At this crisis Lord Derby saved his country from the direst calamity--a war between England and Russia, in which victory could bring no other gain to England than the privilege of restoring the liberated Turkish provinces to barbarism, and in which, since India had been put down by Lord Beaconsfield as one of the stakes in his game, defeat would have meant the loss of her Asiatic and Colonial Empire. Lord Derby resigned, and the panic caused by his withdrawal from the Cabinet compelled Lord Beaconsfield to abandon the filibustering expedition to Cyprus and Syria, and confine himself to those steps which did not make war inevitable. Russia, who was strengthening her own forces, could not object to England calling out her Reserves. As for the summons to the Indian troops, it would have been harmless, but for a circumstance not known at the time. It gave Prince Gortschakoff an opportunity for carrying out a diabolically malignant scheme of vengeance. He considered himself free to ignore the arrangement by which Russia was bound not to interfere in the “neutral zone” between her Asiatic Empire and the Indian frontier. Russian troops were accordingly ordered to move towards the Oxus for the invasion of India. Russian agents hastened in advance to the frontier to brew trouble for England in Afghanistan. Nay, so swift and secret were these counter-strokes, that even after the dispute between Russia and England in Europe had been settled, Russia was unable to undo the mischief she had wrought in Asia. England was dragged into the costly agony of another Afghan War, and it may therefore be said that the luxury of bringing the native troops to Europe in 1878 not only permanently disorganised the finances of India, but cost the country hecatombs of lives and £20,000,000 of money in 1879-80. Though the step was at first popular, the nation in time began to appreciate the grave political and fiscal objections which could be urged unanswerably against the employment of Indian troops out of Asia, or out of that portion of Eastern Africa which is practically Asiatic.