[Footnote 94:  For details of this affair, see Chapter XV. of this work.]

Meanwhile the three Empires delayed the presentation of their scheme of reforms for Turkey, and, as it would seem, out of deference to British representations.  The troubles in Herzegovina therefore went on unchecked through the winter, the insurgents refusing to pay any heed to the Sultan’s promises, even though these were extended by the irade of December 12, offering religious liberty and the institution of electoral bodies throughout the whole of European Turkey.  The statesmen of the Continent were equally sceptical as to the bona fides of these offers, and on January 31, 1876, presented to the Porte their scheme of reforms already described.  Disraeli and our Foreign Minister, Lord Derby, gave a cold and guarded assent to the “Andrassy Note,” though they were known to regard it as “inopportune.”  To the surprise of the world, the Porte accepted the Note on February 11, with one reservation.

This act of acceptance, however, failed to satisfy the insurgents.  They decided to continue the struggle.  Their irreconcilable attitude doubtless arose from their knowledge of the worthlessness of Turkish promises when not backed by pressure from the Powers; and it should be observed that the “Note” gave no hint of any such pressure[95].  But it was also prompted by the hope that Servia and Montenegro would soon draw the sword on their behalf—­as indeed happened later on.  Those warlike peoples longed to join in the struggle against their ancestral foes; and their rulers were nothing loth to do so.  Servia was then ruled by Prince Milan (1868-89), of that House of Obrenovitch which has been extinguished by the cowardly murders of June 1903 at Belgrade.  He had recently married Nathalie Kechko, a noble Russian lady, whose connections strengthened the hopes that he naturally entertained of armed Muscovite help in case of a war with Turkey.  Prince Nikita of Montenegro had married his second daughter to a Russian Grand Duke, cousin of the Czar Alexander II., and therefore cherished the same hopes.  It was clear that unless energetic steps were taken by the Powers to stop the spread of the conflagration it would soon wrap the whole of the Balkan Peninsula in flames.  An outbreak of Moslem fanaticism at Salonica (May 6), which led to the murder of the French and German Consuls at that port, shed a lurid light on the whole situation and convinced the Continental Powers that sterner measures must be adopted towards the Porte.

[Footnote 95:  See Parliamentary Papers, Turkey, No. 5 (1877), for Consul Freeman’s report of March 17, 1877, of the outrages by the Turks in Bosnia.  The refugees declared they would “sooner drown themselves in the Unna than again subject themselves to Turkish oppression.”  The Porte denied all the outrages.]