Next, Turkey declared war against Russia (1853).  The latter Power had insisted on protecting all Christians in the Turkish dominions against the oppression of the Sultan.  England and France considered the Czar’s championship of the Christians as a mere pretext for occupying Turkish territory.  To prevent this aggression they formed an alliance with the Sultan, which resulted in the Russo-Turkish war, and ended in the taking of Sebastopol by the allied forces.  Russia was obliged to retract her demands, and peace was declared (1856).

597.  The Great Rebellion in India, 1857.

The following year, 1857, was memorable for the outbreak of rebellion in India.  The real cause of the revolt was probably a long-smothered feeling of resentment on the part of the Sepoy, or native, troops against English rule,—­a feeling that dates back to the extortion and misgovernment of Warren Hastings (S555).  The immediate cause of the uprising was the introduction of an improved rifle using a greased cartridge, which had to be bitten off before being rammed down.

To the Hindu the fat of cattle or swine is an abomination, and his religion forbids his tasting it.  An attempt on the part of the British Government to enforce the use of the new cartridge brought on a general mutiny among three hundred thousand Sepoys.  During the revolt the native troops perpetrated the most horrible atrocitise on the English women and children who fell into their hands.  When the insurrection was finally quelled under Havelock and Campbell, the English soldiers retaliated by binding numbers of prisoners to the mouths of cannon and blowing them to shreds.  At the close of the rebellion, the government of India was wholly transferred to the Crown, and later the Queen received the title of “Empress of India” (1876).

598.  Death of Prince Albert; the American Civil War, 1861.

Not long after the Sepoy rebellion was quelled, Prince Albert (S589) died suddenly (1861).  In him the nation lost an earnest promoter of social, educational, and industrial reforms, and the United States a true and judicious friend, who, at a most critical period in the Civil War, used his influence to maintain peace between the two countries.

After his death the Queen held no court for many years, and so complete was her seclusion that Sir Charles Dilke, a well-known Radical, suggested in Parliament (1868) that her Majesty be invited to abdicate or choose a regent.  The suggestion was indignantly rejected; but it revealed the feeling, which quite generally existed, that “the real Queen died with her husband,” and that only her shadow remained.