No. 191.
Mr. Schuyler to Mr. Fish.
Sir: There are no new developments herewith regard to the war. Russia still preserves her neutrality unbroken. The visit of Count Cholsk, the Austrian minister, to Vienna caused a good deal of talk in the Austrian papers, but, whatever may have been its reasons, there are no evident results.
The armaments have been pushed on fast, and it is said the government is now in condition to put 500,000 men into the held at a moment’s notice.
The Golos says that Russia is completely armed and ready for war; the St. Petersburg Gazette thinks not. The journals are calculating the chances of intervention or of war, and showing that its possibility increases every day. The Gazette of the Bourse says that Russia has done more for neutrality than any other nation; it has kept Austria, quiet by its threats, and has succeeded, through the influence of the Emperor and of the crown prince, in preventing Denmark from taking the side of France. The stay of the crown prince and his wife at Copenhagen has been greatly prolonged, but they are expected back now in about a fortnight. The Golos has had several articles on the position of Russia as a neutral power, and shows that she is the only one which cannot readily acquiesce in the aggrandizement and conquests of Prussia. If the treaty of Paris is to be considered binding on Russia, while other powers have broken it and seek better conditions of development, Russia is then defenseless in the south, and at the mercy of Germany and England. The last article ends thus: “Russia ought to keep her neutrality so long as her interests are untouched. But they may be touched if, in a coming congress, or on the conclusion of peace, the treaty of Paris remains unchanged. Russia has not hindered the forcible unification of Germany, and, in its turn, does not think of a forcible unification of the Slavonians. But it has the right to demand that its position on the Black Sea and on the banks of the Danube be lightened. We may hope that these lawful demands will be respected in the general European congress which will probably follow the present war.”
It is generally thought that now is the time for recovering the rights which were lost by the issue of the Crimean war.