attempted to free herself from the Treaty of Paris
during the Franco-Russia War and had been forced
to sign the Declaration of London as a result; she now
intended to see to it that the Power's should show no
partiality to Austria.

M. Isvolsky, Russian Secretary of Foreign Affairs,
who happened to be in Paris at the time, added his pro-
test to those of Turkey, Italy, Serbia, and Montenegro,
and demanded that a conference of the Powers signa-
tory of the Treaty of Berlin be called to deliberate on
the various questions involved. Proceeding to Lon-
don, he drew up with Sir Edward Grey a program for
the proposed conference in which a complete identity
of views between the two powers was shown. ¹ Both
France and Great Britain were ready to support Rus-
sia vigorously in her just demands. A conference of
the Powers was the last thing desired by Austria, and
Baron von Aehrenthal showed himself to be a second
Talleyrand in his method of procedure. His first move
was to placate Turkey, and he attempted this by prom-
ising to turn back to her immediately the Sandjak of
Novi Bazar. This by no means satisfied the Turks but
it opened the way to a solution. Austria's negotia-
tions with Turkey were facilitated through the assist-
ance of Baron Marschall von Bieberstein, the German
ambassador at Constantinople, one of the most able
members of the German diplomatic corps and ex-
tremely popular with the Turks. Having paved the
way for an understanding with Turkey, Austria now
declared that the question was wholly between herself
and the Porte, neither Servia nor Montenegro having

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