door of the church at
Bethlehem were happily adjusted. There were only a few "business
details" to arrange, and the episode would be closed. But the trouble
was not over. Hidden away among the "business details" was the germ of a
great war. The Emperor of Russia "felt obliged to demand guarantees,
formal and positive," assuring the security of the Greek Christians in
the Sultan's dominions. He had been constituted the Protector of
Christianity in the Turkish Empire, and demanded this by virtue of that
authority. The Sultan, strengthened now by the presence of the English
and French ambassadors, absolutely refused to give such guarantee,
appealing to the opinion of the world to sustain him in resisting such a
violation of his independence and of his rights. In vain did Lord
Stratford exchange notes and conferences with Count Nesselrode and Prince
Menschikof and the Grand Vizier and exhaust all the arts and powers of
the most skilled diplomacy. In July, 1853, the Russian troops had
invaded Turkish territory, and a French and English fleet soon after had
crossed the Dardanelles,--no longer closed to the enemies of Russia,--had
steamed by Constantinople, and was in the Bosphorus.

Austria joined England and France in a defensive though not an offensive
alliance, and Prussia held entirely aloof from the conflict.

Nicholas had failed in all his calculations. In vain had he tried to
lure England into a secret compact by the offer of Egypt--in vain had he
preserved Hungary to Austria--in vain sought to attach Prussia to himself
by acts of friendship; and his Nemesis was pursuing him, avenging a long
series of affronts to France. Unsupported by a single nation, he was at
war with three; and after a brilliant reign of twenty-eight years
unchecked by a single misfortune, he was about to die, leaving to his
empire the legacy of a disastrous war, which was to end in defeat and
humiliation.

But a strange thing had happened. For a thousand years Europe had been
trying to drive Mohammedanism out of the continent. No sacrifice had
been considered too great if it would help to rid Christendom of that
great iniquity. Now the Turkish Empire,--the spiritual heir and center
of this old enemy,--no less vicious--no less an offense to the instincts
of Christendom than before, was on the brink of extermination. It would
have been a surprise to Richard the lion-hearted, and to Louis IX. the
saint, if they could have foreseen wh