The methods adopted by the insurgents were the same as those adopted in Bulgaria, and wherever an organised attempt at insurrection was made in the Ottoman provinces by agents _provocateurs_ and foreign bands with a view to provoke the Mussulmans to deeds of retaliation which would be exploited by the Committees and excite indignation in the world. It will be remembered that when Midhat Pasha was Governor of the Danubian vilayet (p. 43), the band that crossed into Bulgaria from Sistovo began by massacring five Mussulman children between the ages of eight and twelve. When the Consuls, sent on a peace message to the insurgents visited Nevesinje, they “found all the Eastern part of the town towards the plain and all the bazaar, burnt and in ruins. Dead bodies were lying in various corners unburied; and we noticed the head of a boy in one of the streets blackening in the sun. A little Turkish girl was brought to us, wounded in the throat, and we were told that an insurgent was on the point of cutting off her head when she was snatched from him by one less bloodthirsty, and allowed to escape.”[65] Another aim of the insurgents was to force an emigration _en masse_ into Austrian territory by promises that they should be well fed and cared for by the Austrian authorities until favourable conditions were secured for them. Montenegro, too, was let loose on Turkey and well supplied with the sinews of war. It was determined at Vienna that no time should be lost in “putting their pin in the game,” and in taking the lead in negotiations that must necessarily precede an occupation. The principle of interference once admitted, all the rest would follow in due course. On the 24th August 1875, Lord Derby writes to Sir H. Elliot that: “Her Majesty’s Government have had under their consideration your telegraphic despatch of the 20th inst., in which you report that a proposal, _concerted at Vienna by the three Northern Powers_, had been made to the Porte by their Ambassadors. Your Excellency states that they propose that Consuls should be delegated by the Embassies to proceed to the scene of the insurrection and inform the insurgents that they must expect no support or countenance from their Governments. They are also to advise the insurgents to desist from hostilities, but to make known their complaints to a Commission.... The proposal is favourably received by the Porte, and the Grand Vizier (Mahmoud Nedim) had just been to beg you not to stand aloof.... Her Majesty’s Government consent to this step with reluctance, _as they doubt the expediency of the intervention of foreign consuls. Such an intervention is scarcely compatible with the independent authority of the Porte over its own territory, offers an inducement to an insurrection as a means of appealing to foreign sympathy against Turkish rule, and may, not improbably, open the way to further diplomatic interference