This is what Consul Holmes, who had resided fifteen years in the country, and who knew more of it than any foreigner alive (it was he whom the English Government lent to Baron Calice at the Conference, on account of his special knowledge of the country, and who received the thanks of both Governments for his services), says: “To people residing in these countries, and who know the real state of parties, _and the true nature of the insurrection_, the idea of securing pacification by concessions to the insurgents appears simply absurd. In the first place, reforms and concessions cannot be executed until pacification is obtained, and in the next, for reasons which I have frequently explained to your Lordship, those who are in arms and who keep up the insurrection, _care nothing about them; they have other objects and other interests_.”[86] Such was Austria, that was at peace with Turkey, entertaining friendly relations with the Porte, and protesting in every tone of diplomatic expressions to every Cabinet in Europe her earnest and anxious desire for the pacification of the Turkish Provinces! APPENDIX C BULGARIAN‐ATROCITIES The Slav Committees that had been for thirteen years “working up” the recalcitrant materials of rebellion in Bulgaria, were proceeding leisurely in their work when Count Andrassy stole a march upon them in the Herzegovina; but in spite of every effort on the part of Austria to precipitate a diplomatic crisis before the Bulgarian plot was ripe, the Slav Committees, whose venue was Bulgaria, caught him up before his work was completed. The head Slav Committee was at Moscow, and there were two central Committees at Kichenew and Bucharest. They had been established for about thirteen years, but although their activity had been intermittent, it was through their influence that the Bulgarian Church had been separated from the Greek Patriarchal, and that a Bulgarian School under Government patronage had been established at Odessa to form young Bulgarians into missionary propagandists of the Slav idea. When, however, the Herzegovina insurrection broke out, and matters were fast ripening on that side, a revival of energy at once manifested itself in the action of these Committees with reference to Bulgaria. As General Tchernagoff wrote in his paper, the _Russki Mir_ (on 11th May 1876): “I chose the route by way of Kischenew and the Danube, _along the whole course of which_, commencing from the Russian frontier to the Servian boundary, _Committees were formed towards the end of last year_ for organising the plans of the Bulgarians in their approaching struggle for independence. Commencing from Bolgrad (a Bulgarian colony that fell away from Russia and became incorporated with Roumania by virtue of the Treaty of Paris), I everywhere heard the same thing, which was to the effect that all had been done that was