eign Secretary recently made a disquieting announcement, that the Russian Government will make no independent peace as long as one single German soldier remains on Russian territory. But what if the last German soldier were to withdraw? Russia will certainly not make a dishonourable peace, but what if financial exhaustion and internal dissension, aided by German intrigue and a short-sighted and faint-hearted policy, compelled her to accept an honourable peace,—such a peace as Bismarck granted to Austria after Sadowa.
Let us be under no delusion; as the war is being protracted, as the economic and military pressure increases, as the decision is being delayed, there exists, at least, a remote danger of a breach in the European Alliance. I admit that the chances are very remote, but Germany may be depended upon to make the most of those chances, and to use all the influence she has got in Russia to compass her ends. It is, therefore, of the greatest practical interest to analyse the nature of the influence which Germany actually does wield in the Empire of the Tsar, the precise nature of the relations between Germany and Russia and the means Germany possesses of controlling the internal and
