Causes of the War - When Monks Collide part 2

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Mar 10, 2000

Part 1 left French Chargé d'affaires Vincent Benedetti on his way to the British Embassy following an urgent summons from British Chargé d'affaires Colonel Hugh Rose. We are in Constantinople in early March 1853

The carriage skidded to a stop on the gravel, and Benedetti hurried up the steps and immediately had himself announced into Rose's office. Hugh Rose at age 51 was already very experienced in Ottoman affairs, and was living somewhat uneasily in the shadow of Britain's maestro at the Porte, Ambassador Stratford de Redcliffe. Stratford's career had to his initial reluctance repeatedly looped back to Turkey, to the extent that he had acquired expertise, credibility, and the reputation of being able to make the Sultan do as he was told. He certainly possessed influence, and no little power, which upset the Tsar, who loathed him. But he was absent on home leave, and since it was extremely doubtful that he would ever have consulted the French on any diplomatic initiative, it was perhaps fortuitous that at this stage Hugh Rose was in charge.

After barely the time to serve sherry, Hugh got straight to the point. He had received reports of Russian troop movements on the Danube, in particular on the Moldavian border. Against the background of current political moves, this looked ominous. Tsar Nicholas II (1796-1855) had little of the charismatic charm of his brother Alexander I (1777-1825), who milked world applause over Napoleon's retreat from Moscow, although in effect Napoleon had beaten himself, and who countered criticism of his six year long alliance with Napoleon with the remark "and yet they thought I was a simpleton". Nicholas was a survivor from the divine right school of monarchy, a bastion against the 1848 revolutionary movements, and a champion of the Orthodox church, believing that it ought to suppress and absorb all other Christian churches. So he was somewhat chastened to hear that he had lost the argument over custody of the keys of the Holy Sepulchre. In February he had sent his champion, Prince Menshikov, to persuade the Sultan to see things Russia's way.

Alexander Sergeivitch Menshikov, a veteran General from the Napoleonic Wars, had as much command of diplomacy as Frank Tyson ten seconds into a weigh-in. At the Battle of Varna in 1828 he had been castrated by a Turkish cannon shot, so in spite of his liking for racy jokes, it would not have been advisable to tell him the one about the harem security guard, especially not in Constantinople. His brief was clear. The Sultan was not only going to change his mind on the custodians of the Holy Places yet again, but was going to have to grant Russia control over the entire Christian church throughout the Ottoman Empire. Immediately on arrival Menshikov deliberately snubbed the Turkish government and maintained an offensive stance throughout the negotiations, threatening war whenever they looked like getting bogged down. Hence Hugh Rose's urgent call to Vincent Benedetti.

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