to the secret reasons of State by which in the
last resource the policy of the Government was determined, we have
little knowledge. From time to time indeed some illicit disclosure, the
publication of some confidential document, throws an unexpected light on
a situation which is obscure; but these disclosures, so hazardous to the
good repute of the men who are responsible and the country in which they
are possible, must be treated with great reserve. Prompted by motives of
private revenge or public ambition, they disclose only half the truth,
and a portion of the truth is often more misleading than complete
ignorance.

In foreign policy he was henceforward sole, undisputed master; in
Parliament and in the Press scarcely a voice was raised to challenge his
pre-eminence; he enjoyed the complete confidence of the allied
sovereigns and the enthusiastic affection of the nation; even those
parties which often opposed and criticised his internal policy supported
him always on foreign affairs. Those only opposed him who were hostile
to the Empire itself, those whose ideals or interests were injured by
this great military monarchy--Poles and Ultramontanes, Guelphs and
Socialists; in opposing Bismarck they seemed to be traitors to their
country, and he and his supporters were not slow to divide the nation
into the loyal and the _Reichsfeindlich_.

He deserved the confidence which was placed in him. He succeeded in
preserving to the newly founded Empire all the prestige it had gained;
he was enabled to soothe the jealousy of the neutral Powers. He did so
by his policy of peace. Now he pursued peace with the same decision with
which but two years before he had brought about a war. He was guided by
the same motive; as war had then been for the benefit of Germany, so now
was peace. He had never loved war for the sake of war; he was too good a
diplomatist for this; war is the negation of diplomacy, and the
statesman who has recourse to it must for the time give over the control
to other hands. It is always a clumsy method. The love of war for the
sake of war will be found more commonly among autocratic sovereigns who
are their own generals than among skilled and practised ministers, and
generally war is the last resource by which a weak diplomatist attempts
to conceal his blunders and to regain what he has lost.

There had been much anxiety in Europe how the new Empire would deport
itself; would it use this power which had been so i