w impossible, the Czar had ordered his armies to
cross the frontiers of Turkey. The official declaration of war followed
on April 12-24. From the point of view of Lord Derby this seemed
"inevitable." Nevertheless, on May 1 he put his name to an official
document which reveals the curious dualism which then prevailed in the
Beaconsfield Cabinet. This reply to the Russian despatch contained the
assertion that the last answer of the Porte did not remove all hope of
deference on its part to the wishes and advice of Europe, and "that the
decision of the Russian Government is not one which can have their
concurrence or approval." We shall not be far wrong in assuming that,
while the hand that signed this document was the hand of Derby, the
spirit behind it was that of Beaconsfield.

In many quarters the action of Russia was stigmatised as the outcome of
ambition and greed, rendered all the more odious by the cloak of
philanthropy which she had hitherto worn. The time has not come when an
exhaustive and decisive verdict can be given on this charge. Few
movements have been free from all taint of meanness; but it is clearly
unjust to rail against a great Power, because, at the end of a war which
entailed frightful losses and a serious though temporary loss of
prestige, it determined to exact from the enemy the only form of
indemnity which was forthcoming, namely, a territorial indemnity.
Russia's final claims, as will be seen, were open to criticism at
several points; but the censure just referred to is puerile. It accords,
however, with most of the criticisms passed in London "club-land," which
were remarkable for their purblind cynicism.

No one who has studied the mass of correspondence contained in the
Blue-books relating to Turkey in 1875-77 can doubt that the Emperor
Alexander II. displayed marvellous patience in face of a series of
brutal provocations by Moslem fanatics and the clamour of his own people
for a liberating crusade. Bismarck, who did not like the Czar, stated
that he did not want war, but waged it "under stress of Panslavist
influence[119]." That some of his Ministers and Generals had less lofty
aims is doubtless true; but practically all authorities are now agreed
that the maintenance of the European Concert would have been the best
means of curbing those aims. Yet, despite the irritating conduct of the
Beaconsfield Cabinet, the Emperor Alexander sought to re-unite Europe
with a view to the execution of the