What, then, were my surprise and natural disappointment, when gradually a sort of newspaper campaign began in St. Petersburg, attacking the German policy, and casting suspicion on my personal intentions. These attacks increased in the following year to the strong request, in 1879, for pressure to be exerted by us on Austria in matters where we could not attack the Austrian rights as such. I could not consent, for, if we should have been estranged from Austria, we should necessarily have fallen into a dependence on Russia, unless we were satisfied with standing entirely alone in Europe. Would such a dependence have been bearable? Formerly I had believed it might be, when I had said to myself: "We have no conflicting interests at all. There is no reason why Russia should ever cancel our friendship." At least I had never contradicted my Russian colleagues when they expounded such theories to me. The Russian behavior concerning the Congress disappointed me and told me that we were not protected from being drawn into a conflict with Russia against our wishes, even if we placed our policy (for a time) completely at her disposal. The disagreement concerning instructions which we had given or had not given to our representatives in the south grew, until threats resulted, threats of war from the most authoritative quarter. 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.