THE present occasion is probably the first during the history of the last half century, in which Russia has been found openly and immediately faithless to the engagements which she has contracted at the close of a considerable war. This circumstance, far from being produced by any antecedent spirit of fidelity on the part of her government, springs from the fact that at no other period has she been compelled to an acceptance of terms so hostile to her political de signs, and so repugnant to her military traditions. Her astuteness, in truth, had previously come to the help of her morality. This observation remarkably applies to the share which she possessed in the French Revolutionary war. Even her peace with England, after the battle of Copenhagen in 1801, and her peace with France, after the battle of Austerlitz in 1805, were not attended by degrading conditions. On the latter occasion only did her arms suffer in reputation. In 1807 her diplomacy contrived to turn the defeat of Friedland to such happy account, that the peace of Tilsit, by which that campaign was concluded, opened to her a prospect of almost unlimited conquest in the East. And when her next and last struggle with Napoleon broke forth in 1812, we all remember the effectual retribution which she imposed on France, both by treaty and by arms, for the invasion of her territory and the burning of her ancient capital.

The same remark applies to each of the three great treaties which she VOL, XLIX.NO. CCLXXXIX.

concluded with the Ottoman Porte during a similar period. The treaty of Bucharest of 1812, the treaty of Akerman of 1826, and the treaty of Adrianople of 1829, were simply so many advances of dominion upon the shores of the Black Sea. The difficulties which then occasionally attended the accomplishment of the hard terms enforced by Russia upon Turkey became occasions of magnificent philippics by the former power, inveighing against the want of faith and honour alleged to be exhibited by the Porte. And although no government could have displayed a more signal dereliction of the obligations which it accepted than Russia herself in the subsequent relations of the two states, yet these derelictions were purely of an insidious character, and the Court of St. Petersburg contrived to carry out the terms that it had extorted by the sword with at least an outward show of justice and moderation. Hence the relations of Russia to her opponents are now without a precedent; and thus it has probably happened that an undue confidence has been reposed in her fulfilment of the obligations which she contracted in the Treaty of Paris.

It may be useful, in the first instance, to revert to the terms of the peace, and to glance at the general principle and object which it recognised. This treaty did not aim to be a treaty of conquest, but to be a treaty of reconstruction. It aimed merely to restore the balance between Russia and Turkey-not to

A

give to Turkey the preponderance of which it had divested Russia. The modifications in the status quo ante bellum were consequently simply such as the security of Turkey and the freedom of commerce demanded.

the

By the terms of this treaty, mutual restitution of territory conquered in the war was agreed to without a single exception. Thus the Russians surrendered Kars, and the Allies evacuated the territory of which they were in occupation in the Crimea. Even the Asiatic frontier was to remain substantially as heretofore. The changes effected by the treaty were three-fold-they were military, political, and commercial. The first of these was accomplished in the stipulation which provided that no "military-maritime arsenals" should be re-established on shores of the Black Sea-although a controversy arose as to its application to the Sea of Azoff, and to the Port of Nicolaieff. The second, or political, class of changes referred to the future government of the Moldo-Wallachian Principalities, and to the civil rights to be guaranteed to the Christians of Turkey Proper. As, however, the latter of these questions was specially exempted from the jurisdiction or interference of foreign powers, the government of the Principalities became the only "political" question of an international character raised by the treaty. This subject will absorb its full share of our attention. Finally, the third, or commercial, class of changes involved at once regulations of customs in the Russian and Turkish ports of the Black Sea, and the question of the new Bessarabian frontier demanded of Russia in the Congress, from commercial rather than from territorial considerations, and with the view of excluding Russia from all communication with, or authority over, the mouths of the Danube. Hence, as we all know, has arisen the double question of the New Bolgrad, and of the Isle of Serpents.

We are entitled to say of this treaty of peace, that its provisions were in principle just, and even admirable. We may fairly add that whenever existing difficulties are removed, it will present a mighty scheme for the renovation of the East. These considerations, how

ever, must not blind us to two practical defects in its character, which are mainly the cause of the obstacles which have presented themselves to its accomplishment. We refer, first, to the actual process by which it was arranged, either in the treaty itself, or by an understanding ancillary to it, that the concessions therein made in theory should be carried out in fact. We refer, secondly, to the ignorance of the geography of the East under which the terms of peace were settled.

In regard to the former, we advert more particularly to the manner in which the evacuation of the conquered territory was pursued on either side. The obliquity and positive unfairness of this arrangement cannot have failed to have struck the most thoughtless reader of the newspapers. We were ourselves three thousand miles from the seat of war, France was nearly two thousand-by water; and by water all our troops and stores and artillery had gone. Russia, on the other hand, was fighting, at the close of the war, exclusively on her own territory, so far as hostilities in Europe were concerned; and the army of Mouravieff in the Pashalic of Kars was in direct and close communication with the Russian frontier. Austria, meanwhile, stood in precisely similar relationsher army in Moldavia and Wallachia was but the advanced corps of her Hungarian forces; and the retrocession of her rule within her hereditary dominions would have formed the work of a few weeks only. If, therefore, any difference were to have been made in the relative evacuations of the territories agreed to be surrendered by the peace, it is clear that the Austrians and the Russians ought to have first complied with the prescribed terms: the French next, and ourselves in the last instance.

This natural order of compliance with the terms of the treaty was, however, directly inverted. England was the first to withdraw; France followed in the track; and when all our positions in front of Sebastopol had been restored to the possession of our former enemy, the Russian army of Bessarabia was still upon the Danube; the Russian army of Tiflis was still at Kars; and the Austrian forces were fixed as firm as fate in the Princi

palities. The question began, therefore, to be asked,-what, if Austria and Russia refused to move, should we have gained by war? We had destroyed Sebastopol, indeed, and a magnificent achievement we had gained-but beyond this all our reconstructive policy presupposed a certain degree of good faith on the part of Russia. We desired pre-eminently to restore freedom of commerce to the Black Sea. If Russia would not give up the territory in Bessarabia ceded by the terms of peace, what would become of the free navigation of the Danube? And if she gave the lie to her solemn territorial engagements, what expectation could we cling to for a fulfilment of her undertaking to foster the commerce of foreign nations in her own legitimate ports?

This reliance on the good faith of a power so recently assailed by arms for the grossest abrogation of political morality, indicated a singular change of opinion in regard to the policy of Russia, from the time when that government was declared by Lord John Russell, two years previously, "to have exhausted every form of falsehood." The truth remained to be evinced, that the stock of Russian duplicity was by no means at an end; and that as it was called into action to prevent the cooperation of the Western Powers in behalf of Turkey, so it was again to be resorted to with the view of preventing the accomplishment of the terms which that co-operation had theoretically enforced.

In order, however, fully to appreciate the Eastern question in all its bearings, as it has presented itself from the conclusion of the Peace of Paris to the present time-a period of nine months-it is necessary to give prominence to the anterior question of the Austrian occupation of two trans-Danubian Principalities. Into the original wisdom of that policy we do not propose now to enter at length. The arrangement was clearly effected under immense difficulties; and it was one in which eventual interests were sacrificed to immediate necessities. The forces of the Allies when the Crimean expedition was first designed were deemed insufficient even under the misconceived extent of the Russian military strength-for the

double work of protecting the line of the Danube (or that of the Pruth), and of conducting the siege of Sebastopol. If the combined forces had relied upon the importance of their operations in the Crimea, for a combination of the Russian strength in that quarter, the Russians might have indirectly relieved Sebastopol by a sudden triumph on the Danube. The only means of being armed at all points were those of calling the Austrian forces into play, in the character of auxiliaries to the Western Powers: and the only means, again, of gaining their assistance were those of granting to them the military occupation of the post of defence in the Principalities, while the Allies themselves took the post of attack in the Crimea. What, therefore, formed undoubtedly a species of strategic necessity, it may seem hard to designate as a political blunder.

But be this as it may, it is clear that a territory of considerable extent, and containing a population of between five and six millions, was surrendered to the Austrian military rule without any express stipulation for its restoration on the conclusion of peace, and without any such arrangement in the Treaty of Paris itself. There was, no doubt, an implied contract, invincible in its moral force, that this territory should be given back to Turkey immediately on the attainment of the temporary ends for which it had been designed. We have, however, lately witnessed the facility with which such a stipulation may be evaded, on even plausible grounds, until it becomes difficult to assign a period at which the execution of the terms of the peace can be calculated to take place.

When, therefore, peace had been concluded on the 31st of March last, and the Allied forces of Great Britain, France, and Turkey, had been withdrawn from the Russian territory in their occupation-there obviously remained three immediate questions of international concern to be settled, forming the basis of the new system of affairs in the East of Europe. These were first, the cession by Russia of the territory, both in Europe and Asia, which she had agreed to yield; secondly, the surrender on the part of Austria of the Danubian Principalities; and thirdly,

the establishment of a new and semiindependent form of government for those two nationalities. This, we say, formed the basis of the arrangement shadowed forth in the treaty. The superstructure to be raised upon this basis was more gradual and less definite. Among the ulterior arrangements falling within this head, were the River and European Commissions for the commerce and navigation of the Danube; the undertakings of the Russian government for the abolition of existing restrictions upon commerce, and the like. All these elements of the new system we have characterised as an indefinite superstructure, both because their exact terms and character could not be prescribed or ascertained, and because it was not designed that they should be brought immediately into force. These questions we shall scarcely find space to discuss; and the three anterior questions forming the basis of the projected arrangement now justly claim an exclusive hold upon the public mind.

We propose, therefore, to deal with these three subjects in a certain degree seriatim.

Before the difficulties now presented by the questions of Bolgrad and Serpents' Island began to be seriously entertained, it was generally understood that the Austrian and Russian evacuations were reciprocally dependant each upon the other; and that the two governments were either playing into each other's hands, or that Austria had stronger grounds for the insincerity of Russia than what, in that period of the negotiation, had transpired. It is remarkable, indeed, to notice the change which has pervaded public opinion, not only in this country but in Europe generally, in regard to the conduct of Austria, during the last three months. During the summer the indignation against that power was extreme. She was held up as reaching in point of encroachment what Naples reached in point of domestic cruelty. Her military dominion extended from the frontiers of the two Sicilies nearly to the shores of the Black Sea. At once the Papal legations and the Principalities were hers; nothing but her own will or a European war could effect their sur render to their rightful sovereigns;

and it was thought to be a question whether France and England might not have to redress, as against Austria, that balance of power which they had just restored as against Russia.

The apparent circumstances of the case at least were these :--Russia delayed to evacuate Southern Bessarabia because Austria delayed to evacuate the Principalities; and Austria postponed the evacuation of the Principalities because Russia postponed the evacuation of Southern Bessarabia. This political see-saw, proceeding ostensibly from reciprocal jealousy, possessed in reality much of the character of a secret understanding between the two powers. It was obvious that such a pretext might delay a settlement of the question quite indefinitely.

-may

It is not yet publicly known what were the motives which served to dissever Austria from this obvious tendency towards a Russian alliance; nor indeed can it even now be confidently said whether that tendency be extinct or merely dormant. But it is clear that the further development of Russian designs upon the Danube has fully awakened the old jealousy of the Muscovite at Vienna. In all probability, the definite scope thus given by Russia to her violation of the terms of peace, in her claim upon the new and almost unknown Bolgrad,-which she now asserts to be the chief town of that namehave had the effect of forming the alliance which now exists between the Courts of London and Vienna. It is true that we are without any assurance whether any definitive arrangement may have been entered into by the Austrian government for the evacuation of the Principalities. But it is not less certain that, in the present attitude of the question, no politician in the interest of Great Britain can desire to withdraw an Austrian army at present in our alliance, and thus to leave unoccupied by an adequate force a territory which the troops of Russia encompass both from the north and from the East. It is thus that the grievance of Austrian occupation has been withdrawn from the immediate topics of the day; and it is curious to observe how completely the relations of