Mr. MacVeagh to Mr. Fish.
Sir: As it is generally supposed here at present that peace will be concluded at an early day between France and Germany, and, as a consequence, that France will give a formal adhesion to the results already attained at the London conference, the principal subject of anxiety still remaining for the government of the Sultan is the very unfortunate condition of affairs in Roumania.
As all students of European politics have been watching with great interest the progress of the curious experiment of which that country has been the theater for some years past, I have been hoping from time to time to secure the proper information of the present condition of parties [Page 897] there to enable me to send you an interesting dispatch upon the general subject.
For the present, however, I must content myself with stating to you that the state of affairs is so critical that the Porte may be obliged at any moment to have recourse to an armed occupation. It is indeed with a view of being prepared for this emergency that a camp of instruction has been established at Shumla, and that a force of probably thirty thousand men is being concentrated there with considerable rapidity.
No movement will be made by the central government until a necessity for the maintenance of internal order clearly exists; but when that moment arrives and the requisite sanction of the protecting powers is received, the movement, I have reason to believe, will be executed with such promptness and vigor as to assert the suzerainty of the Porte and prevent any serious internal disorder.
It is indeed a sad medley, a kind of “devils dance,” which a nest of politicians at Bucharest are having with the destinies of a most promising country, and it can hardly fail to result in either a coup d’état by Prince Charles or in his abdication. In either case it will be the duty of the Sultan to assume the responsibility of the maintenance of order, until, in conjunction with his allies, his government can decide upon what modifications are desirable in the existing constitution.
Prince Charles, in a letter recently published at Berlin, and which I doubt not has been brought to your notice, alleges that the cause of the difficulties now existing is the excess of power granted to the political leaders by the present constitution, while the political leaders, divergent on almost all other points, agree in declaring it to be wholly unsafe to allow any increase of power to the present prince, upon whom they seem to have succeeded in placing a great part of the odium attaching to a recent railway concession, generally known as the Strausberg scandal.
While, therefore, it is of course possible that matters may remain in statu quo until the European cabinets succeed in reaching an agreement upon the subject, you must not be surprised to hear either of a revolution, a coup d’état, or an abdication at any time.
It is true also that some persons imagine that in such event Russia and Prussia would be in accord in objecting to any occupation by the Porte, and would insist upon a solution of the question in favor of the autonomy of the Roumanians; but I am wholly unable to bring myself to believe that Prussia would favor such a policy, or that Russia would venture to assert it without the active support of Germany. I look only for an armed occupation by the Porte until an agreement of the great powers.
Your obedient servant,