and amicable way: "We have been friends, it is true, for hundreds of years, Russia has ever been true-blue to us when we were in difficulties, but now things are different. In the interest of Europe, as the policemen of Europe, as a kind of a justice of the peace, we must do as we are requested, we can no longer resist the demands of Europe * * *," what would be the result?
There are considerable numbers of Russians who do not love Germany, and who fortunately are not at the helm now, but who would not be unhappy if they were called there. What would they say to their compatriots, they and perhaps other statesmen who at present are not yet avowedly hostile to us? They would say: "With what sacrifices of blood and men and money have we not won the position which for centuries has been the ideal of Russian ambition! We could have maintained it against those opponents who may have a real interest in combating it. It was not Austria, with whom we have lived on moderately intimate terms for some time, it was not England, who possesses openly acknowledged counter-interests to ours—no, it was our intimate friend Germany who drew, behind our back, not her sword but a dagger, although we might have expected from her services in return for services rendered, and although she has no interests in the Orient."
Those approximately would be the phrases, and this the theme which we should hear in Russia. This picture which I have drawn in exaggerated lines—but the Russian orators also exaggerate—corresponds with the truth. We, however, shall never assume the responsibility of sacrificing the certain friendship of a great nation, tested through generations, to the momentary temptation of playing the judge in Europe.
To jeopardize the friendship which fortunately binds us to most European states and at the present moment to all,—for the parties to whom it is an eyesore are not in power,—to jeopardize, I say, this friendship with one friend in order to oblige another, when we as Germans have
