Though the fact was not known at the time, a perfectly frank and friendly understanding existed between the English and Russian Governments; in fact, Russia had informed England, through her ambassador, what terms of peace she would offer to Turkey, if Turkey were to yield before Russian troops were compelled to cross the Balkans. This information was given so that Lord Derby might have an opportunity of modifying these terms if necessary for the protection of British interests, prior to their presentation to the Porte, and Lord Derby thought them so reasonable that he made more than one fruitless effort to get Mr. Layard to press them on Turkey. Unfortunately the diplomacy of 1877 was kept a profound secret, and as the people were not aware of the good understanding between the Governments of Russia and England, a fierce and exasperating controversy between the Russophiles and the Russophobes raged through the land. On the 14th and 15th of October the Turkish defence in Asia Minor collapsed. On the 11th of December the fall of Plevna was announced, and when it was intimated that Parliament was to meet on the 13th of January, 1878, the country was panic-stricken. Nobody knew that Lord Derby and Count Schouvaloff had practically agreed about the terms of peace that were to be imposed on Turkey, and that Lord Derby had repeatedly warned the Turks to expect no help from England. Everybody, in fact, inferred, from the tone of the Ministerial press and of the speeches of Lord Beaconsfield, Mr. Hardy, and Lord John Manners, that a scheme of intervention was “in the air,” and that the early meeting of Parliament implied a demand for supplies to carry on a war with Russia. The Money Market rocked and swayed with excitement, and securities fell with amazing rapidity.[116] Throughout England meetings were held by business people protesting against any divergence from a policy of neutrality. At night bands of young men, representing the War Party, marched about London, the only English city which favoured war, singing the chorus of a song then becoming popular in the music-halls, and which began—

A new political term crept into use, namely, “Jingoism,”[117] or the cult of the war-god Jingo, whose worshippers, however, were bellicose rather than warlike, for they always prefaced their hymnal invocations by the assurance that they did “not want to fight.” The Ministry, too, was divided—Lord Beaconsfield, Lord John Manners, and Mr. Hardy leading the “Jingo” faction, whilst Lord Derby, Lord Carnarvon, and Mr. Cross represented the Peace Party. This split in the Cabinet was deplored at the time, and yet it was of enormous advantage to England. It prevented her from being dragged into the war. It is true that it buoyed up the expectant Turks with false hopes of aid from England, and thus tempted them to reject the easy terms of peace which Russia would have accepted after the fall of Plevna.[118] But the wrecking of Turkey was not in 1877 a matter that deeply moved the British taxpayer, unless he held Turkish Bonds, and if Lord Beaconsfield, Mr. Hardy, Lord John Manners, and their group, by their bellicose attitude, lured the Ottoman race to disaster, it was for the Turkish or War Party, and not for the nation, to call these Ministers to account.[119] As for the policy of neutrality which the English people literally forced on Lord Beaconsfield and Mr. Gladstone, it was justified in the second week of December, by a statement which Count Andrassy made to the Austro-Hungarian Delegations on the 8th and 9th of that month. He frankly said that Austrian sympathies were with the Christian subjects of the Sultan, and that he “would not dare to stand up for the status quo” in Turkey.

It needed little insight to discern that when Austria—a Power that could have hurled 150,000 men on the flank of Russia—declared herself against Turkey, and the status quo, it meant that Russia had bought her alliance by consenting to an Austrian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In such a crisis the true policy of a high-spirited English statesman was to have safeguarded British interests in the Ottoman Empire by “temporarily” occupying Egypt, as Austria was to “temporarily” occupy Bosnia. Lord Beaconsfield, however, adopted the surest means for paralysing his arm for such a bold stroke. He summoned Parliament to meet three weeks earlier than usual, and permitted his supporters to divert the attention of the country from Egypt—obviously endangered by the impending fall of Turkey—to wild schemes for occupying Gallipoli, sending a fleet to defend Constantinople, and an army to obstruct the advance of Russia in Asia Minor. As any one of these projects meant war with Russia, popular excitement soon grew intense.

In this crisis it was to be expected that the policy of the Court would be the subject of criticism, even though it were based on conjecture. The pro-Turkish party were artful and adroit in their insinuations that the Queen was on their side; though it is doubtful if the country would have paid heed to them but for a curious coincidence. The third volume of the “Life of the Prince Consort” was published at this juncture, and it was assumed by both the partisans of Lord Beaconsfield and Mr. Gladstone that Sir Theodore Martin had issued it by the Queen’s desire in the form of a violent pamphlet against Russia. Perhaps it might have been more discreet to have suppressed some passages, in which the Prince, carried away by the excitement of the Crimean struggle, had naturally taken a less sober and far-seeing view of European diplomacy and English duty than he formulated in his famous Memorandum of 1853. On the other hand, there is no reason to suppose that when the work was compiled Sir Theodore Martin, or rather the Queen, who selected the documents for publication, could have anticipated that the London Press and the Pall Mall clubs would be agitated by a frenzied controversy as to whether the Cossack was a more moral man than the Bashi-Bazouk, or Lord Beaconsfield a greater traitor than Mr. Gladstone. Nor can it be said that a just view of the Prince Consort’s opinions would have been obtained if his letter to Stockmar, penned in April, 1854, and his Memorandum to the Cabinet of the 3rd of May, 1855, had been withheld. The former expressed the Prince’s regret that the English public were too excited to permit the Government to stand by, and, having let Turkey dash herself to pieces against Russia, step in and take guarantees against Russia using her victory to the prejudice of Europe. Public opinion in 1854, the Prince regretfully admitted, recognised no way of taking these guarantees but one—that of supporting Turkey at the outset, so that the influence thus gained might be used to persuade the Porte to behave decently. As for the Memorandum of May, 1855, written during the negotiations at Vienna, it merely put on record his strong feeling against giving Russia an excuse for enforcing, single-handed, demands which Europe might make on Turkey. It is simply amazing that by these documents the Russophobes pretended to prove that the Queen was on the side of Turkey, and the Russophiles that she was for attempting to raise another Crimean War. The natural inferences from the documents read in connection with the Memorandum of 1853, were (1), that as English public opinion had now changed so as to tolerate the policy of expectancy, for which Prince Albert hinted his personal preference, he would, if alive, have supported the “sordid” national policy of neutrality, and that, too, all the more readily that Austria and Germany were better able to curb Russia in 1877 than in 1854; (2), that he would have either accepted the Berlin Memorandum, or have taken steps to give executive effect to the demands formulated by the Conference of Constantinople.

But another circumstance gave colour to the floating gossip as to the Queen’s pro-Turkish sympathies.[120] She resolved to confer on Lord Beaconsfield a distinction she had bestowed only on three of her Premiers—Melbourne, Peel, and Aberdeen—that of paying him a visit at his country seat. It was on the 15th of December that the Queen arrived at High Wycombe, which she found lavishly decorated with evergreens, flowers, and flags. At one part of her route there was built a triumphal arch of chairs (representing the staple manufacture of the town), in which she displayed a special interest. Accompanied by the Princess Beatrice, her Majesty was received at High Wycombe railway-station by Lord Beaconsfield and the Local Authorities, who presented her with a loyal address. The Mayor’s daughter then presented bouquets to their illustrious visitors, after which the Royal party drove, amidst the cheers of the townspeople, to Hughenden Manor. Her Majesty had luncheon there with the Prime Minister, and spent about two hours in his house. She and the Princess planted trees in the grounds in memory of their visit.

If political significance could be attributed to the visit, it must have had some relation to the most recent action of the Government. That had, however, consisted in sending a despatch to Russia (13th of December) expressing a hope that, if the Russians crossed the Balkans, they would not occupy Constantinople or menace the Dardanelles.[121] To this Gortschakoff’s answer was a repetition of the pledge given in July, that British interests would be respected, and that Constantinople should only be occupied if the obstinacy of the Turks forced that step on Russia as a military necessity.[122] That the Queen should approve of such a despatch as that which Lord Derby sent two days before she visited Hughenden, and of its frank warning that the occupation of Constantinople would leave England free to take active steps for protecting British interests, was only natural. Yet it was out of this visit that there grew up a great fabric of foolish gossip, the purport of which was that the Sovereign was goading the Cabinet into war with Russia! The Ministerial Press made matters worse by pretending that Prince Gortschakoff’s reply to the despatch of the 13th of December was insulting to England. But on the 2nd of January, 1878, Lord Carnarvon, addressing a South African deputation, took occasion to contradict these assertions. The fall of Plevna, he said, had not materially affected the policy of the Cabinet, which was still one of neutrality, and there had been nothing in the Russian communications with the Ministry of an insulting or discourteous character. The war scare now subsided as if by magic, and Funds rose a quarter per cent. But the Ministerial newspapers heaped obloquy on Lord Carnarvon, declaring that he merely spoke for himself; and at a Cabinet Meeting on the 3rd of January there was quite a “scene” between him and Lord Beaconsfield. The Prime Minister condemned the speech of his colleague, who, however, put on a bold front, and read a Memorandum before the Cabinet vindicating his position, and re-affirming everything that he had said. Lord Beaconsfield merely asked him for a copy of this document, and no Minister then or at any subsequent period hinted at a private or public disavowal of Lord Carnarvon’s statement. A very conciliatory answer was sent on the 12th of January to Prince Gortschakoff. It did not even suggest that the temporary military occupation of Constantinople would endanger British interests, but it asked Russia not to touch Gallipoli. On the 15th of January Prince Gortschakoff answered that Russia would not occupy Gallipoli unless Turkish troops were massed there; but he said that a British occupation of the Peninsula would be regarded by Russia as a breach of neutrality. On the 17th of January Parliament met, and, to its surprise, found itself greeted with a Royal Speech couched in the most dove-like terms of peace. The War Party were abashed. Even Lord Beaconsfield spoke not of daggers, though he hinted vaguely at the chances of using them. There was also a clause in the Queen’s Speech which, after admitting that none of the conditions of British neutrality had been violated, alluded darkly to the possibility of something occurring which might render “measures of precaution” necessary. Lord Salisbury, however, went out of his way to state that the Czar, so far from having aggressive designs, had shown himself anxious to defer to the wishes of Europe, and was possessed with “an almost tormenting desire for peace,” so that Members went about asking each other—Why had Parliament been summoned so soon, to the great disturbance of business and the alarm of the nation, merely to be told that everything was going on smoothly? The fact is, that it had been Lord Beaconsfield’s original intention to send the Fleet to the Dardanelles.

On the 12th of January, 1878, this proposal was discussed in the Cabinet, and it would have been necessary to follow up the step by asking the House of Commons for a war vote. At a meeting on the 14th, from which Lord Derby was absent, the proposal was adopted. On the 15th Lord Carnarvon sent in his resignation, but Mr. Montagu Corry came to him with a message from Lord Beaconsfield to say that certain telegrams had arrived which had caused the order to the Fleet to be cancelled. These telegrams must obviously have been from Lord Augustus Loftus, conveying Prince Gortschakoff’s pledge that Gallipoli would not be touched, and his warning that Russia would regard the British occupation of it as a breach of neutrality. On the 16th Lord Carnarvon was at the Cabinet meeting, but his resignation was not returned to him till the 18th, when Lord Beaconsfield assured him that there was no longer any difference between them. Lord Beaconsfield, indeed, went further in his soothing assurances to the House of Lords on the 17th. Though he had Lord Carnarvon’s resignation at that moment in his pocket, he said “there is not the slightest evidence that there has ever been any difference between my opinions and those of my colleagues.”[123] As for the rumours of dissensions in the Cabinet, Lord Salisbury scornfully averred that they were only the inventions of “our old friends the newspapers.”

To understand the events that followed, and which again threw the country into a panic, two facts must be kept in view. First, the resolution to send the Fleet to the Dardanelles had been taken on the 14th of January, after the receipt of a telegram from Mr. Layard warning the Government that the Russians were moving on Gallipoli. This false statement had been neutralised by Lord Augustus Loftus, who sent on the 15th the telegram conveying Gortschakoff’s renewed pledges to respect British interests, in time to enable Lord Beaconsfield to cancel the orders to the Fleet. But the second point is, that the public and Parliament were kept in complete ignorance of Gortschakoff’s fresh pledges not to approach Gallipoli, and not to occupy Constantinople. If the one pledge was to be trusted, so was the other, and the withdrawal of the orders to the Fleet proved that the Government thought that the one pledge was valid. Yet Lord Beaconsfield’s friends strove without ceasing to impress the public with the false notion that Russia meant to seize Constantinople. On the 17th Mr. Layard sent another alarmist telegram. The Russians, he said, were marching on Adrianople. They were next to occupy Constantinople, and the Sultan was making ready to fly to Broussa. On the 22nd a deputation of the Tory War Party, representing seventy-five malcontents in the House of Commons, urged a policy of intervention on Sir Stafford Northcote. On the 23rd the Cabinet resolved to send immediate orders to Admiral Hornby to take the Fleet to Constantinople. Lord Derby and Lord Carnarvon thereupon resigned. The order to the Fleet was countermanded, and Hornby was instructed to anchor in Besika Bay, whereupon Lord Derby returned to the Cabinet, but without Lord Carnarvon. Lord Derby afterwards admitted that neither he nor his colleagues had altered their opinions about the propriety of sending the order to the Fleet, so that the Ministry and its Foreign Secretary were now avowedly at variance as to a vital point of principle in Foreign policy. If the Cabinet was trustworthy Lord Derby should not have left it. If it was not trustworthy he was right to leave it, but wrong to go back. As for Lord Beaconsfield, that he should have permitted Lord Derby to return in such circumstances was, it need hardly be said, discreditable to him as a man of honour. On January 24th Sir Stafford Northcote gave notice that on the 28th he would move “a supplementary estimate for the military and naval services,” and the Ministerial press immediately circulated the most startling accounts of the oppressive conditions which Russia sought to impose on Turkey, then negotiating for an armistice. The Liberal press, on the other hand, accused Sir Stafford Northcote of breaking his promise, passed on the opening day of the Session, that he would not ask for a Vote till he knew what the Russian terms of peace were, and saw that they plainly put British interests in peril.

As for the public, it had not the faintest idea that Ministers had received assurances from Prince Gortschakoff which they had dealt with as satisfactory. The official excuse for the War Vote now was that Russia, by delaying to communicate the terms of peace which were the basis of the armistice, rendered precautionary measures necessary. On the 25th, Count Schouvaloff communicated these terms to the Foreign Office, and they were found to be simply those which Russia had, with unusual frankness, forewarned England and the Powers at various stages of the war, she would exact from Turkey. On the evening of the 25th, Lord Beaconsfield alluded to these terms as a possible basis for an armistice. He must have regarded them as eminently moderate, for he said that they had induced him to cancel the order to the Fleet to proceed to Constantinople.[124] But the Ministry still persisted in going on with the War Vote, and on the 28th of January Sir Stafford Northcote denounced the terms of peace, in language which would have induced Turkey to reject them had Russia not astutely kept them secret till Turkey had accepted them. On the same day Lord Carnarvon, in the House of Lords, explained his reasons for quitting the Cabinet.[125]

The feeling in the House of Commons was now running high against the Ministry, whose dissensions could no longer be concealed. But the War Party organised with some difficulty a strong agitation in London in their favour, and the streets and public-houses soon rang again with the hymnal invocation to the war-god Jingo. His worshippers attacked and broke up meetings called to protest against the War Vote, and they themselves held meetings in Sheffield, in Trafalgar Square, and in Exeter Hall (6th February). Still these demonstrations were empty of real meaning, and the Opposition would not have been intimidated by them but for a curious circumstance.

On the 7th of February the debate on the War Vote was still dragging on, and every night the case of the Cabinet seemed to grow feebler and feebler. The accommodating Mr. Layard, however, once more came to their rescue. He began again to pour in his stereotyped telegrams that the Russians, in spite of the armistice, were still marching on Constantinople. Finally his despatches formed the basis for a rumour that was circulated at Countess Münster’s ball, on the 6th of January, that the Russians had actually occupied Constantinople. Next day the panic-stricken City was literally occupied by raging “Jingoes,” and but for the police Mr. Gladstone’s house would have been sacked. Every man who did not bow to the war-god was a traitor and a Russian spy, and the violence of the War Party ultimately frightened the wits out of the Opposition. When the House of Commons met, Sir Stafford Northcote, in reply to Lord Hartington, read Mr. Layard’s alarming telegrams, and then the Liberal leaders ran from their guns in a panic. Mr. Forster made haste to withdraw his Resolution against the War Vote. Nobody would listen to Mr. Bright, who shrewdly suggested that Mr. Layard was again misleading the Government; and the Liberal Party, deserted by its leaders, sat in abject dismay, cowering beneath the triumphant cheering of their opponents. But in a moment the whole scene changed, as if by the touch of a magician. While Mr. Bright was casting doubt on Mr. Layard’s telegrams, a note was passed on to Sir Stafford Northcote, after reading which he grew visibly agitated. He handed it to his colleagues, and when Mr. Bright sat down, Sir Stafford Northcote rose and, with a shame-faced visage, said he had something of importance to communicate. Both sides strained every ear to learn what fresh act of Russian perfidy had been discovered; but the reaction was indescribable when he read out an official denial from Prince Gortschakoff of Mr. Layard’s sensational despatches. “The order,” said Gortschakoff, “has been given to stop hostilities along the whole line in Europe and in Asia. There is not a word of truth in the rumours which have reached you.” Peals of derisive laughter greeted this anti-climax, only it was difficult to know whether the Opposition and Ministers were laughing at themselves, or at each other.

The end of the affair was that Mr. Forster could not muster up enough courage to press his Resolution, and when a division came he and Lord Hartington and about a hundred bewildered Liberals walked out of the House. Hence the Vote was carried into Committee by a majority of 295 to 199. The country did not conceal its contempt for Mr. Forster’s manœuvre. Men of sense agreed that there was only one ground on which such a Vote could be fairly opposed. It was that till Ministers stated definitely, whether their policy was to be that of Lord Derby or Lord Beaconsfield, tempered at intervals by a telegraphic romance from the British Embassy at Constantinople, not a farthing should be granted to them. No such statement of policy was made, and the withdrawal of the Liberals from their position served to convince impartial observers that their opposition had been factious from the beginning. [126]

After this unexpected victory the “Jingoes” pressed the Government to follow it up. To please them the Fleet was ordered to Constantinople, but to soothe Lord Derby he was permitted to explain that it went there merely to protect British residents who were alarmed by the prevailing anarchy. The Turks, enraged at what they deemed their betrayal by Lord Beaconsfield and Mr. Layard, churlishly refused to grant a firman opening the Straits to the Fleet. Prince Gortschakoff said, that as the protection of Europeans from anarchy was a duty which Russia and England ought to undertake in common for the sake of Humanity, Russia would now, as a matter of course, occupy the fortified lines that covered Constantinople, and, if need be, the city itself. It was a pretty “situation” in the high comedy of diplomacy, in which Lord Beaconsfield was, for the moment, outwitted and outmanœuvred. He lowered the point of his foil with good temper and good grace, but when he effected a compromise with Gortschakoff there was wailing and gnashing of teeth in the Temple of “Jingo.” And yet Lord Beaconsfield may be forgiven much, on account of the dexterity with which he extricated the country from a position which rendered war with Russia, and the immediate expulsion of the last remnant of the Ottoman race to Asia, a dead certainty. He, or Lord Derby in his name, promised Gortschakoff not to occupy Gallipoli nor the lines of Bulair, if Russia would promise not to land troops on the European shore of the Dardanelles. This compromise was accepted by Russia, with the additional proviso that neither Power was free to occupy the Asiatic side of the Straits.

After the Government obtained the Vote of Six Millions, they began to spend the money as quickly as possible in the arsenals, for the strangest part of their policy was, that their Army and Navy Estimates were essentially peace estimates. Meantime, everybody was speculating as to what terms of peace were being forced on Turkey, and the War Party were busy spreading abroad the most alarming rumours about the exactions of Russia. The veil of secrecy in which the negotiations were wrapped excited the suspicion of the people, who, it must be remembered, were kept in ignorance of the fact that the Russian Government had frankly told Lord Derby the conditions on which they would make peace. There was thus a distinct oscillation of public feeling towards the “Jingoes.” The Treaty of Peace was signed at San Stefano on the 3rd of March. Nineteen days afterwards the full text of this Treaty, by which, as Prince Bismarck told General Grant, “Ignatieff had swallowed more than Russia could digest,” was printed in the English newspapers. At first, the War Party collapsed. It was clear that the Russians had not touched British interests, and that to offer to fight on behalf of Turkey after she was annihilated as a fighting Power, and had signed a Treaty of Peace, was a palpable absurdity. Some other basis for a policy had thus to be discovered, and it was soon found. The ghastly phantom of “the public law of Europe” was conjured up from the Crimean Museum of diplomatic antiquities. It was said that England was bound to defend that law against the Treaty of San Stefano which had violated it, by upsetting the Treaty of Paris as modified in 1871 by the Powers. Austria also took a line that again inspired the War Party with false hopes. The Treaty of San Stefano had not arranged for an Austrian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as a counterpoise to a Bulgaria under Russian influence. Austria therefore began to arm. At the instance of Germany, however, she invited all the Powers to meet in Congress and endeavour to harmonise the Treaty of San Stefano with the general interests of Europe. As Lord Derby was blamed, somewhat unjustly, for the failure of the project of a Congress, it may be well to state precisely his attitude to it. Unfortunately for himself he deemed it desirable to conceal his real objection to the scheme, which was this: he held that more harm than good results from a discussion among rival Powers on their competing interests in any Congress, unless they shall have arrived beforehand at a complete agreement as to the concessions which they will give and take.

Lord Derby’s idea evidently was to delay the Congress till the Powers were so far agreed that their meeting would be virtually one to register foregone conclusions. Lord Beaconsfield and the War Party, on the other hand, knew that their only hope lay in preventing the Congress from meeting. Up to a certain point Lord Derby and Lord Beaconsfield could, therefore, hold common ground. But as Lord Derby’s policy of obstructive procrastination destroyed the popularity of the project before it had brought about such an agreement among the Powers as would render the Congress innocuous, even in his eyes, it was easy for Lord Beaconsfield to take some warlike step that would get rid of Lord Derby and the Congress also. Hence throughout the period of diplomatic conflict that followed we find Lord Derby allowed to object to the Congress, first because Greece was not to be represented, and lastly because the Russians did not distinctly promise to submit the whole Treaty of San Stefano to it. The dispute finally centred round this last point. Out of England nobody at the time could understand Lord Derby’s objection. He seemed, from beginning to end, either to be quibbling about words and phrases, or trying to force Russia to enter the Congress with less liberty of action and on a lower status of dignity and independence than the other Powers. Before England accepted the Congress he wrote to Sir Henry Elliot, saying that she would not enter it unless he distinctly understood that “every article in the Treaty between Russia and Turkey will be placed before the Congress, not necessarily for acceptance, but in order that it may be ascertained what articles require acceptance or concurrence by the several Powers, and what do not.” Russia had already admitted that at the Congress each of the Powers “would have full liberty of appreciation and action” as regards the Treaty of San Stefano, and on the 9th of April Prince Gortschakoff’s Circular Note further stated that “in claiming the same right for Russia we can only reiterate the same declaration.” Lord Beaconsfield, on the 8th of April, complained, in the House of Lords, that the phrase “liberty of appreciation and action” was involved in classical ambiguity. “Delphi herself,” said he, with a provoking sneer at the Russian Chancellor, “could hardly have been more perplexing and august.” Yet, on the 27th of March, Count Schouvaloff wrote to Lord Derby as follows: “The liberty of appreciation and action which Russia thinks it right to reserve to herself at the Congress the Imperial Cabinet defines in the following manner. It leaves to the other Powers the liberty of raising such questions at the Congress as they may think it fit to discuss, and reserves to itself the liberty of accepting or not accepting the discussion of those questions.”[127] Russia had communicated the Treaty in its entirety to all the Powers. She had expressly and explicitly informed Austria, who had summoned the Congress, that she admitted the competence of that body to overhaul every clause of the Treaty in European interests—a fact of which Lord Derby was well aware. Austria and the Continental Powers were satisfied that Russia had sufficiently recognised the competence of the Congress. England alone denied this, and pressed for a declaration which would have technically left all the Powers except Russia free not only to decide what affected their individual interests, but free to decide what affected those of Russia also. Lord Derby’s demand seemed as if meant to put the Russian Government, behind which stood a great and irritable army, flushed with victory, in the position of a criminal at the bar of Europe, and to force from her an admission that on certain vital points she pledged herself to bow to the decision of the Congress, though no other Power was to be put under a similar obligation.[128] Whilst this pedantic controversy was going on the “Jingoes” beat the war-drum with so much sound and fury that Lord Beaconsfield was misled into the idea that they were strong outside London. On the 26th of March the Cabinet accordingly resolved to call out the Reserves, to summon a contingent of native troops from India, to seize Cyprus, and land an army at a port in Syria. Lord Derby was not much alarmed about the order to call out the Reserves, but to seize one portion of the Turkish Empire, and land an army on another, without a declaration of war, was to his mind an act of piracy. Moreover, it would have instantly led to the catastrophe which he had made every sacrifice to avoid—the Russian occupation of Constantinople.

At this crisis Lord Derby saved his country from the direst calamity—a war between England and Russia, in which victory could bring no other gain to England than the privilege of restoring the liberated Turkish provinces to barbarism, and in which, since India had been put down by Lord Beaconsfield as one of the stakes in his game, defeat would have meant the loss of her Asiatic and Colonial Empire. Lord Derby resigned, and the panic caused by his withdrawal from the Cabinet compelled Lord Beaconsfield to abandon the filibustering expedition to Cyprus and Syria, and confine himself to those steps which did not make war inevitable. Russia, who was strengthening her own forces, could not object to England calling out her Reserves. As for the summons to the Indian troops, it would have been harmless, but for a circumstance not known at the time. It gave Prince Gortschakoff an opportunity for carrying out a diabolically malignant scheme of vengeance. He considered himself free to ignore the arrangement by which Russia was bound not to interfere in the “neutral zone” between her Asiatic Empire and the Indian frontier. Russian troops were accordingly ordered to move towards the Oxus for the invasion of India. Russian agents hastened in advance to the frontier to brew trouble for England in Afghanistan. Nay, so swift and secret were these counter-strokes, that even after the dispute between Russia and England in Europe had been settled, Russia was unable to undo the mischief she had wrought in Asia. England was dragged into the costly agony of another Afghan War, and it may therefore be said that the luxury of bringing the native troops to Europe in 1878 not only permanently disorganised the finances of India, but cost the country hecatombs of lives and £20,000,000 of money in 1879-80. Though the step was at first popular, the nation in time began to appreciate the grave political and fiscal objections which could be urged unanswerably against the employment of Indian troops out of Asia, or out of that portion of Eastern Africa which is practically Asiatic.

But when Lord Derby resigned it was not known that Indian troops were to be brought to Cyprus and landed in Syria, and the Ministerial explanations were so couched as to make it appear that he left the Government merely because the Reserves were called out. His real reasons could not be given at the moment, and he had to submit to a tirade of abuse from Tory speakers and writers unparalleled in its ferocity. Even his personal character was attacked by abominable slanders. Violence and virulence are the outward and visible signs of decaying power in a political Party. These evil qualities had, however, never been displayed to a greater extent by the Tories since the wars of the Protectionists and the Peelites in 1852, when a band of the former one day after dinner at the Carlton Club explored the drawing-room in order to “fling Mr. Gladstone out of the window.”[129] Yet it is curious to observe that Lord Beaconsfield and his followers were forced by events to adopt the policy and even the method of their slandered colleague. They floundered deeper and deeper every day into a quagmire of difficulties, till they actually made a secret arrangement with Russia as to the points in the Treaty of San Stefano, about which, however much they might wage a sham fight in the coming Congress, neither Power would go to war.

In fact it is now evident that of the statesmen who figured in the controversy at this crisis, Lord Derby is the one who emerges from it with least damage to his reputation. Alike in his strength and weakness, in his resolute determination to spend neither British blood nor British treasure for the sake of Turkey, and in his lack of red-hot enthusiasm for the cause of Slavic

nationality, Lord Derby’s diplomacy was the diplomacy of the British people in their saner moments, when they were not under the spell of passion or partisanship. His blunders—the rejection of the Berlin Memorandum and the refusal to give an executive character to the decisions of the Constantinople Conference—had at all events wrought no evil to England or the world, unless it were an evil to hasten the destruction of Ottoman tyranny in Europe, and the deliverance of Bulgaria from barbarism.[130] As for his successes, they are now obvious. His shrewd appreciation of British interests, and his firmness, candour, courtesy, and lucidity in defining them at the outset of the struggle between the belligerents, made it easy for Russia to avoid a collision with England. That he fell short of his opportunity in neglecting to establish British influence in Egypt was a mistake excusable in a minister whose leader, like a character in one of his own novels, “had but one idea in Foreign

Policy, and that was wrong”—the “maintenance of the integrity of the Ottoman Empire.” But the net result of Lord Derby’s administration was that he kept the country out of war, and out of enfeebling and disreputable alliances. He thrust a peace policy on bellicose colleagues. Even when they broke from his control he still forced them back to the paths of peace by inflicting on them the penalty of his resignation. In quitting them he left them as his legacy the secret of going into the Congress, and bringing back from it “Peace with Honour.”

Mr. Gladstone, in a famous speech at Oxford, said, on the 30th of January, that he had devoted his life, during the past year, to counteract the Machiavelian designs of Lord Beaconsfield. Mr. Gladstone, however, never appeared to less advantage than when he made that statement. It was not Lord Beaconsfield but Lord Derby who was the master-mind of the Cabinet during 1877-78, and who moulded its diplomacy and controlled its action in Foreign Affairs. That Mr. Gladstone strengthened Lord Derby’s hands by rendering a war for the sake of Turkey unpopular is true; but that he weakened them by seeming to advocate a military alliance with Holy Russia for a crusade against Islam, is true also.

Lord Derby’s successor was Lord Salisbury. His first act was to issue a Circular to the Powers, which was a furious and unrestrained condemnation of every line of the Treaty of San Stefano. If it were to be taken seriously it meant the condemnation even of the proposals of the Constantinople Conference, to which he was himself a party. Prince Gortschakoff, however, did not take it seriously. He replied to it with polite irony in his Circular of the 9th of April, pointing out that the difficulty Lord Salisbury put him in was that he confined himself to saying what England did not want. The situation, however, could not be understood by the Powers till Lord Salisbury stated plainly what she did want. The only logical answer which Lord Salisbury in terms of his Circular could give was, “The restoration of the status quo in Turkey.” Hence it is needless to say that he did not find it convenient to issue a direct reply to Prince Gortschakoff’s cynical despatch.

The Resolution calling out the Reserves was carried in the House of Commons by 319 against 64, the Liberal leaders, with the exception of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright, refusing to take part in the division. That fewer than half the House supported the Government was bitterly bewailed by the War Party, but was taken by the country as a good omen of peace. So was the proposal to adjourn Parliament for a holiday of three weeks at Easter, though, when the order summoning the Indian troops to Malta was issued immediately after the adjournment, war alarms again vexed the nation. Peace meetings were once more held, and the provinces grew so restive that in the end of April Mr. Hardy and Mr. Cross, speaking at Bradford and Preston, tried to soothe public opinion by the most pacific assurances. When Parliament met after the Recess the Government were taken to task because, in sending for the Indian troops, they seemed to be endeavouring to nullify Parliamentary control over the Army. Though the Opposition were beaten in the division in the House of Commons, independent Conservatives did not conceal the suspicions and the dislike with which they regarded a proceeding which appeared more in harmony with the policy of Rome in her decay, than of the British Empire in the full vigour of virility. Though the War Party were more noisy than ever in London, there grew up a strong feeling towards the end of May that the Congress would meet after all, and that the risk of war was over. Intimidated by the Peace demonstrations, the feeble vote of support on the motion for calling out the Reserves, and the suspicions with which many Conservatives viewed the employment of Asiatic troops to fight the battles of England in Europe, the Government adopted Lord Derby’s plan, and entered into a secret agreement with Russia as to what was to be conceded in Congress. After that agreement it mattered little on what terms the two Powers met. The compromise between Lord Salisbury and Count Schouvaloff pushed back the Bulgaria of the San Stefano Treaty from the Ægean Sea to the limit fixed by the Constantinople Conference, cutting it off from all possible contact with England, an arrangement not altogether disadvantageous to Russia. It divided Bulgaria into two provinces—one to be free, but tributary to Turkey, and the other to have an autonomous government, under a Christian Pasha, appointed by the Porte with the sanction of the Powers. This weakened Bulgaria so as to give Russia a dominant influence in both provinces, which was not shaken till 1885, when their aspirations for union were realised by a Revolution, which it was Lord Salisbury’s fate to sanction, perhaps, indeed, in some measure to encourage. Greek populations were excluded from the new Bulgarias, greatly to the satisfaction of Mr. Gladstone and Lord Derby. Bayazid was restored to Turkey, but Batoum and Kars were to be taken by Russia, who thus had the Asiatic frontier of Turkey at her mercy. Russia was to take Bessarabia, and Turkey to cede Kolour to Persia—obviously to earn Persian gratitude for Russia. Subject to this compromise Lord Beaconsfield agreed not to make a casus belli of any Article in the Treaty of San Stefano, each one of which had been so fiercely condemned by Lord Salisbury’s Circular of the 1st of April.

The intention of the Government was to keep the Salisbury-Schouvaloff compromise secret. The people were to be left to imagine that Ministers had won a diplomatic victory by forcing Russia into the Congress fettered, whilst England entered it free. All the points agreed on privately were to be fought over publicly by the representatives of England in the Congress as if no such agreement were in existence, and Englishmen were to be deluded into the idea that their diplomatic agents had, by superhuman efforts at Berlin, not by private huckstering in London, obtained enormous concessions from Russia. But when the Globe newspaper astonished the world by divulging the secret agreement, the people—more especially the enthusiastic Tories—refused to be

deluded. What, they asked, had Ministers made such a fuss about? Why had they passed war votes, brought Indian troops to Malta at the risk of violating the Constitution, and kept Europe in a fever of unrest, if they were prepared to accept a compromise with Russia, so fatal to the Turk as this? In fact, public opinion was so much excited that Lord Salisbury, on the 3rd of June, had the courage to deny that the secret compromise published by the Globe on the 31st of May was “authentic.” Ministerial organs, also tried to convince the world that it was a forgery which had been treacherously uttered from the Russian. Embassy.[131] For a time this denial lulled all popular suspicions. By way of enforcing it Sir Stafford Northcote, when pressed, on the 6th of June, as to what policy Ministers would pursue in Congress, referred the House of Commons to the drastic Circular of the 1st of April, which tore every Article in the Treaty of San Stefano to pieces. As a matter of fact that Circular became a bit of waste-paper when Lord Salisbury signed his secret agreement with Russia, the existence of which the Government were now denying.

Three days after this compromise was arrived at, Germany, on the 3rd of June, issued invitations to the Powers to meet in Congress at Berlin on the 14th.[132] Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury then proceeded to represent England at the conclave in the Radziwill Palace. Few will forget the almost breathless excitement with which the people of England watched what they believed would be a terrible diplomatic duel for the honour of their Queen and country between Lord Beaconsfield and Prince Gortschakoff, for all this time the country had accepted as true Lord Salisbury’s denial of his secret compact with Count Schouvaloff.[133] But the tension of public feeling suddenly relaxed in the reaction of a ludicrous anti-climax. On the day after the Congress met (14th June) the Globe published the full text of the Secret Agreement. In vain did Sir Stafford Northcote and the Duke of Richmond repeat Lord Salisbury’s equivocal denials of its authenticity. Lord Grey indignantly condemned the Government for their misleading disclaimers. Lord Houghton, a Liberal supporter of Lord Beaconsfield’s foreign policy, said “the effect of the document on the whole of Europe had been portentous,” and had lowered the dignity of the Government.[134] The theory of the Ministerial Press, that the document came from the Russian Embassy was refuted in a few days by the Ministry. They raised criminal proceedings against Mr. Charles Marvin, a writer in the Foreign Office, for surreptitiously copying the paper and sending it to the Globe.[135] The prevarication of Ministers and the revelations attendant on the disclosure of the Secret Agreement shocked the confidence of the nation in the Cabinet. Lord Salisbury and his colleagues earned for themselves at this time an evil reputation for mendacity, which did much to bring about the defeat of Lord Beaconsfield’s Administration at the General Election of 1880. And yet it was difficult for them to be quite candid with Parliament in the circumstances. On the day after they had signed the Secret Agreement with Russia (which, it must be kept in view, bound her to encroach no further on Turkey in Asia) they began to negotiate a Convention with the Porte by which England promised to defend the Asiatic frontier of Turkey, on condition that the Sultan would reform the Government of Asia Minor, and permit the British Government to hold Cyprus as long as Russia kept Kars. It would have been inconvenient to divulge this scheme before Congress had decided the fate of Bulgaria. Hence Lord Salisbury was really within the mark in saying that the Secret Agreement with Russia did not “wholly” represent the Government policy. On the 8th of July it was announced that the Anglo-Turkish Convention had been signed on the 4th of June—most reluctantly, as it seemed, by Turkey. Her hesitancy, indeed, was not overcome till Lord Salisbury in the Congress abandoned, and Lord Beaconsfield actively opposed, the cause of the Greeks, whom they had buoyed up with delusive hopes. In an instant the scandal of the Secret Agreement was forgotten. The wildest tales of the wealth that was to be exploited in Cyprus flew from mouth to mouth. Englishmen saw with prophetic eye, “in a fine frenzy rolling,” Asia Minor “opened up,” under a British Protectorate, by the British prospector and pioneer. Indeed, it was not till the 9th of November, when the nauseous wines of Cyprus (of which such glowing accounts had been published) were served at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet, that the truth dawned on the City. Then it was recognised that the country had been deceived as to the teeming riches of its new possessions and positions in the East. Cool-headed men did not, however, at the outset conceal their opinion that the privilege of occupying Cyprus and of defending the Asiatic frontier of Turkey was a poor substitute for the occupation of Egypt as a means of restoring British influence in the East and safeguarding British communications with India. Mr. Gladstone and Lord Hartington both denounced the Anglo-Turkish Convention, as an “insane covenant,” and the Opposition attacked it savagely in Parliament, but without success. Independent Members attributed less importance to the arrangement than Mr. Gladstone. They argued that, as the introduction of reforms into Asia Minor was the condition precedent of defending the frontier by arms, the Treaty, so far as England was concerned, would remain a dead-letter. Great commercial interests, if created in Asia Minor by English adventurers, might doubtless need defence. But, on the other hand, it was impossible to create those interests so long as Asia Minor was desolated by misgovernment, which the Sultan had not the power, even if he had the will, to reform. Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury returned to London on the 15th of July, bringing with them, as they said, “Peace with Honour.” Applauding crowds welcomed them with passionate enthusiasm. The Tories were delighted with the Anglo-Turkish Convention, for as yet the gilt had not been rubbed off their Cyprian toy. The Liberals, though indignant at the betrayal of Greece, were pleased that Lord Beaconsfield had come out of the Congress without involving England in war. They could say very little against a Treaty the net result of which was to free eleven millions of Christian Slavs from the direct rule of the Sultan, to render even divided Bulgaria practically autonomous, and to create Servia and Roumania into independent Kingdoms. On the 18th of July Lord Beaconsfield gave the House of Lords an apologetic explanation of the Treaty of Berlin, which was only the Treaty of San Stefano modified by the Salisbury-Schouvaloff Agreement, and by the concession to Austria of the right to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina. The debate raised no point of interest, save Lord Derby’s disclosure of the Ministerial decision in May, to send a naval Expedition to Syria, a project which was abandoned when he quitted the Cabinet. Lord Salisbury created a scene by comparing Lord Derby’s revelations to those of Titus Oates, and he gave them a flat denial. But Lord Derby had spoken from a Memorandum which he had made of the decision to which he referred at the time it was arrived at. As Lord Salisbury’s reputation for veracity had been sadly shaken by his statements about his Secret Agreement with Russia, the country paid little heed to his disclaimers, and Lord Derby’s version of the facts has ever since been taken as correct.

Triumphant majorities endorsed the policy which had been adopted in the Congress, and at the end of the year Ministers went about predicting for the country halcyon days of peace. Domestic affairs gave them little trouble. Irish obstruction was bought off by the Irish Intermediate Education Bill, which appropriated £1,000,000 to encourage secondary schools in Ireland, by prizes, exhibitions, and capitation grants. An attempt was made to pass a Bill, which, under the pretext of excluding diseased cattle from English ports, might have been so applied as to shut out foreign competition in the cattle trade. But when it was discovered that the effect of the measure would be to raise meat to eighteen-pence and two shillings a pound, the Tory borough members threatened to revolt, and after a long and obstructive struggle in Committee concessions were extorted from the Government which satisfied the Opposition. The Government and the Opposition agreed to pass a Bill consolidating forty-five Factory and Workshop Acts—a most useful measure which removed many legal ambiguities. But no other Bills of importance were carried, and no debates of much consequence raised, save on foreign questions.

The Budget was introduced on the 4th of April. But for the money spent under the Vote of Credit, Sir Stafford Northcote would have had a balance in hand of £859,000. As it was he had a deficit on the accounts of 1877-78 of £2,640,000. Supposing that no change either in taxation or ordinary expenditure occurred in the coming year, he admitted that he would also have a deficit in the accounts of the coming year of £1,559,000. But besides this, Sir Stafford Northcote contended that he must make provision for an “extraordinary expenditure” of £1,000,000, or perhaps £1,500,000, in addition to what appeared in the regular estimates for the Army and Navy for 1878-79. The ordinary income and expenditure he estimated at £79,640,000, but his attempt to introduce the vicious system of bankrupt or half-bankrupt States, whose Governments confuse their accounts by mixing up ordinary and extraordinary expenditure could not conceal one fact. Adding his extraordinary expenditure to his past and estimated deficits, the existing taxation of the country would fail to meet the expenditure of 1878-79 by at least £5,300,000. Hence it was necessary to impose new taxes. Sir Stafford Northcote therefore added 2d. to the income-tax, and 4d. per pound to the duty on tobacco, but even then he estimated a deficit of about £1,500,000, which he added to the floating debt.

Parliament was prorogued on the 16th of August, and, amidst optimist anticipations of peace, an end was put to a Session in which the House of Commons, for the first time in the century, had permitted itself to be treated by the Ministry like a Bonapartist Corps Législatif. When it adjourned many people wondered why it had been summoned. In the stirring crises of the year the Government had on every momentous occasion carried out their policy without consulting it. The legislative work that it was allowed to do might have been deferred for another year without serious inconvenience. It had been converted into a court of registration for the decisions of a Minister who treated it as an ornamental appendage to a new system in which the Monarch and the Multitude, under his guidance, were the only real governing forces. Ministers, however, when they went down to their constituents in the autumn, and told them to hope for peace, plenty, and