menu_book Chapter 6

Section 6 of From Metternicht to Bismarck by Lionel Cecil Jain. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 2. The Independence of Greece, Part 3. Alexander, however, made yet one more effort to settle the Greek question in union with his allies. He presented to the four cabinets a specific proposal for the division of Greece into three principalities under the suzerainty of the sultan and invited the powers to a conference

at Petersburg for the discussion of this suggestion. But while the Greeks, for their part, loudly declared that they would never agree to the partition of their country, the governments addressed show little inclination to consider the Tsarist scheme. Canning bluntly refused to take any part whatever in the conference, and Metternich, who was supported by Prussia and France, declined to countenance a project which was apparently

calculated merely to establish Russian supremacy in the Balkans. He laid down that if Greece were to be freed at all from Turkish rule, the interest of Austria demanded it must be freed so completely as to stand in no need of the protecting arm of the Tsar. In these circumstances the conference naturally failed. A mere offer of mediation unsupported by threats of intervention was presented to the port and treated with the contempt which it deserved. For the rest,

the only result of the Petersburg conference was to show how dead was the Grand Alliance, and to lead to an almost open rupture of the friendly relations between Alexander and Metternich. The sensitive, high-strung nature of the Tsar was deeply pained by this failure, and he angrily announced to the powers that he reserved to himself complete liberty of action in the eastern question. When this declaration was followed by an imperial progress into southern

Russia, war was generally considered to be imminent, and there is no doubt that Alexander was reconsidering his whole position at the moment of his death, December 1, 1825. In his pursuit of the ideal of a united Europe, he had abandoned the traditional policy of his family and had trampled on the dearest prejudices of his people. He was only too bitterly conscious of his own waning popularity, only too fully aware that he was regarded by his subjects as

little better than the betrayer of the sacred cause of the Orthodox Church, and the supreme sacrifice which he had made, a sacrifice all the more real in a man of his peculiar temperament, had been of no avail. The powers of Europe cared nothing for lofty ideals. They pursued with one accord their own selfish interests, and even Austria seemed no longer true to the creed which she had once so ably preached. Alexander remained alone, the solitary upholder of a political world

fast crumbling in ruins, and so he was driven once again to reconsider his ideals, as he had been driven to reconsider them in the past by the burning of Moscow and the baseness of so-called liberals. He debated whether he ought not to have followed where his ancestors had led, whether he had not incurred the anger of his God by allowing the blood of the slaughtered saints to cry in vain for vengeance. He questioned whether the Austrian chancellor, that enthusiastic

devotee of morality and true religion, had not been Satan's instrument to lure from the path of duty the chosen champion of the Christian faith. In the midst of such searchings of heart, death came as a welcome relief. Broken in health and spirit, tormented by visions of his murdered father and by sad memories of happier days, abandoned by his former friends and alienated from people whom he loved, thwarted where he had hoped and deceived where he had trusted,

Alexander gladly laid down a life which had become an intolerable burden to him. He had sought sympathy and found mistrust. He had desired love and gained hatred. His enthusiasms had been quenched, his dreams shattered, and at the close of life he found himself alone in the world which had failed to understand an idealism unsuited to it. His death removed all immediate danger of war, if such danger existed, since it plunged Russia

into the throes of a severe and peculiar crisis. The natural heir to the throne was the late czar's brother Constantine, who had for some years been commander of the army in Poland. The fascinations of a Polish lady, and some appreciation of his own utter incapacity for government, had led him to execute a deed renouncing his rights of succession. Alexander, for some obscure reason, had concealed, while accepting, this renunciation. The Grand Duke had continued to bear the title

and receive the honors of Tsarevich. Nor had his brother Nicholas, upon whom the crown was thus to devolve, been made acquainted with the high destiny which awaited him. As a result, the Tsar's death was followed by a strange contest of self-sacrifice, hardly paralleled except in the Roman Empire after the murder of Aurelian. Constantine was at once proclaimed by Nicholas at Petersburg. With equal alacrity, Nicholas was proclaimed by Constantine at Warsaw. Each brother hastened

to assure the other of his unalterable allegiance, and while explanations were given and received, the Russian Empire remained without any determinate head. The disaffected elements hastened to profit by this confusion. The liberal period of Alexander's reign had favored, the reactionary period had failed to crush, secret societies, and these now prepared to realize their aims. Military revolts occurred in the capital and in the southern provinces.

Soldiers, by the direction of their officers, demanded Constantine and constitution, without much clear understanding as to why they should desire either the one or the other. But no sooner had Nicholas realized that he was indeed called upon to rule Russia than he proved that he was well qualified to play the part of Tsar. In his earliest days, he showed all that iron resolution and indomitable courage which were to mark him throughout his

life. After one brief moment of doubt, the insurrection at Petersburg ended in the submission of the rioters and the execution of their ringleaders, and the southern outbreak came to an even more inglorious conclusion. The revolution of December produced little tangible result, except in giving the new Tsar a profound distaste for liberalism and confirming his constitutional belief in the merits of strong government. But it had sufficiently illustrated the fact

that the new reign meant much more than a mere change in the name of the ruling sovereign. A man of iron had succeeded, a man of almost feminine softness. In no direction was the effect of this change more apparent than in the attitude of Russia towards the Greek question. The dictum of Metternich that it passed the wit of men to foretell what the Emperor Alexander would do next, remained true to the end of the Tsar's life. He had never ceased to be torn by

two conflicting emotions, to pursue from time to time two mutually destructive policies. But Nicholas took his decision and held firmly to it. He was resolved that no consideration of ideal concerts of Europe should stand in the way of his country's interests. And as the Conference of Czernovici, and the fiasco of Petersburg had clearly indicated that he could not hope to secure the cooperation of Austria, he turned to England. He believed then, as he believed thirty years later,

that if only Great Britain and Russia could understand each other and act together, the problems of European policy would be simplicity itself. He did not at this time meet with any such rebuff as he was later to experience in somewhat similar circumstances on the eve of the Crimean War. Canning, satisfied with the practical dissolution of the Grand Alliance, was not unwilling to reach an understanding with the Tsar, and he had already made some tentative

advances to Alexander. His eagerness to prevent isolated action by Russia, the dominating factor in his eastern policy, was increased by the accession of Nicholas, and Wellington was sent to resume negotiations with the court of Petersburg. His mission resulted in the conclusion of a protocol by which the two powers agreed to offer their mediation to the contending parties, the creation of an autonomous Greek state being accepted in principle. Further progress toward

the solution of the problem was for a while interrupted by the outbreak of a war between Russia and Persia, which gave Canning cause to hope that there might be no need for him to conciliate the Tsar. This hope was falsified by the unexpectedly rapid success of the Russian arms, and it was changed into grave alarm by the vigorous policy of Nicholas. Availing himself of the fact that the destruction of the Janissaries had left the Ottoman Empire

without means of resistance, he presented to the port an ultimatum on the matters in dispute between the two governments. Mahmoud had no choice but to give way. By the Treaty of Akraman, he conceded all the demands of the Tsar, more especially agreeing to recognize the autonomy of Serbia and to evacuate Wallachia and Moldavia, which his troops had occupied since the failure of Ypsilantis' rising. The result of this diplomatic triumph soon appeared. Canning

suspected that as soon as Nicholas should be freed from the Persian war, he would settle the Greek question in a similar manner, and England thus became anxious to continue the negotiations for joint action. The other powers were invited to join in the offer of mediation, according to the Anglo-Russian protocol. Austria, irritated by the slight upon her implied in the Tsar's rapprochement with England, refused her assent, and Prussia followed obediently the lead given from Vienna.

But France, despite the arguments of Metternich, readily accepted the invitation, and the three powers concluded the Treaty of London, by which they agreed to impose an armistice on the belligerents. When the news of the treaty was communicated to those most nearly concerned, it was received as might have been expected. The Greeks gladly welcomed a much-needed breathing space. Their enemies naturally refused to sacrifice the advantages which their victories

promised to secure them. By accident, rather than by design, their refusal proved fatal to them. The Allied fleet, commanded by Codrington, appeared off Navarino in October 1827 and ordered Ibrahim to suspend active operations. He ignored the order. A chance shot led to a general engagement, and in a few hours the Egyptian navy was annihilated and the cause of Greek independence won. But this fact was not fully appreciated even by the three powers,

and it was not in the least appreciated by the port. Canning had died just before the battle, and had been succeeded by Wellington, who was thoroughly alarmed by the unexpected turn that events had taken. Navarino, which he took occasion to describe as untoward in the king's speech, seemed to him to threaten the integrity of the Ottoman Empire and thus to shake the keystone in the arch of British foreign policy. His apologetic attitude encouraged Mahmoud to assume

an air of injured innocence and to answer demands that he should accept the Treaty of London by counter-demands for reparation. And though the ambassadors left Constantinople, Nicholas in vain urged that the victory should be followed up by a joint attack on Turkey. He was left to undertake the struggle single-handed, and it was only one of those quixotic impulses which moved him from time to time that led him voluntarily to free his allies from the natural consequences

of their instability of purpose. To Great Britain he gave an assurance that his fleet would not operate in the Mediterranean, and to Europe in general that he would gain no private advantage, while he agreed that the French should be allowed to undertake the pacification of the Morea. On these conditions began that war which the diplomatists of Europe had so fearfully anticipated and so earnestly labored to prevent. The dread of a Russo-Turkish conflict had been due largely

to the confident expectation that it would result in the rapid and complete overthrow of the Ottoman Empire. But the sick man, as on so many other occasions before and since, showed astonishing vitality, and as the military skill of Nicholas did not equal his martial enthusiasm, the Russian army was far from enjoying the hoped-for parade to Constantinople. Indeed, the first campaign turned rather to the advantage of the Turks, the invaders being severely repulsed before

Silistria. That the following year was marked by a change in fortune was due almost entirely to the successful rashness of Dibic, who had assumed the command in place of the Tsar. After taking Silistria, he boldly forced the passage of the Balkans and appeared at Adrianople. His army was weak and his situation, in truth, desperate, but Mahmoud was ill-served by his intelligence department. He imagined that a vast Russian force was about to form the siege of Constantinople

and hastened to conclude peace. By the Treaty of Adrianople, September 1829, that of Ackerman was confirmed, and in addition, the Sultan accepted the Treaty of London and by consequence recognized the independence of Greece. It now remained to provide for the government and to settle the boundaries of the new state. Both questions had occupied the attention of the three powers during the progress of the war. Both were found to present considerable difficulties. Greece had

possessed, rather than enjoyed, a species of republican constitution since the early days of the revolt. Capodistrius, who had consoled himself for his dismissal from the Russian service by embracing the cause of his struggling compatriots, had secured the presidency of the Republic. His position had been somewhat precarious and its advantages few. He was extremely reluctant to resign his power at the very moment when its sweets seemed likely to

cease to be bitter. But the memory of the French Revolution was still too strong for the powers to tolerate the establishment of a republican state, even if Capodistrius had not been suspect to them as an ex-minister of the Tsar. Europe resolved on a kingdom of Greece, and the Greek president could only labor to prolong his tenure of power by painting in the gloomiest colors the situation in which a king would find himself with inadequate territory and an empty treasury.

He was successful in frightening Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, who had accepted the throne into withdrawing his acceptance on the plea that the proposed state was too small to be self-supporting. It was perhaps only the opportune assassination of Campodistrius, which at last induced Otto of Bavaria, the next selected candidate, to land in Greece in 1833. He had meanwhile secured a slightly improved frontier, the boundary being traced from Arta to Volo, and the loan necessary

to enable his kingdom to enter upon its political life. The war of Greek independence had thus ended in the addition of a new member to the family of European nations and in the first trial of one possible solution of the perennial eastern question, the gradual expulsion of the Turks from Europe by the creation of independent Christian states in the Balkan peninsula. Yet it is perhaps in neither of these facts that the real interest or importance of the

struggle and of its issue is to be found. Rather, the significance of these effects lay in the illustration which they afforded of the hollowness of the quadruple alliance and of the ultimate impossibility of controlling Europe by means of a concert of the great powers. The alliance, the attempt to settle the affairs of the continent on the basis of maintaining the status quo, as created in 1815, had in a sense weathered both the Italian gale of 1820 and the Spanish

storm of 1822. It had lost Great Britain, but it still subsisted. It went down before the hurricane in the Near East. When Canning had brought the Greek question within the pale of civilization, and when the close friendship of Austria and Russia had been strained to breaking point at Czernovici and Petersburg, the doom of the quadruple alliance, even in its modified form, had been sealed. In place of a moral dictatorship of the three absolute monarchies, England,

France, and Russia stand forth as the leaders of Europe. Austria and Prussia can merely grumble and be still. Nor was the changed situation long in receiving a dramatic illustration. The overthrow of the Bourbon monarchy and the establishment of Belgian independence may alike be attributed partly to the success of the Greeks, which had shown that the Allies were divided, and that a struggle for liberty was not always bound to fail. Circumstances were

indeed destined to bring the three Eastern powers once more into close accord, but the Treaty of London and its counterpart, the Battle of Navarino, mark the first stage in the decline and fall of the Metternich system in Europe. End of Section 6