Belgrade and the city question 1866/1867 in confidential correspondence off Foreign Office

Abstract

A strictly confidential correspondence between British diplomatic representatives in Saint Petersburg, Paris, Belgrade and Constantinople and its Royal Majesty’s government relates to the period from September 1866 to March 1867. From that correspondence we can find out how the issue of cities, and especially of Belgrade, was solved as one of the important international issues. Also, the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Lord Edward Henry Stanley’s instructions to the ambassador on the Bosporus are important for understanding the impact of that Great Power on the definitive withdrawal of Turkish garrisons from the Serbian capital and other cities in 1867. The entire correspondence presented to the members of Parliament is available in electronic form – Correspondence Respecting Affairs in Servia, 1867. However, it contains only twelve documents of fifty - six documents in total, which were collected for the confidential needs of the Foreign Office – Affairs in Servia. This means that British parliament’s members did not have an insight into the most important part of the correspondence and instructions exchanged between their Ministry and diplomatic representatives. From the point of view of historical science, more important is the content of these unpublished documents, which are stored in the British National Archives, and labeled as “confidential”.