Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/119

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IN THE AVAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 89 through the Principalities, tliis iindertaking Ly chap. Austria involved an enfraKeraent to free the Sul- _ tan's laud frontiers in Europe from Russian in- vasion. Exactly at the same time * Austria and Prussia addressed notes to the Powers represented at the Conference of Bamberg, in which the liberation of the commerce and navigation of the Danube was held out to Germany as the object to be attained. Austria was upon the brink of war with Ptussia, The tim« 

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was preparing to take forcible possession of the 1,"^*?^^^^^/^^ Principalities, and had despatched an officer to and Prussia r ' 1 began to the English headquarters with a view to concert f/^'^^^he*™ a joint scheme of military operations, when the p^f^g^™ Czar at length gave way, and abandoned the whole of the territory which, under the nauseous description of a ' material guarantee,' had become the subject of war. Other causes, as will be seen, were conducing to this result ; but none were so cogent as the forcible pressure which Austria had exerted, by first assembling forces in the Banat and then summoning the Czar to withdraw from the invaded provinces. Of course, when the object which called forth the German Powers was attained, and when it transpired (as it did at the same time) that the Western Powers were resolved to abandon the common field of action, and to undertake the in- vasion by sea of a distant Eussian province inac- cessible to Austria and Prussia, then at last, and then for the fii'st time, the German Powers found • Htli and 16th June.