e
manly course. But first he disgraced his ministers. The War Minister and
Abdul-Kerim were summarily deposed, the latter being sent off as
prisoner to the island of Lemnos.

All witnesses agree that the War Minister, Redif Pasha, was incapable
and corrupt. The age and weakness of Abdul-Kerim might have excused his
comparative inaction in the Quadrilateral in the first half of July. It
is probable that his plan of campaign, described above, was sound; but
he lacked the vigour, and the authorities at Constantinople lacked the
courage, to carry it out thoroughly and consistently.

Mehemet Ali Pasha, a renegade German, who had been warring with some
success in Montenegro, assumed the supreme command on July 22; and
Suleiman Pasha, who, with most of his forces had been brought by sea
from Antivari to the mouth of the River Maritsa, now gathered together
all the available troops for the defence of Roumelia.

The Czar, on his side, cherished hopes of ending the war while Fortune
smiled on his standards. There are good grounds for thinking that he had
entered on it with great reluctance. In its early stages he let the
British Government know of his desire to come to terms with Turkey; and
now his War Minister, General Milutin, hinted to Colonel F.A. Wellesley,
British attache at headquarters, that the mediation of Great Britain
would be welcomed by Russia. That officer on July 30 had an interview
with the Emperor, who set forth the conditions on which he would be
prepared to accept peace with Turkey. They were--the recovery of the
strip of Bessarabia lost in 1856, and the acquisition of Batoum in Asia
Minor. Alexander II. also stated that he would not occupy Constantinople
unless that step were necessitated by the course of events; that the
Powers would be invited to a conference for the settlement of Turkish
affairs; and that he had no wish to interfere with the British spheres
of interest already referred to. Colonel Wellesley at once left
headquarters for London, but on the following day the aspect of the
campaign underwent a complete change, which, in the opinion of the
British Government, rendered futile all hope of a settlement on the
conditions laid down by the Czar.[141]

[Footnote 141: Parl. Papers, Turkey, No. 9 (1878), Nos. 2, 3. _With the
Russians in Peace and War_, by Colonel the Hon. F.A. Wellesley, ch. xx.]

For now, when the Turkish cause seemed irrevocably lost, the work of a
single brave man to the north