THE RUSSO-TURKISH WAR "Knowledge of the great operations of war can be acquired only by experience and by the applied study of the campaigns of all the great captains.

Gustavus, Turenne, and Frederick, as well as Alexander, Hannibal, and Caesar, have all acted on the same principles.

To keep one's forces together, to bear speedily on any point, to be nowhere vulnerable,--such are the principles that assure victory."-- NAPOLEON.
Despite the menace to Russia contained in the British Note of May 1, 1877, there was at present little risk of a collision between the two Powers for the causes already stated.

The Government of the Czar showed that it desired to keep on friendly terms with the Cabinet of St.James, for, in reply to a statement of Lord Derby that the security of Constantinople, Egypt, and the Suez Canal was a matter of vital concern for Great Britain, the Russian Chancellor, Prince Gortchakoff, on May 30 sent the satisfactory assurance that the two latter would remain outside the sphere of military operations; that the acquisition of the Turkish capital was "excluded from the views of His Majesty the Emperor," and that its future was a question of common interest which could be settled only by a general understanding among the Powers[129].

As long as Russia adhered to these promises there could scarcely be any question of Great Britain intervening on behalf of Turkey.
[Footnote 129: Hertslet, vol.iv.p.