and comrade, Lord Raglan, was made to assume. It may be doubted if
Wellington could have been induced to assume it.

Whether there ever would have been a Crimean war if no special
friendliness had existed between France and England may be fair
matter for speculation. The quarrel issuing in that war was indeed
begun by France; but it would have been difficult for England to take
no part in it. The apple of discord was supplied by a long-standing
dispute between the Greek and Latin Churches as to the Holy Places
situated in Palestine--a dispute in which France posed as the champion
of the Latin and Russia of the Greek right to the guardianship of the
various shrines. The claim of France was based on a treaty between
Francis I and the then Sultan, and related to the Holy Places
merely; the Russian claim, founded on a treaty between Turkey and
Catherine II, was far wider, and embraced a protectorate over all
Christians of the Greek Church in Turkey, and therefore over a great
majority of the Sultan's European subjects. Such a construction of
the treaty in question, however, had always been refused by England
whenever Russia had stated it; and its assertion at this moment bore
an ominous aspect in conjunction with the views which the reigning
Czar Nicholas had made very plain to English statesmen, both when he
visited England in 1844 and subsequently to that visit. To use his
own well-known phrase, he regarded Turkey as "a sick man"--a
death-doomed man, indeed--and hoped to be the sick man's principal
heir. He had confidently reckoned on English co-operation when the
Turkish empire should at last be dismembered; he was now to find, not
only that co-operation would be withheld, but that strong opposition
would be offered to the execution of the plan, for which it had
seemed that a favourable moment was presenting itself. The delusion
under which he had acted was one that should have been dispelled by