Another aim of the insurgents was to force an emigration en masse into Austrian territory by promises that they should be well fed and cared for by the Austrian authorities until favourable conditions were secured for them. Montenegro, too, was let loose on Turkey and well supplied with the sinews of war. It was determined at Vienna that no time should be lost in “putting their pin in the game,” and in taking the lead in negotiations that must necessarily precede an occupation. The principle of interference once admitted, all the rest would follow in due course. On the 24th August 1875, Lord Derby writes to Sir H. Elliot that: “Her Majesty’s Government have had under their consideration your telegraphic despatch of the 20th inst., in which you report that a proposal, concerted at Vienna by the three Northern Powers, had been made to the Porte by their Ambassadors. Your Excellency states that they propose that Consuls should be delegated by the Embassies to proceed to the scene of the insurrection and inform the insurgents that they must expect no support or countenance from their Governments. They are also to advise the insurgents to desist from hostilities, but to make known their complaints to a Commission.... The proposal is favourably received by the Porte, and the Grand Vizier (Mahmoud Nedim) had just been to beg you not to stand aloof.... Her Majesty’s Government consent to this step with reluctance, as they doubt the expediency of the intervention of foreign consuls. Such an intervention is scarcely compatible with the independent authority of the Porte over its own territory, offers an inducement to an insurrection as a means of appealing to foreign sympathy against Turkish rule, and may, not improbably, open the way to further diplomatic interference in the internal affairs of the Empire.”[66] Prophetic words on the part of Lord Derby. Of course the consular farce came to nothing. The rebels would not even meet the Consuls. Facts were more eloquent than words, and they had their cues from the Committees. Now was the time, if the Powers had been in earnest, to shut the Dalmatian frontier to the rebels, as they had undertaken to do. We shall see how Austria fulfilled this part of the bargain. Instead of occupying themselves in the slightest degree with this part of the business, they immediately set about concocting another diplomatic move.
On 11th December 1875, the Austrian Ambassador, Count Beust, called on Lord Derby, and said that “The Turkish Ministers had hitherto directed their energies exclusively to the task of preventing anything which could be construed into an interference of any kind with the internal affairs of Turkey. This standpoint, however respectable it may be, has the disadvantage the Austro‐Hungarian Government considered, of prolonging a regrettable state of things, and therefore of aggravating the danger. Negotiations respecting the affairs of the East are now being carried on between Vienna and St Petersburg, the result of which will be communicated as soon as an agreement has been arrived at, to Her Majesty’s Government, not in the light of an accomplished fact, but for their consideration, and for them to state their own opinions on the propositions agreed upon.”[67]
On the 3rd January 1876, Lord Derby received from Count Beust a copy of the famous despatch, which goes by the name of the Andrassy Memorandum, of the 30th December 1875, which, after stating that the three Courts of Austria‐Hungary, Russia, and Germany, after exchanging their views on this subject, “have united for the purpose of employing in common their efforts for pacification, and this object appeared too much in conformity with the general wish for them to doubt that the other Cabinets when invited to associate themselves in the movement, through their representatives at Constantinople, would hasten to join their efforts to ours,” proceeded to recommend to the Porte the following five points:—
(1) Full and entire religious liberty.
(2) Abolition of the system of farming the taxes.
(3) A law guaranteeing the produce of direct taxes being employed in the interest of the provinces.
(4) The institution of a special commission composed of an equal number of Christians and Mussulmans, to control the execution of the reforms.
(5) The improvement of the position of the rural population.
And in submitting these proposals to the English Minister, Count Beust added that “they were not regarded by his Government in the light of mere good advice. They wanted a pledge that the reforms that they recommended should be carried into execution, failing which, they would not undertake to use their influence with the Christian population to advise them to lay down their arms.”[68] And in another interview, the next day, he spoke again of an “explicit engagement” from the Porte, adding that “there could be no doubt that the postponement of the pacifying influences of the Powers even by single days might in the present state of affairs be fraught with incalculable danger.”[69] The Austrian Government, however, repudiated any idea “of armed intervention, and stated that it had no desire to constitute itself guardians of the peace beyond its own frontiers,” and that if the Porte accepted, and the insurgents did not submit, “then the Porte would be left to subdue them by force of arms, and that they (the insurgents) would be prevented from obtaining the support derived by them from exterior aid.”[70]
This was six months after the so‐called insurrection had broken out, and had been all the time “obtaining continuous support from exterior aid,” and three months after the Consular Commission, which had been obtained from the Porte by a formal promise to shut the frontier to the rebels if they refused the advice of the Consuls. Lord Derby, after distinctly stating that he would be no party to any pressure being brought to bear on the Porte to carry out these reforms, and having ascertained that the Turkish Government desired England’s adhesion to the Note, consented to support it at Constantinople.