“If I have kept the members of the Commission waiting, my excuse is that I had with me, at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Austrian Ambassador and the Italian Minister. I am confident that the Commission will not require me to say any more.”
Grammont, when he spoke thus, believed, and had reason to believe, that the proposed Triple Alliance was a real thing. The Austrian contention is that he had mistaken courteous expressions of sympathy for specific pledges; but that view can hardly be maintained in the face of the facts disclosed as to the Archduke Albert’s mission; and other correspondence which has been published is equally at variance with it.
Only two days after his speech to the Finance Commission, Grammont wrote a request to Austria for the help promised. He asked that 70,000 or 80,000 Italian troops should be allowed to march through Austria to Bavaria, and that Austria should herself send 150,000 men to Bohemia. If that were done, he said, the peace would be signed in Berlin, and the memories of 1866 would be effaced. But everything depended upon promptitude:—
“Never again” (Grammont concluded) “will such an opportunity present itself. Never again will you obtain such effective support. Never will France be so strong as she is to-day, or better armed and equipped, or animated by a more intense enthusiasm.”
Whereto Beust replied in a letter addressed to Count Richard Metternich, the Austrian Ambassador, in Paris:—
“Be so good as to assure the Emperor and his Ministers once again that, faithful to the engagements defined in the letters exchanged by the two Sovereigns at the end of last year, we consider the cause of France our own, and shall contribute in every way possible to the success of French arms. Our neutrality is only a means towards the true end of our policy: the sole means of completing our armaments without exposing ourselves to a premature attack on the part of Prussia or Russia.”
“Or Russia”: those are the words which hold the key to the position.
Austria, acting in conjunction with France and Italy, had no reason to be afraid of Prussia; but if Russia should side with Prussia, she might have a good deal to be afraid of. Count Nigra has specifically stated that Russia intimated her intention of doing so, and that it was by that intimation that the Triple Alliance was brought to nothing. Its collapse, it must be added, was a triumph not only for Prussia, but also for Hungary. Up to the last hour Austria was willing to take the risks, but Hungary declined them. An extension of the Austrian Empire in the direction of Germany was the last thing which the Hungarians desired, for its result would obviously be to increase German, at the expense of Magyar, influence in the dual monarchy. Moreover, the Hungarians, owing to their geographical position, had more to fear than the Austrians from a Russian invasion.
So Andrássy argued, putting his foot down, and Francis Joseph gave way to him. Our chapter, therefore, concludes with the ironical spectacle of Francis Joseph reversing his foreign policy and breaking his word to a friendly Power in deference to the wishes of a rebel whom he had hanged in effigy: a spectacle which we may view as a humiliation or a proof of sagacious flexibility, as we prefer.