Page:Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire (1899).djvu/517

1898] good-will of the Czar, and not on the wishes of the Russian nation or any identity of interests between the two Empires. A marriage between a Prussian princess and a man who was so bitterly hated by the Czar as was Prince Alexander must have seriously injured the friendly relations which had existed between the two families since the year 1814. Bismarck believed that the happiness of the Princess must be sacrificed to the interests of Germany, and the Emperor William, who, when a young man, had for similar reasons been required by his father to renounce the hand of the lady to whom he had been devotedly attached, agreed with him. Now, after the Emperor's death the project was revived; the Emperor Frederick wavered between his feelings as a father and his duty as a king. Bismarck suspected that the strong interest which the Empress displayed in the project was due, not only to maternal affection, but also to the desire, which in her would be natural enough, to bring over the German Empire to the side of England in the Eastern Question, so that England might have a stronger support in her perennial conflict with Russia. The matter, therefore, appeared to him as a conflict between the true interests of Germany and those old Court influences which he so often had had to oppose, by which the family relationships of the reigning sovereign were made to divert his attention from the single interests of his own country. He made it a question of confidence; he threatened to resign, as he so often did under similar circumstances; he let it be known through the Press what was the cause, and, in his opinion, the