TURKEY. 



they could not recognize the insurgents as bel- 

 ligerents by granting tlicin a formal armistice, 

 but their officers in the field could be loftmottq 

 to refrain from hostilities while the terms were 

 iiinli-r < "iisideration, provided the Servian 

 troops likewise avoided acts of war. On the 

 14th of September Savfet Pasha communi- 

 cated to the embassadors a long memorandum, 

 reiterating the objections of the Porte to grant- 

 ing an armistice except in connection with dis- 

 tinct propositions for peace, and stating the 

 conditions on which Turkey was willing to 

 make peace. These conditions were in sub- 

 stance as follows : 



1. The Prince of Servia shall go to Constantinople 

 and pay homage to the Sultun. 



2. The four fortresses which were placed under 

 the cure of the Prince of Servia in 1867, but of whicli 

 the title remained in the possession or the Turkish 

 Government, shall be again occupied by the impe- 

 rial army. 



3. The Servian militia shall be abolished; the 

 number of troops allowed for the preservation of 

 order in the interior of the principality shall not ex- 

 ceed 10,000 men, with two batteries. 



4. Servia shall return to their homes all inhabi- 

 tants of the neighboring provinces who have escaped 

 to her territories, and shall destroy all the fortresses 

 which have been recently built, leaving only those 

 which belonged of old to the principality. 



5. The amount of annual tribute to be paid by 

 Servia shall be increased by such a sum as shall be 

 sufficient to pay the interest upon the amount of the 

 war-indemnity to be assessed upon her. 



(i. The Ottoman Government shall have the right 

 to build a railway to connect Belgrade with the line 

 from Nissa, and operate it with officers of its own 

 appointment. 



Toward Montenegro the status quo ante 2>el- 

 lum should be observed. These points differed 

 totally from the conditions which the disaf- 

 fected provinces were seeking to gain, as well 

 as from the views of the powers. The coun- 

 ter-propositions of the powers were commu- 

 nicated to the Porte September 23d. Without 

 taking any notice of the six points of the 

 Turkish proposition, they demanded an au- 

 tonomy for Bosnia and the Herzegovina, to be 

 more clearly defined in future; a port for" 

 Montenegro ; an organization for Bulgaria like 

 that adopted for the Lebanon, with a Christian 

 governor appointed by the Porte, and other 

 privileges to be hereafter defined ; for Servia, 

 the status quo ante helium, except that an in- 

 demnity for the damages occasioned by the 

 war might be assessed from the principality. 

 While waiting the answer of the Porte to 

 these propositions, the powers engaged in cor- 

 respondence with each other to determine 

 what course should be taken in case they were 

 rejected. They continued to insist upon an 

 armistice, and finally effected an arrangement 

 that the Turks should desist from hostilities 

 from the 16th to the 25th of September, while 

 Srnia and Montenegro should be restrained 

 from action during the same period. On the 

 16th of September General Tchernayeff and 

 bis officers, at a festival given at Deligrad, pro- 

 claimed Prince Milan King of Servia. On the 

 VOL. xvi. 49 A 



next day the proclamation was formally pub- 

 lished to the troops of the army of the Morava; 

 deputations of the people were present, and 

 an address to King Milan I. Obrenovitch, duly 

 signed, was read by General Protitch, "in the 

 name of the heroic Servian people." The ac- 

 count of the proceedings was telegraphed to 

 Prince Milan, and a deputation was dispatched 

 to Belgrade in order to communicate to the 

 Prince in person the feeling of the army. 

 This affair caused disquiet to the powers and 

 the adjacent territories, particularly to Austro- 

 Hungary, and threatened to embarrass the ne- 

 gotiations for peace. Prince Milan was con- 

 strained to disavow it, and caused the deputa- 

 tion from the army to be turned back before 

 it hud reached Belgrade. 



On the 7th of October the embassadors of 

 the powers made to the Porte a formal propo- 

 sition for an armistice of six weeks. On the 

 12th the Porte replied, proposing an armistice 

 of six months, from October, 1876, to the 81st 

 of March, 1877, during which period the Ser- 

 vians would be expected not to disturb those 

 places of which the Turks were in possession ; 

 the introduction of foreign volunteers and of 

 arms and ammunition for Servia and Montene- 

 gro should be prohibited ; and all proceedings 

 tending to excite discontent in the neighboring 

 provinces should be avoided. In connection 

 with this proposition, the Porte submitted the 

 draft of a new constitution which had been 

 prepared for the whole empire. It provided 

 for a National Assembly, to consist of deputies 

 chosen by the capital and the vilayets, who 

 should be called to Constantinople for three 

 months in each year to settle the taxes and 

 the budget; and for a Senate, who should be 

 named by the Sultan ; the attributes of the 

 great state-bodies were to be more fully defined 

 by a special law, which was now under consid- 

 eration by a high commission of Mohammedans 

 and Christians, sitting under the presidency of 

 Midhat Pasha. Another law, for the reorgani- 

 zation of the provincial administrations, would 

 provide for the execution of the present law 

 in the vilayets, and for the extension of the 

 active and passive right of election, and would 

 also introduce in general the practical reforms 

 which the European powers had sought only 

 for Bosnia and the Herzegovina. The general 

 councils of the vilayets would likewise have 

 the right to watch over the execution of the 

 laws and regulations; and in the intervals be- 

 tween the sittings of the general council the 

 administrative councils chosen by the people 

 should attend to affairs appertaining to the 

 jurisdiction of the general council, and super- 

 vise the administrative officers in their func- 

 tions. Further, it had been decided to improve 

 the method of assessing and collecting the 

 taxes in the whole empire; to elevate the com- 

 munities as much as possible; to give to them 

 the control of the disposition of a part of the 

 public revenues; to reorganize the police; and, 

 in short, to make as complete a provincial or- 



