for Prussia.  The sole object that Prussian Germany pursues is brutal conquest in all its forms.  By all conceivable means to get a footing for herself, here, there and everywhere; by the most energetic and methodical diplomacy possible, by military science, by trade and manufactures, by emigration and the race-spirit, and at the same time by subterranean methods of allurement and by insolent threats; these are her purposes and she accomplishes something of them every day.  When one reflects what Germany’s objects were, and what she has achieved in the Eastern question, to what humiliations and cross purposes she has exposed and reduced Europe, to what contempt for her own interests, what bewilderment and impotence, then, I repeat, the stoutest heart may have good cause for fear.

Turkey, galvanised by Germany, has become a force to inspire terror amongst Christians in the East and throughout the whole range of European civilisation, where it comes into contact with Mussulmans, in all parts of the world.  All the slow-moving patience of Russian and French diplomacy for centuries, all the long struggles of the Crusades have been robbed of their garnered fruits in a few months.  German policy has overthrown all their influence, destroyed all their approach works, released Europe’s vassal from all his promises and obligations.  The Sick Man, cured by a quack who holds his health in pawn, has bound himself body and soul to his healer.

Greece, frequently hesitating in her policy between British and French sympathies, has nothing to hope for in the future from Turkophil Germany.  William II will make her recovery a matter of limitations and bargaining.  And who knows but that the strange proceedings of Prince Constantine and of the royal princes, his brothers, may not be explained by secret promises for the future—­promises made by the German Emperor in return for blind submission to his will?

William II holds Turkey in the hollow of his hand.  Byzantium and Rome are vassals of a German monarch.  If Rome is threatened with ruin by her alliance with the King of Prussia, Byzantium is restored by a new Caraculla.  William II is, therefore, twice entitled to wear the sphere with the Imperial crown atop, as the emblem of his sovereign power and as the imitator of the Roman Emperor.  And notwithstanding the Anti-Christ protection which he extends to the infidel, he can also affix the Cross to his sphere.  Is he not about to take possession, in theatrical fashion, of the Holy Places?

Turkey has been restored by the Kaiser of Berlin.  He is her Emperor, her Khalif, Master of the Holy Places, for the reason that his most humble servant is Emperor, Khalif and Master of the Holy Places.  So long as all these titles and powers lay in weak hands, the dangers of Turkish policy, if not the anxieties it created, might be disregarded.  But today the military strength of Turkey is firmly established and it is supported by another tremendous Power.  Russia and France have never committed an act of graver imprudence than to allow these two forces to unite.  Germany, Germany, ever and ever greater!  The German song is no longer a dead letter.