When the fleets had passed up the Dardanelles, the anger of Nicholas was very great. He had never thought that by crossing the Pruth he had given a _casus belli_; and as without such provocation the passage of the fleets up to Constantinople would have been an infraction of a well-understood treaty, he considered himself to have been grossly insulted and misused. Was it the fact that these English did intend to fight him? He was a Sovereign who had made awful preparations for war, and he was aware that the English army was, in these latter days, always maintained on a peace-footing,--what to him must have appeared a cheap and nasty military arrangement. If these English attempted to follow up their fleet, he would let them feel the weight of his right hand. But it was incumbent on him, at any rate, to punish the Turks. Therefore he sent his own fleet out from Sebastopol, and arranged matters for Sinope.
The reader must remember that during this time Lord Palmerston was Secretary of State for Home Affairs, and was by no means specially called upon to attend to this Russo-Turkish question. He had his smoke and his cemeteries, and his factories and his law courts, to look after.
THE CRIMEAN WAR;--PALMERSTON PRIME MINISTER, 1855.
The war began in earnest with the naval conflict at Sinope. It was a terrible deed, and done, we must say, altogether in revenge. The English and French fleets had gone up the Dardanelles, and by doing so had offended the proud nature of Nicholas past all immediate forgiveness. The Russian ships came out from Sebastopol, and, after hovering about the Black Sea for a fortnight, to see, probably, whether the combined fleet would interfere, and finding that the small Turkish squadron lying at Sinope was at their mercy, went in and destroyed it altogether. “It was believed by men in authority,” says Mr. Kinglake, “that 4,000 Turks were killed, and that less than 400 survived, and that all these were wounded.”[L]
England was full of wrath, and nothing would appease her anger but a conviction that now, let the Prime Minister say what he would, we should fight Russia. Looking back on the circumstance over many years, we must acknowledge that the Emperor of Russia had on his side any legal rights which a state of war can give. He, out of his own mad sense of power, had crossed the Pruth, and we,--the French, that is, and ourselves,--had on the part of our allies taken our fleets up to Constantinople. The Russians had returned back across the Pruth; but Nicholas refused to say that he would give up his idea of a protectorate. The allies had therefore gone with their fleets into the Black Sea, and there could be no doubt that a state of war existed. But the Russian Admiral had six or seven ships of the line on the spot, whereas the Turks had but seven frigates. There was no hope for them, but still they fought bravely while they had a gun to fight, and perished at last almost to a man. Our fleet, the meanwhile, was lying at the Bosphorus, and all England was angry. Nothing but war could now serve to quiet the minds of Englishmen.