appalling shape-might be calculated to destroy many more before the return of spring.

This foreboding has been but too well fulfilled. Sir Philip Currie's 'moderate estimate' of 30,000 massacred in cold blood does not come down farther than the end of October, embraces only a limited area, and takes no account of those who perished from cold and starvation. Massacres have taken place since then in many other places, and a moderate estimate of the total number of victims, including deaths from exposure and starvation, down to now is 200,000. Count Goluchowski was prepared for all this and more. Let me continue my quotation from the BlueBook:

In presence of this heartrending prospect it is intelligible that numbers of humane people are revolted at the idea that Europe is powerless, and, regardless of consequences, would wish that action should be taken by some, or even by one of the Powers, to put a stop to the extermination of the miserable Armenians. But practical statesmen are bound to consider the situation from another standpoint."

Which means, in plain language, that Austria covets Macedonia, Salonica, and Constantinople, if England will be good enough to help her, and therefore is willing-very sorrowfully, of course, but with philosophic equanimity—to watch the gradual extermination of the

* See Turkey, No. 2 (1896), pp. 210, 252-3, 290.

54 The Sultan branded by the Powers

miserable Armenians,' with every circumstance of revolting cruelty, rather than run the smallest risk of losing one morsel of her coveted prize. The Austrian Minister frankly admits that 'admonitions' and 'representations' addressed to the Sultan are absolutely useless, and he knows that the Sultan is himself the archcriminal. For it was the Austrian Ambassador who, after consultation with his colleagues, went in person as their accredited representative to the Sultan on November 18, 1895, and delivered the following stern message on behalf of the six Great Powers:

The only means of restoring confidence is to put a stop to the massacres, which we are convinced the Sultan can do if he is sincere in his profession; that an inquiry should be held as to the participation of soldiers in the outrages, and the guilty be punished; that the orders recently sent to the Valis and military commanders should be published, and assurances given that previous orders [to commit massacres] have been cancelled; that a Hatt should be issued by the Sultan ordering his subjects to obey his wishes.*

That is, the Sultan hypocritically assured the Ambassadors of his fatherly affection for the Armenians while he was deliberately ordering his soldiers and encouraging the rabble to massacre them. That was nearly a year ago, and the Sultan has gone on systematically to this very hour with his work of 'exterminating the miserable Armenians.' And the masters of

* Turkey, No. 2 (1896), p. 160.

Apathy of the Powers

55

some 15,000,000 drilled soldiers, and navies such as the world has never seen before, look quietly on, and call heaven and earth to witness that they are 'powerless' to prevent this monster in human form from pursuing his career of bloodshed! And the Austrian Government calmly believes that the British people and their statesmen may be trusted to lend their co-operation' to the consummation of this hellish plot! Was ever such insult offered to the British nation before?

I will not insult the Standard by asking whether it regards this as 'English policy in a nut-shell'; and to suppose that it could excite any other feeling than loathing in Lord Salisbury's breast would be not to insult him merely, but to accuse him of repudiating the whole of his record on the Eastern question, as I shall show conclusively in my next chapter, for I find it impossible to compress my evidence within the limits of this. What I am trying to for believing that the

do now is to show cause great sinner in the tragedy that is being enacted in Turkey is Austria, backed by Germany, rather than Russia-Austria, which has ever pursued a huckster's policy, and has never in all her history struck a blow or spent a shilling in any cause or interest but her own. Russia, as I have shown, offered on two occasions to work amicably with England in pacifying Armenia, and suspected -some underhand schemes against her from the

rebuffs which she received. Then there was much foolish talk in this country about forming an autonomous Armenian State under an Austrian governor-a proposal most offensive to Russia. There were also paper schemes of partition of the Turkish Empire-by amateur and unauthorised theorists, 'tis true. But all this alarmed Russia and increased her suspicion of England.

Austria, on the other hand, has been playing a sordidly selfish game all through. I shall have more to say on that subject later; but I must give one piece of evidence here which seems to show that Austria, more than Russia, has been opposed to the coercion of the Sultan. In a despatch from Lord Salisbury to Sir E. Monson, on November 13, 1895, the Prime Minister relates a conversation which he had the previous day with the Austrian Ambassador, who had called at the Foreign Office to ask what Lord Salisbury proposed to do in the event, which the Ambassador feared, of 'an outburst of Musulman fanaticism' in Constantinople. 'What remedy had' Lord Salisbury 'to suggest?' Here is Lord Salisbury's

answer:

I asked him whether he contemplated acting through the Sultan, or in despite of the Sultan. He replied that of course his Government only contemplated acting through the Sultan. I said that if the mere impression ever gained ground that so conserva

tive a Government as Austria was prepared to act with the unanimous concurrence of the Powers, but without the assent of the Sultan, that assent would not then be difficult to obtain.*

Is it not a legitimate inference, from the words which I have marked by italics, that at that time Austria was the only member of the European Concert who opposed coercion of the Sultan ?

* See Turkey, No. 2 (1896), p. 126.