Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/113

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IN THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA.
83

CHAP. VIII.

she could act with irresistible pressure upon the invader of the Principalities. On the 6th and 22d L, of February she reinforced her army on the frontier of Wallachia by 50,000 men, and thus placed the Russian army of occupation completely at her mercy. On the day when she sent that last reinforcement into the Banat, she had grown so impatient of the further continuance of the Russians in the Principalities that she actually pressed Prance and England to summon Paissia to quit the Principalities under pain of a declaration of war, and undertook to support their summons.[1]Prussia was approving; and on the 25th, Baron Manteuffel wrote to Count Arnim at Vienna 'on the subject of a more decided policy which it was supposed the Austrian Government was about to adopt in the affairs of the East, and expressed the satisfaction of the Prussian Government at the interests of Germany on the Danube being likely to be so warmly spoused.'[2] On the 2d of March the French Emperor had so little doubt of the concurrence of Austria and Germany, that he announced it in his speech from the Throne. 'Germany,' said he, ' has recovered her independence, and has looked freely to see whither her true interests led her. Austria especially, who cannot see with indifference the events going on, will join our alliance, and will thus come to confirm the morality and justice of the war which we undertake. We go to Constantinople with Germany.'

  1. Eastern Papers,' part vii. p. 53.
  2. Ibib. p. 60,