Great Britain had her advantage out of the bargain also. She retained her position of paramount friend at Constantinople, justifying herself with the assurance that the sultan would carry out reforms in his empire. She seemed to think that the “Sick Man of Europe” would cure himself under her guidance and then defend himself against states that tried to oust him from his seat of power. To enable her to watch the bedside of her patient from a convenient position, as well as to safeguard the Suez Canal, Great Britain was given the right to occupy and administer the island of Cyprus under nominal authority of Turkey. To be perfectly fair we must admit that there is little moral difference between her acquisition of Cyprus and Austria’s gain in Bosnia and Herzegovina; and it is clear that in this case the Concert of Europe was a concert for the gain of selfish ends. It is also worth while to note that two of the Great Powers took no benefit from the agreement. France was slowly recovering from the war of 1870-1871 and was in no condition to fight, although in 1881 she established a protectorate over Tunis. The German Empire, newly founded and not yet fully adapted to the imperial system, was also in no condition to undertake a stiff encounter. There were many Germans who wished that their government should not allow the other states to get large gains of territory while Germany got nothing; but they yielded to Bismarck’s wise policy which held that it was not yet time for Germany to assume an aggressive position in the world. The impatience of the German patriots lost nothing through having to wait. No treaty ends the march of time, and the Balkan situation continued to develop along the old lines. In 1881 Greece acquired Thessaly in accordance with a promise made to her at the Congress of Berlin. In 1885 East Rumelia declared herself united to Bulgaria, acting in defiance of the will of the Congress of Berlin. The Powers did not interfere for the same reason that they did not act when Wallachia and Moldavia united in 1862. To attempt to undo the union would have precipitated a general war. The Concert was stronger to prevent a given action than to correct it after it was done. Serbia, however, took the action of the two provinces as a menace and declared war against the new state of Bulgaria. She seemed about to throw herself on her adversary when she suddenly made peace, evidently feeling she was not strong enough to carry on the war alone. Thenceforth the Powers showed that they did not mean to allow the Balkan states to profit by seizing parts of the decaying Turkish Empire. But for their restraint it seems that the Turk would have been expelled from Europe before the end of the nineteenth century.