The committajis had hoped that the ‘general rising’--or, rather, the suppression which they foresaw for it--would cause the Powers of Europe to make Macedonia autonomous. They put most of their faith in the sympathy of Great Britain, and in this they made no mistake--though Great Britain has tried for a long time to sympathise with the Turks. At the wanton suppression of the feeble rising it was the British Government that advocated the delivery of the province from Turkish control. Austria and Russia, on the contrary, and especially Russia, urged upon the Turkish Government the necessity of a rapid and thorough repression of the rising, and warned Bulgaria early and often against entering into the conflict. It was announced during the revolution that the Russian Czar and the Austrian Emperor would meet, together with their Foreign Ministers, at Murzsteg; and to this conference the Bulgarians attached much hope until it was declared from Vienna and St. Petersburg that the interview of the Emperors would in no way alter their Macedonian programme. The programme was altered, however, as a compromise with Lord Lansdowne. The British Foreign Minister, with support from the Governments of Italy and France, proposed to the Austrian and Russian Foreign Ministers, while at Murzsteg, that Macedonia be placed under the control of a governor-general independent of the Sultan and responsible to the Powers alone. The Austro-Russian alliance objected to this, but, in spite of previous declarations to the contrary, agreed to extend their scheme of reforms. The Murzsteg programme, as the new scheme is known, provided for the appointment of two civil agents, one Austrian and one Russian, to ‘assist’ Hilmi Pasha; for the appointment of foreign officers to reform the Turkish gendarmerie; and for taxation, financial, and other reforms. The two most interested Powers would have employed only Austrian and Russian officers to reorganise the Turkish gendarmerie, but Italy and Great Britain insisted on participating in this work, and each of them, as well as France, sent a contingent of five officers and a chief to Turkey. Germany, in consideration of the Sultan, who opposed this reform desperately, declined to detail a staff.