THE END OF THE ALLIANCE OF THE EMPERORS[1]
I.
After having triumphed over two great powers, Austria and France, in the campaigns of 1866 and 1870, Germany in 1879 expected to see them contract alliances intended to revenge themselves for the defeats which they had suffered at her hands. This apprehension occupied in the strongest manner the mind of Prince Bismarck, who, according to Count Peter Shuvalov, Russian ambassador in London, saw on all sides coalitions plotted against Germany. To preserve the empire from all danger, the chancellor deemed it necessary to conclude at least a defensive alliance with one power. He must make his choice between Austria and Russia. An alliance with the latter would, in his judgment, be more solid and more durable, because of the bonds of friendship which for many years had united the two imperial courts, of the monarchical sentiments which were dominant in both empires, and of the absence in Russia of those heterogeneous elements that work upon public opinion in Hungarian, Slavic, or Catholic circles in the Danubian monarchy. Yet despite all the advantages of an alliance with Russia, Bismarck preferred to turn toward Austria-Hungary, for if Germany should join herself to the empire of the tsars, she would more or less sacrifice her relations with the other powers, and would, in the case of a conflict with Austria and France, incur the danger of finding herself, by reason of her geographical situation, at the mercy of Russia. The latter power, placed at the extreme east of Europe, always had the means of escaping from attack. A treaty of alliance between Germany and Austria-Hungary was signed at Vienna on October 7, 1879; it was an arrangement purely defensive, in the case of aggression on the part of Russia or of any other power against either one of the contracting parties.
But the chancellor himself had no confidence in the stability and continuance of the alliance with Austria. Uneasy as to the fate of the provinces taken away from France, he sought for the most
- ↑ Revolutionary events having laid open the archives of the Russian Foreign Office to the use of scholars, down to dates much later than have hitherto been customary, Mr. Serge Goriainov, formerly archivist of that ministry, and afterward senator, has prepared for the American Historical Review, from materials found in those archives, the following article.
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