At this time everything pointed to a campaign on the Danube. When the Turks declared war, the Russians in the Principalities, not yet ready to advance, remained on the defensive along the river. Omar Pasha, facing them, crossed and seized Kalafat, and desultory combats, much more calculated to exalt the military repute of the Turks than of the Russians, had gone on there during the autumn and winter. But it was obvious that it could serve no purpose to the Czar, that it must rather destroy his military along with his diplomatic repute, to let the war drag on in this way. Accordingly, by May 1854 Russian troops had been concentrated in the Principalities in sufficient force to begin an offensive movement. The preliminaries to the passage of the Balkans, in the march on Constantinople,
20 Austria's Summons to the Czar.
were to be the sieges of the Turkish fortresses of Silistria and Shumla ; and the invasion of Turkey began with the passage of the Danube by the Russians, who opened their first parallel before Silistria on the iQth May. Thus it happened that the troops of England and France, as they arrived in Turkish waters, were at first conveyed to Varna, and were now encamped between that place and Shumla, in the expectation of defending the fortresses by fighting the army in the field. But now another influence intervened, which entirely changed the aspect of the war.
On the 1 3th January 1854 the Four Powers, none of them at that time at war with Russia, had obtained the agreement of Turkey to fresh terms to be submitted to the Czar, and were sending back his envoys with an avowal of their intention to oppose his acts of aggression. Kinglake says that Nicholas had been so slow to believe that the young Kaiser could harbour the thought of opposing him in arms, that on receiving the assurance of their alienation he was wrung with grief. This is a fresh proof that his autocratic temper had been so fostered by long exercise of irresponsible power that he could no longer read facts truly where his wishes were strongly concerned ; that he believed only what he desired to believe ; and that his faith in the friendship of the Kaiser, and the pacific temper of England, had been of paramount effect in blinding him to the difficulties in his path. Well might the Prince Consort write, just after Sinope, "the Emperor of Russia is manifestly mad."
The Russians leave the Danube. 2 1
On the 36 of June, Austria, with the support now finally secured of Prussia, summoned the Czar to evacuate the Principalities. In February she had moved 50,000 men up to the frontier of the territory seized^by the Czar. Her territorial position on the north bank of the Danube is such as to enable her effectually to check a Russian invasion of Turkey in that direction. The operation can only be persisted in by first repelling the Austrian advance. For this the Czar was not prepared. He continued his operations on the river just long enough to give a victorious aspect to the valiant defence of Silistria, and to a subsequent passage of the Danube at(Giurgevo by the Turks, led by English officers. Austria was on the point of war, and had sent an officer to the English headquarters to form a joint plan of operations, when the Czar at last perceived that the pressure on him could not be resisted. The siege of Silistria was raised ; the Russians immediately began to withdraw from the Principalities, and on the 2d August they recrossed the frontier. The Austrian troops thereupon occupied, in the interests of Turkey, the territories thus abandoned.
Now Austria did not then, or afterwards, declare war against Russia. But, as has been related, France and England had done so in March. It may be, and has been, said that had the Western Powers gone step by step with Austria, leaving it to her, who had most concern in a war on the Danube, to give the word for the commencement of hostilities, the Czar would, as the event proved, have been forced to abandon his prey,
22 The Allies turn their Designs to the Crimea.