Karl Marx

Disraeli’s Motion

["Neue Oder-Zeitung" No. 247, 31 May 1855]

London, 28 May. A “rich bill of fare”, as the elegant Gladstone says, was offered to the House of Commons in the choice between Disraeli’s motion and Baring’s amendment to Disraeli’s motion, between Sir W[illiam] Heathcote’s sub-amendment to Baring’s amendment and Mr Lowe’s counter-sub-amendment against Disraeli, Baring and Sir W. Heathcote. Disraeli’s motion contains a censure of the ministers and a war address to the Crown, the first definite, the second elastic, the two joined together by a copula accessible prior to the parliamentary thought-process. The feeble form in which the war address was wrapped was soon cleared up. Disraeli had to fear mutiny in his own camp. One Tory, the Marquess of Granby, spoke against him, another, Lord Stanley, spoke for him, but both in the sense of peace. Baring’s amendment was ministerial. It suppresses the vote of censure against the Cabinet and adopts the warlike part of the motion in Disraeli’s own terminology, merely prefacing it by stating that the House “has seen with regret that the Vienna Conferences have not led to the conclusion of hostilities”. He blows hot and cold with the same breath. “Regret” for the peace party, “continuation of the war” for the war party, a definite commitment of the Cabinet to no party—a shell-trap <Falle> for votes, black and white, text for the flute and text for the trombone. Heathcote’s sub-amendment rounds off Baring’s double-tongued amendment in a purely idyllic turn by the addition of the words: “that the House still cherishes the wish” (cherishing is a thoroughly cosy expression), “that the continuing communications lead to a successful end”. Lowe’s amendment declares, conversely, that the peace negotiations are disposed of by Russia’s rejection of the third point and thus motivates the war address to the Crown. One sees: The eclectic amendment of the Ministry has the two sides, which it sought to cover up and neutralise, standing independently and peacefully opposite each other. “Continuation of the Vienna Conferences!” cries Heathcote. “No Vienna Conference!” replies Lowe. “Vienna Conference and warfare!” whispers Baring. We shall hear the themes of this trio performed this day week, and for the present return to the debate on Disraeli’s motion, whose first evening saw only three principal and state personages figure: Disraeli, Gladstone, and Russell, the first pointed and drastic, the second smooth and casuistic, the third flat and blustering.

We do not join in the reproach that Disraeli lost sight of the “matter itself” through his personal turn against Russell. The secrets of the Russo-English war are not to be sought on the theatre of war, but in Downing Street. Russell, Foreign Secretary at the time of the secret communications of the St. Petersburg Cabinet, Russell, extraordinary envoy at the time of the last Vienna Conference, Russell, at the same time Leader <Führer> of the House of Commons, he is Downing Street walking, he is its revealed secret. Not because he is the soul of the Ministry, but because he is its Jew’s harp.

Towards the end of 1854, Disraeli relates, Russell blew the war trumpet and declared in full Parliament and amid the loud cheers <Beifall> of the House:

“that England could not lay down its arms until material guarantees had been obtained which reduced Russia’s power to dimensions harmless to Europe and thus afforded full security for the future.”

The same man was a member of a Cabinet which approved the Vienna Protocol of 5 December 1853, in which the French and English plenipotentiaries stipulated that the war must not lead to a diminution or alteration of the “material dimensions” of the Russian Empire. Clarendon, interpellated by Lyndhurst on this protocol, declared on behalf of the Ministry:

“It might be the wish of Prussia and Austria, but it was neither the wish of France nor of England that a reduction of Russian power in Europe be brought about.”

Russell denounced to the House of Commons the conduct of Emperor Nicholas as “false and fraudulent”. In July 1854 he pertly announced the invasion of the Crimea; he declared the destruction of Sevastopol to be a European necessity. He finally overthrew Aberdeen because, in his opinion, the latter was waging the war too weakly. So much for the lion’s skin; now the lion. Russell was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs for two or three months in 1853, at the time when England received the “secret and confidential correspondence” from Petersburg, in which Nicholas openly demanded the partition of Turkey, to be achieved chiefly through his pretext of a protectorate over the Christian subjects of Turkey, a protectorate which Nesselrode in his last despatch admits never existed. What did Russell do? He addressed to the English ambassador in Petersburg a despatch in which it says literally:

“The more the Turkish government adopts the rules of impartial law and equitable administration, the less will the Emperor of Russia find it necessary to exercise that exceptional protection which he has found so burdensome and inconvenient, although it is doubtless prescribed to him by duty and consecrated by treaty.”

Thus Russell concedes the point at issue from the outset. He declares the protectorate not only legal, but obligatory. He derives it from the Treaty of Kainardji. And what does the “Fourth Point” of the Vienna Congress declare? “That the erroneous interpretation of the Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainardji is the chief cause of the present war.” If we thus see Russell before the outbreak of war as the advocate of Russia’s right – now abandoned even by Nesselrode – [see], we behold him at the close of the first period of the war, at the Vienna Congress, as the representative of Russia’s honour. As soon as the real business began, on 26 March, the discussion of the third point, the Russia-devouring Russell arises and declares most solemnly:

“In the eyes of England and her allies, the best and only admissible peace conditions were those most in harmony with the honour and dignity of Russia, while securing Europe, etc.”

On 17 April, the Russian plenipotentiaries therefore declined to take the initiative of proposals on the third point, convinced after Russell’s declaration that the conditions which the allied plenipotentiaries had to offer would be conceived more in the Russian spirit than those Russia herself could hatch. But was the limitation of Russian naval power “most in harmony with Russia’s honour”? Nesselrode, in his latest circular, therefore adheres to Russell’s concession of 26 March. He quotes Russell. He interpellates him whether the proposals of 19 April were “the best and only admissible” ones. Russell appears as the patron of Russia on the threshold of the war. He appears as its patron at the close of the first period of the war, at the green table in Count Buol’s palace.

So far Disraeli against Russell. He then traced both the misfortunes on the theatre of war and the discontent in the country itself to the contradictory action of the Ministry, which was working at war in the Crimea and at peace in Vienna, combining warlike diplomacy with diplomatising war.

“I deny,” he exclaimed, “that to wage war it is sufficient to levy taxes and fit out expeditions. You must keep up the spirit of the people. That you cannot do if you constantly impress upon the country that peace is aimed at, that the whole point around which the controversy turns is, after all, of a comparatively petty character. Men undergo great sacrifices when they believe they have to encounter a colossal foe. Men undergo great sacrifices when they believe they are involved in a struggle in which the country’s reputation, its existence and its power are at stake. But when you double or treble the income tax, when you drag men away from their homes into military service, when you darken the hearts of England with sanguinary disasters, when you do all this, the people must not hear that the question is whether Russia is to keep 3 or 8 frigates in the Black Sea. ... To carry on the war with effect, it is necessary to keep up not only the spirit of the country, but also the spirit of foreign Powers. Rest assured that so long as you appeal to a foreign Power to act as mediator, that Power will never act as your ally. ... Lord Palmerston assures us that he will not conclude a dishonourable peace. The noble lord vouches for himself; but who vouches for the noble lord? ... You cannot extricate yourselves from your difficulties by means of the Vienna Conferences; you will only multiply difficulties and dangers through diplomacy. Your position is utterly false; and you can never wage a war of attack with success unless you are supported by an enthusiastic people and by allies who are convinced of your resolution. I wish the House this night by its vote to put an end to this faulty double system, a system of war and diplomacy at the same time, and to declare in open, unequivocal language the time for negotiations over. I think no one who has read Nesselrode’s circular can doubt that.”