aim, founded on a treaty between Turkey and
Catherine II, was far wider, and embraced a protectorate over all
Christians of the Greek Church in Turkey, and therefore over a great
majority of the Sultan's European subjects. Such a construction of
the treaty in question, however, had always been refused by England
whenever Russia had stated it; and its assertion at this moment bore
an ominous aspect in conjunction with the views which the reigning
Czar Nicholas had made very plain to English statesmen, both when he
visited England in 1844 and subsequently to that visit. To use his
own well-known phrase, he regarded Turkey as "a sick man"--a
death-doomed man, indeed--and hoped to be the sick man's principal
heir. He had confidently reckoned on English co-operation when the
Turkish empire should at last be dismembered; he was now to find, not
only that co-operation would be withheld, but that strong opposition
would be offered to the execution of the plan, for which it had
seemed that a favourable moment was presenting itself. The delusion
under which he had acted was one that should have been dispelled by
plain English speech long before; but now that he found it to be a
delusion, he did not recede from his demands upon the Porte: he
rather multiplied them. The upshot of all this was war, in spite of
protracted diplomatic endeavours to the contrary; and into that war
French and English went side by side. Once before they had done so,
when Philip Augustus and Richard Coeur de Lion united their forces to
wrest the Holy Places from the Saracens; that enterprise had been
disgraced by particularly ugly scandals from which this was free; but
in respect to glory of generalship, or permanent results secured, the
Crimean campaign has little pre-eminence over the Fourth Crusade.

Recent disclosures, which have shown that Lord Aberdeen's Ministry
was not rightly reproached with "drifting" idly and recklessly into
this disastrous contest, have also helped to clear the English
commander's memory from the slur of inefficiency so liberally flung
on him at the time, while it has been shown that his action was
seriously hampered by the French generals with whom he had to
co-operate. From whatever cause, such glory as was gained in the
Crimea belongs more to the rank and file of the allied armies than to
those highest in command. The first success won on the heights of the
Alma was not followed up; the Charge of the Six Hundred, which has