A Popular History of The Great War/Volume 1/Page 14


THE WORLD DRIFT TO WAR


pose as the natural protectors of the Slavs, Orthodox and Catholic respectively. The insurgents appealed not to one or the other, but to the Powers generally. The Porte had given effect to none of its promised reforms; it was reasonable that the Powers should insist upon them — the insurgents demanded no more, but they would remain in arms till they got something more substantial than promises on paper. The Porte had no sort of objection to making any number of promises, but an ineradicable objection to fulfilling them.

In May, 1876, thee three emperors issued a memorandum to which they invited the assent of the other three Powers. Disraeli, the British prime minister, declined; Turkey was not to be coerced — if the Turkish sovereignty were allowed to go, Russian ascendancy would take its place, and that was a thing Great Britain could in no wise permit. The memorandum programme was strangled at birth. At the same time the Bulgarians rose, and the atrocities with which the suppression of the revolt was accomplished stirred up a fiery anti-Turkish political campaign in England, though in parliament Disraeli’s ascendancy was complete. The new sultan, Abdul Hamid, who succeeded in June, was defiant. In July, Serbia and Montenegro declared war on Turkey.

If a frank and cordial understanding between Russia and Great Britain had been possible, the Eastern question might conceivably have been settled. Mutual mistrust made it quite impossible. The British cabinet was divided on the question of armed intervention on behalf of Turkey. When Great Britain herself demanded from Turkey an armistice and a conference of the Powers to be held at Constantinople (Istanbul) in December, Abdul Hamid dared not refuse. But when the conference met he laid before it a full-blown scheme of reforms which he proposed to carry out — as a sovereign who would submit to no external control over his actions. The meaning was obvious. Diplomacy failed to find a way out of the deadlock; and in April Russian forces, having been granted free passage through Rumania, crossed the Pruth.

Austria had made a private compact of neutrality; Germany had no motive for intervention; Great Britain was satisfied to wait and watch. Three months passed before the Russians could effect their passage of the Danube; for the next month they advanced rapidly; then suddenly they found themselves held up

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