Appendix A — The Negotiations Between the Berlin Note and the Conference of Constantinople
The effects of the Bulgarian troubles on British policy were clearly visible. England, that had hitherto been favourable and friendly to Turkey; that had counselled against the Consular Commission of August 1875; had adhered to the Andrassy note of December (1875) only at the express request of the Ottoman Government (on the 13th June 1876); had pressed reforms upon Turkey as a means of forestalling the designs of the enemies of the Ottoman Empire,32 and had firmly refused to adhere to the Berlin Memorandum, now took up a slightly altered position. This nuance was clearly perceived in a despatch from Lord Derby to Sir H. Elliot of the 25th May 1876, in which he said: “In the course of conversation with Musurus Pasha, I took the opportunity of suggesting to His Excellency that it would be undesirable that the Turkish Government should misunderstand the attitude of Her Majesty’s Government in regard to the proposals of the Berlin Conference. Her Majesty’s Government had declined to join in proposals which they thought ill‐advised, but both the circumstances and the state of feeling in this country were very much changed since the Crimean War, and the Porte would be unwise to be led, by recollections of that period, to count upon more than the moral support of Her Majesty’s Government in the event of no satisfactory solution of the present difficulties being found.”33 It will be seen later on that even this attitude of benevolent diplomatic neutrality was not entirely preserved by the British Government at the Conference of Constantinople or the negotiations that led up to it.
“The three Northern and allied Powers” were evidently disconcerted by the turn matters were taking at Constantinople. It seemed impossible to present a comminatory note to a new Sultan and a new Government established by a revolution, the very purpose and aim of which was to introduce practical reforms in the country, without a certain delay demanded by equity and even decency. They determined to make it as short as possible.
In spite, however, of strenuous efforts to conceal the fact, differences had arisen among “the allied Courts,” or rather between the two principal parties interested. Russia was in favour of an occupation of the three disturbed provinces, with a view to the eventual establishment of autonomies on the model of Servia and Roumania. Austria was dead opposed to both propositions. There is no doubt that she had been working up to an occupation by her own troops of Bosnia and Herzegovina as the mandate of Europe—up to the time of the Bulgarian insurrection; but now that such an occupation would be accompanied by a Russian occupation of Bulgaria, she entirely changed her mind. If a joint occupation took place, the last state of those provinces would be worse than the first. At present she had the strategical advantage of position over Russia, but Russia in Bulgaria would have it over her. She was firmly opposed to joint occupation. Neither would autonomy suit her. The establishment of autonomous provinces, placed under the guarantee of the Great Powers, would make the absorption by herself of these coveted possessions impossible. Count Andrassy put his foot down against both these proposals.
A very active interchange of ideas consequently took place during the whole of the month of June between the two Empires, and it was here that the full value of a third partner, the disinterested broker, was revealed. Russia evidently meant business, for Servia, which was, as Consul‐General White explained, absolutely in her hands, now (1st July 1876) formally declared war against Turkey, and invaded the Ottoman territory. Montenegro followed her example. In the latter case it was rather a superfluous or ex post facto formality.
A knot had occurred worthy of the interposition of the gods, and on the 8th July a meeting was arranged at Reichstadt between the Emperor Francis Joseph and the Czar. Of course it is only in Homeric times that accounts of the interviews of Olympic gods were vouchsafed to men, and simple mortals have to content themselves nowadays with being told the results of these interviews. The result of this particular interview was “very satisfactory.” According to Sir A. Buchanan, “the Emperor and Count Andrassy returned last night (10th July 1876) greatly satisfied with the interview of Reichstadt.” “The Emperors parted on the best terms; they agreed to maintain the present principle of non‐intervention, reserving for the future the expediency of coming to an understanding with the Great Powers, according to circumstances which may arise.”34 So, according to this authority, the Emperor of Austria returned to Vienna “greatly satisfied” with doing nothing. It was scarcely worth while going all the way to Reichstadt for that. It was, however, generally supposed in well‐informed chancelleries in Europe at the time, and subsequent events greatly corroborated the surmise, that the Emperor had something else to be greatly satisfied about than what was vouchsafed to Sir A. Buchanan.
It was said that two specific points had been formally agreed upon between the rulers of these two military Empires, in presence of the threatening aspect that affairs were assuming. (1) That, should affairs in the East eventuate in war between Turkey and Russia, Russia would, under no circumstances, seek any territorial acquisition in Europe. (2) That Bosnia and Herzegovina should be considered within the exclusive sphere of Austria’s influence, and that Russia would not actively oppose any arrangement with respect to them that Europe might propose. All the rest would be left to their respective chancellors, each would retain his liberty of action and pursue the policy he deemed the best, certain that nothing that could happen in the way of differences of opinion between them could bring about a rupture between the two Empires. The middle term of an agreement had evidently been found. “British interests” would pay the bill, and the desertion of Bucharest would be avenged.
By a curious coincidence, on the same day (8th July) that this historical interview took place, there appeared in the Daily News the famous “atrocity article” that set all England ablaze and started the greatest orator of the day on his crusade against the “unspeakable Turk.”
The indirect effect on English policy of this crusade and the atrocity meetings all over England that followed it, was seen in the nuance already noticed, between the terms of the despatch of the 25th May and that of the 25th September, which was the prelude to the Conference where it was still further accentuated.
July was destined to bring an aggravation of trouble on the Turkish Empire and anxiety on Turkish Ministers. Austria chose this moment (1st July) to shut to Turkey the port of Klek, through which the Turkish army in Herzegovina received its chief supplies. It is not necessary to enter here into the question of international right involved in this matter. This turned on the interpretation of ancient treaties with the Venetian Republic, and on the boundaries of the “enclaves” in Dalmatia, and these questions had, by mutual consent, been left dormant for long years between the Austrian and Ottoman Governments. Suffice it to say that a modus vivendi had been arrived at between the two Governments in 1853 (“in the hope that an amicable arrangement will intervene relative to the question of the enclaves of Klek and Suttorina”), and had subsisted ever since. For Austria, after leaving the question of right in abeyance for twenty‐three years, to choose that particular moment when the maximum of inconvenience would be thereby caused to the Ottoman Government, was a high‐handed proceeding of the most unfriendly nature, and could only be justified on the principle of la force prime le droit. At any rate, it finally exploded the pretext of “her deep and earnest anxiety” for the pacification of these provinces which she was continually putting forward as the motives of her diplomatic actions, as well as all pretence of friendly dispositions towards the Porte. The energy displayed by the new Government at Constantinople in sending reinforcements to the scene of action, and the success attending these efforts, were perhaps the real motive of this unqualified act, for in consequence of that energy, things were not going well with the insurrection, and new factors would have to be imported to keep it going.
Accordingly, at the same time the port of supply for the Turkish troops was closed, Montenegro and Servia declared war on the Porte (1st July 1876). (As far as the first‐named principality was concerned this formality was rather superfluous ex post facto formality.) Ever since the “intimate relations which had existed for two years back” between the Courts of Vienna and Cettinje, Montenegro had never ceased to carry on war against the Ottoman troops. Indeed her mountaineers, together with the Grenzers and Dalmatians, had been the mainstay of the “rebellion.” Only as, nominally, peaceful relations had never been interrupted, the Turkish Commanders were debarred from following the rebels on Montenegrin soil, and Russia had drawn a taboo round Montenegro, and forbidden, under penalty of war, the invasion of that land, and Mr Jomine, the Russian diplomatic agent at Cettinje, was, with his Austrian colleague, the confidential adviser of the prince.
As far back as January 1876, Sir H. Elliot had informed Lord Derby of “the system employed by the Montenegrins in aid of the Herzegovinian insurgents. All the men (in Montenegro), capable of bearing arms, are considered to be soldiers, and are made into battalions of 600 men. The commanders and majors of these battalions, who are called commanders and pod‐commanders, receive pay; the remaining officers and men are unpaid. When an expedition is contemplated, each man takes with him potatoes and bread, if he has any, for five days, and a reserve of provisions from each village is carried by women or baggage horses. The Austrian Committees, having provided surgeons and medicines, hospitals and ambulances have been organised in some villages on the frontier. The prince furnishes all those who join the insurgents without authorisation, but he sends one‐fifth of his effective forces into the Herzegovina. Not to overtire these poor people, His Highness takes care to change them at the end of each expedition, or when their provisions are exhausted. Reforms alone, it is stated, will never put an end to the insurrection, and force is of no avail so long as the insurgents and their Montenegrin friends have only to cross the frontier to be in safety.”35
As for Servia, Consul‐General White had for months past warned his Government of what was preparing, and of the wholesale influx of Russians into the Servian army, nor had Prince Milan made any disguise of the fact of the likelihood of his being drawn into the mêlée, but a certain almost comic jealousy existed between the rulers of these two little principalities, lest the one should steal a march on the other, and acquire a better right to the title of the “liberator of the Slav race.”
They consequently agreed to declare war on Turkey together. As Servia, confident in her new levies, was now determined to act, Montenegro could not afford to be behindhand, however much it might have suited her to continue the particular mode of safe warfare that she had, for twelve months, been indulging in.
In spite of the new levies, military matters did not progress to Prince Milan’s satisfaction. The fact was that a new spirit had been infused into Ottoman Councils by the new ministers, and large reinforcements of regular troops under competent generals had been hurried to the Servian frontiers and despatched into Bosnia. The consequence was that victory did not attend the Servian arms, and, after the loss of an important position near Deligrad on the 24th August 1876, barely two months after the pompous declaration of war, Prince Milan “with the approval of his ally, the Prince of Montenegro,” requested the good offices of the Powers for a suspension of hostilities. All Europe eagerly seconded this request, and although a formal armistice was never concluded, a de facto suspension of hostilities took place. It is unnecessary to detail the negotiations that followed.
The Porte very naturally desired that an agreement on the basis of peace should precede or accompany an armistice, otherwise it would lose all the advantages of its present military position. Servia wanted an armistice without any basis of peace. When at last, in consequence of the insistence of Europe, the Porte agreed to this, a dispute arose about the duration of the armistice. The Porte proposed six months to give ample time to negotiate a permanent settlement, and England adhered to this view of the matter. Servia would have none of it; one month or nothing. She was moving on safe ground, for she knew well that Europe had taken the negotiations out of her hand and would never allow a renewed attack upon her. Russia strongly insisted on the shorter term, and when, in order to solve the difficulty, England appealed to the honest broker at Berlin, he proposed as a compromise an armistice of six weeks.
These pourparlers occupied about a month, and when they seemed to be on the point of being settled, as usual by the Porte yielding in the matter, it was found that Prince Milan had changed his mind, and would have no armistice at all.
What had occurred in the interval to account for this change of front?
On the 24th September, Consul‐General White writes to Sir Henry Elliot36 “that the last six weeks have produced an important change in the affairs of Servia. The Civil Government has ceased to have a voice in public affairs; the presence of Russian officers, some of them officers of the Imperial Guard, the courage and enthusiasm with which they are animated, the growing influence of the Slavonic Committees through their agents, have all given a warlike tone to what is called public opinion here.... The Russians present here say openly that it is their aim and object to prevent the conclusions of peace.” And again, on 4th October 1876, he writes to Lord Derby:37 “It may be interesting for your Lordship to hear that money appears abundant in the Servian Exchequer, and although the Ministers deny that it is derived from Russian sources, it is quite impossible to account in any other way for its origin.”
But something more particular must have occurred to encourage Prince Milan to order on the 26th September, the very next day on which the suspension of hostilities terminated, a general attack on the Turks in the Morava Valley. What was it? On the 28th September 1876, Mr Malet (afterwards Sir Edward Malet), writing from Rome to Lord Derby,38 states that Sig. Melegari, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, in order to convince him “of the imminence of the danger to the Ottoman Empire” read the following paper to him, as coming from Livadia, adding that England alone was able to avert the execution of the design by “compelling” the Porte to acquiesce in His Lordship’s demands. The paper was dated 26th September, and ran as follows: “The Emperor has sent General Soumarakoff to Vienna with instructions to propose a peace, should Turkey attempt to evade the armistice, upon conditions that would suit all the Powers, viz. Austrian military intervention in Bosnia, Russian military intervention in Bulgaria, and the joint entry of all the squadrons of the Levant into the Bosphorus. These steps appear to us indispensable in order to bring the Porte to its senses, to prevent war, and save the Christians from a general massacre.”39
This grandis epistola a Capreis which frightened Mr Malet so much that he immediately telegraphed its substance to Lord Derby, and which was, no doubt, intended to frighten Lord Derby, had no chance at all of being accepted at Vienna, and if the constant and continuous intercourse between the three Northern “and allied Powers” was to any purpose at all, it is quite impossible that the nature of the reception it should meet with there, should have been ignored. It could therefore only have been intended as a “spur” to the Foreign Office, and it succeeded admirably in its intention.
It is scarcely worth while to waste many words over the proposal from Livadia. Austria feared nothing so much as a joint occupation with Russia. It would have been a guarantee exacted from her for her own eventual simultaneous retirement, which would have upset all her plans. Nor was England yet brought up to concert pitch. But the notice had served its purpose. England, a little timorously, and with the best intentions towards Turkey, and with the general approval and even applause of Europe,40 had undertaken the lead in proposing terms to Turkey as a basis of pacification. As early as the 11th September Count Schouvaloff in an interview described “(1) The status quo, speaking roughly, both as regards Servia and Montenegro. (2) Administrative reforms in the nature of local autonomy for Bosnia and the Herzegovina. (3) Guarantees of some similar kinds (the exact details of which might be reserved for later discussion) against the future maladministration of Bulgaria.”41
Ten days later, on the 21st September, Lord Derby, having in the meantime secured the agreement of the Austrian Government42 to these proposals, these terms were forwarded to Sir H. Elliot for communication to the Porte. The second condition relating to Bosnia and Herzegovina was amplified by the important stipulation “that the Porte should undertake, in a Protocol to be signed at Constantinople with the Representatives of the mediatory Powers, to grant, etc.”43
Sir H. Elliot, in obedience to positive instructions, went to the utmost limit of friendly pressure44 to induce the Porte to accept these conditions. The Porte, on its side, showed the greatest possible desire to meet the wishes of the English Ambassador.45 The term “local autonomy,” and still more the form of a Protocol demanded, were the two most serious obstacles to an understanding. So great was Sir H. Elliot’s influence on the Turkish Minister, and so great was their confidence in England’s loyalty, that an understanding was almost arrived at when the news of General Soumarakoff’s Mission reached the Porte. On the 4th October, the new Turkish Government telegraphed to the Ottoman Ambassador in London an indignant protest against the proposals of which that envoy was the bearer, and concluded by saying: “If the Sublime Porte has, though challenged (by Servia), not made use of her victory, she will never forget that she is still an independent State, and that she owes it to herself to choose an honourable death rather than the dismemberment and partition of her States.”46
This incident did not facilitate Sir H. Elliot’s task. On the day following the 5th October, Lord Derby instructs Sir H. Elliot to inform the Porte that it is intended that the armistice should be followed by a Conference, and that if an armistice for not less than a month is not granted, the Ambassador was to quit Constantinople and leave Turkey to its fate.47
On the 8th October, the Porte asks the very pertinent question whether, in the event of the conditions being accepted, a Conference would still be proposed.48 No answer seems ever to have been given to this important question.
The Turkish Ministers now submitted the question of the armistice to a Grand Council, which acceded to it for five months.49 On the 13th October, in a long telegram to Musurus Pasha, the Porte makes a last despairing attempt to stay the decision for a Conference, which it says “will at least give rise to the danger of certain impulses on which head we have the right to be anxious, and which in reality would be of no use. The five months’ armistice would leave ample time for the Powers to exchange explanations and observations without any Conference. During this time, the work of internal reform would go on, and Europe would have the opportunity of being edified as to the serious and practical character of the promises of the Imperial Government,” and concluded by saying, referring evidently to the negotiations with Sir H. Elliot, “I hope His Lordship will agree with us in preventing the question, which was just beginning to look brighter, thanks to so many sacrifices and efforts, from being turned into a path of new difficulties and perils.”50
If it had not been for the Soumarakoff Mission, and the scare it created in the Foreign Office, it would have been an inexplicable mystery why Lord Derby, abandoning negotiations carried on by Sir H. Elliot, which “were just beginning to look brighter,” should have hurriedly fathered this proposal of a Conference. If the Soumarakoff Mission was only intended to secure this point, it was most eminently successful. Anyway, from this time forth, Lord Derby stuck grimly to a Conference. Without a Conference there was no salvation. The question, however, of the duration of the armistice was not yet settled, and as England, having accepted six months, could not recant, General Ignatieff arrived from Livadia to settle it.
But here an incident occurred of a too charmingly amusing character to be passed over in silence. La note comique is never entirely absent from these negotiations. Lord Adolphus Loftus, Her Britannic Majesty’s Ambassador at St Petersburg, received leave in the middle of October to go to the Crimea, whither the Russian Court had removed, and where Prince Gortchakoff, the Chancellor, was slaying, in order to be nearer the official source of diplomatic information. On Friday, the 27th, accordingly, he arrived at Yalta, accompanied by Mr Egerton of his Embassy. On Sunday, the 29th, he had an interview at Orianda with Prince Gortchakoff, “who received him very cordially, and after some friendly remarks, the conversation turned to Constantinople.” After stating that the state of affairs there was grave, the Chancellor expressed “a hope that the question of the armistice was arranged, the Porte having, on the advice of Sir H. Elliot, yielded to the considerations in favour of the shorter term.” His Highness further stated “that General Ignatieff had been instructed to be yielding and conciliatory on the subject of the armistice.”
Two days after this, i.e. on Tuesday, the 31st October, Lord A. Loftus “met” Prince Gortchakoff, who, in answer to the question whether there was any news from Constantinople, replied that there was, but “that he preferred that the Emperor should communicate it.” Lord A. Loftus’s audience with the Czar had been arranged for the next day, 1st November, but was subsequently postponed till the 2nd. Between the accidental meeting with the Chancellor and this audience, Lord A. Loftus received the Journal de St Petersbourg of the 31st October, in which he read that General Ignatieff had presented that day an ultimatum to the Porte to conclude an armistice with Servia, and had required an answer within forty‐eight hours. So that the English Ambassador, having traversed the whole length of Europe in a four days’ journey with a secretary of his Embassy attached to him, in order to be near the fountain of official information, would have received the news two days sooner if he had stayed at home!
We will let Lord A. Loftus describe his audience on the 2nd at Livadia, himself: “I had an audience with the Emperor of Russia to‐day at Livadia, when His Majesty was pleased to receive me with his customary kindness and cordiality (sic). After some gracious enquiries after my family, His Majesty at once opened on the Eastern question. His Majesty stated that he had that morning received a telegram from Constantinople announcing the probable acceptance of the armistice, and he read to me another telegram reporting that orders had been already sent by the Porte to their commanders to suspend military operations. This, His Majesty observed, was very satisfactory. On my observing on the sudden change which had taken place between the Sunday when I had seen the Chancellor and the following day when the ultimatum was despatched, His Majesty said that this had been caused by the intelligence he had received of the complete discomfiture of the Servian army, and his fear that it might be followed by similar atrocities to those which had occurred in Bulgaria....”51
It would indeed be a pity to spoil the uniqueness of this tableau by any superfluous commentary, but a despatch from Sir H. Elliot at Constantinople, dated on the same day as this audience (2nd November), throws some further light on this already luminous incident. “In the course of conversation this morning with General Ignatieff, I remarked that I understood that he had returned from Livadia with instructions to present his ultimatum. He answered that he had brought it with him with a discretionary authority to withhold it if he thought desirable. This is a rather different version from that which he had previously given to my colleagues and myself, when he told us on Tuesday (31st October) that he had received the ultimatum two days before, and that he had taken on himself the responsibility of withholding it, but had now imperative orders to execute his instructions. It is impossible to doubt that he had kept his Government fully informed of the progress of his negotiations with the Porte, or that they were perfectly well aware that his own proposals had been accepted with very trifling modifications, upon which an understanding could very easily be arrived at. It is evident enough that the sudden sending in of the ultimatum was decided upon in the hope that by an immediate cessation of hostilities, and the acceptance of an armistice, the fall of Alexinatz would be averted. The capture of the Servian positions at Junis made it certain that “the occupation of Alexinatz and Deligrad would soon follow, and the only hope of saving the Servians and the Russian Auxiliary troops from this mortification lay in the chance of stopping the Turks before they had time to reap the fruits of their success.”52
But, independently of the object lesson in veracity that this narrative inculcates, it gives the measure of the value attached by the Emperor of Russia to the European concert, and the degree to which it was likely to hamper his own liberty of action whenever he thought proper to liberate himself from it. The procédé with regard to the British Ambassador only concerns the British Government.
The Porte had yielded to the ultimatum.
In the meantime negotiations for assembling a Conference continued. The Czar had expressed to the English Ambassador “a very earnest wish that the Conference should meet with the least possible delay, and that instructions should even be immediately sent by the several Governments to enable the Ambassadors at Constantinople to deliberate at once on the necessary preliminaries of peace.”53 Prince Gortchakoff, too, expressed his anxious wish that on the arrangement of the armistice no time should be lost in organising a Conference.54
But Austria was coy. The term “local autonomy” accompanied by no matter what gloss, seriously perturbed her; and yet this was the very point on which Russia insisted the most. In reporting his conversation with Prince Gortchakoff at Orianda, Lord A. Loftus said: “It is evident to me that Prince Gortchakoff does not wish to make the question of the armistice the ground for a rupture with the Porte, and that he looks to the question of the ‘autonomy of the three Provinces’ as being the important deciding point of peace or war.”55
Until Count Andrassy received guarantees that no kind of political autonomy was meant, he would have nothing to do with a Conference, and it was only when, after a good deal of fencing, this guarantee was at last accorded him, that he gave his consent to the proposal.
Although there had been a serious proposal to exclude Turkey from the Conference to be held in her own capital to decide on the administration of her provinces, the cynical incongruity of the proposition had procured its rejection, and now the Porte was asked to adhere to it. Without any illusion, since Russia’s ultimatum, as to whither the Conference would lead, the Porte, on the 18th November, with the sanction of a Grand Council, gave her assent to a proposal, the rejection of which would have meant immediate war.
In the course of the six months that intervened between the 13th of May (date of the Berlin Note) and the meeting of the Conference in December, an apparent contradiction seems to manifest itself between the “intimate alliance” of the three Northern Powers (which for the purpose of these negotiations means between Austria and Russia), and the frictions and disagreements between their respective Governments. On no less than five points did this disagreement manifest itself: (1) as to whether Turkey should be coerced into an armistice, pure and simple, with Servia, or whether a basis of peace should, at the same time as the armistice, be proposed;56 (2) as to inculcating prudence of conduct on Servia;57 (3) as to the joint occupation with Russia of the Turkish provinces;58 (4) as to the “autonomy” of the revolted provinces;59 (5) on the question of the Conference.60
On the other hand, we have seen Count Beust calling at the Foreign Office to assure Lord Derby that never was the alliance of the three Northern Powers so “intimate”; we have the meeting of Reichstadt, and General Soumarakoff delivering an autograph letter from the Czar to the Emperor of Austria, and we have a very mysterious communication from Lord A. Loftus on the 15th August 1876, in which he says: “In speaking of Austria, Prince Gortchakoff again repeated to me that he had fully discussed the question of a pacification with Count Andrassy, and that they were entirely agreed on all points and for all eventualities. ‘I can state no more,’ said the Chancellor, ‘but that much I can tell you, as I have done to your Colleagues; and I can add that our Ambassadors at the other Courts know no more than you do.’ This language,” continues Lord A. Loftus, “though, perhaps, satisfactory... is mysterious, and we can only unravel the mystery by conjectures.”61
Perhaps the mystery, as Lord A. Loftus calls it, is not so mysterious after all. A reference to what took place in another diplomatic discussion in 1859 will help to unravel it without the aid of much conjecture. In that year Mr Disraeli startled the House of Commons by informing it, on the faith of information on which he relied, that there was a secret treaty between Italy and France for the cession to the latter Power of the provinces of Savoy and Nice. Lord Palmerston denied the existence of any such treaty, and twitted Mr Disraeli with having discovered a mare’s nest. When Mr Disraeli’s information was proved to be substantially correct, Lord Palmerston explained that there had been no treaty but a mere pacte de famille agreed upon on the occasion of the marriage of the Princess Clotilde to Prince Jerome Napoleon. The mystery that puzzled Lord A. Loftus is easily unravelled. There was undoubtedly a distinct and specific understanding between the two Emperors; but none between their Governments; so that Lord Derby could, on the 20th October, write to Sir A. Buchanan that “The Austro‐Hungarian Ambassador called upon me to‐day, and informed me, by order of his Government, that the reports which have been recently, and are still, current as to the existence of a secret understanding between the Austrian and Russian Governments are absolutely unfounded.”62 In countries and ages where the letter of a declaration is considered more important than its spirit, such hair‐splitting distinctions may pass current. At any rate, they serve their purpose.