Doubtless these, or indeed any, concessions to Austria were repugnant to Alexander II. and Prince Gortchakoff; but her neutrality was essential to Russia's success in case war broke out; and the Czar's Government certainly acted with much skill in securing the friendly neutrality of the Power which in 1854 had exerted so paralysing a pressure on the Russian operations on the Lower Danube.
Nevertheless, Alexander II. still sought to maintain the European Concert with a view to the exerting of pacific pressure upon Turkey. Early in March he despatched General Ignatieff on a mission to the capitals of the Great Powers; except at Westminster, that envoy found opinion favourable to the adoption of some form of coercion against Turkey, in case the Sultan still hardened his heart against good advice. Even the Beaconsfield Ministry finally agreed to sign a Protocol, that of March 31, 1877, which recounted the efforts of the six Great Powers for the improvement of the lot of the Christians in Turkey, and expressed their approval of the promises of reform made by that State on February 13, 1876. Passing over without notice the new Turkish Constitution, the Powers declared that they would carefully watch the carrying out of the promised reforms, and that, if no improvement in the lot of the Christians should take place, "they [the Powers] reserve to themselves to consider in common as to the means which they may deem best fitted to secure the wellbeing of the Christian populations, and the interests of the general peace[117]." This final clause contained a suggestion scarcely less threatening than that with which the Berlin Memorandum had closed; and it is difficult to see why the British Cabinet, which now signed the London Protocol, should have wrecked that earlier effort of the Powers. In this as in other matters it is clear that the Cabinet was swayed by a "dual control."
But now it was all one whether the British Government signed the Protocol or not. Turkey would have none of it. Despite Lord Derby's warning that "the Sultan would be very unwise if he would not endeavour to avail himself of the opportunity afforded him to arrange a mutual disarmament," that potentate refused to move a hair's-breadth from his former position. On the 12th of April the Turkish ambassador announced to Lord Derby the final decision of his Government: "Turkey, as an independent State, cannot submit to be placed under any surveillance, whether collective or not. . . . No consideration can arrest the Imperial Government in their determination to protest against the Protocol of the 31st March, and to consider it, as regards Turkey, as devoid of all equity, and consequently of all binding character." Lord Derby thereupon expressed his deep regret at this decision, and declared that he "did not see what further steps Her Majesty's Government could take to avert a war which appeared to have become inevitable[118]."
The Russian Government took the same view of the case, and on April 7-19, 1877, stated in a despatch that, as a pacific solution of the Eastern Question was now impossible, the Czar had ordered his armies to cross the frontiers of Turkey. The official declaration of war followed on April 12-24. From the point of view of Lord Derby this seemed "inevitable." Nevertheless, on May 1 he put his name to an official document which reveals the curious dualism which then prevailed in the Beaconsfield Cabinet. This reply to the Russian despatch contained the assertion that the last answer of the Porte did not remove all hope of deference on its part to the wishes and advice of Europe, and "that the decision of the Russian Government is not one which can have their concurrence or approval." We shall not be far wrong in assuming that, while the hand that signed this document was the hand of Derby, the spirit behind it was that of Beaconsfield.
In many quarters the action of Russia was stigmatised as the outcome of ambition and greed, rendered all the more odious by the cloak of philanthropy which she had hitherto worn. The time has not come when an exhaustive and decisive verdict can be given on this charge. Few movements have been free from all taint of meanness; but it is clearly unjust to rail against a great Power, because, at the end of a war which entailed frightful losses and a serious though temporary loss of prestige, it determined to exact from the enemy the only form of indemnity which was forthcoming, namely, a territorial indemnity. Russia's final claims, as will be seen, were open to criticism at several points; but the censure just referred to is puerile. It accords, however, with most of the criticisms passed in London "club-land," which were remarkable for their purblind cynicism.
No one who has studied the mass of correspondence contained in the Blue-books relating to Turkey in 1875-77 can doubt that the Emperor Alexander II. displayed marvellous patience in face of a series of brutal provocations by Moslem fanatics and the clamour of his own people for a liberating crusade. Bismarck, who did not like the Czar, stated that he did not want war, but waged it "under stress of Panslavist influence[119]." That some of his Ministers and Generals had less lofty aims is doubtless true; but practically all authorities are now agreed that the maintenance of the European Concert would have been the best means of curbing those aims. Yet, despite the irritating conduct of the Beaconsfield Cabinet, the Emperor Alexander sought to re-unite Europe with a view to the execution of the needed reforms in Turkey. Even after the successive rebuffs of the rejection of the Berlin Memorandum by Great Britain and of the suggestions of the Powers at Constantinople by Turkey, he succeeded in restoring the semblance of accord between the Powers, and of leaving to Turkey the responsibility of finally and insolently defying their recommendations. A more complete diplomatic triumph has rarely been won. It was the reward of consistency and patience, qualities in which the Beaconsfield Cabinet was signally lacking.
We may notice one other criticism: that Russia's agreement with Austria implied the pre-existence of aggressive designs. This is by no means conclusive. That the Czar should have taken the precaution of coming to the arrangement of January 1877 with Austria does not prove that he was desirous of war. The attitude of Turkey during the Conference at Constantinople left but the slightest hope of peace. To prepare for war in such a case is not a proof of a desire for war, but only of common prudence.
Certain writers in France and Germany have declared that Bismarck was the real author of the Russo-Turkish War. The dogmatism of their assertions is in signal contrast with the thinness of their evidence[120]. It rests mainly on the statement that the Three Emperors' League (see Chapter XII.) was still in force; that Bismarck had come to some arrangement for securing gains to Austria in the south-east as a set-off to her losses in 1859 and 1866; that Austrian agents in Dalmatia had stirred up the Herzegovina revolt of 1875; and that Bismarck and Andrassy did nothing to avert the war of 1877. Possibly he had a hand in these events--he had in most events of the time; and there is a suspicious passage in his Memoirs as to the overtures made to Berlin in the autumn of 1876. The Czar's Ministers wished to know whether, in the event of a war with Austria, they would have the support of Germany. To this the Chancellor replied, that Germany could not allow the present equilibrium of the monarchical Powers to be disturbed: "The result . . . was that the Russian storm passed from Eastern Galicia to the Balkans[121]." Thereafter Russia came to terms with Austria as described above.
But the passage just cited only proves that Russia might have gone to war with Austria over the Eastern Question. In point of fact, she went to war with Turkey, after coming to a friendly arrangement with Austria. Bismarck therefore acted as "honest-broker" between his two allies; and it has yet to be proved that Bismarck did not sincerely work with the two other Empires to make the coercion of Turkey by the civilised Powers irresistibly strong. In his speech of December 6, 1876, to the Reichstag, the Chancellor made a plain and straightforward declaration of his policy, namely, that of neutrality, but inclining towards friendship with Austria. That, surely, did not drive Russia into war with Turkey, still less entice her into it. As for the statement that Austrian intrigues were the sole cause of the Bosnian revolt, it must appear childish to all who bear in mind the exceptional hardships and grievances of the peasants of that province. Finally, the assertion of a newspaper, the Czas, that Queen Victoria wrote to Bismarck in April 1877 urging him to protest against an attack by Russia on Turkey, may be dismissed as an impudent fabrication[122]. It was altogether opposed to the habits of her late Majesty to write letters of that kind to the Foreign Ministers of other Powers.