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Torquenado Directory 06
Page 07
As nearly all the launches in the place belonged to the Government, I had then to apply to the Commandante of the flotilla of the Government boats. It will be easily understood that my anxiety was great to go and rescue my men; so that on leaving the palace I immediately proceeded to the private house of this gentleman--a great friend of the Governor, I learned afterwards. On sending in my card at five o'clock in the afternoon I was kept waiting a little time, then there appeared a yellow-faced individual in his pyjamas, muttering words which I should not like to repeat.
In the Treaty of Berlin after the Russo-Turkish war of 1877 a congress, in which all of the Great European powers participated, most emphatically affirmed that Turkey was responsible to Europe for any complaints that the Balkan States might have against the Ottoman Government regarding the treatment of their connationals, still left under the Sultan. At the same time the Balkan States received due warning regarding their dealings with Turkey, and were made to take a pledge that whenever they had troubles with the Porte the powers and not themselves were to be the arbiters. All the world knows how Turkey, by constant wire-pulling, secured immunity from Europe for not fulfilling the obligations incumbent on her by the Treaty of Berlin, and how one of the Balkan States, namely, Greece, was left alone and unprotected, to be chastised by Turkey in 1897 for not leaving to the powers the settlement of the Cretan question which had brought about the war.
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