The Sun.
London, England, 1854-07-04 00:00:00

AUSTRIAN DUPLICITY.

" Russia will resist to the last man and the last
rouble." So runs the reported reply of the Czar to the
Austrian demand for the evacuation of the Principalities.
The fudge about an immediate retreat "out of high con-
sideration to Austria " is now, therefore, fully exposed

for a Stock-Jobbing trick. With Austrians in Walla-
chia, it is less likely than ever that Russia should with-
draw beyond the Pruth. Why should she fly before the
face of so old an ally and so peculiar a friend as Francis
Joseph ?
Nothing that has occurred since the commencement
of the,war seems more strange than the present state of
doubt and difference in the English mind about the Aus-
trian alliance. We do not want to prophesy, or to see
anybody else prophesying, about future turns in the pro-
gress of the war, or issues of international relations.
We have the past for our guidance ; and in forming
opinions and wishes about the Austrian alliance, a due
regard to the past would assuredly preclude a large pro-
portion of the difference of opinion about what Austria
will do, and what we should wish her to do, which must
be rather consoling to the Czar, if be has time to attend
to it, and not a little amusing to the German states,
who must be wondering whether we have eyes in our
heads, or are labouring under a loss of memory, that we
can be in doubt about what is so clear to everybody out
of England whose opinion is of any value. We must re-
member that what is consoling to the Czar and amusing
to the German courts must be highly exasperating to
certain people with whom we have more sympathy—
certain Poles, Hungarians, and Italians, who have some
interest in the question what Austria can and will do.
For their sakes, and that of the Turks, and for our own,
we are bound to rouse our faculties on this most vital of
all questions. We must not go on playing with our
respective imaginings on the matter, and passing the
time in speculations ; but we must consider and decide,
by the evidence of the case, whether it is possible first,
and then desirable, for Austria to be our ally ; and, on
the other hand, whether it is possible or desirable for
Austria to be neutral.

The Times did some real service last week in rousing
us to this duty by its preposterous proposal that a great
portion of our Baltic fleet should be sent to the Black
Sea. If you ask a clodpole where his heart is, he will
look at himself all over ; and if you tell him his heart is
in his right foot he will not dispute the information.
The Times is pleased to try the same sort of experiment
with the British nation. It tells them that Sebastopol
is the heart of the Russian empire. But the nation bad
a preconceived notion that St. Petersburg was more
like the thing ; and, as the sword is actually pointed
there, we are not disposed to drop its point, and aim
solely at its right foot. Even the simplest newspaper
readers,lwho are apt to believe everything they see in print,
are startled by such a moral to a pathetic sermon against
impatience with our Baltic Admirals. Others, who see
a little further, are not sorry that so open a sign is
given of solicitude for both Russian and Austrian inte-
rests. Of course it would delight the Czar that we should
withdraw our best ships from the Baltic; but it would be
equally gratifying to Austria that the central scene of
the war should be one in which she should be the most
important party, as the one whose decision might be ex-
pected to turn the scale. It would not suit Austria at
all that we should make the breach in the Russian for-
tress of despotism through the Baltic. We should, of
course, secure to Germany the freedom of the Danube
just the same, whether we walk in upon the tyrant
from the west or from the south ; but the objects which
Austria has even more deeply at heart could not prosper
if Napier and Plutr.ridge should get the start of Dundee
and Raglan, and bring the Czar to a parley, altogether
independently of Austrian intervention. We owe it to
the rashness of the Times that people are at last hasten-
ing to the right point of view of the whole question, and
making a few significant inquiries of each other.
For instance :—What made the Czar rely so inso-
lently, as we know he did, in his conversations with
Sir G. H. Seymour, on the co-operation of Austria in
his schemes ? There must have been some reason.
What was it ? What but this ;—that Austria had
been the steady coadjutor of Russia against the Porte, as
Russia was the coadjutor of Austria against the Hunga-
rians. The Czar was justified in his expectations from
the young Emperor by precedent, and by his claim on
the gratitude of the House of Hapsburg. He had up-
held and preserved that dynasty ; and when, moreover,
it was notoriously true that Austria had thus far been
his virtual ally against the Turks, the Czar was surely
altogether reasonable in reckoning on the continuance
of that virtual alliance. The most superficial observer
of the Montenegrin affair could no more doubt than
Nicholas himself that the Romanoffs and Hapsburgers
were in the same boat, and pulling together. The fact
being so, what sort of foe can Austria possibly be to the
Czar ? How hard will the fighting be ? Of course it
will be much like the desperate-looking wrestling that
may be seen in Arab cities, where the combatants make
fierce grimaces and gestures, but are seen by those who
are near enough, to be so thoroughly greased that
neither can get a good gripe of the other, and, more-
over, to smile covertly and betray a secret under-
standing. We need not ask what, in this case, would
be the value of Austria as a nominal ally. And
supposing the time to have arrived for that rank
ingratitude which Prince Schwartzenburg declared
would become necessary, should we like Austria any
better for an ally ? Character is of some importance
in forming a political as well as a commercial partner-
ship : and what testimonials to character can be brought
by a power which has treated a benefactor and former
partner as Austria will then have treated the Czar ? Who
will venture to ask the Porte to sign articles with a
power which has steadily reinforced Russia for a long
course of years, and now begins the pretended alliance
with the Sultan by occupying his Danubian Provinces as
the successor of the Czar ? The case ought to be clear
to all rational men. Austria cannot be sincerely the
enemy of Russia without being guilty of such tergiver-
sation, treachery, and ingratitude, as should exclude her
from participation in any honourable cause. The case
standing thus, the news given by the Times, presently
proved false, that the Czar would evacuate the principa-
lities out of deference to Austria, would, if true, have
been only another instance of collusion. But the collu-
sion would have been too clear to allow the pretended
news to be true. Looking at the relations of the two
Emperors from every point of view, the conduct of
Austria must evince either deception towards the allies,
t
or treachery to the Czar, and the precious alternative
may be left to the choice of all observers.
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Austria has shown that she does not mean to be neutral.
Nothing can make her occupation of the principalities
pass for a neutral act. She may endeavour to trim ;
but she can no longer observe a genuine neutrality.
BY keeping the Allies out of the frontier provinces,
she may hope to bribe the Czar not to take ad-
the Allies fair, and marching her armies
vantage of the hatred of the Hungarians against her ;
and,
upon bythe Rssa speakinguinfrontier, she may hope to secure the
aid of France in keeping
her foot upon the neck of Lom-
bardy ; but she has not within her own borders the
unity and peace which are indispensable to a state of
genuine neutrality. Austria is the Logan-stone of
European structure ; and people actually look to it for
equilibrium at a season when all the winds of heaven
are rushing into uproar. The touch of a finger tip on
this side or on that sets it rocking ; and yet we are
required to trust to its being as steady as the rocks
around it which are rooted in the depths of the earth
and sea. If we had to choose, we should say—let it
rock. Its oscillation is circumscribed ; and it can exceed
that oscillation only by a total fall. That fall we ac-
knowledge to be the issue we anticipate—in the event of
either peace or continued war. If Austria leans to
Russia in war, Lombardy breaks away, and down she
goes on that side. If she leans to the allies, the Czar will
not only conquer but win Hungary frem her ; and then
she goes down on that side. Whenever peace comes,
she will in the one case be punished by the allies, and
more than ever subjected to Russia ; and in the other
case, she must quit her grasp of Hungary and release
it, as a measure of self-defence against Russia. Believ-
ing that she will never bring herself to do this, we anti-
cipate her humiliation as one of the European powers.
She cannot be more grievously humbled by
any future
adversity than she already is by her double-dealing, her
despotic tendencies, her cruelty, her ignorance of the
principles and laws of national welfare, her insolvency,
and want of internal unity, mutual trust, and national
spirit. Thus regarding her state and position, we de-
precate an active alliance with her—all alliance which
can affect our action in regard to Russia. We do not
doubt being able to deal with her if she should prove an
enemy. It she declares herself neutral (tor which, how-
ever, it is now too late) we shall, if we are up to our
duty, take care that she does not intercept the aims of
the war. And if she persists in claiming to be our ally,
we may easily permit her to call herself what she pleases,
after a clear declaration on our part that we shall pur-
sue our own objects in our own way, and shall not lift a
finger to help her in any trouble that may come upon
her, in any critical hour, from her own nominal subjects,
who may be expected to seek their retribution precisely
in the crisis of her need.—Daily News.