Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/411

THE NATIONS SINCE 1871 399 be submitted to a European conference almost brought about an Anglo-Russian war, but ultimately the major portion of it was referred to the Berlin Congress. The main results The Berlin were: that Roumania, Servia, and Montenegro Congress, were made independent ; Bosnia and Herzegovina were placed temporarily under Austrian administration; while Bulgaria remained tributary, but otherwise independent. (It may here be remarked that after many vicissitudes Bulgaria ultimately obtained complete independence, and that on the other hand Austria thirty years later transformed her temporary administra- tion of Bosnia and Herzegovina into open annexation.) The Porte promised reforms in the rest of the Turkish territory, but continued successfully to evade carrying out the promises, which the 'Concert of Europe' has endeavoured to enforce only by ineffective diplomatic pressure — that is, by threats and recommendations which it does not translate into armed intervention. Another portion of the Turkish dominions has brought about active British intervention, and threatened to involve Britain and France in war. The Khedive of Egypt is a sort of viceroy of the Sultan. The enormous debts incurred by him led to financial control being placed in the hands of the French and British. Financial control inevitably means interference with administration, resented by patriotic or ambitious natives. The danger that the government would be usurped by a ' patriotic ' military party led, in 1882, to the seizure of Alexandria by the British, after a bombardment, the over- throw of the patriot or rebel leader Arabi Pasha by British troops, and the temporary transfer of administrative control to the same power. France, having left the work to be done by her neighbour, was obliged to assent to the British occu- pation, which continues to be professedly temporary at the present day. The region to the south of Egypt proper, known as the Egyptian Soudan, fell under the sway of a barbaric pretender to prophetic honours called the Mahdi. Extremely fi..,^. . . .* The Soudan, inefficient Egyptian garrisons occupied points in this territory; and the British government, considering it