s."]

Such was the purport of the Three Emperors' League of 1872. There is
little doubt that Bismarck had worked on the Czar, always nervous as to
the growth of the Nihilist movement in Russia, in order to secure his
adhesion to the first two provisions of the new compact, which certainly
did not benefit Russia. The German Chancellor has since told us that, as
early as the month of September 1870, he sought to form such a league,
with the addition of the newly-united Italian realm, in order to
safeguard the interests of monarchy against republicans and
revolutionaries[243]. After the lapse of two years his wish took effect,
though Italy as yet did not join the cause of order. The new league
stood forth as the embodiment of autocracy and a terror to the
dissatisfied, whether revengeful Gauls, Danes, or Poles, intriguing
cardinals--it was the time of the "May Laws"--or excited men who waved
the red flag. It was a new version of the Holy Alliance formed after
Waterloo by the monarchs of the very same Powers, which, under the plea
of watching against French enterprises, succeeded in bolstering up
despotism on the Continent for a whole generation.

[Footnote 243: Debidour, _Histoire diplomatique de l'Europe_, vol. ii.
pp. 458-59; Bismarck, _Reflections and Reminiscences_, vol. ii.
ch. xxix.]

Fortunately for the cause of liberty, the new league had little of the
solidity of its predecessor. Either because the dangers against which it
guarded were less serious, or owing to the jealousies which strained its
structure from within, signs of weakness soon appeared, and the imposing
fabric was disfigured by cracks which all the plastering of
diplomatists failed to conceal. An eminent Russian historian, M.
Tatischeff, has recently discovered the hidden divulsive agency. It
seems that, not long after the formation of the Three Emperors' League,
Germany and Austria secretly formed a separate compact, whereby the
former agreed eventually to secure to the latter due compensation in the
Balkan Peninsula for her losses in the wars of 1859 and 1866 (Lombardy,
Venetia, and the control of the German Confederation, along with
Holstein)[244].

[Footnote 244: _The Emperor Alexander II.: His Life and Reign_, by S.S.
Tatischeff (St. Petersburg, 1903), Appendix to vol. ii.]

That is, the two Central Powers in 1872 secretly agreed to take action
in the way in which Austria advanced in 1877-78, when she secured
Herzegovina. When and to what e