Page:Masterpieces of German literature volume 10.djvu/304

 matters so that we were the nation which was assailed and were not ourselves the assailants.

Now, since the great war of 1870 was waged, has there been a year, I ask you, without the danger of war? In the first years of the seventies—the very moment we came home, the question arose: "When will be the next war? When will revenge be given? Within five years at the latest, no doubt?" We were told: "The question whether we shall have to fight and with what success surely rests with Russia now-a-days. Russia alone holds the hilt." It was a representative of the Catholic party who thus remonstrated with me in the Reichstag. I may possibly revert to this subject later. In the meanwhile I wish to complete the picture of the forty years by saying that in 1876 the clouds of war again began to gather in the south. In 1877 the Balkan War was waged, which would have led to a conflagration of the whole of Europe, if this had not been prevented by the Congress gathered in Berlin. After the Congress an entirely new eastern picture presented itself to us, for Russia was offended by our attitude in the Congress. I may revert to this later, if my strength permits.

Then there followed a period when we felt the results of the intimate relations of the three emperors, which for some time permitted us to face the future with greater placidity. But at the first symptoms of any instability in the relations of the three emperors or of the termination of the agreements which they had made with one another, public opinion was possessed by the same nervous and, I believe, exaggerated excitement with which we have had to contend these last years, and which I consider especially uncalled for today.

From my belief that this excitement is uncalled for I am far from drawing the conclusion that we do not need an increase in our armaments. The very opposite is my view, and this may explain the tableau of forty years which I have just exhibited before you, possibly not for your