20 THE ELEVENTH WAR: CRIMEAN WAR. 



In this Great Eastern Question was involved the fate and fortunes 

 of the Ottoman Empire ; that Empire which had been for centuries 

 the terror of the East, and the perpetual nightmare of Western 

 Europe. 



The centre and source of the whole controversy out of which this 

 Eastern complication arose, is to be found in the miserable dispute 

 regarding the Holy Places — the Churches that have been built over 

 those spots in Palestine where the events in our Saviour's history aire 

 supposed to have taken place — viz., the Holy Sepulchre, the Church 

 of Bethlehem, both of which were in the possession of Turkey 5 and 

 the immediate cause of the dispute was that the Star, which had been 

 placed from time immemorial over the altar in the Church of 

 Bethlehem, had mysteriously disappeared. 



The Latins charged the Greeks with having stolen it, and this 

 miserable squabble was made the pretext for a diplomatic and political 

 quarrel, and eventually became the cause of a great European War. 



The French Government, to please the Catholics in France and 

 Europe, supported the quarrel of the Latins; not simply for the 

 restoration of the Silver Star, but for a total change in the relations 

 between the Greek and Latin Churches in regard to the Holy Places. 



In May, 1850, the French Ambassador at Constantinople de- 

 manded of the Sultan of Turkey the possession of the Latin 

 Sanctuaries. 



The British Ambassador at Constantinople, Lord Stafford de 

 Redcliffe, in a Despatch to Lord Palmerston, May 20, 1850, first 

 sounds the note of alarm, by declaring that the Pope and all the 

 Catholic Powers, Spain, Italy and Austria, support the French demand, 

 and considered that the friends of Turkey " cannot close their eyes to the 

 political consequences which must follow." 



Against this pretension Russia, as the defender of the Greek 

 Church, protested, through her Ambassador at Constantinople, and 

 justly so, in the words of Lord Clarendon, " That Her Majesty's 

 Government were not insensible to the superior claims of Russia, 

 both as regards the Treaty obligations of Turkey, but the loss of 

 moral influence that Russia would sustain if she were to yield any 

 privileges which the Greek Church had hitherto enjoyed, to the Latin 

 Churches, for which France claimed to be the Protector." 



In this trying position, Turkey, anxious to please both side^, made 

 concessions to each, but these concessions pleased neither, and 

 France threatened physical force, whilst Russia threatened to withdraw 

 her Ambassador; and as a derniere ^ww/-/ Turkey, to avoid a rupture, 



