The Forward View: Austen Henry Layard and the Russo–Turkish War of 1877

Abstract

As British Ambassador at Constantinople during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877, Austen Henry Layard was the proverbial ‘man on the spot’: an emissary, on the fringes of empire, entrusted to defend Britain’s informal empire in the Near East. Layard’s forward thinking at that time, and some would say his Russophobia, was borne of travel, as well as some official duty, in the region and at the Foreign Office. He served what historians typically regard as a pusillanimous Foreign Secretary (the 15th Earl of Derby), but a more robust Prime Minister (Lord Beaconsfield), whose ideas about British strategic defence in the region, against an expanding Russian empire, he largely shared. Layard sketched his perception of Russia’s ambitions on a very broad front, stretching from the Balkan Peninsula to the frontiers of India. This paper explores Layard’s situation in Constantinople, his geo-political thinking, his views about Russian ambitions in the Eastern Mediterranean and beyond, and, most of all, his ideas about the duties of a statesman, relative to the defence of British interests in the Near East