Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/252

 !10 OKIGIN OF THE WAR OF 1S53 CHAP. XIII. Effect pro- duced by the actual invasion of the Princi- palities. lu Austria. that the Prince would be disavowed.* Three days later the Prussian Government conveyed this impression to the Court of St Petersburg ;-f* and on the 7th Lord Clarendon expressed his satisfac- tion at the views taken and the course of the policy indicated both by the Court of Berlin and the Court of Vienna. I This was the effect produced by the threat contained in Count Nesselrode's summons; but when the invasion of the Principalities took place, and came to be known in Europe, it quickly appeared that the uneasiness excited by the actual occurrence of the event was more than proportioned to that which sprang from the mere expectation of it. In Austria the uneasiness of the Government was so great that it dissolved the close relations of friendship lately subsisting between the Courts of Petersburg and Vienna ; and within three days from the time when Eussia crossed the Pruth, Count Buol, abandoning the notion of 'acting singly,' which had been enter- tained some days before,§ began to lay the founda- tions of a league well fitted to repress the Czar's encroachment without plunging Europe in war. 1 The entry of the Russian troops into the Princi- ' palities,' wrote Lord Westmoreland to the Eng- lish Secretary of State, ' is looked upon with the ' greatest possible regret : and I am requested by ' Count Buol to state this to your Lordship, as ' also to announce to you his intention immediate- X Ibid. p. 230. § Ibid. p. 320.
 * ' Eastern Papers,' part i. p. 223. t Ibid. p. 227.