The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford. Beresford Charles William De la Poer Beresford

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СКАЧАТЬ no better, if no worse, than the Gladstonian scheme which had been rejected, so the result upon the Conservative administration was equally injurious.

      Mr. Gladstone emerged from his studies in Papal infallibility to denounce Bulgarian atrocities and the like. But the country declined to become excited on the subject. In the meantime the Russian army was approaching Constantinople. The British Government took public measures of military and naval precaution clearly implying that Russia would not be permitted to occupy Constantinople. Prince Bismarck thereupon intervened, and invited the nations concerned to discuss matters at Berlin. Lord Beaconsfield (he had received his peerage in 1876) and Prince Bismarck were the two most powerful men in Europe. Beaconsfield chose himself to represent Great Britain at the Congress, which opened at Berlin on 13th June, 1878. Lord Beaconsfield returned in triumph, bearing with him "Peace with Honour."

      The advance of Russian influence in Afghanistan induced the British Government, in 1878, to dispatch an expedition to Cabul, which was occupied by British troops, and from which the Amir, Shere Ali, fled. Followed, the signature of the treaty of Gandamak by Yakoob Khan, son and successor of Shere Ali; the treacherous murder of Sir Louis Cavagnan, British Envoy, and the greater number of his staff; and the recapture of Cabul by British troops. The true history of the whole affair, much distorted at the time (and since) by political malice, is lucidly set forth in Lord Roberts's Forty-one Years in India, by the great soldier who took so distinguished a part in it.

      Another frontier war broke out in 1879. In South Africa, Sir Theophilus Shepstone had annexed the Transvaal; Sir Bartle Frere, Lord High Commissioner, announcing to the Zulu king Cetewayo, that Cetewayo was entitled to a strip of territory claimed both by Cetewayo and the Transvaal Republic, ordered him to disband his army. The advance of British troops was checked by their total defeat by the Zulus on 22nd January, 1879, at Isandhlwana. Lord Chelmsford the commander-in-chief, prosecuted the campaign, defeated Cetewayo and took him prisoner. During the war the young Prince Louis Napoleon, son of the Empress Eugenie, lost his life.

      In the meantime, the trade of the country had been profoundly depressed, with the natural result that there was much discontent. On 24th March, 1880, Parliament was dissolved; and the Liberal party were returned with a majority of some hundred and twenty. The Queen sent for Lord Hartington; sent for Lord Granville; and finally, for Mr. Gladstone.

      The Russo-Turkish war of 1877 had brought Russia into opposition to Austria-Hungary, thus destroying the alliance of the three Emperors; and although Bismarck made peace between the two Powers at the Congress of Berlin, Russia became estranged from Germany. In order to restore her security, Germany concluded an alliance with Austria-Hungary and shortly afterwards with Italy, which had quarrelled with France concerning her occupation of Tunis. Thus was formed the Triple Alliance. Its counterpoise was the drawing together of France and Russia, in view of whose possibilities Prince Bismarck in 1887 increased the German Army. In 1900 Germany passed the Navy Law, which ordained that the German Fleet should be so strong that any attack upon it would be dangerous to the attacking party.

      Nothing but the strength of the British Fleet, which had been largely increased by the action of Lord Charles Beresford in 1888, and again by the naval programme of 1893, and whose organisation had been brought to a high state of efficiency by Admiral Sir Frederick Richards (afterwards admiral of the Fleet), prevented the outbreak of war between England and France at the time of the Fashoda incident in 1897.

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