him some guarantee that hostilities would cease.[150] Austria was willing to persuade England and France to agree to the condition which the Czar thus made, a condition _sine quâ non_ of evacuation, but Count Buol Schauenstein instructed the Austrian ambassador at St. Petersburg to warn Nesselrode that if the Maritime Powers remained obdurate, Austria must still insist on the withdrawal of Russia from Moldavia and Wallachia. Prussia, however, refused to take part in a Conference which Austria suggested might advantageously be held to consider the Russian terms. King Frederick William and Manteuffel thought that in offering to evacuate the Principalities, Russia had made a sufficient concession to the interests of Germany. But Lord Clarendon was of a different opinion.[151] England, he saw, would no longer be content with the mere evacuation of the Principalities, which was the sole object of the war. Imitating the initial blunder of the Czar, he insisted on getting a “material guarantee” against any future molestation of Turkey. The exclusive right of Russia to protect Moldavia and Wallachia must, he said, be abolished, and instead of it a European Protectorate established. Russia must also cease to control the chief mouth of the Danube. The ill-defined relations of Russia to the Christian subjects of the Porte, embodied in the Treaty of 1841, must be defined in the interests of the balance of power in Europe, and the independence of Turkey. Russia must finally renounce her claim to exercise any individual or official right of protecting Turkish subjects, no matter what their religion might be. The position of Russia as a naval Power in the Black Sea must also be modified.[152] The Czar rejected these terms[153]--indeed, if he had accepted them when as yet he had not suffered any crushing defeat from the Western Powers, his life would not have been worth many days’ purchase. Austria and Turkey concluded a Treaty on the 14th of June, in virtue of which Austria was to occupy the Principalities on behalf of the Sultan. On the 23rd of August the Austrian army entered Wallachia, thus setting the Turks free to co-operate with the Allies for the defence of Constantinople. But at this point the war passed from the defensive to the offensive stage, and it will therefore be convenient to trace the movement of opinion in England which powerfully influenced the change in our plans.