ABSTRACT
On 20 March 1896, just one week after the Sirdar had received his orders to advance into Dongola province, Baron Karl Heidler, AustroHungarian Diplomatic Agent and Consul-General in Cairo addressed a letter of complaint to his chief in Vienna, Count Agenor Goluchowski, about an interview to which he had been subjected by the AustroHungarian heir apparent. l During his recent visit to Cairo Archduke Franz Ferdinand, a violent Anglophobe, had given the Diplomatic Agency a wide berth, and had spent much of his time with the Khedive, 'expressing himself in an outspokenly anti-English fashion and speaking of our foreign policy in extremely derogatory terms'. Just before departing, however, he had summoned Heidler to explain the background to the Dongola expedition, 'which constitutes another violation of Egypt by England'; and he had gone on to deliver a heated tirade against AustriaHungary's association with Italy in the Triple Alliance and with Great Britain, 'who is ruining our trade in the Far East and is expanding her dominion by treachery and violence in which we are her abettors etc etc.'. Although Heidler was dismayed by 'such an impassioned attack on the whole policy our Monarchy has been pursuing for the past thirty years' - all the more so as anyone could imagine the impression this language would have made on the Khedive, 'for whom our pro-English policy has always been a thorn in the eye' - he held his tongue. But he hastened to assure Vienna that, 'as it is the squaring of the circle to please both England and the Khedive', he would continue to keep a polite distance from the latter and to cultivate friendly relations with Great Britain in accordance with the instructions he had received from Goluchowski and his predecessor.
