Chapter XV: Appendix: A

THE NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN THE BERLIN NOTE AND THE CONFERENCE OF CONSTANTINOPLE

The effects of the Bulgarian troubles on British policy were clearly
visible. England, that had hitherto been favourable and friendly
to Turkey; that had counselled against the Consular Commission of
August 1875; had adhered to the Andrassy note of December (1875) only
at the express request of the Ottoman Government (on the 13th June
1876); had pressed reforms upon Turkey as a means of forestalling
the designs of the enemies of the Ottoman Empire,[32] and had firmly
refused to adhere to the Berlin Memorandum, now took up a slightly
altered position. This nuance was clearly perceived in a despatch
from Lord Derby to Sir H. Elliot of the 25th May 1876, in which he
said: “In the course of conversation with Musurus Pasha, I took
the opportunity of suggesting to His Excellency that it would be
undesirable that the Turkish Government should misunderstand the
attitude of Her Majesty’s Government in regard to the proposals of
the Berlin Conference. Her Majesty’s Government had declined to
join in proposals which they thought ill‐advised, _but both the
circumstances and the state of feeling in this country were very
much changed since the Crimean War_, and the Porte would be unwise
to be led, by recollections of that period, to count upon more than
the moral support of Her Majesty’s Government in the event of no
satisfactory solution of the present difficulties being found.”[33]
It will be seen later on that even this attitude of benevolent
diplomatic neutrality was not entirely preserved by the British
Government at the Conference of Constantinople or the negotiations
that led up to it.

“The three Northern and allied Powers” were evidently disconcerted by
the turn matters were taking at Constantinople. It seemed impossible
to present a comminatory note to a new Sultan and a new Government
established by a revolution, the very purpose and aim of which was to
introduce practical reforms in the country, without a certain delay
demanded by equity and even decency. They determined to make it as
short as possible.

In spite, however, of strenuous efforts to conceal the fact,
differences had arisen among “the allied Courts,” or rather between
the two principal parties interested. Russia was in favour of an
occupation of the three disturbed provinces, with a view to the
eventual establishment of autonomies on the model of Servia and
Roumania. Austria was dead opposed to both propositions. There is no
doubt that she had been working up to an occupation by her own troops
of Bosnia and Herzegovina as the mandate of Europe—up to the time of
the Bulgarian insurrection; but now that such an occupation would be
accompanied by a Russian occupation of Bulgaria, she entirely changed
her mind. If a joint occupation took place, the last state of those
provinces would be worse than the first. At present she had the
strategical advantage of position over Russia, but Russia in Bulgaria
would have it over her. She was firmly opposed to joint occupation.
Neither would autonomy suit her. The establishment of autonomous
provinces, placed under the guarantee of the Great Powers, would make
the absorption by herself of these coveted possessions impossible.
Count Andrassy put his foot down against both these proposals.

A very active interchange of ideas consequently took place during the
whole of the month of June between the two Empires, and it was here
that the full value of a third partner, the disinterested broker, was
revealed. Russia evidently meant business, for Servia, which was, as
Consul‐General White explained, absolutely in her hands, now (1st
July 1876) formally declared war against Turkey, and invaded the
Ottoman territory. Montenegro followed her example. In the latter
case it was rather a superfluous or _ex post facto_ formality.

A knot had occurred worthy of the interposition of the gods, and on
the 8th July a meeting was arranged at Reichstadt between the Emperor
Francis Joseph and the Czar. Of course it is only in Homeric times
that accounts of the interviews of Olympic gods were vouchsafed to
men, and simple mortals have to content themselves nowadays with
being told the results of these interviews. The result of this
particular interview was “very satisfactory.” According to Sir A.
Buchanan, “the Emperor and Count Andrassy returned last night (10th
July 1876) _greatly satisfied_ with the interview of Reichstadt.”
“The Emperors parted on the best terms; they agreed to maintain the
present principle of non‐intervention, reserving for the future the
expediency of coming to an understanding with the Great Powers,
according to circumstances which may arise.”[34] So, according to
this authority, the Emperor of Austria returned to Vienna “greatly
satisfied” with doing nothing. It was scarcely worth while going all
the way to Reichstadt for that. It was, however, generally supposed
in well‐informed chancelleries in Europe at the time, and subsequent
events greatly corroborated the surmise, that the Emperor had
something else to be greatly satisfied about than what was vouchsafed
to Sir A. Buchanan.

It was said that two specific points had been formally agreed upon
between the rulers of these two military Empires, in presence
of the threatening aspect that affairs were assuming. (1) That,
should affairs in the East eventuate in war between Turkey and
Russia, Russia would, under no circumstances, seek any territorial
acquisition _in Europe_. (2) That Bosnia and Herzegovina should be
considered within the exclusive sphere of Austria’s influence, and
that Russia would not actively oppose any arrangement with respect
to them that Europe might propose. All the rest would be left to
their respective chancellors, each would retain his liberty of action
and pursue the policy he deemed the best, certain that nothing that
could happen in the way of differences of opinion between them could
bring about a rupture between the two Empires. The middle term of an
agreement had evidently been found. “British interests” would pay the
bill, and the desertion of Bucharest would be avenged.

By a curious coincidence, on the same day (8th July) that this
historical interview took place, there appeared in the _Daily News_
the famous “atrocity article” that set all England ablaze and
started the greatest orator of the day on his crusade against the
“unspeakable Turk.”

The indirect effect on English policy of this crusade and the
atrocity meetings all over England that followed it, was seen in the
nuance already noticed, between the terms of the despatch of the 25th
May and that of the 25th September, which was the prelude to the
Conference where it was still further accentuated.

July was destined to bring an aggravation of trouble on the Turkish
Empire and anxiety on Turkish Ministers. Austria chose this moment
(1st July) to shut to Turkey the port of Klek, through which the
Turkish army in Herzegovina received its chief supplies. It is not
necessary to enter here into the question of international right
involved in this matter. This turned on the interpretation of ancient
treaties with the Venetian Republic, and on the boundaries of the
“enclaves” in Dalmatia, and these questions had, by mutual consent,
been left dormant for long years between the Austrian and Ottoman
Governments. Suffice it to say that a _modus vivendi_ had been
arrived at between the two Governments in 1853 (“in the hope that
an amicable arrangement will intervene relative to the question of
the enclaves of Klek and Suttorina”), and had subsisted ever since.
For Austria, after leaving the question of right in abeyance for
twenty‐three years, to choose that particular moment when the maximum
of inconvenience would be thereby caused to the Ottoman Government,
was a high‐handed proceeding of the most unfriendly nature, and
could only be justified on the principle of _la force prime le
droit_. At any rate, it finally exploded the pretext of “her deep
and earnest anxiety” for the pacification of these provinces which
she was continually putting forward as the motives of her diplomatic
actions, as well as all pretence of friendly dispositions towards the
Porte. The energy displayed by the new Government at Constantinople
in sending reinforcements to the scene of action, and the success
attending these efforts, were perhaps the real motive of this
unqualified act, for in consequence of that energy, things were not
going well with the insurrection, and new factors would have to be
imported to keep it going.

Accordingly, at the same time the port of supply for the Turkish
troops was closed, Montenegro and Servia declared war on the Porte
(1st July 1876). (As far as the first‐named principality was
concerned this formality was rather superfluous _ex post facto_
formality.) Ever since the “intimate relations which had existed for
two years back” between the Courts of Vienna and Cettinje, Montenegro
had never ceased to carry on war against the Ottoman troops. Indeed
her mountaineers, together with the Grenzers and Dalmatians, had
been the mainstay of the “rebellion.” Only as, nominally, peaceful
relations had never been interrupted, the Turkish Commanders were
debarred from following the rebels on Montenegrin soil, and Russia
had drawn a taboo round Montenegro, and forbidden, under penalty of
war, the invasion of that land, and Mr Jomine, the Russian diplomatic
agent at Cettinje, was, with his Austrian colleague, the confidential
adviser of the prince.

As far back as January 1876, Sir H. Elliot had informed Lord Derby of
“the system employed by the Montenegrins in aid of the Herzegovinian
insurgents. All the men (in Montenegro), capable of bearing arms,
are considered to be soldiers, and are made into battalions of 600
men. The commanders and majors of these battalions, who are called
commanders and pod‐commanders, receive pay; the remaining officers
and men are unpaid. When an expedition is contemplated, each man
takes with him potatoes and bread, if he has any, for five days, and
a reserve of provisions from each village is carried by women or
baggage horses. The Austrian Committees, having provided surgeons
and medicines, hospitals and ambulances have been organised in some
villages on the frontier. The prince furnishes all those who join
the insurgents _without authorisation, but he sends one‐fifth of his
effective forces into the Herzegovina. Not to overtire these poor
people, His Highness takes care to change them at the end of each
expedition, or when their provisions are exhausted. Reforms alone, it
is stated, will never put an end to the insurrection, and force is of
no avail so long as the insurgents and their Montenegrin friends have
only to cross the frontier to be in safety._”[35]

As for Servia, Consul‐General White had for months past warned
his Government of what was preparing, and of the wholesale influx
of Russians into the Servian army, nor had Prince Milan made any
disguise of the fact of the likelihood of his being drawn into the
_mêlée_, but a certain almost comic jealousy existed between the
rulers of these two little principalities, lest the one should steal
a march on the other, and acquire a better right to the title of the
“liberator of the Slav race.”

They consequently agreed to declare war on Turkey together. As
Servia, confident in her new levies, was now determined to act,
Montenegro could not afford to be behindhand, however much it might
have suited her to continue the particular mode of safe warfare that
she had, for twelve months, been indulging in.

In spite of the new levies, military matters did not progress to
Prince Milan’s satisfaction. The fact was that a new spirit had
been infused into Ottoman Councils by the new ministers, and large
reinforcements of regular troops under competent generals had
been hurried to the Servian frontiers and despatched into Bosnia.
The consequence was that victory did not attend the Servian arms,
and, after the loss of an important position near Deligrad on the
24th August 1876, barely two months after the pompous declaration
of war, Prince Milan “with the approval of his ally, the Prince
of Montenegro,” requested the good offices of the Powers for a
suspension of hostilities. All Europe eagerly seconded this request,
and although a formal armistice was never concluded, a _de facto_
suspension of hostilities took place. It is unnecessary to detail the
negotiations that followed.

The Porte very naturally desired that an agreement on the basis of
peace should precede or accompany an armistice, otherwise it would
lose all the advantages of its present military position. Servia
wanted an armistice without any basis of peace. When at last, in
consequence of the insistence of Europe, the Porte agreed to this, a
dispute arose about the duration of the armistice. The Porte proposed
six months to give ample time to negotiate a permanent settlement,
and England adhered to this view of the matter. Servia would have
none of it; one month or nothing. She was moving on safe ground,
for she knew well that Europe had taken the negotiations out of
her hand and would never allow a renewed attack upon her. Russia
strongly insisted on the shorter term, and when, in order to solve
the difficulty, England appealed to the honest broker at Berlin, he
proposed as a compromise an armistice of six weeks.

These _pourparlers_ occupied about a month, and when they seemed to
be on the point of being settled, as usual by the Porte yielding in
the matter, it was found that Prince Milan had changed his mind, and
would have no armistice at all.

What had occurred in the interval to account for this change of front?

On the 24th September, Consul‐General White writes to Sir Henry
Elliot[36] “that the last six weeks have produced an important change
in the affairs of Servia. The Civil Government has ceased to have
a voice in public affairs; the presence of Russian officers, some
of them officers of the Imperial Guard, the courage and enthusiasm
with which they are animated, the growing influence of the Slavonic
Committees through their agents, have all given a warlike tone to
what is called public opinion here.... The Russians present here say
openly that it is their aim and object to prevent the conclusions of
peace.” And again, on 4th October 1876, he writes to Lord Derby:[37]
“It may be interesting for your Lordship to hear that money appears
abundant in the Servian Exchequer, and although the Ministers deny
that it is derived from Russian sources, it is quite impossible to
account in any other way for its origin.”

But something more particular must have occurred to encourage Prince
Milan to order on the 26th September, the very next day on which
the suspension of hostilities terminated, a general attack on the
Turks in the Morava Valley. What was it? On the 28th September
1876, Mr Malet (afterwards Sir Edward Malet), writing from Rome to
Lord Derby,[38] states that Sig. Melegari, the Minister for Foreign
Affairs, in order to convince him “of the imminence of the danger to
the Ottoman Empire” read the following paper to him, as coming from
Livadia, adding that England alone was able to avert the execution of
the design by “compelling” the Porte to acquiesce in His Lordship’s
demands. The paper was dated 26th September, and ran as follows: “The
Emperor has sent General Soumarakoff to Vienna with instructions to
propose a peace, should Turkey attempt to evade the armistice, upon
conditions that would suit all the Powers, viz. Austrian military
intervention in Bosnia, Russian military intervention in Bulgaria,
and the joint entry of all the squadrons of the Levant into the
Bosphorus. These steps appear to us indispensable in order to bring
the Porte to its senses, to prevent war, and save the Christians from
a general massacre.”[39]

This _grandis epistola a Capreis_ which frightened Mr Malet so
much that he immediately telegraphed its substance to Lord Derby,
and which was, no doubt, intended to frighten Lord Derby, had no
chance at all of being accepted at Vienna, and if the constant and
continuous intercourse between the three Northern “and allied Powers”
was to any purpose at all, it is quite impossible that the nature of
the reception it should meet with there, should have been ignored. It
could therefore only have been intended as a “spur” to the Foreign
Office, and it succeeded admirably in its intention.

It is scarcely worth while to waste many words over the proposal
from Livadia. Austria feared nothing so much as a joint occupation
with Russia. It would have been a guarantee exacted from her for
her own eventual simultaneous retirement, which would have upset
all her plans. Nor was England yet brought up to concert pitch. But
the notice had served its purpose. England, a little timorously,
and with the best intentions towards Turkey, and with the general
approval and even applause of Europe,[40] had undertaken the lead
in proposing terms to Turkey as a basis of pacification. As early
as the 11th September Count Schouvaloff in an interview described
“(1) The _status quo_, speaking roughly, both as regards Servia
and Montenegro. (2) Administrative reforms in the nature of local
autonomy for Bosnia and the Herzegovina. (3) Guarantees of some
similar kinds (the exact details of which might be reserved for later
discussion) against the future maladministration of Bulgaria.”[41]

Ten days later, on the 21st September, Lord Derby, having in the
meantime secured the agreement of the Austrian Government[42] to
these proposals, these terms were forwarded to Sir H. Elliot for
communication to the Porte. The second condition relating to Bosnia
and Herzegovina was amplified by the important stipulation “that the
Porte should undertake, _in a Protocol to be signed at Constantinople
with the Representatives of the mediatory Powers_, to grant, etc.”[43]

Sir H. Elliot, in obedience to positive instructions, went to the
utmost limit of friendly pressure[44] to induce the Porte to accept
these conditions. The Porte, on its side, showed the greatest
possible desire to meet the wishes of the English Ambassador.[45]
The term “local autonomy,” and still more the form of a Protocol
demanded, were the two most serious obstacles to an understanding.
So great was Sir H. Elliot’s influence on the Turkish Minister,
and so great was their confidence in England’s loyalty, that an
understanding was almost arrived at when the news of General
Soumarakoff’s Mission reached the Porte. On the 4th October, the new
Turkish Government telegraphed to the Ottoman Ambassador in London
an indignant protest against the proposals of which that envoy was
the bearer, and concluded by saying: “If the Sublime Porte has,
though challenged (by Servia), not made use of her victory, she will
never forget that she is still an independent State, and that she
owes it to herself to choose an honourable death rather than the
dismemberment and partition of her States.”[46]

This incident did not facilitate Sir H. Elliot’s task. On the day
following the 5th October, Lord Derby instructs Sir H. Elliot to
inform the Porte that it is intended that the armistice should be
followed by a Conference, and that if an armistice for not less than
a month is not granted, the Ambassador was to quit Constantinople and
leave Turkey to its fate.[47]

On the 8th October, the Porte asks the very pertinent question
whether, in the event of the conditions being accepted, a Conference
would still be proposed.[48] No answer seems ever to have been given
to this important question.

The Turkish Ministers now submitted the question of the armistice
to a Grand Council, which acceded to it for five months.[49] On the
13th October, in a long telegram to Musurus Pasha, the Porte makes a
last despairing attempt to stay the decision for a Conference, which
it says “will at least give rise to the danger of certain impulses
on which head we have the right to be anxious, and which in reality
would be of no use. The five months’ armistice would leave ample time
for the Powers to exchange explanations and observations without
any Conference. During this time, the work of internal reform would
go on, and Europe would have the opportunity of being edified as to
the serious and practical character of the promises of the Imperial
Government,” and concluded by saying, referring evidently to the
negotiations with Sir H. Elliot, “I hope His Lordship will agree
with us in preventing the question, _which was just beginning to
look brighter_, thanks to so many sacrifices and efforts, from being
turned into a path of new difficulties and perils.”[50]

If it had not been for the Soumarakoff Mission, and the scare it
created in the Foreign Office, it would have been an inexplicable
mystery why Lord Derby, abandoning negotiations carried on by Sir H.
Elliot, which “were just beginning to look brighter,” should have
hurriedly fathered this proposal of a Conference. If the Soumarakoff
Mission was only intended to secure this point, it was most eminently
successful. Anyway, from this time forth, Lord Derby stuck grimly
to a Conference. Without a Conference there was no salvation. The
question, however, of the duration of the armistice was not yet
settled, and as England, having accepted six months, could not
recant, General Ignatieff arrived from Livadia to settle it.

But here an incident occurred of a too charmingly amusing character
to be passed over in silence. _La note comique_ is never entirely
absent from these negotiations. Lord Adolphus Loftus, Her Britannic
Majesty’s Ambassador at St Petersburg, received leave in the middle
of October to go to the Crimea, whither the Russian Court had
removed, and where Prince Gortchakoff, the Chancellor, was slaying,
in order to be nearer the official source of diplomatic information.
On Friday, the 27th, accordingly, he arrived at Yalta, accompanied
by Mr Egerton of his Embassy. On Sunday, the 29th, he had an
interview at Orianda with Prince Gortchakoff, “who received him very
cordially, and after some friendly remarks, the conversation turned
to Constantinople.” After stating that the state of affairs there
was grave, the Chancellor expressed “a hope that the question of
the armistice was arranged, the Porte having, on the advice of Sir
H. Elliot, yielded to the considerations in favour of the shorter
term.” His Highness further stated “that General Ignatieff had been
instructed to be yielding and conciliatory on the subject of the
armistice.”

Two days after this, _i.e._ on Tuesday, the 31st October, Lord A.
Loftus “met” Prince Gortchakoff, who, in answer to the question
whether there was any news from Constantinople, replied that there
was, but “that he preferred that the Emperor should communicate it.”
Lord A. Loftus’s audience with the Czar had been arranged for the
next day, 1st November, but was subsequently postponed till the 2nd.
Between the accidental meeting with the Chancellor and this audience,
Lord A. Loftus received the _Journal de St Petersbourg_ of the 31st
October, in which he read that General Ignatieff had presented that
day an ultimatum to the Porte to conclude an armistice with Servia,
and had required an answer within forty‐eight hours. So that the
English Ambassador, having traversed the whole length of Europe in a
four days’ journey with a secretary of his Embassy attached to him,
in order to be near the fountain of official information, would have
received the news two days sooner if he had stayed at home!

We will let Lord A. Loftus describe his audience on the 2nd at
Livadia, himself: “I had an audience with the Emperor of Russia
to‐day at Livadia, when His Majesty was pleased to receive me with
his customary kindness and cordiality (_sic_). After some gracious
enquiries after my family, His Majesty at once opened on the Eastern
question. His Majesty stated that he had that morning received a
telegram from Constantinople announcing the probable acceptance of
the armistice, and he read to me another telegram reporting that
orders had been already sent by the Porte to their commanders to
suspend military operations. This, His Majesty observed, was very
satisfactory. On my observing on the _sudden change which had taken
place between the Sunday when I had seen the Chancellor and the
following day when the ultimatum was despatched_, His Majesty said
that this had been caused by the intelligence he had received of the
complete discomfiture of the Servian army, and his fear that it might
be followed by similar atrocities to those which had occurred in
Bulgaria....”[51]

It would indeed be a pity to spoil the uniqueness of this _tableau_
by any superfluous commentary, but a despatch from Sir H. Elliot
at Constantinople, dated on the same day as this audience (2nd
November), throws some further light on this already luminous
incident. “In the course of conversation this morning with General
Ignatieff, I remarked that I understood that he had returned from
Livadia with instructions to present his ultimatum. He answered
_that he had brought it with him_ with a discretionary authority to
withhold it if he thought desirable. _This is a rather different
version_ from that which he had previously given to my colleagues
and myself, when he told us on Tuesday (31st October) that he _had
received the ultimatum two days before_, and that he had taken on
himself the responsibility of withholding it, but had now imperative
orders to execute his instructions. It is impossible to doubt
that he had kept his Government fully informed of the progress of
his negotiations with the Porte, or that they were perfectly well
aware that his own proposals had been accepted with very trifling
modifications, upon which an understanding could very easily be
arrived at. It is evident enough that the sudden sending in of the
ultimatum was decided upon in the hope that by an immediate cessation
of hostilities, and the acceptance of an armistice, the fall of
Alexinatz would be averted. The capture of the Servian positions at
Junis made it certain that “the occupation of Alexinatz and Deligrad
would soon follow, and the only hope of saving the Servians and the
Russian Auxiliary troops from this mortification lay in the chance of
stopping the Turks before they had time to reap the fruits of their
success.”[52]

But, independently of the object lesson in veracity that this
narrative inculcates, it gives the measure of the value attached by
the Emperor of Russia to the European concert, and the degree to
which it was likely to hamper his own liberty of action whenever he
thought proper to liberate himself from it. The _procédé_ with regard
to the British Ambassador only concerns the British Government.

The Porte had yielded to the ultimatum.

In the meantime negotiations for assembling a Conference continued.
The Czar had expressed to the English Ambassador “a very earnest
wish that the Conference should meet with the _least possible
delay_, and that instructions should even be immediately sent by the
several Governments to enable the Ambassadors at Constantinople to
deliberate _at once_ on the necessary preliminaries of peace.”[53]
Prince Gortchakoff, too, _expressed his anxious wish_ that on the
arrangement of the armistice _no time should be lost_ in organising a
Conference.[54]

But Austria was coy. The term “local autonomy” accompanied by no
matter what gloss, seriously perturbed her; and yet this was the
very point on which Russia insisted the most. In reporting his
conversation with Prince Gortchakoff at Orianda, Lord A. Loftus
said: “It is evident to me that Prince Gortchakoff does not wish to
make the question of the armistice the ground for a rupture with the
Porte, and that he _looks to the question of the ‘autonomy of the
three Provinces’ as being the important deciding point of peace or
war_.”[55]

Until Count Andrassy received guarantees that no kind of _political_
autonomy was meant, he would have nothing to do with a Conference,
and it was only when, after a good deal of fencing, this guarantee
was at last accorded him, that he gave his consent to the proposal.

Although there had been a serious proposal to exclude Turkey from
the Conference to be held in her own capital to decide on the
administration of her provinces, the cynical incongruity of the
proposition had procured its rejection, and now the Porte was asked
to adhere to it. Without any illusion, since Russia’s ultimatum,
as to whither the Conference would lead, the Porte, on the 18th
November, with the sanction of a Grand Council, gave her assent to a
proposal, the rejection of which would have meant immediate war.

In the course of the six months that intervened between the 13th of
May (date of the Berlin Note) and the meeting of the Conference in
December, an apparent contradiction seems to manifest itself between
the “intimate alliance” of the three Northern Powers (which for the
purpose of these negotiations means between Austria and Russia), and
the frictions and disagreements between their respective Governments.
On no less than five points did this disagreement manifest itself:
(1) as to whether Turkey should be coerced into an armistice, pure
and simple, with Servia, or whether a basis of peace should, at the
same time as the armistice, be proposed;[56] (2) as to inculcating
prudence of conduct on Servia;[57] (3) as to the joint occupation
with Russia of the Turkish provinces;[58] (4) as to the “autonomy” of
the revolted provinces;[59] (5) on the question of the Conference.[60]

On the other hand, we have seen Count Beust calling at the Foreign
Office to assure Lord Derby that never was the alliance of the three
Northern Powers so “intimate”; we have the meeting of Reichstadt, and
General Soumarakoff delivering an autograph letter from the Czar to
the Emperor of Austria, and we have a very mysterious communication
from Lord A. Loftus on the 15th August 1876, in which he says: “In
speaking of Austria, Prince Gortchakoff again repeated to me that
he had fully discussed the question of a pacification with Count
Andrassy, and _that they were entirely agreed on all points and for
all eventualities_. ‘I can state no more,’ said the Chancellor, ‘but
that much I can tell you, as I have done to your Colleagues; and I
can add that our Ambassadors at the other Courts know no more than
you do.’ This language,” continues Lord A. Loftus, “though, perhaps,
satisfactory ... is mysterious, and we can only unravel the mystery
by conjectures.”[61]

Perhaps the mystery, as Lord A. Loftus calls it, is not so mysterious
after all. A reference to what took place in another diplomatic
discussion in 1859 will help to unravel it without the aid of much
conjecture. In that year Mr Disraeli startled the House of Commons
by informing it, on the faith of information on which he relied,
that there was a secret treaty between Italy and France for the
cession to the latter Power of the provinces of Savoy and Nice. Lord
Palmerston denied the existence of any such treaty, and twitted Mr
Disraeli with having discovered a mare’s nest. When Mr Disraeli’s
information was proved to be substantially correct, Lord Palmerston
explained that there had been no treaty but a mere _pacte de famille_
agreed upon on the occasion of the marriage of the Princess Clotilde
to Prince Jerome Napoleon. The mystery that puzzled Lord A. Loftus
is easily unravelled. There was undoubtedly a distinct and specific
understanding between the two Emperors; but none between their
Governments; so that Lord Derby could, on the 20th October, write to
Sir A. Buchanan that “The Austro‐Hungarian Ambassador called upon
me to‐day, and informed me, by order of his Government, that the
reports which have been recently, and are still, current as to the
existence of a secret understanding _between the Austrian and Russian
Governments_ are absolutely unfounded.”[62] In countries and ages
where the letter of a declaration is considered more important than
its spirit, such hair‐splitting distinctions may pass current. At any
rate, they serve their purpose.