19. K. Marx. Mazzini.- Switzerland and Austria. - The Turkish Question
19. K. Marx. Mazzini.- Switzerland and Austria. - The Turkish Question[93]
London, Friday, May 27, 1853
The presence of M. Mazzini in England is now, at last, confirmed by a quasi-official announcement in a London paper connected with him.
The trial of the Messrs. Hale, on account of the "gunpowder-plot,"[3] will not be brought before the present assizes, but will take place in August next, the Coalition Government being anxious to let time and oblivion interpose between its "discoveries" and the judicial discussion of their value.
Count Karnicky, the Austrian Charge d'Affaires at Berne, received orders from his Government, on the 21st inst., to quit his post immediately, and return to Vienna, after notifying the President of the Helvetic Confederation(1) of the rupture of diplomatic relations between Austria and Switzerland. The Bund, of the 23d, states, however, that the Austrian Envoy had already previously received permission to take a discretionary congé when he should think proper. The ultimatum of Count Karnicky is declared by the same journal to be the answer of Austria to the note of the Bundesrath,(2) of May 4. That the ultimatum contained something beside a mere answer, may be inferred from the fact, that the Bundesrath has just called upon the Fribourg Government to account for their "extreme" measures recently taken against the defeated rebels. The English journals publish the following dispatch from Berne, dated May 23:
"In consequence of the notification made by the Austrian Chargé d'Affaires to the President of the Helvetic Confederation of the rupture of diplomatic relations between Austria and Switzerland, the Federal Council has decided on putting an immediate end to the functions of the Swiss Envoy at Vienna."
The substance of this dispatch is, however, refuted by the following article in La Suisse, dated May 23:
"We are about in the same situation as Piedmont. The negotiations between the two countries are interrupted.... The Austrian Legation remains at Berne for the disposal of the ordinary current of business. The Bund says that the recall of the Swiss Chargé d'Affaires at Vienna was desirable, since he drily managed there his own affairs on pretext of transacting those of the nation, for he was merely engaged in the silk trade. Mr. Steiger is but a diplomatist of the second-hand order, and we happen to know that he understands a great deal more about silk-worms than about his official business. There was, then, no necessity for recalling such a diplomatist, since he had never been commissioned, but was already at Vienna on his own account."[3]
Let nobody imagine, therefore, that the Swiss are recalling to their memory the celebrated motto with which Loustallot adorned, in 1789, his Révolutions de Paris:
Les grands ne sont pas grands, Que parce que nous sommes à genoux. — Levons nous!
The mystery of the Swiss courage is sufficiently explained by the presence of the Duke of Genoa(3) at Paris, and that of the King of Belgium*[1] in Vienna and perhaps no less by an article in the French Moniteur of May 25th.
"No other nation must ever interpose between France and Switzerland; all other considerations must subside before this fundamental condition."
The hopes of the Prussian King(4) for the recovery of Neuchâtel, thus obtain no great encouragement. A rumor prevails, even of the formation of a French corps d'observation on the frontiers of Switzerland. Louis Napoleon, of course, would be but too glad of having an opportunity to revenge himself on the Emperors of Russia and Austria, and the Kings of Prussia and Belgium, for the contempt and ridicule with which they have loaded him during the latter months.[95] The intelligence I transmitted to you in my last,a of the rejection of the Russian ultimatum and of the formation of an anti-Russian Ministry at Constantinople has since been fully confirmed. The most recent dispatches are from Constantinople, of May 17.
"On assuming office, Reshid Pasha requested from Prince Menchikoff a delay of six days. Menchikoff refused, declaring diplomatic relations broken off, and adding that he would remain at Constantinople three days more, to make the necessary preparations for his departure, and he exhorted the Porte to reflection and to profit by the short time he should be detained."
Under date of Constantinople, May 19, we further learn:
"On the 17th, a meeting of the Divan was held, at the issue of which it was definitively resolved that the convention, as proposed by Prince Menchikoff, could not be accepted. Nevertheless, on this being notified to Prince Menchikoff, he did not quit Constantinople. On the contrary, he has opened new communications with Reshid Pasha. The day of the departure of the Russian Embassy is no longer fixed."
Contradictorily to the latter dispatch, the French Government evening organ, La Patrie, positively announces that the Government has received intelligence that Prince Menchikoff has taken his departure for Odessa, and that the occurrence had occasioned but little sensation at Constantinople. The Pays agrees with this statement, but is contradicted by the Presse.h Girardin adds, however, that if the news was correct, it might easily be accounted for.
"If Prince Menchikoff really departed from Bujukdere for Odessa, the fact is that, having failed in his mission (manqué son effet), no alternative was left to him but to withdraw, from station to station."
Some papers assert that the fleet of Admiral Delasusse has passed the Dardanelles, and is now at anchor in the Golden Horn, but this assertion is contradicted by The Morning Post. The Triester
Zeitung assures its readers that, before giving an answer to Prince Menchikoff, the Porte had asked Lord Redcliffe and M. De la Cour whether it could eventually count upon their support. To this The Times gives its solemn contradiction.
I now give you a literal translation from the Paris Siècle, containing some curious details with respect to the negotiations from May 5 to 12th at Constantinople — an exposure of the ridiculous behaviour of Prince Menchikoff, who, in the whole of this transaction, has combined in a most disgusting style, Northern barbarity with Byzantine duplicity, and has succeeded in making Russia the laughing-stock of Europe. This "Grec du Bas-Empire"a
presumed to conquer the sovereignty over a whole empire by mere theatrical performances. For Russia there remains no step from the sublime to the ridicule — a ridicule which can only be wiped out by blood. But these days of stockjobbing moneyocracy are not the days of chivalrous tournaments. The article in the Siècle0 runs thus: —
"On Thursday, the 5th of May, the day of departure of the French steam-packet, the Sublime Porte communicated copies of the firman resolving the question of the Holy Places to M. De la Cour and Prince Menchikoff. The day passed away without any declamation, without any démarche on the part of Prince Menchikoff, and all the ambassadors, thinking that question to be settled, profited by the departure of the French steamer, for the announcement of the happy turn of affairs to their respective governments. Prince Menchikoff, however, who had just accepted the firman respecting the Holy Places, dispatched, as soon as midnight had arrived, a common cavas, i.e. a gens'-d'arme, to the Minister of Foreign Affairs,0 with an ultimatum in which he demanded a sened (treaty) containing the solution of the Holy Shrines' question and the future guaranty of the privileges and immunities of the Greek Church, i.e. the most extensive protectorate of that Church for the benefit of Russia, such as would establish two distinct Emperors in Turkey — the Sultan for the Mussulmans, and the Czar for the Christians. For answering this ultimatum, the Prince allowed only four days to the Porte, requiring, besides, an immediate acknowledgment of the receipt of his ultimatum by a government officer. The Minister of Foreign Affairs returned him a kind of receipt by his aga, an inferior officer of the gendarmery. The Prince dispatched a steamer for Odessa in the course of the same night. On Friday, 6th, the Sultan, having been informed of the presentation of the ultimatum by such an unusual proceeding, called together the Divan, and gave official notice to Lord Redcliffe and M. De la Cour of what had happened. Those two ambassadors immediately concerted measures for a common policy, advising the Porte to reject the ultimatum with the greatest moderation in language and terms. M. De la Cour, besides, is said to have most formally declared that France should oppose every Convention infringing the rights secured to her by the treaty of 1740, respecting the Holy Places. Prince Menchikoff, in the meantime, had retired to Bujukdere (like Achilles to his tent). Mr. Canning, on the 9th, there requested an interview with the Prince with a view of engaging him to a more moderate conduct. Refused. On the 10th the Ministers of Ware and of Foreign Affairs, were at the Grand Vizir's, who had invited Prince Menchikoff to join him there for the purpose of attempting to arrive at a reasonable arrangement. Refused. Nevertheless, Prince Menchikoff had intimated to the Porte that he was inclined to grant a further delay of three davs. Then, however, the Sultan and his Ministers replied, that their
A Byzantine of the Eastern Roman Empire.— Ed. Below is quoted H.Lamarche's article "Affaires d'Orient.— Rejet de l'Ultimatum Russe", Le Siècle, May 26, 1853.— Ed.
resolutions were taken and that time would not modify them. This negative answer of the Porte was sent toward midnight on the 10th, to Bujukdere, where the whole of the Russian Embassy was collected, and where demonstrations for an approaching departure had been made for several days past. The Turkish Ministry, informed of this circumstance, was just about to yield, when the Sultan dismissed it and formed a new Administration."
I conclude my report on Turkish affairs by an excerpt from the Constitutionnel, showing the conduct of the Greek clergy during all these transactions.
"The Greek clergy, so deeply interested in this question, had pronounced in favor of the status quo, i.e., in favor of the Porte. They are protesting en masse against the protectorate threatened to be imposed on them by the Emperor of Russia. Generally speaking, the Greeks desire the support of Russia, but only on condition of not being subject to her direct domination. It is repulsive to their minds to think that the Oriental Church, which is the mother of the Russian Church, should ever become subordinate to the latter, a thing which of necessity would happen, if the designs of the Petersburg Cabinet should be accepted."
Tribune, No. 3791, June 10, 1853; reprinted in the New-York Semi-Weekly Tribune, No. 840, June 14, 1853
Signed: Karl Marx
Endnotes
[93] A section of this article was published under the title "The Ultimatum and After" in The Eastern Question.
[1] This article is the first in a series on the Eastern question by Marx and Engels published in the New-York Daily Tribune. The increase in tension between Russia and the Western Powers in the Near East and the Balkans in 1853 eventually led to the Crimean war. At Marx's request Engels wrote a number of articles from mid-March to early April on the basis of a brief plan suggested to him by Marx in his letter of March 10, 1853 (see present edition, Vol. 39). Marx soon joined in with articles of his own. Like most articles by Marx and Engels in the New-York Daily Tribune, this one was not republished in their lifetime. The section "Turkey", together with the other articles on the Eastern question, was included in a collection compiled by Eleanor Marx and Edward Aveling: The Eastern Question. A Reprint of Letters written 1853-1856 dealing with the events of the Crimean War, London, 1897. The collection gave Marx as the author of all the articles, since they had been published in the New-York Daily Tribune either anonymously, as editorials, or signed by Marx. Only in 1913, after the publication of the correspondence between Marx and Engels, it was discovered that many articles which Marx had sent to the newspaper were written wholly or in part by Engels. In this article Marx is the author of the sections "British Politics.— Disraeli.—The Refugees.—Mazzini in London", and Engels of the section "Turkey". In a leader for the issue that carried this article the editors of the New-York Daily Tribune wrote: "In this connection we may properly pay a tribute to the remarkable ability of the correspondent by whom this interesting piece of intelligence is furnished. Mr. Marx has very decided opinions of his own, with some of which we are far from agreeing, but those who do not read his letters neglect one of the most instructive sources of information on the great questions of current European politics." The New-York Daily Tribune was an American newspaper founded in 1841 by Horace Greeley, journalist and politician, and published until 1924. Until the mid-1850s it was a Left-wing Whig paper and after that the organ of the Republican Party. In the forties and the fifties it took a strong stand against slavery. Among its contributors were prominent American writers and journalists. Charles Dana, who was strongly influenced by the ideas of Utopian socialism, was one of its editors from the late 1840s. Marx began to write for 4 1862. The articles Marx and Engels wrote dealt with key issues of foreign and domestic policy, the working-class movement, the economic development of European countries, colonial expansion, the national liberation movement in the colonial and dependent countries, etc. During the period of reaction in Europe Marx and Engels made use of this widely-read American newspaper to expose the evils of capitalist society, its irreconcilable contradictions and the limitations of bourgeois democracy. The New-York Daily Tribune editors took on occasion considerable liberties with the articles contributed by Marx and Engels, publishing some of them unsigned in the form of editorials or making additions which often contradicted the main text. Marx protested against this repeatedly. In the autumn of 1857, when the economic crisis in the USA affected the finances of the newspaper, Marx was compelled to reduce the number of his articles. His association with the newspaper ceased entirely during the American Civil War, when advocates of a compromise with the slave-owning South gained control over it.
[95] 96 97 98 99 100 December 1852, Nicholas I, by agreement with the Austrian and Prussian courts, used the expression "Your Majesty and dear friend", instead of the usual "Your Majesty and dear brother", and called him "Emperor Louis Napoleon" and not "Emperor Napoleon III". The Austrian and Prussian courts, however, used the accepted form of address for him, but in referring to the need to observe the Vienna Congress decisions, they also hinted at the illegality of his rule since the Congress had prohibited the Bonaparte dynasty from occupying the French throne.
[3] At the sitting of the House of Commons on March 1, 1853, Palmerston formally declared that if the continental powers demanded that Britain should expel political refugees, Britain would decline. However, the statement of the Prime Minister, Lord Aberdeen, in the House of Lords on March 4 contained a promise of concessions on this question. Marx had dealt with this subject in a number of his previous reports to the New-York Daily Tribune. See also an article on this subject, "The Refugees and the London Police", in The People's Paper, No. 47, March 26, 1853.