take.

This was in 1866, and in 1867 the Luxembourg problem arose, when only
a somewhat firmer reply was needed to bring about the great French war
in that year,--and we might have given it, if we had been so strong
that we could have counted on sure success. From then on, during 1868,
1869, and up to 1870 we were living in constant apprehension of war,
and of the agreements which in the time of Mr. von Beust were being
made in Salzburg and other places between France, Italy, and Austria,
and which, we feared, were directed against us. The apprehension of
war was so great at that time that I received calls--I was the
President of the cabinet--from merchants and manufacturers, who said:
"The uncertainty is unbearable. Why don't you strike the first blow?
War is preferable to this continued damper on all business!" We waited
quietly until we were struck, and I believe we did well to arrange
matters so that we were the nation which was assailed and were not
ourselves the assailants.

Now, since the great war of 1870 was waged, has there been a year, I
ask you, without the danger of war? In the first years of the
seventies--the very moment we came home, the question arose: "When
will be the next war? When will revenge be given? Within five years at
the latest, no doubt?" We were told: "The question whether we shall
have to fight and with what success surely rests with Russia
now-a-days. Russia alone holds the hilt." It was a representative of
the Catholic party who thus remonstrated with me in the Reichstag. I
may possibly revert to this subject later. In the meanwhile I wish to
complete the picture of the forty years by saying that in 1876 the
clouds of war again began to gather in the south. In 1877 the Balkan
War was waged, which would have led to a conflagration of the whole of
Europe, if this had not been prevented by the Congress gathered in
Berlin. After the Congress an entirely new eastern picture presented
itself to us, for Russia was offended by our attitude in the Congress.
I may revert to this later, if my strength permits.

Then there followed a period when we felt the results of the intimate
relations of the three emperors, which for some time permitted us to
face the future with greater placidity. But at the first symptoms of
any instability in the relations of the three emperors or of the
termination of the agreements which they had made with one another,
public opinion was possessed by the same nervous a