It is still steadily reported at intervals that Turkey intends
to make peace with Servia and Montenegro, and nothing can be more gracious than the attitude attributed to Edhem Pasha. He
wants nothing, in fact, except that Servia should have no reward for her splendid sacrifice in the cause of civilisation, and should humiliate herself for ever by hoisting the Turkish flag over Bel- grade. The negotiations, nevertheless, do not perceptibly advance. Somebody is always going on behalf of Servia to Constantinople, and the Prince of Montenegro is always obtaining any promises he likes, but March 1 is all the while drawing on, and no peace is concluded yet. Nothing occurs, in fact, except in telegrams, which are regularly contradicted on the following day, and on the Russian frontier, where the Russian preparations are receiving their final touches, and where movable bridges and other costly necessaries for an invasion have already arrived. According to the only English correspondent who has yet reached Kischenef, the city where the Russian army is cantoned, the invading force is in splendid order, with rather less sickness than in barracks. That is probably an "official account," but it is true that the deficiencies at first discovered have been made up, that the army is ready, and that reserves are behind it equal to its total strength. That, however, of course, matters little, for Midhat affirmed, from his place in the Grand Council, that he had 600,000 men, and in presence of such a force Russian pre- parations must be thrown away.
