The refusal of the Turk is no mystery to-day. There was no infatuation about it. The Porte knew that his speech meant no harm to Turkey: that he had come to avert the loss of the Empire. He knew very well that whatever the issue of the war might be on the battlefield, England would never let Russia profit by her victories. Hence the Porte in sublime contempt snapped its fingers in the face of the Conference and politely bowed it out of existence. The issue proved that the Turks knew exactly the man and the nation they were dealing with. Yet the English people thought the Government really meant to do something to help the cause of the persecuted Bulgarians: just as they thought for awhile that Salisbury as Prime Minister meant, really intended to do something in the cause of Armenia.
England has not changed in her traditional policy towards the Turk. She has not deserted the cause she has maintained for now some sixty years, and she never will desert it until she and Russia can agree about the division of the spoils: then her love for the Turk will vanish as a mist before the rising sun of her own increasing power and splendor.
CHAPTER VII.
THE RUSSO-TURKISH WAR.
We turn back a single leaf of history in beginning this chapter on the Russo-Turkish War,—and stand at the opening of the year 1876. As the nations of Europe faced the questions of that hour, there was not one of them that desired to begin a war of which no statesman could foresee the issue.
Perhaps the traditional desire of Russia to possess the gates of the two continents and fly her flag over Constantinople, delivered from the Crescent of Islam, was growing apace, and her indignation at the treatment of the Greek Christians was rising to fever heat, but she did not desire war. Turkey did not desire war, the insurrection in Bosnia and Herzegovina was giving her serious trouble. England did not desire war, though her people were divided, part favoring Russia as a Christian nation, as against an infidel, but a greater part thinking of Turkish bonds which were held in London that would be worthless if Turkey should be dismembered; France did not want a war which would imperil her interests in the Suez Canal and in Syria, and because if she sided with Turkey, Germany might side with the Czar. And as neither Germany nor Italy desired war it would seem as if it might be easy to prevent its occurrence.
Hence the diplomats put their heads together, and Count Julius Andrassy, the Premier of Austria, one of the ablest of the Continental statesmen undertook on the 25th of January, 1876, to draw up a note to the Ottoman Porte demanding certain reforms from Turkey, and promising to sustain her if she would institute these reforms promptly.
The following are some of the measures proposed for the pacification of discontented Servia, Roumania and Montenegro, viz:
1. Religious liberty, full and entire.