The meeting of Prince Bismarck and Count Audraasy at Gastein
has probably produced no immediate result. The time for mediation is not yet, and it is most likely true that both Chancellors have agreed that till either Russians or Turks inti- mate a wish for mediation, none can be offered. But all the
rumours—especially those about the disputed toast proposed by Francis Joseph to his Imperial brother the Czar, on the Czar's birthday—seem to point to the fact that as Russia shows her military weakness, the Austrians grow more friendly to her and less friendly to the Turk. The Emperor of Germany is, no doubt, on the Russian side, and the Emperor of Austria knows that the sympathies of his Slavonic subjects are of more importance to him than even those of his Hungarian subjects, and so long as his fear of Russian aggression is on the wane, he will not offend both Germany and his own most powerful States. But for the present, diplomacy is powerless.
