by Roy Jenkins
It was in several senses a preposterous undertaking. Edward Bulwer Lytton, the Colonial Secretary who got Gladstone to accept the commission, was one of the most amateur of all nineteenth-century politicians, which made it the more remarkable that he got Gladstone, who was the most accomplished and in that sense the most professional politician of the same period, to agree to be temporarily one of his satraps.
Lytton, although primarily a novelist, was an MP for twenty-four years, first as an advanced reformer and then as a Conservative. His year as Colonial Secretary, which he became as a direct result of Gladstone’s refusal, was his only experience of office. It was not, however, felt that he was showing gratitude towards Gladstone. Indeed the general view was that Gladstone by going to Corfu was conferring a wholly bizarre favour upon the government rather than that they were discharging any obligation by offering him the appointment. All the Peelites except Newcastle, who had much the worst judgement, were strongly against his accepting the mission. Graham thought it would ruin his career. Herbert, his ‘best friend’, was the most exasperated, probably because he was the one who most minded Gladstone being away. Herbert thought Gladstone had got himself into ‘an infernal position’ and that he ‘really is not safe to go about out of Lord Aberdeen’s room’. Aberdeen was calmer but thought him too ‘headstrong’ for the task.
It was of course precisely this headstrong quality which made him accept against all the advice, and indeed against all rational evaluation of the prospects. The chances of achievement, or indeed its significance even if attained, would never have been adequate in the eyes of a calmly calculating politician of stature to compensate for the probability of failure and the possibility of ridicule. Nonetheless sheer rashness would not have been enough on its own to send Gladstone off for nearly half a year to the eastern Adriatic. He needed some supporting motives, and there were several available.
First, he loved the Mediterranean, both in romantic anticipation and in reality, and he had not been there for nearly eight years. He also thought a winter sojourn would be good for Catherine Gladstone after the oppression of her sister’s death, and he planned that their sixteen-year-old daughter Agnes should also be of the party. Third, his head was still full of Homer, and an odyssey of his own around the famous islands had much attraction. Fourth, he was always attracted by the Greek Orthodox Church, and the thought of seeing a whole new group of archbishops and bishops with whom he could engage in theological and Christian reunion conversation was an intoxicating one. But, above all, he was disenchanted and even a little bored (a most unusual condition for Gladstone) with the home political scene, and wanted a new stimulus, even if it was concerned only with the unpromising affairs of 250,000 people. Therefore, the idea having first surfaced at the beginning of October, he was ready by the end of the month to give a definite acceptance. He was sworn in at Windsor on 5 November 1858 and he left London on the 8th.
Although his acceptance was definite, the offer to which he was giving this clear answer was itself a good deal less so. He was asked to go out as Commissioner Extraordinary and to report and make recommendations to the government on the situation in the islands and the possible remedies. But there was already a High Commissioner there. Sir John Young was both a friend of Gladstone’s from Eton and Christ Church days, and a senior man, being a Privy Counsellor and a former Chief Secretary for Ireland in the Aberdeen government. Gladstone said that he could have had him recalled, and he was no doubt right. But he did not wish to do so. This rendered his own position ambiguous from the beginning.
Nor was his staff entirely satisfactory, although it was in a sense both high-powered and notable. As secretary of the mission he enlisted James (soon to be Sir James) Lacaita, his former amanuensis at the time of his Neapolitan gaol investigations, who had since become a professor at King’s College, London. Arthur Gordon, the fourth and then twenty-nine-year-old son of Aberdeen, who subsequently governed several colonies and ended as Lord Stanmore, also described himself as the secretary of the mission, but was intended to act more as an aide-decamp to Gladstone. In the role he was lackadaisical and by the time they got to Brussels on the way out had already irritated Gladstone by casually making both of them late for dinner with the King of the Belgians. His slackness eventually led to Gladstone steeling himself for a great scene of rebuke (he was of course torn between his regard for Aberdeen and his impatience with his son) and the arrival of another ADC at the end of January.48
Lacaita was an altogether more serious adviser. Inevitably however he gave a somewhat italianate tilt to the delegation, and may have been responsible for Gladstone’s decision to deliver all his major addresses in Italian. This was doubtfully good for comprehension and certainly not good for giving an impression of evenhandedness. For several centuries Venetian influence had been dominant in the islands, and the upper classes, such as they were, were italianophone. But the demotic language was Greek, and the predominant sentiment was for enosis or union with Athens. Gladstone had a lot of underlying sympathy with this philhellenism, but he was persuaded that it was not politically practical or opportune, and set himself the intractable task of persuading (in Italian) the Greek-speaking population through their representatives in the Assembly (which had been set up in 1849) that this was so. The result was that he was regarded with suspicion by the leaders of both the main currents of opinion. The proponents of enosis rejected his constitutional schemes, while the agents of British colonialism (above all the garrison, and those who clustered under its shade), thought him a dangerous and ignorant native-lover. He was shocked by their lack of interest in Homer. They were even more shocked by his kissing the ring of a Greek Orthodox bishop.
In addition to these inherent difficulties there was a considerable overhang of ill luck. It struck first and most conspicuously when Gladstone was in Vienna on the way to embarkation in a British warship at Trieste. In eight typically vigorous days of train travel and sightseeing he had traversed Germanic Europe, taking in Cologne, Brunswick, Magdeburg, Berlin, Dresden and Prague before reaching Vienna. It was his first all-rail journey across the continent, but he was complaining rather than dazzled: ‘We reached Erzherzog Karl49 past eight,’ he wrote for 18 November, ‘train late, as seems common’.7 As it was eight in the morning, however, the lateness did not prevent his visiting the Stefansdom, the Augustinus Kirche and the picture gallery in the Belvedere before dining in a restaurant, where in good Viennese style he read the newspapers, and then going to a theatre.
The next day he was told by the British ambassador that an 1857 despatch sent from Corfu by Sir John Young had leaked (or, more precisely, been stolen from a pigeonhole in the Colonial Office) and sold or given to a London newspaper, its publication in which had caused considerable repercussions throughout the capitals of Europe. Young had advocated the partition of the Ionian Isles, with the seven southern ones being incorporated in Greece, and Corfu and Paxos moving from protected status to becoming straightforward British Crown Colonies. Apart from suggesting a unilateral abrogation of the 1815 settlement this document pre-empted a large part of the purpose of Gladstone’s mission. Its status was somewhat reduced by Young writing a few days later to say that he had changed his mind, but that letter of withdrawal unfortunately escaped stealing, and might well not have achieved publicity even had it been available.
Gladstone then had to spend most of the day endeavouring to repair the damage in Vienna, although it was alleged to be at least equally great in Paris and St Petersburg, which were clearly outside his reach. He called on Buol, Metternich’s successor as Chancellor, as well as on Metternich himself, then aged eighty and in the last year of his life, and on Brück, the powerful Minister of the Interior. He also saw The Times correspondent. It was a classic example of how a politician abroad tries to deal with an embarrassment with international repercussions which has occurred at home. Nonetheless it strikes an odd and unusual note in Gladstone’s life, for he was in general a creator rather than a clearer-u
p of embarrassments. He was not a diplomatic politician. Normally he broke new ground and left it to others to smooth off the jagged edges. That on this occasion he had to go round Vienna – fortunately a very compact city at that time – endeavouring to explain away the gaffes of others indicated how mistakenly low level and ill tailored for him was the task which he had undertaken.
He did not allow the diversion unduly to upset him. He also found time to buy some china during the day, dined with the ambassador, went to the Opera, but found twenty minutes of it enough (a fairly rough dismissal of the offering of the city of Mozart and Haydn from someone who was by no means a musical philistine), finished reading a major work on Corfu, and was off the next morning by the Semmering pass and what he supposed was ‘the most beautiful and wonderful railway in the world’.8
For his first month in the Ionian Islands Gladstone probably enjoyed himself more than tolerably. He at least half liked the ceremonial aspects of his charge. He held levées with enthusiasm. For 29 November he recorded: ‘Ball in the evening. With huge difficulty I got through a quadrille.’ His 9 December entry best caught the flavour of his life and attitudes at the time: ‘a great dinner when I was dragged out into [sic] an Italian speech. Next came a soirée and a ball. We returned to the ship by midnight in stiff rain. I still carry a giddy head. A. Gordon remains unwell. Lacaita is invaluable.’9 On 18 December he arrived in Athens for a good-neighbour visit. He had never been there before, even though it had been the centre of so much of his thought and study for much of the previous forty years. He was surprised to find the Acropolis covered in snow and reacted almost breathlessly to the unusual scene: ‘The view – the ruins – & the sculptures, taken together are almost too much for one day.’10 He dined two nights with the unpopular King Otho, who forthcomingly agreed that the time was not ripe for enosis, but who may, by so doing, have contributed substantially to his own deposition just over three years later. Gladstone was back in Corfu on Christmas Eve. As another side excursion from Corfu he visited Philiates, then in Albania, and stayed a night with the Turkish governor of the province. It was his one experience of Muslim life and he did not like it: ‘The whole impression is most saddening: it is all indolence, decay, stagnation: the image of God seems as if it were nowhere.’11
In spite of these distractions he had succeeded in putting together a vast despatch, containing his analysis of the situation and his proposals for limited action, which he sent off to the Queen and the London government on 27 December. It defended philhellenism as a noble aspiration, for belief in which Ionians should not be persecuted, but pushed its practical achievement well into the future. ‘What would be the position of Corfu, with its great strategical importance, in the hands of a Power so unable as Greece must be to defend it?’ He linked the ‘small question’ of the ‘Union of the Seven Islands and the Kingdom of Greece’ with the much larger (and certainly much vaguer) one of the ‘reconstruction of all political society in South-Eastern Europe’.12 In the meantime some moderately substantial advances towards ‘home rule’ under British sovereignty should be made. To this end the Lord High Commissioner (still Young, for Gladstone had the much looser role and title of Commissioner Extraordinary) should be authorized to summon the Ionian Assembly into a special session for the presentation to it of these constitutional proposals. But Young could not present them, being compromised by his leaked and contradictory plan of 1857. He should therefore be recalled, and Gladstone appointed in his place.
This plan was agreed to in a telegram from Lytton dated 11 January 1859. ‘The Queen accepts. Your Commission is made out,’ it almost exultantly ran. Yet this news, so far from opening Gladstone’s way to triumph, led for him to nothing but an ignominious end to his mission. The Times, then in the middle of Delane’s long editorship, which was marked by general friendliness towards Peel and his relicts, particularly Aberdeen, and later by strong support for Gladstone in his first premiership, nonetheless published a wounding leader on 13 January. It accused Gladstone of breaking Young on the wheel of his personal convenience. He smashed Young, it was alleged, and used the Ionian Islands as stepping-stones to the indulgence of his excessive taste for classical scholarship. Much more serious, however, was the law officers’ ruling (perhaps Bethell was getting his own back for Gladstone’s tiresomeness on the Divorce Bill) that the lord high commissionship, as opposed to his vague previous appointment, precluded his sitting in Parliament. Not only was his Oxford seat declared vacant, as it would have been had he become a Secretary of State, but he was declared ineligible for re-election, which as a member of the Cabinet he would not have been, so long as he held his Corfu post. It seems amazing that no one had previously thought of this hazard. It was in any event a penalty he was not prepared to accept, and he immediately set about disembarrassing himself of the office which he had been eager to achieve. On 1 February Gladstone resigned the office to which he had been appointed on 11 January. On 13 February he was re-elected for Oxford. The University, which had been somewhat grudging towards him in 1853 and was to be worse than grudging in 1865, treated him on this most vulnerable occasion with generosity and elected him unopposed.
A replacement for Corfu was found in the shape of Sir Henry Storks, who had Mauritian colonial experience and was hastily shipped out to arrive on 16 February. In the meantime, on the 5th, Gladstone had presented his constitutional proposals to the specially summoned Assembly. His legal status was doubtful. He was no longer Lord High Commissioner. This did not affect the force of his Italian oratory, but nor did it render it more persuasive. His proposals were almost unanimously rejected on 16 February, the day of Storks’s arrival. He nonetheless handed over with good humour, but was happy to leave three days later. Within six hours he was prostrated by sea-sickness: ‘at the lowest depth’, he wrote.
To be ‘at the lowest depth’ was for Gladstone a certain indication of how quickly and forcefully he would begin the ascent. By Pola he was better. By Venice his appetite for sightseeing and other forms of activity had become voracious. It was the first time he had been there since 1832, and he marked his return with a formidable three days of looking at buildings and pictures, buying china, going to the opera, listening to the Austrian band at Florian’s café, and dining with the unfortunate Archduke Maximilian, who was to die before a Mexican firing squad within a decade. He then made his way by the cities of the plain to Milan, and was struck by the atmosphere of mounting tension as the Austrians prepared for the war with Piedmont and France which began two months later: ‘At Vicenza we had cavalry & artillery by the Station about to march: more cavalry on the road with a van & pickets, some with drawn swords: at Verona regiments in review: at Milan pickets in the streets; as I write I hear the tread of horses patrolling the streets. Dark omens!’13
At Turin, four days later, he dined with Cavour, the Piedmontese Prime Minister, from 5.30 to 8.30 and then left by the 9.30 train. The Mont Cenis rail route was not complete and he had to go down the French side in a traineau or sledge (‘most disagreeable’). He spent a Sunday and Monday in Paris and then crossed overnight getting home to Carlton House Terrace on the morning of 8 March. His mission could not by any standards be regarded as a success. It had two ironic postscripts. In 1863 Palmerston, with the almost unanimous support of the Cabinet, handed all the islands over to Greece. The only clear opposition came from Westbury (formerly Bethell), the Lord Chancellor. Gladstone was more nonplussed than opposed. It was clearly against his 1859 view, but he could hardly be outflanked in both philhellenism and anti-imperialism by Palmerston. At about the same time Gladstone was semi-seriously proposed for the throne of Greece, King Otho having in the meantime been disposed of. The Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Victoria’s second son, was the leading suggestion, with both Gladstone and Lord Stanley as alternative British candidates. At Hawarden the rumours were received with amusement tinged with pleasure.
Back in England for that spring of 1859, Gladstone reacted to the Corfu fiasco in what was probably th
e best possible way for a man of his energy and temperament. He put the problems of the Ionian islanders behind him. The chapter was closed. He refused the grand cross of the orders of both the Bath and of St Michael and St George which the government offered him (how strange and bathetic it would have been if he had spent the remaining thirty-nine years of his life as Sir William Gladstone), and moved his mind first to the more promising prospect of Italian unity, which had engaged it on the way home, and then to the British political scene. The second and much the more productive half of his public life was about to begin. He was quickly to prove the underlying truth of Aberdeen’s judgement of him. He was to show himself, if not exactly ‘terrible’, at least formidable ‘in the rebound’.
THE HOSTILE PARTNERSHIP WITH PALMERSTON
FOR HIS FUTURE, and that of British politics, Gladstone’s three hours with Cavour were more important than his three months in Corfu. The Italians he had always thought less disappointing as descendants of their classical forebears than he had found the Ionic Greeks, particularly when they rejected out of hand his constitutional proposals. During previous visits he had been sceptical about the uniting of the Italian peninsula, but by the spring of 1859 the combination of the tide of excitement sweeping the north and Cavour’s assured persuasiveness not only stilled his doubts but kindled his enthusiasm. The atmosphere which percolated from him through the Gladstone household was well captured by a letter which his then six-year-old son, later to be Campbell-Bannerman’s Chief Whip in opposition and Home Secretary in government, wrote to his father in October 1860: ‘Mama . . . has been telling me about good Garibaldi. Did you really go down the dungeon? . . . I hope Garibaldi will get Naples, because he is good. And I want the King of Naples to go because he is wicked and shuts up people.’1
