Page:Masterpieces of German literature volume 10.djvu/297

 I cannot, therefore, give an authentic declaration concerning the motives of this Russian allocation, but, having been familiar through a generation with foreign politics and the policy of Russia, I can form my own ideas concerning them. These ideas lead me to assume that the Russian cabinet is convinced, probably with good reason, that the weight of the Russian voice in the diplomatic Areopagos of Europe will be the weightier in the next European crisis, the stronger Russia is on the European frontier and the farther west the Russian armies stand. Russia is the more quickly at hand, either as an ally or as a foe, the nearer her main army, or at least a large army, is to her western frontier.

This policy has directed the Russian allocation of troops for a long while. You will remember that the army assembled in the Polish kingdom during the Crimean War was so large that this war might have ended differently if the army had started on time. If you think farther back, you will see that the events of 1830 found Russia unprepared and not ready to take a hand, because she had an insufficient number of troops in the western part of her empire. I need not, therefore, draw the conclusion from the accumulation of Russian troops in the western provinces (sapadnii Gubernii, as the Russians say), that our neighbors mean to attack us. I assume they are waiting, possibly for another Oriental crisis, intending then to be in the position of pressing home the Russian wishes by means of an army situated not exactly in Kasan, but farther west.

When may such an Oriental crisis take place, you ask. Forsooth, we have no certainty. During this century we have had, I think, four crises, if I do not include the smaller ones and those which did not culminate. One was in 1809 and ended with the treaty which gave Russia the Pruth-frontier, and another in 1828. Then there was the Crimean War of 1854, and the war of 1877. They have happened, therefore, at intervals of about twenty years and over. Why, then, should the next crisis take place sooner than after a similar interval, or at about 1899, twenty years after