on which the Porte might make peace. Substantially the same as the second Vienna Note (December 5), which arrived the following day, it was perhaps Stratford's greatest triumph. For it embodied the promise to confirm all the ancient privileges of the Greek Church,120 a promise most reluctantly given, for the Turks believed that France and Great Britain would under no circumstances desert them. Stratford had carried his point by refusing otherwise to send the fleets into the Black Sea,121 although he considered that action an absolute necessity,122 and by threatening to leave Turkey to her fate in the event of massacres in the city, which were feared owing to the restlessness of the softas.123

After this Stratford played little part in the course of events, which was directed by the chanceries of Europe. He had used every power to keep the Turks in line, to extort concessions, to prevent actual hostilities, except that he refused privately to advise the full acceptance of the Russian demands. At all times he sought to work in harmony with the other diplomatists in Constantinople; he was more restrained than his French colleague. No doubt he was anti-Russian and pro-Turk, and the hopes that he entertained for his protégés were never fulfilled. But he strove honestly for peace, as he understood the problem, and his conduct was formally approved by his government.

Perhaps the strangest aspect of the long negotiations was the attitude of Austria. The Hapsburg monarchy was directly interested in the Russian programme, for if the tsar should secure a protectorate over the Greek Christians of Turkey, a large proportion of whom were Slavs, the reaction upon the Slav subjects of Francis Joseph, smarting as they were under the treatment accorded them during and after the Revolution of 1848, would be certain and perhaps serious.124 For this reason several Austrian diplomatists, notably Hübner at Paris and Prokesch-Osten at Frankfort, desired that Austria co-operate with the Western Powers to block the ambitions of Russia. But the feudal aristocracy and many of the leading generals remembered the services of the Russian army in sup120 Note of December 13, 1853. Annual Register, 1854, p. 496.

121 Stratford to Reshid, December 12, 1853. Eastern Papers, no. 371, pt. II.,

P. 341.

122 Lane-Poole, op. cit., II. 330.

123 Stratford to Reshid, December 21, 1853. Eastern Papers, no. 373, pt. II., P. 344.

124 In the autumn of 1853, the tsar gave assurances that neither he nor his son would countenance any movements against the Austrian government by its Slav subjects. Friedjung, Der Krimkrieg, p. 14. This book is the chief authority for the following paragraphs.

if possible, by force if necessary; and the troops on the Hungarian frontier were reinforced. But it was not until March 22, on the very day that the Russians crossed the Danube and nearly a month after the ultimatum of the Western Powers, that the decision was finally made to place the Austrian army on a war footing; furthermore, any action was to be dependent on the support of Prussia, and the treaty of alliance with that power was concluded only on April 20.129

Thus the policy of Austria, energetically as it finally manifested. itself, was of no assistance to France and Great Britain in the final play. One cannot say that she deliberately allowed the Western Powers to pull her chestnuts out of the fire, though she has been roundly accused of it; but she certainly did not give them that wholehearted support which would have confronted the tsar with the solid front of Europe and in all probability have constrained him to moderate his demands upon Turkey.

Of Prussia little need be said. She had no direct interest in the question, and therefore no policy.130 In a vague way she supported Austria, but King Frederick William IV., the brother-in-law of the tsar, was almost pro-Russian, and the anti-Russian party was powerless because of its liberal leanings. For practical purposes, Prussia pursued a policy of neutrality, though not of the straightforward variety advocated by Bismarck.

Certain conclusions may be briefly stated. The tsar knew from the beginning what he wanted, and observing that Europe would not unite to oppose him, yielded none of his demands, the acceptance of which by Turkey would at least have upset the status quo in the Near East. Napoleon probably desired war, but made a parade of pacific intentions. Great Britain at the outset unquestionably desired peace, but did not make clear that the designs of Russia would be resisted, by force if necessary, thereby encouraging the tsar to stand his ground. Austria's attitude, until too late, was equally uncertain. The Turks181 played their game admirably. In the face of such confusion war could have been avoided only by a miracle. BERNADOTTE E. SCHMITT.

129 Ibid., pp. 19, 43-44.

130 Loftus, Diplomatic Reminiscences, first series, vol. I., chs. XIV.-XVI. 131 The tsar spoke to Castelbajac of "ces misérables Turcs", and Clarendon qualified them as

beastly".

NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS

NOTES ON THE Beginnings of AERONAUTICS IN AMERICA

In view of the important part played in the Great War by aircraft of various sorts, it is interesting to know that, more than a century and a quarter ago, three of the founders of the American Republic, signers of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Francis Hopkinson, were intensely interested in this subject, and definitely predicted the part that navigation of the air was to play in subsequent history.

The history of modern aeronautics begins on June 5, 1783, when the Montgolfier brothers, Joseph Michel and Jacques Étienne, gave a public demonstration of their discoveries by sending up at Annonay, France, a large hot-air balloon. That this demonstration, which attracted so much attention in France, aroused almost an equal amount of interest in America is proved by the fact that during the next winter a correspondent in America of the Journal de Paris contributed to that paper a fictitious account of a balloon ascension which purported to have taken place in Philadelphia in the latter. part of 1783.

According to this story, which was published May 13, 1784, "Ritnose" and "Opquisne", members of the "Philosophical Academy",1 sent up, on December 28 of the preceding year, fortyseven small balloons, attached to a cage, in which they placed, first animals, and later "Gimes Ouilcoxe" (James Wilcox), a local carpenter. When the latter saw that he was approaching the "Scoulquille" River, he became alarmed and punctured some of his balloons and so brought himself down.

This story is a pure myth. There is no mention of the event in the records of the American Philosophical Society, in William Barton's Life of David Rittenhouse, in the correspondence of Francis Hopkinson, or in Jacob Hiltzheimer's Diary-which does record the first real ascension. Nevertheless, it was generally accepted as true; it was quoted in Hatton Turnor's elaborate history of aeronautics, Astra Castra, and is repeated in the eleventh edition of the

1 This evidently refers to David Rittenhouse and Francis Hopkinson, prominent members of the American Philosophical Society.

2 The author of this article has written a life of Francis Hopkinson, which is deposited among the doctoral theses in the Harvard College Library.

Encyclopaedia Britannica, although the hoax was thoroughly exposed in the thirty-fifth volume of the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography.3

Although this particular story is undoubtedly apocryphal, Francis Hopkinson and a number of his friends, including Jefferson and Franklin, followed the early experiments in aeronautics with close attention. The first indication of this is found in the following extract from a letter written by Jefferson, at Annapolis, to Hopkinson, at Philadelphia, on February 18, 1784:

What think you of these ballons [sic]? They really begin to assume a serious face. The Cheval'r Luzerne1 communicated to me a letter received from his brother, who mentions one which he had seen himself. The persons who ascended in it regulated its height at about 3000 feet and passed with the wind about 6 miles in 20 minutes when they chose to let themselves down, tho' they could have traveled triple the distance. This discovery seems to threaten the prostration of fortified works unless they can be closed above, the destruction of fleets, and what not. The French may now run over their laces, wines etc. to England duty free. The whole system of British statutes made on the supposition of goods being brought into some port must be revised; inland countries may now become maritime states unless you chuse rather to call them aerial, as their commerce is in future to be carried on through that element-but jesting apart, I think this discovery may lead to things useful-for instance there is no longer a difficulty how Congress may move backwards and forwards and your bungling scheme of moving houses and moving towns is quite superseded; we shall soar sublime above the clouds."

Hopkinson's reply to this letter opens with a sentence which clearly disproves the story published in the Journal de Paris.

We have not taken the affair of the Balloons in hand. A high flying politician is, I think, not unlike a Balloon-he is full of inflammability, he is driven along by every current of wind and those who will suffer themselves to be carried up by them run a great Risk that the Bubble may burst and let them fall from the Height to which the principle of Levity has raised them."

3 Joseph Jackson, "The First Balloon Hoax ", Pa. Mag. Hist., XXXV. 51–58. [An examination of the original text in the Journal de Paris of May 13, 1784 (p. 585), of which Mr. Jackson seems to have had only a contemporary translation, has led the editor of this Review to think that, while the narrative is indeed fictitious, Mr. Jackson's conclusions as to the origin of the hoax are open to modification. ED.]

4 French minister. The ascent described by his brother was that of Pilâtre de Rozier, November 21, 1783.

5 Jefferson was a member of Congress, which was at that time in session at Annapolis. He refers here to an essay of Hopkinson's entitled "A Summary of Some Late Proceedings ", which ridicules the inability of Congress to decide on a permanent place of meeting.

6 This letter is among the papers of Edward Hopkinson, Esq., of Philadelphia. 7 Hopkinson to Jefferson, March 12, 1784. Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress.