Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/339

DIPLOMACY MEANWHILE ALERT. 307 CHAPTER XII. THE RELATIONS OF AUSTRIA AND PRUSSIA WITH THE BELLIGERENTS. — THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS WITH RUSSIA. — THE AUSTRIAN PROPOSALS. — THEIR ULTI- MATE REJECTION ENTAILING A CHANGE OF AUSTRIA'S POLICY. I. None must think that, because the war raged, chap. XII Diplomacy had been all this while idle; but, to L_ know the condition of things which the Confer- ence of Vienna encountered in the spring of 1855, one needs must recur for a moment to rather an earlier time. When, as long since we saw, France and The union England at last declared war against Russia in and Prussia the spring of 1854, both Austria and Prussia western Powsrs united themselves with the Western Powers — not indeed by engaging at once to take part in the physical strife, but — by preparing for the eventuality of having to take the field, by making together the treaty devised with that object, and withal by declaring in Conference that the de- livery of the summons by which Prance and England had brought themselves into a state of