1 Benjamin Disraeli

Date of birth: December twenty-first, Eighteen zero four

Date of death: April Nineteenth, eighteen eighty-one

2 Disraeli Benjamin English statesman of the Conservative Party of Great Britain,

forty and forty-second Prime Minister of Great Britain at eighteen sixty-eight, and
from eighteen seventy-four to eighteen eighty, а member of the House of Lords
since eighteen seventy-four, writer, one of the representatives of the "social
novel".
3 Benjamin Disraeli was born into a wealthy Jewish bourgeois family. His father
didn't want to engage in the traditional family business and devoted his life to
literature.
Disraeli made a lot of effort to get an education among all that he could choose,
he chose history. Before reaching the age of majority, Benjamin tried to play on
the stock exchange and publish a newspaper, but unfortunately he didn't
succeed. A long journey through the Mediterranean and the Middle East saved
him from debt. At the age of twenty, Disraeli wrote the novel Vivian Gray, which
brought him fame. Later, he wrote several novels that readers liked.

4 Disraeli set himself the goal of becoming Prime Minister of Great Britain by the
age of thirty. But only his fifth attempt to get into the House of Commons from
the Conservative Party was successful (eighteen thirty-seven). Disraeli's financial
affairs had by this time fallen into disrepair.
In eighteen-fifty-two, he became Minister of the Treasury in the Derby Cabinet
and leader of the House of Commons. But soon the Tories were back in
opposition. For a very long time, Disraeli led the Conservative Party alongside
Edward Stanley, the fourteenth Earl of Derby.
At eighteen-sixty-eight, the elderly Derby resigned, and in March Disraeli took
over the cabinet. But in December, the Liberals won the election, and he found
himself retired and in opposition.
5 A year later, Disraeli became the leader of the English nation. The secret of his
extraordinary career, as noted by the English historian D. Lee, is that "no one in
the government, and even in the whole of England, could so clearly define the
goals as Disraeli, much less achieve them." "Disraeli's policy in Eastern affairs, as
well as in any other foreign policy question, «this historian went on to write," was
to defend English interests, if possible, by peaceful means, but if absolutely
necessary, by the threat of war."

6 At the end of November eighteen seventy fifth, Europe learned of the secret of
the transaction. The British government bought up a forty% stake in the Suez
Canal owned by Ismail Pasha, the penultimate Khedive of Egypt. Egypt was then
part of the Ottoman Empire, but Disraeli did not even inform the sultan of the
deal. He deftly used the Khedive's financial predicament to take control of t
he Suez Canal, the most important international waterway. The Russian
ambassador in London, Count Piotr Shuvalov, described this as the beginning of a
new era in England - an era of active participation in the partition of the Ottoman
Empire and further advance to the Middle East, the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea.

7 Disraeli was a brilliant master of secret diplomacy, intrigue, and casuistic

political intricacies. He soon made another bid for the unlimited expansion of the
British Empire. In April 18 ' seventy-six, Queen Victoria of England was proclaimed
Empress of India. The Queen did not remain in debt and in August granted
Disraeli the title of Lord Beaconsfield and the title of peerage of Great Britain.
Disraeli saw British interests not only in Egypt, but above all in Asia Minor, the
Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, Syria, Lebanon, Mesopotamia, the Tigris and
Euphrates valleys, and finally in Afghanistan. But in order to subdue the markets
in these regions, it was necessary to have a strong base. Such a base, according to
Disraeli, should have been Cyprus, which belonged to the Ottoman Empire

8 But Disraeli had long ago realized that the partition of the Ottoman Empire was
inevitable, and he wanted to make the most of it. He signed the London Protocol
of eighteen seventy-seven and joined the call of the three northern courts for
Turkey to stop the slaughter in the Balkans. However, the sultan, being sure that
Disraeli was on his side, despite the formal demands on him, rejected this
document. Russia's response was a declaration of war. Russia seemed to have
won a diplomatic victory. It was supported not only by Austria-Hungary and
Germany, but also by France, not to mention the considerable support of British
public opinion.

9 But Disraeli was playing a clever game based on the following calculation.
Turkey will stubbornly reject all the demands of Russia and the powers.
Eventually, Russia will declare war on the Ottoman Empire. When the parties
have exhausted each other, England will threaten the tsar with a European
coalition and make two or three military demonstrations-and the Russians will be
forced to leave. Turkey, on the other hand, will have to pay England for "saving
the capital and the entire empire at the price that will be demanded of it. And, it
should be noted, this plan was successful. Throughout the Russian-Turkish war,
England consistently pursued its political line. Disraeli portrayed himself as a
"proponent of decisive action", demanded that parliament increase military
spending, constantly declared in the House of Lords and in cabinet meetings
about the threat to Istanbul, the Suez Canal and the "route to India", pretended
that England was about to start military operations.