ABSTRACT
Hitherto Mehemet Ali had always found a middle course between defeat and victory. The news of the victory of Nezib was not the only staggering blow to Turkey. Victorian Palmerston, who advocated reforms in Turkey, deprecated and even obstructed them in Syria. A partition of Turkey would be fatal to the independence of Austria and Prussia, when it was accomplished, and it could not be accomplished without a general war. When occasion arose Syria could revert to Turkey, and steam communication by rail and water would link England to India and Alexandretta to the Persian Gulf. The commerce of Turkestan, of Armenia, of Iraq flowed from Damascus and Beyrouth to Alexandria and Cairo. England had only to concentrate her naval strength to be superior to all the three fleets; and the lines of land defence, so laboriously prepared in Syria and in the Taurus, could be pierced and turned by British sea-power.
