ABSTRACT
Two sets of aggressive ideas competed in Britain, but only one of them made any sense at all. Palmerston's fanciful concept of a rollback of Russia from the Baltic to the Caucasus was no secret in diplomatie circles, since offensive alliances with Austria, Prussia and Sweden were prerequisites for success. Such notions, however, threatened to involve the Western powers in a long, costly war, which few Englishmen, even fewer Frenchmen desired; only the Polish emigres did, and they counted for very little. Even Palmerston opposed precipitous attacks. 4
Graham's plans for dramatic naval strikes were more modest and attractive, and he won over the Foreign Office in late December. He had inherited a navy that had been beefed up to knock out Cherbourg in case of a French war. He then hoped to destroy Sevastopol and the Russian Black Sea fleet by the time the Baltic ice melted. In this way an overwhelming Anglo-French armada could launch the northern campaign that would bring Russia to the peace table in one year. Clarendon forgot about Captain Washington's report and even dreamed of dictating peace at Kronstadt. For the present, though, Graham demanded that Gallipoli be garrisoned to protect the squadrons' retreat through the Dardanelies in case of a spectacular Russian advance, and he wanted to be sure that British as weH as French troops were there. These defensive plans dovetailed with French desires to send an expeditionary force only to help the Turks defend Constantinople and the Balkan approaches down to Varna. 5
Graham's long-range schemes required a preponderance of French troops, as weH as British ships, so the British had to treat the French as equals. Napoleon refused to risk 20,000-30,000 men in an early strike on Sevastopol. Neither Cowley nor Britain's chief military engineer, Sir John Burgoygne, who stopped off at Paris en route to Constantinople, could get Napoleon to commit to an offensive plan, especially as the word was that Sevastopol could not be destroyed so quickly. French terrestrial thinking, as weIl as public opinion and Napoleon's shaky domestic situation, encouraged a more cautious approach that looked to European alliances and diplomacy to contain Russia. In contrast, English maritime supremacy and public support of vigorous action fostered Graham's forward strategy and London's
The less eager French had pressed for such explicit orders, while Palmerston was waiting on the sideline to return to the government as soon as they were accepted and the Reform Bill tabled. The instructions for Constantinople were also dispatched to St Petersburg to be communicated simultaneously to Nesse1rode. As usual, the French courted public opinion and goaded St Petersburg by publishing their dispatch in Le Moniteur, while they continued their insurance policy ofback-door plaisanteries with Russian statesmen and unofficial agents. 8
Due to heavy snows, the packet from Drouyn to Caste1bajac did not arrive until 10 January. Meanwhi1e the British and French had decided to press Buol to agree to send a collective note to St Petersburg on behalf of the still unknown Turkish reworking of the 5 December Protocol. As soon as the Turkish proposals of 31-December reached London, Russell and Clarendon were ready to treat them as an ultimatum to Russia. 9
eompromised. He allowed the Turkish response of 31 Deeember to the identieal notes, all of whieh Stratford had engineered, to serve as the response to the 5 Deeember Protocol. In return the British and French temporarily dropped the idea of formal, eolleetive pressure on Russia and allowed Buol to transmit the unanimous four-power approval of the Turkish conditions to St Petersburg. This new Protocol of 13 January 1854 earried no sanetions, but did assoeiate the German powers with the Porte's aspirations and henee the minimum goals of the Anglo-French naval intervention, whieh had just commeneed. Buol wrote as if he hoped that Russia would aeeept this peaee initiative, but he knew in fact that the Tsar would not aeeept it. 11
What was now really a headless Clarendon-Russell-GrahamPalmerston team tried to lead the English into war in the face of an angry, pro-Turkish public mood, that had viewed the government as weak and beholden to foreign interests. With the coming rupture, the press campaign against the 'traitor' Prince Albert for his German connections and Austrian orientation died down, and Queen Victoria was able to open Parliament on 31 January without incident. 19 By early February the first diplomatic BIue Books, with over 1,000 documents, were ready, and they served to prove to the public that the Cabinet had been simultaneously conciliatory and vigilant, as weIl as prudent in its escalations. As the French prepared to publish a few documents of their own in Le Moniteur, Walewski urged his superiors to suppress Napoleon's recent threat to double his squadron at the Bosphorus and enter the BIack Sea alone. The British, after all , initially concealed the accounts of the potentially compromising
The key decision that brought on the war preceded any secure commitments from the neutral powers. However, Anglo-French maritime and commereial supremacy and the prevailing doetrine that effective wartime blockades were to be respected meant that a de facto benevolent neutrality of other maritime states was to be expected. WeIl aware that they lay in the direct line of fire in any Anglo-Russian war, the Scandinavians took the lead in establishing the principles of non-belligerent maritime rights for the war. The very vulnerable Dutch and Belgians, the smaller German powers, and also three great powers - Prussia, Austria and the United States - followed this lead. 21
The United States was the potential wild card, but limited its involvement to securing neutral rights. President Pierce had spent 1853 dispatching Admiral Perry to Japan and purchasing 45,000 more
Concemed Prussians from various quarters bombarded the king and Manteuffel with unsolicited suggestions. Some ultra-conservatives like Rochow, bought Nesselrode's arguments for Holy Alliance solidarity against the West. Material reality, if not sentiment, neutralized such types, since the Prussian military men did not believe that Russia could supply the needed 200,000 troops Rochow promised against the French. There were only two serious options for Prussia: joining with England, as Berlin's envoy to London, Christian von Bunsen, suggested, or remaining neutral. Several variants of the anti-Russian course circulated, including one that matched the wildest dreams of Palmerston and the Italians. However, in the light of the strength of Prussian conservatism and royalist sentiment, the king would side with England only if Austria were to join Russia, or if England were to guarantee Prussian territory and offer some more. Otherwise the real choice, faute de mieux, was between two types of sovereign neutrality: Austro-German and North German. 26
dilemmas to increase Prussian power in Germany.27 This was a policy that required patience and nerve, and in the long run worked. In early 1854, however, faction neutralized faction, and Prussian policy wavered, remained guarded, put a brake on both sides, and ensured there would be no land blockade of Russia. Anglo-French pressure curtailed Russia's overland imports from Belgium, whose industrialists sold seven times more materie! to France du ring the war. Berlin and Brussels paid lip-service to the analogy between maritime and terrestrial contra band, but the British themselves did not initially attempt any maritime, commercial blockade. The Russians even found ways to order English products, as weIl as to float loans in Berlin and Amsterdam. 28
Vienna's Germany-centred defensive policy required an English loan to finance the observation corps. Still the Austrians were not about to fall for any Anglo-French snares, such as an exchange whereby Piedmont acquired Lombardy and Austria the Principalities, so that London and Paris could obtain a large army to fight Russia at little cost. Rather, Buol wanted Britain and France to restrain the Turks. Yet he also explained to the Russians the limits of Austrian neutrality, appealed to Nicholas to accept the 13 ]anuary Protocol, and threatened hirn with an Anglo-French victory and the opening of the Straits. 30
The Tsar, to all intents and purposes, was reduced to desperation diplomacy by early January. Actually he had been acting somewhat like a desperado on the international scene since he had mobilized a fleet and two corps a year earlier and dispatched Menshikov to Constantinople, but now his blank cheques had been cashed and he had to pay up. As a result he had been trying his hand at personal diplomacy, going over the heads or behind the backs of the regular foreign policy establishments. This too did not work very weil . Queen Victoria and Francis Joseph heeded their foreign offices in matters of sovereign-sovereign relations; the unstable Frederick William IV in his heart of hearts wanted a five-power protectorate over the Ottoman Christians; and the latter' s brother and heir William favoured Britain over Russia.
