ABSTRACT
Athough Vambéry ultimately was to be proved right, it was by no means certain at the end of 1894 that the powers would not intervene. Much of 1895 was taken up by them in renewing pressure on the sultan, and trying to reach a common understanding on what they should or could do if he refused to be persuaded. The principal agent in all of this was Britain. It was in Britain that public opinion was most aroused (particularly after the news from Sasun) and in Gladstone and others there were formidable lobbyists for the Armenian cause. The government had to be seen to be doing something, but in the short term its options were limited to one – the unproductive strategy that had been followed throughout the 1880s of trying to persuade the sultan to fulfil the ‘promises’ 1 that had been made at the Congress of Berlin. The cause of reform had been effectively dropped because of the total inability of the ambassadors to wring the desired changes out of the Sultan. After Sasun it was revived and pushed to the top of the agenda in dealings with the Ottoman government, with the British government taking the lead. Already by the end of 1894 Britain’s ‘guarded reserve’ was giving way to a more forthright position. ‘If I may judge from the spirit with which her representative here expresses himself her future policy will be more aggressive’, wrote Terrell. 2
