Notes[a] "The Command of the Army in the East", The Morning Post, No. 25455, August 2, 1855.—Ed.[b] The reference is to the sittings of the House of Commons of July 24, July 30 and August 2. The Times, No. 22115, July 25; No. 22120, July 31 and No. 22123, August 3, 1855.—Ed. [c] Marx uses the English word.—Ed. [331] "Entente cordiale"—the relations established between Britain and France after the July 1830 revolution by an agreement signed in April 1834, when Britain, France, Spain and Portugal formed an alliance. However, already at that stage differences between Britain and France emerged, which intensified as time went on. Marx is referring here to the strongly anti-French attitude taken by the British Government, in particular Palmerston, during the Turko-Egyptian conflict of 1839-41 (see Note 69↓). [332] Bill regulating lease-hold tenure in Ireland—The Bills in question were submitted by Aberdeen's coalition Government in June 1853 to reduce the class struggle in the Irish countryside by granting the tenants certain rights and protecting them from landlord arbitrariness. Marx discussed the Bills in his article "The Indian Question.—Irish Tenant Right" (see present edition, Vol. 12, pp. 157-62). As Marx had foreseen, the British Parliament, reluctant to impinge on the interests of the landed aristocracy, refused to grant even minor concessions to the tenants. Even in curtailed form, the Bills were virtually quashed. The Irish Brigade was the name given to the Irish faction in the British Parliament from the 1830s to 1850s. Up to 1847, the Irish Brigade was led by Daniel O'Connell. As neither the Tories nor the Whigs had a decisive majority the Brigade was able to tip the balance in Parliament and sometimes even decide the fate of the government. In the early fifties, a number of MPs belonging to this faction formed an alliance with the radical Irish Tenant-Right League and set up what they called an Independent Opposition in the House of Commons. However, the leaders of the Irish Brigade soon made a deal with the British ruling circles, securing some secondary posts in Aberdeen's Coalition Government and refusing to support the League's demands. This demoralised the Independent Opposition and ultimately led to its collapse (1859). [69] A reference to the aggravation of Anglo-French differences in the Middle East during the Turko-Egyptian war of 1839-41. The conclusion, without French participation, of the London Convention of July 15, 1840 (see Note 20↓) on aid by the Western Powers to the Sultan in his struggle against the Egyptian ruler Mehemet Ali created the danger of war breaking out between Britain and France. Fearing the formation of an anti-French coalition, France was forced to discontinue its support for Egypt. [20] The Afghanistan campaigns—during the first Anglo-Afghan war (1838-42) in which Britain strove to establish colonial rule in Afghanistan, British troops invaded Afghan territory twice (in 1838 and 1842). Both invasions failed to achieve their purpose.
At the insistence of the British government, Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia signed a convention in London on July 15, 1840, on military assistance to Turkey in its war against Egypt (1839-41). In the autumn of 1840 British and Austrian warships bombarded Beirut, Saint-Jean-d'Acre and other for-tresses on the Syrian coast, which had been captured by Mehemet Ali, the ruler of Egypt, between 1831 and 1833. Eventually Mehemet Ali was forced to relinquish his possessions outside Egypt and submit to the supreme authority of the Sultan.
Source: Marx and Engels Collected Works, Volume 14 (pp.470-471), Progress Publishers, Moscow 1980
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