Page:Paul Samuel Reinsch - Secret Diplomacy, How Far Can It Be Eliminated? - 1922.djvu/73



provoked aggressors, to imitate in Africa the partition of Poland by the conquest of Morocco for France, of Tunis and some other state for Sardinia, and of Egypt for England? And, more especially, how could Eng- land and France, who have guaranteed the integrity of the Turkish Empire, turn round and wrest Egypt from the Sultan? A coalition for such a purpose would re- volt the moral feelings of mankind, and would certainly be fatal to any English Government that was a party to it. Then, as to the balance of power to be main- tained by giving us Egypt, but we do not want the bur- den of governing Egypt, and its possession would not, as a political, military, and naval question, be con- sidered, in this country, as a set-off against the posses- sion of Morocco by France. Let us try to improve all these countries by the general influence of our com- merce, but let us all abstain from a crusade of conquest which would call upon us the condemnation of all other civilized nations."

This program of liberal principles applied to for- eign affairs, of high-toned and high-minded di- plomacy, one reads with mixed feelings in view of the things which have come thereafter.

In the period between the Crimean and the Franco-Prussian war, Napoleon pursued a policy, or a series of policies, which fitly illustrate the worst features of secret diplomacy. In 1858 Napoleon III obtained from Cavour a promise that Savoy and Nice should be ceded to France. These arrangements, made without the knowledge