were beginning to hate the official German influence and its hard
atmosphere of militarism, so foreign to the Russian mind. They were
looking more and more to France. Bismarck had made a great mistake in
the Treaty of Berlin--mistake which he afterwards fully recognized and
regretted. He had used the treaty to damage and weaken Russia, and had
so thrown Russia into the arms of France.

A strange Nemesis was preparing. The programme of German
expansion--natural enough in itself, but engineered by Prussia during
all this long period with that kind of blind haughtiness and overbearing
assurance which indeed is a "tempting of Providence"--had so far not
concerned itself much about Muscovite policy; but now there arose a
sudden fear of danger in that quarter. Hitherto the main German
"objective" had undoubtedly been England and France, Belgium and
Holland--the westward movement towards the Atlantic and the great world.
But now all unexpectedly, or at any rate with dramatic swiftness, Russia
appeared on the scenes, and there was a _volte face_ towards the East.
The Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913 broke out. Whatever simmerings of
hostility there may have been between Germany and Russia before, the
relations of the two now became seriously strained. The Balkan League,
formed under Russian influence, was nominally directed against Turkey;
but it was also a threat to Austria. It provided a powerful backing to
the Servian agitation, it was a step towards the dissolution of Austria,
and it decisively closed the door on Germany's ambition to reach
Salonika and to obtain a direct connection with the Baghdad Railway.
Germany and Austria all at once found themselves isolated in the midst
of Europe, with Russia, Servia, France, and England hostile on every
side. It was indeed a tragic situation, and all the more so when viewed
as the sorry outcome and culmination of a hundred years of Prussian
diplomacy and statecraft.