All these arguments go to prove that a cession of Crete to Greece would be beneficial to both European and Grecian interests.
Constantinople was hardly mentioned in the Berlin Treaty, although it is said that Lord Beaconsfield had suggested to General Ignatieff a Russian occupation of the Bosphorus with an English one of Mitylene. Ignatieff said, however, that “Mitylene was too near, as it was only two hours’ steam from the north of the Dardanelles.” Lord Beaconsfield did not, therefore, press the discussion. The importance of Constantinople can be explained in a few words.
By possession of the Straits Russia would be able to make the Black Sea a second Caspian, whose coasts are left undefended, and it would become a great Russian arsenal, for ten or fifteen thousand troops would be sufficient to shut out an English fleet from the Straits, and by this means quite two hundred thousand Russian troops could be withdrawn from the Black Sea and turned to the Balkans, Asia Minor, or Central Asia.
Notwithstanding the fact that Austria has fulfilled her contract in preventing Russian aggression through the Balkans, yet Russia could find a way through Asia Minor, although her progress through Asia was stopped by England at the Anglo-Turkish Convention.
By this treaty, however, England committed a still more grave and serious breach of the Treaties of 1856 and 1871 than by this Berlin Treaty. Yet although England and Russia had made a secret agreement beforehand, still the Berlin Treaty was discussed and drawn up by the Congress. Therefore England was only morally to blame. But the Anglo-Turkish Convention was concluded between the two countries themselves, and was never submitted for the consideration of the Great Powers. Lord Beaconsfield sought to screen England by declaring that Russia had concluded the San Stefano Treaty with Turkey without the knowledge and consent of the Powers, and Russia herself, therefore, had broken the principles of the 1856 and 1871 Treaties. Yet this did not conceal the fact that England herself had not acted up to her tenets in the Anglo-Turkish Convention.
The Porte ceded Ardahan, Kars, and Batoum, together with its port, to Russia. England occupied Cyprus, and engaged to defend Asiatic Turkey, Syria, Palestine, Assyria, Arabia, and Armenia, against Russian invasion.