[Footnote 176:  Frederick, Crown Prince of Germany, expressed the general opinion in a letter written to Prince Charles after the Berlin Congress:  “Russia’s conduct, after the manful service you did for that colossal Empire, meets with censure on all sides.” (Reminiscences of the King of Roumania, p. 325).]

Another Christian State of the Peninsula received scant consideration at the Congress.  Greece, as we have seen, had recalled her troops from Thessaly on the understanding that her claims should be duly considered at the general peace.  She now pressed those claims; but, apart from initial encouragement given by Lord Salisbury, she received little or no support.  On the motion of the French plenipotentiary, M. Waddington, her desire to control the northern shores of the Aegean and the island of Crete was speedily set aside; but he sought to win for her practically the whole of Thessaly and Epirus.  This, however, was firmly opposed by Lord Beaconsfield, who objected to the cession to her of the southern and purely Greek districts of Thessaly and Epirus.  He protested against the notion that the plenipotentiaries had come to Berlin in order to partition “a worn-out State” (Turkey).  They were there to “strengthen an ancient Empire—­essential to the maintenance of peace.”

“As for Greece,” he said, “States, like individuals, which have a future are in a position to be able to wait.”  True, he ended by expressing “the hope and even the conviction” that the Sultan would accept an equitable solution of the question of the Thessalian frontier; but the Congress acted on the other sage dictum and proceeded to subject the Hellenes to the educative influences of hope deferred.  Protocol 13 had recorded the opinion of the Powers that the northern frontier of Greece should follow the courses of the Rivers Salammaria and Kalamas; but they finally decided to offer their mediation to the disputants only in case no agreement could be framed.  The Sublime Porte, as we shall see, improved on the procrastinating methods of the Nestors of European diplomacy[177].

[Footnote 177:  See Mr. L. Sergeant’s Greece in the Nineteenth Century (1897), ch. xii., for the speeches of the Greek envoys at the Congress; also that of Sir Charles Dilke in the House of Commons in the debate of July 29-August 2, 1878, as to England’s desertion of the Greek cause after the ninth session (June 29) of the Berlin Congress.]

As regards matters that directly concerned Turkey and Russia, we may note that the latter finally agreed to forego the acquisition of the Bayazid district and the lands adjoining the caravan route from the Shah’s dominions to Erzeroum.  The Czar’s Government also promised that Batoum should be a free port, and left unchanged the regulations respecting the navigation of the Dardanelles and Bosporus.  By a subsequent treaty with Turkey of February 1879 the Porte agreed to pay to Russia a war indemnity of about L32,000,000.