ABSTRACT
Benjamin Disraeli’s political strategy of winning over public opinion by a brilliant display abroad collapsed in ruins at the general election of 1880. The Conservatives, as Feuchtwanger suggests, were never Disraeli’s party as the Liberals were Gladstone’s. Disraeli discerned’, in the famous comment of The Times, ‘the Conservative workingman as the sculptor perceives the angel imprisoned in the block of marble’. For the moment, however, Disraeli’s eastern policy commanded wide support. The outbreak of war between Russia and Turkey in 1877 and the advance of Russia towards Constantinople, led to a great outbreak of ‘Jingoism’ in England and demands for war against the aggressor, a mood to which Disraeli responded by actively organising military and naval preparations against Russia and threatening war. The election of 1880 does much to illuminate the nature of Disraelian Conservatism. Disraeli’s political reputation has, on the whole, received a rough handling from present-day historians.
