The French fleet was ordered to go there also, and the allied squadrons made their appearance in Turkish waters about the same time.[115] The quarrel up till now had been one between France and Russia. It was thus suddenly transformed into one between France and England on the one side and Russia on the other. On the 2nd of July Prince Gortschakoff entered the Principalities; and then Austria, which had selfishly held aloof, became nervous as to the control of the Danube, and manifested a desire to act with the Western Powers. Turkey was advised not to treat Russian aggression on the Principalities as a _casus belli_, and the Porte met it with a protest, though it was very nearly forced by its fanatical Moslem subjects to declare war. In England the Government was condemned for its extreme reticence in Parliament as to the turn affairs were taking; and up to this point the Cabinet certainly committed three blunders. In the first place, they permitted Lord Stratford to encourage the Porte to resist Russia, without having come to a clear and definite determination to support that resistance by force, if Russia proved unbending. Secondly, they relied too much on Count Nesselrode’s smooth, pacific assurances after they knew, or ought to have known, from Prince Menschikoff’s proposal of a secret treaty to the Porte, and from the warlike demonstration on the Moldavian frontier,[116] that these assurances were illusory. Thirdly, they did not meet the proposal for a secret treaty and the demonstration on the frontier by ordering Dundas to Besika Bay, and they met the occupation of the Principalities by sending Dundas, not to the Black Sea, but only to Besika Bay. Lord Aberdeen’s apologists allege that the latter step would have caused Russia to occupy Constantinople. That is a feeble defence, for subsequent events showed that Russia could not even mobilise enough troops to hold the Principalities against the Turks. The English Government did enough to irritate the Czar, and though they did not do enough to check him, they did too much to enable them to extricate themselves with honour from the quarrel. [Illustration: TOWN HALL, VIENNA.]