A World in Turmoil (4)
The age we remember as the time when humankind was beautiful simply for being human.
Yet before that gilded interlude there existed a single phrase that named a golden age nearly a century long.
The Century of Peace
I put the question to you, dear reader.
Who are they that scatter the radiant glory of human civilization with the advanced sciences of our day? Who, after thousands of years, at last inscribed in letters those unknown lands that had existed only as blank spaces on the map? And who, even now, rule the oceans of the world?
Do not overthink it. If you hear the proud whistle of a locomotive in the morning and read a book by electric light at night, the answer will come easily enough.
"The British Empire."
Yes. The British Empire.
A great island nation that broke the ambition of Napoleon — that fevered child of revolution who had styled himself master of the Continent — conquered the jewel of India, and reduced China to an opium addict. A civilized great power that, in the scalding steam of the Industrial Revolution, carried progressive development through every chamber of the national life: culture and economy, technology, law, and politics.
Not a soul dared claim the laurels of the age for their own country. Most might grumble in private, but none rose in open defiance. It was, in name and in fact, the strongest nation on earth. Britain's great homeland was a realm upon which the sun never set, and its glory would last a thousand years.
"God save the Queen."
There was a time when people thought so.
"…Report in order, if you please."
"Yes, Prime Minister."
Where there is light, the shadow that trails it runs deep and dark. William Ewart Gladstone, forty-third Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, was a humble man. He was also a wise one, and a mind of uncommon clarity. Through his reading he had learned how, around the turn of the Christian era and in every age since, countless empires and kingdoms had been written into dust and scattered on the wind. He knew perfectly well that eternal glory was a fiction found only in novels.
"The Paris financial markets are on the rise. The City of London is likewise in good health."
"Recruitment for an international African merchant fleet has begun in the port of Marseille. The majority of the tonnage being mustered, however, is Asian."
"From that lead we have inferred that the French government is not, in fact, reorganizing its necessary supply lines for Africa, but for Asia — the Indochina Peninsula and the waters around it — and on a considerable scale."
"Indochina."
Gladstone slipped the spectacles from the bridge of his nose and asked the question in a tone of complete indifference, as the Treasury ministers continued their briefings.
"About a week now, is it?"
The subjectless query sent the ministers glancing at one another's faces before one of them answered.
"It is, sir."
Does it gall you to death that the French bourse is running a bull market? Yes. Have the frogs stopped flinging themselves into the Seine and taken up shouting To the moon! once more? Yes. Are the original reds still tearing us to pieces in today's cartoons without a thought for their own conduct? Yes.
The Prime Minister propped his chin in one hand, idly flicking the papers he held, his expression deeply suspicious, and asked again.
"And to what purpose did the London bankers examine these loans?"
Why, pray, have those prideful frogs come knocking at our own door?
"The majority registered the development of the Indochina Peninsula. A portion appear to be Asian marine insurance and trade futures."
"Ah — and merchant-ship charter fees as well."
"A considerable volume of ammunition for the expeditionary force's supply, and building materials that cannot be procured locally."
"The place is nothing but jungle. One can understand the difficulty of finding decent stone."
"Most of it, however, is a nominal estimate, Prime Minister. We cannot be certain. The more detailed cargo manifests are not a matter of public record, and…"
In other words: Does one need a reason to borrow money? They simply came to borrow, you see.
Gladstone, who had been listening with close attention, did not miss the minister's admission of uncertainty. His brow furrowed.
"Estimate?"
"Ah — that is, strictly speaking, there is nothing whatever amiss under the loan-examination regulations, so a separate confirmation is rather diffic—"
"Prime Minister."
The clerk, groaning through an excuse in the belief that he was about to be scolded for inadequate intelligence work, was cut short by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had sat silent until then and now answered in his place.
"If I may be so bold, sir — the examination of loans by independent banks, and the disclosure of investment purposes, is against the law."
At the Chancellor's explanation Gladstone set the papers back upon the table and inclined his head.
"I know that well enough. I was the member who once pressed the Liberal Party for a revision of the investment laws."
"Yes, Prime Minister."
It had not been intended, but the atmosphere grew faintly awkward. For some time afterward no further words were exchanged inside the Prime Minister's office, yet the Treasury ministers and the Prime Minister conversed with their eyes. Before long they had roughly aligned their opinions.
A moment later:
"It is not the Indochina Peninsula."
"We are of the same mind."
Those frogs, as ever. The Englishmen who had spent centuries facing such a thick-headed rival were now of one accord: the French frogs were preparing some fresh piece of nonsense.
"Let us look at this a moment."
Gladstone pushed aside the report the Treasury clerks had compiled on a week's French stock market and capital flows, drew a map toward himself, and spoke with a gleam in his eye.
"Now then. Set aside the Indochina expedition, which is presently dying by the cartload in the jungle. If they are even pulling colonial troops and the Foreign Legion out of Africa — where is the new battlefield those people have their sights on?"
Glances passed between the Foreign Office and the Treasury.
Where are the frogs bound?
"First of all."
Not Africa. It was odd enough to speak of advancing on Africa again while withdrawing the colonial garrisons already stationed there — and even if, against every likelihood, Africa were the frogs' object, British intelligence, which held the Mediterranean–African submarine cables, had no reason whatever to miss them making a hash of things in what amounted to the front garden.
India, then?
"They wouldn't dare."
No. Absolutely not. The Indian continent had already been reduced, these thirty years, to a beautiful jewel set in the great homeland's crown. No one had ever presumed to challenge for it. India was a neighborhood even the prideful Russian Empire treated with due respect.
Which left one remaining candidate.
"The Qing army."
"Qing China, Prime Minister."
Watching his ministers answer in the same breath as himself, Gladstone sank into thought and murmured, almost without force,
"Why now, of all times…?"
It was a feeble remark — one that ought never to have been uttered in the official residence of a great empire's Prime Minister. A weak thing for the head of a government to let fall. Yet the loyal ministers and secretaries in the room neither frowned nor scorned Gladstone's private words. On the contrary, they admired a Prime Minister who faced reality with such wise and honest composure.
For their great homeland, precisely because it was great, was ailing.
"We are in a rather difficult position, gentlemen."
The agricultural depression. A grotesquely swollen naval budget. Youth unemployment. The labour question. The Irish crisis — and the rest. Among these, the economic crisis on the British mainland, touched off by the agricultural slump that had begun in 1881, had helped bring down Benjamin Disraeli's Conservative government and laid the foundation for Gladstone's Liberals to take power.
"That damned economy will be the ruin of the lot of us."
The trouble was that the agricultural depression and chronic unemployment, now entering their fourth calendar year, still showed no sign of ending. And the voters, having endured as much as they were prepared to endure, were now pointing the arrow of blame at the Liberal Party.
The Conservatives already branded the Egyptian nationalist uprising the death knell of my feeble moral politics. They will hardly let this chance slip.
Gladstone did not regret his course. But the death of General Charles George Gordon had been, for the British Empire, an unambiguous misfortune.
After a long silence he gathered his thoughts and put a question to the Foreign Secretary in a voice drained of strength.
"Is there any news of a change in the situation in the Far East, including Qing China? The merest trifle will do."
"Hmm. If it is trifles you want…"
The Foreign Secretary rummaged in his coat, produced a small leather notebook, turned a few pages, and raised his right forefinger as he answered.
"Two matters of consequence. First: the Qing counteroffensive in the north of the Indochina Peninsula ended as a Pyrrhic victory. They broke the French expedition's morale, but they failed to drive them entirely out of the north."
"And the other departments' view?"
"Joseon."
"Joseon?"
A new subject brought a spark of interest to Gladstone's eye. The relevant Foreign Office clerk squared his shoulders and began.
"A revolution has broken out in the kingdom of Joseon, with which we recently established relations. Their monarch has been executed by the revolutionary party, and under the new government they have formed, the country is rapidly recovering its stability."
"And?"
"They are under severe pressure from Qing China. On every front."
"A war there as well, then. General?"
Called upon for a soldier's opinion, the general seconded from Headquarters lifted his lips from his teacup.
"As for the Indochina Peninsula — they pushed the French back, and that is the end of it. According to our sources inside, Qing casualties have been enormous. The Qing army has lost its capacity to contain anything on the peninsula."
"The conclusion, if you please?"
"It is finished."
In other words: they were done. Still half hoping, the Prime Minister invited other views.
"Has anyone a different opinion?"
"Much the same. Contrary to every estimate formed on the eve of war, the Qing court is now tearing its hair out over a catastrophic shortage of ammunition. They no longer have the means to prosecute the war."
"And because of the Beiyang Fleet's curiously evasive refusal to seek a decisive battle — to say nothing of the southern coastal cities — they are also severely limited in the ports at which they can unload cargo in any volume."
When the great majority of the ministers gathered in the Prime Minister's office began to predict a French victory, Gladstone, sinking deeper into suspicion, tapped his temple with a fingertip.
What on earth are those frogs thinking?
"Then it is all the stranger. The Indochina Peninsula is finished, and the Qing army has lost the will to resist. Let us suppose, if you like, that the Qing court is merely dressing its prestige and has no intention of widening the war. In that case — what does the French government want?"
It was a question that equally occupied every general and minister in the room. The other side was streaming blood from the nose and signaling desperately, Shall we call it off? — they could hardly mean to beat them to death from here. And yet to read France's movements as a mere show of force, a demonstration that they could still make war, was to ignore the sheer size of the expedition being sent.
The general broke the silence.
"Intelligence puts the expedition at roughly two divisions."
"Two divisions?"
"Oh. That is a great many."
The ministers sighed; the military men added the rest.
"Enough to mount another expedition."
"If one also considers the relief of units already posted in the jungle—"
"An inland advance would be entirely possible."
At the general's last words, everyone in the room started.
Surely the frogs did not mean to drive a straw into Qing China — that sweetest of cakes?
"That must never be allowed!"
The warning that the Asian market might come under genuine threat brought Gladstone a flickering vision of his own vote crumbling in real time as the general election approached. His voice shook.
"Is there — is there a fleet we can put to sea for Asia at once…?"
"Prime Minister?"
"This is important! I am asking whether we have a fleet already detached toward the Far East!"
Everyone was taken aback by a Prime Minister so violently unlike his usual self. Was a threat to the Asian market truly so grave? China was vast, after all — even the British Empire had not the strength to swallow it alone.
"You are all missing it."
But the shrewd and wise old man Gladstone recalled them to a fatal fact that even the soldiers had let slip.
"Ah!"
"Russia!"
At the Prime Minister's reminder they were struck with admiration and, in the same breath, with horror.
"There is something in that."
"This was never a matter we could simply stand by and watch."
If France battered Qing China past any hope of recovery, those damned bears would hardly sit quietly. The Prime Minister, who still remembered what had been suffered in Egypt and in the Ottoman lands, ground his teeth.
"It is a golden opportunity for them. Those people have thought of nothing, from first to last, but coming south."
"Th-then what are we to do?"
"As you say, Prime Minister — dispatch a fleet to Asia at once and prevent any widening of the—"
But those who had begun to speak of armed intervention closed their mouths on the mad thought taking shape in their own heads. For their superior, the master of the Cabinet, was the man famously known for—
"Moral politics. Will you hold to it this time as well?"
At the general's cautious question Gladstone's face crumpled; he covered it with his palm.
"There is no other way, is there…?"
A Prime Minister signaling his willingness to abandon the moral politics that had been as good as a creed. A good number of the officials looked on with pity; from another quarter came expressions of relief.
Then the Foreign Office offered another course.
"We could formally propose mediation to the French Foreign Ministry by cable."
"Will they give way so easily? The Paris papers have been giving it banner treatment. National opinion has not been this united in a very long while. Concession will be difficult."
"And if it is not France alone, sir?"
"What do you mean by that?"
Is there anyone in this business to persuade besides those mad frogs?
Gladstone and everyone else in the room looked at the Foreign Office clerk who had spoken, their faces equally curious. He seemed thoroughly embarrassed by the attention; he lowered his head and answered with difficulty.
"Have the Paris papers not been saying it with one voice? That they are not alone."
"They have."
"We ask those friends of theirs to refrain from widening the war."
"Refrain?"
"We put the focus on Joseon's new government and the United States. They will take a greater interest in our representations than France will."
Something seemed to dawn on the Prime Minister. His eyes had gone wide; then he let out a rough breath through his nose and asked,
"And Qing China?"
"They are already the defeated party. A loser who has lost in the ring must accept the result with humility."
And if they will not listen — beat them some more.
"The new challenger, and their friends?"
"We present them with an excellent method by which they need not so much as receive a scratch, and we persuade them, vigorously, to accept a compromise. Has it not always been our homeland's sacred duty to keep the balance of the Continent?"
When the honey drips into one's lap if one simply sits still — who would draw a sword? And if the man guaranteeing the bargain is the British Empire, they will believe it all the more.
That, to Gladstone, was what moral politics meant.
"Very well."
The answer came clean and immediate. Pleased with the solution, Gladstone rose abruptly from his chair and began to pace, revising policy as he went.
"First: the Foreign Office will establish new diplomatic relations with Joseon's new government."
"New ones, sir?"
"Well? Do you propose to leave our Minister Plenipotentiary already on station sitting idle? Congratulate them on the founding of the new government and on the revolution, and drop only the merest hint that a constructive relationship may be possible. Detailed plans will follow."
"Yes, sir."
"And the Navy."
At his summons the admirals rose. The Prime Minister regarded the medals and insignia on their shoulders through narrowed eyes and gave his order.
"In a strength that is not threatening — to Joseon. No: what is the new government's name?"
"No information has yet reached us, but in France they are calling it Korea."
"Then we shall call it Korea. Inform me if that changes. In any case, the Navy will pay a courtesy visit to Jemulpo. Until the French expedition's objective is confirmed."
The order was vague enough that the admirals asked,
"And if — if that objective is confirmed?"
"Pressure them, through our diplomats on the spot, so that the Qing court may surrender quickly. While preventing, so far as possible, any economic loss to our merchants."
"There may be a naval action."
At the admirals' concern Gladstone spoke with a stubborn set to his face.
"It is of no consequence. Our object is to cut off, at the root, any opportunity for Russia to come south. So long as we stop the Russian descent and keep our advantage in the Chinese market, the rest are matters we can well endure. And the Treasury—"
He looked at the Treasury clerks, who had sat silent, stroked his beard, and spoke slowly.
"As for the frogs' loans — persuade the banks and the companies to refrain, for the present. War requires money, after all."
"Understood, Prime Minister."
"Well? What are you waiting for? Get to work!"
There was, however, one thing Gladstone and his countrymen had overlooked.
Russia was more rational than they supposed — and France, together with the new friends she had lately made, was far more emotional than anyone had anticipated.