Ward A.W. The Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy. 1783-1919. Volume 3
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THE VIENNA AND
CYPRUS CONVENTIONS
135
at
Petrograd
Schouvaloff was
commending
the
draft
Anglo-Russian
Convention to the
Tsar,
Lord
Salisbury
sent to
Vienna
another
draft
Convention for
Andrassy's
consideration. The
principal
stipulations
were
that
the two
Powers were to insist on
the
Balkan
range
as the
boundary
of
Bulgaria,
Roumelia
continuing
under the
political
and
military supremacy
of the
Sultan
;
the duration of the Russian
occupa-
tion of
Bulgaria
was to be limited to six
months
from
the
signature
of
the
definitive
Treaty
;
European
was
to
be substituted for
Russian
supervision
of
Bulgarian
reorganisation;
while Great Britain
was
to
support
any
propositions
which Austria
might
make at
the
Congress
with
respect
to Bosnia
and,
generally,
as to the future
frontiers of
Servia and
Montenegro,
yet
to
be under no
engagement
to
go
to war
on the
question
of the
precise
boundaries of these
two States.
It
was
understood that
Austria
had no
immediate wish to annex
Bosnia and
Herzegovina,
but was
only
concerned to
bring
them
within her un-
disputed
sphere
of
influence,
perhaps
to
the extent of
occupation
for
purely
administrative
purposes.
A
Convention
embodying
the
above
provisions
was
signed
in Vienna on
June
6th.
One
other Secret
Treaty
was
concluded
by
the British
Govern-
ment
on
the eve of the
Congress;
it
related to the
integrity
of the
Sultan's
dominions in
Asia. The
tripartite
Treaty
of
April
25th,
1856,
gave
Great
Britain
the
right
to
ask France to
cooperate
in
preventing
any appropriation
of
Turkish
territory.
But
France,
conscious
of
liabilities
nearer
home,
had
throughout
made
it
clear that in
no
cir-
cumstances
would
she
fight
on
our
side,
much
less
on
our
behalf,
against
Russia.
If,
however,
Great
Britain undertook to
perform police
duty
for
Turkey
in
Asia
Minor
single-handed,
it
followed
that
she
could
fairly
claim
permission
to
adopt
whatever
measures
might
seem
necessary
to
the due
discharge
of
that
task.
By
a
Convention of
June
4th, signed
in
Constantinople
by
Sir A. H.
Layard
and Safvet
Pasha,
Great
Britain
entered into a
defensive
alliance with
Turkey,
pledging
herself to
defend
by
force of
arms
the Asiatic
dominions of
the
Sultan,
as
they
might
be fixed
by
the
Congress,
should
any
ttempt
be made
upon
them
by
Russia.
In
return,
the
Sultan
under-
)k
to
introduce
reforms,
to be
agreed upon
later
between
the two
\nvers,
into the
government
of
these
territories
and for
the
protection
)f
the
Christian and
other
subjects
of
the
Porte in
them,
and further
"
assign
the island
of
Cyprus
to
be
occupied
and
administered
by
England,"
in
order to
enable her
to
"make
necessary
provision
for
tecuting
her
engagement."
136
FORWARD
POLICY
AND
REACTION,
1874-1885
The
Anglo-Russian
Convention
having
been
divulged
prematurely,
it became
a
question
whether the
complementary agreement
with
Turkey
should
be
frankly
published
at
once or
be
disclosed at some
opportune
moment as the
proceedings
at
the
Congress
developed.
For
the
present,
it
was
kept
back,
though
Russia
was
told
of its
purport.
Some weeks
later,
Lord
Salisbury
also
informed
Waddington,
the French
Foreign
Minister,
of the
conclusion of
the
Convention
and
the reasons for
it.
For Great
Britain
the
security
of the Indian
empire
was a
paramount
concern;
that
security
required
the
main-
tenance
of
an
open
way through
Asia Minor and
the Middle
East,
and
therewith the continuance of
Turkish
power
there.
Cyprus
had
been
acquired
as a base from which assistance would be
given
to
Turkey
in
case of
need,
since Malta was too far
distant
for
the
purpose.
Nevertheless,
he added
that
"whenever
Russia
shall,
for whatever
reason,
return to
her Asiatic
frontier
as it
existed before the last
war,
Great Britain would
immediately
evacuate the
island"
(July
7th,
1878).
In
order
to
lighten
the shock of the
revelation,
Lord
Salisbury
told
Waddington
that
"advisers of no mean
authority"
had
urged
the
British
Government
to
appropriate
a far
larger
slice of Turkish
territory
—
to
wit,
Egypt,
or at least
the borders of the Suez
Canal,
and
even
parts
of
Asia
Minor,
but
that,
out of
regard
for
French
susceptibilities, they
had
virtuously
declined
these
suggestions.
•
The
disclosure created
in
France
alarm
and
resentment,
and also
a
feeling
that Great
Britain
had not acted
straightforwardly.
Although,
as
Waddington
wrote,
France
in
entering
the
Congress
had
"expressly
excluded
from discussion the
state
of
things existing
in
the
Lebanon,
the
Holy
Places,
and
Egypt,"
the British
Government was
appropriat-
ing
an island
"
situated
in
the most favourable
strategic
and
maritime
position
for
commanding
at
once the coasts of
Syria
and of
Egypt
1
."
The French
Government
asked,
as
a condition of
continued har-
monious
cooperation,
that
the British Government should offer
an
assurance
that
there would be no interference
with
the
spheres
of
interest
of the two countries in the
valley
of
the
Nile;
and
this
assurance
Lord
Salisbury gave
as
regarding
not
only
Egypt,
but
Palestine
and
Syria.
He even
let
it be
known
that Great
Britain would
raise
no
objection
if
France
were,
in
her
turn,
to
take
Tunis
2
.
1
Despatch
of
Waddington
of
July
21st,
1878.
2
A
year
later
(March,
1879),
Lord
Salisbury
suppressed
the British
Consulate-
General in
Tunis
and
reduced
it
to a
Consulate
of the
second
class,
which
meant
the recall
of an
energetic
official
who,
in
the
eyes
of
France,
had
been
too
zealous
in
the
protection
of British interests.
THE
BERLIN CONGRESS
137
At
home,
the Convention
was
variously judged.
The
Liberal
party
as
a whole condemned
it
as
a
dangerous
leap
in the
dark,
while
the
Ministerialists
applauded
it and
upbraided
the
Government
for
not
having
taken a
larger
portion
of
the Ottoman
empire
while
they
were
about
it.
So
soon as
he knew
that
Great
Britain and
Russia were
ready
for
debate,
Bismarck issued
invitations
to the
Congress
of
Berlin,
whose
first session was held on
June
13th,
1878.
All the Great
Powers,
together
with
Turkey,
sent as
Plenipotentiaries
leading
Ministers of
State,
and the
Ambassadors accredited
to the
German
imperial
Court
were attached to the
Congress
as
Special Envoys.
Great
Britain
was
represented
by
Lord
Beaconsfield
1
,
Lord
Salisbury
and Lord
Odo
Russell,
whose intimate
relationship
with
the
German
Chancellor was
of
great
assistance to
his
colleagues
;
and the
other
leading
Plenipo-
tentiaries were
:
for
Germany,
Prince Bismarck
and
Prince Hohenlohe-
Schillingsflirst (afterwards Chancellor)
;
for
Russia,
Prince Gortchakoff
and Count
SchouvalofT;
for
Austria-Hungary,
Count
Andrassy
and
Count
Karolyi;
for
France,
M.
Waddington;
for
Italy,
Count
Corti;
and for
Turkey,
Alexander Karatheodori
Pasha
and Mehemet
Ali
Pasha,
the former of
Greek,
the latter of
German,
extraction.
None
of
the small
States
whose
interests
were
to be
adjudicated
upon
was
allowed
Representation
;
but
Delegates
from
Roumania
and Greece
were heard
when
questions affecting
these
countries
arose.
The
presidency
fell as a
matter of
course
to Bismarck.
The
British
Plenipotentiaries proceeded
to the scene
of
their
labours
well
supported
by
material and moral
auxiliaries,
and
in a
very
confident
mood. "We
have,"
Lord
Salisbury
wrote
to Lord
Lyons
(June
5th),
"assembled a
powerful
fleet at
Portsmouth,
and
we
have
six
or
seven first-rate ironclads to do
what
may
be
necessary
in
the
Mediterranean,
besides smaller
ships."
Better
still,
the Govern-
ment's
relations with Bismarck
were
"particularly good."
Lord
Lyons
was to
be trusted
to
keep
the
temperature
of
Paris
cool,
and
to
see that
the
statesmen
there
"confined
themselves
to
epigrams."
By
reason of
ill-health,
Beaconsfield had
intended
to take
part
in
1
Desirous
though
she
was that the
Prime-Minister should
represent
Great
Britain
at the
Congress,
the
Queen
had
scruples
on
the score of
his
health,
and for
that
reason
would have
preferred
a
nearer
city, Brussels,
The
Hague
or
Paris,
as the
meeting-place. If,
however,
Beaconsfield
was
seriously handicapped
by
his
73^
years,
still
more
so,
with his
80
years,
was
Gortchakoff,
who had to
make
a land
journey
of
equal length.
Both of
these veteran statesmen
had,
accordingly,
to
divide
their
stay
in
Berlin
between the
Congress
room
and
the
quiet
of their
hotels.
138
FORWARD
POLICY
AND
REACTION,
1874-1885
only
the
early
sessions
of the
Congress,
leaving
Lord
Salisbury,
in
whose
judgment
and
loyalty
he
had
perfect
confidence,
to
"complete
all
the
details
of which he
is
consummate master
1
"
;
but he
remained
in Berlin
to the end. Never
did
a Power attend an
international
Court of arbitration
so
panoplied
by prior
treaty
guarantees,
com-
mitments
and reservations as
Great
Britain in
entering
the
Congress
of Berlin. Lord
Beaconsfield said
truly,
"We have
made our
book
with
Austria,
and
Turkey
is
in
our
pocket."
Protected
by agreements
with both
belligerents
and
also with
the
only
neutral
Power
directly
concerned
in
the future
organisation
of the
Balkans,
the
British
Plenipotentiaries
could enter
upon
the
negotiations
with
composure,
since
what
was
lost in
one direction
was
certain to
be
gained
in
another.
The
general
lines
which
were to be followed
by
them were
laid down
in
a series of
Instructions
sent
to Lord
Odo
Russell
at Berlin
on
June
8th.
Any
proposals
legitimately tending
to benefit
and
strengthen
the
Austro-Hungarian monarchy
were
to be
supported.
Great
Britain
was
to
"go
far"
towards
meeting
Russia
in
regard
to
her
acquisitions
in
Asia,
and
in
particular
to allow her to retain
Batoum,
Kars,
and
Ardahan,
inasmuch as
"
the other Powers
would
not be
likely
to
care."
There was
to be
no
active
interposition
by
Great
Britain
in
matters
not
directly
concerning
her,
and,
in
particular,
she was
not
to "inter-
vene
conspicuously"
in relation to the frontiers
to be
assigned
to
Servia and
Montenegro
and
the
arrangements
which
might
be
pro-
posed
as to
Bosnia
and
Montenegro
;
but
support
was
to be
given
to
measures for
ensuring
the
welfare
and
good
government
of
the
populations
concerned. The
general policy
to
be followed
as
to
Turkey
was to be one of
consideration for
her interests
;
Bulgaria
was
not
to be
allowed
to extend
south of
the
Balkans,
and
the
future
organisation
of that
territory
was
stated
to be
the
part
of
the
Treaty
which affected
England
most
closely.
From first to
last,
the
Congress
resolved
itself into
an
intellectual
tourney
between three
outstanding figures,
Beaconsfield,
GortchakofF,
and
Bismarck;
and
all
three men were
in the
doctors'
hands.
Never
did
weary
Titans
acquit
themselves more
gallantly.
Bismarck
feared
that the
British
Plenipotentiaries
had come
in
an
aggressive
mood,
and
might
put
forward demands
so extreme
that,
rather
than
comply
with
them,
Russia would
prefer
to
go
to
war.
Even
the tradition
of
the
Congress
as handed
down
represents
Lord
Beaconsfield
and
Gort-
chakoff as
stripped
gladiators, confronting
each other
with
tense
1
Letter
to the
Queen,
May
31st,
1878.
BISMARCK
AS
"
HONEST
BROKER"
139
muscles
and
glaring eyes.
The
picture
is
remote
from
the
truth.
They
were
rivals;
but
their
rivalry
was that of
clever
chess-players,
sedate,
polite,
and
good-humoured,
each
straining
resolutely
for
his own
hand,
but
always
with
perfect
loyalty
to
the
rules
of
the
game.
Beaconsfield was for a
time
something
of an
enigma
to
Bismarck,
who,
himself the author of
so
many
coups,
was
always
in fear
that
the
inscrutable
English
statesman with the
oriental face
and
temperament
would
spring
a
dramatic
surprise upon
the
Congress.
He
touched
a
weak
point
in British
diplomacy
when
he
discovered
that Beaconsfield
and his
adjutant,
Lord
Salisbury,
were
not
in all
points
agreed,
the
latter
clearly
not
sharing
the Prime-Minister's
extravagant
Russo-
phobia
and
more
disposed
than his
colleague
to
bring
a
European,
international
mind to the
judgment
of the
problems
in hand.
Fortunately
for
the
British
view
of
things,
the
opinion
was current
in
Russian
circles that
Great
Britain was
prepared
at
any
time
to
withdraw
from
the
Congress
if
her
demands
were too
brusquely
handled;
for
the effect was to make
Russia
cautious.
The
Russian
Plenipotentiaries,
however,
had
another
reason
for
circumspect
pro-
cedure;
for
they
soon made
the
disconcerting
discovery
that
their
country
had
few
friends
in
the
Congress,
since the
San Stefano
Treaty
was
held to
belie
all
its
past professions
of unselfish
purpose.
Andrassy
claimed that
by
the
Congress
he
had
put
Russia
"in
the
prisoner's
box
"
;
and
in the
Berlin
negotiations
she was
unquestionably
regarded
as a
suspect
whose
designs
called for close
scrutiny,
while
the mutual
orientation of
the Powers was
distinctly
to
her
disadvantage.
Great
Britain
and
Austria-Hungary systematically
worked
together,
and
'ranee and
Italy,
alike
distrustful of
Russia's
ambition
to become
a
Mediterranean
Power,
were
usually
to be
found
in
their
company,
rermany,
true to
Bismarck's
promise, played
the
part
of
the "honest
broker,"
and
succeeded
in it
so well
that,
when
the
Congress
was
over,
)oth
Great Britain
and Russia claimed
its
decisions
as
a
triumph
for
their
respective
purposes.
Next to the success
of his
mediatory
offices,
Bismarck's
great
concern was
that
Turkey
should
not,
by
her
old
tricks
of
procrastination,
equivocation,
and
intrigue,
repeat
the
fiasco
of
the
Constantinople
Conference.
The Turkish
Delegates
were
soon
to
learn
that
they
had
come
to
Berlin
not
to
carry
on
negotiations,
but
to
accept
dictation
1
.
The order
of
procedure
was
that all
questions
were
introduced
1
"Bismarck
sits
upon
the
Turks
mercilessly,"
Lord
Salisbury
wrote
home on
June
22nd.
i
4
o FORWARD
POLICY
AND
REACTION,
1874-1885
publicly
and
then,
in
appropriate
cases,
negotiated,
and
if
possible
settled,
privately
between the countries
chiefly
concerned.
True
to
his
rule
of
putting
first
things
first,
Bismarck
asked
the assembled
Plenipotentiaries
to
begin
their discussions with
the
Sixth
Article
of the
Treaty
of San
Stefano,
dealing
with
Bulgaria,
since the success
or failure of
the
Congress depended
on
its
coming
to an
agreement
on the
future
extent
and
organisation
of
this
particular territory.
On
this
subject,
the
Treaty
of
Berlin,
which embodied the decisions
of
the
Plenipotentiaries
(July
13th),
simply gave
concrete form
to the
general
principles
affirmed
in
the
Anglo-Russian
Convention.
It
pro-
vided that
Bulgaria
should be cut
in
two,
exclusive of
Macedonia,
which
was
disregarded
in the
new
arrangements.
The
northern,
and
larger,
portion
was to be an autonomous
principality,
tributary
to
Turkey,
bounded
by
the
Danube,
the
Black Sea
(with
an outlet
at
Varna),
the
Balkans,
and
the frontiers of
Servia,
its
ruler
to be
"
freely
elected
by
the
population
and confirmed
by
the Porte
with
the
consent
of
the
Powers." South of
the
Balkans,
the
province
of Eastern
Roumelia was
to be
formed,
with administrative
autonomy
and a
Christian
Governor-
General,
but
subject
to the
political
and
military
authority
of
the Sultan
;
its future
government
was
to
be
organised
by
a
European
Commission
(Articles I-XXII).
Austria,
according
to
this
plan,
received
a mandate
empowering
her
to
occupy
and
administer Bosnia and
Herzegovina,
subject
to Turkish
suzerainty (Article
XXV)
;
and,
since
it
was
a
part
of her
bargain
with
Great
Britain that
the Russian
design
of
creating
a chain of Slavic
States
stretching
across the Balkan
peninsula
should
be
frustrated,
it
was
decided that the
sandjak
of Novi-Bazar
should not be divided
between
Servia
and
Montenegro,
as Russia
desired,
but be
garrisoned
by
Austria,
in
accordance
with
her
wish,
without
prejudice
to Turkish
sovereignty.
In
the
private
negotiations
with the
Porte which
Austria,
with British
support,
had
carried
on in
Constantinople
before
the
opening
of
the
Congress,
the cession of
the
provinces
"en
toute
pro-
priete"
had been
asked for
;
but this claim
was
abandoned. Austria
was,
however,
to take
over
from
Montenegro
the
Dalmatian
port
of
Spizza.
Something
had
to
be done for
Servia,
Montenegro
and Roumania
;
and,
though
Lord
Beaconsfield had
little
sympathy
with these
re-
bellious
tributary
States,
it
was one of
the ironies
of
the
peace
settle-
ment that more
concern
was
shown
for
their welfare
by
Great
Britain
and
Austria
than
by
Russia
herself.
Servia
was to receive full
inde-
pendence
with
an increase of
territory,
but
was refused
any
access
to
:
THE
TREATY
OF
BERLIN
141
the
Adriatic
(Articles
XXXIV-XLII).
Montenegro
was,
also,
to
become
a
sovereign
State,
and
was
doubled
in
size,
and furnished
with
an
outlet
to
the sea
at
the
Bay
of Antivari
;
but she was to return
Dulcigno
to
Turkey
and,
as
already
stated,
to
cede
Spizza (Articles
XXV-XXXIII).
Roumania could
hardly
have received
harsher
treatment,
had she
fought against
Russia instead of
on her side.
She
was, indeed,
declared
independent
;
but
she
was
required
to return
the
Bessarabian
territory
which had
been transferred from Russia to
Moldavia
in
1856,
and
was
assigned,
instead,
the sterile
tract
of the
Dobrudja,
inhabited
by
an
alien
population
(Articles
XLIII-XLVI).
The
Greek
Delegates
present
in
Berlin
were heard
on
their
country's
behalf,
and
put
forward
a
strong
claim
to
consideration,
pointing
to the
passive
attitude
of
Greece
during
the
troubles of
the
last three
years
and
the
mischief which she
might
have
done,
if
she had
entered
the
War.
They
asked
for a
large
increase
of
adjacent
territory,
together
with
Crete. The
Powers,
however,
merely urged
the
Porte
to
accept
a rectification of the frontier in
Thessaly
and
Epirus
(13th
Protocol
and Article
XXIV).
In
Crete,
the
Porte undertook to
apply
conscientiously
the
Organic
Statute of
1868,
with
such
amendments
as
might
be called for
(Article
XXIII).
Albania was still treated as
the Cinderella
of the
Balkans.
The
rovince lost
territory
to Servia and
Montenegro,
and its
claim
to
independence,
and
even
its
petition
for a
Christian
Governor,
fell on
deaf
ears.
In Asiatic
Turkey,
Russia
acquired
Ardahan,
Kars,
and
Batoum,
the last-named
subject
to
the
condition,
spontaneously
offered
by
Gortchakoff,
that it should
be a
"
free
port,
essentially
commercial"
—
a
condition
repudiated
eight years
later
by
Russia
without the
assent
of
the other Powers.
On
the
other
hand,
she renounced
the
acquisi-
tions
of
Erzeroum,
Bayazid,
and
the
valley
of
Alaschgerd
(Articles
LVIII-LX).
A
stipulation,
short but
definite,
was
devoted
to
Armenia,
for
hose
welfare Great
Britain had
tacitly
made
herself
responsible
by
e
Convention
of
June
4th.
This
stipulation
bound the
Porte to
troduce
"
without
further
loss of time
such
ameliorations and reforms
are called
for
by
the
local conditions of
the
provinces
inhabited
by
e
Armenians,
and
to
take measures
to
protect
them
against
the
ircassians and
Kurds."
The
measures
adopted
were
to be announced
riodically
to the
Powers
appointed
to
supervise
their execution
i
4
2
FORWARD
REACTION
AND
POLICY,
1874-1885
(Article
LXI).
Of the
Christians of
Macedonia
there was no
mention.
New
provisions
for
the
regulation
of
the
navigation
of the Danube
were
introduced
(Articles
XLVI-LVII),
and
the
Signatory
Powers
declared
that
the
Treaty
of
Paris of
1856
and
the London
Protocol
of
1
87
1
remained
in full
force,
except
in
so far
as
any
of their
provisions
were
annulled
or
modified
by
the new
Treaty (Article
LXIII).
In
closing
the
Congress
on
July
13th,
Bismarck
paid
a
well-
deserved
tribute to
"the
spirit
of
conciliation
and
mutual
goodwill
which has animated
all
the
Plenipotentiaries,"
and
added: "The
Congress
has
deserved
well of
Europe.
If it
has
been
impossible
to
fulfil all
the
aspirations
of
public opinion,
history
will,
at
all
events,
do
justice
to our intentions and to our
work."
On
the
whole,
the
Treaty
of
Berlin
might
fairly
be
claimed
as a
triumph
for
Anglo-Austrian
policy
: it
remained for later
years
to
show
whether the
Treaty
could
be
regarded
as a
vindication of that
policy.
It
would be
wrong
to
say
that it
showed no concern for
the
victims of
Turkish
misrule.
It
averted from the Balkan
States
and
provinces
the horrors of a
further
conflict
between Russia and
Turkey
;
it re-
moved
many
abuses
and
wrongs
which had
long
and
vainly
cried for
remedy;
it did
justice
to the
political aspirations
of
races whose
advance
on
the road to
independence
had
for
generations
been slow
and
halting,
converting
three
tributary
States
into
free
principalities,
creating
a
new
tributary principality,
and
alleviating
the hard
yoke
of
Ottoman rule
over
peoples
for
whose
complete
emancipation
the
time
was
not
yet ripe,
—
achievements
which
directly
benefited,
in
the
aggregate,
eleven millions of
people.
Nevertheless,
the
underlying
motive
in the
case of most of
the
negotiating
Powers was
not,
in the
phraseology
of
Napoleon
III,
the
"pensee
humanitaire" but the
"pensee
politique";
and
the result was
only
a
temporary
settlement
based
on
political
expediency.
Lord
Beaconsfield
had entered
the
Congress holding
a
power-of-attorney
for
Turkey,
Bismarck with
a
watching
brief on
behalf of
Austria
and,
in a
secondary
degree,
of
Russia;
but the wider
standpoint
of the
European
nations and
of
civilisation
at
large
was
without
special representation,
though
the
force
of circumstances
prevented
it
from
being
altogether
overlooked.
Lord
Beaconsfield
said at
a
later
date
that,
next to
serving
Turkey,
he had aimed
at
shattering
the
entente
of
the three
empires
;
and
he
maintained
that he had
succeeded
in
the
task
1
.
1
See letter
of November
4th,
1880,
to Sir H.
D.
Wolff,
quoted
in his
Rambling
Recollections,
11.
(1908),
265.
VIOLATIONS
OF THE
TREATY
143
Lord
Beaconsfield
returned
to
England claiming
that
he had
brought
back
from Berlin
"Peace with
honour,"
and that the
Treaty
of
Berlin
and the
Anglo-Turkish
Convention had
together
removed
from
Europe
and
the
British
empire
all
occasion
of distrust
and
alarm.
He
had,
however,
to
meet
many reproaches
from the
more
unreasoning
of
his
pro-Turkish
followers,
and
their
complaint
that
the
Ottoman
empire,
whose
integrity
was to
have been
preserved
at all
costs,
had
nevertheless
been
partitioned.
He
ridiculed
the idea that
there had
been
any
partition
at
all. A
country
might
lose
provinces,
he
replied,
but
that was not
partition.
"A
Power which
calls one
of the
strongest
cities
in
the
world
its
own,
has still at
disposal
an
army
and a
fleet,
and rules over
twenty
million
people,
cannot
be
described as a
Power
whose
territory
has been
partitioned
1
."
Those who
deplored
the
cessions
of
Turkish
territory
in
Asia
were
reminded that
Russia,
after
all,
had
won the
War,
and that
international
usage recognised
the
right
of
conquest;
and
he
added
—
with
his
eyes
directed more to
Central
than
to Near Asia
—
a
much-needed rebuke to
the
intemperate
Chauvinists who
saw in the
expansion
of
Great
Britain's
Eastern
rival
nothing
but
greed
and
menace:
"Asia
is
large
enough
for both
of
us.
There is
no reason
for
these constant
wars,
or
fears of
wars,
between Russia and
England."
Nevertheless,
no
solemn
international
covenant
has
been so
systematically
and
openly infringed
and
ignored,
in
part
by
the
Signatory
Powers
themselves,
as
the
Treaty
which
was
concluded in
Berlin
in
July, 1878,
"in the
name
of
Almighty
God."
Large
States
and small
States
have one
after
another
overridden and
evaded
stipu-
lations
objectionable
to
them.
Within
seven
years
(1885),
Bulgaria
violated
the
Treaty
and
defied the
Powers
by
absorbing
Eastern
Roumelia. A
year
later
(July,
1886),
Russia
repudiated
the
conditions
under
which
Batoum had
been
assigned
to
her
—
a
proceeding
in-
dulgently
tolerated
by
all
the
Powers
except
Great
Britain,
on
whose
behalf
Lord
Rosebery
protested
vigorously against
it
as a
dangerous
violation of the
sanctity
of
treaty
engagements
which
would tend
to
make
future
international
agreements
difficult
and
to cast
doubt on
those
already
concluded.
Greece
received
far
less
territory
than was
designed
for
her
by
the
13th
Protocol
of
the
Congress,
and
had to wait
for
forty
years
for
more
generous
treatment.
The Porte
made
no
effort
to
reform
the
government
of
Crete,
with
the result of
repeated
insurrections,
leading
to
the
transference of
the
island
to
the
custody
of
1
Speech
in the
House of
Lords,
July
19th, 1878.
144
FORWARD
POLICY
AND
REACTION,
1874-1885
the
Powers
in
1898.
Further,
in
total
disregard
of the reaffirmation
of
the
integrity
of
the
Ottoman
empire
by
Article
LXIII of
the
Treaty,
France
seized Tunis in
1881;
and
from
1882
onwards the
authority
of
Great Britain
step
by
step
superseded
the dominion
of
Turkey
in
Egypt
and the
Soudan
provinces.
Later
(1908)
Austria,
with the
connivance of
Germany,
arbitrarily
converted the
occupation
of Bosnia and
Herzegovina
into formal
annexation. Within times still
more recent
(19 12),
the
Balkan
States
took
into
their own
hands
the
repartition
of
European Turkey,
the Powers
refraining
from active in-
terference
;
while
Italy
possessed
herself
by
force of
Tripoli
(191 2).
In
spite
of the
provisions
laid
down
in
their favour at Berlin
nothing
was
done
for
the
good government
and
security
of the
Armenians,
who
continued to be
given
over to
oppression,
pillage,
and massacre.
B. First
Overtures
for
an
Anglo-German
Alliance
,
1879
The issue of the Berlin
Congress
did
much to revive
for a
time
the
political
influence
of Lord
Beaconsfield
at
home,
which had shown
signs
of
decline, and,
had he
dissolved Parliament
immediately
after
his
return,
while
his
laurels were
still
green,
he
would
probably
have received
a
striking
reaffirmation of national confidence. Even
Gladstone believed
that
the
country
was
still
with his rival.
But,
though
a master of
political
strategy,
Beaconsfield
forgot
that
the
British
nation
likes its emotions
to be taken
by
storm,
and made the
fatal mistake of
giving
it
time
to
reflect. When
an
appeal
was made
to the constituencies
nearly
two
years
later,
the
reaction
was in full
flood,
and the
sand-castles of a
flamboyant
imperialism
were
swept
away.
On the other
hand,
Andrassy
returned
to Vienna
to find his
Balkan
policy
criticised with extreme
bitterness
by
those who
had
hitherto
been his
loyal
supporters. Only
at
the
Emperors urgent
wish
did
he remain
in
office until the aftermath
of
problems
incidental
to
a
great
territorial
readjustment
should
have been
cleared
away.
Shortly
before
his
retirement,
he
concluded
with Bismarck the
Dual
Alliance
which formed the
basis of
the later
Triple
Alliance.
The
more
the Tsar reflected
upon
the Berlin
settlement,
the more he was
con-
vinced
that he
had
been
out-manceuvred,
and that
Germany
had
failed
in her
duty
to an old
Ally.
His resentment found
sharp
expression
when,
in
the
course of
the
succeeding boundary
negotia-
tions,
he came
to the conclusion
that
Germany
was still of set
purpose
using
her
influence
against
Russia
and Russian
interests.
In some