The Austrian and Hungarian Delegations met at Vienna on Wednesday.
The most important of the documents laid before them was a Red-book on the crisis which followed the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina. According to a summary supplied by the Vienna correspondent of the Times, the announcement of the annexation was received at the German Foreign Office with an assurance of the loyalty of Germany to her ally, and for this assurance Count Aehrenthal returned his emphatic thanks. Germany is hardly mentioned in the ensuing correspondence till March 24th, 1909, when Count Aehrenthal was informed that, in consequence of the German representations at St. Petersburg, the Russian Government had consented to recognise the abrogation of Article 25 of the Treaty of Berlin. Count Aehrenthal thereupon expressed to Prince Billow his "grateful satisfaction." This was the date, of course, when the German Emperor stood by the side of his ally "in shining armour." The "grateful satisfaction" and the "shining armour" combined should finally convince some of our English sceptics that they were wrong when they laughed at us for asserting that Germany had forced the sub- mission of Russia in the interests of Austria-Hungary. We are glad to add that the Red-book contains no trace of any unfriendliness on the part of the British Foreign Office
towards Austria-Hungary, although unfriendliness waa freely alleged at the time.
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