France.  Austria would be paralyzed by Russia; against the latter we should have to leave forces in the East.  We should thus have to fight out the struggle against France and England practically alone with a part of our army, perhaps with some support from Italy.  It is in this double menace by sea and on the mainland of Europe that the grave danger to our political position lies, since all freedom of action is taken from us and all expansion barred.

Since the struggle is, as appears on a thorough investigation of the international question, necessary and inevitable, we must fight it out, cost what it may.  Indeed, we are carrying it on at the present moment, though not with drawn swords, and only by peaceful means so far.  On the one hand it is being waged by the competition in trade, industries and warlike preparations; on the other hand, by diplomatic methods with which the rival States are fighting each other in every region where their interests clash.

With these methods it has been possible to maintain peace hitherto, but not without considerable loss of power and prestige.  This apparently peaceful state of things must not deceive us; we are facing a hidden, but none the less formidable, crisis—­perhaps the most momentous crisis in the history of the German nation.

We have fought in the last great wars for our national union and our position among the Powers of Europe; we now must decide whether we wish to develop into and maintain a World Empire, and procure for German spirit and German ideas that fit recognition which has been hitherto withheld from them.

Have we the energy to aspire to that great goal?  Are we prepared to make the sacrifices which such an effort will doubtless cost us? or are we willing to recoil before the hostile forces, and sink step by step lower in our economic, political, and national importance?  That is what is involved in our decision.

“To be, or not to be,” is the question which is put to us to-day, disguised, indeed, by the apparent equilibrium of the opposing interests and forces, by the deceitful shifts of diplomacy, and the official peace-aspirations of all the States; but by the logic of history inexorably demanding an answer, if we look with clear gaze beyond the narrow horizon of the day and the mere surface of things into the region of realities.

There is no standing still in the world’s history.  All is growth and development.  It is obviously impossible to keep things in the status quo, as diplomacy has so often attempted.  No true statesman will ever seriously count on such a possibility; he will only make the outward and temporary maintenance of existing conditions a duty when he wishes to gain time and deceive an opponent, or when he cannot see what is the trend of events.  He will use such diplomatic means only as inferior tools; in reality he will only reckon with actual forces and with the powers of a continuous development.