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the congress the Russian and British representatives eachmade official declarations which showed that the twogovernments differed entirely in their interpretation ofthe involved additional clause in the 1871 convention.The British declaration gave the Russian governmentexcellent ground for thinking that, if the appropriatemoment came or the situation in Constantinople wereout of hand, the British would again send their fleetthrough the Dardanelles, as they had done a few monthsearlier.For the next twenty-five years (especially during theCentral Asian and Bulgarian crises of 1885-87 and theArmenian massacres of 1895-96), when Anglo-Russianhostility was extended from the Near and Middle East tothe Far East (see pp. 301-304 and 435-439), suspicionswere rife on both sides that the other would make somecoup in Constantinople. The Russians in the eightieswere only beginning to recreate their Black Sea fleet and infact were not ready to take the initiative, but they weredetermined, if possible, to forestall a British control orEuropean intervention at Constantinople, by preparingas well as they could for a rapid descent at least upon theBosphorus.The emperor Alexander III (1881-94) was fully awarethat Russia was not yet in a position to act, but he hopedthat sooner or later it would be possible: "the principalthing is not to lose time and the favourable moment.''"In my view," he also wrote (1885), "we ought to haveone principal aim, the occupation of Constantinople, sothat we may once for all maintain ourselves at the Straitsand know that they will remain in our hands. That isin the interests of Russia and it ought to be our aspiration.Everything else that takes place in the Balkanpeninsula is secondary for us. There has been enoughpropaganda to the detriment of the true interests ofRussia. The Slavs must now serve Russia, and not wethem."These secret avowals of Alexander III sum up whatwas, perhaps, the main Russian attitude towards theStraits in the thirty years before the First World War.On the other hand, there were influential, but divided,284