RUSSIAN MOVEMENT UPON THE AUSTRIAN FRONTIER.
MOBILISATION OF GERMAN ARMY CORPS—WILD EXCITEMENT IN BERLIN.
(By Telegraph from our Special Correspondent, Mr. Charles Lowe.)
Berlin, April 21 (8.50 P.M.).
Never since the fateful days of July 1870 has so much excitement been caused here as by the news—which now seems to be beyond all doubt—that Russia, having received an evasive, or, as other telegrams put it, a flatly negative reply to her peremptory demand for the immediate evacuation of Belgrade by the Austrians, has already begun to move down immense masses of troops towards her south-western frontier; and it is even rumoured that a division of cavalry has suddenly made its appearance near the border, on the Warsaw-Cracow road, at a place called Xiaswielki. This is a grave situation, indeed, as alarming as it is sudden. The Unter den Linden, which is a perfect Babel with the bawling voices of the newsvendors, is rapidly filling with crowds rushing hither, as to the main channel of intelligence, from all parts of the city, and the Foreign Office in the Wilhelm-Strasse is besieged by a huge throng clamouring to hear the truth.
For on this depends the issue of peace or war for Germany. Let but Russia lay one single finger of aggression on Austria, and Germany must at once unsheath her sword and spring to her ally’s aid. Pray let there be no mistake as to the terms of the Austro-German Treaty of 1879, which was published a year or two ago, for it has often been misinterpreted. Under this instrument a casus fœderis does not arise for Germany in all and any circumstances of a war between Russia and Austria, but only in the event of the former being the aggressor; and it looks very much as though Russia were now seriously bent on taking the offensive. Does she really mean to do this? is the question on every one’s lips here, and the excitement of people is equal to their suspense. It is known that an active correspondence by wire is proceeding between here and Vienna, but the authorities are very reticent, and only beg the crowds to keep calm and hope for the best.
9 P.M.
I have just returned from the Schloss, whither the multitude, which was unable to gratify its curiosity at the Foreign Office, had surged along to pursue its eager inquiries, but only to find that the Emperor was closeted with his Chancellor, General Count von Caprivi, and his Chief of the Staff, Count von Schlieffen. It was remarked that when both these magnates emerged from their interview with His Majesty, and drove off at a rapid rate, they looked very serious and pre-occupied, paying but little heed to the cheering which greeted their appearance. This only tended to deepen the apprehension of the vast crowd in front of the Schloss, whose fears were further augmented by a rumour (a true one, as I found on tracing it to its source), which spread like lightning, that the Emperor had telegraphed for the King of Saxony, Prince Albrecht of Prussia, Prince-Regent of Brunswick—both Field-Marshals—as also for Count Waldersee, Commander of the Ninth Army Corps in Schleswig-Holstein, whom the Emperor, it may be remembered, when parting with this distinguished officer, as Chief of the General Staff, publicly designated as the Commander of a whole army in the event of war.
10 P.M.
After despatching my last message, which I had the utmost difficulty in doing owing to the frantic mass of newspaper correspondents of all nationalities struggling desperately into and out of the Telegraph Office, I had the good fortune to meet Baron von Marschall, the amiable and accomplished Foreign Secretary, who favoured me with a brief conversation on the momentous subject of the hour. Yes, he said, it was unfortunately quite true that the Russians were rapidly concentrating their forces towards the Austro-German frontier, and that a sotnia of prying Cossacks, coming from Tarnogrod, had even pushed forward on the Austrian side of the border towards Jaroslav, an important railway junction point in Galicia. He had just received intelligence to this effect from Prince Reuss, the German Ambassador in Vienna, who added that things indeed looked their very worst. ‘But this,’ I remarked, ‘is an act of invasion on the part of Russia, is it not, and means war?’ The Baron shook his head ominously, and, with a kindly ‘come and see me again to-morrow morning,’ squeezed my hand and hurried off to see Count Syéchényi at the Austrian Embassy, which stands over against the former home of M. Benedetti, with all its associations connected with the beginning of Germany’s last great war.
On my way back to the Telegraph Office, where I write this, I encountered, just at the entrance to the Russian Embassy, Unter den Linden, its genial and honest occupant, Count Schouvaloff, who was good enough to return my greeting by motioning me to stop, and telling me that he had just been to see Count Caprivi, and assure him, on the part of his Imperial master, that all these warlike preparations in Western Poland implied no menace whatever to Germany, with whom Russia had not the least cause of quarrel, but that, nevertheless, so long as Austria threatened to derange the balance of power in the Balkan Peninsula for her own selfish ends, Russia would be incriminating herself in the eyes of history if she stood by with folded hands and sought not to safeguard her most vital interests by all the means at her disposal. And as Pitt had created a new world to redress the balance of the old, so Russia was now compelled to re-establish equilibrium in one part of the Eastern Continent of Europe by giving the would-be disturber of this equilibrium work enough to engross all his attention in another. ‘These were not, of course, the very words,’ added the Count, ‘which I used to the Chancellor, but they express the exact sense of my communication.’
Midnight.
Berlin, which has poured all its teeming million-and-a-half into the streets, is at this hour a scene of the wildest excitement, owing to a rumour (and a friend of mine in the General Staff, whom I chanced to meet, confirmed the truth of the rumour), that the awful and electrifying words ‘Krieg, mobil!’ had (as in 1870) been already flashed again to no fewer than seven of the twenty Army Corps constituting the Imperial host—viz., to the 1st, or East Prussian; the 17th, West Prussian; the 3d, Brandenburg; the 4th, Province of Prussian Saxony; the 5th, Posen; the 6th, Silesian; and the 12th, Kingdom of Saxony.
Loud and long was the cheering in front of the Schloss—which is thronged by an ever-increasing and excited multitude—when this intelligence oozed out, and with one accord (for your Germans are a most wonderful people of trained choral-singers) the whole mighty assemblage burst forth with a battle-ballad, in which some deft patriotic poet had been quick to embody the fears and determinations of the last few days under the title of ‘Die Weichsel-Wacht,’ or the ‘Watch on the Vistula’—a war-song which promises to fill as large and luminous a page among the lyric gems of the Fatherland as Schneckenburger’s immortal ‘Wacht am Rhein.’ When the frantic cheering which followed the chanting of this stirring battle-anthem had subsided, the Emperor (who has now completely recovered from the accident to his knee) came out to bow his acknowledgments from the front balcony of the castle; and on his arm was the Empress holding the hand of the pretty little flaxen-haired Crown Prince, who had been routed out of his warm bed at this late and chilly hour to add one crowning touch of spectacular effect to the tableau which, amid another frenzied outburst of ‘hochs’ and ‘hurrahs,’ thus closed the drama of a most exciting and momentous day.