The Little-known Autobiography of Sir John Stokes, the First British Representative in the European Commission of the Danube (1856 – 1871). Part II

Abstract

The internationalisation of the Danube and the establishment of a new regime of navigation on the fluvial and maritime sector of the river, through the provisions of the 1856 Treaty of Paris, created favourable premises for the improvement of navigation at the Lower Danube, under the supervision of the European Commission of the Danube, the institutional body responsible with carrying out the technical works at the Danube mouths and on the fluvial sector up to the point of Isaktcha1. The first estimations, based on an enormous amount of date on depths, winds and flows collected on all the three branches of the river, proved the complexity of the engineering works needed and the impossibility of the E.C.D. to finish them in the period of the mandate given in 1856. The commercial importance of the Danubian ports of Galatz and Ibraila for the British and French economic circles and the tendencies of the Austrian Empire to impose its supremacy over the entire course of the river generated a concerted action of the Western Powers, with the notable result, during a Conference in 1858, of extending the mandate of the Commission “to the complete achievement of the said works”.