The return of the Czar to St.Petersburg after the fall of Plevna had left more power in the hands of the Grand Duke Nicholas and of the many generals who longed to revenge themselves for the disasters in Bulgaria by seizing Constantinople.
In face of the probability of this event, public opinion in England underwent a complete change.

Russia appeared no longer as the champion of oppressed Christians, but as an ambitious and grasping Power.

Mr.
Gladstone's impassioned appeals for non-intervention lost their effect, and a warlike feeling began to prevail.

The change of feeling was perfectly natural.

Even those who claimed that the war might have been averted by the adoption of a different policy by the Beaconsfield Cabinet, had to face the facts of the situation; and these were extremely grave.
The alarm increased when it was known that Turkey, on January 3, 1878, had appealed to the Powers for their mediation, and that Germany had ostentatiously refused.