Lord Derby and Lord Salisbury had of late plainly warned him of the consequences of his stubbornness; but the influence of the British embassy at Constantinople and of the Turkish ambassador in London seems greatly to have weakened the force of those warnings.
It must always be remembered that the Turk will concede religious freedom and civic equality to the "Giaours" only under overwhelming pressure.

In such a case he mutters "Kismet" ("It is fate"), and gives way; but the least sign of weakness or wavering on the part of the Powers awakens his fanatical scruples.

Then his devotion to the Koran forbids any surrender.

History has afforded several proofs of this, from the time of the Battle of Navarino (1827) to that of the intervention of the Western Powers on behalf of the slaughtered and harried Christians of the Lebanon (1860).

Unfortunately Abdul Hamid had now come to regard the Concert of the Powers as a "loud-sounding nothing." With the usual bent of a mean and narrow nature he detected nothing but hypocrisy in its lofty professions, and self-seeking in its philanthropic aims, together with a treacherous desire among influential persons to make the whole scheme miscarry.