It
has been urged against him that his recommendation of the famous
Vienna Note to the Porte was official merely, and allowed the
watchful Turks to assume his personal approbation of their refusal.
It may be so; his biographer does not admit so much: but it is
obvious that the Turks were out of hand, and that no pressure from
Lord Stratford could have persuaded them to accept the Note.
Further, the "Russian Analysis of the Note," escaping shortly
afterwards from the bag of diplomatic secrecy, revealed to our
Cabinet the necessity of those amendments to the Note on which the
Porte had insisted. And lastly, the passage of the Dardanelles by
our fleet, which more than any overt act made war inevitable, was
ordered by the Government at home against Lord Stratford's counsel.
Between panic-stricken statesmen and vacillating ambassadors, Lord
Clarendon on one side, M. de la Cour on the other, the Eltchi
stands like Tennyson's promontory of rock,
"Tempest-buffeted, citadel-crowned."
Napoleon at St. Helena attributed much of his success in the field
to the fact that he was not hampered by governments at home.
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