Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 549 pages of information about Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914.

Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 549 pages of information about Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914.
army on her frontiers—­and we shall at once see that at the very first intimation that England was about to take up arms with France for the independence of Poland, the three armies would have fallen on the Poles, the insurrection would have been crushed, the spark of Polish independence extinguished; and all this having been done, the three Powers would have marched their armies to the Rhine, and said:  ’We shall now make France and England answer for their conduct.’  This course would have been sure to involve the country in a Continental war, for a purpose which would be defeated before the war could be terminated.  But, says the hon. member, you have very powerful allies, who would have assisted you.  France is a large military power, capable of great efforts.  Then you have Sweden, too, burning with desire to break a lance with Russia, on the question of Polish independence.  What man in his sober senses, even if Sweden made such a proposition, and were ready to join us against Russia, would not have said, ’For God’s sake, remain quiet and do nothing?’ [Mr. Anstey:  I said, that Sweden was arming her fleet, with the intention of making a demonstration against the Russian provinces in the Baltic; but the noble Lord remonstrated with Sweden for doing so, and induced her to disarm.] Well, there is not much difference between us.  I do not think a demonstration by a Swedish fleet on the shores of the Baltic would have been long maintained without a corresponding demonstration of the Russian fleet in Cronstadt, and it is pretty clear which of them would go to the wall; and then we should have had to defend Sweden against Russian attack; and unless we had been prepared to send a large army to her aid, we should have sacrificed her to no purpose.  I say, Sir, the man with the interests of Russia most dearly at his heart, could have done nothing better for Russia than stimulate Sweden into a dispute with Russia, by inducing her to make an armed demonstration on her shores, and thus to draw down upon her the vengeance and overwhelming power of that empire.  If Sweden had been ready to make such a demonstration with her gunboats on the coast of Russia, and had asked us for our advice, the best thing we could have said would have been, ’Don’t do anything half so foolish; we are not prepared to send an army and a fleet to defend you, and don’t give Russia a cause to attack you.’  But there was another empire burning with desire to join us against Russia.  Turkey, we were told by the hon. and learned member, with 200,000 cavalry, was ready to carry demonstration to the very walls of St. Petersburg—­perhaps to carry off the Emperor himself from his throne.  What was the state of Turkey then?  In 1831 she had engaged in a war with Russia, in which, after two campaigns, her arms were repulsed and driven back into their own empire, so that she was compelled at Adrianople to accept conditions of peace, hard in their nature, and demanding a sacrifice of an important
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Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.