-in-law; from. Berkeley, the Lord of the Admiralty's indiscretions; and from little Johnny's magisterial declarations on the internal state of the English Ministry.

In answer to the complaints about the deficient organization of the commissariat, Mr. Herbert, a thin-headed ex-young Tory, entered into an elaborate eulogy of Commissary-General Filder, who was certainly the fittest man for the place, because, some fifty years ago, he had enjoyed the confidence of the Iron Duke, and held high offices under him. To the disagreeable letters of the newspaper correspondents, he opposed the high-colored reports of "the very best paymasters in the service", and the obligatory compliments of some French officers. He uttered not a word about the army being destitute of any means of transport, being supplied neither with mules nor horses to carry the baggage and the water necessary for an army marching from Varna and Devna toward the Danube, and the other necessaries required on a march. He uttered not a word about the deficient means of the army to supply itself with food. He did not refute the fact that no commissariat was appointed until several divisions of troops had been sent out, and the fleets were at Constantinople. He dared not contradict the assertion that Lord Raglan himself had stated that his troops had been stationed at one place nearly two months, but could not advance from the deficiency of the commissariat, although they were almost within cannonshots hearing of the half-starved enemy.

In a similar way the ingenious brother-in-law of Prince Woronzoff got rid of the complaints on the ordnance. He spent much breath upon an answer to a reproach made by nobody but himself, viz: that there were only six-pounders out with the army in Turkey, while he passed under obstinate silence the facts that there was no battering train with the army, that the infantry was almost unsupported by cavalry, the most essential arm for operations in the plains of Wallachia, and that the 40,000 men at Varna had not 40 pieces of artillery to oppose to the Russians where every corps of 40,000 men deploys 120 pieces.

To the attacks on the negligence of the Government in supplying the army with the necessary implements, the brother-in-law of Woronzoff answered by an indignant defense of the military commanders who were not at all to blame:

As to the fatal accidents and the British monopoly of fatal accidents, none of which happened to the French expedition, the Hon. Mr. Herbert replied, first, that it was true that a ship which carried out a portion of the 6th Dragoons was lost by fire, but that the commander,

"a noble old man, faced the most terrible death which man can be subject to, and refused, at the solicitation of his own men, to leave the ship until, alas! it was too late, and he perished at his post."

The imbecile Commoners cheered this nonsensical answer. As to the loss of the Tiger, he declared it to belong to the chapter of accidents. As to the "grievous casualty in the Baltic why, it proved the foolhardiness of our seamen."

The small-headed man then proceeded to answer the question whether "no practical results had been brought about by our fleets and armies?" and he glories in the "complete, effective, and irresistible blockade of the Russian ports." This blockade was so effective that, for instance, eight Russian war-steamers have reached Odessa from Sevastopol, notwithstanding bombardments, fights and obstruction. It was so effective that the Baltic trade is carried on through Russia to such an extent that Russian produce is selling at London at a price very little higher than that at which it sold before the war; that at Odessa commerce is carried on exactly as last year, and that even the nominal blockades of the Black and White Seas were only some days ago forced upon the English by Bonaparte.

But the English Government did more, exclaims the noble young man called Herbert. Had they not wrested from Russia the ability of communicating supplies by the Black Sea, and cut them off from all access by sea? He forgot that for four months they left the Russians in the command of the Danube, that they allowed them to appropriate with only 15,000 men the European corn-houses of Moldavia and Wallachia, that they abandoned to them the rich flocks of the Dobrodja almost under their eyes, and that they prevented the Turkish fleet. from annihilating the Russian squadron at Sinope.

They had an ample share in the military success of the Turks, because by forming their reserve they enabled them to use every man and every gun against the invading army. Need I repeat to your readers that, as long as the Russians were unable to concentrate a superior force in the Principalities, the British Government interdicted Omer Pasha the use of his own numerical superiority and the fruits of his first victories?

Had their forces done anything else?

"How many pounds sterling had been expended by Russia in erecting a line of forts along the coast of Circassia? In one short campaign, all these strong places, which formed the chains with which Circassia was bound, had, with one exception, fallen into their hands or into those of their allies."

Woronzoff! Woronzoff! Do you not remember that, when advised, at the beginning of the session, to take those forts, you refused to do so, thus allowing the Russians to withdraw their garrisons to Sevastopol? You have only taken the forts which the Russians chose to abandon, and that single "exception," which you neither destroyed nor captured, nor attacked, is the only one worth taking, the only one thought worth holding by the Russians, and the only one by which you could communicate with the Circassians—Anapa.

Mr. Herbert reached the climax of his insipid diatribe when he pretended that in the glorious defense of Silistria, which they neither relieved, nor allowed Omer Pasha to relieve; England had a share, because of one dead young man, called Captain Butler. Lieutenant Nasmyth, as a living man, is of course not mentioned. Captain Butler, let me tell you, went to Silistria, only after the Government had refused to send him there, and the more ground for Marshal Herbert to claim credit for his conduct. As to Lieutenant Nasmyth, he belongs to the class who were shortly to be expelled from the British camp, and went to Silistria in the capacity of a newspaper correspondent.

Lord Dudley Stuart having assailed the Government for not procuring steamers drawing only three feet of water and carrying one or two heavy guns, Admiral Berkeley who spoke after Gen. Herbert—begged the noble Lord "to teach the Surveyor of the Navy how to build such steamboats." This was the answer given by the gallant Whig admiral to the question how the Admiralty could fit out a fleet for the Baltic without providing a large number of gun-boats. Brave Berkeley and his scientific Surveyor of the Navy would do well to apply for instruction at the Swedish and Russian Admiralties than to poor and deluded Dudley Stuart.

We have now done with the defense of British warfare as put forward by elegant Herbert and gallant Berkeley, and we come now to the indiscreet revelations of that same Berkeley. On the previous evening the Sevastopol bubble was blown up by little Johnny; on this evening the Kronstadt bubble exploded through the means of Berkeley. As the Austrians alone will fight out the case in the Principalities, there remains no field of action "for the most formidable armies and navies, with screw-propellers, paixhans, and other monster powers of destruction ever fitted and sent out by any country." From a letter written by the gallant commander of the Baltic fleet the following quotation was made by gallant Berkeley:

"It has not been in my power to do anything with this powerful fleet; for attacking either Kronstadt or Sweaborg would have been certain destruction."

This was not all. Brave Berkeley exulting at what the most powerful fleet could not do, went on babbling:

"Admiral Chads, than whom no man possesses a greater amount of scientific knowledge, wrote also in these terms: 'After two days inspection from the lighthouse, and full views of the forts and ships, the former are too substantial for the fire of ships. They are large masses of granite. With respect to an attack on the ships where they are, it is not to be entertained.'"

As to Napier, brave Berkeley concludes with the words:

"There never was a British officer who had more completely carte blanche to undertake what he pleased. So far from his hands being tied up by the Government it has afforded him every encouragement to proceed"

from Bomarsund to Kronstadt, and from Kronstadt to Bomarsund.

On the remark of Mr. Hildyard, a Tory, that "in the whole course of his life he never heard such indiscretion," that Berkeley had spoken as a plain agent of Russia, and that all the rodomontades about Kronstadt had notwithstanding experienced his silent approval, brave Berkeley recanted his indiscretions so far as to say that Napier had only spoken of his present position with ships alone, and without being backed by any land forces. That nothing could be done in the Baltic without land troops and without an alliance with Sweden, I have repeated to you all the time, since Napier left the English shores, and my opinion was participated in by every scientific military man.

I come now to the last point of this memorable debate, the magisterial declarations of Lord John Russell. After having got his note for 3,000,000 he was as barefaced as he was shamefaced, 20 hours before, when quailing under the sarcasms of Disraeli.

"He certainly did not think it necessary to give any further explanation of the statements which he made last night."

As to the "painful distinctions" which certain parties had attempted to draw between Aberdeen and his colleagues, he would tell them that

"with regard to the general measures of the war, those measures had been considered, step by step, by those advisers of Her Majesty who are usually called the Cabinet, and for the decisions which had been adopted, all the colleagues of Lord Aberdeen are alike responsible to Parliament and the country with that noble Lord."

In fact, he dared but at no risk to tell the House:

"If we are fit to be ministers of the Crown, we are fit to have the discretion to call or not to call Parliament together; if we are not fit to have that discretion, on the other hand, we are no longer fit to remain the ministers of the Crown."

Being present at the sittings of the English Parliament on Monday and Tuesday, I confess to my error in having stigmatized, in 1848, in the New-Rhenish Gazette, the Berlin and Frankfort assemblies as the lowest possible expressions of Parliamentary life.

It will be amusing for your readers to see opposed to the declarations of Woronzoff's British brother-in-law, the fades bravadoes of a Russell, and the roaring leaders of The Times, the following extracts from the latest letter of The Times correspondent at the British camp near Varna, dated July 13.

"The night before this there was a general belief that peace would soon be proclaimed, inasmuch as an Austrian Envoy was reported to be dining with Gen. Brown, and this Austrian Envoy was on his way from Shumla, where he had held long interviews with Omer Pasha, to Varna, where he was to consult with Lord Raglan and Marshal St. Arnaud. It was reported that the Duke of Cambridge had said that the cavalry would be home by November, and the infantry by May. Surely it cannot be affirmed we are at war, or that the allied armies have taken a belligerent part, or exhibited warlike actions since they landed in Turkey. Our parades, reviews, drills, and inspections are as harmless, as innocent, as if they took place at Satory or at Chobham, and our whole operations of offence by land have been confined to, first, a reconnoitering excursion by Lord Cardigan; secondly, the dispatch of some engineer officers and sappers to Silistria and Rustchuk; thirdly, the march of a few French pontoniers in the same direction; and, fourthly, the further dispatch of a company of sappers and of 150 sailors to Rustchuk, to construct a bridge across from the bank to the islands and thence across to the other side."

There exists no Bastille in England, but there exist lunatic asylums to which every individual obnoxious to the Court, or standing in the way of certain family arrangements, may simply be confined by a lettre de cachet. In Wednesday's debate on the case of Dr. Peitman, this was fully proved by Mr. Otway, backed by Mr. Henley. There were wanted only some words of Lord Palmerston, the civis Romanus, and the notorious advocate of "the rights and privileges of the British subject" and the subject [was] dropped. Palmerston did not so much as pretend that Peitman was a real madman, but only that "he appeared to imagine to have some claim upon Government," and imagining to pursue that claim in a very troublesome way to the Queen, or rather that anonymous personage called Prince Albert. The Coburgs are everywhere; they pretend at this very moment to appropriate the Spanish nation.

"It is," says the Ministerial Globe, "a question of the rights of the doctor and of the rights of the Queen, and we believe that there is no man in or out of Parliament who can hesitate in balancing these rights."

No wonder, then, that Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man" were publicly burned in this free and blessed country.

Another little Parliamentary comedy was performed on the same Wednesday evening. At the sitting of last Friday, Mr. Butt had moved the resolution that British subjects should be forbidden, under certain penalties, to trade in Russian Government securities; this bill relating only to loans contracted by the Russian Government during the present war. The British Government had not proposed the bill, but it could hardly dare to oppose it, as Bonaparte had already falsely announced in the Moniteur that the British Government concurred with him in considering subscriptions to the Russian loan as illegal, Palmerston, therefore, supported Mr. Butt's motion, but found himself opposed in no very courteous manner by Mr. Wilson, the sage editor of The Economist, and Secretary of the Treasury. Now, on Wednesday the same Palmerston, having defended the Coalition Cabinet on Monday, having abstained from speaking on Tuesday and thus secured the real success of the Coalition, could not but seize upon this opportunity to resume his position as the "unprotected female" of the Cabinet. He spoke with the aspect and in the tone of a male Sibyl, as if overpowered by the spontaneous explosion of his patriotic feelings, which he, poor man, was forced to suppress on the two preceding evenings, fettered as he was by the cold necessity of an official position. He elicited the inevitable cheers of the honorable and deluded gentlemen when he declared

"the bill simply affirmed the principle that British subjects should not supply the Russians with funds to carry on the war. The arguments adduced by the Secretary of the Treasury went to show that we should abolish our laws of high treason. Such arguments were sheer nonsense."

Note that this is the same man who, during twenty-four years, imposed the Russo-Dutch loan upon England, and is at this very moment the most influential member of a Cabinet which continues to pay the capital and interest of that loan, thus supplying him with "funds to carry on the war."