78 RUSSIA, TURKEY, AND BULGARIA. 



Hezregovina by Austria, the neutrality of the port of Batoum, and the 

 tributary relations of Turkey with Servia and Roumania. 



This great international compact, the Treaty of Berlin, may be 

 truly called a great historical landmark, for it transformed an Empire, 

 removed long-standing causes of discontent, pacified provinces torn 

 by dissension and misrule/ placed barriers between rival forms of 

 bigotry, stopped riaany avenues of foreign intrigue, abridged the 

 Power of a' Despotic Empire, .and gave peace to Europe, which, we 

 may hope, no Government or Riiler will attempt to disturb. 



It is a matter of history, that the most important provision of the 

 Treaty of San Stefano, that which constituted in the eye of Europe 

 its greatest blot, against which at the Congress of Berlin, the 

 Ambassadors of Great Britain, Lord Beaconsfield and the Marquis of 

 Salisbury, so strongly protested, and which the Ambassadors for 

 Russia, Prince Gortchakoffand Count Schouvaloff, equally strenuously 

 defended, was the creation of a vast Slav State, stretching from the 

 Danube to the Bosphorus, and from the Euxine to the Egean Sea, 

 with the title of a Great Bulgaria, under the control of Russia. 



After the conclusion of peace in 1878, and in accordance with the 

 provisions of the Treaty, a Constitution was framed for Eastern 

 Roumelia, by an International Commission appointed by the Great 

 Powers, and Aleko Pasha was chosen by the Porte, as the first 

 Christian Governor-General for a period of five years ; and on the 

 other hand Bulgaria, in accordance with the Treaty, framed its Con- 

 stitution, elected its Assembly and chose its Ruler, approved by the 

 Porte and ratified by the Great Powers, in the person of Prince 

 Alexander of Battenburg. 



For seven years these two States, with their autonomous and self- 

 governing institutions of Government, under enlightened Christian 

 Rulers, have loyally and faithfully stood by the Treaty of Berlin, they 

 have amply justified their introduction into national life and the 

 enjoyment of free institutions, and they have set a great example 

 to surrounding kingdoms of settled order, peace, and political 

 freedom. 



In the summer of 1886, however, signs of restlessness appeared 

 among the subjects of Turkey in Macedonia and Albania which 

 extended into Bulgaria and Roumelia, warnings, which were un- 

 heeded, and shewed that a storm was brewing in the Balkans, but 

 few supposed that the Treaty of Berlin was in danger. 



Suddenly Europe was startled by a popular coup d'etat, by a blood- 

 less Revolution in Roumelia, which deposed the Governor-General, 



