The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-03-29 00:00:00

Eiberpoot tatibarb.

TUESDAY MORNING, MARCH 29, 1853.

THE AFFAIRS OF TURKEY.
THREATENED EUROPEAN WAR.
EUROPE has but just escaped from the dread of a
general war between the great powers of the North
on the battle-field of the South. An important
Plenipotentiary from RUSSIA had made demands,
it was said, upon the SULTAN of TURKEY, ini-
mical to the interests of ENGLAND ; AUSTRIA had
sided with the Autocrat of the North ; the British
Uharge d'Affaires at uonstanth,opie, in tne absence
of the Ambassador, had sent to Malta to request
ADMIRAL DUNDAS to bring the British fleet to
the mouth of the Dardanelles; and LOUIS NA-
POLEON, not to be out of the quarrel, had sent a
French fleet from Toulon to the scene of the ex-
pected conflict. All this, however, is happily at an
end. The demands of the Russian envoy have
turned out to be no more than -he was perhaps
justified in asking, and the Turkish Government
in granting, though the peremptory tone which was
assumed may be questionable : the British Admiral
has refused to move his fleet at the request of a
subordinate officer, without orders from the Home
Government; and the official organ of the French
Government has announced that the whole affair is
in prospect of settlement, without compromising the
good understanding of the European powers. We
may therefore briefly review the circumstances
which led to this temporary broil, and calmly dis-
cuss our own position with reference to the position
of TURKEY among the States of EUROPE.
It will be remembered that when Louis NAPO-
LEON was devising high-sounding titles, by which
to give at least nominal eclat to his assumption of
the dignity of Emperor, he claimed that of Protec-
teur de les lieux Solutes, or the Holy Shrines, in
Palestine, which had been long under the keeping
of the Greek Church, with tacit innovations of the
Latin Monks. In order to give a colourable pre-
tence to this claim, M. DE LAVALETTE was de-
spatched to Constantinople, and he succeeded in
obtaining a firman from the Sultan in favour of the
Romish, to the exclusion of the Greek Church.
The latter remonstrated, and succeeded in making
the firman a dead letter, but French diplomacy was
again at work, and the Greeks, in despair, applied
to the EMPEROR of RUSSIA, who has generally
been recognised as the head of that Church. In
the meantime, the Turkish Government made an
insane attack on the Christian population of MON-
TENEGRO, which afforded AUSTRIA a pretext for
moving an army in that direction, for the ostensible
purpose of protecting her frontiers, which was
menaced through the number of Hungarian refu-
gees in the Turkish army. During all this time
the Courts of ENGLAND, AUSTRIA. and FRANCE
are represented at Constantinople by simple Chargis
d'Affaires, when they are startled by the arrival of a
Russian ambassador, with great pomp, to demand
the reinstatement of the Greeks in the charge of
the Holy Shrines, and, consequently, to dispute the
claim of FRANCE to the protectorate of the Romish
Church, which seemed put forward to strengthen
her influence in the East. Alarmed at this sudden
demand, which was made in a tone which implied
a determination to enforce it, the British deputy-
minister sent for the fleet at Malta, under pretence
of assisting Turkey against the threatened aggres-
sion of Russia, and the French minister, mortified
at losing all the fruits of his predecessor's wily
diplomacy, also sent for assistance, which led to
the despatch of the French fleet from Toulon.
RUSSIA has not, however, in this instance at least,
shown a disposition to claim more than she was
entitled to, and when the demands of Prince MEN..
SCHIROFF, her ambassador, were fairly discussed,
they proved to be only for a substantial protection
of the Greek Church against the insidious designs
of FRANCE in favour of the Romish Church. It is
charged against RUSSIA that she has ulterior de-
signs against TURKEY, but in this instance the
aggression comes from FRANCE, who employed
the threat of coercion in order to wring from the
Turkish Government the firman which RUSSIA
interfered to resist.
The part which ENGLAND has taken in this matter
may not be so easy to define, inasmuch as it would
be difficult to show in what respect we have any
direct interest in the custody of the Holy Shrines,
nor need we concern ourselves in any great degree
whether Greek or Latin priests nave the advantage
in this particular. It has, however, been so long
a popular prejudice to view the proceedings of
Russia in reference to Turkey as being designed
for some future inroad upon our East India posses-
sions, that it has become a ruling principle of
British diplomacy, ever since the untoward event
at Navarino, to view all such interference with
suspicion, and therefore the very appearance of the
Russian Ambassador at Constantinople was the
signal of alarm which led to the immediate call
for a British fleet, although all that was demanded
was the acknowledgment of a claim, the justice of
which we were not prepared to dispute. In an in-