KOFF ( 1 798-1883 ) , a cousin of the preceding, en tered the diplomatic service and became one of the most skillful and influential diplomats in Europe. Ile was an attach6 in the suite of Count Nesselrode at the congresses of Laibach and Ve rona, secretary of the Russian embassy in Lon don in 1824, chargts d'affaires at Florence in 1829, counselor of the Russian Embassy at Vienna in 1832, and in 1841 was sent as Plenipo tentiary to Stuttgart, where he negotiated the marriage of the Grand Duchess Olga, (laughter of Emperor Nicholas. with Crown Prince Charles of Wilrttemberg. He was accredited Ambassador to the German Bundestag at Frankfort in 1850, and there first met Bismarck. Ife represented Russia at Vienna from 1854 to 1856, and so con ducted affairs that Alexander 11. made him Min ister of Foreign Affairs on the retirement of Nesselrode, April 15, 1856. At the very outset hostility to Austria seemed to be the impelling motive of his policy. "Austria," he declared, "is no State, only a Government," and he shaped his policy in accordance with his dictum, after the disastrous issue of the Crimean \Var, "La Russie ne boude pas, elle se recueille" ("Russia bears no grudge; she collects herself"). He was un questionably successful in restoring the prestige of Russia. In 1863 he was made Chancellor of the Empire. During the Civil War in the United States he maintained a friendly attitude toward the North, a fact which restrained France and England from open countenance of the Con federacy. By bringing Russia into accord with Prussia in 1863 he was able to resist time at tempted interferences of foreign powers in behalf of the Polish insurgents. He cultivated friendly
relations with Bismarck while the latter was Prussian Ambassador at Saint Petersburg, and the good understanding between the two govern ments made possible the attainment of German unity through Prussia's drastic course, while Russia reaped her reward by being enabled to break the terms of the Peace of Paris in regard to the neutrality of the Black Sea. After 1873 Gortchakoff ceased to view with favor the much talked of alliance of the three Em perors, because of the increasing power of Germany. He was the guiding spirit of Rus sian policy in the war with Turkey in 1877-78, and the diplomatic consequences of that war widened the breach between the two great chan cellors and their governments. Gortchakoff felt that Russia had been deserted by Germany in the negotiations at Berlin, and he never forgot it. He was the author of the Franco-Russian entente, to which Bismarck responded by the Triple Alliance. De Giers succeeded Gortchakoff as Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1882, but the latter remained Chancellor until his death at Baden-Baden, March 11, 1883. Prince Gort chakoff's biography, by Charles Marvin, was published in London (1887). Some interesting observations on Gortchakoff and his diplomatic methods are to be found in Bismarck's Autobiog raphy, translated by Butler (New York. 1899). Consult also Klaczko, The Two Chancellors, translated by Tait (New York, 1876). See