62 RUSSIA, TURKEY, AND BULGARIA. 



Stratford de Redcliffe was supported by a guarantee that the armed 

 intervention of England would be given to Turkey in her quarrel 

 with Russia. 



At this crisis the Governments of England and France offered their 

 mediation, and drew up a Joint Note, which was afterwards accepted 

 by Russia, Austria, and Prussia, recommending to Turkey the 

 acceptance of the proposals of Russia with certain modifications, but 

 the Porte, inspired by the fanaticism of the Mohammedan party, 

 rejected these reasonable terms of peace, and decided in favour of 

 War, and immediately the Russians crossed the Pruth, and the allied 

 fleets of England and France anchored in the Dardanelles. 



Unfortunately the public mind in England was a victim to the 

 fanaticism of frantic hatred to Russia and its Sovereign, as fierce as 

 the fanaticism of thie Turks, for ttie aggrandizement of Russia, 

 against the integrity and independence of Turkey, was the bugbear 

 raised to justify War. 



On February 27th, 1854, England despatched an ultimatum to 

 Russia, and at the end of six days, no reply having been received, 

 War was declared, and in the message from the Crown on the opening 

 of the English Parliament in 1854 the Government stated that the 

 three great objects of the War were, first, to maintain the Integrity and 

 Independence of the Ottoman Empire, second, to curb the aggression 

 of Russia, and third, to defend the interests of England. 



Having described in chronological order the various interventions 

 of Russia with what is called the " Integrity and Independence of the 

 Ottoman Empire '' from 1768 to 1854, and the results which followed 

 therefrom, we now arrive at the fifth and last Russian Intervention in 

 Eastern Affairs, and in an endeavour to form a correct judgment of 

 the character and the history of the complications which arose in 1875 

 and which have been continued down to the present time, there are 

 two leading facts which must not be overlooked, and they are these. 



1. Prior to the Crimean War, the Christian populations of the 

 Turkish Provinces in Europe were recognised as being under the 

 protectorate of Russia by the Treaty of Adrianople of 1829, and con- 

 firmed by the Treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi of 1832 ; but the Treaty 

 of Paris (1856), which followed the Crimean War, changed 

 this, and imposed upon the Great Powers the obligation which had 

 previously been exercised by Russia. 



2. In a despatch of Lord John Russell to Sir Henry Bulwer, 

 August 25th, i860, the view of the British Government was thus 

 defined : — 



