The Midlothian campaign of 1878–80 was a series of foreign policy speeches given by William Gladstone, former leader of Britain's Liberal Party, leading to his contesting the Scottish county constituency of Midlothian in the 1880 general election. Organised by the Earl of Rosebery as a media event, it is often cited as the first modern political campaign in Britain. It also set the stage for Gladstone's comeback as a politician and effective leader of the Liberal Party as his Party decisively won the general election.
Gladstone charged the Conservative government of his longstanding political enemy Benjamin Disraeli with financial incompetence, neglect of domestic legislation, and mismanagement of foreign affairs. He was able to enhance his reputation as a popular and down-to-earth politician ("The People's William") and cemented his pre-eminence as the most important politician within the Liberal Party.
The Midlothian campaign made it impossible to ignore Gladstone's leadership claim both within the Liberal Party and for Queen Victoria. Furthermore, it created a momentum that carried the Liberals to power in 1880, and Gladstone was able to form his Second ministry.
Gladstone's personal situation in the Mid-1870s
After six years of government, the Liberal government led by Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone came to an end when the Liberals suffered a heavy defeat in the general election of 1874. After a short transition period, Gladstone relinquished the leadership of the Liberal Party to become a mere backbencher in the British House of Commons. Subsequently, he had to suffer a painful defeat when the Public Worship Regulation Act 1874 was introduced as a Private Member's Bill by Archbishop of Canterbury Archibald Campbell Tait, to limit what the archbishop perceived as the growing ritualism of Anglo-Catholicism and the Oxford Movement within the Church of England. The bill was supported by Queen Victoria and Gladstone's longstanding political nemesis, Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, who saw the bill purely in political terms.John Campbell: Pistols at Dawn: Two Hundred Years of Political Rivalry from Pitt and Fox to Blair and Brown. Vintage Books, London 2009, p. 125. Gladstone, a high church Anglican whose sympathies were for separation of church and state, felt disgusted that the liturgy was made, as he saw it, "a parliamentary football" and introduced six resolutions when the bill came to the House of Commons. But on this, he found himself out of step with his own party and had to back down when Disraeli put the weight of the government behind the bill.Richard Aldous: The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs Disraeli Pimlico, London 2007, p. 257 f. When the bill was passed, he retreated to his country mansion Hawarden Castle. In January 1875 he made good on a promise given years earlier and withdrew himself altogether from politics. Instead he spent his time at Hawarden, occupied with studies of Homer.John Campbell: Pistols at Dawn: Two Hundred Years of Political Rivalry from Pitt and Fox to Blair and Brown. Vintage Books, London 2009, p. 125 f. After his self-imposed exile, leadership of the Liberal party was shared between Lord Hartington, who led the Liberals in the House of Commons, and Lord Granville, who was Leader of the Liberals in the House of Lords.Richard Aldous: The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs Disraeli Pimlico, London 2007, p. 260 f. His biographers are in accord that Gladstone's self-imposed political exile was never complete and that he privately toyed with the idea of a political comeback, waiting only for an external cause on which to base a reversal of his former decision to withdraw.D. C. Somervell: Disraeli and Gladstone. Jarrolds Publishers, London 1925, p. 173 f.Francis Birrell: Gladstone. Duckworth, London 1933, p. 89.H. C. G Matthew: Gladstone: 1809–1898. London 1997, p. 256.Richard Aldous: The Lion and the Unicorn. Gladstone vs Disraeli. Pimlico, London 2007, p. 260 f.John Campbell: Pistols at Dawn: Two Hundred Years of Political Rivalry from Pitt and Fox to Blair and Brown. Vintage Books, London 2009, p. 126.
The Bulgarian Uprising of 1876
In 1875, the Eastern question came to the fore for the first time since the Crimean War.Robert Blake: Disraeli Prion, London 1966, p. 575. In July 1875 an insurgency against Ottoman rule broke out in Herzegovina, soon spreading over to Bosnia. Then at the end of April 1876, an insurgency broke out in Bulgaria against Turkish rule. The military of the Ottoman Empire using Bashi-bazouk, undisciplined irregular troops, soon crushed the Bulgarian revolt, but in the process committed brutal massacres, killing some 12,000 people.
To block Russia from filling the vacuum, Britain had strong ties with the crumbling Ottoman Empire, long branded as Sick man of Europe. For London, it was essential to support Ottoman Empire against further Russian expansion.John Campbell: Pistols at Dawn: Two Hundred Years of Political Rivalry from Pitt and Fox to Blair and Brown. Vintage Books, London 2009, p. 126. This stemmed partly from British suspicions over Russian intentions towards India. In the 1860s a series of Russian conquests in central Asia reinforced British concerns about Russia either marching to India direct or cutting the British route to India. British politicians & diplomats feared that by taking Constantinople, Russia would have been able to threaten the Suez canal.Robert Blake: Disraeli Prion, London 1966, p. 576 f. In the 1870s, there were voices that this dogma had in fact become obsolete. With the return of the conservatives to power in 1874, Benjamin Disraeli became prime minister. This forms a landmark in British foreign policy, as it ended a period of isolation and non-intervention. Since 1865 the policy of both parties had been to abstain from Continental affairs.R. W. Seton-Watson: Disraeli, Gladstone, and the Eastern Question: A Study in Diplomacy and Party Politics. W.W. Norton & Company, London 1972, p. 3. From the beginning, Disraeli put his special attention to foreign policy and introduced an Imperial conception of affairs.R. W. Seton-Watson: Disraeli, Gladstone, and the Eastern Question: A Study in Diplomacy and Party Politics. W.W. Norton & Company, London 1972, p. 3 f. Disraeli also feared that by taking Constantinople, Russia could at any time march their Army through Syria to Egypt.Robert Blake: Disraeli Prion, London 1966, p. 577. So for Britain, the "Key to India" remained in Constantinople.
Extraparliamentary protest movements News of a series of atrocities by the Ottomans during their suppression of the Bulgarian April Uprising reached the British press, despite strong efforts at censorship by the Turkish authorities. In June, the newspaper The Daily News, famous for its overseas coverage,R. W. Seton-Watson: Disraeli, Gladstone, and the Eastern Question: A Study in Diplomacy and Party Politics. W.W. Norton & Company, London 1972, p. 52. published an account of atrocities committed by irregular troops and claimed that some twenty five thousand men, women and children had been slaughtered. The British public reaction was generally one of dismay. Throughout the summer various other reports were published by the Daily News. Sir Henry Elliot, British Ambassador at Constantinople since 1867, was strongly pro-Turk throughout his years in Constantinople. Additionally he suffered from poor health and was unable to personally investigate the allegations made by correspondents. All of this inclined Elliot to believe Turkish assurances. Although he was aware that the reports contained at least some truth, he toned down his reports to London.Robert Blake: Disraeli Prion, London 1966, p. 592. The government of Benjamin Disraeli ignored the outrage at first and continued its policy of support for the Ottoman Empire, an ally in the Crimean War and a bulwark against possible Russian expansion in the area. Disraeli, who was pro-Turk himself, was instinctively skeptical about published atrocity stories, a stance he had previously taken during the Indian mutiny in 1857/1858. Furthermore, the Daily News was a distinctly Liberal, Radical and reformist newspaper and very hostile to Disraeli personally.Robert Blake: Disraeli Prion, London 1966, p. 594. All of this combined to cause him to shrug aside the matter when he was questioned in the House of Commons about the issue. When questioned first in June, he denounced the whole story as a set-up job by the Daily News "to create a cry against the Government".Richard Aldous: The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs Disraeli Pimlico, London 2007, p. 269. A week later, he quoted from his official correspondence with Sir Henry Elliot. While he admitted that acts on both sides were equally atrocious, he defended the Turks, repeatedly requoting Elliot. In the interval between these discussions in the House of Commons Disraeli complained bitterly to his Foreign secretary Lord Derby that the Foreign Office did not supply him with the necessary accurate information before so critical a debate.R. W. Seton-Watson: Disraeli, Gladstone, and the Eastern Question: A Study in Diplomacy and Party Politics. W.W. Norton & Company, London 1972, p. 54. He also resisted calls for a full inquiry and dismissed the reports as little more than "coffee house babble".Richard Aldous: The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs Disraeli Pimlico, London 2007, p. 269 f. In August a preliminary report from Walter Baring arrived in London; Baring had been sent out by the British Government to investigate what was going on. The report left no doubt that a massacre had occurred.Robert Blake: Disraeli Prion, London 1966, p. 594. In his speech in the House of Commons on the 11th of August, Disraeli was forced to admit the killing of twelve thousand Bulgarians; calling it a "horrible event", but contrasting the confirmed reports with the much too high figures published earlier in the Daily News along with claims of a depopulation of a province of almost four million inhabitants.Richard Aldous: The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs Disraeli Pimlico, London 2007, p. 270. Afterwards, Disraeli admitted to Derby that the debate had been "very damaging" for the Government and once again criticizing the incompetence of the Foreign Office, which had misled him initially. Both Robert Blake and R. W. Seton-Watson agree that Disraeli, already a Turcophile, with a lack of factual information, had committed himself to a path from which it was difficult to recede from without admitting publicly that he had been wrong.R. W. Seton-Watson: Disraeli, Gladstone, and the Eastern Question: A Study in Diplomacy and Party Politics. W.W. Norton & Company, London 1972, p. 56 f.Robert Blake: Disraeli Prion, London 1966, p. 592.
Throughout August more updates came in; the American consul Eugene Schuyler, a much respected man, had been despatched from Constantinople to see for himself what was going on. He reported an "indiscriminate slaughter" and recounted that the Bashi-bazouks had locked prisoners in churches before setting fire to them. He also detailed the explicitly religious nature of the violence. Official Turkish denials were dismissed by him as "a tissue of falsehoods". The Daily News immediately published Schuyler's reports. It caused a stir in Britain. Intellectuals and clerics began to organize rallies and protests.