The Russian Government took the same view of the case, and on April 7-19, 1877, stated in a despatch that, as a pacific solution of the Eastern Question was now 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 needed reforms in Turkey.  Even after the successive rebuffs of the rejection of the Berlin Memorandum by Great Britain and of the suggestions of the Powers at Constantinople by Turkey, he succeeded in restoring the semblance of accord between the Powers, and of leaving to Turkey the responsibility of finally and insolently defying their recommendations.  A more complete diplomatic triumph has rarely been won.  It was the reward of consistency and patience, qualities in which the Beaconsfield Cabinet was signally lacking.