Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/254

 212 OEIGIN OF THE AVAR OF 1863 CHAP. XIII. Concord of the four Powers. for the wrong-doer was left without an ally in the world, and was resisted by the four great Powers, with the assent of the other States of Europe. It was plain, moreover, that this resistance would not evaporate in mere remonstrance or protest ; for if Austria was the country most endangered by the seizure of the Principalities, she was also the power which could most easily extirpate fclie Their means evil, because, whenever she chose, she could fall •ion. ' upon the flank and rear of the Russian invaders by issuing through the passes of the Eastern Carpathian range, or the frontier which touched the Banat. Moreover, France and England, by bringing their fleets into the Levant, by causing them to approach the Dardanelles, by passing the Straits, by anchoring in the Golden Horn, by ascending the Bosphorus, by cruising in the Euxine, and, finally, by interdicting the Paissian ilac from its waters, could always inflict a gradu- O «/ o uted torture upon the Czar, and (even without going to the extremity of war) could make it impossible that the indignation of Europe should remain unheeded. The concord of the States opposing the Czar's encroachment was already so well perfected that, on the very day* when the Russian advance- guard crossed the Pruth, the representatives of the four Towers assembled in Conference, deter- mined to address to Tiussia a collective Xote pressing the Czar to put his claims against Tur- key in conformity with the sovereign rights of Their joint measures.
 * 2d July 1853