Klari Kingston. History Today. Volume 47, Issue 2, February 1997.
Palmerston, supporter of the Balance of Power policy, believed that Britain should use its power to maintain peace during and after the European Revolution of 1848-49. The Crimean War may have been prevented if he had agreed to mediation in the dispute between Hungary and Austria.
The European Revolutions of 1848-494 tested the viability of the Balance of Power system, which endured as the only means of maintaining the status quo in Europe. In 1815 after the Napoleonic wars, the Great Powers assembled to formulate the Treaty of Vienna designed to guarantee that no power or revolutionary movement would dominate the Continent. The key signatories included Austria, Britain, Russia and a French representative.
Although it was Austrian Foreign Minister Metternich who became most identified with the post-war order, his fall, following the outbreak of the revolution in Vienna in 1848, left Britain and Russia, the only powers unaffected by revolutionary turmoil, to assume the role of peacekeepers in Europe. The traditional British Foreign Office mode of policy during the ensuing European turmoils endeavoured to maintain peace as long as possible, by virtue of applying the principle of non-intervention.
The most controversial proponent of the Balance of Power policy during and after the revolutions was Lord Palmerston who returned to foreign affairs in 1846. He has often been described as a disobedient liberal and a keen sympathiser with the suppressed peoples of Europe, but an opposite view of him is equally valid, considering that his actions were determined by the afflictions of Europe and the condition of Britain during the period.
Palmerton’s correspondence reveals his acute awareness of the inherent complexities of Europe, part of which was struggling to shake-off the tyranny of despotism, while the fighting to maintain it. Foreign policy was his domain and he rejected undue interference from all quarters.
With respect to alliances, he held that Britain was sufficiently strong to steer its own course and not tie herself the policy of any other government. He professed to reject the notion of eternal alliances as mere phantoms, and his premise for conducting foreign affairs as he did was the eternal and perpetual interests of Britain.
According to Palmerstonian principles, the real policy of Britain was to be the champion of truth and justice, to pursue that course with moderation and prudence, not by becoming the Quixote of the world, but to give moral sanction and support wherever she thought justice prevailed or wrong had been done. But actions dictated by such imperatives must, by definition, be contingent and arbitrary, creating situations which may conflict with equally valid and perpetual interests of other nations.
In 1848-49, the Treaty of Vienna did no more than serve the interests of the Absolutist Powers, Tsarist Russia, Prussia and Habsburg Austria. The February revolution in France should have been a signal to them to abandon policies which relied on the power of bullets and bayonets. Moreover, a treaty which stipulated the partitioning by the three of Poland, Austria’s right to impose by force its administrative system in the Italian Provinces, and the suppression of smaller nations as universal conditions for the maintenance of the Balance of Power, could not but breed discontent and violence, and ultimately threaten the system with collapse.
The conservative attitude of the British aristocracy whose interests demanded the maintenance of the status quo at all cost was shared, but not accepted in its entirety, by Palmerston, who believed that if Britain were to remain a great European Power peace should be maintained by exerting, not foregoing, British influence.
This view was challenged by the leader of the peace party, Richard Cobden, who rejected both the validity of the treaty system as the only method of maintaining peace and order, as well as the Palmerstonian-type of interference. He recognised the need for impartiality in matters of dispute and argued that the dictates of self-interest necessarily exclude contending parties as competent agents for amicably settling mutual differences. Therefore, the only way to prevent wars was to establish a neutral body of arbiters.
Although in 1848 Palmerston also entertained the idea of arbitration as an alternative to treaties, as the condition of Europe changed, he rejected the notion on the grounds that no country existed in Europe which could act as unbiased arbiter between Her Majesty’s Government and another state. The Cobdenite concept of intervention by arbitration was in the widest sense liberal, transcended the boundaries of British interest, and was more pertinent to the condition of Europe than Palmerston’s adherence to the conservative dictates of the treaty systems.
At first, the British liberal bourgeoisie welcomed the Continental revolutions which, in their eyes, would weaken the other powers and increase Britain’s commercial influence in the world. But as the revolutions became increasingly threatening to the existing order, understandably, they turned against them. British interest lay in a separate part of the globe—with all her colonies, whose immense territories were greater than the European continent. Her manufacturing industry was not dependent on any European countries, excepting Portugal and Turkey, while Britain’s social order was guaranteed by the constitutional monarchy, which even the Chartist movement could not upset.
Although Palmerston would have preferred the triumph of British-type constitutional principles over absolutism he was, by virtue of the neutrality of Britain, pledged to uphold existing alliances as long as they did not threaten British interests. When the Habsburg Empire, ruled by a corrupt system of government and plagued by popular unrest, threatened to explode in the face of the Balance of Power system, Palmerston officially could not respond, but he did, on a personal level, try to influence the Austrian government to grant concessions to its citizens. In a typically Palmerstonian manner, he remarked with irony to Austrian diplomatic circles that ‘the revolutionary movement could be lowered to their real importance if foreign powers would not attach to them exaggerate significance and would rather redress their peoples’ grievances’.
Having mastered the business of foreign affairs, Palmerston always acted on the conviction that his views were undeniably right. His notion was that a Foreign Minister ought to be strictly bound to pursue the policy of the cabinet he belonged to, but that he ought to be left free to execute the ordinary details of those policies, without having every dispatch he wrote submitted to criticism and comment. If he were not allowed to do this with a certain degree of promptitude and freedom, he would lose all weight and influence with his own agents and with the agents of the other powers.
For this reason and the restriction of diplomatic conventions he resorted to another kind of politicking, which was branded by his contemporaries as ‘secret diplomacy’. Throughout his diplomatic machinations he caused a great deal of anxiety to Prime Minister Russell, as well as at court. Superficially his deeds appeared adventurous, but in essence they were nearly always of a preventive nature, designed to avoid greater calamities in the future.
Palmerston’s political reasoning and his aversion to court interference is best demonstrated by a dispute which arose between himself and Prince Albert over the future of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. While Prince Albert insisted that after the revolutions, a liberal and united Germany should assume control over these, Palmerston supported Denmark’s claim to them. Although the northern part of Schleswig was ethnically Danish, and the southern part German, the Palmerstonian scheme of things did not recognise ethnicity and nationality as politically significant criteria. Geopolitical considerations guided him to exert his influence to prevent the extension of Prussia’s borders to the west through the absorption of the two duchies.
Similar logic guided his interference in the armed conflict between Austria and the Italian provinces of Lombardy and Venice. Before the outbreak of the French revolution in 1848, he strongly advised Austria, in her own interest, to give up the two provinces to avoid possible French intervention. However, the French rising provided fresh impetus for the revolutionary movement in Italy and Palmerston’s efforts were frustrated by the turn of events.
It has been stated by some historians that Palmerston intervened in the conflict because he doubted Austria’s ability to suppress the unrest in Italy. This interpretation cannot be justified if Palmerston’s firm belief in Austria’s military strength as a counterweight against Russian expansionism is taken into account. He was evidently seriously concerned about the likely ambitions of France, especially when Foreign Minister Lamartine communicated in the Manifesto of the Powers, that France ‘reserves the right to question the legality of the 1815 treaties’, despite assurances that he respected the existing territorial arrangements.
With the knowledge that the 1815 treaties were essentially humiliating to France, and she would sooner or later want to alter her disposition, Palmerston stipulated that a united Italy might serve as a wedge between the ambitious France on the one hand, and Austria on the other. For the sake of the Balance of Power in the East, Palmerston wanted Austria to rid itself of a restive and hostile Italy. For this reason, and not, as has often been stated, out of sympathy for the Italian revolutionary movement, he acted as a mouthpiece for Italian unification.
Contrary to popular belief in Britain at that time, France was not prepared to intervene in Italy, even if she were asked, nor would she offer armed support to any revolutionary effort which did not directly serve her own interests. The republican government’s only concern was to consolidate its hegemony at home and not to create a diversion abroad which would provide an opportunity for the counter-revolutionary elements to overthrow it. Palmerston pledged to prevent a conflict between the Absolutist Powers and France, and as a gesture of support, he invited the revolutionary French government to mediate with him jointly in the Italian-Austrian dispute. This action, greatly disapproved of by Queen Victoria and misunderstood by Palmerston’s colleagues, was, however, a carefully designed diplomatic move to dispel French anxiety about Britain’s apparent hostility to republicanism.
Palmerston also wanted to restore the ‘entente cordiale’ between the two countries to contain both Russia and Austria. He took matters into his own hands when President Louis Napoleon carried out a coup d’etat in 1851 and proclaimed himself emperor of France. The British Cabinet had agreed to remain entirely passive to Napoleon, but Palmerston conveyed to the French Ambassador his support for the new emperor. This action led to his dismissal as Foreign Secretary and his being treated as a traitor to Liberal principles.
The biggest threat to the European status quo, as Palmerston perceived it, was developing in the East. It arose from a conflict between the two halves of the Habsburg Empire, Austria and Hungary. This event was to reveal an aspect of Palmerston’s behaviour which underscores the assertion that he never acted out of sympathy, but only out of geopolitical considerations. He instructed the British Ambassador to Austria, Lord Ponsonby, to advise the Viennese government strongly to effect the abdication of the ‘feeble’ Emperor Ferdinand and suggested the succession of the young and inexperienced Franz Joseph, despite stipulating the constitutional complications that might arise from this act.
The forced abdication took place at the end of 1848 and the victory of reaction over the revolution in Vienna and the armed suppression of the uprising in Italy in the spring of 1849, enabaled the Viennese cabal to turn its armed vengeance against Hungary. Palmerston knew that Hungary had a constitution almost as old as Britain’s, and that it had been restored the previous year by the Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, Ferdinand V.
In anticipation of an armed conflict with Austria, the Hungarian government requested British mediation in the dispute, in order to avoid a complete rupture between the two parts of the monarchy, but Palmerston dismissed the Hungarian envoy with a note to the effect that ‘the British government had no knowledge of Hungary, except as a component part of the Austrian Empire’. In Parliament he declared that ‘the Government of Great Britain would consider it a great misfortune to Europe, if Hungary were to be separated from the Austrian Empire, and insisted that ‘a united Austrian Empire was a European necessity, and the natural ally of England in the East’.
In terms of the Balance of Power system, Palmerston’s fears that the disintegration of the Habsburg Empire could lead to Russian domination in the East were perfectly justified. The aspirations of the Slavic population to transform Austria into a Slavic empire by excluding the German element and dissecting Hungary along ethnic lines, were, at least in 1848, an unsavoury prospect. Palmerston made no secret of his concern and announced that ‘the emergence of small independent states would endanger the stability of Central and Eastern Europe’. ‘If Austria were to break up into smaller entities’, he argued, ‘it would serve the interests of the Tsar of Russia and nobody else’.
Another factor also influenced his attitude. The Christian population of the Danubian principalities was struggling to shake off the Ottoman yoke and Russia was poised to extend her influence over the whole of the Balkans, to isolate Turkey from Europe and gain control over the Straits. However sick and corrupt Turkey was, her demise was not desired under the system of the Balance of Power. She was needed as a friendly ally in the protection of British interests in the East in general, and India in particular. Palmerston believed that a united Habsburg Empire could come to Turkey’s aid against Russia in case hostilities were to break out between the two countries.
When the Hungarian army scored victories over the Austrians and the Hungarian government called on Palmerston to mediate once more, he refused again. He already knew that Austria was preparing to invite Russian arms to help suppress the Hungarians. Crushing Hungary was a matter of survival for both Austria and Russia. If the revolution were to succeed in Hungary, the democrats in Austria would have followed, as they did in 1848 and it was generally believed that their example would revolutionise occupied Poland as well as the peoples of Russia, thereby directly threatening the Balance of Power system. Very much aware of this possibility, Palmerston therefore urged the Russians to ‘carry out the pacification of Hungary as quickly as possible’.
It remains a curious paradox, however, that Austria, the ‘guarantor’ against Russian encroachment, had to rely on the potential enemy to save her from being defeated in the Hungarian theatre of war. The Russian intervention in Hungary had some serious implications for developments in the East, the first being the occupation of the Danubian principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. The principalities were under Ottoman suzerainty and Russia’s move was a blatant violation of international law which guaranteed Turkey’s neutrality. It prompted the British Ambassador to Constantinople, Sir Stratford Canning, to advise the Porte to launch a protest to Russia. Palmerston, however, was angered by Canning’s interference and directed him to advise the Porte to observe strict neutrality.
According to international law, it was the duty of the remaining powers, Britain, France and Prussia, to protest against the Russian incursion in Turkey. But in a carefully calculated diplomatic manoeuvre, Russia pre-empted a French protest by recognising the republican government, and Prussia was more interested in holding on to its part of partitioned Poland than in provoking the wrath of the Tsar. It remained up to Britain to launch a protest.
Many historians have stated that the only motive for Palmerston’s unwillingness to protest against the intervention in Hungary was the need to maintain Austria as the guardian of the Balance of Power in the East. But his reply to Prime Minister Russell’s criticism of his policies seems to contradict this view. Palmerston wrote:
It is unfortunate for Austria and for Europe that the Austrian Government should place itself in this state of dependence upon Russia, because it disqualifies Austria from being hereafter a check upon Russian ambition and encroachment.
Another portion of the letter reveals Palmerston’s realpolitik in dealing with international issues. He was not prepared to endanger Britain for the sake of settling international disputes without the support of a powerful ally. The potentially powerful ally could be only France, but in 1849, after the revolutionary upheaval, she was too weak to provide support for any British initiative in the East. Prophetically, Palmerston continues his letter:
However, we must hope for the best; and if England and France are steady, I have no doubt we shall get the Russians out of the Principalities. Russia, not knowing the full extent of the moral prostration of England as a European Power, would not lightly encounter the risk of being opposed by England, France and Turkey united.
When the Russian army crossed the Hungarian border in the summer of 1849, Palmerston sent the following dispatch to St Petersburg: ‘Her Majesty’s Government have not considered the occasion to be one which calls for any formal expression of the opinions of Great Britain on the matter’.
Her Majesty’s Britain did not protest, but public and political opinion did. During a parliamentary debate on the intervention, on the grounds that it was a European question, involving international law and international policy, a motion proposed that an address be presented to the queen, to give directions to provide the House with copies or extracts of information connected with the advance of Russian troops into the kingdom of Hungary. Palmerston was challenged over the issue by several MPs, but all he was prepared to offer was a reiteration of the need for the integrity of a united Austria for the maintenance of the Balance of Power in Europe. Adhering to his ‘secret diplomacy’, he refused to discuss the Russian occupation of the Danubian principalities and only said ‘that it was justified on the basis of self defence and bears no other consequence’. He outrightly denied the existence of any written communication or information regarding the matter.
Lord Dudley Stuart drew attention to the advance of Russian power into territories vital for British markets, such as Moldavia and Wallachia. If the Russians should succeed in Hungary, it would shut out England from one of her most important markets.
At a public meeting at the London Tavern following the Russian invasion of Hungary, Richard Cobden accused the Foreign Secretary of double standards. He allowed himself to contradict his own imperatives on nonintervention, and openly challenged Lord Palmerston to explain why Britain refused to support Hungary’s just struggle, claiming:
By a single chance, Lord Palmerston forgot to meddle, even by a lecture, in the one case at this date where he might possibly have meddled to good effect. Russia was allowed to march her armies across the territory of Turkey, through Wallachia and Moldavia, to strike a death-blow at the heart of Hungary, and yet no protest was recorded by our government against that act.
He also called for the implementation of monetary sanctions against Russia. Cobden argued that Russia could not have been able to invade Hungary if the City of London and the banks of Amsterdam had refused the financial loan requested by the Tsar.
Palmerston did not rise to the challenge. He did not offer more than a reiteration of his position concerning the importance of Austria as a great power, and never volunteered any justification, either to the House of Commons or to the public, for not registering an official protest against the Russian intervention.
Related to Britain’s role as a guardian of international law, the Hungarian case remained on the agenda of the British Parliament. A memorandum was presented to Russell and Palmerston, requesting them to offer their services to the Austrian Government to assist in a settlement of the affairs in dispute between the two parts of the Empire, to help promote peace in Central Europe. The memorandum prompted Palmerston to offer the unsolicited mediation of Her Majesty’s Government. The dispatch arrived too late, the Hungarians surrendered to the might of the Russian army.
Public protests in Britain forced diplomacy to take a potentially dangerous turn when Turkey was threatened by Austria and Russia following the Porte’s refusal to yield to their demands to extradite the Hungarian and Polish refugees from her territory. Despite facing strong opposition from higher circles, Palmerston had no choice but to rally to the support of Turkey and persuade both his and the French government to send ships to the Dardanelles.
However, the damage caused by his acquiescence to Russian incursion into Ottoman territory to crush Hungary could not be repaired, only patched up temporarily. His foreign policy—now under public and Parliamentary scrutiny—forced him to uphold international law and enforce the 1841 treaties which guaranteed Turkey’s neutrality. Under joint Anglo-French pressure, Russia and Austria did finally back down and an uneasy status quo was restored.
Paradoxically, Palmerston’s policy of non-intervention for the sake of Austria’s integrity led to the abandonment by Britain of the policy of nonintervention. It also served Russia with a precedent for the invasion three years later of the Danubian principalities, this time to challenge the Ottoman Empire’s position in Europe. This action ultimately led to the Crimean War in which Austria demonstrated its real worth to the Anglo-French alliance.
It can be no more than a matter of conjecture to say that had Lord Palmerston offered to mediate in the Austro-Hungarian dispute, perhaps the Russian intervention and subsequently, the Crimean War, could have been averted. Certainly, Richard Cobden and a number of other contemporary British politicians supported this view.
Post-Crimean British foreign policy turned truly non-interventionist and the defence and abuse of the treaty systems were to become the prerogative of the Continental Powers of France, Prussia and Russia.