The end of the affair was that Mr. Forster could not muster up enough courage to press his Resolution, and when a division came he and Lord Hartington and about a hundred bewildered Liberals walked out of the House. Hence the Vote was carried into Committee by a majority of 295 to 199. The country did not conceal its contempt for Mr. Forster’s manœuvre. Men of sense agreed that there was only one ground on which such a Vote could be fairly opposed. It was that till Ministers stated definitely, whether their policy was to be that of Lord Derby or Lord Beaconsfield, tempered at intervals by a telegraphic romance from the British Embassy at Constantinople, not a farthing should be granted to them. No such statement of policy was made, and the withdrawal of the Liberals from their position served to convince impartial observers that their opposition had been factious from the beginning.[126] After this unexpected victory the “Jingoes” pressed the Government to follow it up. To please them the Fleet was ordered to Constantinople, but to soothe Lord Derby he was permitted to explain that it went there merely to protect British residents who were alarmed by the prevailing anarchy. The Turks, enraged at what they deemed their betrayal by Lord Beaconsfield and Mr. Layard, churlishly refused to grant a firman opening the Straits to the Fleet. Prince Gortschakoff said, that as the protection of Europeans from anarchy was a duty which Russia and England ought to undertake in common for the sake of Humanity, Russia would now, as a matter of course, occupy the fortified lines that covered Constantinople, and, if need be, the city itself. It was a pretty “situation” in the high comedy of diplomacy, in which Lord Beaconsfield was, for the moment, outwitted and outmanœuvred. He lowered the point of his foil with good temper and good grace, but when he effected a compromise with Gortschakoff there was wailing and gnashing of teeth in the Temple of “Jingo.” And yet Lord Beaconsfield may be forgiven much, on account of the dexterity with which he extricated the country from a position which rendered war with Russia, and the immediate expulsion of the last remnant of the Ottoman race to Asia, a dead certainty. He, or Lord Derby in his name, promised Gortschakoff not to occupy Gallipoli nor the lines of Bulair, if Russia would promise not to land troops on the European shore of the Dardanelles. This compromise was accepted by Russia, with the additional proviso that neither Power was free to occupy the Asiatic side of the Straits.