r
1885, soon after Morier's departure for another post, but not before he
had testified to the high esteem in which our Minister had been held in
Spain.

From Madrid he might have passed to Berlin. The British Government had
only one man fit to replace Lord Ampthill (Lord Odo Russell), who died
in 1884. Inquiries were made in Berlin whether it was possible to employ
Morier's great knowledge at the centre of European gravity, but Bismarck
made it quite clear that such an appointment would be displeasing to his
sovereign. It was believed by a friend and admirer of both men that, if
Bismarck and Morier could have come to know one another, mutual respect
and liking would have followed; but magnanimity towards an old enemy, or
one whom he had ever believed to be such, was not a Bismarckian trait,
and it is more probable that all Morier's efforts would have been
thwarted by misrepresentation and malignity.

Instead he was sent to St. Petersburg, where he took up his duties as
Ambassador in November 1885. Here he had to deal with bigger problems.
The affray at Penjdeh, when the Russians attacked an Afgh[=a]n outpost
and forcibly occupied the ground, had, after convulsing Europe, been
settled by Mr. Gladstone's Government. Feeling did not subside for some
years, but for the moment Asiatic questions were not so serious as the
conflict of interests in the Balkan peninsula. The principality of
Bulgaria created by the Congress of Berlin was the focus of the 'Eastern
question'--that is, the question whether Russia, Austria, or a united
Europe led by the Western powers, was to preside over the dissolution of
Turkey. Bulgaria certainly owed its existence to Russian bayonets; in
her cause Russian lives had been freely given; and this formed a real
bond between the two nations, more lasting than the effect of Mr.
Gladstone's speeches, to which English sentimentalists attached such
importance. But the Bulgarians have often shown an obstinate tendency to
go their own way, and their politicians were loath to be kept in Russian
leading-strings. Their last act, in 1885, had been to annex the Turkish
province of Eastern Roumelia without asking the consent of the Tsar. At
the moment they could safely flout the Sultan of Turkey, their nominal
suzerain; but diplomatists doubted whether they could, with equal
safety, ignore the Treaty of Berlin and the wishes of their Russian
protector. The path was full of pitfalls. The Austrian Government was