In answer to this attack Mr. Gladstone replied, “I do not speak from direct communication with Lord Clarendon, but I have been told since his death that he never attached a value to that neutralization. Again I do not speak from direct communication, but I have been told that Lord Palmerston always looked upon the neutralization as an arrangement which might be maintained and held together for a limited number of years, but which, from its character, it was impossible to maintain as a permanent condition for a great settlement of Europe.” However, Russia had regained what she had lost at the close of the Crimean War by skilful diplomacy. She now was perfectly at liberty to keep her fleet in the Black Sea, and to refortify Sebastopol and Keotch to such an extent as to render them impregnable. She felt gratified at the result of the Franco-Prussian War, and on hearing that Prussia had annexed Alsace and Lorraine. General Ignatieff, the Russian Ambassador at Constantinople, hastened to the German Ambassador, Count Karserling, and said, “Permit me to congratulate you, and _thank you_; for you it is a prodigious mistake, but on Russia you have conferred the greatest possible boon.” At the time of the annexation of the two French provinces, Germany thought that they would prove of the greatest value to the German Empire, but this idea proved a mistake, and since then Russia has used, and still uses them, as a pivot on which the Eastern Question turns. Frederick III.’s idea of selling back Alsace and Lorraine would no doubt prove a great benefit, not only to the German nation, but also to the maintenance of the balance of power in Europe. Yet, though Bismarck defeated Napoleon III. in a sanguinary war, Prince Gortschakoff had beaten all the signitary powers at the Treaty of Paris by one stroke of the pen, and the greatest gainer, in the Franco-Prussian War was not Germany but Russia. Verily, indeed, is it once more proved that the Pen is mightier than the Sword. VII. THE RUSSO-TURKISH WAR OF 1878. _Bulgarian atrocities—The Andrassy Note; England destroys its effect—The Berlin Memorandum; England opposes it—Russia prepares for a Turkish war—Conference of Constantinople—New Turkish Constitution—Russo-Turkish War—Treaty of San Stefano—Intervention of the Powers—The Berlin Congress—Final treaty of peace._ The Slavs migrated to the Balkan Peninsula as early as 450 A.D., and Bosnia remained the only Slavonic part of the Turkish Empire where a native nobility owned the land and a peasantry tilled it for them. Having been defeated by the Turks, the nobility became Mahommedans to save their patrimony, while the peasantry, having nothing to lose, remained Christians; but the tyranny of their nobility at length obliged the Turks to put an end to the Feudal System in Bosnia (1850–1851).