TURKEY'S ENTRANCE INTO THE ALLIANCE

It is well known that the moving spirit in the Young Turk movement of 1908, Enver Bey, was a pronounced Germanophil. It is probable that the settlement of the 1908-9 Balkan crisis, which was relatively to Turkey's advantage, was due in this respect somewhat to German influence. In 1910 there was considerable discussion in well-informed quarters of Turkey's joining the Triple Alliance. During the Turko-Italian war Germany favored Turkey at the expense of Italy. Evidence of this, according to documents published by the New York World, exists in a dispatch from Jules Cambon, French ambassador at Berlin, to the French Foreign Office dated in the spring or early summer of 1912. During a conference between Cambon and the Kaiser the Turkish ambassador was announced. "The Kaiser," says the account, "directed the caller to be shown in at once, and remarked to M. Cambon that he was just the man he wanted to see. M. Cambon asked if he should retire, but the Kaiser said 'No.' The Turk was shown into the room where the French ambassador still sat. The Emperor rushed to meet the caller, shook a quivering finger in his face, and cried, 'I am ashamed of you, I am ashamed of Turkey. We believed you could beat the Italians. Had we not thought so, we should not have backed you. Now we see we put our money on the wrong horse.""I This evidence tends to

give credence to the statements made by a diplomat at Athens to the correspondent of the London Morning Post to the effect that Turkey made a secret treaty with Germany some years before 1914.

ANGLO-ITALIAN MEDITERRANEAN AGREEMENT

In February, 1887, Great Britain reached understandings with Austria-Hungary and Italy. For several years these caused Great Britain, apparently erroneously, to be associated with the Triple Alliance by the political wiseacres. Gottlieb von Jagow, former German secretary for foreign affairs, for instance, in replying to Prince Lichnowsky, referred to these agreements as an effort of Bismarck to bring Great Britain into a closer relationship to the Central European London Times, Weekly Edition, September 28, 1917, page 794.

See page 222, note.

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On

league, and make her share its burdens because "Austria-Hungary, supported by Italy and England, held the balance against Russia." Marquis Antonio Starrabba di Rudini on June 29, 1891, declared in the Italian Parliament that the statements made on several occasions by Sir James Fergusson, British parliamentary under-secretary for foreign affairs, strictly conformed to the truth. These were in reply to questions by the late Henri Labouchère. On February 10, 1888, he stated that "no engagement pledging the material action of this country has been entered into by her Majesty's Government which is not known to this House," and a few days later defined the phrase "material action" as implying "military responsibility." February 14, Labouchère asked whether "the statement in the Neue Freie Presse of Vienna, that the treaties which were signed last year between the Central European powers 'are supplemented by special arrangements between Italy, Austria and Great Britain, having for their object the defense of the Austrian and Italian coasts against a hostile country;' whether any arrangements of this nature . . . were a matter of diplomatic correspondence during last year; and, whether, if so, this resulted in any arrangement. . . ." In reply Fergusson stated "that we are under no engagements pledging the military-in which, of course, is included the naval-action of this country, except such as are already known to the House. . . ." On July 19, 1889, he asserted: "The action of her Majesty's Government, in the improbable event of war breaking out..., will doubtless be decided, like all other questions of policy, by the circumstances of that particular time and the interests of this country. Her Majesty's Government are under no engagements or understandings fettering their liberty in that respect." And still later on June 4, 1891, he said: "Her Majesty's Government retained their full liberty of judgment as to what action we should take and as to what means we should employ in any conceivable circumstances. At the same time, Italian statesmen are well aware that her Majesty's Government are at one with them in desiring that there shall be no disturbance of the existing order in the Mediterranean and adjacent seas, and that the sympathies of this country would be on the side of those who would maintain a policy so important for the British interest involved."

Parliamentary Debates, 3rd series, CCCXXII, 153; CCCXXII, 377; CCCXXXVIII, 850; CCCXXXIX, 1058; CCCLIII, 1607.

Julius Hansen writing of this understanding in 1891 gave a typically diplomatic view of it in the following words: "No treaty had been signed, it is true, between these two powers, the Foreign Office being opposed in principle to the conclusion of a secret alliance. But from an exchange of views between the London and Rome cabinets a promise of understanding resulted. The Foreign Office had in effect declared that in case of a war between Austria and Russia or between France and Italy in the Mediterranean, under the conditions foreseen by the protocols of the Triplice, England would intervene against Russia in the first case and against France in the second. But the Foreign Office did not, however, admit that this declaration involved for the British Government the obligations arising from a casus foederis."

I

The effect of the rapprochement was seen in protocols between the Governments of Great Britain and Italy for the demarkation of their respective spheres of influence in Eastern Africa, signed at Rome, March 24 and April 15, 1891, and an additional protocol of May 5, 1894.3 It is well known that the British-Italian friendliness continued and even increased.

CENTRAL POWERS IN ALLIANCE WITH AND AGAINST RUSSIA

The relations between the two sets of allies before the present war are very enlightening. In fact, the Franco-Russian alliance was the result of what Alexander Félix Joseph Ribot defined as a singular paradox. "At the same time that Germany made with Austria a treaty against Russia she obtained from Russia a promise of benevolent neutrality for the case where she found herself at war with another country, of such a character that we should have found

Jens Julius Hansen, L'Alliance franco-russe, 83-84. Marquis Rudini in a letter to Maggiorino Ferraris was even more definite: "Should Italy be attacked, England would come to its aid from the maritime side. Any alteration of the status quo, which is inconsistent with the interests of both states, would result in a joint Anglo-Italian action and England also is obliged to protect Italy in case the latter should be drawn into war through its relation with the Triple Alliance. A special agreement between England and the Triple Alliance does not exist; England will participate in it only by means of Italy." (Cited in Friedrich Heinrich Geffcken, Frankreich, Russland und der Dreibund, 155; Arthur Singer, Geschichte des Dreibundes, 262-263.)

Texts in 83 British and Foreign State Papers, 19-21; Nouveau recueil général de traités, ze série, XVIII, 175-179; Archives diplomatiques, XXXVIII, 259-260; Hertslet's Commercial Treaties, XIX, 686-688. Notes exchanged between the British and Italian Governments respecting the Italian agreement of 1905 with Seyid Mahamed-bin-Abdulla, London, March 19, 1907 (100 British and Foreign State Papers, 543-546) showed that the rapprochement continued in the colonial sphere, while the two powers eventually made a series of agreements respecting Aden, the Red Sea, the AdaliaBurdur line in Asia Minor and other points of contact.

Hertslet's Commercial Treaties, XIX, 689-690.

RUSSIAN ALLIANCE WITH CENTRAL POWERS

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ourselves isolated if war broke out, but that Russia found herself exposed on her side to isolation and thus delivered up to the superior arbitration of Germany. She desired to recover her independence; she did not do it simply from sympathy for France, she acted from the feeling of her permanent interest."1

The treaty thus referred to was an alliance between Austria-Hungary, Germany and Russia signed at Berlin, June 18, 1881, for a period of three years by Petr Saburov, Prince Bismarck and Count Széchenyi, and in its first form provided:

1. In case one of the three powers should find itself at war with a fourth great power, the other two will preserve a benevolent neutrality toward it, and will devote their efforts to the localizing of the conflict.

This stipulation shall also apply to a war between one of the three powers and Turkey, but only in case a previous agreement has been arranged between the three courts relative to the results of that war.

In the special case that one of them shall have obtained from one of its two allies a more positive assistance, the obligation of the present article shall continue in full force for the third.

This treaty was revised and re-signed for a period of three years on March 27, 1884, at Berlin by Prince Bismarck, Count Orlov and Count Széchenyi, and expired June 27, 1887.2

This treaty, lasting through six years, underwrote Germany against a French attack. "Our stake," said Bismarck to Saburov before the negotiations commenced, "is the conservation of Alsace-Lorraine," and he suggested the line of his policy by adding later that "a mutual guaranty against coalitions is perhaps preferable nowadays to a territorial guaranty."3 The negotiations were conducted primarily between Bismarck and Saburov and during their course called forth various remarks from Bismarck derogatory to Austria-Hungary. On one occasion he said: "Our projected arrangement . . . offers us the great advantage of keeping Austria better in leading strings and forcing her, should occasion arise, into an entente." And again:

Annales du Sénat. Débats parlementaires, LXXVIII, 461 (April 6, 1911).

On this treaty see: Serge Goriainov, "The End of the Alliance of the Emperors," American Historical Review, XXIII, 324-349; James Young Simpson, "Russo-German Relations and the Sabouroff Memoirs," Nineteenth Century and After, December, 1917, 1111-1123; January, 1918, 60-75; Hermann Hofmann, Fürst Bismarck (1890–98), II, 370–372.

Simpson, loc. cit., December, 1917, 1114.

"The only power that will have any inclination to default is Austria. That is why, with her, an alliance à trois is preferable to an alliance à deux." I

GERMANY "REINSURES" WITH RUSSIA AGAINST AUSTRIA-HUNGARY

It is probable that the arrangements effected between Great Britain and Italy and Austria-Hungary in February, 1887, had something to do with the events that immediately followed. But the character of those agreements in no wise excused Bismarck's next step. On May 11, 1887, Count Petr Andreevich Shuvalov, Russian ambassador at Berlin, broached to him the question of a dual agreement. Bismarck responded favorably and in the course of the conversation read to the Russian the text of the Austro-German alliance of 1879.a This in itself was a violation of the terms of Art. III of the alliance, which enjoins absolute secrecy. The negotiations for a RussoGerman treaty were soon completed and on June 18 the text of this re-insurance treaty was signed. Its first article, containing the most important provision, was drafted by Bismarck himself on Shuvalov's request after the Russian had confessed that he did not feel strong enough to contend with the German over the matter. The treaty itself, the text of which has been available only since January last, reads:

The Imperial Courts of Russia and Germany, animated by an equal desire to confirm general peace by an understanding designed to assure the defensive position of their respective states, have resolved to embody in a special arrangement the accord established between them, against the expiration on June 15/27, 1887, of the treaty signed in 1881 and renewed in 1884. To this end the plenipotentiaries of the two courts have agreed on the following articles:

Art. I. In the case that one of the high contracting parties should find itself at war with a third great power, the other would maintain toward it a benevolent neutrality and would devote its efforts to the localization of the conflict.

This provision shall not apply to a war against Austria or France resulting from an attack made upon one of these two powers by one of the high contracting parties.

Simpson, loc. cit., January, 1918, 68, 70.

Saburov during his negotiations in 1880-81 with Bismarck was certain of the existence of the Austro-German alliance.