signatories of the Treaties of 1856 and 1871.' At a later stage, Count Schouvaloff admitted that the Treaty of San Stefano was 'a preliminary convention, having obligatory force only upon the two contracting parties, by which Russia intended to let the Turkish Government know beforehand the demands she would formulate later before Europe[1].' The Treaty of Berlin was accordingly so drawn as to supersede those parts of the Treaty of San Stefano which were held to be of European concern, viz. the articles which relate to Montenegro (1, 2), to Servia (3, 4), to Roumania (5), to Bulgaria (6-11), to the Danube (12), to Bosnia and Herzegovina (14), to Crete (15), to Armenia (16), to the Persian boundary (18), and to the Russian protectorate (22)[2].
The Treaty of Berlin as a revision of those of Paris and London. 2. But a still more important object of the Congress of Berlin was to revise the Treaties of Paris and London. A leading idea of those Treaties had been the preservation of the independence and territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire, and of its sovereign rights over the vassal principalities. All this was now to be changed. The Porte was to be virtually reduced to tutelage, and its suzerainty over the Principalities was to be finally extinguished. Such portions, however, of the earlier treaties as are not abrogated or modified by the later Treaty are expressly confirmed by it; and the unrepealed and permanent provisions of the three Treaties, taken together, contain the now binding decision of the great Powers as to the settlement of Eastern Europe.
The Treaty of Paris. The portions of the Treaty of Paris which are still in force
- ↑ Parl. Papers, 1878, Turkey, No. 39, pp. 12, 137, 242.
- ↑ The provisions of the Treaty of San Stefano which were not wholly abrogated by the Treaty of Berlin, and thus continued to be in force between the parties to the former Treaty (12 out of a total of 29) relate to :—obstructions at the Sulina mouth of the Danube (Art. 13), amnesty (17, 27), the indemnity (19), law-suits in Turkey (20), the inhabitants of districts ceded to Russia (21), the renewal of treaties (23), the Straits (24), evacuation in Asia (25, 26), prisoners (28), ratification (29). The outstanding questions between Russia and Turkey, chiefly financial, were settled in the final Treaty of Peace, signed 8th February, 1879, and by the Convention of 14th May, 1882. See Appendix, No. II.
