o say this. And now please assume
that we took the advice of the gentlemen who think that we should play
the part of an arbiter--I have here another article from a Berlin
paper, called "Germany's Part as Arbiter"--and that we declared to
Russia in some polite and amicable way: "We have been friends, it is
true, for hundreds of years, Russia has ever been true-blue to us when
we were in difficulties, but now things are different. In the
interest of Europe, as the policemen of Europe, as a kind of a justice
of the peace, we must do as we are requested, we can no longer resist
the demands of Europe ...," what would be the result?

There are considerable numbers of Russians who do not love Germany,
and who fortunately are not at the helm now, but who would not be
unhappy if they were called there. What would they say to their
compatriots, they and perhaps other statesmen who at present are not
yet avowedly hostile to us? They would say: "With what sacrifices of
blood and men and money have we not won the position which for
centuries has been the ideal of Russian ambition! We could have
maintained it against those opponents who may have a real interest in
combating it. It was not Austria, with whom we have lived on
moderately intimate terms for some time, it was not England, who
possesses openly acknowledged counter-interests to ours--no, it was
our intimate friend Germany who drew, behind our back, not her sword
but a dagger, although we might have expected from her services in
return for services rendered, and although she has _no_ interests in
the Orient."

Those approximately would be the phrases, and this the theme which we
should hear in Russia. This picture which I have drawn in exaggerated
lines--but the Russian orators also exaggerate--corresponds with the
truth. We, however, shall never assume the responsibility of
sacrificing the certain friendship of a great nation, tested through
generations, to the momentary temptation of playing the judge in
Europe.

To jeopardize the friendship which fortunately binds us to most
European states and at the present moment to all,--for the parties to
whom it is an eyesore are not in power,--to jeopardize, I say, this
friendship with one friend in order to oblige another, when we as
Germans have no direct interests, and to buy the peace of others at
the cost of our own, or, to speak with college boys, to substitute at
a duel--such things one may do when one risks only one's o