AUSTRO-GERMAN RELATIONS SINCE 1866
The diplomatic relations of Austria-Hungary and Germany in the last two generations present a singularly complex evidential problem. The two ends of the period are firmly rooted in the certainty of established fact, but any attempt to fill in the period between them involves the peril of writing the history of the present war in the light of the quarrel of 1866 or of extending present issues back further than facts will warrant. Evidentially we possess firm ground for the aftermath of Sadowa, for the effect upon the relations between Austria-Hungary and Germany of the creation of the Empire and the formation of the Dual Alliance. Out of these grow naturally the Triple Alliance and the latter phases of the statesmanship of Bismarck as he himself liked us to think they were. Then in 1889–1890 comes a radical change. Public relations between the two countries cease to present important incidents, open controversies, or official utterances of obvious importance. From time to time we learn that the Triple Alliance has been renewed, that one emperor has visited the other or has occupied a prominent place at some ceremony,[1] but we have no direct evidence as to the terms on which the Triple Alliance was renewed or as to the real subjects discussed at imperial visits. Inference, guess-work, suggestion, opinion we have in profusion; evidence there is none. We have in addition for this period subsequent to 1890 a documented narrative of parliamentary proceedings and ministerial policies, both in Austria and in Germany, which tells of strong Slav parties pretty definitely hostile to any extension of friendly relations with Germany, of the Magyar fear of the increase of Austrian influence in the Balkans. We see the emperor choose his premiers and foreign secretaries more frequently from these parties than from the German elements and we see the public affairs of the Monarchy conducted in the legislative assemblies on a general basis which leaves us strongly in doubt whether or not Austria ever acts in entire
- ↑ One expects to find press and diplomats drawing conclusions about Austro-German relations from the prominence of the German Kaiser at the Empress Elizabeth's funeral, though nothing more was necessarily implied than the published text of the Triple Alliance would explain; but one hardly expects to find among the causes solemnly enumerated for Italy's entrance into the war in a semi-official history the failure of Franz Josef to return the visit of Humbert in 1882. Luigi Carnovale, Why Italy entered into the Great War (Chicago, 1917), pp. 246–247.
(577)
