The sphere in which we can realize our ambition is circumscribed by the hostile intentions of the other World Powers, by the existing territorial conditions, and by the armed force which is at the back of both.  Our policy must necessarily be determined by the consideration of these conditions.  We must accurately, and without bias or timidity, examine the circumstances which turn the scale when the forces which concern us are weighed one against the other.

These considerations fall partly within the military, but belong mainly to the political sphere, in so far as the political grouping of the States allows a survey of the military resources of the parties.  We must try to realize this grouping.  The shifting aims of the politics of the day need not be our standard; they are often coloured by considerations of present expediency, and offer no firm basis for forming an opinion.  We must rather endeavour to recognize the political views and intentions of the individual States, which are based on the nature of things, and therefore will continually make their importance felt.  The broad lines of policy are ultimately laid down by the permanent interests of a country, although they may often be mistaken from short-sightedness or timidity, and although policy sometimes takes a course which does not seem warranted from the standpoint of lasting national benefits.  Policy is not an exact science, following necessary laws, but is made by men who impress on it the stamp of their strength or their weakness, and often divert it from the path of true national interests.  Such digressions must not be ignored.  The statesman who seizes his opportunity will often profit by these political fluctuations.  But the student who considers matters from the standpoint of history must keep his eyes mainly fixed on those interests which seem permanent.  We must therefore try to make the international situation in this latter sense clear, so far as it concerns Germany’s power and ambitions.

We see the European Great Powers divided into two great camps.

On the one side Germany, Austria, and Italy have concluded a defensive alliance, whose sole object is to guard against hostile aggression.  In this alliance the two first-named States form the solid, probably unbreakable, core, since by the nature of things they are intimately connected.  The geographical conditions force this result.  The two States combined form a compact series of territories from the Adriatic to the North Sea and the Baltic.  Their close union is due also to historical national and political conditions.  Austrians have fought shoulder to shoulder with Prussians and Germans of the Empire on a hundred battlefields; Germans are the backbone of the Austrian dominions, the bond of union that holds together the different nationalities of the Empire.  Austria, more than Germany, must guard against the inroads of Slavism, since numerous Slavonic races are comprised in her