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 of the Balkans dried up, as if by magic, the flood of invasion, brought back victory to the standards of Islam, and bade fair to overwhelm the presumptuous Muscovites in the waters of the Danube.  Moltke in his account of the war of 1828, had noted a peculiarity of the Ottomans in warfare (a characteristic which they share with the glorious defenders of Saragossa in 1808) of beginning the real defence when others would abandon it as hopeless.  This remark, if not true of the Turkish army as a whole, certainly applies to that part of it which was thrilled to deeds of daring by Osman Pasha.

More fighting had fallen to him perhaps than to any Turk of his time.  He was now forty years of age; his frame, slight and of middle height, gave no promise of strength or capacity; neither did his face, until the observer noted the power of his eyes to take in the whole situation “with one slow comprehensive look[142].”  This gave him a magnetic faculty, the effect of which was not wholly marred by his disdainful manners, curt speech, and contemptuous treatment of foreigners.  Clearly here was a cold, sternly objective nature like that of Bonaparte.  He was a good representative of the stolid Turk of the provinces, who, far from the debasing influence of the Court, retains the fanaticism and love of war on behalf of his creed that make his people terrible even in the days of decline[143].