226 



EASTERN QUESTION, THE. 



tier and to put into immediate execution the arrange- 

 ment come to between the Sublime Porte and Monte- 

 negro. The powers hold the Sublime Porte responsible 

 in advance tor the grave consequences that might be 



S reduced by a further delay^ in giving satisfaction to 

 ic rights acquired by the principality. 



In conclusion, the attention of the powers has been 

 drawn to a third point. 



By the sixty-first article of the Treaty of Berlin of 

 the 13th of July, 1878, the Sublime Porte undertook 

 to carry out, without further delay, the improvements 

 and administrative reforms demanded by local re- 

 quirements in the provinces inhabited by the Arme- 

 nians, and to guarantee their security against the 

 attacks and the violence of the Circassians and Kurds, 

 and periodically to make known the steps taken to 

 this effect to the powers, who are to superintend their 

 application. 



So far as her Majesty's Government are aware, no- 

 thing has been done by the Sublime Porte to make 

 known the steps which it may have taken in order to 

 meet the stipulations of Article LXI of the Treaty of 

 Berlin ; nor have any measures been adopted by the 

 Porte for the superintendence to be exercised by the 

 powers. 



All the reports furnished bv the agents of the 

 powers show that the state of these provinces is de- 

 plorable, and her Majesty's Government can not ad- 

 mit that the clauses of the Treaty of Berlin relating 

 to the amelioration of this state of things should re- 

 main any longer a dead letter. They are convinced 

 that only united and incessant pressure on their part 

 will induce the Sublime Porte to fulfill its duties in 

 this respect. Her Majesty's Government, therefore, 

 as one of the signatory powers of the Treaty of Ber- 

 lin, must demand the complete and immediate execu- 

 tion of Article LXI of that treaty, and call upon the 

 Government of his Imperial Majesty the Sultan to 

 state explicitly what the steps are which they have 

 taken in order to fulfill the provisi jns of this article. 



In bringing these views to the knowledge of 

 your Excellency, I consider it my duty to call your 

 most serious attention to the grave responsibility the 

 Porte would incur by any fresh delay in the execu- 

 tion of the measures which the powers agree in con- 

 sidering to be essential to the interests of the Ottoman 

 Empire and of Europe. 



lhave, etc., G. J. GOSCHEN. 



The conference, as indicated in the preceding 

 note, met at Berlin, on June 16th, under the 

 presidency of Prince Hohenlohe, the Prussian 

 plenipotentiary. The other members of the 

 conference were Count Szechenyi, ambassa- 

 dor of Austro-Hungary ; M. de St. Vallier, 

 ambassador of France; M. de Saburoff, am- 

 bassador of Russia; Lord Odo Russell, am- 

 bassador of England ; Count de Launay, ambas- 

 sador of Italy. The work of suggesting to 

 the plenipotentiaries a new frontier between 

 Greece and Turkey, in accordance with the 

 general geographical idea thrown out in the 

 thirteenth protocol of the Berlin Congress, was 

 intrusted to a so-called " Technical Commis- 

 sion." Colonel Blume, previously of the Ger- 

 man general staff and War Office, and at the 

 time commanding the Thirty-sixth Branden- 

 burg Fusileers, was unanimously elected presi- 

 dent, a post which was also conferred upon him 

 by the Technical Commission which sat in Ber- 

 lin during the Congress. The conference had 

 its last sitting on July 2d, in which a collective 

 note which had been drafted by the French 



ambassador was unanimously adopted. The 

 text of the note is as follows : 



The undersigned, ambassadors or ministers accred- 

 ited to the courts of his Majesty the Sultan of Turkey 

 and of his Majesty the King of the Hellenes, have 

 the honor, in accordance with the wishes of their re- 

 spective Governments, to submit to the Ministers of 

 Foreign Affairs of the Sublime Porte and of Greece the 

 following note : The Congress of Berlin having in- 

 dicated in its thirteenth protocol the principal points 

 of the frontier line which it deemed necessary to estab- 

 lish between Turkey and Greece, the powers have, in 

 the first place, called attention to the direct negotiations 

 on this subject between the two states. At the two 

 sittings of the conferences at Prevesa and Constanti- 

 nople, the Turkish and Greek commissioners, after 

 several long pourparlers had taken place, only succeed- 

 ed in making more apparent the differences between 

 them. In view of these unfruitful attempts at a solu- 

 tion of the question, the Powers named by the Treaty 

 of Berlin have considered it necessary to interpose 

 their mediation. This mediation, in order to be effect- 

 ual, it was necessary to exercise in all its fullness, and 

 the Cabinets, in view of the reciprocal dispositions of 

 the two interested states, have authorized their repre- 

 sentatives assembled in conference in Berlin to fix, 

 according to the general indications of the thirteenth 

 protocol, a line which would form a good and solid 

 boundary between Turkey and Greece. The plenipo- 

 tentiaries, after a most searching discussion, in which 

 they were aided by the advice of the Technical Com- 

 missioners appointed by the various Governments^ 

 have unanimously voted, according to the terms of 

 their mandate, the following tracing of the frontier 

 line, whicli resumes and closes their deliberations: 

 As the pourparlers between Turkey and Greece did 

 not lead to any result, the undersigned plenipoten- 

 tiaries of the powers appointed bv the provisions of 

 the act of July 13, 1879, to exercise a mediation bp- 

 tween the two countries, have assembled in Berlin, in 

 conformity with the instructions of their Governments, 

 and after a long and earnest deliberation, inspired by 

 the spirit of the thirteenth protocol of the Treaty of 

 Berlin, have adopted unanimously the following line 

 of demarkation : The frontier line will follow the 

 valley of the Kalamas from the mouth of that river, 

 in the Ionian Sea, to its source in the neighborhood of 

 Kalbaki. It will proceed to the north of "the Vonitza, 

 the Haliuemon.and the Mavroneri and their tributaries, 

 and to the south of the Kalamas, the Larta, the Aspro- 

 potamos, and the Salamyrias and their tributaries, 

 over the Olympus, the crest of which it will follow as 

 far as its eastern extremity on the Jilgean Sea. This 

 line leaves to the south the Lake of Janina and all its 

 affluents, and also Metzovo, which thus remains in the 

 possession of Greece. The Governments of Germany, 

 Austria, Hungary, France, Great Britain, Italy, and 

 Russia, therefore invite the Governments of the Sultan 

 and of the King of the Hellenes to accept the frontier 

 line as indicated in the above document. The mediat- 

 ing powers thus assembled in conference have acted 

 in strict conformity to the terms of the Treaty of Ber- 

 lin and of the thirteenth protocol of the conference. 

 (Here follow the signatures.) 



The territory which, according to this col- 

 lective note, is to be ceded to Greece, lias an 

 area of 8,500 square miles, with about 535,000 

 inhabitants. This would be an important ac- 

 cession for a kingdom whose present extent 

 does not exceed 20,000 square miles. Of these 

 535,000 inhabitants about 470,000, or 88 per 

 cent, are Greek Christians, 60,000 are Moham- 

 medans, and 4,000 Jews. But few of the in- 

 habitants are unable to speak Greek. The 

 Berlin Congress of 1878 had vaguely indicated 

 the rivers Kalamas and Salamvria (Peneus), the 



