rces; it
passed from Derkos, a lake near the Black Sea, to the north of
Constantinople, in a southerly direction by the banks of the Karasou
stream as far as the Sea of Marmora. This gave to the Russians the lines
of Tchekmedje, the chief natural defence of Constantinople, and they
occupied this position on February 6. This fact was reported by Mr.
Layard, Sir Henry Elliot's successor at Constantinople, in alarmist
terms, and it had the effect of stilling the opposition at Westminster
to the vote of credit. Though official assurances of a reassuring kind
came from Prince Gortchakoff at St. Petersburg, the British Ministry on
February 7 ordered a part of the Mediterranean fleet to enter the Sea of
Marmora for the defence of British interests and the protection of
British subjects at Constantinople. The Czar's Government thereupon
declared that if the British fleet steamed up the Bosporus, Russian
troops would enter Constantinople for the protection of the Christian
population.

This rivalry in philanthropic zeal was not pushed to its logical issue,
war. The British fleet stopped short of the Bosporus, but within sight
of the Russian lines. True, these were pushed eastwards slightly beyond
the limits agreed on with the Turks; but an arrangement was arrived at
between Lord Derby and Prince Gortchakoff (Feb. 19) that the Russians
would not occupy the lines of Bulair close to Constantinople, or the
Peninsula of Gallipoli commanding the Dardanelles, provided that British
forces were not landed in that important strait[160]. So matters rested,
both sides regarding each other with the sullenness of impotent wrath.
As Bismarck said, a war would have been a fight between an elephant
and a whale.

[Footnote 160: Hertslet, iv. p. 2670.]

The situation was further complicated by an invasion of Thessaly by the
Greeks (Feb. 3); but they were withdrawn at once on the urgent
remonstrance of the Powers, coupled with a promise that the claims of
Greece would be favourably considered at the general peace[161].

[Footnote 161: L. Sergeant, _Greece in the Nineteenth Century_ (1897),
ch. xi.]

In truth, all the racial hatreds, aspirations, and ambitions that had so
long been pent up in the south-east of Europe now seemed on the point of
bursting forth and overwhelming civilisation in a common ruin. Just as
the earth's volcanic forces now and again threaten to tear their way
through the crust, so now the immemorial feuds of Moslems and