Fortunately for the cause of liberty, the new league had little of the solidity of its predecessor.  Either because the dangers against which it guarded were less serious, or owing to the jealousies which strained its structure from within, signs of weakness soon appeared, and the imposing fabric was disfigured by cracks which all the plastering of diplomatists failed to conceal.  An eminent Russian historian, M. Tatischeff, has recently discovered the hidden divulsive agency.  It seems that, not long after the formation of the Three Emperors’ League, Germany and Austria secretly formed a separate compact, whereby the former agreed eventually to secure to the latter due compensation in the Balkan Peninsula for her losses in the wars of 1859 and 1866 (Lombardy, Venetia, and the control of the German Confederation, along with Holstein)[244].

[Footnote 244:  The Emperor Alexander II.:  His Life and Reign, by S.S.  Tatischeff (St. Petersburg, 1903), Appendix to vol. ii.]

That is, the two Central Powers in 1872 secretly agreed to take action in the way in which Austria advanced in 1877-78, when she secured Herzegovina.  When and to what extent Russian diplomatists became aware of this separate agreement is not known, but their suspicion or their resentment appears to have prompted them to the unfriendly action towards Germany which they took in the year 1875.  According to the Bismarck Reflections and Reminiscences, the Russian Chancellor, Prince Gortchakoff, felt so keenly jealous of the rapid rise of the German Chancellor to fame and pre-eminence as to spread “the lie” that Germany was about to fall upon France.  Even the uninitiated reader might feel some surprise that the Russian Chancellor should have endangered the peace of Europe and his own credit as a statesman for so slight a motive; but it now seems that Bismarck’s assertion must be looked on as a “reflection,” not as a “reminiscence.”

The same remark may perhaps apply to his treatment of the “affair of 1875,” which largely determined the future groupings of the Powers.  At that time the recovery of France from the wounds of 1870 was well nigh complete; her military and constitutional systems were taking concrete form; and in the early part of the year 1875 the Chambers decreed a large increase to the armed forces in the form of “the fourth battalions.”  At once the military party at Berlin took alarm, and through their chief, Moltke, pressed on the Emperor William the need of striking promptly at France.  The Republic, so they argued, could not endure the strain which it now voluntarily underwent; the outcome must be war; and war at once would be the most statesmanlike and merciful course.  Whether the Emperor in any way acceded to these views is not known.  He is said to have more than once expressed a keen desire to end his reign in peace.