COUNT ANDRASSY'S EXPLANATION, A NOTHER of the many illusions of the
pro-Turkish /Arty in this country has this week been dispelled. They have hoped against hope that Austria, however reluctant she might seem, would ultimately range herself in arms on the side of the Ottoman caste. They saw that the Magyars of Hungary, themselves a dominant caste, were heartily on that side ; they knew that the Chancellor of the Empire was a Magyar, and they thought they perceived that " public opinion" in Vienna—that is, the opinion of the journalists and newspaper correspondents—was openly or covertly in favour of the same policy. They believed that anti-Russian feeling was supreme in the Empire, and that whenever the hour of oppor- tunity arrived, Austria would " act upon her interests,"—that is, would ask England to assist her in waging a great war in defence of the status quo. Even Lord Derby for a time must have shared this opinion, for he intimated not obscurely that if South-Eastern Europe were to be made Sclav, one Power at least would resist by force, and no one doubted that his one Power was the Austrian Empire. It was in vain to tell men possessed with this opinion that the House of Hapsburg, which was saved by Slays in 1848, was Slav in sympathy still ; that five-sevenths of the officers and more than half the Austrian Army were Slav ; and that opinion in Vienna came to the surface filtered through the pens of men who were either Jews or Magyars, or filled with the anti-Russian prepossessions of those two races. It was vain to tell them, though the fact .was patent to any one who had ever read history, that the Hapsburgs would look after themselves first ; that their interests would induce them to side in the long-run with the race which worships them ; and that their object was not to maintain the Ottoman, 'but to make sure that they should obtain their share of his 'ruined and wasted heritage. Nothing could benefit the Haps- 'burgs, not even sway in Germany, like the possession of the .splendid provinces which form the background to the narrow littoral they own on the east of the Adriatic. And finally, it was useless to tell them, though it seemed to moderate men as certain as a proposition in mathematics, that the Russian 'Government could not, being a sane Government even if a wicked one, have ventured into Bulgaria without arrangements which protected its army against an Austrian attack in flank. ' 'The Archduke Albrecht could at any moment have poured into Roumania with 150,000 men, and have compelled the 'Russian army, which was unsupported from the sea, either to fight its way back without provisions, or to have surrendered at discretion. The impossibility of any Government risking such a situation was on the surface of affairs, but it was useless to point it out, as useless as it was in the American war to show that a nation which received every day more immigrants than its daily loss in battle must, if only resolute, defeat a nation a third of its own strength which received no such aid. The Tories wished Austria to be pro-Turkish, and consequently, until Lord Derby admitted the truth, pro-Turkish, for them, she was. Even when he had spoken to the Deputation, a doubt lingered in Tory minds, which was not dispelled till Tuesday, when the Vienna correspondent of the Times, himself anti-Russian, but still a careful observer, reported a speech by the Austrian Chancellor to the United Delegations. This body, the cream of the two Parliaments, is the only one in Austria entitled to speak in the name of the whole Empire ; it is composed of grave men accus- tomed to deal with difficult questions, and to it Count Andrassy on the 8th and 9th inst. explained the policy of the • Government. It is, as Midhat Pasha informed the Grand Council it would be, anti-Turkish. Count Andrassy first brushed away all manner of rumours and beliefs, by stating that none of the semi-official newspapers had any right to speak for him except the Abend-Post, and that only occasionally through a commu- niqué, and then denied that he had ever spoken of Austria as occupying a dominant position on the Eastern Question. He had only affirmed that her geographical position was a dominant one, a self-evident truth. Austria could no longer adhere rigidly to the Treaties. The " binding power of treaties had been shaken," and " some other force must be substituted" for • them. He bad "long seen that the state of things in the East Could not continue, but it was not he who had created this state of things ; he had only found it, and had to accommodate 'himself to it." The Triple Alliance had prevented a general European war, but "the Austrian monarchy was free to act, and no country in Europe could believe with greater confidence that its just and equitable interests would assert themselves. There were other Powers, perhaps, who might do this in the same measure, but not one who could do this in a greater degree." Count Andrassy next explained his views on the relations of Austria with the smaller neighbouring States, and "protested against the charge that Austro-Hungary had no sympathy with their populations, and that it was in the in- terest of Austria that Turkey should remain unaltered, as before the present crisis. He himself would not dare to stand up for a status quo in this sense. He explained that by ' standing up for' he meant by deeds as well as words, and thought that in this sense no statesman in Europe would con- tend for the status quo." Words could scarcely be more explicit. The Austrian Government surrender the status quo in Turkey, and will accept any terms which, in the judgment of states- men, are distinctly for the advantage of their own Empire. We do not pretend to predict what these terms will be. The action of every State now depends too much upon the ideas of individuals to make prediction either safe or justifiable. A note written at Varzin may make the Emperor of Austria re- consider half his policy, while a coup d'e'tat in Paris might dislocate the relations of half the European Powers. But we have what we consider at the present time and under existing arrangements solid reason for believing that the Austrian Govern- ment has considered the project of an occupation of Bosnia and the Herzegovina by a heavy armed force, and has accepted that plan in principle as a necessary guarantee for its own weight in the final settlement of Eastern Europe. And further, we believe that it was, up to a very recent date, settled that this great step should be taken very shortly after the fall of Plevna. It is quite possible that there may be delay ; quite possible also that there is a fear of Italian action ; most possible of all that the policy, always so familiar to the Hapsburgs, of avoid- ing direct responsibility by seating an Archduke on a quasi- independent throne, may ultimately be preferred. But that Austria will acquiesce in a great revolution in Eastern Europe, on receiving in one form or another the provinces without which Dalmatia is a mere geographical line, we have no doubt whatever. She cannot, in fact, help herself. The Bosnian Beys have been so irritated by the independence of their tenantry, that the civil war in Bosnia has been aggravated by an agrarian struggle, and such masses of men have fled across the frontier that the burden of maintaining them crushes the provincial treasuries of Dalmatia and Croatia. There is no possibility of their voluntary return until Bosnia is strongly occupied, and to drive them back with the bayonet would be finally to destroy the Hapsburg claim to influence with the South Slays. In the present temper of the Bosnian Bays, scenes would be witnessed and reported by Englishmen which would never be forgiven, and which the Austrian statesmen, cynical as they sometimes show themselves and pressed as they are by never-ending difficulties, cannot and will not allow to occur. The Austrian Government must occupy the provinces, and if the Turkish Government declares war, war must be declared. There is no other escape from the impasse, except in that decided Turkish victory which is now BO improbable, and there is no serious resistance anywhere to be apprehended. The German Government wishes Austria to extend eastward. The Russian Government knows that it owes the success of its great enterprise to Austrian tolera- tion. And the British Government, besides its un- willingness to fight without an ally, knows that every acre acquired by Austria is an acre whose owner is released from the necessity of looking to St. Petersburg for help. As for the world at large, such a policy would dis- tinctly benefit it. Two groat and beautiful provinces, one of them a milder Switzerland, would be released from Turkish rule, and placed under an orderly and civilised Christian Government, which owns the whole littoral through which alone they can communicate with the world. Under Austrian rule, many things will happen which the West does not approve, but the Bosnian landlords will be reduced to ordinary wealthy men, the Bosnian cultivators will be relieved from terrible oppression and allowed to supply the Adriatic coasts with corn and fruit, and Fiume will become one of the first seaports in the world, possibly a rival of Marseilles. No one not pressed by some " interest," real or imaginary, objects at heart to that improvement in the position of mankind ; and the Austrian enterprise, if sanctioned at Berlin, can be carried out without any resistance more serious than a pro-Turkish Note or two. It may never be carried out, for everything at this juncture is susceptible of change, all Europe hanging upon three or four personalities ; but allowing for the unforeseen, this is, we believe, the policy towards which the men who guide Austria are slowly directing their policy, and their troops.
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