--carried the Reichstag with him, with the result that the proposals
of the Government were adopted almost unanimously, and Bismarck received
an overwhelming ovation from the crowd outside. These days marked the
climax of the Chancellor's career and the triumph of the policy which
led to the Triple Alliance.

The question, which of the two great hostile groups was the more sincere
in its championship of peace principles, must remain one of the riddles
of the age. Bismarck had certainly given much provocation to France in
the Schnaebele affair; but in the year 1888 the chief danger to the
cause of peace came from Boulanger and the Slavophils of Russia. The
Chancellor, having carried through his army proposals, posed as a
peacemaker; and Germany for some weeks bent all her thoughts on the
struggle between life and death which made up the ninety days' reign of
the Emperor Frederick III. Cyon and other French writers have laboured
to prove that Bismarck's efforts to prevent his accession to the throne,
on the ground that he was the victim of an incurable disease, betokened
a desire for immediate war with France.

It appears, however, that the contention of the Chancellor was strictly
in accord with one of the fundamental laws of the Empire. His attitude
towards France throughout the later phases of the Boulanger affair was
coldly "correct," while he manifested the greatest deference towards the
private prejudices of the Czar when the Empress Frederick allowed the
proposals of marriage between her daughter and Prince Alexander of
Battenberg to be renewed. Knowing the unchangeable hatred of the Czar
for the ex-Prince of Bulgaria, Bismarck used all his influence to thwart
the proposal, which was defeated by the personal intervention of the
present Kaiser[266]. According to our present information, then, German
policy was sincerely peaceful, alike in aim and in tone, during the
first six months of the year; and the piling up of armaments which then
went on from the Urals to the Pyrenees may be regarded as an
unconsciously ironical tribute paid by the Continental Powers to the
cause of peace.

[Footnote 266: _Bismarck: Some Secret Pages, etc._ vol. iii. p. 335.]

* * * * *

A change came over the scene when William II. ascended the throne of
Germany (June 15, 1888). At once he signalised the event by issuing a
proclamation to the army, in which occurred the words: "I swear ever to
remember tha