If Turkey in Europe disintegrated altogether, Bulgaria and Roumelia (in the Austrian text, also Albania) might form autonomous States (the Russian text said, independent principalities) while Greece should receive territorial extensions. Constantinople with the area round it was to become a free city.
In the event, the Turkish armies won big successes against the Serbs, but meanwhile, the revolt had spread to Bulgaria. Russia now began to threaten war on Turkey. The prospect brought the other Powers definitively into action, and after a flurry of diplomatic exchanges, a Conference of the Powers met in Constantinople in December. Their main proposals were for autonomy, under Turkish sovereignty, for Bosnia and for two areas of Bulgaria. Turkey was to suffer no actual territorial losses except to Montenegro, which was to keep the ground held by her armies. Turkey rejected the proposals and the conference broke up. Meanwhile, anticipating this result, Gorčakov had again approached Andrássy, and on 15 January 1877, the secret ‘Budapest Conventions’ were signed under which Austria undertook to preserve benevolent neutrality in case of a Russo-Turkish war. If Russia were successful, Austria was to receive all Bosnia-Herzegovina, except a slice of the latter province (to go to Montenegro) and its southern extremity, the Sanjak of Novi-Bazar (to remain with Turkey). Serbia and Montenegro were to get further compensation on their southern frontiers. ‘The establishment of a great compact Slavic or other State’ was to be excluded, but ‘Bulgaria’, Roumelia and Albania might be constituted as independent States, and Greece enlarged.
In April, Russia declared war on Turkey, and although held up by the stubborn defence of Plevna, which was broken only with Roumanian help, eventually (on 31 January 1878) forced her opponent to sign an armistice. On 3 March the world was confronted with the Peace of San Stefano. In Europe (she made other acquisitions in Asia) Russia only took for herself Southern Bessarabia, in exchange for which she presented Roumania with the Dobruja; Roumania also became independent. All the heart of the Balkans, as far south as the Aegean coast of West Thrace and as far west as Ochrida, was constituted into a great autonomous Bulgaria. Serbia received independence, with enlargements in the Niš-Mitrovica area and in the Sanjak; Montenegro, independence and territory in the Sanjak and Albania; and the rest of Bosnia-Herzegovina might remain under Ottoman rule.
But Ignatiev, whose work this treaty was, had overshot the mark. Not Andrássy alone was outraged (at these flagrant breaches of the earlier understandings) but other Powers, Britain above all. Bismarck decided to back Andrássy. After a last, elemental crisis, a Congress of the Powers met in Berlin in June 1878. Its members signed a new Treaty in August. The biggest changes made, in comparison with the Treaty of San Stefano, were that the Bulgaria established a few months earlier was broken up into three parts: the northernmost was left as an autonomous Principality; Eastern Roumelia (the Maritsa valley) became a semi-autonomous province, under a Christian governor, while Macedonia was restored to direct Turkish rule. Otherwise, most of the San Stefano frontiers in the Northern Balkans were confirmed, Serbia’s being even a little more generous. But now Austria did not come out empty-handed. She made no direct territorial acquisitions, but was authorized to ‘occupy’ Bosnia-Herzegovina indefinitely, under a European mandate. She further received the right to station garrisons in the Sanjak of Novi-Bazar, which thus continued to separate Serbia from Montenegro and to constitute a gate through which Austria might later expand into the Southern Balkans.
It should be added that when Austria did set about occupying her prize, she met with a disagreeable shock. Andrássy, in his cheerful and superficial way, had said that the occupation would take ‘a platoon headed by a military band’. He was grievously disillusioned. The Moslems of Bosnia-Herzegovina were, with the possible exception of the Pomaks of the Rhodopes (like them, Slavonic converts from Christianity), the most fanatical upholders in all the Balkans of the pure doctrine of Moslem supremacy and of its time-honoured and, to them, profitable institutions. It is often forgotten that of the numerous revolts which shook those unhappy provinces in the nineteenth century, those in which Christian peasants rebelled against the tyranny of their masters were less numerous, and less bloody, than those in which the Bosnian Moslems were resisting the efforts (often, indeed, enforced and reluctant ones) of their own Sultans to introduce reform. In these the poor Moslems had regularly made common cause with the rich.
Now, too, when the Porte accepted the dictate of Berlin, the Bosnian Moslems expelled (or occasionally slaughtered) their own officials, formed a local Home Defence Corps, which was reinforced by sympathizers from other parts of the Balkans, including some Turkish regiments who were also in mutiny, and put up a considerable resistance to the Austrian troops when they advanced into the provinces. The modest force originally thought sufficient for the operation had to be reinforced until it reached the considerable figure of 150,000 men, and it suffered over five thousand casualties; the Government was forced also to ask for a retrospective supplementary credit of 25 million gulden on top of the 60 m.g. which it had originally extracted from a sulky Reichsrat.
Neither did Austria’s troubles in the provinces end with the completion of the occupation: but the history of her later woes is told in a later chapter.4
*
The crisis had important effects on the development of Austria’s international commitments. His experiences during it had deepened Andrássy’s awareness of the Russian danger and his consequent eagerness to secure a close contractual relationship with Germany, as defence. Fortunately for him, Bismarck, too, was nervous about Russia’s intentions, and also about Austria’s, for he was not unaware of the existence of a party in Vienna, headed by the Archduke Albrecht, which still wanted Austria to ally herself with Russia for a war of revanche against Prussia. Negotiations began between him and Andrássy. They did not go easily, for the German Emperor, and many of his entourage, were still determined to refuse any obligation inconsistent with friendship with Russia, and if, for Austria’s sake, they did undertake any commitment, even purely defensive, against Russia, they wanted Austria to repay it with a similar obligation against France; and this Andrássy, supported by Francis Joseph, absolutely refused to undertake. Eventually, however, agreement was reached on a text which provided that if either party was attacked by Russia, the other would help the party attacked with all the forces at its disposal. If the attacker was a country other than Russia, the party not attacked would preserve benevolent neutrality, but would help the party attacked if Russia assisted the attacker.
The Treaty was to run for five years, but was subject to renewal. It was to be kept secret, but divulged to Russia if she made threatening war preparations. It was signed on 7 October 1879; ratifications were exchanged ten days later.
*
This Treaty, which was in fact regularly renewed thereafter, was destined in due course to become not only the fixed pole in all Austria’s foreign relationships, but also an influence in them which ended by being something like dominant. At first, however, it made singularly little difference either to her position, or her problems. It gave her final security against Germany; but in practice, she had enjoyed that since 1872, or earlier. For the rest, the only one of her relationships which it affected directly was that with Russia. Here it gave her an ultimate assurance of Germany’s support in a conflict not provoked by her, but this, too, she had enjoyed before. Bismarck still remained no more than an honest broker between Austria and Russia, and on 18 June 1881, even elicited from Andrássy’s successor, Haymerle,5 his signature to a new Dreikaiserbund. This contained a general clause binding the signatories to benevolent neutrality should any of them become engaged in war with a fourth Power – an undertaking of great value to Germany, whose position in the event of a Franco-German war it strengthened immensely, but one of relatively little importance to Austria. Its remaining provisions were designed to prevent a collision between Austria and Russia in the Balkans, its tacit assumptions being that the maintenance of the integrity of the Po
rte was desirable in the general interest, but that the western half of the Balkan Peninsula belonged to Austria’s sphere of influence and the eastern, to Russia’s. Turkey was not to be attacked without previous consultation and agreement on the ensuring peace settlement. Russia agreed that Austria might annex Bosnia-Herzegovina (although not necessarily the Sanjak) when she wished; Austria and Germany agreed not to oppose the eventual union of Bulgaria and Eastern Roumelia. Finally, the three Powers agreed to compel Turkey to maintain the principle of closing the Straits to warlike operations.
The Dreikaiserbund was renewed in 1884, but in 1886 extraordinary events occurred in Bulgaria, where the Principality and Eastern Roumelia proclaimed their union under such peculiar circumstances that the reactions of the Powers were the opposite to those envisaged under the Dreikaiserbund: Russia opposed it, while Austria raised no objections. The Bulgarians then elected a Prince of the House of Coburg, whom Russia proposed to have ejected, while Austria and Britain supported him. The tension between Austria and Russia was so great that Bismarck (while also applying pressure to Austria to accept Bulgaria as falling within Russia’s sphere of influence) published the text of the Austro-German alliance. The crisis passed over, but had left too much ill-feeling behind to allow the renewal of the Dreikaiserbund in 1887. Austria and Russia were never again allies, and their relationship thereafter was never anything much better than one of jealous rivalry.
It was, however, and remained up to the end of the period now under review, nothing worse than that, and for a few years, even Germany’s position in the triangle did not alter appreciably, since to compensate for the lapse of the Dreikaiserbund, Bismarck, on 18 June 1887, concluded a secret ‘Reinsurance Treaty’ with Russia, under which Germany promised Russia neutrality unless she attacked Austria, and Russia undertook the same obligation unless Germany attacked France.
What later developments showed to have been a turning-point (also for Austria) did come in 1890, when Bismarck’s successor, Caprivi, refused to renew the Reinsurance Treaty, which Russia had wanted renewed and even made permanent; for Russia now turned to France, with which she reached an understanding in 1891, which developed into a military Convention and an alliance. The increased confidence which this gave her prompted her to resume an active policy in the Balkans. In 1894 she achieved a formal reconciliation with Ferdinand of Bulgaria, and the next year she was again planning an advance on the Straits. Berlin seemed inclined to ler her have Constantinople, advising Austria to compensate herself in Salonica. Then Lord Salisbury’s Foreign Office floated a curious suggestion for the dismemberment of the Turkish Empire. Count Goluchowski,6 who had succeeded Kálnoky that May, was against partition, if only on the old grounds of not wanting to increase the number of unreliable subjects within the Monarchy, and tried to organize European resistance against Russia, but Europe seemed once again on the verge of war.
Yet even in these years, Austria’s relations with Russia had not been implacably hostile. During the most critical of them, in 1894, Kálnoky had reached a loose standstill agreement with Giers, the then Russian Foreign Minister, to the effect that Austria would refrain from meddling in Bulgaria’s internal affairs if Russia did the same for Serbia. Something like friendly relations were re-established when Russia, chiefly owing to French hesitations, dropped her plan of seizing Constantinople and was then induced by Japan’s victory over China to turn her attention to the Far East. In April 1897, Francis Joseph and Goluchowski visited Petersburg and found the new Czar, Nicholas II, prepared to accept the status quo in the Balkans. Now Goluchowski reached another understanding with Giers’s successor, Muraviev. Austria and Russia would work together to preserve, if possible, the status quo in the Balkans; neither would seek Balkan territory for itself, nor permit another Power to do so. If and when territorial revision became inevitable, a new State of Albania should be established on the Adriatic, and the rest of Turkey in Europe, with Constantinople and the Straits zone, should be distributed equitably among the Christian States of the Balkans, none of which should be allowed to become disproportionately strong.
The agreement was not quite watertight, for once again, the understanding on Bosnia-Herzegovina was imperfect: Goluchowski reserved the right to annex the two provinces, with the Sanjak, while Russia said that the annexation ‘would require special scrutiny at the proper time’ and that ‘the boundaries of the Sanjak would need to be defined’. Nevertheless, the tension was relaxed, and did not recur for a decade. Preoccupied as Russia now was elsewhere, Austria could, indeed, probably have stolen a march on her in the Balkans, had she wished.7 But Goluchowski, Pole as he was, was a peaceable man by nature and also convinced that Austria was both politically and financially unfit for war, and Francis Joseph had become it with years. They honoured their word, and when unrest broke out in Macedonia in 1903, Austria and Russia again joined hands, at a meeting brought about through Austrian initiative,8 to work out the ‘Mürzsteg Programme’ of 3 October, which in effect confirmed the 1897 Agreement; the two Powers undertook to co-operate in the creation of an international gendarmerie to restore order in Macedonia, which was to remain under the sovereignty of the Porte.
Meanwhile, Austria’s relations with Germany had stood the test of time, although the emphasis in the relationship had changed, slightly but perceptibly. It does not seem that Bismarck’s successors were quite so enamoured of the connection as he had been; on the other hand, Francis Joseph clung to it more closely precisely with the passing of Bismarck, whom he had always disliked in his heart as the true author of 1866; also the young Emperor was more sympathetic to him than his predecessor. Thus although the relationship was clouded after the Badeni Decrees, when the complaints of the Germans of Austria were being vociferously endorsed in the Reich, and there were rumours that Gulochowski’s understanding with Muraviev was going to lead to a real reorientation of the Monarchy’s foreign policy, the cloud quickly passed over. There had never been any real danger that Austria would change sides, and once the Germans realized this, even the temperamental Kaiser, who had joined in the chorus, simmered down.9
Gradually the alliance developed, at least in Francis Joseph’s eyes, into something much more than a limited defensive agreement: it was a real partnership of peculiar intimacy. The danger was now another one. Austria was, indeed, assured of Germany’s protection, which was invaluable to her. But Germany, especially under the Kaiser Wilhelm, was no longer the safe, satiated power which she had been under Bismarck, and although the alliance in no way bound Austria if Germany provoked a conflict with the West (or even with Russia) it might be morally difficult for her to stand aside in such a conflict. With time, too (although this came a little later), Germany herself began meddling in Balkan affairs, not always in strict accordance with Austria’s wishes.
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By this time Russia was no longer the only quarter from which danger threatened the Monarchy, although if Treaties meant anything, its position at the turn of the century was extraordinarily strong. In 1878 the Minister President of Serbia, Ristić, although personally a strong Russophile, had been obliged to sign an agreement with Austria providing for a railway convention and closer commercial relations, to culminate in a customs union. When Ristić evaded honouring his bargain, Austria retorted with commercial pressure which compelled Milan to dismiss him in favour of a ‘Progressive’ (i.e., Conservative) Government, and this in April 1881 signed a commercial agreement with Austria, valid for ten years, which came near a Customs Union.10 Three months later, Milan personally signed a secret agreement undertaking to conclude no treaties with any foreign Power without Austria’s permission11 and to prevent all agitation against Austria in Austrian territory, including Bosnia.12 In return, Austria promised to recognize Milan as King of Serbia if he assumed the title, and (rather vaguely) to support Serbia’s claims to extension in the Kossovo area and in Macedonia.13
Austria could have had more than this, for Milan actually offered to let her annexe his country –
an offer which Kálnoky refused, saying that Austria would have more profit from ‘a peaceful and flourishing independent Serbia, in friendly relations with us’, than from ‘a rebellious province’.14 But the treaties did initiate a couple of decades during which Serbia was really a Austrian satellite, in the modern sense of the term. It was during these years that Austrian business interests entertained their rosiest visions of establishing at least an economic empire in the Balkans, with its outlet at Salonica. Various factors, among them fear of Russia’s jealousy and Austria’s own shortage of capital, prevented the realization of these plans, and the result of the relationship was, in effect, to leave Serbia an agricultural State, although during these years, a flourishing one enough.
Shortly after, Italy became Austria’s ally, and that although during the Eastern Crisis feeling in Italy had run very high against Austria, whose ‘yoke’ Garibaldi had described as ‘no less heavy than Turkey’s’. Corti, the Italian Foreign Minister, had been denounced for a traitor for favouring a rapprochement with Austria, and enthusiasts had actually planned to make the rapprochement impossible by sending irregular bands into Austrian territory. Even official Italy had tried to blackmail Austria into buying Italy’s support by ceding her the Italian-speaking areas in the Monarchy, and then at least to obtain compensation if Austria enlarged her frontiers.
The Habsburg Empire (1790-1918) Page 95
