Russia and Austria

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 30, 1872

Russia and Austria.

The St. Petersburg correspondent of the Pester Lloyd gives some interesting information as to the policy of Russia toward Austria. Although (he says) the soreness produced in Russia by the attitude of Austria during the Crimean war may now be considered as a thing of the past, several incidents have since occurred which led the Emperor Alexander to believe that a hostile feeling toward Russia exists at the Viennese court. Influential Russian statesmen like Baron Meyendorff and Prince Gortschakoff considered that they were treated in an unfriendly manner during their stay at Vienna, and the impressions they carried away with them were far from favorable. After their departure, the private secretary of M. de Fonton, then Russian Ambassador at Vienna, was arrested on a charge of intriguing with the Piedmontese government, and this contributed to maintain the estrangement between the two courts which was still further intensified by the subsequent appointment to Vienna of Count Stakelberg, whose Italian sympathies were at that time notorious. Russia now seems anxious to come to an understanding with Austria, but she fears that any overtures which might be made with this object might be ill received and she accordingly has recourse to all sorts of maneuvers in order to persuade the government at Vienna of the necessity, in its own interest, of such understanding. This, says the correspondent, explains much that has seemed inconsistent in the recent policy of Russia. Sometimes she leads people to believe that her relations with Prussia are growing colder, at other times, that they are more cordial than ever; Panslavism is first encouraged, then condemned; now we hear of quarrels with the pope, and again of friendly negotiations with him; at one time the Russian government listens with surprising equanimity to the national democratic party as it preaches the disruption of the Turkish Empire; and soon after it allows reports to be circulated of a Russo-Turkish alliance, of the erection of block houses by Turkey as a menace to Austria on the side of Dalmatia, and of Russian plans for making use of the Roumanian railways to secure a new strategical position against Austria on the north-east. “Thus,” concludes the correspondent, “does Russia—quietly and busily, as always—spread over Austro-Hungary in all directions an almost invisible web, whose threads may be drawn together at the opposite points, and which, according to circumstances, may be used either as a snare or a bond of alliance. At present, Russia would be glad to supply it in the latter way.”