would be officially guarded_, has caused great discouragement to the Turkish Government, and it is feared that the effect of it in Montenegro will be very mischievous, and I have therefore to request Your Excellency to call the serious attention of the Imperial Government to this matter.”[73] But these remonstrances, which were evidently sincere and well‐meaning, had not the very slightest effect at Vienna. The Hungarian Chancellor was always ready to give any amount of assurances and promises to the credulous Sir A. Buchanan. On the 3rd April 1876, Sir H. Elliot was obliged to write again: “I learn that the Porte has received information of the passage of considerable bands _said to be accompanied by two pieces of artillery_ from Dalmatia and Croatia, into the north‐western district of Bosnia.”[74] And further, on the next day, 4th April, he writes: “A telegram from the Governor‐General of Bosnia, which has been read to me by Reschid Pasha, gives a very alarming account of the state of things in that province. _Armed bands are passing freely from the Austrian territory_, and there are symptoms indicating a probable insurrection of the populations along the rivers Save and Una. The Governor‐General states that he has been unable to re‐establish the line of telegraph along the Save, _as the workmen are continually fired at from the Austrian bank of the river, and his remonstrances addressed to the Austrian authorities have been unattended to_.”[75] The reason why Austria was not content to confine her operations to Herzegovina, but had extended them to Bosnia, was clear. The Porte was succeeding, in spite of all difficulties, in pacifying the former, and as the Berlin note was being drawn up at Berlin for the three “Allied Powers” and would be presented in a month, such a precipitation would derange all their plans. The following despatch of Sir H. Elliot of 7th April 1876 clearly indicates this state of things. “The enclosed report from Mr Sandison of the account received at the Porte from Haidar Effendi (the Turkish Commissioner) gives a very serious aspect to the state of affairs in Bosnia. It is evident that the Austro‐Hungarian Government _have failed lamentably in their engagement to guard their own frontier, and by means of well‐armed bands coming from their territory, a formidable insurrection has been excited in districts which have hitherto remained quiet. Although the news received from the Herzegovina is good, and gave hopes of a pacification_, it would be too much to expect that the movement in Bosnia should not produce its effect in the districts which have been so long in insurrection.”[76]