Page:American Historical Review, Vol. 23.djvu/337

Rh three courts would be able to prevent any violent shocks of a sort likely to bring on the collapse of Turkey.

About this same time Giers, while travelling from Petrograd to Montreux, stopped at Berlin, where he was very graciously received by the Emperor William and the Crown Prince Frederick. He did not fail to go to Friedrichsruhe and see the chancellor. His impressions of this visit are set down in a letter which he wrote from Montreux on November 7/19, 1883, to his assistant Vlangali:

Bismarck came to meet me at the railroad station, and took me in his carriage to his house, where I was served to luncheon. Arriving at two o'clock, I left Friedrichsruhe at 10 P. M., to spend the night at Hamburg. I began my conversation with the chancellor by telling him of the agreeable impression I had received from my audience with the emperor. "Yes", said he, "one could not sufficiently pray the good God to prolong the days of our venerable sovereign. One can have full confidence in him, and as for me I entirely share his sentiments toward Russia, and his desire to keep up relations of friendship with her. In this I fulfil faithfully my duty toward him." Then Bismarck endeavored to demonstrate to me that during his whole political career he had constantly favored alliance with Russia, though on our side he had not always been rightly understood. He dwelt long on this idea, that it would have been very useful for us to have an understanding with Austria to determine the sphere of our influence in the Balkans. I remarked that the formal delimitation of spheres of influence was quite difficult to achieve; thus, we could not give up either Montenegro or Servia to the exclusive influence of Vienna. Bismarck showed himself entirely ready to enter into negotiations for the renewal of the agreement of the three emperors. From Saburov's explanations, he had drawn the conclusion that we wished to enlarge its scope, to go back to the propositions advanced at Reichstadt, and to take up the questions connected with the fall of the Ottoman Empire. "The problem is very difficult", said he, "but all the same we had resolved, and I, to listen to your proposals." "Very difficult, indeed", I replied, "and in fact not very suitable, since we mean to maintain friendly relations with the sultan, but it would be better not to go too fast, and for the moment simply to renew the treaty, making any needed alterations." Bismarck undertook to prove to me the great utility of a rapprochement, and even of a close alliance between the three emperors. He said that he would have been ready to propose outright an offensive and defensive alliance between them. It was true that, in view of present circumstances, it could not call itself a Holy Alliance, but nevertheless it would be quite as profitable to Europe as that one, by maintaining peace for many years. This proposition surprised me not a little; I did not consider myself authorized to accept it; moreover its value to Russia, in the actual state of European affairs, seemed to be in truth quite doubtful; therefore I did not dwell upon it, but observed to the chancellor that the situation in the three empires did not appear to me very favorable for attaining such a result.

I then proposed to him that certain corrections should be made in the text of the treaty, among others the omission of the third paragraph