the
Danubian Principalities. Another article of the Treaty provided for the
exclusion of war-ships from the Black Sea. This of course applied
specially to Russia and Turkey[88].

[Footnote 88: For the treaty and the firman of 1856, see _The European
Concert in the Eastern Question, _by T.E. Holland; also Debidour,
_Histoire diplomatique de l'Europe _(1814-1878), vol. ii. pp. 150-152;
_The Eastern Question, _by the late Duke of Argyll, vol. i. chap. i.]

The chief diplomatic result of the Crimean War, then, was to substitute
a European recognition of religious toleration in Turkey for the control
over her subjects of the Greek Church which Russia had claimed. The
Sublime Porte was now placed in a stronger position than it had held
since the year 1770; and the due performance of its promises would
probably have led to the building up of a strong State. But the promises
proved to be mere waste-paper. The Sultan, believing that England and
France would always take his part, let matters go on in the old bad way.
The natural results came to pass. The Christians showed increasing
restiveness under Turkish rule. In 1860 numbers of them were massacred
in the Lebanon, and Napoleon III. occupied part of Syria with French
troops. The vassal States in Europe also displayed increasing vitality,
while that of Turkey waned. In 1861, largely owing to the diplomatic
help of Napoleon III., Moldavia and Wallachia united and formed the
Principality of Roumania. In 1862, after a short but terrible struggle,
the Servians rid themselves of the Turkish garrisons and framed a
constitution of the Western type. But the worst blow came in 1870.
During the course of the Franco-German War the Czar's Government (with
the good-will and perhaps the active connivance of the Court of Berlin)
announced that it would no longer be bound by the article of the Treaty
of Paris excluding Russian war-ships from the Black Sea. The Gladstone
Ministry sent a protest against this act, but took no steps to enforce
its protest. Our young diplomatist, Sir Horace Rumbold, then at St.
Petersburg, believed that she would have drawn back at a threat of
war[89]. Finally, the Russian declaration was agreed to by the Powers in
a Treaty signed at London on March 31, 1871.

[Footnote 89: Sir Horace Rumbold, _Recollections of a Diplomatist_
(First Series), vol. ii. p. 295.]

These warnings were all thrown away on the Porte. Its promises of
toleration to Christians were ignore