Count Gyula Andrássy to the imperial Foreign Ministry in 1871 ensured, for the first time, the foreign policies of the empire would take account of specifically Hungarian interests—but without being subordinated to them. He believed that the greatest threat to both Hungary and the Hapsburg empire lay in Russian expansion and in pan-Slavism, which would incite the Slav peoples of the empire to tear it apart. The most likely direction of Russian expansion would be southwards, into the Balkans; it was therefore essential that the Turkish empire’s loose hegemony over that region should be preserved.

Shortly after Andrássy’s installation in the Ballhausplatz, the League of Three Emperors (Dreikaiserbund) formally replaced the Holy Alliance, following the proclamation of the German empire in defeated France. Although concerned to prevent closer relations between Prussia and Russia, which might encourage the latter to assume carte blanche in the Balkans, Andrássy made what use he could of warmer personal relations between Franz Josef, Alexander II, and Wilhelm I. When Alexander visited Vienna in 1873 for the opening of the World Fair, Andrássy succeeded in negotiating an Austro-Russian commitment to the status quo in the Balkans; neither power would intervene in Balkan conflicts unless impelled by extreme necessity, in which case there would be prior consultation.

When in 1875 Bosnia and Herzegovina rose up against the Turks, triggering a declaration of war against Turkey by Serbia and revolt in Bulgaria, Andrássy, having tried in vain to prevail upon the Turks to defuse the crisis by introducing reforms, succeeded both in restraining the Austrian generals who were eager to join Russia in a Balkan carve-up, and, in 1876 at Reichstadt, in buying Russian inactivity from his counterpart, Alexander Mikhailovich Gorchakov, with a promise of the eventual restoration to Russia of Bessarabia. But Russia was straining at the leash: when the Serbs had been subdued by Turkish arms, Alexander II did his best to persuade Franz Josef to join him in a crusade to liberate the Balkans from the Turkish yoke. The emperor, itching to compensate for his loss of Lombardy and Veneto, was sorely tempted.

Andrássy, once more argued for restraint. He not only wished to spare Hungary the destabilizing consequences of a probably prolonged and possibly unsuccessful offensive being launched from her territory; but he also wished to avoid the addition to the empire of more Slav-populated territory, which would further tilt the ethnic balance against both Magyars and Germans, and provide fertile ground for Russian-backed pan-Slavism. The secret agreement, concluded in Budapest in January 1877, represented a partial success for Andrássy. It provided that Austria-Hungary would remain neutral in a Russian-Turkish war and could occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina as a reward; Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro would be granted independence provided that they did not combine into a southern Slav state, with or without Russian help. The Tsar’s army marched into the Balkans three months later.

From Bryan Cartledge’s The Will to Survive: A History of Hungary, London: Hurst & Company, 2011 (first published in 2006), pp. 238-239.