independence and territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire, and to guarantee the observance of this condition by each other. Turkey agreed to ameliorate the condition of its Christian subjects, but it was stipulated that this condescension was not to authorize the other powers, either collectively or separately, to meddle with the relations between the Porte and its subjects or in the interior administration of the empire. The Bosphorus and the Dardanelles were to be closed to all ships of war of foreign powers as long as the Porte was at peace, and the Black Sea was to be neutralized. Turkey and Russia were limited to a naval force of six steam vessels of not more than eight hundred tons, and four steam vessels of not more than two hundred tons. Both nations were prohibited from establishing any naval arsenal on the shores of the Black Sea. In Europe, Russia was required to surrender certain portions of Bessarabia to the Porte, and in Asia the boundaries were to be established as they existed before the outbreak of the war. France, England, and Austria entered into a separate treaty to guarantee the integrity and independence of Turkey, and agreed that they would consider any infraction of the stipulation of this treaty a casus belli.
Taking advantage of the overthrow of France by Germany in 1871, Russia abrogated the treaty of 1856, and regained nearly all the rights of which she had been deprived by that document. She immediately began the restoration of her naval arsenals on the shores of the Black Sea, and laid the keels of an iron-clad fleet to control those waters. Since 1871 Sebastopol has been slowly rising from her ruins; her dockyards have been partially restored, and an arsenal has been established at Nicolaieff, but it will yet be many years before the traces of that terrible bombardment of September, 1855, will have been removed, and the streets of the "sacred city" present the appearance they did before the Allies began their
