Great Britain and Her Efforts for the Establishment and Maintenance of the European Commission of the Danube (1855-1858)

Abstract

The paper analyses the position of the British diplomats regarding the question of establishing a regime of free navigation on the maritime sector of the Danube. As the economic interests of English or French merchants, eager to conquer the grain commerce of the Romanian Principalities, were threatened at the Lower Danube by natural or artificial obstacles tolerated by the Russian authorities, the Sulina controversy was among the great international litigations that European diplomats wished to solve in the context of the Crimean War. During the Conference of Vienna (1855) and at the Congress of Paris (1856), debates around the international regime of the Danube were very complicated. The British representatives, acting in common with their French colleagues, fought for the establishment of a European Commission of the Danube, an international committee whose mission was to improve the conditions of navigation at the mouths of the river. The Eastern Empires, Russia and Austria, were opposing this initiative of the Maritime Powers, which endangered their own economic supremacy in the region. Thus, the initial success of establishing the European Commission had to followed by intensive efforts in order to make this body as solid and efficient as possible.