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On the other hand, if Lord Beaconsfield hoped to strengthen the pro-Turkish feeling in the Cabinet and the country, he failed. The resentment aroused by Turkish methods of rule and repression was too deep to be eradicated even by his skilful appeals to Imperialist sentiment.
Montenegro, isolated from the Serbs in the north, and precluded from participating with them in the wars between Austria and Turkey by the intervening block of Bosnia, which though Serb by nationality was solidly Mohammedan and therefore pro-Turkish, carried on its feuds with the Turks independently of the other Serbs.
For myself, under the advice of our minister at Constantinople, I had thrown off all reserve within my consular rights and used all my influence with my colleagues, especially the honest, if too pro-Turkish, Dickson, and at the same time disseminated the truth as to the condition of the island in every possible way.
In pursuance of instructions from London, he even warned the Porte that Britain would not give any help in case war resulted from its refusal of the European proposals. It is well known that Lord Salisbury was far less pro-Turkish than the Prime Minister or the members of the British embassy at Constantinople.
Every day the end was expected, and his compatriot, companion, and so-called friend, Bernal Osborne, found it in his heart to remark, "Ah, overdoing it as he always overdid everything." For my own part, I never was numbered among Lord Beaconsfield's friends, and I regarded the Imperialistic and pro-Turkish policy of his latter days with an equal measure of indignation and contempt.
Matters, however, were not so simple as this might suggest. There is every reason to suppose that behind the empress Wu there was a group opposing the ruling clique. In spite of everything, the T'ang government clique was very pro-Turkish, and many Turks and members of Toba families had government posts and, above all, important military commands.
Amongst the Indian Mahomedans there was a small pro-Turkish group, chiefly of an Extremist complexion, whose appeals to the religious solidarity of Islam might have proved troublesome when Turkey herself came into the war, had not Government deemed it advisable to put a stop to the mischievous activities of the two chief firebrands, the brothers Mahomed Ali and Shaukat Ali, by interning them under the discretionary powers conferred upon it by the Defence of India Act.
Now it soon became evident that Turkey was going to join England's enemies, the Teutonic empires, while it was equally evident that the Egyptians sympathized with the Turks, even the Khedive Abbas Hilmi making no secret of his pro-Turkish views.
This somewhat cynical reaction was summed up in the strange figure of Disraeli, who made a pro-Turkish settlement full of his native indifference to the Christian subjects of Turkey, and sealed it at Berlin in the presence of Bismarck.
This was the work of the pro-Turkish party, enraged by the sympathy evoked by my correspondence on behalf of the Montenegrins, and Sir Henry Elliott had made himself the mouthpiece of it. Mr. Gladstone, having become warmly interested in the little mountain principality by my correspondence, had taken its case up in a strong review article, and had persuaded Tennyson to devote a sonnet to it.
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