This is the origin of our Austrian Treaty.  By these threats we were compelled to choose between our two former friends, a decision which I had avoided through several decades.  At that time I negotiated in Gastein and in Vienna the treaty which was published day before yesterday and which is in force between us today.

The publication has been partly misunderstood in the newspapers, as I read yesterday and the day before.  People have wanted to see in it an ultimatum, a warning, and a threat.  A threat could not possibly be contained in it, since the text of the treaty has been known to Russia for a long while, and not only since November of last year.  We considered it due to the sincerity of so loyal a monarch as the Emperor of Russia not to leave a doubt concerning the actual state of affairs.

Personally I see no chance for us not to have concluded this treaty.  If we had not done it, we should have to do it now.  It possesses the finest quality of an international treaty, in that it is the expression of the lasting interests of both parties, Austria as well as ourselves.  No great power can for any length of time cling to the wording of a treaty against the interests of its own people; it will at last be forced to declare openly:  “Times have changed; we can no longer do this;” and will have to defend its action as best it can before its own people and the other contracting party.  But no power will approve a course which leads its own people to destruction, for the sake of the letter of a treaty signed under different conditions.  Nothing of this kind, however, is contained in these treaties.  The treaty concluded with Austria, as well as other similar ones existing between us and other powers, notably some agreements into which we have entered with Italy, are the expression of common interests in mutual aspirations and dangers.  Italy, like ourselves, has been obliged to fight against Austria for her right to establish her national union.  At present both of us are living in peace with Austria, sharing with her the wish to ward off the dangers which are threatening all alike.  Together we wish to preserve the peace, which is as dear to the one as to the other, and to protect our home—­developments to which all of us are determined to devote ourselves.  It is these aims and the mutual confidence that the treaties will be kept, and that no one will grow more dependent by them than their own interests permit, which make these treaties firm, durable and permanent!

The extent to which our treaty with Austria is the expression of our mutual interests was shown at Nikolsburg, and in 1870.  Already during the negotiations of Nikolsburg we were of the opinion that we could not do for any length of time without Austria in Europe—­a strong and vigorous Austria.  In 1870, when the war between ourselves and France broke out, many sensitive Austrians whom we had hurt were naturally tempted to make use of this opportunity and to take revenge