Page:Tolstoy - Christianity and Patriotism.djvu/47

 We are told that Germany has schemes against Russia, that the Triple Alliance is a menace to the peace of Europe and to us, and that our alliance with France restores the balance of power and is therefore a guarantee of peace. But this assertion is so obviously silly that one is ashamed to discuss it seriously. Why, for that to be so—i.e., for the alliance to be a guarantee of peace—the rival Powers would have to be mathematically equal. If the balance is now on the side of the Franco-Russian Alliance, the danger is the same. It is even greater; for if there were a danger that Wilhelm at the head of a European alliance should break the peace, there would be far more danger that France should do so, since she cannot resign herself to the loss of her provinces. Why, the Triple Alliance was called the league of peace, yet for us it was the league of war. In the same way now the Franco-Russian Alliance can appear as nothing else but what it really is—a league of war.

And then, if peace depends on the balance of power, how is one to fix the units between which equilibrium must be established? Now, the English are saying that the alliance of Russia and France is a menace to them, and so they must make a new alliance; and into how many alliances must Europe be divided that there may be equilibrium? Why, if that is how it is, in every society of human beings