The summer passed in fruitless and endless negotiations. Later in September a press telegram from London voiced the situation as follows:-- "European diplomacy seems already weary of the question, which Turkish diplomacy has handled with an evident ability, based upon temporization and inertia, as well as upon its knowledge of the jealousy existing between the three Powers which proclaim so loudly that they want nothing else but the happiness of the Armenians. "The question has not progressed one iota, despite all the negotiations, memoranda, appointments of commissions, and even the (awful!) rumor, one month ago, of the assembling of the British fleet in Besika Bay, at the entrance of the Dardanelles. England, France and Russia, however, had the way clear before them, if they had been really in accord and seriously willing to accomplish the humanitarian mission they pretended to assume. Article sixty-one of the Berlin Treaty gave the Powers the right to see that the same rights granted to Bulgaria should be granted also to Armenia. This article has remained a dead letter in regard to the latter country since 1878. When the Sassoun atrocities were recently committed, the Powers merely sent to the Porte a memorandum, requesting it to cease its persecution of Armenians. During two or three months the European Ministers at Pera awaited the decision of the Sultan. Whenever they sent their dragomans to the Foreign Minister, Said Pasha caused his secretary to answer in the Spanish manner, 'hasta la mañana' (to-morrow a reply will be given). Finally the three Powers thought of using the rights conferred upon them by Article sixty-one, and required Abdul Hamid to consent that a European Commission of Control should be sent to Armenia, in order to see that reforms be practically applied there. The Sultan will fight stubbornly before accepting them, which would amount to the abandonment of a portion of his sovereignty, and it remains to be seen how much the Powers, jealous of their respective influence at the Porte, are in earnest and how anxious they are promptly to enforce the acceptation of their Control Commission." The Turks continued to play a waiting game in Armenian affairs. Remembering the treaty of Berlin, they were shrewd enough to play off one Power against another so as to retain absolute control over their internal affairs, though they had forfeited all right to rule by their outrageous and brutal massacres. The Congress of Berlin was at the time a costly thing to the Eastern Christians but was destined to prove almost their utter ruin. The Turks did not find it hard to pick flaws in the plan of administrative reform when they did not intend to have any reform. The whole scheme was without any security against the renewal of the Sassoun massacres. Everybody who was interested in Armenia protested against the plan, but it was the best that mere diplomacy could do.