rance. In
order to keep her freedom of action for this case, Russia
will avoid all conflict with Austria and England, and will
allow events to take their course in Bulgaria.

Thus, early in the year 1887, the tendency towards that equilibrium of
the Powers, which is the great fact of recent European history, began to
exercise a sedative effect on Russian policy in Bulgaria and in Central
Asia. That year saw the delimitation of the Russo-Afghan border, and the
adjustment in Central Asian affairs of a balance corresponding to the
equilibrium soon to be reached in European politics. That, too, was the
time when Bulgaria began firmly and successfully to assert her
independence and to crush every attempt at a rising on the part of her
Russophil officers. This was seen after an attempt which they made at
Rustchuk, when Stambuloff condemned nine of them to death. The Russian
Government having recalled all its agents from Bulgaria, the task of
saving these rebels devolved on the German Consuls, who were then doing
duty for Russia. Their efforts were futile, and Katkoff used their
failure as a means of poisoning the Czar's mind not only against
Germany, but also against de Giers, who had suggested the supervision of
Russian interests by German Consuls[261].

[Footnote 261: Elie de Cyon, _op. cit._ p. 274.]

Another incident of the spring-tide of 1887 kindled the Czar's anger
against the Teutons more fiercely and with more reason. On April 20, a
French police commissioner, Schnaebele, was arrested by two German
agents or spies on the Alsacian border in a suspiciously brutal manner,
and thrown into prison. Far from soothing the profound irritation which
this affair produced in France, Bismarck poured oil upon the flames a
few days later by a speech which seemed designed to extort from France a
declaration of war. That, at least, was the impression produced on the
mind of Alexander III., who took the unusual step of sending an
autograph letter to the Emperor William I. He, in his turn, without
referring the matter to Bismarck, gave orders for the instant release of
Schnaebele[262]. Thus the incident closed; but the disagreeable
impression which it created ended all chance of renewing the Three
Emperors' League. The Skiernewice compact, which had been formed for
three years, therefore came to an end.

[Footnote 262: See the _Nouvelle Revue_ for April 15, 1890, for Cyon's
version of the whole affair, which is treat