Under the terms of this treaty all the territories conquered by Russia in Asia or by the allied Powers in Europe were restored to their former owners. The small part of Bessarabia conceded to Russia by the treaty of Bucharest and giving access to the Danube was reannexed to Moldavia. The exclusive protectorate of Russia over the two Danubian principalities was abolished, and they were placed under the joint protection of all the Great Powers. The suzerainty of the Sultan over them was recognized. But the Porte engaged to preserve for them an independent and national administration, with full liberty of worship, of legislation, and of commerce. They were to be permitted to organize national armed forces. Serbia was accorded the same treatment, except as regards a national army, but the armed intervention of the Porte was to be permitted only with the consent of the Powers who were signatories to the treaty. The Black Sea was neutralized. It was thrown open to the mercantile marine of all nations, but was interdicted to the war vessels of either Russia or Turkey, and these two Powers engaged not to establish or maintain any military maritime arsenals on its coasts.
As regards the internal administration of Turkey and the treatment of its Christian population, the treaty contained the following clause:—
The Sultan, having by his constant solicitude for the welfare of his subjects issued a firman (the Hatti-Humayun), which, while ameliorating their condition without distinction of religion or race, records his generous intentions towards the Christian population of his Empire, and wishing to give a further proof of his sentiments in that direction, has resolved to communicate to the contracting Powers the said firman emanating spontaneously from his sovereign will. The contracting Powers recognize the high value of this communication. It is clearly understood that it cannot give to the said Powers the right to interfere either collectively or individually in the relations of H.M. the Sultan with his subjects or in the internal administration of his Empire.
The latter part of the clause, it will be seen, completely nullified and destroyed the effect of the earlier part of it, and practically gave full licence to the Sultan to continue his misgovernment of his Empire and to refuse the just demands of his Christian subjects—a very lame and impotent conclusion to the war.
In explanation of this clause, it should be stated that Lord Stratford, shortly before the meeting of the Congress, had succeeded, after long efforts, in extracting from the Porte another charter of reform in favour of its Christian subjects, known as the Hatti-Humayun. This was referred to in the treaty, not as an act binding on the Porte, but merely as an indication of the Sultan’s good intentions, and with the express condition that neither the Great Powers signatories to the treaty nor any one of them were to be entitled to call him to account in the event of his pious intentions not being carried into effect. Lord Stratford, when he heard at Constantinople of the intentions of the Congress, but before a final conclusion was arrived at, wrote to Lord Clarendon the following strong protest:—
There are many able and experienced men in this country who view with alarm the supposed intention of the Conference at Paris to record the Sultan’s late Firman of Privileges (the Hatti-Humayun) in the treaty of peace, and at the same time to declare that the Powers of Europe disclaim all right of interference between the Sultan and his subjects. They argue thus: The Imperial firman places the Christians and the Mussulmans on an equal footing as to civil rights. It is believed that the Porte will never of its own accord carry the provisions of the firman seriously into effect. The treaty, in its supposed form, would therefore confirm the right and extinguish the hope of the Christians. Despair on their side and fear on that of the Turks would, in that case, engender the bitterest animosity between them, and not improbably bring on a deadly struggle before long.[36]
This protest, which doubtless represented Lord Stratford’s own convictions, was of no avail. Lord Clarendon was powerless at the Congress. He met with no support from the French representatives. They cared nothing for reforms in Turkey. The Russians, in view of the origin of the war and the refusal of the other Powers to recognize their claim to intervention on behalf of the Christians in Turkey, were naturally indisposed to concede it to others, either individually or collectively. The nullifying provision was inserted in the treaty. It abrogated whatever effect the recognition of the firman might have had. The Hatti-Humayun became, ipso facto, a dead letter. Lord Stratford was bitterly disappointed. “He felt very keenly,” says his biographer, “the pusillanimity of his own Government, who had made him a victim to their deference to France.” In a letter to his brother after the conclusion of the treaty, Lord Stratford wrote: “To be the victim of so much trickery and dupery and charlatanism is no small trial. But I have faith in principles as working out their own justification, and fix my thoughts steadily on that coming day when the peace of Paris will be felt and its miserable consequences.”
Lord Clarendon, in a letter to the ambassador, thus described his own views of the treaty:—
I think as you do about the terms of peace, but I am not the least sorry that peace is made, because, notwithstanding our means of carrying on the war, I believe we should have run risks by so doing for which no possible success would have compensated. We should have been alone.... If you could have seen all that was passing when I got to Paris—the bitterness of feeling against us, the kindly (I might almost say the enthusiastic) feeling towards Russia, and the determination, if necessary, to throw over the Vienna conditions in order to prevent the resumption of hostilities (money matters and Bourse speculations being the main cause), you would have felt as I did, that our position was not agreeable, and that Brunnow was justified in saying that they did not come to make or negotiate peace, but to accept the peace which was to be crammed down their throats.... Unluckily, too, just as negotiations began the French army fell ill, and the Emperor himself admitted to me that, with twenty-two thousand men in hospital and likely to be more, peace had almost become a military as well as a financial and political necessity for him.[37]