Page:France and the Levant peace conference 1920.djvu/30

18

When the Eastern question again became acute in the following decade, a new ruler, convinced of the necessity of British support, was governing France; and Louis Napoleon fought side by side with Great Britain in defence of Turkey against Russia. The Capitulations had entrusted the care of the Holy Places to France, but had neglected to enumerate the sanctuaries concerned. Profiting by this obscurity and by French neglect, the Orthodox Church occupied and repaire certain shrines, and in 1808 obtained permission to restore the dome of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre after a destructive fire. The progress of the Greek Church delighted the Tsar Nicholas, who determined to assert his power throughout the dominions of the Sultan. A quarrel in 1847 between Latins and Greeks in the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem was followed by the return of the Latin Patriarch (who had resided in Rome since the failure of the Crusades) to Jerusalem, with a French Consul-General to back him. In 1850 Louis Napoleon took up the cause of Catholicism in the Levant; and in 1852 the French Ambassador at Constantinople was ordered to insist on the claims of the Latin monks to be the guardians of the Holy Places. The demand was supported by the other Catholic Powers and was substantially conceded by the Sultan. Nicholas was indignant, and in March 1853 sent Prince Menschikov to obtain satisfaction in regard to the Holy Places and also to press for a Treaty acknowledging Russia's Protectorate over all the Orthodox subjects of the Sultan.

The two questions were separate. The first claim had much to justify it in the history of the past century, and was settled to the satisfaction of Russia; but the second was at once pronounced inadmissible by Clarendon and Stratford de Redcliffe, on the ground that it would give Russia a perpetual right to interfere in Turkish affairs. Acting on the advice of the British Ambassador, the Porte refused to concede the