The Romanovs 1818–1959

replied in angry terms to a letter of condolence from Vienna. Instead of finding in the Austrian Emperor a faithful friend and ally, wrote Alexander, the late Tsar ‘saw you follow a political course which brought you ever closer to our enemies and which will still bring us inevitably, if that course does not change, to a fratricidal war, for which you will be accountable to God’.6

British Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, had advised Queen Victoria that it was ‘possible that the new Emperor may revert to the peaceful policy which he was understood to advocate in the beginning of these transactions, but it is possible on the other hand that he may feel bound to follow out the policy of his father’.5

Yet the reign of Tsar Nicholas was not destined to end on a note of triumph. By now foreign diplomats in St Petersburg sensed an increasing arrogance in the bearing of the Tsar, who appeared to regard himself as omnipotent. To him true glory meant an expansion in Russian territory, and he saw himself imbued with a mission to fulfil his grandmother Catherine the Great’s dream, namely the acquisition of Constantinople and the Straits.