[2] Scholars agree that the termination of the demilitarisation of the Black Sea was Gorchakov's greatest accomplishment but add that he stayed too long as foreign minister.

Gorchakov perceived that Russian designs against the Ottoman Empire, which was supported by Britain and France, were impracticable, and he counselled Russia to make no more useless sacrifices, but to accept the basis of a pacification.

At the same time, although he attended the Paris conference of 1856, he purposely abstained from affixing his signature to the treaty of peace after that of Count Alexey Fyodorovich Orlov, Russia's chief representative.

For the time, however, he made a virtue of necessity, and Alexander II, recognising the wisdom and courage which Gorchakov had exhibited, appointed him minister of foreign affairs in place of Count Nesselrode.

[3][5][6] Not long after his accession to office, Gorchakov issued a circular to the foreign powers in which he announced that Russia proposed, for internal reasons, to keep herself as free as possible from complications abroad, and he added the now-historic phrase, La Russie ne boude pas; elle se recueille ('Russia is not sulking, she is composing herself').

During the January Uprising in Congress Poland, Gorchakov rebuffed the suggestions of Britain, Austria and France for assuaging the severities employed in quelling it, and he was especially acrid in his replies to Earl Russell's despatches.

The tension thus produced between the two statesmen was increased by the political complications of 1875–1878 in Southeastern Europe, which began with the Herzegovian insurrection and culminated at the Congress of Berlin.

[3] The Peace of San Stefano, drafted by Gorchakov, Aleksandr Nelidov, and Nikolay Pavlovich Ignatyev, redrew Ottoman boundaries to further Russia's economic and strategic plans.

A key goal was control of the port city of Batumi on the eastern shore of the Black Sea, in addition to several strategic points in the Caucasus.

In the latter part of his career, his main object was to raise the prestige of Russia by undoing the results of the Crimean War, and it may fairly be said that he greatly succeeded.