Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/109

 IX THE WAR AGAIXST EUSSIA. 79 the time wlien Nicholas gave way and re-entered chap. his own dominions, her efforts to bring about this '^^^^' end were unceasing and restless. Of the spirit in which Austria was acting tlirough all the early stages of the negotiations, many a proof has been already given. With time, her impatience of the Czar's intrusion upon her southern frontier increased and increased. It is true that she did not desire war : she anxiously ■wished to avoid it. She wished, if it were possible, to achieve the end without war, but to achieve it she was resolved ; and if a vestige of the mediat- ing character which had belonged to her in the summer of 1853, or her legitimate anxiety to spare the Czar's personal feelings, was a motive which tended to soften her language, it did not deflect her policy. Count Buol declared that although, in treating with Eussia, 'more management of ' terras ' * was required from Austria than from the Western Powers, the objects sought by all the four Powers were the same, and that they ought to be compassed by ' a general concordance in the ' M-ay of putting them forward.' f But even the notion of using a gentler form of expression than the one employed by the AVestern Powers was quickly abandoned, and Austria found no difficulty in adopting the exact words of the collective Xote framed by Lord Clarendon in concert with the Prench Government. So anxious was Austria to remain on the same ground with the rest of the four Powers, that she came into every term of 'Eastern Papers,' part vii. p. 231, f Ibid. p. 273. • <i