Lord John Russell, Stuart J. Reid [types of ebook readers TXT] 📗
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[36] Life of Edward Miall, M.P., by A. Miall, p. 179.
[37] Life of Lord John Russell, by Spencer Walpole, vol. ii. 232-235.
CHAPTER XIITHE VIENNA DIFFICULTY
1855
Blunders at home and abroad—Roebuck’s motion—‘General Février turns traitor’—France and the Crimea—Lord John at Vienna—The pride of the nation is touched—Napoleon’s visit to Windsor—Lord John’s retirement—The fall of Sebastopol—The Treaty of Paris.
Parliament met on January 23, and the general indignation at once found expression in Mr. Roebuck’s motion—the notice of which was cheered by Radicals and Tories alike—to ‘inquire into the condition of our Army before Sebastopol, and into the conduct of those Departments of the Government whose duty it has been to minister to the wants of that Army.’ Lord John, in view of the blunders at home and abroad, did not see how such a motion was to be resisted, and at once tendered to Lord Aberdeen his resignation. His protests, pointed and energetic though they had been, had met with no practical response. Even the reasonable request that the War Minister should be in the Commons to defend his own department had passed unheeded. Peelites, like Sir James Graham and Mr. Sidney Herbert, might make the best of a bad case, but Lord John felt that he could not honestly defend in Parliament a course of action which he had again and again attacked in the Cabinet. Doubtless it would have been better both for himself and for his colleagues if he had adhered to his earlier intention of resigning; and his dramatic retreat at this juncture unquestionably gave a handle to his adversaries. Though prompted by conscientious motives, sudden flight, in the face of what was, to all intents and purposes, a vote of censure, was a grave mistake. Not unnaturally, such a step was regarded as a bid for personal power at the expense of his colleagues. It certainly placed the Cabinet in a most embarrassing position, and it is easy to understand the irritation which it awakened. In fact, it led those who were determined to put the worst possible construction on Lord John’s action to hint that he wished to rid himself of responsibility and to stand clear of his colleagues, so that when the nation grew tired of the war he might return to office and make peace. Nothing could well have been further from the truth.
Lord John’s retirement was certainly inopportune; but it is almost needless to add—now that it is possible to review his whole career, as well as all the circumstances which marked this crisis in it—that he was not actuated by a self-seeking spirit. Looking back in after life, Lord John frankly admitted that he had committed an error in resigning office under Lord Aberdeen at the time and in the manner in which he did it. He qualified this confession, however, by declaring that he had committed a much greater error in agreeing to serve under Lord Aberdeen as Prime Minister: ‘I had served under Lord Grey and Lord Melbourne before I became Prime Minister, and I served under Lord Palmerston after I had been Prime Minister. In no one of these cases did I find any difficulty in allying subordination with due counsel and co-operation. But, as it is proverbially said, “Where there is a will there is a way,” so in political affairs the converse is true, “Where there is no will there is no way.”’ He explained his position in a personal statement in the House of Commons on the night of Mr. Roebuck’s motion. ‘I had to consider whether I could fairly and honestly say, “It is true that evils have arisen. It is true that the brave men who fought at the Alma, at Inkerman, and at Balaclava are perishing, many of them from neglect; it is true that the heart of the whole of England throbs with anxiety and sympathy on this subject; but I can tell you that such arrangements have been made—that a man of such vigour and efficiency has taken the conduct of the War Department, with such a consolidation of offices as to enable him to have the entire control of the whole of the War Offices—so that any supply may be immediately furnished, and any abuse instantly remedied.” I felt I could not honestly make such a declaration; I therefore felt that I could come only to one conclusion, and that as I could not resist inquiry—by giving the only assurances which I thought sufficient to prevent it—my duty was not to remain any longer a member of the Government.’ In the course of a powerful speech Lord John added that he would always look back with pride on his association with many measures of the Aberdeen Government, and more particularly with the great financial scheme which Mr. Gladstone brought forward in 1853.
He refused to admit that the Whigs were an exclusive party, and he thought that such an idea was refuted by the fact that they had consented to serve in a Coalition Government. ‘I believe that opinion to have been unjust, and I think that the Whig party during the last two years have fully justified the opinion I entertained. I will venture to say that no set of men ever behaved with greater honour or with more disinterested patriotism than those who have supported the Government of the Earl of Aberdeen. It is my pride, and it will ever be my pride to the last day of my life, to have belonged to a party which, as I consider, upholds the true principles of freedom; and it will ever be my constant endeavour to preserve the principles and to tread in the paths which the Whig party have laid down for the guidance of their conduct.’ Lord John made no attempt to disguise the gravity of the crisis, and the following admission might almost be said to have sealed the fate of the Ministry: ‘Sir, I must say that there is something, with all the official knowledge to which I have had access, that to me is inexplicable in the state of our army. If I had been told, as a reason against the expedition to the Crimea last year, that your troops would be seven miles from the sea, and that—at that seven miles’ distance—they would be in want of food, of clothing, and of shelter to such a degree that they would perish at the rate of from ninety to a hundred a day, I should have considered such a prediction as utterly preposterous, and such a picture of the expedition as entirely fanciful and absurd. We are all, however, forced to confess the notoriety of that melancholy state of things.’ Three days later, after a protracted and heated debate, Mr. Roebuck’s motion was carried in a House of 453 members by the sweeping majority of 157. ‘The division was curious,’ wrote Greville. ‘Some seventy or eighty Whigs, ordinary supporters of Government, voted against them, and all the Tories except about six or seven.’ There was no mistaking the mandate either of Parliament or of the people. Lord Aberdeen on the following day went down to Windsor and laid his resignation before the Queen, and in this sorry fashion the Coalition Government ignominiously collapsed, with hardly an expression of regret and scarcely a claim to remembrance.
The Queen’s choice fell upon Lord Derby, but his efforts to form an Administration proved unavailing. Lord Lansdowne was next summoned, and he suggested that Lord John Russell should be sent for, but in his case, also, sufficient promises of support were not forthcoming. In the end Her Majesty acquiesced in the strongly-expressed wish of the nation, and Lord Palmerston was called to power on February 5. For the moment Lord John was out of office, and Lord Panmure took the place of the Duke of Newcastle as War Minister, but all the other members of the defeated Administration, except, of course, Lord Aberdeen, entered the new Cabinet. Lord Palmerston knew the feeling of the country, and was not afraid to face it, and, therefore, determined to accept Mr. Roebuck’s proposals for a searching investigation of the circumstances which had attended the conduct of the war. Loyalty to their late chief, as well as to their former colleague, the Duke of Newcastle, led Sir James Graham, Mr. Sidney Herbert, Mr. Gladstone, and other Peelites to resign. Lord John, urged by Lord Palmerston, became Colonial Secretary. Palmerston shared Lord Clarendon’s view that no Government calling itself Liberal had a chance of standing without Lord John. Sir G. C. Lewis succeeded Mr. Gladstone as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Sir Charles Wood took Sir James Graham’s vacant place at the Admiralty.
Changes of a more momentous character quickly followed. Early in the winter, when tidings of the sufferings of the Allies reached St. Petersburg, the Emperor Nicholas declared, with grim humour, that there were two generals who were about to fight for him, ‘Janvier et Février;’ but the opening month of the year brought terrible privations to the Russian reinforcements as they struggled painfully along the rough winter
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