After the butcheries of 1895-96 Great Britain was prepared to exact effective guarantees from the Sultan Abdul Hamid, if necessary by force of arms, against a repetition of these unspeakable barbarities; but the Russian Government of the day, sore at the rebuff administered to it by the Treaty of Berlin and the Cyprus Convention, opposed Great Britain's proposal of taking coercive measures to stay the hand of the Great Assassin. In 1913 a Scheme of Reforms proposed by Russia formed the subject of discussion by the Powers, and was finally agreed to by Turkey after it had undergone such modifications and revisions at the instance of the Turks, backed by Germany, as to render it of little practical value. The war intervened before the scheme could be put into operation, and it remained a dead letter, as had all its predecessors. Meanwhile massacre, outrage, rapine, plunder, and all conceivable forms of oppression and persecution went on without respite, though in varying degrees of intensity, culminating in the frightful hecatombs of the last two years. Although, of course, such was not their object and intention, the net result of these transactions was to give the Turk the opportunity, as events have unfortunately proved, of murdering, burning, drowning, torturing, violating, enslaving and forcibly converting to Islam at least 2,000,000 unoffending and defenceless Christians within the comparatively short space of forty years. I do not for a moment suggest that the authors of these Treaties themselves foresaw such a result of their efforts. But that makes no difference to the result. Europe backed "the wrong horse," as Lord Salisbury had the courage to say, and the stakes were the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent Christians--men, women and children--and a sum of human suffering and misery such as the world has probably never seen before. I gratefully acknowledge the efforts made by the successive British, French, Russian and Italian Governments, from time to time, to bring moral or diplomatic pressure upon the Turks to treat us with less harshness and inhumanity. But the Turk, Young and Old, knew that coercion would never be used against him. He treated all European representations with amusement and contempt and went his way relentlessly, intent upon wiping out the whole race. He felt more secure from the danger of coercion after the Christian Emperor William II, on his return from his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, paid a visit to and fraternized with the Sultan Abdul Hamid while his hands were still red with the blood of the fearful massacres of 1895-96.