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Austria retorted to the steps being taken by the Russo-French group by obtaining from the Sultan permission to build a railway from Uvatz, on the Bosnian frontier, to Mitrovitza, which would link up Serajevo with Salonika. The Balkan railway question had been rankling for years. The Slav wanted an east-and-west line to connect with the Adriatic. The Teuton a north-south one to reach the Aegean.
At the time a treaty was concluded with Napoleon, then First Consul, by virtue of which a combined Russo-French army was to disembark at Asterabad and march from thence into India by way of Khorassan and Afghanistan. The death of the Emperor of Russia put an end to this plan.
We come now to the third party to die Entente, and it is now we begin to perceive how it was that a cordial understanding with England rendered a Russo-French attack upon Germany only a question of time and opportunity. Until England appeared upon the scene neither Russia nor France, nor both combined, could summon up courage to strike the blow. Willing to wound they were both afraid to strike.
"What do you think?" said he. "I think not." "Our Minister at Belgrade is of the same opinion," he replied. In truth the officers who had protested that Serbia had now openly joined the Russo-French combine were right. And what is more, through our Entente with France, we too now, consciously or not, were tools used by Russia for the making of Great Serbia and furthering Pan-Slav ambition.
I ignore the pigs, but I pacify local prejudice by buying two gingerbread sailors a Russian and a French shaking hands in symbolisation of the Russo-French alliance, and I further prove myself a patriot by throwing bright wooden balls into the mouth of a great-faced German, for which I receive the guerdon of a paper rose and a Berlin wool monkey.
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