The Crimean War полностью

Palmerston was the first really modern politician in this sense. He understood the need to cultivate the press and appeal in simple terms to the public in order to create a mass-based political constituency. The issue that allowed him to achieve this was the war against Russia. His foreign policy captured the imagination of the British public as the embodiment of their own national character and popular ideals: it was Protestant and freedom-loving, energetic and adventurous, confident and bold, belligerent in its defence of the little man, proudly British, and contemptuous of foreigners, particularly those of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox religion, whom Palmerston associated with the worst vices and excesses of the Continent. The public loved his verbal commitment to liberal interventionism abroad: it reinforced their John Bull view that Britain was the greatest country in the world and that the task of government should be to export its way of life to those less fortunate who lived beyond its shores.

Palmerston became so popular, and his foreign policy became so closely linked to the defence of ‘British values’ in the public mind, that anyone who tried to halt the drift to war was likely to be vilified by the patriotic press. That was the fate of the pacifists, the radical free-traders Richard Cobden and John Bright, whose refusal to see Russia as a threat to British interests (which in their view were better served by trading with Russia) led to the press denouncing them as ‘pro-Russian’ and therefore ‘un-English’. Even Prince Albert, whose Continental habits were disliked, found himself attacked as a German or Russian (many people seemed incapable of distinguishing between the two). He was accused of treason by the press, notably by the Morning Advertiser (the ‘red top’ of its day), after it was rumoured that a court intrigue had been responsible for the resignation of Palmerston in December. When Palmerston returned to office it was widely reported by the more scurrilous end of the press that Albert had been sent as a traitor to the Tower of London, and crowds assembled there to catch a glimpse of the imprisoned Prince. The Morning Advertiser even called for his execution, adding for good measure: ‘Better that a few drops of guilty blood should be shed on a scaffold on Tower Hill than that a country should be baulked of its desire for war!’ Queen Victoria was so outraged that she threatened to abdicate. Aberdeen and Russell talked to the editors of all the major papers on the Queen’s behalf, but the answer they received held out little hope of an end to the campaign: the editors themselves had approved the stories, and in some cases had even written them, because they sold newspapers.³⁴

In the popular imagination the struggle against Russia involved ‘British principles’ – the defence of liberty, civilization and free trade. The protection of Turkey against Russia was associated with the gallant British virtue of championing the helpless and the weak against tyrants and bullies. Hatred of the Russians turned the Turks into paragons of virtue in the public estimation – a romantic view that had its origins in 1849 when the Turks had given refuge to the Hungarian and Polish freedom-fighters against tsarist oppression. When an Association for the Protection of Turkey and Other Countries from Partition was established by the Turcophile Urquhart at the start of 1854 it was quickly joined by several thousand radicals.