[132] The words of Bismarck’s Circular were:—“While addressing this invitation to the —— Government, the Government of his Majesty [the German Emperor] supposes that the —— Government, in accepting the invitation, consents to allow free discussion of the contents of the Treaty of San Stefano in their totality, and that it is ready to take part in it.” It is curious to notice how persistently Russia refused to yield even verbally, and after signing the Secret Agreement, to the English demand. As the Vienna correspondent of the Times said, “the formula of invitation is a compromise. While doing full justice to the full demand of England for free discussion of the Treaty of San Stefano in its totality, it contrives to spare the susceptibilities of Russia. Germany steps in and supposes that none of the Governments invited will object to a free discussion. In issuing invitations on this hypothesis, Germany gives a moral guarantee that it will be so; and Russia, who has hitherto objected to such a course, is not distinctly asked to withdraw this opposition, but only gives her consent, like the other Powers, to a Congress convoked by Germany for the purpose.”—Times Vienna Correspondent, 4th June, 1878. The effect of this formula was to make Prince Bismarck absolute master of the Congress after acceptance of his invitation. He alone had given a guarantee that the Treaty should be fully discussed. He alone was therefore entitled at every stage to define what he meant by the phrase, “in its totality.”
[133] Sir M. Hicks-Beach, on the 12th of June, gave his Party and the country further assurances on this head in a speech at Cheltenham, in which he said that the main points in Lord Salisbury’s Circular of the 1st of April would be adhered to by the British representatives at the Congress. This statement, of course, recoiled on him in the most damaging manner when, on the 14th, it was found that what the Ministerialists considered to be main points had been bargained away to Russia in Lord Salisbury’s Secret Agreement of the 30th of May.
[134] Lord Houghton, as a supporter of the Ministerial Foreign Policy, said:—“Even if the surrender which we are required to make according to this document is one to which the country would give its consent, it would have been better that the fact should have appeared at the Congress than that it should have been made known by this paper [the Globe]. It now stands before the world that England did not go into the Congress with free hands, but before going into it had made a contract, and had, in the main, abandoned some of the most important points which I and other Members of the House considered it was the duty of this country to insist upon.”—Hansard, Vol. CCXL., p. 1569 et seq.
[135] The proceedings against Mr. Marvin were withdrawn. He pleaded that copying on paper did not amount to theft, and his legal advisers threatened a cross-examination of the Foreign Office officials (whose laxity of administration was obvious), which determined the Government to retreat.
[136] Afghan Correspondence I., pp. 242, 243.
[137] Alice Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain and Ireland. Biographical Sketch and Letters, p. 375.
[138] The death of the child here alluded to was that of her little son Fritz, who accidentally fell from one of the palace windows on the 29th of May, 1873.
[139] Alice Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain and Ireland. Biographical Sketch and Letters, p. 385.
[140] Dr. Sell, a good clergyman of Darmstadt, who was entrusted with her papers and her correspondence with the Queen, and who knew the Princess well during the greater part of her Darmstadt life.
[141] See South African Correspondence (C 2220), pp. 136-320.