The Eastern Question England and the Near East. The Crimea.

By Harold:- Temperley. (Longman. 25s.) No British scholar possesses a wider or deeper knOwledge'oe European history in the nineteenth century than Professor 'remperley. The theme of his latest work is what our fathers and grandfathers used to call The Eastern QuecAion, being interpreted, meant the gradual disintegration of the Ottoman Empire.. The problem. has been solved in our own day by the return of the Turk to his ancestral home in Asia Minor, but no subject caused our statesmen from Canning to .

Lloyd George more constant anxiety. Famoui writers such as Kinglake and the Duke of Argyll have described this or that aspect of the story. But only now, when passions have died away, has it become possible to deal with it as . calmly . as Professor Trevelyan has dealt with the age of Anne. Professor Temperley combines an unequalled mastery of the sources, printed and unprinted, with serene impartiality and an attrac- tive style. That he has visited the scenes of many historic events helps the reader to visualise the actors and the stage.

" My aim," writes the author, " is to narrate the history of England's relations with the- Near East from the death of Canning until the day when Disme: brought back ' peace

with honour' from Berlin." The first of the three volumes, carrying us to the outbreak of the Crimean war, opens with an arresting picture of Sultan Mahmud. The greatest Ottoman ruler for two centuries recalls the figure of Peter the Great, half savage, half statesman; who attempted to inodernise his backward realm. " Mahmud became convinced that the Ottoman Empire must change or perish." For this he destroyed the Janizzaries, inaugurated a more liberal policy towards his Christian subjects, developed cOnimerce; and laid the foundations of a modern unified State. If anyone could have given his country a new lease of life it was Mahmud. Yet his labours were in vain, for he was succeeded by little men. There is a tragic grandeur about hini whiCh lasciikates the reader despite his cruelties and his vices.

The Ottoman Empire, like eighteenth-century Poland and twentieth-century China, was too big to keep intact, and Book. H describes the rude challenge of Mehemet AU. That it was beaten off was due not to the strength of Turkey but to British aid. If the most enduring achievement of Palmerston's tenure of the Foreign Office between 1830 'and 1841 was the creation of an independent Belgium, his most daring exploit was his championship of the Ottoman Empire against its

formidable vassal. He had no love for the Turks, whose autocratic system offended his constitutional. sentiments. But he had no desire to see Turkey crushed between the Tsar Nicholas ;on the north and the ruler of. Egypt on the south. The fear of Russian might was growing apace, and it was an

axiom of British policy until the end of the century to keep Turkey on her legs as long as possible and thereby to bar the Russians out of Constantinople.

The problem of the Egyptian revolt was complicated by the fact that France, at that time the dominating influence in the valley of the Nile, sympathised with the rebel, and in attempting to suppress him we risked a conflict With our nearest neighbour. While some of his colleagues shivered at the prospect, the Foreign Minister coolly played his hazardous game and emerged with flying colours. Ibrahim, the gifted leader of his father's armies, was evicted front Syria and Palestine with trifling losses, Mehemet Ali was kept his place, the Ottoman dynasty was saved, and at the eleventh

hour Louis Philippe climbed down. In an interesting passage Professor Temperley • compares Palmerston and the—greatest

of his predecessors.

- He was himself the greatest personality in British fore* policy between Canning and Disraeli, and was the disciple of. the one and a model for the other. . . He was too daring in uttering tliriais of war, too ready sometimes to abandon them, too fond of lecturing foreign powers and of provoking applause from English audiences. Yet his incorrigible gaiety disguises the seriousness and solidarity of his character."

The duel between " the barbarian of genius " and the resource- fat statesman makes a thrilling story.

" The climax was long delayed, but in the end he defeated the ablest Eastern general and the ablest Eastern ruler who had yet ntenaced the Turkish Empire."

The third Book describes the uneasy years between 'the' collapse of Mehemet Ali in 1841 and the _approach a the

Crimean war. Half-hearted attempts at reform were made at Constantinople ; Druse and Maronite flew at each other's throats in the Lebanon ; Bosnia rebelled.; ..the.-Montenegrins fought another round with the Turks ; the commanding figure of Stratford Canning advanced to the centre of the stage. We

can now see, what was hidden from most eyes a century ago, that the Turkish Empire was on the downgrade, and that the. decline could not be arrested either by reforming efforts withia or by interested assistance from without. Turks cannot govern Christians.

Book IV, on the coming of the Crimean war,, reaches more familiar ground, and it is interesting to note the verdicts on the main actors in the drama. In his old 'age GladitOne used to say that Aberdeen was the best public man with whom he ever worked ; but nobody was less fitted for the post of Prime Minister when dark elotids gathered in the sky. His Cabinet was filled with celebrities, but they were hopelessly. divided. Palmerston and Russell preached vigorous action, Aberdeen was paralysed by his dread of war, while Clarendon, the Foreign Minister, oscillated between the two sides. Too many cooks 'spoiled. the biuth., ConvinoSed iliac Aberdeen would never fight, the Tsar took risks that he would never have dared had Palmerston been at the helm. Yet the Tsar's plan of an understanding with England was in no way aerime, and he was . only one of the men responsible for war. Napoleon III was another. Stratford Canning's modest share is discirs.sed in some of the most interesting pages in the book. and indeed, the figure of the great Ambassador dominates the closing chapters. The Crimean conflict was no more inevitable than that of 1914. "Had Nicholas been weak, Aberdeen strong, or Mensikov tactful, there might have been no war." The author returns to the problem of responsibilities in an appendix which should be carefully. studied. Its lesson, and indeed the lesson of the whole volume, is that diplomacy is the