and the final settlement of the quarrel between him and Turkey might still have been effected by negotiation. It is impossible to deny this, but at the same time it is impossible absolutely to affirm it. For no negotiations could have been satisfactory which did not provide some compensation for Turkey ; and it is very unlikely that the Czar would have conceded this without the compulsion of arms. But the determining cause may well have been the savage blow delivered at Sinope, which roused the impatience of the Western peoples to a pitch beyond control.
But now, with the abandonment of the Principalities, that which had hitherto been the ground of contention had suddenly vanished, and with it had vanished also the immediate concern in the quarrel of Austria and Prussia, whose alliance for the coercion of the Czar had been formed expressly " in defence of the interests of Germany." But English views had for long gone against the acceptance of a drawn game. To withdraw the Allied fleets from the Euxine without having fired a shot, while its waters were still strewed with the wrecks of the Turkish ships ; to leave the shores of Turkey unprotected, while opposite to them stood the embodied menace of Sebastopol, with its forts and arsenal, from whence had just issued the destroying squadron ; and to abandon the Ottoman Empire to the impulses of so grasping, so unscrupulous, and so vindictive a personality as that of Nicholas, had not in this latter period been included within the range of possibilities. On the first declaration of war the
Feeling excited in England. 23
French Emperor had sketched, and our Ministry had approved, a plan for the attack of Sebastopol. "In no event," said Lord Lyndhurst in June, "except that of extreme necessity, ought we to make peace without previously destroying the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, and laying prostrate the fortifications by which it is defended." On the 24th July the Times wrote, " the broad policy of the war consists in striking at the very heart of the Russian power in the East, and that heart is at Sebastopol." And its editor, Mr John Delane, who had gone to Constantinople to observe events, told Lord Stratford that if our army were to perish before Sebastopol, the first thought of the nation at home would be to raise another, and go on. And this state of feeling had been aroused by the sense entertained in this country of the dangerous nature of the Czar's designs, and of the dishonesty which had marked his pursuit of them. " It is," wrote the Queen, in discussing the causes of the war, " the selfishness, and ambition, and want of honesty of one man and his servants which has done it." Such were the circumstances in which France and England prepared to transfer their armaments from Turkey to the Crimea.
THE LANDING IN THE CRIMEA.
Prospects of the Invasion — Instructions to the British Commander — A Siege contemplated — Preparations for Invasion — The Cholera — The Fleets and Flotillas — Composition of the English Army — Its Commanders — The French Generals — Description of the Crimea — Its Products and Population — The Coast reconnoitered— The Landing Place — The Troops landed — Transport obtained.
THE land which the armies were about to invade was that known to the ancients as the Tauric Chersonese. It was quite beyond the range of the ordinary tourist, it led to nowhere, and had little to tempt curiosity. Thusjt_was__as_j:ompletely an unknown country to the chiefs of the Allied armies as it had been to Jason and his Argonauts when they voyaged thither in search of the Golden Fleece. It was known to contain a great harbour, and a city with docks, fortifications, and arsenal ; but the strength and resources of the enemy vyho would oppose us, the nature of the fortifications, and even the topography, except what the map could imperfectly show, lay much in the regions of speculation. It was believed, however, that any Russian force there must be inferior to that of the Allies, that the country would offer no serious impediments to the
Prospects of the Invasion. 25