But this was not sufficient.  Faced with the implacable hostility of France, on account of the lost provinces, Bismarck saw danger of trouble from a French Coalition with the two remaining Great Powers, Britain and Russia.  Bismarck never liked England; but he never made his successors’ mistake of despising her.  He cultivated good relations, but he rejected the idea of an alliance, because, as he said, “the English constitution is not compatible with treaties of assured continuity.”  In other words, he fought shy of British democracy, which he felt to be an incalculable factor.  This threw him back upon Russia.

The relations between the German and the Russian peoples have never been cordial.  But between the reactionary bureaucracies of the Prussian and Russian governments there was a strong bond of mutual interest, which Bismarck exploited to the full.  Both had popular movements to hold in check, both had stolen goods to guard in the shape of their Polish possessions, and both had an interest in the preservation of reactionary institutions.  The influence of Prussia upon Russia, and of the efficient, highly-organised, relentless Prussian machine upon the arbitrary, tyrannical, but far less efficient and inhuman bureaucracy of Russia, has been wholly sinister[1], both for Russia and for Europe.  Bismarck’s object, of course, was not so much to keep down the Russian revolutionaries as to check the aspirations of the Panslavists, whose designs for the liberation of the Slav nationalities, as we now see them unfolding, threaten the stability both of Prussia and of Austria-Hungary.

[Footnote 1:  The same remark applies to the influence of Germany on Turkey.]

Throughout the ’eighties Bismarck succeeded in keeping on foot a secret understanding with Russia.  How deeply he had implanted the necessity of this policy in the mind of William I. is brought home by the fact that it was the thought uppermost in the old man’s mind as he lay on his deathbed.  “Never lose touch with the Tsar,” whispered the old man to his grandson, when he was almost too weak to speak.  “There is no cause for quarrel.”

The old Emperor died in 1888.  In 1890 the young Emperor “dropped the pilot.”  In the same year Russia refused to renew her secret treaty.  In 1891 the first Franco-Russian Treaty was signed, and the diplomatic supremacy of Europe passed from the Triple Alliance to be shared between the two opposing groups with which we have been familiar in recent years.

The disappearance of Prince Bismarck marked the beginning of a new phase in German policy and in German life.  The younger generation, which had come to maturity, like the Kaiser, since 1870, had never known the old divided Germany, or realised the difficulties of her statesmen.  Every one wondered what use the young Kaiser would make of the great Army bequeathed to him.  He was believed to be a firebrand.  Few believed that, imbued with Prussian traditions, he would keep the peace for twenty-five years; fewer still that, when he broke it, Germany would have the second Navy in the world.