to aggrandize herself.  Had the question been left for British statesmen alone to settle,—­had the British premier been as free to act for England as the Czar was for Russia,—­poor, sick Turkey would have been cut and carved most expeditiously and artistically; she would have been partitioned as perfectly as Poland, and Abdul Medjid would have experienced the fate of Stanislaus Poniatowski.  But English ministers hold power only on condition of doing the will of the English nation, and that nation had contracted an aversion to Russia that was uncontrollable, and before its hostility its ministers had to give way, slowly and reluctantly; and the half-measures they adopted, like the half-measures of our own government toward the secessionists, explain the disasters of the war.  The English people were determined that there should be an end, for the time at least, to the Russian hegemony, and threw themselves into the arms of France with a vivacity that would have astonished any other French ruler but Napoleon III., who had lived among them, and who knew them well.  The war was waged, and, when over, what had England gained?  Nothing solid, it must be admitted.  The territory of Russia remained unimpaired, and there is not the slightest evidence that her influence in the East was lessened by the partial destruction of Sebastopol.  The Russian navy of the Euxine had ceased to exist; but as it consisted principally of vessels that were not adapted to the purposes of modern warfare, the loss of the Russians in that respect was not of a very serious character.  Russia’s European leadership was suspended; but her power and her resources, which, if properly employed, must soon reinstate her, were not damaged.  England had fought for an idea, and had fought in vain.

France had as little interest in the Russian war as England, and the French people had no wish to fight the Czar.  They would have preferred fighting the English, in connection with the Czar,—­an arrangement that would have been more profitable to their country.  But the emperor had a quarrel with his arrogant brother at St. Petersburgh, and he availed himself of the opportunity afforded by that brother’s obstinacy to teach him a lesson from which he did not live to profit.  Nicholas had cut the new emperor, and had caused him to be taboo’d by most of the sovereigns of Europe; and the Frenchman determined to cut his way to consideration.  This he was enabled to do, with the aid of the English; and ever since the war’s close he has held the place which became vacant on the death of Nicholas—­that of Europe’s arbiter.  The French fought well, as they always do, but their heart was not in the war.  The emperor had the war party pretty much to himself.  Exactly the opposite state of things existed in France to that which existed in England.  In the former country, the government was for war, and the people were for peace; in the latter, the government was for peace, and the people were for war.