- 14 -

On November 24, he sent a circular dispatch to Ottoman representatives

abroad which is a remarkable testimony to his diplomatic skill 1 . In it he
analyses the various options open to the Porte and decides to make an appeal
to the Powers while listing counter guarantees and compensations that it may
request in exchange for acknowledging the Russian denunciation. La Turquie
published a series of feelers that were probably officially inspired and
including a proposal that the Empire should follow Russia's example and
unilaterally repudiate the capitulatory regime. While being careful not to give
offence to Russia (Ignatiev had been extended an unusually friendly welcome
on his return and the satirical paper Diyojen was banned for publishing an
article critical of the Tsar) the Porte allowed the publication of an anti Russian
pamphlet titled Le Testament de Pierre le Grand et le Traité de 1856.
Âli's hopes that the matter would somehow be solved through
exchanges of diplomatic notes were crushed by the proposal put forward by the
Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck for a conference to meet and discuss
the situation. A conference, in the view of the Ottoman statesman, always
presented the risk of complicating matters further by introducing into its
agenda other issues concerning the Empire and afford the powers another
pretext for interferences into its internal affairs. Âli finally acquiesced on the
condition that the deliberations of the conference would be limited to the
question at issue. When London was chosen as the venue he also insisted that
special negotiators should not be sent and that the ambassadors of the powers
en poste in the British capital should represent their respective countries. He
was moved to this by the fear that Ignatiev of whose total unreliability he was
convinced may be appointed as Russian negotiator. Ignatiev had been
spreading rumours that the Porte was inclined to reach a direct agreement with
Russia, ignoring its allies and these rumours had caused concern in the West
and a certain amount of distrust as regards the Empire's actual intentions.
The stages through which Ottoman diplomacy evolved on this issue in
the weeks preceding the opening of the Conference on January 17, 1871 are
well documented in the official despatches exchanged between Ottoman
missions abroad and the foreign ministry that are included in this volume. The
proceedings of the Conference which ended up in a new agreement signed on
March 15, 1871 have been published and give a detailed account of how
Musurus Pasha, the Ottoman negotiator defended the interests of the Empire. 2
A few weeks before the Russian note was sent out, there was a major
reshuffle of the Ottoman diplomatic service. The St-Petersburg mission which
had been headed since the mid 1860s by a chargé d'affaires had been raised to
embassy level and Rustem Bey who had represented the Empire at the

1
See N o 93 infra.
2
Accounts and Papers, 1871 (0.267), Protocols of conferences held in London respecting the
Treaty of March 30, 1X56, London. 1871.
 - 15 -

Sardinian court, first at Turin and then at Florence had been appointed as the
first Ottoman ambassador to the Russian court in October 1870. Though he is
reported to have taken to his bed for 24 hours on the news of the Russian
note, he earned the esteem of the Russian government through his efforts to
defuse the crisis. Gorchakov, visiting Berlin in June 1871 after the question
had been settled to the general satisfaction confided in his conversations with
German statesmen that Rustem was "un homme hors ligne 1 ". Rustem was
outspoken in his critics of Musurus whom he unjustly accused of deliberately
sabotaging an agreement with Russia. Years later he was to succeed him in
London when the latter retired in 1885. Halil (§erif) Bey, was appointed to
Vienna at the same time. He arrived there when the outcome of the Franco-
Prussian war was a cause of vital concern to the Austro-Hungarian statesmen
and was forcing them to search for new allies. They approached the Porte with
a view to set up a defensive alliance joining their military forces in the face of
unforeseen eventualities 2 . The Russian denunciation provided another
opportunity for co-operation but it foundered on the antagonistic rivalry
between the imperial chancellor, Baron Beust and the Hungarian minister-
president Count Andrassy. Halil reported on their conflicting views. He had
earlier, while under-secretary at the foreign ministry, drafted a memorandum
on the suppression of the Capitulations and the Press regularly referred to it
when discussing the compensations the Porte may request in exchange for the
denunciation of Article 14. Photiadès Bey, the former envoy at Athens had
been sent to Florence to replace Rustem and when assurances had been
received that Greece would not take advantage of the new developments to
create trouble, the legation was left temporarily in charge of a chargé. The
Italian government, having crowned its long-sought after goal of unification
by moving its capital to Rome was willing to take initiatives that went well
beyond the weight the kingdom carried in the European concert. The three new
appointees were given sets of instructions, not a usual practice in the Ottoman
diplomatic service. These instructions provide a useful overall view of
Ottoman diplomacy on the eve of the crisis created by the Russian
denunciation 3 . The Porte was represented as seen earlier at Berlin by Aristarchi
Bey whose suspicions of Russian designs were doubled by the conviction that
Prussia had secured the Tsar's neutrality in her conflict with France by giving
Russia a tacit support in the East, while in France Cemil Pasha had witnessed
the collapse of the Bonapartist regime and, after the beginning of the siege of
Paris had followed the provisional new republican government in its exodus
first at Tours and then at Bordeaux. He repeatedly tried to arrange for French
support both before and during the conference but the new government made

1
Aristarchi to Aali, Berlin, 6 juin 1871, confidentielle, No 3223/93.
2
See EOE, I, passim.
3
See infra No 12 for Photiadès and No 18 for Rustem and EOE, I, No 306 for Halil.