556 Rivalry of Great Britain and Russia [1833

alliance was odious to every class of his subjects; he knew that, even among his Ministers, plots were afoot for bringing the Pasha of Egypt to Constantinople in order to shake off the infidel yoke. In the protection of Russia he saw the sole guarantee of his safety and of his ultimate revenge. To the dragoman of the British embassy he poured out the bitterness of his heart, contrasting the selfishness of his selfstyled friends with the generosity of his hereditary enemy. If he had thrown himself into the arms of Russia it was because Great Britain had refused to help him in his need; if she desired to win his trust, let her, like Russia, prove her goodwill by more than friendly words. For all the influence they had in the Seraglio, the British and French ambassadors might as well have left Constantinople; and the Seraglio was for the present the Government of Turkey. Mahmud remained shut up in his palace, accessible only to Orloff, and to those of his servants who for their private ends were in the Russian interest. After weeks of effort, Lord Ponsonby could find no other channel for conveying the views and the warnings of Great Britain to the Sultan's ear than Abdy Bey, the Court jester. It was clear that the ambassador had not exaggerated when he said that Turkey had become the vassal of Russia; equally clear, so it seemed, that Russia intended to use this vassalage to oust from the empire any influence but her own. A single detail may serve to illustrate this. While the messengers of the Russian embassy were supplied, on the road from the capital to Adrianople, with relays of horses by the Ottoman Government, those of the British embassy were forced to cover the whole distance without a change.

A situation at any time intolerable was rendered yet more serious by the growing rivalry of Great Britain and Russia in Central Asia, which about this time was beginning to excite the anxious attention of the chanceries. The expansion of the Tsar's empire eastward at the expense of the semi-barbarous tribes of Central Asia was, indeed, as inevitable as the similar expansion of the Company's Raj in India, and equally little the result of any far-sighted policy of conquest. In spite of the rivalry of Russian and British agents in Persia and Mesopotamia no acute questions had as yet arisen; but men had none the less begun to ask what would happen when the advancing tides should meet. Palmerston himself perceived that here was a problem whose issues might eventually overshadow the narrower question of the Near East, and remarked to the Russian charge d'affaires that the peace of Asia would be assured at the moment when Russia and Great Britain could come to a clear understanding. But the path to such an understanding was blocked for Great Britain by the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, for Russia by the Emperor Nicholas' resentment at the unholy alliance between the " legitimate " Government of England and the revolutionary monarchy of Louis-Philippe. The estrangement due to the attitude of the western Powers in the Belgian Question had been increased by the

1832-5] The Convention of Munchengratz 557

Reform Bill of 1832, by consenting to which King William IV had, in the Tsar's opinion, " thrown his crown into the gutter." In March, 1832, Nicholas had proposed to Prussia a league of the three eastern monarchies for the support of " Divine Right" against the two Powers which had " the courage to profess aloud rebellion and the overthrow of all stability." In September, 1833, the Emperors of Russia and Austria, and the Crown Prince of Prussia, met at Miinchengratz and there cemented a new " Holy Alliance," which was embodied in the formal Convention signed at Berlin on October 15. By a Convention signed at Munchengriitz it was also agreed that the three Powers should combine, not to partition, but to maintain the integrity of, the Ottoman empire; and by separate articles the contracting Powers undertook to oppose any combination threatening the sovereign power of the Sultan, either by a change of dynasty or by the extension of the rule of Mehemet Ali over the European provinces. Finally, in the event of the failure of their efforts to uphold the Ottoman Power, Russia and Austria agreed to act in perfect accord in any settlement of the reversion. In this Convention there was nothing that could not have been, with excellent effect, communicated to France and Great Britain. But, in spite of Metternich's advice, the Emperor Nicholas preferred to shroud the transaction in a dangerous mystery, rather than communicate its terms to the two Powers whom he chose to regard as for the time being outside the European Concert.

The accession to office of Sir Robert Peel, in December, 1834, first paved the way for a better understanding. The duke of Wellington, now Secretary for Foreign Affairs, was a persona grata at St Petersburg; and, though he too insisted that the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi stood in the way of any satisfactory agreement upon the Eastern Question, the relations of the two Powers were sensibly modified for the better. The Tsar, though he refused to abrogate the Treaty, consented to have it shelved among the Russian archives " as an interesting and honourable historical relic "; and, on March 16, 1835, the Duke wrote to Lord Ponsonby, countermanding the instructions of Palmerston for the eventual action of the British naval commander in the Levant.

The Tory Government was short-lived; and, though the general election of 1835 belied the alarmist views as to the probable effect of Reform, for the present no lasting change in the relations between Russia and England ensued. In April Palmerston returned to the Foreign Office, and between him, " the Jacobin" and the protector of " oppressed nationalities," and the government of Nicholas I, the possibility of any mutual confidence seemed remote. In the aspect of affairs in the East, indeed, there seemed little enough to invite it. To Lord Ponsonby, ignorant of the agreement of Miinchengratz, the intention of Russia to absorb Turkey seemed obvious. Rightly or wrongly, he attributed to the intrigues of Russian agents the

558 Relations of Great Britain and Russia [1833-9

perpetual unrest in the Ottoman Court and empire by which the Porte was kept weak and dependent. Russia had helped the Sultan against Mehemet Ali ; she was now (he thought) inciting Mehemet Ali against the Sultan, in order to rivet yet more firmly the fetters of her " protection." To Russian agents were due the grievances of which British merchants made reiterated complaints, and the obstacles which both the Porte and Mehemet Ali put in the way of the British expedition dispatched under Colonel Francis Chesney in 1835, to endeavour to establish a new mail-route to India by steamers on the Euphrates. Most serious of all, to Russian intrigues was ascribed the attack made in 1838 by Persia upon Herat, which seemed to veil the first active aggression of Russia in the direction of the Indian frontier. To this last rumour the Emperor Nicholas thought it worth while to give a personal denial. Russia, he affirmed, aimed only at securing her legitimate share of the trade of Central Asia, hitherto monopolised by Great Britain, and might in her turn justly complain of the intrigues of British agents in the border khanates and of the presence on Persian soil of a British force.

However pregnant the situation in the East may have been with future trouble, it, nevertheless, suggested no danger so immediate as to prevent Russia and England from coming to an understanding, should circumstances make it on both sides desirable. For Nicholas the moment came when the loosening of the tie of the entente between France and England gave him the long-desired opportunity of breaking, by modifying his attitude in the Eastern Question, the hated alliance of the western Powers. In May, 1839, he paved the way by sending the Tsarevich, afterwards the Emperor Alexander II, on a visit to England. His handsome presence and amiable manners appealed to the English people; and the Emperor took advantage of the good impression made in England by this visit to send over Baron Brunnow to attempt a settlement of all outstanding questions, now complicated by the renewal of the war between the Sultan and Mehemet Ali (April, 1839).

The Convention of Kiutayeh had never been considered by either of the contracting parties as establishing a permanent settlement. The very form of the concessions made by Sultan Mahmud was significant of his intention to reverse them on the earliest opportunity. Mehemet Ali held the pashaliks which constituted his empire by the ordinary tenure, subject to annual renewal; he knew that he would at once be deprived of them, and of his life, so soon as this should be in the Sultan's power, and that what he had won by the sword he must keep by the sword. The Russian squadron had scarcely left the Bosphorus, after the signing of the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, before rumours were rife as to the Sultan's intention of taking advantage of the promise of eventual Russian aid to renew the war with Mehemet Ali. Every embarrassment

1833-4] Revolt in Syria 559

of the Pasha was eagerly noted at Constantinople; Mahmud was with difficulty restrained from sending his fleet to the assistance of the rebellious Cretans; and Reshid Pasha, with the Sultan's connivance, from his command in Anatolia fomented the rapidly-growing resentment of the Syrians at the Egyptian rule. Mehemet Ali, for his part, was credited with stirring up the formidable insurrection that broke out in Albania, and intriguing at Constantinople for the deposition of Mahmud and the proclamation of his son.

It was not, however, till the spring of 1834, when the discontent of the Syrians had issued in wide-spread revolt, that the crisis became acute. The cause of the revolt is not far to seek. So long as Ibrahim, whom the Syrians had welcomed as a deliverer, had obvious need of their goodwill, they had had little cause to complain of his rule. Some, indeed, of his reforms survived : the equality of all religions before the law, and the system of government by which a divan, or council, consisting of Mussulmans and Christians, was established in every town, subject to the divan meshura at Acre, which acted as a Court of Appeal, received the revenues, appointed public officers, and reported to the Great Divan of Egypt. So far the non-Mussulman population had no cause to complain of a system which had effectually removed its sufferings and established general security. But in Syria, as in Egypt, the military exigencies of Mehemet Ali's position vitiated the whole system. A powerful army and a great revenue to support it were the conditions of his security. To obtain money, Ibrahim introduced the system of monopolies; to obtain soldiers, he had recourse to conscription. Not only silk, the staple industry of the Lebanon, but almost all the necessaries of life, down to vegetables and the gardens in which they were grown, were subjected to Government monopolies and farmed to the highest bidder; while the ruthless system of conscription, which neither spared the wild clans of the Lebanon nor the free Arabs of the desert, completed the impoverishment of the country by tearing the peasants from their fields at harvest-time and leaving the crops to rot.

The first to revolt were the Turks, resentful of the loss of their ancient privileged position. Saida, Aleppo, Damascus, Nazareth, in turn defied the Pasha. The Samaritans, and the Fellah Arabs of the Haouran and Decapolis followed suit. For a while Ibrahim was hard pressed, especially when the Druses, who had helped to crush the revolt in Damascus, turned against him. Mehemet Ali himself had to come to the assistance of his son, before, in August, his authority could be restored. But, though the revolt had been drowned in blood, the prestige of the Pasha as a deliverer from oppression was irrevocably gone; the mild system of the first months was changed; military governors replaced the Christian princes in the towns; and the whole country was flooded with troops.

On the first news of the insurgent successes Mahmud struggled, like

560 Mahmud eager to renew the war [1834-5

a hound straining at the leash, to break the diplomatic bonds that prevented him from hurrying to their assistance. He protested that it was his duty as Sultan to go to the help of his subjects when oppressed by one of his servants. Even when, to his great wrath, Russia refused to support him, in the event of his being the aggressor, he pressed on the preparations for war. He ordered Reshid to advance on Orfa, a fortress commanding the pass into Anatolia, which Mehemet Ali had improperly retained in his hands; thence he could sound the temper of the Syrians, with a view to a further advance on Damascus. To the ambassadors of Great Britain and France he urged, through the Prince of Samos, that Mehemet Ali had violated his engagements by refusing to surrender Orfa and withholding his tribute, and suggested that the Powers should aid him to force back the Pasha within the limits of Egypt and the pashalik of Acre. For months the crisis remained more or less acute. Mehemet Ali refused to pay money which he knew would be used in raising an army to attack him, or to surrender a fortress which protected the gate of Syria against an Ottoman invasion. He threatened that, should the Turkish fleet appear to the south of Rhodes, he would attack it and at the same time throw off his allegiance. In October he sounded Great Britain, France, and Austria, as to the possibility of their recognising his independence, and took the first step toward the assertion of his wider claims by describing himself as Viceroy in his correspondence with the Porte. It needed all the diplomacy of the Powers, with threats directed now to one side now to the other, to keep the peace. These were so far successful that, on December 14, Lord Ponsonby reported that there was no longer any cause to fear hostilities.

This optimism was short-lived. So early as January 21, 1835, another dispatch declared war to be imminent. The Ottoman fleet was being prepared for action; in Syria the unrest continued, and culminated, in the early spring, in a series of revolts and massacres. In May the Turkish fleet was coasting off Syria, while that of Mehemet Ali lay ready for action in Suda Bay. A fresh revolt in Albania, so opportune as to lead once more to a suspicion of Mehemet Ali's instigation, alone postponed the renewal of the war. That this was delayed for fully three years longer was due to the attitude of the Powers, who made it clear that their sympathies would not be with the aggressor. Even Russia, on whom Sultan Mahmud mainly relied, was unwilling to risk what she had already gained by plunging into an enterprise of which the issue was uncertain. She had moreover her own troubles in Poland and the Caucasus, and was impoverished by a famine; while, in the event of any change in her attitude, Austria might prove but a doubtful ally. Great Britain and France, meanwhile, acted cordially together, holding a common language, and making it clear to the Porte that, were their advice neglected, they would not go to war to save the Sultan from the consequences of his own folly. In the event of the Ottoman empire