the policy on which England has built up her power in Europe, in order to continue her world policy undisturbed.  She cannot be justly blamed for this; for even if she has acted with complete disregard of political morality, she has built up a mighty Empire, which is the object of all policy, and has secured to the English people the possibility of the most ambitious careers.  We must not deceive ourselves as to the principles of this English policy.  We must realize to ourselves that it is guided exclusively by unscrupulous selfishness, that it shrinks from no means of accomplishing its aims, and thus shows admirable diplomatic skill.

There must be no self-deception on the point that political arrangements have only a qualified value, that they are always concluded with a tacit reservation.  Every treaty of alliance presupposes the rebus sic stantibus; for since it must satisfy the interests of each contracting party, it clearly can only hold as long as those interests are really benefited.  This is a political principle that cannot be disputed.  Nothing can compel a State to act counter to its own interests, on which those of its citizens depend.  This consideration, however, imposes on the honest State the obligation of acting with the utmost caution when concluding a political arrangement and defining its limits in time, so as to avoid being forced into a breach of its word.  Conditions may arise which are more powerful than the most honourable intentions.  The country’s own interests—­considered, of course, in the highest ethical sense—­must then turn the scale.  “Frederick the Great was all his life long charged with treachery, because no treaty or alliance could ever induce him to renounce the right of free self-determination."[A]

The great statesman, therefore, will conclude political ententes or alliances, on whose continuance he wishes to be able to reckon, only if he is convinced that each of the contracting parties will find such an arrangement to his true and unqualified advantage.  Such an alliance is, as I have shown in another place, the Austro-German.  The two States, from the military no less than from the political aspect, are in the happiest way complements of each other.  The German theatre of war in the east will be protected by Austria from any attempt to turn our flank on the south, while we can guard the northern frontier of Austria and outflank any Russian attack on Galicia.

Alliances in which each contracting party has different interests will never hold good under all conditions, and therefore cannot represent a permanent political system.

“There is no alliance or agreement in the world that can be regarded as effective if it is not fastened by the bond of the common and reciprocal interests; if in any treaty the advantage is all on one side and the other gets nothing, this disproportion destroys the obligation.”  These are the words of Frederick the Great, our foremost political teacher pace Bismarck.