56 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 



fices she might make for her allies, has caused 

 a considerable revulsion of public t'eeling at times 

 in Italy, but never sufficient to cause the suc- 

 cessors of Crispi to abandon the alliance which he 

 formed. A better feeling toward France and bet- 

 ter trade relations did not alter the policy of the 

 Italian Government. The economic difficulties of 

 Italy, however, led that Government, before the 

 alliance was renewed for twelve years on May 6, 

 1891, to press for favorable commercial terms. 

 The complaints of Italians regarding the excess- 

 ive burden of the military and naval armaments 

 that Italy has kept up in her ambition to main- 

 tain her position among the great powers drew 

 from the responsible statesmen of the allied pow- 

 ers the admission that the treaty does not com- 

 pel Italy to mobilize any specified number of 

 army corps or to bring her armed strength up to 

 any particular standard. When the Franco-Rus- 

 sian entente cordiale matured into the dual alli- 

 ance between the French Republic and Russia as 

 an open rejoinder to the triple alliance, stress was 

 laid on the pacific nature and conservative pur- 

 pose of the dual alliance by its authors and its 

 value in insuring peace as a counterpoise to the 

 triple alliance, and those concerned in the latter 

 reiterated their peaceful intentions. Just as the 

 continuance of the political friendship and dynas- 

 tic intimacy between Germany and Russia did 

 not preclude the conclusion of the Austro-German 

 alliance and subsequent Dreibund, an agreement 

 made later between Austria and Russia to main- 

 tain the status quo in the Balkans was held to 

 be perfectly compatible with the obligations of 

 Austria toward her allies. In the same principle, 

 when a rapprochement was attained in the 

 spring of 1902 between Italy and France by an 

 agreement on the part of the latter to respect the 

 Italian sphere of interest in Tripoli, this separate 

 understanding was not regarded as inconsistent 

 with the fresh renewal of the triple alliance. 

 Italy urged the need of advantageous terms for 

 Italian products in the new commercial treaties 

 as a necessary condition to her preserving the 

 military strength that makes her alliance valu- 

 able, and pledges may have been made or assur- 

 ances given without any such stipulations being 

 embodied in the treaty of alliance, which the 

 successive German Chancellors have averred is 

 not complicated with economic questions. Count 

 von Billow likened the triple alliance to an in- 

 surance company rather than to an association 

 for profit, and repeated the declarations that it is 

 purely defensive and pacific, that it entails no 

 obligations on the members to maintain their 

 military or naval forces at a prescribed level, 

 and that it is no artificial combination, but cor- 

 responds to a natural and historical balance of 

 power, tending now even more than in the begin- 

 ning to the preservation of the peace of the world, 

 since the political combinations of the present go 

 beyond the limits of Europe and the basin of 

 the Mediterranean, the interests of the great 

 powers embrace the whole world, and none of 

 them can wage war in Europe without reflecting 

 on far-reaching hazards in other quarters. 



Count Goluchowski, when announcing on the 

 meeting of the Delegations in May the approach- 

 ing prolongation of the triple alliance, spoke of 

 the dual alliance as its complement and an as- 

 sistance in the fulfilment of its pacific task and 

 of the extension of such political arrangements 

 for the maintenance of the status quo to extra- 

 European questions, as exemplified by the Anglo- 

 Japanese treat}' guaranteeing the integrity of 

 China and Korea, just as the Austro-Russian 

 entente insures the integrity of the Balkan coun- 



tries. Special agreements made by individual 

 powers belonging to the different groups con- 

 cerning specific interests which affect them alone, 

 as evidenced by the confidential relations exist- 

 ing between France and Italy or the satisfactory 

 development of Austro-Russian relations result- 

 ing from the agreement of 1897, are not opposed 

 to the general principles which brought about 

 the union of the principal groups. The agree- 

 ment of France to respect Italy's aspirations in 

 Tripoli, and perhaps also to intervene in no way 

 to frustrate her ambitions in Carniola and Istria 

 and in Albania, Italy leaving to France a free 

 hand in Morocco, deprives of all its force and 

 practically ends the Anglo-Italian Mediterranean 

 agreement, leaving England without a supporter 

 for her claims to a share in the division of Mo- 

 rocco and with no ports save her own as naval 

 bases from which to conduct operations in the 

 Mediterranean unless she shall enter into a simi- 

 lar alliance with Spain. It was England herself 

 who caused the defection of her ally and the 

 Franco-Italian rapprochement when in bargain- 

 ing over protectorates and spheres of influence 

 in various parts of the world she conceded to 

 France the Hinterland of Tripoli; a concession 

 which France has used to purchase the friendship 

 of Italy and the isolation of England in the mat- 

 ter of more vital interests, probably by resigning 

 the French claim to this region to Italy. It is 

 said that in connection with the old treaty Italy 

 entered into an engagement to send in the event 

 of an aggressive war on Germany and Austria, 

 an army corps through the Tyrol to take up a 

 position with the German army on the Rhine and 

 an army corps through Hungary to be placed 

 under the command of King Carol of Roumania 

 and to invade Bessarabia alongside of Austrian 

 and Roumanian troops. These obligations are 

 supposed to have been omitted from the military 

 agreements and plans of campaign adopted when 

 the new treaty was signed, which itself was offi- 

 cially stated to be identical with the original 

 treaty of alliance, and like it is to be kept secret, 

 although the Austrian and Italian governments 

 are believed to be willing to disclose its terms. 

 The idea that a political alliance can subsist 

 concurrently with a commercial war has been 

 repudiated by Hungarian statesmen more out- 

 spokenly than it has in Italy. Austria-Hungary, 

 however, obtained no pledges for fair treatment 

 of, Hungarian exports, especially those that 

 under Agrarian pressure are in danger of being 

 shut out from the German market when the com- 

 mercial treaties are renewed. No positive assur- 

 ances were given either to Austria or to Italy 

 regarding the German tariff, which will depend 

 on the action of the Reichstag. The renewal of 

 the military convention with Germany without 

 modification was therefore viewed in Hungary as 

 a temporary engagement which will not be again 

 renewed if the Germans frame a hostile tariff. 

 The Italian people took a similar view. The 

 Slavs of Austria were decidedly averse to the re- 

 newal and look upon it as a mere alliance be- 

 tween the ministerial chancelleries which lacks 

 the approval of the nations concerned. In Chi- 

 nese affairs Germany acted with Russia and 

 France, and the triple alliance had no signifi- 

 cance. It gives to Austria-Hungary and to Italy 

 an outward prestige and importance that they 

 would not have if they stood alone; still it has 

 not been to them the source of strength and wel- 

 fare that Germany has made of it for herself. 

 As to the practical application of the military 

 convention, the danger of such wars as it con- 

 templates is much more remote now than when 



