Читаем The Crimean War полностью

I hold that the real policy of England – apart from questions which involve her own particular interests, political or commercial – is to be the champion of justice and right; pursuing that course with moderation and prudence, not becoming the Quixote of the world, but giving the weight of her moral sanction and support wherever she thinks that justice is, and wherever she thinks that wrong has been done.²⁰

Urquhart’s Russophobia may have been at odds with Britain’s foreign policy in the 1840s but it had considerable support in Parliament, where there was a powerful lobby of politicians who backed his calls for a tougher line against Russia, including Lord Stanley and Stratford Canning, who replaced Ponsonby as ambassador to Constantinople in 1842. Outside Parliament, Urquhart’s backing for free trade (the major reform issue of the 1840s) won him a broad following among Midlands and northern businessmen, who were persuaded by his frequent public speeches that Russian tariffs were a major cause of Britain’s economic depression. He also had the support of influential diplomats and men of letters, including Henry Bulwer, Sir James Hudson and Thomas Wentworth Beaumont, co-founder of the British and Foreign Review, which became increasingly hostile to Russia under Urquhart’s influence.

As the decade wore on, a mood of growing Russophobia was to be found in even the most moderate intellectual circles. Highbrow periodicals like the Foreign Quarterly Review, which had previously discounted the ‘alarmist’ warnings of a Russian threat to the liberty of Europe and British interests in the East, succumbed to the anti-Russian atmosphere. Meanwhile, among the broader public – in churches, taverns, lecture halls and Chartist conventions – hostility to Russia was rapidly becoming a central reference point in a political discourse about liberty, civilization and progress that helped shape the national identity.

Sympathies for Turkey, fears for India – nothing fuelled Russophobia in Britain as intensely as the Polish cause. Championed by liberals throughout Europe as a just and noble fight for freedom against Russian tyranny, the Polish uprising – and its brutal suppression – did more than any other issue to involve the British in the affairs of the Continent and exacerbate the tensions that led to the Crimean War.

Poland’s history could hardly have been more tormented. During the previous half-century the large old Polish Commonwealth (the Kingdom of Poland united with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania) had been partitioned no less than three times: twice (in 1772 and 1795) by all three neighbouring powers (Russia, Austria and Prussia) and once (in 1792) by the Russians and the Prussians on the grounds that Poland had become a stronghold of revolutionary sentiment. As a result of these partitions the Polish kingdom had lost more than two-thirds of its territory. Despairing of ever regaining their independence, the Poles turned to Napoleon in 1806, only to see their territory further carved up on his defeat. In 1815, in the Treaty of Vienna, the European powers established Congress Poland (an area roughly corresponding to the Napoleonic Duchy of Warsaw) and placed it under the protection of the Tsar on condition that he maintain Poland’s constitutional liberties. But Alexander never fully recognized the new state’s political autonomy – it was a tall order to combine autocracy in Russia and constitutionalism in Poland – while the repressive rule of Nicholas I further alienated many Poles. Throughout the 1820s the Russians violated the terms of the treaty – rolling back the freedoms of the press, imposing taxes without the consent of the Polish parliament, and using special powers to persecute the liberals opposed to tsarist rule. The final straw came in November 1830 when the viceroy of Poland, the Tsar’s brother, Grand Duke Constantine, issued an order to conscript Polish troops for the suppression of revolutions in France and Belgium.