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The Political Writings of Richard Cobden;
Cobden, Richard
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By
far the greater proportion of the writers and speakers upon the subject of
the power of Russia either do not understand, or lose sight of the
all-important question, What is the true source of national greatness? The
path by which alone modern empires can hope to rise to supreme power and
grandeur (would that we could impress this sentiment upon the mind of every
statesman in Europe!) is that of labour and improvement. They who, pointing
to the chart of Russia, shudder at her expanse of impenetrable forests, her
wastes of eternal snow, her howling wildernesses, frowning mountains, and
solitary rivers; or they who stand aghast at her boundless extent of fertile
but uncultivated steppes, her millions of serfs, and her towns the abodes of
poverty and filth—know nothing of the true origin, in modern and future
times, of national power and greatness. This question admits of an
appropriate illustration, by putting the names of a couple of heroes of Russian
aggression and violence in contrast with two of their contemporaries, the
champions of improvement in England. At the very period when Potemkin and
Suwarrow were engaged in effecting their important Russian conquests in
Poland and the Crimea, and whilst those monsters of carnage were filling the
world with the lustre of their fame, and lighting up one-half of Europe with
the conflagrations of war—two obscure individuals, the one an optician and
the other a barber, both equally disregarded by the chroniclers of the day,
were quietly gaining victories in the realms of science, which have produced
a more abundant harvest of wealth and power to their native country than has
been
acquired by all the wars of Russia during the last two centuries. Those
illustrious commanders in the war of improvement, Watt and Arkwright, with a
band of subalterns—the thousand ingenious and practical discoverers who have
followed in their train—have, with their armies of artisans, conferred a
power and consequence upon England, springing from successive triumphs in the
physical sciences and the mechanical arts, and wholly independent of
territorial increase—compared with which all that she owes to the evanescent
exploits of her warrior heroes sinks into insignificance and obscurity. If we
look into futurity, and speculate upon the probable career of one of these
inventions, may we not with safety predict that the steam-engine—the
perfecting of which belongs to our own age, and which even now is exerting an
influence in the four quarters of the globe—will at no distant day produce
moral and physical changes, all over the world, of a magnitude and
permanency, surpassing the effects of all the wars and conquests which have
convulsed mankind since the beginning of time! England owes to the peaceful exploits
of Watt and Arkwright, and not to the deeds of Nelson and Wellington, her
commerce, which now extends to every corner of the earth, and which casts
into comparative obscurity, by the grandeur and extent of its operations, the
peddling ventures of Tyre, Carthage, and Venice, confined within the limits
of an inland sea. |
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Lord
Dudley Stuart (whose zeal, we fear, without knowledge, upon the subject of
Poland, and whose prejudice against Russia have led him to occupy so much of
the public time uselessly upon the question before us), in the course of his
long speech in the House of Commons (February 19th) upon introducing the
subject of Russian encroachments, dwelt at considerable length upon the lust
of aggrandisement by which he argued that the government of St. Petersburg
was so peculiarly distinguished; and he brought forward, at considerable cost
of labour, details of its successive conquests of territory during the last
century. Where the human mind is swayed by any passion of however amiable a
nature, or where the feelings are allowed to predominate over the reason, in investigating
a subject which appeals only to the understanding, it will generally happen
that the judgment is defective. We attribute to the well-known fervour of
Lord Stuart's sentiments upon Russia and Poland, the circumstance that,
during the fortnight which he must have employed in collecting the dates of
the several treaties by which the former empire has wrested its possessions
from neighbouring states, the thought never once occurred to him—a reflection
which would have entered the head of almost any other man of sense, who sat
down coolly to consider the subject—that, during the last hundred years,
England has, for every square league of territory annexed to Russia, by force, violence, or fraud, appropriated
to herself three. Such would have been the reflection which flashed
across the mind of a statesman who sat down, dispassionately, to investigate the subject of Russian policy;
and it must have prevented him by the consciousness of the egotism and
arrogance—nay, the downright effrontery *13
of such a course—from bringing an accusation against another people which
recoils with threefold *14
criminality upon ourselves. Nor, if we were to enter upon a comparison of the
cases, should we find that the means
whereby Great Britain has augmented her possessions, are a whit less
reprehensible than those which have been resorted to by the northern power
for a similar purpose. If the English writer calls down indignation upon the
conquerors of the Ukraine, Finland, and the Crimea, may not Russian
historians conjure up equally painful reminiscences upon the subjects of
Gibraltar, the Cape, and Hindostan? Every one conversant with the history of
the last century will remember that England has, during almost all that
period, maintained an ascendancy at sea; and colonies, which were in times
past regarded as the chief source of our wealth and power, being pretty
generally the fruits of every succeeding war, the nation fell into a passion
for conquest, under the delusive impression that those distant dependencies
were, in spite of the debt contracted in seizing them, profitable
acquisitions to the mother country. Hence the British Government was always
eager for hostilities the moment an excuse presented itself with one of the
maritime continental states possessing colonies; and of the several conflicts
in which we have been involved since the peace of Ryswick, at least three out
of four have been consequent upon declarations of war made by England. *15
Russia, on the contrary, has been nearly surrounded by the territory of
barbarous nations, one of which *16—
by the very nature of its institutions
warlike and aggressive—was, up to the middle of the last century,
prompted by a consciousness of strength, and, since then, by a haughty
ignorance of its degeneracy, to court hostilities with its neighbours; and
the consequence of this and other causes is, that, in the majority of cases,
where Russia has been engaged in conflicts with her neighbours, she will be
found to have had a war of self-defence for her justification. If such are
the facts—if England has, for the sake of the spoil which would accrue to her
superiority of naval strength, provoked war, with all its horrors, from weak
and unwilling enemies, whilst Russia, on the contrary, with ill-defined
boundaries, has been called upon to repel the attacks of fierce and lawless
nations—surely, we must admit, unless pitiably blind by national vanity, that
the gain (if such there be) resulting from these contentions, is not less
unholy in the former than the latter case; and that the title by which the
sovereign of St. Petersburg holds his conquered possessions is just as good,
at least, as that by which the government of St. James's asserts the right to
ours. In the case of Poland, to which we shall again have to recur by and by,
there was, indeed, a better title than that of the sword, but which, amidst
the clamour of fine sentiments, palmed by philanthropic authors and speakers
upon the much abused public mind about Russian aggression in that quarter,
has never, we believe, been mentioned by any orator, reviewer, or newspaper
writer of the present day. The "Republic of Poland" (we quote the
words of Malte-Brun) "had been chiefly composed of provinces wrested
from Russia, or from the Great Dukes of Galitch, Vladimir, Volynski, Polotzk,
and particularly Kiow by Boleslas the Victorious, Casimir the Great, Kings of
Poland, and by Gedimir, Great Duke of Lithuania. Thus the nobles were the
only persons interested in the defence of provinces whose inhabitants were
estranged from the Poles, although they had remained under their government
from the time of the conquest. All the peasants of Podolia and Volhynia were
Rousniacs, or Little Russians, ignorant of the language or customs of Poland,
which may partly account for the success of the Russians in their invasions
of the Polish Republic. The Poles, who were persecuted by intolerant Catholic
priests, who disregarded the constitutions of the Polish Diet, abandoned
their lords without reluctance, and received willingly their countrymen, the Russian
soldiers, who spoke the same dialect as themselves. The division of Poland
was, on the part of Russia, not so much a lawless invasion as an act of
reprisal on former invaders. Had this leading historical fact been explained
in the Russian manifesto, which was published in 1772, so much obloquy might
not have been attached to the conduct of that people."
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Probably
it will not be deemed necessary that we should trace the effects of Russian
Government over the territories torn at different epochs from the Persian empire:
if, however, we did not feel warranted in assuming that even those of our
intelligent readers, who may be the most inimical to the power of the Czar,
will readily admit the superiority of the organised despotism of St.
Petersburg over the anarchic tyranny of Teheran, we should be prepared to
afford proofs, from the works of travellers, themselves hostile to Russian
interests, of the rapid ameliorations that have succeeded to the extension of
this colossal empire in those regions. Still less shall we be called upon to
pause to point out the benefits that must ensue from the annexation of the Crimea
to the dominions of the autocrat. Those wandering tribes of Crim Tartars, who
exchanged, for the service of the Empress Catherine, the barbarous government
of the descendants of Genghis Khan, and who received, as the first-fruits of
a Christian administration, the freedom of the commerce of the world, by the
opening of the navigation of the Black Sea, which immediately succeeded to
the encroachments of Russia in that quarter, will gradually but, certainly,
acquire the taste for trade; and, as population increases and towns arise,
they will abandon, of necessity, their migratory habits, and become the
denizens of civilised society
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Yet the
most active and persevering assailant of Russia, a writer to whom we alluded
in the beginning of this pamphlet, does not scruple to invoke the aid of
these hordes against their present rulers:—. "The Georgian provinces
would instantly throw off the yoke; even the Wallachians, Moldavians, and
Bessarabians, would join in the general impulse; the millions of brave and
independent Circassians would pour across the Couban and spread over the Crimea—and
where would Russia be?"— See
Pamphlet, "England, France, Russia, and Turkey."
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Never
was interregnum more fatal than
that which followed the death of Uladislas. The terrible Bogdan, breathing
vengeance against the republic, seized on the whole of the Ukraine, and
advanced towards Red Russia. He was joined by vast hordes of Tartars from
Bessarabia and the Crimea, who longed to assist in the contemplated
annihilation of the republic. This confederacy of Mussulmans, Socinians, and
Greeks, all actuated by feelings of the most vindictive character, committed
excesses at which the soul revolts;—the churches and monasteries were
levelled with the ground—the nuns were violated—priests were forced, under
the raised poniard, not merely to contract, but to consummate marriage with
the trembling inmates of the cloisters, and, in general, both were subsequently
sacrificed; the rest of the clergy were despatched without mercy. But the
chief weight of vengeance fell on the nobles, who were doomed to a lingering
death; whose wives and daughters were stripped naked before their eyes; and,
after violation, were whipped to death in sight of the ruthless invaders.—P.
186.
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If
any argument were required to show the necessity we are under of entering
upon this prospective discussion, it will only be necessary to glance at the
circumstances which attended the expedition to the Crimea. That that
undertaking was a leap in the dark—that ministers, generals, admirals, and
ambassadors, were all equally ignorant of the strength of the fortress and
the numbers of the enemy they were going to encounter, is proved by the
evidence before the Sebastopol Committee. We are there told that Lord Raglan
could obtain no information; that Sir John Burgoyne believed that none of the
authorities with the British army when it landed had any knowledge of the
subject; and that Admiral Dundas could get no intelligence from the Greeks,
who were hostile, and the "Turks knew nothing." Other authorities
guessed the number of the Russian forces in the Crimea variously at from
30,000 to 120,000 men. In this state of ignorance, Lord Raglan, under a mild
protest which threw the responsibility on the Government at home, set sail
from Varna for the invasion of Russia. Yet, whilst confessedly without one
fact on which to found an opinion, the most confident expectations were
formed of the result. Lord Aberdeen and Mr. Sidney Herbert state that it was
the general belief that Sebastopol would fall by a coup de main. Sir John Burgoyne was in hopes we should have taken
it "at once," until he saw it, and then he "altered his
opinion." And according to Admiral Dundas "two-thirds of the people
expected to be in Sebastopol in two or three days."
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But
another plan is proposed. It has been said, as soon as you have cleared the Crimea
of the enemy, withdraw your army, and convert the war into a naval blockade.
But will the Russian armies, no longer menaced by the Allies, remain
inactive? Russia is at war with Turkey. What in that case is to prevent her
from pouring reinforcements, either by the pass of Dariel, or by her great
highway the Wolga, and across the Caspian, which our ships cannot reach, into
Georgia, and thus indemnifying herself, as Mr. Layard has predicted she will
do, for the loss of the Crimea, by fresh conquests in Asia Minor? No: the war
entered into by France and England must be carried on without intermission
until peace is concluded between Russia and Turkey.
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We
may conclude then that the further operations already indicated by the
capture of Kinburn will be carried out; that after the conquest of the Crimea
the Allied armies proceeded to attack Nicolaieff, and, notwithstanding the
difficulties of approach, and the obstacles which the genius of Todtleben may
have created, I will again give them credit for greater success than is
promised by the organ of the United Services, by assuming the capture of that
arsenal. The war will still go on; Perekop will be invested; the forts of the
Danube attacked; an army will be landed to occupy Odessa (I will not assume
the infamy of a bombardment of that entrepôt.)—I
will take for granted that all these operations are successful, and that
every place within fifty miles of the Black Sea in Southern Russia is in the
hands of the Allies; an army may then be despatched to Tiflis, to drive the Russians
from Georgia, and their trans-Caucasian provinces. That all these objects may
be accomplished with time and commensurate efforts—efforts of which the past
are but a faint example—by two such nations as France and England I have
never denied; that repeated levies of men and money will be necessary for their
accomplishment, no one will dispute: and having assumed all these
achievements to be effected in a succession of victorious campaigns, having
thus realised the wildest hopes of the most sanguine advocates of war—
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"Russia
must then come to terms," will be the popular answer. What terms? We
know the terms that were offered and refused by her at Vienna, but who can
say what we are now fighting for? One party insists on a solid guarantee from
Russia for the future, without specifying its nature; another would wrest
from her Poland and Circassia; a third will be content with the Crimea; and
there are others who insist on a heavy fine to prevent future acts of aggression.
But it may at least be assumed that they who advocated the continuance of the
war, at the close of the Vienna Conferences, will exact as hard terms after
so great an additional sacrifice of blood and treasure as before. These,
however, Russia rejects, on the plea that they involve an abdication of her
sovereign rights in her own territory, and she declares her determination to
resist the attempted humiliation to the last extremity. The question then,
is, whether the Allies have the power of imposing these terms by force of
arms?
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But
there is another aspect of the question, which, even if peace could not have
been preserved, denies to Protectionist poverty any superiority over
prosperous Free Trade as a defensive shield in time of war. It has been
remarked by military critics that, if the Russians had possessed a line of
railroad connecting Moscow with the Crimea, the invasion of that peninsula
would have been too desperate an enterprise to have been entered upon, or
that, if undertaken, the Allies would have been overwhelmed by the Russian
reinforcements last winter. It is equally certain that, if Moscow and
Petersburg had been connected by railroads with the German frontier, the
blockade of the Baltic ports would have been, practically, almost
inoperative. Now can it be doubted that, if a wiser economical policy had
prevailed in Russia this great discovery in locomotion would have been
applied to a country to which it is of all others in the world most suited—a
region so level that for a thousand miles the engineer would hardly find
occasion for a tunnel or embankment? Russia, like all primitive and
agricultural communities, requires the capital of older countries for her
development, and, by a beautiful law of diffusion, it is the interest of
older nations to contribute from their savings to the improvement of the new.
But how can this be accomplished when human legislation steps in to forbid
the benign process? Capital consists of articles of subsistence, of clothing,
metals, hardware, earthenware, and other manufactures. If these be
systematically excluded from a young country, how can it be enriched or
improved by older states? Hundreds of millions of dollars have been advanced
from Europe to the United States for the construction of railways, canals,
and other internal improvements, not in the shape of gold and silver coin,
but of manufactures, metals, and articles of consumption and even of luxury.
If the present Russian tariff had been in force in America during the last
thirty years, this aid could not have been contributed from the Old World to
the New.
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And
here let me be allowed to express my amazement at the confident terms in
which high authorities, here, and in France (in France the very highest),
spoke, during the summer and autumn, of the inability of the Russians to
supply food for their army in the Crimea. A few hours after the news reached
this country of our successful, but inglorious, operations among the
granaries, barges, and fishing nets of the Sea of Azoff, and when a cry of
exultation was raised at the certain prospect of starving the enemy from his
stronghold, I incurred some odium by declaring, in my place in Parliament,
that these devastations would have no influence whatever on the fate of the Russian
armies. On that occasion a military critic, who writes under the singular nom de plume of "A Hertfordshire
Incumbent," and who lays claim to a minute knowledge of the topography
and resources of Southern Russia, designated me a "political
gamester" for hazarding so bold an assertion; and Mr. Danby Seymour, in
the preface to his useful volume, published at that time, expressed also, but
in more courteous terms, his dissent from my views. These gentlemen have, I
doubt not, travelled longer and further in Russia than myself. My only
advantage has been that I had possibly an eye and ear more open to the
commercial movements, and the economical resources of the country.
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It
has been argued that the Crimea, being a recent acquisition, its invasion
will not be resisted with so much obstinacy as was that of the older portions
of the empire. But there are reasons why both the nobles and people may be as
little inclined to loose their hold on this peninsula as any other part of
"holy Russia." It is associated in a twofold manner with the
religious feelings of the country; for, as Prince Gortschakoff took care to
tell the army in his last bulletin, it is the spot where Vlademir, the first
Christian sovereign of Russia, received baptism, whose abandonment of
paganism was the signal for the conversion of all his subjects. It is,
moreover, a province wrested from Mohammedanism, and territory won from the
infidel has a precious value in the eyes of the orthodox. But there are
motives of a different kind, associated with the selfish instincts of the
higher classes, which are likely to provoke a stubborn resistance to the arms
of the invaders. I do not allude merely to the attractions of a southern
clime, though it may be well to bear in mind that the Crimea is the Isle of
Wight of Russia, to which the nobility resort in the summer months, and where
some of the wealthiest and most influential of their order possess elegant
residences and valuable estates. But the conquest of provinces peopled by a
less civilised race, as in the Crimea, enriches in a special manner the
dominant class in Russia, by conferring on it not only territorial
aggrandisement, but exclusive power and patronage in the administration of
their affairs. The annexation of countries inhabited by a more advanced
population, such as the German provinces of the Baltic, far from affording a
field of preferment to the Sclavonic conquerors, reacts upon them in an
opposite manner, by supplying a body of administrators whose superior
education enables them to compete successfully with the dominant race for
public employment throughout the whole empire. It is in this way that Germany
has, during the last half century, invaded Russia with her functionaries,
until at length a spirit of jealousy has grown up in the Sclavonic mind,
claiming for the native race a larger share in the Government patronage.
These observations apply, indeed, to all kinds of employments, public or
private, and to the humblest as well as the highest. Enter Riga, or Revel,
for example, and you will find the Russian part of the population occupying
the lowest quarter of the town, and performing all the menial offices to the
Teutonic merchant or shopkeeper; but a visitor to Eupatoria or Simpheropol,
before the Anglo-French invasion, would have found the Russians, however
humble in rank, always taking the lead of the Tartar population.
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Were
I convinced that a perfect accordance of opinion existed between the reader
and myself as to the arduous character of the struggle in which the country
is embarked, I should deem it but a poor compliment to his sagacity to offer
to prove that before we can achieve those triumphs for which I have given
credit to the Allies, and which will still leave undecided the issue of the
war, great and long-continued sacrifices will be required at our hands. But I
will confess—and let it be my excuse for what I am about to say—that I am
haunted with the fear that not one in ten thousand of those who talk of
humbling Russia on her own soil have appreciated half the difficulties of the
task; nay, I doubt whether they have realised in their minds the serious
nature of the act of invading that country. On the contrary, I have heard
objection taken to the words "the invasion of Russia" as
inapplicable to the descent upon the Crimea, and this in the face of the fact
that the Allies have destroyed or taken possession of posts extending nearly
a thousand miles along her coasts; that they are awaiting only the return of
spring to renew the war upon her territory with an army exceeding in numbers
that which gained the battles of Borodino or Austerlitz; and that the Russians
have shown by the levy en masse of
their population that they consider the fate of their empire as much at stake
as they did in their resistance to Napoleon in 1812.
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Not
only is this an invasion of Russia, but it must surpass all others in history
in the cost of men and money necessary for its success; for never before was
an army sent 3,000 miles by sea to land in the territory of the most populous
and, for defensive war, the most powerful military nation of the time, with
no prospect of assistance from any part of its population, and compelled to
bring all their provisions, even to the forage for their cattle, after them
by sea. When Napoleon entered that country, it formed no part of his
calculation to provide for the subsistence of his army after the successful
close of his first campaign, for once in possession of Moscow he reckoned on
his usual mode of subsisting upon the enemy; and although he made greater previous
provision than was his wont for the supply of food on the line of march, yet
the accounts we have from eye-witnesses of the devastations committed in the
territories through which he passed, leave no room to doubt how much the army
was left to depend on forced requisitions and plunder by the way. But in the
present case, from the moment that the French and English soldiers leave
their own shores to step on board the vessel which conveys them to the Crimea,
begins that direct money drain for every article of their food, clothing, and
transport, from which no conceivable success can relieve the Governments at
home. Again, when Napoleon set off for his Russian campaign he knew that all
along the line of march from the Seine to the Niemen, army corps after army
corps were ready to fall into his ranks; but what reinforcements await France
and England from the countries that lie between them and their great northern
foe? True, a few recruits are picked up by the way at Genoa, but at the
expense of something very like a subsidy from our Government; and as for the
ally at whose invitation we make this great effort, instead of finding aid of
any kind in his dominions, he adds to our burdens by his pecuniary
requisitions, and the Western Powers are obliged to enter into a convention
for feeding his troops, even on the very borders of the Ottoman empire.
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When
M. Kossuth made his first journey through Great Britain, he drew the
inference, from the employments of the population, that in case of a war we
should find it difficult to recruit our armies. He saw at a glance, what our
last census tables had informed us, that a majority of the inhabitants of
this island live in towns, and that a much smaller portion of our people are
employed in agriculture than in any other country of Europe. Had he been
travelling in Russia, he would, of course, have drawn the directly opposite
conclusion, for he is not ignorant that it is from the agricultural class
that large movable armies have always been raised. The reason of this is so
obvious that, but for the attempt to draw the opposite conclusion in the
present war, I should not have said one word on the subject. There are two
obstacles in the way of raising large movable armies for service in the field
among the population of towns, the one physical, and the other economical.
Men habituated to indoor life, and who never, perhaps, slept out of a warm
and dry bed, however robust they may be, would succumb under the first trials
of such exposure and hardships as are inseparable from a camp life. Their
whole training is a disqualification for such an ordeal; whilst, on the
contrary, the Russian peasant, whom I have seen passing the night with
indifference in the open air, with no other covering than his sheep-skin
coat, even in the month of October, would suffer very little loss of comfort
in exchanging his every-day life for that of the hut or the cave in the Crimea.
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If
we turn from the subject of men to that of money, we find the advantage so
completely on the side of the Allies, that, had the seat of war been anywhere
but on the territory of Russia, her financial difficulties would have long
since determined the struggle. The expenses already incurred by England for
freight of transports alone, to carry her army and its supplies to the Crimea,
exceed what Russia could have met, with ready money payments, in any other
way than by resorting to the reserve fund of the Bank, or applying to Western
Europe for a loan: and, if I could believe that here, as in Russia, the
government and people were thoroughly united as to the object of the war—that
it excited the same spirit of patriotic or religious enthusiasm, or that it
involved, in the opinion of the population, the security of the country—I
should not entertain a doubt of the ability and willingness of the nation to
bear the burdens which a war expenditure of several years will undoubtedly
entail. But it is because I doubt whether any one of these conditions can be
fulfilled on our side, that I venture to offer a few words of caution on the
financial view of the question.
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3.
I should recur to the policy which our Government adopted at the outset of
the negotiations, when they turned to Germany and Austria, as most nearly
concerned in the danger, and the only countries which could obstruct the
march of Russia westward; for if they leave the door open, it is in vain for
us to try and close it. Now, the geography of Europe has not changed since
the first negotiations at Vienna. If Germany and Austria occupied an
important position then, they are relatively more powerful now, inasmuch as
the other powers are weakened by war; and if hostilities go on for a year or
two, and they remain at peace, their relative weight in the European scale
will be still more increased. We must discard the idea that Austria, Prussia,
or Germany will join us in the present war. It has been a sad reproach to our
sagacity that for eighteen months—since the retreat of the Russians from the
Danube began—we have been deluding ourselves with the notion that those
countries, whose interests are on that river, would follow us in our invasion
of the Crimea. When the Duke of Newcastle wrote his celebrated despatch to
Lord Raglan, on the 29th of June, 1854, recommending in these terms the
expedition to the Crimea—"the retreat of the Russian army across the
Danube, and the anticipated evacuation of the Principalities, have given a new character to the war,
and will render it necessary for you without delay, &c."—he and the
Cabinet must have known that this retreat of the Russians from Silistria, and
their return across the Pruth, were steps taken by the Russian Government to
conciliate Austria; and, that, from that moment (as stated by Lord John
Russell in his despatch from Vienna, 16th April, 1855), we could on longer
count upon her as an active participator in the war.
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But
Austria and Germany, although they are too wise and selfish to follow us to
the Crimea, where their interests do not, as they think, beckon them, are
yet, with regard to all the future
objects of the war, as completely identified with us as when our Government
summoned them to the first conferences. In fact they occupy, for the future,
the diplomatic ground we wished them to take from the first. Austria has a
treaty with Turkey, binding herself to make the invasion of the
Principalities a casus belli
against Russia. Prussia and Austria have a treaty, making it also an act of
war against them if Russia pass the Balkan: and Prussia and Germany have
engaged to defend Austria, if she should be attacked by Russia. Here we have
these powers committed to the object we profess to have in view—not exactly
in our way: a little more complex, and somewhat slower in execution: but
still, substantially, nearly all we want. But more important still, at the
close of the last Vienna Conferences, Austria offered to enter into a
tripartite treaty with France and England, binding herself by a positive
engagement (which she never proffered to do before), to resist, in future,
any attack made by Russia upon Turkey, or any attempt to maintain an
exaggerated naval force in the Black Sea; and it was this offer, I have no
doubt, made at the very close of the negotiations, which converted M. Drouyn
de Lhuys and Lord John Russell to the cause of peace. Now, here are grounds
for believing that, for the future,
Germany may be reckoned upon by Western Europe as a bulwark against Russian
aggression. It is thither that I should direct my diplomacy, if I were in the
position of our Government, and shared their fears for the safety of Europe.
Let them try to condense the various and complicated engagements to which I
have alluded, into one simple treaty of the whole of Germany. There may be a
difficulty in convincing its Governments, or people, of the reality of the
danger which so alarms us. Hitherto, I believe, the Teutonic family have been
in no fear of being absorbed by the Sclavonic race. Their traditions and
experience point towards France, rather than Russia, as a source of danger. Their defensive fortifications are on the
Rhine, not the Niemen. But let our Government point out to this
intelligent people the grounds of their alarm, and if they be deemed
well-founded, there is quite as much love of "fatherland" to reckon
upon for repelling an invasion in Germany as in any part of Europe.
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Friday, March 28, 2014
The Political Writings of Richard Cobden; Cobden, Richard
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