was a member, was succeeded on December 3 by a ministry in which Jean Paul Pierre Casimir-Périer was both premier and minister of foreign affairs. In February, 1894, Baron Mohrenheim went on leave and on March 6 had an audience of the Tsar during which the text of the Franco-Russian alliance was approved. A few days later M. Giers at St. Petersburg and M. Casimir-Périer at Paris formally signed the documents, apparently an exchange of notes, which transformed the entente of 1891 into an alliance and rendered the military convention of 1892 diplomatically executory.

The alliance, known to exist, was officially announced in the session of the Chamber of Deputies on June 10, 1895. Gabriel Albert Auguste Hanotaux, the historian, then referred to it in these words:

Two great powers drawn to each by the attraction of their sentiments and their respective interests have given each other their hands. They have entered into an entente which brings them naturally together in the incessant work of current policy and which, always pacific, guarantees a reciprocal security.'

Premier Ribot followed with a more definite statement:

We have allied the interests of France to the interests of a great nation. We have done it for the safeguarding of peace and the maintenance of European equilibrium. And if there has been no change in aspirations, in the superior guidance and in the supreme purpose of our policy, there has perhaps been something of change in Europe since 1891.2

And at the end of the discussion a vote was taken, 362 against 105, by which "the Chamber, approving the declaration of the Government," passed to the order of the day.3

Seventeen years later, on April 6, 1911, M. Ribot told of the scope and spirit of the alliance in the French Senate. He said:

It is pacific, that is certain; it was made with pacific intentions. It is defensive; who is surprised at that?... When two great nations make an alliance of long duration, they bind their policies not only with a view to maintaining peace, . . . they bind themselves with a view to all the eventualities which cannot be foreseen and which they do not control. Journal officiel, Chambre des deputés, June 10, 1895, 1647, col. 1. Ibid., 1651, col. 3. 3 Ibid., 1653, col. 3; 1654.

AUSTRO-RUSSIAN AGREEMENT ON BALKANS

...

197

They reserve the right to follow events, to concert policy and, the case arising, to draw from it all advantages. . The two powers were in concert on all questions which affected the general peace. That was a necessity of the contract; that was the engagement which had been taken. The necessity for this concerting has perhaps some times been forgotten in the practice of the alliance. . . . The concert does not only presuppose demonstrations of friendship or sympathy, it presupposes conversations, and not only conversation on incidents already born, . . . but conversations in view of hypotheses which may be presented, in order that common action may be arranged in time to avoid hesitations and uncertainties which might overtax the alliance itself.1

...

TREATY RELATIONS BETWEEN ALLIED GROUPS

The next developments were between members of the allied groups. Balkan and Mediterranean problems were the subjects of the arrangements. On the one hand Austria-Hungary and Russia established spheres of influence in the Near East and on the other France and Italy reached an understanding on the political problems of the Middle Sea. The Near Eastern arrangement produced nothing permanent and encouraged no friendship nor genuine co-operation for peace, but the Franco-Italian agreement created an entente which resulted in an increasing friendliness, a real modus vivendi between two adjacent states whose alliance engagements elsewhere tended to make them hostile. International politics can improve only when the possibility of friendship is emphasized in policy equally with the possibility of hostility. The next ten years, between the signing of the Franco-Russian alliance and the conclusion of the Anglo-French entente, afford examples of each possibility.

AUSTRO-RUSSIAN EFFORT TO KEEP BALKAN PEACE

An understanding was arranged between Austria-Hungary and Russia during the visit of Emperor-King Francis Joseph to St. Petersburg, April 25-29, 1897. According to the Frankfurter Zeitung of May 16, 1898, the treaty was obligatory until May 1, 1902, unless prolonged by tacit agreement, and had as its purpose the main1 Annales du Sénat. Débats parlementaires, LXXVIII, 461.

tenance of peace and of the status quo in the Balkans. It divided this peninsula into two parts, each of which in turn was subdivided into a sphere of immediate interests and a sphere of secondary interests for each contractant. Serbia constituted the sphere of immediate Austro-Hungarian interests; Bulgaria that of immediate Russian interests. Macedonia up to Saloniki and Albania-with the exception of certain districts southeast of the Montenegrin frontier-became the zone of secondary Austro-Hungarian interests, while for Russia this zone comprised the eastern part of the Balkan peninsula. The two signatory states engaged, each in the radius of influence thus assigned to it, to look after the maintenance of peace. If Serbia or Bulgaria provoked complications, the power whose interests were affected would have a separate right of armed intervention. The text was to be communicated to Germany entire; to Italy with the exception of the passage concerning Albania.1

This agreement was supplemented later, as appears from a letter of the Tsar to the Kaiser of November 23, 1904:

Hearing that the Emperor of Austria has written to you about an arrangement signed between Russia and Austria, I think it my duty to inform you also from my side. Wishing to strengthen our efforts in keeping peace and tranquillity in the Balkan affairs according to the agreement of 1897, the Emperor and I resolved to sign a secret declaration for the observation of a loyal and strict neutrality in case one of the Empires should be in a state of war, alone and without provocation on its part, with a third country, the latter wishing to endanger the existing status quo. Naturally this declaration does not concern any small Balkan country, and it will last as long as Russia and Austria continue their policy of peace in Southeastern Europe.2

The understanding affected Balkan affairs much longer than the five years during which it was known contemporaneously to exist. For instance, there is an indication in the documents published by the Bolshevik régime at Petrograd that it was in force 12 years later, and that it had consequently been prolonged by failure to denounce. A

W. Beaumont, "La politique extérieure de l'Autriche-Hongrie," Questions coloniales et diplomatiques, V, 283-287; Elie de Cyon, Les deux politiques russes (Paris, La Nouvelle revue, 1898), 13. The existence of a "treaty" was denied in explicit terms by Vienna, and a constructive denial built up by Russia. Later evidence, however, is conclusive that there was an accord, not unreasonably in the terms revealed by the Frankfurter Zeitung.

The Willy-Nicky Correspondence, 84-85.

RUSSIA'S PROGRAM FOR THE BALKANS

199

project of agreement between Russia and Germany proposing that Germany should associate herself with the Austro-Russian agreement of 1897 and guarantee that Austria-Hungary should refrain from all aggressive action in the Balkans was submitted to the Tsar in a memorandum by M. Charikov on May 4, 1909, according to a document printed in the Bulletin of the Soviets on November 25, 1917.1

Another evidence of the persistent existence of the agreement of 1897 was given in 1910, when Austria-Hungary and Russia passed through one of the frequent minor crises which characterized European politics. The exchange of views was semi-hostile, both sides asserting a point of view which the other did not accept. Throughout, Russia endeavored to consider the Balkan problem as an international question, and Austria-Hungary tried to keep the discussion between the two powers. Count Aerenthal, Austro-Hungarian minister of foreign affairs, on February 5, 1910, suggested that the necessary contact for re-establishing an exchange of views would appear to be most easy "since the cabinet of Vienna maintains always the principles laid down in the agreement of 1897 which permit it at all times to enter into conversation with the St. Petersburg cabinet." M. Izvolski, the Russian foreign minister, considered that the exchange "could not have the character of the agreement of 1897 and must on the other hand be given a form which would permit associating all the interested powers in it." Russia proposed a start from the following points, "which must be brought to the knowledge of the other powers: 1. Maintenance of the status quo in the Balkan peninsula; 2. The new Turkish régime being based on equality of rights for all populations, maintenance and consolidation of the order of things; 3. Independence, consolidation and pacific development of the small Balkan states."

Austria-Hungary replied on February 20 in an aide-mémoire. She "had not thought to revive by the present pour parlers the agreement of 1897." In Vienna's opinion, "nothing at present threatens to rupture the status quo in the Balkans;" while not opposing a communication to the powers in a form permitting their participation,

London Times, November 28, 1917, page 5. The documents published by the Bolsheviki in November and December, 1917, were distributed between the Ivetya of the Soviets and the Pravda, the Bolshevik organ.

"it at present is sufficient to publish" the communiqué of the two Governments, "giving mutual recognition to the principles of their policy," which "permit them to enter into relations at any time." Russia on February 24 expressed the opinion that a "simple communiqué in the form proposed by the cabinet of Vienna would not be sufficient." Russia renewed the proposal to inform the other states of the points on which the two cabinets were in agreement, "so that, if events menaced the status quo, an exchange of views could be promptly established among all the interested powers." AustriaHungary objected on March 14 that an official communication of the results of the exchange to the powers "would give a basis for supposing that a formal agreement exists between Russia and Austria-Hungary, which does not enter into the views of the Vienna cabinet." On March 20 M. Izvolski telegraphed that he intended to inform the powers of results obtained in the pour parlers and to communicate the correspondence. This was done on that day and the following communiqué issued:

The recent negotiations between the cabinets of St. Petersburg and Vienna have attained a satisfactory result. This exchange of views having shown that in the field of Balkan affairs there was between Russia and Austria-Hungary an entire conformity of political principles, the normal diplomatic relations between the two Governments have been re-established.

The three points thus being placed on an international basis, Austria-Hungary made the best of its attempt to avoid that obligation in a communiqué of March 21 in which it insisted that "the intention of concluding a formal agreement" had not "for a moment" arisen; that "there was no need to make to the powers a communication on the pour parlers"; and that, "the known principles of Austro-Hungarian policy in the Balkans" remaining the same, there was "therefore no new fact to furnish a motive for" the present communication.1

Archives diplomatiques, CXIII, 425-429. See also two articles by Jacques Docobantz, "Les conversations austro-russes' and "Les communiqués austro-russes," Questions coloniales et diplomatiques, XXIX, 329-337, 403-8.