Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/15

A PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION. XI of the Straits, there now was added the wrath — the just wrath at the thought of Bulgaria — which Eussia shared with our people ; whilst moreover, this time, there blazed up the fierce hatred of race against race, incited by Pansclavonic agitation, and withal the eager, joyous desire of a newly usurping demo- cracy to use the monarch's prerogative of determining between peace or war. It may be that by greater firmness the Czar could have withstood the whole weight of this national im- pulsion, and that even with the firmness he had, he perhaps might have resisted the pressure if Fortune had smiled on his efforts ; but this was not destined to be. Having endeavoured to let the enthusiasm of his people waste itself by acquiescing in their desire to volunteer for Servia, he soon came to learn that the men he had thus suffered to join in insurrection against the Sultan were so strongly supported by the sympathy of their brethren at home, that he not only could not disown them, but was brought into the curious predicament of having to watch over their safety, as though they were troops in his service ; so that when the Turks overthrew them on the heights of Djunis, he found himself in the hapless condition of one who — without having gone to war — has some- how lost a battle. He was taken, it seems, by sur- prise, and whether losing or not his composure, he at all events astonished his own able ambassador at Con- stantinople by ordering him to send in an ultimatum without the assent of the other Powers ; and proceed-