Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/429

 APPENDIX. . 399- But a nuilual offensive advance is stipulated for only in the event of the incorporation of the Principalities, or in the event of an attack on, or passage of, the Balkan by Russia.* The present Convention shall be submitted for the rati- fication of the High Sovereigns simultaneously with the above-mentioned Treaty. Done at Berlin the 20th of April 1854. (Signed) HESS. (Signed) MANTEUFFEL. THU:s Protocol signed at Vienna on the I'id of May 1854 hy the Representatives of Austria, France, Great Britain, and Prussia. (Translation.) Present : The Eepresentatives of Austria, France, Great Britain, and Prussia. The undersigned Plenipotentaries have deemed it con- formable to the arrangements contained in the Protocol of the 9th of April, to meet in conference in order to com- municate reciprocally, and record in one common Act, the Conventions concluded between France and England on the one hand, and between Austria and Prussia on the other, upon the 10th and 20th of April of the present year. After a careful examination of the aforesaid Conventions, the undersigned have unanimously agreed : Principalities (though undertaken with a view to expel the Russian forces) could not be a 'mutual offensive advance.' The clause de- fines the circumstances in which the two great German sovereigns should be bound to attack Russia, and does not cast any obscurity upon that part of the treaty which provided for the event in which ' one of the two may find himself, in understanding with the other, • obliged to advance actively for the defence of German interest.'
 * Of course the contemplated marcli of Austrian troops into tha