I am afraid it does not look as if the Turks were going to yield to the moral force of United Europe. Léon Say and Montebello seem to hold even less resolute language to you than Freycinet does to me. Did the King of Greece understand Gambetta to say that France, with or without the co-operation of other Powers, would support Greece with troops? Freycinet will no doubt do whatever Gambetta tells him, but one of the inconveniences of the power behind the Government greater than the Government, is that Gambetta does not talk as cautiously as he would if he felt direct responsibility. No power except Russia seems to be willing to bell the cat. France seems to be the only one that has in abundance the three elements—men, ships, and money. Freycinet always says he will do anything with us, but nothing alone, and does not seem much more willing than Austria to look the chance of having to use force in the face.
I do not see much prospect of an immediate diplomatic lull, and I very much want one because it is of importance to my health (at least the doctors say so) to get away, but I conclude that I ought not to shrink from going through the national Festival of the 14th July, and that I should do what is to be done at least as well as any of my colleagues.
Reviews, it may be said, were functions which he abhorred beyond all others.
The King of Greece was in Paris at the time, vainly trying to stir up Gambetta to come to his assistance, although Gambetta in conversation with Sheffield expressed strong opinions as to the desirability of France and England acting energetically in concert, and even professed himself in favour of their making a joint demonstration at Constantinople, and landing troops there if necessary. Upon the same occasion he betrayed his gross ignorance of English politics by lamenting that Lord Beaconsfield had not postponed the dissolution until the autumn, 'when he would have been certain of success.'
Freycinet, however, remained deaf to Lord Granville's appeals, even when the latter reproached him with the humiliating position in which France would be placed by abandoning a question which she had made her own, and when the British Government proposed a naval demonstration in favour of the Prince of Montenegro, made all sorts of excuses for evading it if possible.
Lord Lyons to Lord Granville.
Paris, July 13, 1880.
I was more displeased than disappointed by the refusal of the French to join in the naval demonstration in favour of the Prince of Montenegro. They always try to act with Germany and have a horror of sending away a ship or a man unless Germany does the same: such is their confidence in the friendship they profess to believe in, that they want always to be ready at the shortest notice to attack their friend or to defend themselves from him. They are also, no doubt, jealous of any separate help to Montenegro which does not explicitly pledge the Powers to action in the Greek Question also.
I quite agree with you that separate threats from the French to the Porte about Greece (however incorrect their acting separately may be) are more likely to do good than harm. One Power in earnest would frighten the Porte more than the six, if the Porte were convinced that the five others would not restrain the energetic one.
During the next three months the Sultan, single handed, conducted a campaign against the six Great Powers, which, as will be seen, nearly ended in success; and it must, in fairness, be admitted that there was a good deal to be said from the Turkish point of view. The Powers were engaged in endeavouring to force the Porte to comply with conditions directly or indirectly resulting from the provisions of the Treaty of Berlin. But no steps whatever were taken, or ever have been taken, to force other States to comply with stipulations which appeared to be disagreeable to them. The right of the Sultan, which had been secured to him under the Treaty, to occupy Eastern Roumelia, remained in reality an empty phrase: the Bulgarian fortresses which were to have been demolished, remained untouched, the tribute due from Bulgaria remained unpaid, and there was no indication of an intention to reinstate the unfortunate Mussulmans who, as the result of the war, had been driven away from their homes, and had been despoiled of their property by their new Christian masters. Neither could it be justly maintained that, in agreeing to a rectification of the Greek frontier at Berlin, the Turks had recognized the right of the Greeks to annex a territory equal in extent to half of the Greek Kingdom. Added to this, were the difficulty and the humiliation involved in surrendering against their will, a large number of Mussulman subjects. The difficulty had in fact proved insurmountable in the case of Montenegro, and the Albanians who were in the first instance allotted to Montenegro offered so successful a resistance that the original plan was abandoned, and after much negotiation, the Porte accepted 'in principle' the cession of the Dulcigno district as an alternative. But the concession of anything 'in principle' by the Turks, usually means something quite different from the usual interpretation of that expression, and the Sultan succeeded in organizing a highly successful so-called Albanian League, and ably supported by a resourceful local Pasha, contrived by various expedients to delay the surrender of Dulcigno for so long that it began to look as if it would never take place at all. Finally, the resources of diplomacy becoming exhausted, a policy of coercion was decided upon, and an international fleet assembled off the coast of Albania in the month of September, under the command of Admiral Sir Beauchamp Seymour.[32] Each power signed a declaration of disinterestedness and a pledge not to acquire territory, but the hollow nature of this imposing manifestation was betrayed by a provision that no troops were to be landed, and the Sultan, who probably had some inkling of the situation, still refused to give way. A bombardment of Dulcigno would presumably have left him philosophically indifferent.
As the Dulcigno demonstration did not appear likely to produce any satisfactory result, the British Government decided upon the hazardous step of proposing the seizure of Smyrna, that being considered the most efficacious means of coercing the Turks and of preventing the concert of the Great Powers from becoming the laughing stock of Europe. This step was evidently taken chiefly at the instigation of Mr. Gladstone, and the letters of Lord Granville bear witness to the extreme anxiety which he felt as to the result. No encouragement whatever was received from France; the timorous Freycinet having in the meanwhile been succeeded at the Foreign Office by the equally timorous Barthélemy St. Hilaire, an aged survival of the Louis Philippe period.