League of the Three Emperors

The League of the Three Emperors, in the form published by the Avalon Project as the Three Emperors League of 18 June 1881, is a secret defensive understanding between the courts of Austria-Hungary, Germany and Russia, who say they act from an equal desire to consolidate the general peace and assure their defensive positions. Under Article 1, if one party finds itself at war with a fourth Great Power, the other two maintain benevolent neutrality and work to localize the conflict, and a war between one of them and Turkey counts only where the three courts have previously agreed on its results. Article 2 has Russia respect the position assured to Austria-Hungary by the Treaty of Berlin and binds the three to take account of one another's Balkan interests, so that changes to Turkey's territory in Europe need common agreement. Article 3 recognizes the closing of the Straits of the Bosporus and of the Dardanelles as a European and mutually obligatory principle. The treaty runs three years from the exchange of ratifications, its existence is to be kept secret, and it replaces the secret conventions of 1873 between Austria-Hungary and Russia and between Germany and Russia. A separate protocol of the same date records understandings on Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Sanjak of Novibazar, Eastern Rumelia and Bulgaria.