His first words to his people were a passionate justification of his father,—­“of blessed memory,”—­his aims and purposes, and a solemn declaration that he should remain true to his line of conduct, which “God and history would vindicate.”  It was a man of ordinary flesh and blood promising to act like a man of steel.  His own nature and the circumstances of his realm both forbade it.  The man on the throne could not help listening attentively to the voice of the people.  There must be peace.  The country was drained of men and of money.  There were not enough peasants left to till the fields.  The landed proprietors with their serfs in the ranks were ruined, and had not money with which to pay the taxes, upon which the prosecution of a hopeless war depended.  Victor Emmanuel had joined the allies with a Sardinian army; and the French, by a tremendous onslaught, had captured Malakof, the key to the situation in the Crimea.  Prince Gortchakof, who had replaced Prince Menschikof, was only able to cover a retreat with a mantle of glory.  The end had come.

A treaty of peace was signed March 30, 1856.  Russia renounced the claim of an exclusive protectorate over the Turkish provinces, yielded the free navigation of the Danube, left Turkey the Roumanian principalities, and, hardest of all, she lost the control of the Black Sea.  Its waters were forbidden to men-of-war of all nations; no arsenals, military or maritime, to exist upon its shores.  The fruits of Russian policy since Peter the Great were annihilated, and the work of two centuries of progress was canceled.

Who and what was to blame for these calamities?  Why was it that the Russian army could successfully compete with Turks and Asiatics, and not with Europeans?  The reason began to be obvious, even to stubborn Russian Conservatives.  A nation, in order to compete in war in this age, must have a grasp upon the arts of peace.  An army drawn from a civilized nation is a more effective instrument than one drawn from a barbarous one.  The time had passed when there might be a few highly educated and subtle intelligences thinking for millions of people in brutish ignorance.  The time had arrived when it must be recognized that Russia was not made for a few great and powerful people, for whom the rest, an undistinguishable mass, must toil and suffer.  In other words, it must be a nation—­and not a dynasty nourished by misery and supported by military force.

Men high in rank no longer flaunted their titles and insignia of office.  They shrank from drawing attention to their share of responsibility in the great calamity, and listened almost humbly to the suggestions of liberal leaders, suggestions which, a few months ago, none dared whisper except behind closed doors.  A new literature sprang into life, unrebuked, dealing with questions of state policy with a fearless freedom never before dreamed of.  Conservative Russia had suddenly vanished under a universal conviction that the hope of their nation was in Liberalism.