Bismarck and the foundation of the German empire . unanimous desireof all the other States that the settlement of Turkeyshould be submitted to a Congress at Berlin overwhich he should preside. It was the culmination ofhis public career ; it was the recognition by Europein the most impressive way of his primacy amongliving statesmen. In his management of the Con-gress he answered to the expectations formed ofhim. We do not wish to go, he had said, theway of Napoleon ; we do not desire to be the arbitra-tors or schoolmasters of Europe. We do not wish toforce our policy on other States by appeali
Bismarck and the foundation of the German empire . unanimous desireof all the other States that the settlement of Turkeyshould be submitted to a Congress at Berlin overwhich he should preside. It was the culmination ofhis public career ; it was the recognition by Europein the most impressive way of his primacy amongliving statesmen. In his management of the Con-gress he answered to the expectations formed ofhim. We do not wish to go, he had said, theway of Napoleon ; we do not desire to be the arbitra-tors or schoolmasters of Europe. We do not wish toforce our policy on other States by appealing to thestrength of our army. I look on our task as a moreuseful though a humbler one ; it is enough if we can-be an honest broker. He succeeded in the task hehad set before himself, and in reconciling the appar-ently incompatible desires of England and and again when the Congress seemed aboutto break up without result he made himself thespokesman of Russian wishes, and conveyed themto Lord Beaconsfield, the English H E 1887] The Tiiple Alliance. 407 None the less the friendship of Russia, which hadbefore wavered, now broke down. A bitter attackon Germany and Bismarck was begun in the RussianPress ; the new German fiscal policy led to misun-derstandings ; the Czar in private letters to the Em-peror demanded in the negotiations that were stillgoing on the absolute and unconditional support ofGermany to all Russian demands as the condition ofRussian friendship. In the autumn of the nextyear matters came near to war ; it was in these cir-cumstances that Bismarck brought about that alli-ance which ever since then has governed Europeanpolitics. He hastily arranged a meeting with CountAndrassy, the Austrian Minister, and in a few daysthe two statesmen agreed on a defensive alliance be-tween the two Empires. Many years later, in 1886,the instrument of alliance was published. It wasagreed that if either of the German States was at-tacked by Russia the ot
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