ABSTRACT
The Russians had insisted upon negotiations that would be bilateral and would take place in Constantinople only. Now military considerations were at the forefront of everybody's thinking. Russia was already almost on a local war footing, ready to send an army into the undefended Principalities, and maybe a fleet, with or without a landing force, into the Black Sea. The Turks were moving to a war footing too, but desired at least a guarantee against the certain Russian victory that would result from a one to one military contest. The negotiations between Russia and Turkey thus continued, but now with the active participation of the other Great Powers and also without any real coordination. Now they were trying to prove opposites: that their demands were really not an attack on Ottoman sovereignty, but that nobody else respected Ottoman sovereignty either. If nothing else, the invisible hand of capitalist imperialism was in full working order.
