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.

[Footnote 119: _Bismarck: his Reflections and Reminiscences_, vol. ii.
p. 259 (Eng. ed.).] We may notice one other criticism: that Russia's
agreement with Austria implied the pre-existence of aggressive designs.
This is by no means conclusive. That the Czar should have taken the
precaution of coming to the arrangement of January 1877 with Austria
does not prove that he was desirous of war. The attitude of Turkey
during the Conference at Constantinople left but the slightest hope of
peace. To prepare for war in such a case is not a proof of a desire for
war, but only of common prudence.

Certain writers in France and Germany have declared that Bismarck was
the real author of the Russo-Turkish War. The dogmatism of their
assertions is in signal contrast with the thinness of their
evidence[120]. It rests mainly on the statement that the Three Emperors'
League (see Chapter XII.) was still in force; that Bismarck had come to
some arrangement for securing gains to Austria in the south-east as a
set-off to her losses in 1859 and 1866; that Austrian agents in Dalmatia
had stirred up the Herzegovina revolt of 1875; and that Bismarck and
Andrassy did nothing to avert the war of 1877. Possibly he had a hand in
these events--he had in most events of the time; and there is a
suspicious passage in his Memoirs as to the overtures made to Berlin in
the autumn of 1876. The Czar's Ministers wished to know whether, in the
event of a war with Austria, they would have the support of Germany. To
this the Chancellor replied, that Germany could not allow the present
equilibrium of the monarchical Powers to be disturbed: "The result . . .
was that the Russian storm passed from Eastern Galicia to the
Balkans[121]." Thereafter Russia came to terms with Austria as
described above.

[Footnote 120: Elie de Cyon, _op. cit._ chap. i.; also in _Nouvelle
Revue_ for 1880.]

[Footnote 121: Bismarck, _Recollections and Reminiscences_,