My only comfort about this awful Congress or Conference is that you will be my partner in it. I hope, if it does come off after all, that we may get over it without doing harm to our country or to ourselves. I wanted them to set me aside and take advantage of the transfer to Berlin to put it into your hands; and I still think this would be the best plan; but they say that after their announcement of my appointment to Parliament, they cannot cancel it. Sir Robert Peel has moved a resolution that I am not a fit person to represent England at the Conference. I shall console myself if he carries it. He grounds his motion upon 'my well-known opinions.' I suppose he takes my opinions from a wholly unauthorized and incorrect account of them which appeared in a letter in the Daily Telegraph yesterday. Some people suppose he wrote the letter himself in order to have a peg to hang his motion on. I don't think your difficulties at the Conference will arise from strong preconceived opinions of mine. I shall try and get our instructions made as precise as possible. Could you give me some hints as to the particular points which should be decided before we begin? You will know how far certain solutions in our sense will be feasible or not. It is worse than useless that we should be told to aim at impossibilities, and have to yield: though there may be of course conditions, which if not admitted, will render it necessary for us to retire from the Conference altogether.
I am sure you will be the greatest help and comfort to me, and I hope I may be a help to you. Please tell me anything you wish me to do or say here.
Lord Odo Russell appears to have been equally in the dark as to the intended policy of Her Majesty's Government.
Lord Odo Russell to Lord Lyons.
Berlin, March 16, 1878.
The feelings you express concerning the Conference are so entirely my own that I need say no more, and only hope that Lord Derby will give you a better qualified assistant than I can be with regard to Oriental Affairs, of which I do not really know enough to be of any use to you or to the country, beside such authorities as Ignatieff, Lobanoff, Calice, Radowitz, Busch, etc., etc.
You ask if I could give you some hints as to the particular points which should be decided before you begin.
I would do so with the greatest pleasure, if I only knew what the policy of Her Majesty's Government is likely to be in Congress. All I know about it at present is contained in Lord Derby's despatch of May 6, and as far as Constantinople and the Straits are concerned, I fancy Russia will be conciliatory.
You ask further how far certain solutions in our sense will be feasible or not.
I wish I could answer your question, but can only beg of you to tell me first whether we accept the consequences of our neutrality, or whether we contest them: whether we are going to reject the Turko-Russian Treaty, as we rejected the Berlin Memorandum, or whether we are going to accept now what we refused then.
Russia is now in possession of Turkey. Germany supports Russia.
France and Italy have no wish to quarrel with Russia or Germany, and will not offer any serious opposition to the Turko-Russian Treaty.
Austria may object to two things: the proposed limits of Bulgaria, and the prolonged occupation of Russian troops.
If Russia is well disposed, she will consent to a smaller Bulgaria and to a shorter occupation.
If she doesn't, Austria must choose between a diplomatic defeat, a compromise, or war to turn Russia out of Bulgaria. Bismarck will exert all his personal influence in favour of a compromise to keep the three Emperors' Alliance together before Europe in Conference assembled.
The annexation of Armenia and the war indemnity are questions which Russia will scarcely consent to submit to the Congress at all.
What then is our attitude to be? Please let me know as soon as you can, and I will do my best to answer your questions.
If we go in for Greek interests we shall have the cordial support of Germany and Austria, I think—but Greek interests are in direct opposition to Turkish interests, if I am not greatly mistaken.
On hearing of your appointment I wrote to you to congratulate myself and to beg of you to grant us the happiness of taking up your quarters at the Embassy, and also to advise you to bring a numerous and efficient staff, as I have not hands enough at Berlin for an emergency.
The letters of Lord Odo Russell at this period show that he was completely in the dark as to the intentions of Her Majesty's Government, and that he was quite unable to get any answer as to what was to be their policy with regard to the Treaty of San Stefano. He himself was convinced that the three Empires had already settled what the result of the Congress was to be, and that they simply intended to communicate it to Greece, Roumania, and other Powers for whom they wished to manifest their contempt, such as France and England, à prendre ou à laisser. Under these circumstances, it became doubtful whether it was worth while for England to go into a Conference at all and court unnecessary humiliation, serious as the responsibility would be if such a course were decided upon.
There can be no doubt that much of the prevailing uncertainty was due to Lord Derby, who with great difficulty had contrived to keep pace with his more enterprising colleagues, and whose over-cautious temperament had prevented the adoption of any really definite policy. But Lord Derby, unable to stand the shock of seeing a few thousand Indian troops sent to the Mediterranean, resigned office on March 28, and the advent of Lord Salisbury at the Foreign Office marked a new departure in British Foreign Policy.
Lord Salisbury's circular of April 1, 1878, was intended to show that the Treaty of San Stefano threatened the interests of Europe, and that the whole, and not parts of it, as proposed by Russia, should be submitted to the Congress. It pointed out that the creation of a big Bulgaria, stretching over the greater part of the Balkan Peninsula, and with ports on the Black Sea and the Ægean, would give Russia a predominant influence; that the proposed annexations in Asia Minor would give Russia control over political and commercial conditions in that region, and that the exaction of an indemnity which it was impossible for Turkey to provide, would enable Russia either to exact further cessions of territory or to impose any other conditions which might be thought advisable. The logic was sound, and at all events Lord Salisbury succeeded in producing a definite British policy, which his predecessor had signally failed to do.