Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/114

 8-4 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND CHAP. On the 20th of March the four Powers were so 1- well agreed that, when Greece sought to make a diversion in favour of Eussia, the representatives of Austria, Prussia, France, and England, all joined in a collective Note, which called upon the Greek Government, in terms approaching menace, to give way to the demands of the Porte. On the very day which followed the English declaration of war, the Emperor of Austria appointed the Arch- duke Albert to the command of the forces on the frontier of Wallachia, and at the same time the ' Third Army' was put upon the war footing. A little later,* the Emperor of Austria ordered a new levy of 95,000 men for the defence of his frontiers. Later still, but within one day-f- of the time when France and England were making their alliance, Austria and Prussia joined with France and Eng- land in a Protocol, which not only recorded the fact that the hostile step then just taken by France and England was 'supported by Austria and Prussia as being founded in right,' but went on to declare that, 'at that solemn moment the ' Governments of the four Powers remained united ' in their object of maintaining the integrity of ' the Ottoman Empire, of which the fact of the ' evacuation of the Danubian Principalities is ' and will remain one of the essential conditions ; ' and that ' the territorial integrity of the Ottoman • Empire is and remains the sine qjid non con- ' dition of every transaction having for its ob- • May 15. ^ + April 9, 1854.
 * ject the re-establishment of peace between the