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IV. The Negotiations for a Franco-Russian Convention, November 1856
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 December 2011
Extract
On the morrow of the Congress of Paris, the coalition of Powers which had imposed its terms on a defeated Russia was weakened by serious dissensions. Throughout the negotiations leading to the conclusion of peace, France had shown herself sympathetic to the Russian point of view, and her attitude had produced great irritation in England. Soon a dispute arising from the execution of the treaty of peace was to create further misunderstanding between the two allied countries and to reveal openly to the world the extent of their disagreement. Allied discord, however, was Russia's opportunity, and Gorchakov before long was to make a determined attempt to separate France from England and thus destroy at a blow the coalition which had defeated Russia. In the face of Gorchakov's diplomatic offensive, Napoleon would now have to show how serious had been his ‘flirtation’ with Russia and how great was the value which he still attached to his alliance with England.
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References
1 Serpents Island, situated in the Black Sea off the Sulina mouth of the Danube, had not been mentioned in Article XX of the Treaty of Paris, which gave to Moldavia the islands in the delta of the Danube. The Russians therefore claimed that Serpents Island remained Russian territory as before the war. The British Government, on the other hand, contended that as the island had never before been mentioned in an international treaty and had always been tacitly classed with the islands of the delta, it must now together with them be annexed to the principality of Moldavia.
2 Under the terms of Article XX of the Treaty of Paris, the new Russo-Moldavian frontier in Bessarabia was to be drawn south of a place called Bolgrad. The Delimitation Commission, whilst laying out the new frontier on the spot, had discovered two settlements of that name. Only one, however, had been shown on the map used by the Congress in drawing the new frontier. Russia now claimed that the township of New Bolgrad was the locality indicated by the Congress. The British Government maintained that the Congress had intended that the new frontier should be drawn south of the older settlement of Bolgrad (Tabak).
3 Serpents Island was a position of some strategic importance owing to its situation off the mouths of the Danube. New Bolgrad, claimed by Russia, was situated on the shore of Lake Yalpuck and thus had some water communication with the navigable part of the Danube, from which it had been the intention of the Congress to remove Russia.
4 Referring to this period, H. Temperley has claimed, not without some exaggeration, that there was ‘more danger of war after, than before, the peace was signed’. Temperley, H., ‘The Treaty of Paris of 1856 and its Execution’, in The Journal of Modern History, IV, no. 3 (1932), 387CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 Clarendon MSS. (in the Bodleian Library, Oxford), Cowley to Clarendon, Private 5 November 1856.
6 A(rchives du Ministère des) A(flfaires) E(trangeres), Angleterre 706, no. 128, Draft, Walewski to Persigny, 8 November 1856.
7 Hudson to Clarendon, Telegram, 13 November 1856. Copy in Windsor MSS. G.49/77. I have to acknowledge the gracious permission of His Majesty the King to make use of material from the Royal Archives, Windsor Castle.
8 Cowley MSS. (in the Public Record Office, London), Clarendon to Cowley, Private, 14 November 1856.
9 Clarendon MSS., Cowley to Clarendon, Private, 16 November 1856.
10 Cowley MSS., Clarendon to Cowley, Private, 18 November 1856.
11 ‘Si vous trouvez une compensation sérieuse.…’, Morny had written in a telegraphic despatch of a November, ‘faites la accepter d'avance par l'Angleterre et envoyez-la moi; j'espère la faire admettre par la Russie à notre considération.’ A.A.E., Russie 213, Morny to Walewski, Telegram, 2 November 1856.
12 Clarendon MSS., Cowley to Clarendon, Private, 15 November 1856.
13 Clarendon MSS., Cowley to Clarendon, Private, 19 November 1856.
14 Windsor MSS., G. 49/80, Clarendon to the Queen, 21 November 1856.
15 Cowley MSS., Clarendon to Cowley, Private, 21 November 1856.
16 F.O. 27/1138, No. 1437, Cowley to Clarendon, Confidential, 23 November 1856.
17 A.A.E., Angleterre 706, no. 134, Draft, Walewski to Persigny, 23 November 1856.
18 ‘L’Empereur mon maître’, Gorchakov had informed the gratified Morny, ‘me charge de vous dire qu'il remet entre les mains de l'Empereur Napoléon la solution de tous les différends qui existent.’ Une Ambassade en Russie 1856, Extrait des Mémoires du Due de Morny (hereafter cited as Morny), (Paris, 1892), pp. 132f.
19 By the terms of a Convention between Great Britain, France and Sardinia on the one side and Turkey on the other, signed at Constantinople on 13 May 1856, all Ottoman territory was to be evacuated by the Allies within six months of the ratification of the Treaty of Paris (cf. British and Foreign State Papers, 1855–6, XLVI, 27ff.) The ratifications of the treaty were completed on 28 April, and the Convention of 13 May should therefore have come into operation on 28 October. The British Government, however, arguing that the Convention could not be carried into effect until the general treaty to which it was annexed had been fully executed, had refused to withdraw British naval units from the Black Sea until Russia should have carried out the terms of the general Treaty with regard to Bolgrad and Serpents Island. Austria, on similar grounds, had refused to withdraw her troops from the Danubian principalities. Turkey under English pressure had decided, after some hesitation, not to enforce the closure.of the Straits to foreign warships till after the Treaty should be fully carried out. The Russian Government professed to see in the non-execution of the Convention of 13 May a breach of the Treaty of Paris.
20 Boutenko, V., ‘Un Projet d'Alliance Franco-Russe en 1856’ in Revue Historique (52e année, 1927), pp. 315fGoogle Scholar.
21 By a treaty signed at Paris on 15 April 1856, England, France and Austria had guaranteed ‘solidairement entre-Elles l'indépendance et l'intégrité de l'Empire Ottoman, consacrées par le traité conclu à Paris, le trente Mars mil huit cent cinquante six’. ‘Toute infraction aux stipulations du dit Traité’, the signatories had declared, ‘sera considérée par les Puissances signataires du présent Traité comme casus belli. Elles s'entendront avec la Sublime Porte sur les mesures devenues nécessaires et détermineront sans retard entre elles l'emploi de leurs forces militaires et navales’ (cf. British and Foreign State Papers, 1855–6, XLVI, 25 f.). The terms of this treaty bear a curious resemblance to those of the Russo-French convention proposed by Gorchakov. In fact, a joint agreement to enforce the terms of the Treaty of Paris could be used as a weapon against England and Austria as well as against Russia.
22 Charles-Roux, F., Alexandre II, Gortchakoff et Napoléon III (Paris, 1913), pp. 163fGoogle Scholar.
23 Boutenko, op. cit. p. 315.
24 Ch. Friese, , Russland und Preussen vom Krimkrieg bis zum Polnischen Aufstand (Berlin, 1931), pp. 126fGoogle Scholar.
25 A.A.E., Russie 213, Morny to Walewski, Telegram, 14 November 1856.
26 Boutenko, op. cit. p. 320.
27 Cf. Clarendon MSS., Cowley to Clarendon, Private, 19 November 1856.
28 Charles-Roux, op. cit. p. 163 and Boutenko, op. cit. p. 315.
29 Morny, op. cit. p. 137. The extent of the support which Russia was willing to give to the ambitions of Napoleon had just been outlined by Gorchakov in a secret instruction to Kisselev. Should the Emperor decide to direct his attention to the Italian peninsula, Gorchakov had declared, Russia ‘consentait d'avance à la réunion de Nice et de la Savoie à la France, ainsi qu'a celle de la Lombardie à la Sardaigne’. If on the other hand Napoleon's ambitions should be directed towards the ‘ancienne frontière du Rhin’, Russia ‘ne saurait abandonner complètement la Prusse, mais son soutien vis-à-vis de celle-ci n'irait pas au delà de l'emploi chaleureux de ses bons offices' (Boutenko, op. cit. p. 298).
30 A.A.E., Russie 212, no. 1, Morny to Walewski, 8 August 1856.
31 Brunnow to Nesselrode, 24 April (O.S.) 1856. Quoted in S. Tatishchev, Imperator Aleksandr II (St Petersburg, 1903), i, 202.
32 Clarendon MSS., Cowley to Clarendon, Private, 23 May 1856.
33 Orlov to Nesselrode, 12 May (O.S.) 1856. Quoted in Tatishchev, op. cit. 1, 204.
34 A.A.E., Russie 212, no. 4, Morny to Walewski, 17 August 1856.
35 Boutenko, op. cit. p. 320.
36 Friese considers, not perhaps without some justification, that Charles-Roux underestimated the extent to which Russia felt genuinely threatened by English naval activity in the Black Sea and by Austrian delay in evacuating the Principalities. He agrees, however, that Gorchakov's principal aim in proposing the convention was to separate France from England. Cf. Friese, op. cit. p. 126, n. 7.
37 A.A.E., Russie 213, Morny to Walewski, Telegram, 25 November 1856. Boutenko in the Russian archives found a copy of an alleged telegraphic message from Morny to Walewski, differing from the one preserved in the archives of the French Foreign Office. ‘Voulez-vous’, runs the document found by Boutenko, ‘suppléer à convention par lettres de souverain à souverain ou dépêche de Walewski à Gortchakof? Comme minimum, la dépêche que vous proposez, pourvu qu'à côté des trois points se trouve l'engagement d'unir les forces en cas de violation. En tout cas, vous auriez à télégraphier ici, au préalable, les textes' (Boutenko, op. cit. pp. 320f.). This telegram, which according to Boutenko was sent by Morny to Walewski, bears the date of 12/24 November, which is one day earlier than the slightly different telegram in the French archives. Boutenko's document is almost ‘Russian’ in tone. That in the French archives, on the other hand, Morny could hardly have shown to Gorchakov since it contained the assertion that Morny could get Russia to accept whatever formula should be proposed from Paris. It is therefore possible that the document found by Boutenko was either a draft or a blind produced by Morny to show to his friend Gorchakov.
38 Boutenko, op. cit. p. 321.
39 [Public Record Office], F.O. 146/645, no. 1420, Clarendon to Cowley, 25 November 1856.
40 Clarendon MSS., Cowley to Clarendon, Private, 26 November 1856.
41 Clarendon MSS., Cowley to Clarendon, Private, 27 November 1856. The reason for Napoleon's decision cannot be ascertained with certainty. Walewski told Cowley that though the Emperor would have preferred a system of compensation, he was frightened of the delay which this course might involve. (Clarendon MSS., Cowley to Clarendon, Private, 27 November 1856.) Both Cowley and Palmerston accepted this explanation and considered the decision a wise one (cf. ibid. Cowley to Clarendon, Private, 27 November 1856 and Palmerston to Clarendon, Private, 29 November 1856). It is impossible to say to what extent Napoleon in making his choice was influenced by the desire to put an end to the Franco-Russian negotiations.
42 A.A.E., Russie 213, Draft, Walewski to Morny, Telegram, 27 November 1856.
43 Boutenko, op. cit. pp. 321 f.
44 Ibid.
45 Morny, op. cit. pp. 169ff.
46 Ibid.
47 Clarendon MSS., Cowley to Clarendon, Private, 27 November 1856; and Cowley MSS., Draft, Cowley to Hudson, Private, 27 November 1856. Cf. also Clarendon MSS., Cowley to Clarendon, Private, 7 December 1856.
48 F.O. 27/1139, no. 1527, Cowley to Clarendon, Confidential, 12 December 1856.
49 Cowley MSS., Clarendon to Cowley, Private, 19 December 1856.
50 F.O. 27/1140, no. 1582, Cowley to Clarendon, Confidential, 21 December 1856.
51 Clarendon to Cowley, Telegram, 23 December 1856. Text in F.O. 146/648, no. 1528, Clarendon to Cowley, 24 December 1856.
52 A.A.E., Russie 213, Draft, Walewski to Morny, Telegram, 24 December 1856.
53 Ibid., Morny to Walewski, Telegrams, 26 and 27 December 1856.
54 A.A.E., Russie 213, no. 56, Draft, Walewski to Morny, 23 December 1856.
55 Gorchakov to Olga Nicolaevna, 30 November (O.S.) 1856; quoted in Friese, op. cit. P. 335.
56 Charles-Roux, op. cit.
57 Boutenko, op. cit.
58 Schüle, op. cit.
59 Charles-Roux, op. cit. p. 165.
60 Boutenko, op. cit. pp. 318f.; Friese, op. cit. p. 128; Schüle, op. cit. p. 75.
61 Boutenko at least is aware of the fact that important negotiations about a Franco-Russian convention took place three weeks after the Compiègne agreement. He explains the fact by asserting that Napoleon continued earlier negotiations, which had become meaningless after his agreement with England, in order to preserve his influence at St Petersburg (Boutenko, op. cit. p. 320). Schüle in his account resolves the same difficulty in an even more drastic manner, by post-dating the Compiègne agreement. He gives the date of Napoleon's stay at Compiègne, during which he reached agreement with Persigny and Cowley, as 34–28 November, three weeks after the actual event (Schüle, op. cit. p. 75).
62 Boutenko, op. cit. pp. 319f.
63 Cf. A.A.E., Russie 312, nos. 1 and 2, Morny to Walewski, 8 and 11 August 1856.
64 Neuf Ans de Souvenirs d'un Ambassadeur d'Autriche à Paris sous le Second Empire 1851–1859, Comte de Hübner, publiés par son fils le Comte Alexandre de Hübner (Paris, 1904), I, 442.
65 Clarendon MSS., Cowley to Clarendon, Private, 1 November 1856.
66 Clarendon MSS., Cowley to Clarendon, Private, 3 November 1856.
67 E. d'Azeglio to Cavour, 12 November 1856. Confidentielle réservée, no. LXLVI, in Cavour e l'Inghilterra, Carteggio con V. E. d'Azeglio a cura della Commissione Reale Editrice (hereafter cited as Cavour) (Bologna, 1933), ii, 75.
68 Clarendon MSS., Cowley to Clarendon, 5 November 1856.
69 E. d'Azeglio to Cavour, 12 November 1856, Cavour, ii, 75.
70 Windsor MSS. G. 49/74, Clarendon to the Queen, 11 November 1856. It is interesting to note that even Morny, in spite of occasional anti-British outbursts, appears to have believed in the value of the English alliance to France. ‘I must do him the justice’, wrote Wodehouse, whose attitude towards his French colleague was far from uncritical, ‘to say that he always gives me the impression that he really desires the preservation of the Anglo-French alliance as of more value than a Russo-French alliance—His idea is to admit Russia into the alliance.’ Clarendon MSS., Wodehouse to Clarendon, Private, 14 December 1856.
71 Cowley, in writing to Clarendon about the Compiègne agreement, observed that though the expedient was regrettable from Napoleon's point of view, it was yet ‘a source of satisfaction to see to what he can be brought for the preservation of the English Alliance.…’ (Clarendon MSS., Cowley to Clarendon, Private, 5 November 1856).
72 F.O. 27/1138, no. 1394, Cowley to Clarendon, 13 November 1856.
73 Hübner, op. cit. 1, 449.
74 Clarendon MSS., Cowley to Clarendon, 17 November 1856.