her right to establish her national union. At present both of us are living in peace with Austria, sharing with her the wish to ward off the dangers which are threatening all alike. Together we wish to preserve the peace, which is as dear to the one as to the other, and to protect our home—developments to which all of us are determined to devote ourselves. It is these aims and the mutual confidence that the treaties will be kept, and that no one will grow more dependent by them than their own interests permit, which make these treaties firm, durable and permanent!
The extent to which our treaty with Austria is the expression of our mutual interests was shown at Nikolsburg, and in 1870. Already during the negotiations of Nikolsburg we were of the opinion that we could not do for any length of time without Austria in Europe—a strong and vigorous Austria. In 1870, when the war between ourselves and France broke out, many sensitive Austrians whom we had hurt were naturally tempted to make use of this opportunity and to take revenge for 1866. The thoughtful and far seeing diplomats, however, of the Austrian cabinet had to ask themselves: "What will be the result? What will be our position, if today we assist the French, and help them to beat Prussia, or even Germany?" What would have been the result if France with the help of Austria had been victorious over us? If Austria had followed such a policy, she could have had no other aim than to resume her former position in Germany: for this was really the only thing she had given up in 1866. There had been no other important conditions, and the pecuniary ones had been insignificant. Well then, what would have been the position of Austria as the presiding power in the German Union, if she had to confess that in alliance with France she had taken from Germany the left bank of the Rhine, that she had reduced the south German states to a renewed dependence on France in the shape of a Rhenish Federation, and had condemned Prussia to an irrevocable dependence on Russia, subject in future to Russian poli-
