marck's
resignation, the whole country applauded the decision. In the Reichstag
a great demonstration was made of confidence in the Chancellor. Everyone
felt that he could not be spared at a time when the complications in the
East were bringing new dangers upon Europe, and in the seclusion of
Varzin he did not cease during the next months to direct the foreign
policy of the Empire. He was able with the other Governments of Europe
to prevent the spread of hostilities from Turkey to the rest of Europe,
and when the next year the English Government refused its assent to the
provisional peace of San Stefano, it was the unanimous desire of all the
other States that the settlement of Turkey should be submitted to a
Congress at Berlin over which he should preside. It was the culmination
of his public career; it was the recognition by Europe in the most
impressive way of his primacy among living statesmen. In his management
of the Congress he answered to the expectations formed of him. "We do
not wish to go," he had said, "the way of Napoleon; we do not desire to
be the arbitrators or schoolmasters of Europe. We do not wish to force
our policy on other States by appealing to the strength of our army. I
look on our task as a more useful though a humbler one; it is enough if
we can be an honest broker." He succeeded in the task he had set before
himself, and in reconciling the apparently incompatible desires of
England and Russia. Again and again when the Congress seemed about to
break up without result he made himself the spokesman of Russian wishes,
and conveyed them to Lord Beaconsfield, the English plenipotentiary.
None the less the friendship of Russia, which had before wavered, now
broke down. A bitter attack on Germany and Bismarck was begun in the
Russian Press; the new German fiscal policy led to misunderstandings;
the Czar in private letters to the Emperor demanded in the negotiations
that were still going on the absolute and unconditional support of
Germany to all Russian demands as the condition of Russian friendship.
In the autumn of the next year matters came near to war; it was in these
circumstances that Bismarck brought about that alliance which ever since
then has governed European politics. He hastily arranged a meeting with
Count Andrassy, the Austrian Minister, and in a few days the two
statesmen agreed on a defensive alliance between the two Empires. Many
years later, in 1886, the instrument of alliance was pu