Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/119

 BETWEEN THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN. 7/ anger and religious zeal, his ulterior views upon chap. the Eastern Question became too vague, and also, L__ no doubt, too alarming, to admit of their being made the subject of a treaty engagement with Austria. Apparently, then, the plan of the Emperor Plans of - T. ., , . ' X _ _. . . . the En.i>eroi JSliclioIas was this : — lie would make the rejection Nicholas of Count Leiningen's demand a "round of war against the Porte, and then, acting under the blended motives furnished by the assigned cause of war and by his own separate grievance, he would avenge the wrong done to his Church by forcing the Sultan to submit to a foreign protec- torate over all his provinces lying north of the Balkan. This, however, was only one view of the contemplated war. It might be applicable, if the occupation of the tributary provinces should evoke no element of trouble except the sheer resistance of the enemy ; but the Czar, who did not well understand the Turkish Empire, was firmly con- vinced at this time that the approach of war would be followed by a rising of the Sultan's Christian subjects. On the other hand, he feared, and with better reason, that if the angry Moslems should deem the Sultan remiss or faint-hearted in the defence of his territory, they might rise against their Government and fall upon the Christian rayahs, whom they would regard as the abettors of the invasion. He could not fail to perceive that in the progress of the con- templated operations he might be forced by