on
Russia herself. In that case, he added, we ought to seek the alliance of
France and Austria. France would willingly join; and England and France
together might, if it were worth while, obtain the moral weight, if not
the material support, of Austria in their favour.

[Sidenote: CAUTION HAS ITS PERFECT WORK]

Lord Aberdeen responded with characteristic caution. He refused to
entertain warlike forecasts, and wished for liberty to meet the
emergency when it actually arose. Lord Palmerston, a week or two later,
made an ineffectual attempt to persuade the Cabinet to send the Fleet to
the Bosphorus without further delay. 'I think our position,' were his
words on July 7, 'waiting timidly and submissively at the back door,
whilst Russia is violently threatening and arrogantly forcing her way
into the house, is unwise, with a view to a peaceful settlement.' Lord
Aberdeen believed in the 'moderation' of a despot who took no pains to
disguise his sovereign contempt for 'les chiens Turcs.' Lord Palmerston,
on the other hand, made no secret of his opinion that it was the
invariable policy of Russia to push forward her encroachment 'as fast
and as far as the apathy or want of firmness' of other Governments would
allow. He held that her plan was to 'stop and retire when she was met
with decided resistance,' and then to wait until the next favourable
opportunity arose to steal once more a march on Europe. There was, in
short, a radical divergence in the Cabinet. When the compromise
suggested in the Vienna Note was rejected, the chances of a European war
were sensibly quickened, and all the more so because Lord Stratford,
with his notorious personal grudge against the Czar, was more than any
other man master of the situation. What that situation had become in the
early autumn of 1853 is pithily expressed in a letter of Sir George
Cornewall Lewis's to Sir Edmund Head: 'Everything is in a perplexed
state at Constantinople. Russia is ashamed to recede, but afraid to
strike. The Turks have collected a large army, and have blown up their
fanaticism, and, reckoning on the support of England and France, are
half inclined to try the chances of war. I think that both parties are
in the wrong--Russia in making unjust demands, Turkey in resisting a
reasonable settlement. War is quite on the cards, but I still persist in
thinking it will be averted, unless some accidental spark fires the
train.'[31]

[Sidenote: THE VIENNA NOTE]

The Vie