During all the years since 1856, there was one subject which had been constantly upper-most in the mind of England; and that one subject was the one above all others which her Prime Minister tried to make people forget.  It was perfectly well known when one after another of the Balkan states revolted against the Turk—­first Herzegovina, then Montenegro, then Bosnia—­that they were suffering the cruelest oppression, and that not one of the Sultan’s promises made to the Powers in 1856 had been kept.  But in 1876 no one could any longer feign ignorance.  An insignificant outbreak in Bulgaria took place.  In answer to a telegram sent to Constantinople a body of improvised militia, called Bashi-Bazuks, was sent to manage the affair after its own fashion.  The burning of seventy villages; the massacre of fifteen thousand—­some say forty thousand—­people, chiefly women and children, with attendant details too revolting to narrate; the subsequent exposure of Bulgarian maidens for sale at Philippopolis—­all this at last secured attention.  Pamphlets, newspaper articles, speeches, gave voice to the horror of the English people.  Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, Gladstone, John Bright, Carlyle, Freeman, made powerful arraignments of the government which was the supporter and made England the accomplice of Turkey in this crime.

However much we may suspect the sincerity of Russia’s solicitude regarding her co-religionists in the East, it must be admitted that the preservation of her Faith has always been treated—­long before the existence of the Eastern Question—­as the most vital in her policy.  In every alliance, every negotiation, every treaty, it was the one thing that never was compromised; and Greek Christianity certainly holds a closer and more mystic relation to the government of Russia than the Catholic or Protestant faiths do to those of other lands.

Russia girded herself to do what the best sentiment in England had in vain demanded.  She declared war against Turkey in support of the oppressed provinces of Servia, Herzegovina, and Montenegro.  In the month of April, 1877, the Russian army crossed the frontier.  Then came the capture of Nikopolis, the repulse at Plevna, the battle of Shipka Pass, another and successful battle of Plevna, the storming of Kars, and then, the Balkans passed,—­an advance upon Constantinople.  On the 29th of January the last shot was fired.  The Ottoman Empire had been shaken into submission, and was absolutely at the mercy of the Tsar, who dictated the following terms:  The erection of Bulgaria into an autonomous tributary principality, with a native Christian government; the independence of Montenegro, Roumania, and Servia; a partial autonomy in Bosnia and Herzegovina, besides a strip of territory upon the Danube and a large war indemnity for Russia.  Such were the terms of the Treaty of San Stefano, signed in March, 1878.  To the undiplomatic mind this seems a happy conclusion of a vexed question.  The Balkan states were independent—­or partially so; and the Ottoman Empire, although so shorn and shaken as to be innocuous, still remained as a dismantled wreck to block the passage to the East.