Page:American Historical Review, Vol. 23.djvu/348

338 by one of the high contracting parties". This form was adopted. The reading of the third article of the projet, relating to the closing of the Straits, brought out during the discussions the declaration by Bismarck, often repeated by him, that Germany was ready to see us masters of the Straits and established at Constantinople—that we might, in his phrase, possess the key to our own house. But this declaration could not appear in the principal instrument; it must be made a separate stipulation, for any indiscretion respecting it might be fatal to us by disclosing too early our aspirations. Similarly, by Bismarck's advice, the clause respecting the forbidding of entrance into the Black Sea was to be kept secret and drawn up separately. This task Shuvalov carried out; the secret clause was made the substance of one of the articles of the protocol annexed to the convention of June 6/18, 1887. That convention was concluded for three years instead of five as Shuvalov preferred, and signed by him and Count Herbert Bismarck. From the fact that the Emperor William had shortened the term of the convention, and that the chancellor. had avoided signing it, by deputing his son to do so in his stead, M. de Giers believed he could infer that this arrangement was more advantageous to Russia than to Germany. On reading this remark of his minister the tsar added: "Perhaps". Austria had been excluded from the negotiation for reasons stated above in the ministerial report.

In the summer of this same year the Emperor William had a meeting with the Emperor Francis Joseph at Gastein. The latter expressed to his ally his regret at seeing Russia withdraw from the entente which had united the three courts, but William refrained from breathing a word of the arrangement concluded with Russia. "I shall do the same", said Bismarck to Shuvalov, "when I see Kalnóky".

The document of June 6/18, 1887, is thus expressed:

The Imperial Courts of Russia and Germany, animated by an equal desire to confirm general peace by an understanding designed to assure the defensive position of their respective states, have resolved to embody in a special arrangement the accord established between them, against the expiration on June 15/27, 1887, of the treaty signed in 1881 and renewed in 1884. To this end the plenipotentiaries of the two courts have agreed on the following articles:

Article I. In the case that one of the high contracting parties should find itself at war with a third great power, the other would