RUSSIAN DIPLOMACY.
ENGLISH belief in Russian diplomacy is as immovable as Protestant belief in the Jesuits, and is of very much the same kind. The Czar is supposed to be served by an organised band of intriguers, ambitious, unscrupulous, and evil-natured, but crafty, daring, and successful ; who know all languages, enter all societies, and everywhere push the designs of Russia with a single-minded energy which suggests the fanaticism of devotees rather than the usual ardour of patriots. How far that view of Russian diplomacy may be true in the past we have not now time to argue, beyond remarking that the success of an Empire is no proof that its diplomacy is able, for else England must have been the best served of all countries,—but the view is certainly not true now. Russian diplomacy, we should say, on the evidence of the broad facts, is rather badly managed. The very old gentlemen who control it have been bred up in the atmo- sphere of Courts, have learned to understand individuals, but not nations, and cannot get rid of the notion that the useful weapons of diplomacy are secrecy, finesse, and skill in the driving of bargains. They are as anxious for " diplomatic triumphs " as if the end of negotiation was to give them reputa- tions, word their despatches with an eye to professional eclat, and employ some of their best skill in collecting the gossip of society in countries which society does not govern. Every now and then they seem to us, who, of course, do not know their secret motives, positively to throw away great chances, in order to enjoy the pleasure of winning a sort of game of chess with their momentary adversaries, to derive personal pleasure from the secrecy and mysteriousness and word-fencing which do their cause all the injury in the world. If they have all the secret agents men say—and we do not believe a word of it—it is very stupid to be so strongly suspected of them. If they are so secret as men believe, it is a failure to make their secrecy so suspicious. And if they do write as well as they think they do, it is maladresse to allow their writing to leave such stings behind. When the history of the recent diplomatic campaign comes to be written, it will be found that over and over again great interests have been compromised to inflict personal blows, that a ridiculous secrecy has been preserved to make hostile statesmen look small,— without a thought that behind the statesmen stand nations utterly ignorant of the game, and furious at play they cannot follow, and that word-fencing of the most dangerous kind has been practised, not to gain results, but to elicit from Kings and professional rivals some approving mot.
Just look at the question of secrecy, for instance. There was no earthly reason for dropping the curtain recently for ten days while the Armistice negotiations were going on, and so driving English temper up to blood-heat, when a few words of information would have removed half the alarm. The Russians say, and we believe say truly, the delay was due to the Turks, who were perpetually referring to Constantinople ; but they could have said that, without waiting so long, and so making everybody, even Prince Bismarck—as he says in his speech—fancy that they were wilfully kept waiting for news in a sort of European antechamber, till Prince Gortschakoff should be fully dressed and ready to receive them. There was no unfairness in doing it, if the Russians chose, for they were not bound to be communicative till all was settled ; but there was, as the gathering storm of opinion at last showed them, immense want of tact and of diplomatic skill. So there is now in this new delay. We dare say it is the fault of the Turks, who resist every point in the not unnatural hope that something may turn up ; or it may be the fault of Austria, which is at once bargaining and bothered ; or it may be the fault of the friction between the military and civil parties in St. Petersburg ; but the effect of it is "tension," the diffusion in England of a belief that " something dangerous is up,"—and to allow such a belief to be diffused is not skill. The business of an able diplomatist is to get what he wants, or rather what he is instructed to want, with the least possible irritation, not to cause the irritation, and then enjoy showing how little cause there was for it all. That is childishness, not statesmanship ; and childishness of that sort seems to us constantly apparent in Russian diplomacy, as if those who managed it could not forego in managing it a certain enjoyment, as of highly intellectual farceurs. You see the same thing in some Counsel. They can never resist the temptation of deceiving, or evading, or making fools of opposite Counsel, and though they often win, they are very expensive Counsel for their clients.
Take the most serious case of all, the terms said to have been demanded by Russia from Turkey. There is not, we venture to say, a single statesman in Europe who did not know in July last that if Russia went into this battle single- handed and won, the regime of the Ottomans in European Turkey would be brought to an end, and Russia would claim in Asia some compensation. So certain was this, that Prince Gortschakoff, with all the Russian love of secrecy, told his terms to the British Cabinet, and we do not doubt, to every other powerful Cabinet in Europe, The broad facts were dis- cussed in every club and newspaper, and it was stated every- where that if Russia won, which everybody at that day thought certain, she would in Europe solidify the ideas of the Confer- ence, and in Asia take Armenia in payment. Well, Russia did win, after great sacrifices, and what did her diplomatists do So present almost unchanged terms, that half Europe grew furious over their severity. Instead of asking for the autonomy of all Christian Provinces, they worried everybody by making Bulgaria look as if it were going to be a Russian province. Instead of asking nothing in Europe, they ask a bit of Roumania, which, except that it was theirs once, there is no earthly reason to think will be of use to them. Instead of asking for the part of Armenia in their possession, they nominally ask a pre- posterous pecuniary indemnity, and really take Armenia in its stead. Instead of saying that they are content with the Treaty of Paris arrangement about the Dardanelles, they ask impossible privileges which they cannot have intended to maintain, because Europe is against them there ; and instead of re- asserting their moderation, they demand ships which they could buy anywhere, and a tribute of £2,000,000 a year from Bulgaria, which will not help their credit in prac- tice half as much as the bare fact that they have kept on pay- ing their dividends. The Agence Rune says now or hints now that they are not asking these things, that neither the Straits, nor the Fleet, nor anything that Europe has anything to do with are in question ; but let us accept that as literally true, and then how do the diplomatists stand ? They allow long strings of " conditions" to be circulated through Europe as their demands, and excite an irritation tending to war, instead of frankly stating at once what they will have. How is that fine diplomacy ? We understand the answer perfectly well,—that in Russia there are half-a-dozen Foreign Offices, that is, per- sonages so powerful or so placed that nobody but the Czar can control them ; that there are a military party, and a diplomatist party, and a moderate party, and a war party, and Prince Gortschakoff, and Count Ignatieff, and the Grand Duke Nicholas, and the Cesarevitch, and nobody really master except the Czar, but then what kind of answer is that ? Is that efficient diplomacy ? We say it is not, and that the Russian foreign policy, instead of being the best managed in the world, is one of the worst. Its Foreign Office remains just what the Russian Army was before this campaign,—an instrument which from the resources behind it was very formidable, but which from the effect of antiquated ideas was cumbrous and slow, and productive everywhere of twice as much alarm as such an instrument pro- perly understood would have created. The Russian diplomatists as a body are persistent, devoted, and keen, but they are trained in the old way, they have a difficulty in comprehending nations, and they impede the success of their country in order to secure the success of themselves a great deal too much for us to credit them with magical far-sightedness. What is the value in our day of a Diplomatic Service which gives an impression that it is not to be trusted ? We do not know that the Russian diplomatists are a bit more tricky than all the diplomatists of the Old World, the diplomatists trained to deal with individuals, always were. Napoleon's diplomatists would say anything, and Prince Bis- marck has admitted over and over again, with cynical frank- ness, that part of his business was to finesse. Their defect is. that they do not see how their age is going, and apply their notion of " management " in its old sense to nations who are not influenced like individuals, but in a totally different way. The adroit chess-player is not wounded because his adversary looks stolidly at the section of the ,board where the mate does not lie, but the half-ignorant onlooker thinks it deceit, and is ready in his wrath to knock the chessboard over. If there is war, much of the responsibility will, no doubt, rest on England, but a good deal will also rest with that far-famed organisation, the Russian Diplomatic Service.
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