“An alliance between Austria, Germany, Russia and Turkey is required”: About Prince V.P. Meshchersky’s Articles in the Austrian Press on the Eve of the First World War

The article is devoted to the foreign policy views of Prince Vladimir P. Meshchersky (1839–1914), a famous Russian conservative political writer. Three articles by Meshchersky are introduced into scientific circulation. They were published on the eve of the First World War in the Vienna newspaper Neue Freie Presse and aimed at changing public opinion in Austria-Hungary regarding the foreign policy of the Russian emperor. Wishing to prevent the impending military conflict with Germany and Austria-Hungary, the prince sought to convince readers of the influential Vienna newspaper of the indifference of a significant part of Russian society to the Balkan issue, the absence of Germanophobia among most representatives of the Russian elite, and peacefulness of the tsar and the Russian Foreign Ministry. Laying the main blame for the aggravation of Russo-German relations on the nationalist-minded press, which formed the public opinion of European countries, as well as on the adventurism of Balkan politicians, Meshchersky called on Vienna and Berlin to be reasonable, convincing them that an alliance between Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey should be the guarantor of European peace and the pacification of the Balkans. It is shown that the series of articles by Meshchersky, published in German a few months before the outbreak of World War I, largely coincided with the theses of the famous P. Durnovo Memorandum as well as with the views of a significant part of the Russian right-wingers of the early 20th century who opposed the aggravation of relations with Germany and Austria-Hungary over the Balkan issue and preferred good-neighborly relations with these countries. Meshchersky’s articles are also of undoubted interest as one of the latest attempts by the Russian conservative camp to change the foreign policy course taken by St Petersburg, Berlin, and Vienna. Meshchersky’s publications in the Austrian press are interesting for many valuable observations and are a vivid illustration of the pre-war sentiments of the part of Russian society that made desperate attempts to prevent Russia from being drawn into conflict with continental European monarchies on the eve of the war.

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