II.
In his annual report for 1887, the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs declared that Russia, in putting herself into accord with Germany and Austria in 1881, had had in view the maintenance of the general peace, which Russia needed after the war which had exhausted her. It was certain that the general peace would be more firmly assured by an entente of the three emperors than by a separate alliance of two of them. Such were the considerations which had determined the late emperor to enter into this pacific triple entente. But the turn of events in the Balkan peninsula brought out an irreconcilable antagonism between us and Austria. In vain did we, at each renewal of the triple entente, exert ourselves to remove the causes of conflict; the result was, definitely, that Austria had entered, without striking a blow, into full possession of the provinces which she had wrested from Turkey, and from them was dominating Serbia and crushing Montenegro, while Russia saw the influence she had so dearly acquired in Bulgaria destroyed by foreign intrigues in which Austria had certainly had a large part. Such results made a disturbing impression upon Russian public opinion. And since under the triple entente Austrian policy clearly rested upon the alliance with Germany, the latter was in our country involved in the same disapproval which was visited upon Austria. The Berlin cabinet was accused of bad faith and duplicity; the organs of the Russian press set forth with approval the idea of opposing, to an alliance which had been weakened by want of confidence in the two neighboring empires, a close rapprochement with France based upon community of interests. The French press naturally seized upon this situation, and the turbulent elements in France exploited it passionately, to further their plans of revanche. The violence of this unrestrained polemic, disturbing the German mind, reacted ultimately upon the governments, and the tension of their states of opinion was shown by a series of military, financial, and economic measures which could not fail to poison their mutual relations. In the presence of such a state of affairs, the tsar deemed it no longer possible to renew the agreement of the three emperors, the pacific purpose of which could no longer be achieved. In fact at the beginning of the year 1887, a bill was introduced in the Reichstag according to the terms of which the strength of the German imperial army on a peace footing would be raised from 427,000 men to 468,000, for the period of the next seven years. In the session of January 11, 1887, Bismarck, going into the tribune himself to support the bill, said:
