256 



EASTERN QUESTION. 



Austria Count Andrdssy, Count Karolyi, and 

 Baron Haymerle ; France M. Waddington, 

 Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Count de St. 

 Vallier, Ambassador in Berlin; Italy Count 

 Corti, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Count 

 Launay, Ambassador in Berlin ; Turkey- 

 Alexander Caratheodori Pasha, Sadoollah Bey, 

 Ambassador in Berlin, and Mehemet Ali Paslia. 

 The Congress met in the H6tel Radziwill, which 

 had been recently purchased by the German 

 Government and assigned to Prince Bismarck 

 as his official residence. The first session of 

 the Congress was occupied mainly with the 

 organization of the bureau. Prince Bismarck 

 was unanimously chosen President, and Herr 

 Lothar Bucher and M. de Mouy were appointed 

 Secretaries. The following sessions were held 

 at irregular intervals, generally allowing one 

 or two days between each session for inter- 

 views between the different plenipotentiaries. 

 As the sessions were held with closed doors, no 

 official account of the work done by the Con- 

 gress was published until after its close. The 

 results of its labors are embodied in the treaty 

 of Berlin, in which the different questions 

 which came before the Congress are enumer- 

 ated in the order in which they were consid- 

 ered. The last session of the Congress was 

 held on July 13th, just one month after it had 

 opened. The treaty of Berlin is as follows : 



ARTICLE 1. Bulgaria is constituted an automatic 

 and tributary principality, under the suzerainty of 

 his Majesty the Sultan. It shall have a Christian 

 Government and a national militia. 



ART. 2. Bulgaria shall be bounded on the south 

 by the chain of the Balkans. 



ART. 3. The Prince of Bulgaria shall be freely se- 

 lected by the population, and confirmed by the Sub- 

 lime Porte, with the assent of the Powers. 



ART. 4. An assembly of the notables of Bulgaria, 

 convoked at Tirnova, shall prepare before the elec- 

 tion of the Prince the plan of government of the 

 principality. 



ART. 5. The following arrangements shall form the 

 basis of the public law of Bulgaria: Distinction of 

 religious belief or confession shall not operate against 

 any one as a reason of exclusion or incapacity in 

 what concerns the enjoyment of civil and political 

 rights, admission to public employment, functions, 

 or honors, or the exercise of different professions or 

 industries, in whatever locality it may be. The lib- 

 erty of the public profession of all creeds shall be 

 assured to all the returned population of Bulgaria as 

 well as to strangers, and no trammels will be im- 

 posed on the hierarchic organization of the different 

 communions or their relations with their spiritual 

 chiefs. 



ART. 6. The provisional organization of Bulgaria 

 shall be directed, till the completion of the plan of 

 government, by an Imperial Russian Commissioner. 

 An Imperial Turkish Commissioner, as well as the 

 consuls delegated ad hoc by the signatory Powers 

 of the present treaty, shall be appointed to assist 

 him, in order to control the action of this provisional 

 administration. 



ART. 7. The provisory government can not be pro- 

 longed for more than nine months from the date of 

 the signature of the present treaty. When the or- 

 ganic government has been fully settled, the election 

 of the Prince of Bulgaria will immediately follow. 

 As soon as the Prince is installed the new organiza- 

 tion will be put in force in the principality, and he 

 will enter into full possession of his autonomy. 



ART. 8. The treaties of commerce and navigation, 

 as well as all the conventions and arrangements con- 

 cluded between foreign Powers and the Porte, and 

 which are now in force, are maintained in the prin- 

 cipality of Bulgaria, and no change can be made in 

 them with any foreign Power until she has given her 

 consent to it. No duty for transit shall be levied in 

 Bulgaria for the merchandise passing through the 

 principality. The people and the commerce of all 

 the Powers shall be placed there upon a footing of 

 perfect equality. 



ART. 9. The amount of the annual tribute to be 

 paid by the principality of Bulgaria to the suzerain 

 court will be based upon the a\ erage revenue of the 

 territory of the principality. Bulgaria will have to 

 bear a part of the public debt of the empire. 



ART. 10. Bulgaria is substituted for the Imperial 

 Ottoman Government in its duties and obligations 

 toward the Eustchuk- Varna Eailway Company from 

 the day of signature of the present treaty. The 

 principality of Bulgaria is in the same way substi- 

 tuted on her part for the engagements which the 

 Sublime Porte has contracted toward Austro-Hun- 

 gary as well as toward the company for the working 

 of the railways of Turkey in Europe, on account of 

 the completion and union and the working of the 

 lines placed upon her territory. 



ART. 11. The Ottoman army shall no longer re- 

 main in Bulgaria. All the former fortresses will be 

 destroyed, at the expense of the principality, within 

 the space of one year, or sooner if it can be done. 

 The local Government shall take immediate steps for 

 their destruction, and shall not erect new ones. 



ART. 12. The Mussulman proprietors who have 

 removed from the principality can retain their real 

 property in it by farming it or allowing it to be ad- 

 ministered by third parties. A Turkish-Bulgarian 

 Commission will be engaged for two years with the 

 regulation of all the matters relative to the manner 

 of the transfer, working, and use, on account of the 

 Sublime Porte, of the state properties and of the 

 religious foundations, and the questions concerning 

 private individuals who may be interested. The 

 emigrants of the principality who are traveling or 

 are living in other parts of the Ottoman Empire 

 shall be under the authority and laws of the Turks. 



ART. 13. There is formed to the south of the Bal- 

 kans a province which will take the name of Eastern 

 Eoumelia, and which shall remain under the direct 

 niilitary and political authority of his Imperial Ma- 

 jesty the Sultan, subject to conditions of administra- 

 tive autonomy. It snail have a Christian Governor- 

 General. 



ART. 14. Eastern Eoumelia is bounded on the north 

 and northwest by Bulgaria, and on the east by the 

 Black Sea. 



ART. 15. His Majesty the Sultan shall have the right 

 to provide for the defense of the inland and maritime 

 frontiers of the province by raising fortifications on 

 these frontiers, and by keeping tooops there. In- 

 ternal order shall be maintained in Eastern Bonmelia 

 by a native gendarmerie, assisted by a local militia. 



ART. 16. The Governor- General shallhave the right 

 to call for Turkish troops if the internal or external 

 security of the province should be menaced. In that 

 event the Sublime Porte shall be bound to intimate 

 its decision and state the necessities which justify it 

 to the representatives of the Powers at Constanti- 

 nople. 



ART. 17. The Governor-General of Eastern Eou- 

 melia shall be appointed by the Sublime Porte with 

 the assent of the rowers, for a term of five years. 



ART. 18. Immediately after the signature of the 

 present treaty a European Commission shall be 

 formed for the purpose of settling with the Ottoman 

 Porte the organization of Eastern Eoumelia. 



ART. 19. The European Commission shall be 

 charged, together with the Sublime Porte, with the 

 administration of the finances of the province till 

 the completion of the new organization. 



