Since France has succeeded in bringing her military strength to approximately the same level as Germany, since she has acquired in her North African Empire the possibility of considerably increasing that strength, since she has completely outstripped Germany in the sphere of colonial policy, and has not only kept up, but also revived, the French sympathies of Alsace and Lorraine, the conclusion is obvious:  France will not abandon the paths of an anti-German policy, but will do her best to excite hostility against us, and to thwart German interests in every quarter of the globe.  When she came to an understanding with the Italians, that she should be given a free hand in Morocco if she allowed them to occupy Tripoli, a wedge was driven into the Triple Alliance which threatens to split it.  It may be regarded as highly improbable that she will maintain honourably and with no arriere-pensee the obligations undertaken in the interests of German commerce in Morocco.  The suppression of these interests was, in fact, a marked feature of the French Morocco policy, which was conspicuously anti-German.  The French policy was so successful that we shall have to reckon more than ever on the hostility of France in the future.  It must be regarded as a quite unthinkable proposition that an agreement between France and Germany can be negotiated before the question between them has been once more decided by arms.  Such an agreement is the less likely now that France sides with England, to whose interest it is to repress Germany but strengthen France.  Another picture meets our eyes if we turn to the East, where the giant Russian Empire towers above all others.

The Empire of the Czar, in consequence of its defeat in Manchuria, and of the revolution which was precipitated by the disastrous war, is following apparently a policy of recuperation.  It has tried to come to an understanding with Japan in the Far East, and with England in Central Asia; in the Balkans its policy aims at the maintenance of the status quo.  So far it does not seem to have entertained any idea of war with Germany.  The Potsdam agreement, whose importance cannot be overestimated, shows that we need not anticipate at present any aggressive policy on Russia’s part.  The ministry of Kokowzew seems likely to wish to continue this policy of recuperation, and has the more reason for doing so, as the murder of Stolypin with its accompanying events showed, as it were by a flash of lightning, a dreadful picture of internal disorder and revolutionary intrigue.  It is improbable, therefore, that Russia would now be inclined to make armed intervention in favour of France.  The Russo-French alliance is not, indeed, swept away, and there is no doubt that Russia would, if the necessity arose, meet her obligations; but the tension has been temporarily relaxed, and an improvement in the Russo-German relations has been effected, although this state of things was sufficiently well paid for by the concessions of Germany in North Persia.