EDITORIAL
accomplish indirectly what Great Britain
had for a hundred years been striving to
prevent her from doing directly. With
a great Bulgarian State created by her
power, owing its very existence to her
arms, peopled by men and women of the
same religion, with a frontier running
within sixty miles of the Bosphorus, and
an ice free port on the Agean Sea, —
with all of this under the name of Bul-
garia, Constantinople, long desired,
coveted and fought for, and free access
to the warm waters of the ocean were
clearly within the Muscovite grasp, and
European Turkey would have been prac-
tically wiped off the face of the map.
THE UNDOING OF STEFANO
Now it was because of all of the above
that England protested and declared that
the treaty of San Stefano should not
stand, and must be submitted to a Con-
gress of the Great Powers of Europe,
who by their signatures to the Treaty
of Paris had fixed the status of the Turk.
Lord Beaconsfield at once took the posi-
tion that the San Stefano agreement
would put the whole of southeastern
Europe directly under Russian influence
and would mean that Russian ships of
war would menace the Suez Canal and
England’s highway to India and the Ori-
ent.
Russia began to parry. She offered
to submit the treaty to the perusal, if I
may use the expression, of a Congress,
but at the same time she argued that the
stipulations which merely concerned
Turkey and herself were for they twain
to settle between themselves. But Eng-
land was not to be put off by any such
ruse as this. She held that it was out
of the question to suppose that the
Powers could allow Rpussia to force on
Turkey any terms she might deem to her
own interest, especially when the Porte
kept slyly moaning that she had been
725
coerced into signing the instrument of
peace.
THE SAVING OF THE TURK
There can be no question but that
Great Britain was deeply in earnest. The
I.ondon War Office at once began to
make extensive military preparations,
the Reserves were called out, and a con-
tingent of Indian troops were summoned
to Europe with orders to occupy Cyprus,
and to make an armed landing on the
coast of Syria. In addition to these
moves Greece, which in February had
declared war, was ordered by England
to withdraw her troops from the Turkish
Provinces. The majority of these pre-
cautions were taken with the greatest
secrecy, yet every one felt that something
most important was in progress and ex-
pectancy was perched on every brow.
In the midst of all these stirring events
Lord Derby resigned the portfolio of the
British Foreign office. His policy had
ever been peace, and he was opposed to
the bellicose maneuvers of the great Dis-
raeli. His place was immediately filled
by the late Lord Salisbury who enter-
tained the same views as the Prime Min-
ister. His very first official act was to
issue a circular to all the Powers stat-
ing that it would be impossible for Eng-
land to enter a Congress which was not
free to consider the whole of the Treaty
of San Stefano. It was clear to Russia
that once again England held the whip
hand and seeing nothing else to do she
agreed to have the whole of the San
Stefano Treaty laid before the Congress
which was called to meet at Berlin, June
13, 1878.
The above will show, and show be-
yond the shade of a shadow of a doubt,
that the supreme object of the Congress
of Berlin was the preservation of the
Turkish Empire and the limiting of the
designs of those Powers which sought
the Ottoman overthrow. The Congress