[Footnote 18: _Times_, July 22, 1911.]

[Footnote 19: _Correspondence_, p. 57 (Enclosure 1 in No. 105). See
Appendix II.]

[Footnote 20: _Ibid_. p. 57 (Enclosure 2 in No. 105).]

[Footnote 21: _Times_, April 12, 1904.]

CHAPTER III

THE DEVELOPMENT OF RUSSIAN POLICY

Until the year 1890 Russia and Germany had been in close touch. Dynastic
connexions united the two imperial houses; and the common policy of
repression of Polish nationality--the fatal legacy of the days of
Frederic the Great and Catharine II--united the two empires. National
sentiment in Russia was, however, always anti-German; and as early as
1885 Balkan affairs began to draw the Russian Government away from
Germany. In 1890 Bismarck fell; and under William II German policy left
the Russian connexion, and in close touch with Austria embarked on
Balkan adventures which ran counter to Russian aims, while Russia on her
side turned to new allies.

The new direction of Russian policy, which has brought the aims of the
Russian Government into close accord with the desires of national Slav
sentiment, was determined by Balkan conditions. Bismarck had cherished
no Balkan ambitions: he had been content to play the part of an 'honest
broker' at the Congress of Berlin, and he had spoken of the Bulgarian
affair of 1885 as 'not worth the bones of a Pomeranian grenadier.'
William II apparently thought otherwise. At any rate Germany seems to
have conducted, for many years past, a policy of establishing her
influence, along with that of Austria, through South-Eastern Europe. And
it is this policy which is the _fons et origo_ of the present struggle;
for it is a policy which is not and cannot be tolerated by Russia, so
long as Russia is true to her own Slav blood and to the traditions of
centuries.

After Austria had finally lost Italy, as she did in 1866, she turned for
compensation to the Balkans. If Venetia was lost, it seemed some
recompense when in 1878 Austria occupied Bosnia and the Herzegovina.
Hence she could expand southwards--ultimately perhaps to Salonica.
Servia, which might have objected, was a vassal kingdom, the protege of
Austria, under the dynasty of the Obrenovitch. As Austria might hope to
follow the line to Salonica,[22] so Germany, before the end of the
nineteenth century, seems to have conceived of a parallel line of
penetration, which would carry her influence through Constantinople,
through Konieh, to Bagdad. She has extended h