The rumour that Austria has entered into an alliance with
Turkey is singularly persistent. The usual form of the story is that Austria, in consideration of certain large concessions made by the Sultan—concessions which involve part of Mace- donia—has agreed to " guarantee " the remainder of the Turkish possessions in Europe. The treaty, it is intimated, has received the approval of Prince Bismarck and of Lord Salisbury, who indeed looks upon it as his own work. The great difficulty in the way of believing such a rumour is the difficulty of imagining that the Austrian Slays, whom every annexation makes more numerous, would consent to guarantee their secular enemy; or that the Sultan would surrender territory in order to
obtain an alliance which would not protect him for one moment against those whom he really dreads, his own soldiery and subjects. The rumour, however, should be noted as important, as should also the accompanying one, that the Sultan presses for the removal of Aloko Pasha, who is too " Bulgarian," —that is, too willing that Europe and Christianity should rule in Roumelia, instead of Asia and Mahommedanism. It is not probable that the rumour is true, but the Greeks are evidently using the Sultan as a lever to recover their lost influence in the province.
