The Czar's Note Making For Peace.

New York Times 100 years ago today, October 30, 1912:
Telegram to King Peter Has Caused Austria to Modify Her Attitude to Balkan States.
SEEKING TO STOP THE WAR
Powers May Act Within a Week — Hope of Preventing a General Conflict Grows.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
    LONDON, Wednesday, Oct. 30.— Confirmation of the statement cabled yesterday to The New York Times that the Czar sent a message of congratulation to King Peter on the success of the Servian arms has been received in official dispatches from Belgrade.
    The exact text of the message is not given, but The Times, which displayed the news prominently in a special edition, gave a version of which the curious wording was exactly similar to that in The New York Times's message. All yesterday's evening papers gave prominence to a Belgrade dispatch announcing King Peter's receipt of the Czar's message.
    What, if any, effect the Czar's message may have had on the Austrian policy is at this moment, of course, a matter of pure speculation, but it is at least a curious coincidence that the official statement yesterday by the Austrian Premier in the Reichsrath marks a new point of new as to the preservation of the status quo in the Balkans.
    Even more significant was a statement in me Fremdenblatt of Vienna, the mouthpiece of the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Office, yesterday giving a new interpretation of Austria's status quo policy by declaring that this principle did not aim at the prevention of any territorial changes and the preservation of Turkey as at present, but merely at the maintenance of the interests of the great powers and of Roumania in the Balkans.
    "Apparently," says The Daily News correspondent, who telegraphs a summary of the Fremdenblatt's article, "Count Berchtold is accommodating himself to the new situation."
    This highly important news indicates an almost complete volte face on the part of Austria, which it would be invidious to suggest is due to Russia's determination to uphold the interests of her Slav proteges. It marks a great step taken toward the maintenance of European peace.
    The improvement in the general outlook within the past twenty-four hours is confirmed from various sources. On the best authority it can be stated that the efforts of the great powers to cope with the new situation created by the unexpectedly swift and decisive successes of the Balkan allies are promising good results. Every possible influence is being brought to bear to obviate that clash between Austria and Russia which is the greatest peril of the situation.
    France has been acting as director of the negotiations, and there have been direct conversations between Paris and Berlin of a remarkably close character.
    It is indisputable that the actual trend of affairs is much more favorable to the Triple Entente than to the Triple Alliance, assuming that a difference of opinion between two of the powers in these two groups should become acute. The positions now and at the time of the Bosnia-Herzegovina coup are reversed. France and Russia are now in as good a posture to make their arguments felt by Germany and Austria as Germany and Austria were when the Kaiser threatened Russia three years ago. Confidence of strength is one of the most potent aids to diplomatic action, and there is little doubt that Premier Poincaré's efforts to preserve peace have been helped by the course of the Balkan war, which has been a serious blow to Germany's military amour propre.
    Happily there has been no necessity to have recourse to any such unpleasant argument, and the conversations of the great powers have been marked by a common desire to smooth away the possibilities of friction. As The Times this morning says:
    "The concert of Europe may not have averted a local war, but it has been successful in its endeavors to preserve the larger peace of the Continent."
    Dispatches from Berlin further credit the German Foreign Office with a statement that pourparlers going on between the powers have resulted in an Austro-Russian understanding, which is about to be made public in an official communiqué. It is thus seen that the general tenor of this morning's news as to the European situation is distinctly favorable. Only one exception is found, in a St. Petersburg telegram to The Daily Mail stating that the Czar has canceled his summons to Premier Kokovtzoff to go to Spala, which is regarded as a sign of imperial disapproval of the Premier's support of Foreign Minister Sazonoff's pacific policy. It is stated that Gen. Soukomlinoff, the War Minister, who is disposed, contrary to the desire of his colleagues in the Cabinet, to support the Balkan allies should Austria attempt to deprive them of the fruits of victory, will go to see the Czar at Spala to-day instead.
    France Militaire, the organ of the French General Staff, has an article on the general European military situation in which it concludes that neither Germany nor Austria is prepared for the particular war which menaces Europe. It says: "Germany, having no interest in and not wanting such a war, will probably prevail upon her ally to have the wisdom not to provoke it."