Long Shots and the Long Run

A hundred YEARS ago a British Premier died in office, unretired and unretiring, with his fame long gathered as a Foreign Secretary when the principals on the world board were Czar Nicholas I, Louis Napoleon, and Victoria’s Prince Consort. Nicholas, Lord Palmerston wore to death by the Crimean War; Napoleon’s illegal coup d’état he recognized with sheer bounce. No doubt he was right, but Victoria sacked him at the time, although he returned as the fittest Minister to finish the ghastly Crimean War. Statesmen spoke of his impudence, his amazing luck, his undeviating popularity with the English. The people compared him to Foreign Ministers like Talleyrand and Metternich, and always wildly in his favor. Was it possibly because he was the more fighting man and more truthful statesman? They adored him because he never cared what he said.

There were few minor or resurgent countries which did not receive his ministerial attention: Greece, Italy, Poland. He lived and almost reigned in a Europe of one-man influences. The dictatorships of Russia, Austria or Prussia were his targets, while he championed any small country which looked towards adopting the British Constitution. In his view there was none other. At the Foreign Office he played the part of a wise Flavian emperor, calling on the British Empire to support him in his immense and most famous speech, “Civis Romanus Sum.” And the country always rallied to him.

SL

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Sir Shane Leslie

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A hundred YEARS ago a British Premier died in office, unretired and unretiring, with his fame long gathered as a Foreign Secretary when the principals on the world board were Czar Nicholas I, Louis Napoleon, and Victoria’s Prince Consort. Nicholas, Lord Palmerston wore to death by the Crimean War; Napoleon’s illegal coup d’état he recognized with sheer bounce. No doubt he was right, but Victoria sacked him at the time, although he returned as the fittest Minister to finish the ghastly Crimean War. Statesmen spoke of his impudence, his amazing luck, his undeviating popularity with the English. The people compared him to Foreign Ministers like Talleyrand and Metternich, and always wildly in his favor. Was it possibly because he was the more fighting man and more truthful statesman? They adored him because he never cared what he said.

There were few minor or resurgent countries which did not receive his ministerial attention: Greece, Italy, Poland. He lived and almost reigned in a Europe of one-man influences. The dictatorships of Russia, Austria or Prussia were his targets, while he championed any small country which looked towards adopting the British Constitution. In his view there was none other. At the Foreign Office he played the part of a wise Flavian emperor, calling on the British Empire to support him in his immense and most famous speech, “Civis Romanus Sum.” And the country always rallied to him.