check all agitation for a constitution, and to suppress all
attempts to secure a free press. For some ten years the Austrian dominion
groaned under one of the worst possible forms of autocratic government. The
failure of the Habsburg emperor to perpetuate this despotic regime was due
(1) to the Crimean War, (2) to the establishment of Italian unity, and (3)
to the successful assertion by Prussia of its claim to the leadership in
Germany. The disputes which resulted in the Crimean War revealed the fact
that "gratitude" plays but a small part in international affairs. In the
minds of Austrian statesmen the question of the free navigation of the
Danube, which would have been imperilled by a Russian occupation of the
Principalities, outweighed their sense of obligation to Russia, on which
the emperor Nicholas had rashly relied. That Austria at first took no
active part in the war was due, not to any sentimental weakness, but to the
refusal of Prussia to go along with her and to the fear of a Sardinian
attack on her Italian provinces. But, on the withdrawal of the Russian
forces from the Principalities, these were occupied by Austrian troops, and
on the 2nd of December 1854, a treaty of alliance was signed at Vienna,
between Great Britain, Austria and France, by which Austria undertook to
occupy Moldavia and Walachia during the continuance of the war and "to
defend the frontier of the said principalities against any return of the
Russian forces." By Article III., in the event of war between Russia and
Austria the alliance both offensive and defensive was to be made effective
(Hertslet, No. 252). With the progressive disasters of the Russian arms,
however, Austria grew bolder, and it was the ultimatum delivered by her to
the emperor Alexander II. in December 1855, that forced Russia to come to
terms (Treaty of Paris, March 30, 1856).

Though, however, Austria by her diplomatic attitude had secured, without
striking a blow, the settlement in her sense of the Eastern Question, she
emerged from the contest without allies and without friends. The "Holy
Alliance" of the three autocratic northern powers, recemented at
Muenchengraetz in 1833, which had gained for Austria the decisive
intervention of the tsar in 1849, had been hopelessly shattered by her
attitude during the Crimean War. Russia, justly offended, drew closer her
ties with Prussia, where Bismarck was already hatching the plans which were
to mature in 1866; and, if the att