ABSTRACT
The period immediately preceding Franz Joseph's visit to St Petersburg of 279 April had not seemed to offer much hope of any significant improvement in Austro-Russian relations. The news of the Austro-Russian entente had been ill-received at Bucharest and not without reason. Yet Goluchowski, after his experiences of Russian Balkan policy in the succeeding three years, was by no means willing to stake everything on the Russian entente. The Roumanian alliance, now almost the only remaining element of the Monarchy's barrier against the spread of Russian influence throughout the Balkans. The collapse of the Austro-Hungarian position in Serbia represented, an even more spectacular sacrifice on the altar of the Austro-Russian entente. In fact, the murder of King Alexander and his wife by military conspirators on 11 June 1903 hardly bore at the time the crucial significance for Austro-Serbian relations that it was to acquire in the light of Serbia's behaviour under the Karageorgevi dynasty.
