But something more particular must have occurred to encourage Prince Milan to order on the 26th September, the very next day on which the suspension of hostilities terminated, a general attack on the Turks in the Morava Valley. What was it? On the 28th September 1876, Mr Malet (afterwards Sir Edward Malet), writing from Rome to Lord Derby,[38] states that Sig. Melegari, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, in order to convince him “of the imminence of the danger to the Ottoman Empire” read the following paper to him, as coming from Livadia, adding that England alone was able to avert the execution of the design by “compelling” the Porte to acquiesce in His Lordship’s demands. The paper was dated 26th September, and ran as follows: “The Emperor has sent General Soumarakoff to Vienna with instructions to propose a peace, should Turkey attempt to evade the armistice, upon conditions that would suit all the Powers, viz. Austrian military intervention in Bosnia, Russian military intervention in Bulgaria, and the joint entry of all the squadrons of the Levant into the Bosphorus. These steps appear to us indispensable in order to bring the Porte to its senses, to prevent war, and save the Christians from a general massacre.”[39]
This grandis epistola a Capreis which frightened Mr Malet so much that he immediately telegraphed its substance to Lord Derby, and which was, no doubt, intended to frighten Lord Derby, had no chance at all of being accepted at Vienna, and if the constant and continuous intercourse between the three Northern “and allied Powers” was to any purpose at all, it is quite impossible that the nature of the reception it should meet with there, should have been ignored. It could therefore only have been intended as a “spur” to the Foreign Office, and it succeeded admirably in its intention.
It is scarcely worth while to waste many words over the proposal from Livadia. Austria feared nothing so much as a joint occupation with Russia. It would have been a guarantee exacted from her for her own eventual simultaneous retirement, which would have upset all her plans. Nor was England yet brought up to concert pitch. But the notice had served its purpose. England, a little timorously, and with the best intentions towards Turkey, and with the general approval and even applause of Europe,[40] had undertaken the lead in proposing terms to Turkey as a basis of pacification. As early as the 11th September Count Schouvaloff in an interview described “(1) The status quo, speaking roughly, both as regards Servia and Montenegro. (2) Administrative reforms in the nature of local autonomy for Bosnia and the Herzegovina. (3) Guarantees of some similar kinds (the exact details of which might be reserved for later discussion) against the future maladministration of Bulgaria.”[41]
Ten days later, on the 21st September, Lord Derby, having in the meantime secured the agreement of the Austrian Government[42] to these proposals, these terms were forwarded to Sir H. Elliot for communication to the Porte. The second condition relating to Bosnia and Herzegovina was amplified by the important stipulation “that the Porte should undertake, in a Protocol to be signed at Constantinople with the Representatives of the mediatory Powers, to grant, etc.”[43]
Sir H. Elliot, in obedience to positive instructions, went to the utmost limit of friendly pressure[44] to induce the Porte to accept these conditions. The Porte, on its side, showed the greatest possible desire to meet the wishes of the English Ambassador.[45] The term “local autonomy,” and still more the form of a Protocol demanded, were the two most serious obstacles to an understanding. So great was Sir H. Elliot’s influence on the Turkish Minister, and so great was their confidence in England’s loyalty, that an understanding was almost arrived at when the news of General Soumarakoff’s Mission reached the Porte. On the 4th October, the new Turkish Government telegraphed to the Ottoman Ambassador in London an indignant protest against the proposals of which that envoy was the bearer, and concluded by saying: “If the Sublime Porte has, though challenged (by Servia), not made use of her victory, she will never forget that she is still an independent State, and that she owes it to herself to choose an honourable death rather than the dismemberment and partition of her States.”[46]
This incident did not facilitate Sir H. Elliot’s task. On the day following the 5th October, Lord Derby instructs Sir H. Elliot to inform the Porte that it is intended that the armistice should be followed by a Conference, and that if an armistice for not less than a month is not granted, the Ambassador was to quit Constantinople and leave Turkey to its fate.[47]
On the 8th October, the Porte asks the very pertinent question whether, in the event of the conditions being accepted, a Conference would still be proposed.[48] No answer seems ever to have been given to this important question.
The Turkish Ministers now submitted the question of the armistice to a Grand Council, which acceded to it for five months.[49] On the 13th October, in a long telegram to Musurus Pasha, the Porte makes a last despairing attempt to stay the decision for a Conference, which it says “will at least give rise to the danger of certain impulses on which head we have the right to be anxious, and which in reality would be of no use. The five months’ armistice would leave ample time for the Powers to exchange explanations and observations without any Conference. During this time, the work of internal reform would go on, and Europe would have the opportunity of being edified as to the serious and practical character of the promises of the Imperial Government,” and concluded by saying, referring evidently to the negotiations with Sir H. Elliot, “I hope His Lordship will agree with us in preventing the question, which was just beginning to look brighter, thanks to so many sacrifices and efforts, from being turned into a path of new difficulties and perils.”[50]
If it had not been for the Soumarakoff Mission, and the scare it created in the Foreign Office, it would have been an inexplicable mystery why Lord Derby, abandoning negotiations carried on by Sir H. Elliot, which “were just beginning to look brighter,” should have hurriedly fathered this proposal of a Conference. If the Soumarakoff Mission was only intended to secure this point, it was most eminently successful. Anyway, from this time forth, Lord Derby stuck grimly to a Conference. Without a Conference there was no salvation. The question, however, of the duration of the armistice was not yet settled, and as England, having accepted six months, could not recant, General Ignatieff arrived from Livadia to settle it.
But here an incident occurred of a too charmingly amusing character to be passed over in silence. La note comique is never entirely absent from these negotiations. Lord Adolphus Loftus, Her Britannic Majesty’s Ambassador at St Petersburg, received leave in the middle of October to go to the Crimea, whither the Russian Court had removed, and where Prince Gortchakoff, the Chancellor, was slaying, in order to be nearer the official source of diplomatic information. On Friday, the 27th, accordingly, he arrived at Yalta, accompanied by Mr Egerton of his Embassy. On Sunday, the 29th, he had an interview at Orianda with Prince Gortchakoff, “who received him very cordially, and after some friendly remarks, the conversation turned to Constantinople.” After stating that the state of affairs there was grave, the Chancellor expressed “a hope that the question of the armistice was arranged, the Porte having, on the advice of Sir H. Elliot, yielded to the considerations in favour of the shorter term.” His Highness further stated “that General Ignatieff had been instructed to be yielding and conciliatory on the subject of the armistice.”