coasts of the Netherlands, and could not be
spared for service In the Mediterranean. An appeal to France was equally
unsuccessful. She had by this time formed the siege of the citadel of
Antwerp, and was moreover naturally averse from a struggle with Ibrahim,
whose army had been organised and trained by French officers. The sultan
therefore decided to avail himself of the offers made by Russia. Indeed
he had no choice, for the news now came that on December 21 Ibrahim had
completely defeated the Turkish general, Reshid, at Konieh and that
there was no army between him and Constantinople. Muraviov was sent on a
vain mission to Alexandria with authority to cede Acre to Mehemet Ali if
he would surrender his fleet to the sultan. Ibrahim advanced to Kiutayeh
and his advance-guard came as far as Broussa. The sultan on February 2,
1833, requested the assistance of the Russian navy, and on the 20th a
Russian squadron appeared at Constantinople.

The powers that had refused to move to save Turkey from Ibrahim were
quick enough to interfere when the danger was from Russia and not from
an oriental. Ibrahim might have been expected to make a stronger ruler
than the sultan, whose fall seemed imminent. A Russian protectorate was
a different matter. Roussin, the French ambassador at Constantinople,
protested against the Russian alliance and threatened to leave
Constantinople. A French envoy was, at his suggestion, permitted to
offer Mehemet the governorship of the Syrian pashaliks of Tripoli and
Acre. On March 8 Mehemet rejected these terms, and declared that if his
own terms were not accepted within six weeks his troops would march upon
Constantinople. The sultan then turned to Russia again and asked for
troops. Fifteen thousand Russians were in consequence landed on the
shores of the Bosphorus, and in the beginning of April an army of
24,000, which had remained in Moldavia ever since the war of 1828-29,
prepared to march southwards. Constantinople at least was thus rendered
safe from Ibrahim, and there was therefore more hope that Mehemet would
come to terms. The British, French, and Austrian ambassadors spared no
effort to induce the Porte to offer terms that might be accepted, and
their representations were probably rendered the more persuasive by the
appearance of British and French fleets in the AEgean. Roussin especially
urged that it was better to surrender Syria than to reconquer it by
Russian troops. At last the sultan yielde