ared (Nov. 10) that it was impossible to sanction the
course announced by Gortchakoff; that, therefore, France being otherwise
engaged, and Austria being unprepared, we might be compelled by our joint
and several obligations under the tripartite treaty, to go to war with
Russia for proceedings that we pronounced ourselves unable to sanction;
finally, that he had never been instructed to state to Prussia, that the
question was not one compelling us ever to go to war, notwithstanding our
treaty engagements. What was Mr. Gladstone's reply to this I do not find,
but Lord Granville had very sensibly written to him some weeks before
(Dec. 8, 1870):--

I am afraid our whole success has been owing to the belief that we
would go to war, and to tell the truth, I think that war in some
shape or other, sooner or later, was a possible risk after our
note. In any case, I would reassure nobody now. Promising peace is
as unwise as to threaten war. A sort of instinct that the bumps of
combativeness and destructiveness are to be found somewhere in
your head, has helped us much during the last five months.

III

(M114) Having undertaken to propose a conference, Bismarck did the best he
could for it. The British cabinet accepted on condition that the
conference was not to open with any previous assumption of Gortchakoff's
declaration, and they objected to Petersburg as the scene of operations.
Mr. Gladstone in some notes prepared for the meeting of his colleagues
(Nov. 26), was very firm on the first and main point, that "Her Majesty's
government could enter into no conference which should assume any portion
of the treaty to have been already abrogated by the discretion of a single
Power, and it would be wholly out of place for them, under the present
circumstances, to ask for a conference, as they were not the parties who
desire to bring about any change in the treaty." Russia made difficulties,
but Bismarck's influence prevailed. The conference assembled not at
Petersburg but in London, and subject to no previous assumption as to its
results.(228)

The close of a negotiation is wont to drop the curtain over embarrassments
that everybody is glad to forget;(229) but the obstacles to an exact
agreement were not easily overcome. Lord Granville told Mr. Gladstone that
no fewer than thirteen or fourteen versions of the most important protocol
were tried before terms were reached. In the end Lord Granville