82 TURKEY AT THE STRAITS
Faced with a fait accompli, Izvolski, smarting under what
he believed to be AerenthaPs treachery, sought to inflict
a humiliation on Austria-Hungary by urging the convoca-
tion of a conference of the signatories of the Berlin Treaty
to examine the situation created by the annexation of Bos-
nia and Herzegovina. However, the question of the Straits
was not included in the agenda contemplated by Izvolski
who, seeking to improve Russo-Turkish relations, desired
to discuss the matter first with Turkey. In an interview
in London with Grey on October 12, Izvolski sought un-
successfully a promise that Great Britain would not oppose
an. arrangement, if one could be worked out between Russia
and Turkey, under which warships of Russia and other
Black Sea Powers should have the exclusive right of passage
through the Straits, limited to three ships at a time and
without right of stopping and anchoring.1 Grey not only
felt that raising the question at that moment was inoppor-
tune, but also doubted that such a one-sided arrangement,
without reciprocal rights for other Powers at least in time
of war, would be acceptable to the British public,2 a point
on which Grey insisted in conversations with Count Ben-
ckendorff in March, 1907. So one-sided an arrangement
would mean that in case of war, Turkey being neutral,
British maritime commerce could be harassed by warships
of Black Sea Powers, permitted to pass through the Straits,
aGrey considered Izvolski's proposal as maintaining the principle of
closure of the Straits subject to a limited servitude in favor of Russia
and other Black Sea Powers. British Documents, Vol. V, No. 379,
pp. 442-43. Sir E. Grey to Sir A. Nicolson, Oct. 14, 1908.
2 Ibid., No. 358, p. 424, and No. 364, p. 429. Sir E. Grey to Sir A.
N~icolson, Oct. 12, 1908. Apparently, the British Cabinet was more
opposed to any such solution of the Straits question than Grey. See
ibid., No, 372, pp. 434-35. Sir C. Hardinge to Sir A. Nicolson, Oct. 13,