sty
have prevented me from making him begin this _Turkish_ War on the
_other side of his own frontier_. The great advantage of this result
is totally forgotten in France, and, unfortunately, in England too.
Those who every day fill the papers of home and foreign countries with
accounts of my vacillations, nay, who represent me as leaping from my
own horse on to a Russian one, are inventing lies, in a great measure,
deliberately. I tell your Majesty, on my honour and conscience, that
my policy is to-day _the same_ as it was nine months ago. I have
recognised it as my duty before God to preserve, for my people and my
provinces, peace, _because I recognise Peace as a blessing and War
as a curse_. I cannot and will not side with Russia, because Russia's
arrogance and wickedness have caused this _horrible_ trouble, and
because duty and conscience and tradition forbid me to draw the sword
against Old England. In the same degree duty and conscience forbid
me to make unprovoked war against Russia, because Russia, so far,
has done me no harm. So I thought, so I willed when I thought myself
isolated. How then could I now suddenly abandon a steady policy,
preserved in the face of many dangers, and incline to Russia at the
moment when I have concluded with Austria an Alliance defensive and
offensive, in which (if God grant His blessing) the whole of Germany
will join in a few days, thus welding, for the entire duration of the
War, the whole of Central Europe into a Unity, comprising 72,000,000
people, and easily able to put 1,000,000 men into the field? And
yet, most gracious Queen, I do not take up a defiant position on the
strength of this enormous power, but I trust in the Lord's help and
my own sacred Right; I also believe, honestly and firmly, that the
character of a so-called Great Power must justify itself, _not by
swimming with the current_, but _by standing firm like a rock in the
sea_.

I close this letter which, in consequence of various interruptions,
is almost a week old, on the 24th of May. This is your birthday, ever
dearest, most gracious Queen. On this day I lay at your Majesty's feet
the expression of my wishes for every blessing. May God grant your
Majesty a joyful day, and a richly blessed year of rule. May He
strengthen, preserve, and invigorate your precious health, and may He
give you, within the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year
of your life which begins to-day, _that_ one day of overabundant
b