xv., p. 258.] It had been adopted by the leaders in the Frankfurt Parliament of 1848-49, and Count Bismarck was the inheritor of these traditions when he finally expelled the House of Hapsburg in 1866, and thus translated ancient theories into modern facts. It was therefore highly improbable, to say the least, that only a few years after the Treaty of Berlin he should be engaged in an attempt to nullify his own work. [Footnote: On January 14th, 1849, the Frankfurt Parliament voted the exclusion of Austria from Germany.] Austria, Sir Charles Dilke pointed out, some day by mere competition with Russia, if that Power made further advances, might perhaps be forced forward unwillingly to Salonica; but by thus seizing Macedonia--a far larger proposition than that of the annexation of Bosnia and the Herzegovina, and in many respects a different one--it was clear she would 'increase her military weakness, would deeply offend the Servians, the Greeks, and the Bulgarians, and by increasing the number of her Slavonic subjects would only hasten her own break-up.' Here, in fact, lay the real danger to the 'Eastern Empire.' Prince Bismarck, as a matter of fact, was of all men in Europe the man who most desired to keep Austria alive. 'It is a necessity to him that she should continue to exist. Once destroy Austria, and Germany is left to fight it out with France and Russia without assistance, for in this case Italy would not move,' notwithstanding the recently renewed Triple Alliance. That a military party existed in Austria which might desire to go to Salonica, and would also rejoice in a war with Italy, Sir Charles was well aware; but he saw no reason to believe that it would succeed in forcing these adventures on the Ballplatz, or on the statesmen of Hungary, who above all things dreaded an increase of the Slavonic elements in the Empire. The Austria-Hungary of 1887 was the Austria-Hungary of the long rule of Count Taafe at Vienna, of M. Koloman Tisza at Buda-Pesth, and of Count Kalnoky at the Ballplatz; and it was not unreasonable at that time to consider it possible that, 'after the division of the respective spheres of influence of Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia, in Macedonia, Austria might gradually increase her influence in the Balkan States; and if she would take the bold step of making up an arrangement for evacuating part of Bosnia and the Herzegovina, so as to show she had no intention of going southwards to Salonica, she might bring together in a general understanding with herself the small States and the Turks.' This, however, Sir Charles admitted, was probably impracticable, 'as Austro- Hungarian pride would effectually prevent the abandonment of any portion of Bosnia.' But so late as 1909 Dilke told Lord Fitzmaurice, when, at the time of her final annexation of Bosnia and the Herzegovina, Austria-Hungary had retired from the Sandjak of Novi Bazar, that he thought the British Foreign Office 'had made too great a fuss' over the