Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/158

128 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND CHAP, there as a means of extorting an engagement which ' would soothe the pride of the Orthodox Church, and tighten the rein by which he was always seeking to make the Turks feel his power. Tiie vain concealments and misrepresentations by which he accompanied this effort of violent diplo- macy were hardly worthy to be ranked as exer- cises of statecraft, for in reality, they owed their origin to the clashing impulses of a mind in con- flict with itself. Originally, the Czar had no thought of going to war for the sake of obtaining tliis engagement, and least of all had he any thought of going to war with England. At first, he thought to obtain it by surprise ; and, when that attempt failed, he still hoped to obtain it by resolute pressure, because he reckoned that if the great Powers would compare the slenderness of the required concession with the evils of a great war, there could be no question how they would choose. As soon as the diplomatic strife at Constanti- nople began to work, the Czar got heated by it ; and when at lengtli he found himself not only contending for his Church, but contending too with his ancient enemy, he so often lost all self- command, that what he did in his politic intervals was never enough to undo the evil which he wrought in his fits of pious zeal and of rage. And when, with a cruel grace, and before the eyes of all Europe, Lord Stratford disposed of Prince Mentschikoff, it must be owned that it was liard for a ])roud man in the place of the Czar to have