Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914
History
Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914
Great Britain -- Foreign relations; Speeches, addresses, etc., English
that Sweden was arming her fleet, with the intention of making a
demonstration against the Russian provinces in the Baltic; but the
noble Lord remonstrated with Sweden for doing so, and induced her to
disarm.] Well, there is not much difference between us. I do not think
a demonstration by a Swedish fleet on the shores of the Baltic would
have been long maintained without a corresponding demonstration of the
Russian fleet in Cronstadt, and it is pretty clear which of them would
go to the wall; and then we should have had to defend Sweden against
Russian attack; and unless we had been prepared to send a large army
to her aid, we should have sacrificed her to no purpose. I say, Sir,
the man with the interests of Russia most dearly at his heart, could
have done nothing better for Russia than stimulate Sweden into a
dispute with Russia, by inducing her to make an armed demonstration
on her shores, and thus to draw down upon her the vengeance and
overwhelming power of that empire. If Sweden had been ready to make
such a demonstration with her gunboats on the coast of Russia, and had
asked us for our advice, the best thing we could have said would have
been, 'Don't do anything half so foolish; we are not prepared to send
an army and a fleet to defend you, and don't give Russia a cause to
attack you.' But there was another empire burning with desire to
join us against Russia. Turkey, we were told by the hon. and learned
member, with 200,000 cavalry, was ready to carry demonstration to the
very walls of St. Petersburg--perhaps to carry off the Emperor himself
from his throne. What was the state of Turkey then? In 1831 she had
engaged in a war with Russia, in which, after two campaigns, her arms
were repulsed and driven back into their own empire, so that she was
compelled at Adrianople to accept conditions of peace, hard in
their nature, and demanding a sacrifice of an important part of her
territory, but to which she was advised in friendly counsel by the
British Ambassador to submit, for fear of having to endure still
worse. We are told that, two or three years after this great disaster,
Turkey was of such amazing enterprise and courage, and was furnished
with such a wonderful quantity of cavalry, that she was prepared to
send 200,000 horse (which she never had in all her life) over the
frontiers of Russia, and sweep her territory. Now this is, of all
the wild dreams that ever crossed the mind of man, one of the most
unlikely and extraordinary. But supposing all this had been true,
and that Turkey really was prepared to do all the hon. and learned
gentleman said she was, I should have given her just the same advice
that I should have offered Sweden under the same circumstances, and
should have said, 'Have you not been beaten enough? Are you mad? Do
you want the Russians to get Constantinople instead of Adrianople?
Will nothing satisfy you? We cannot come and defend you against your
powerful neighbour. She is on your frontiers, and do not give her any
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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