Page:Russian Realities and Problems - ed. James Duff (1917).djvu/21

 Chancellor, Prince Gorchakov, and this course was taken not only in order to comply with the wishes of the European Concert, but also because it represented the views of our leading statesmen during the reign of Alexander II. Certainly the feeling of offence at this humiliation was very strong, and also of bitter dissatisfaction_with Austria and Germany who had helped in diminishing our advantages secured by war, and these feelings were largely spread among the Russian masses. This compelled Russia to change her whole system of foreign policy. It was during the reign of Alexander III that we approached France, and that the basis of the Russo-French Alliance was laid down. However, our traditional relations towards Austria-Hungary still remained unchanged. In February, 1897, the Emperor Francis Joseph visited St Petersburg, and an agreement on Balkan affairs was concluded between Russia and Austria-Hungary on the basis of a partition of the Balkan peninsula into two spheres of influence—the western, including control over Servia, Macedonia, and Albania, and the eastern, where Russia was to control Bulgaria and European Turkey. At that time, as you may see, we did not at all resent the Austrian push to Salonica. The line of division between the two spheres of influence in the Balkans was considered to be traditional, and went back as far as the reign of Catherine the Second and the Emperor Joseph. I can add that this line of division between the two spheres has actually become the traditional view in the Balkans. Serbia was considered, accordingly, to belong to the Austrian sphere of influence. There even existed a secret treaty of