The beginnings of an
approximation were laid by the dismissal of Beust, who himself now was
to become a personal friend of the statesman against whom he had for so
long and with such ingenuity waged an unequal conflict. The union was
sealed when, in December, 1872, the Czar of Russia and Francis Joseph
came to Berlin as guests of the Emperor. There was no signed contract,
no written alliance, but the old union of the Eastern monarchies under
which a generation before Europe had groaned, was now restored, and on
the Continent there was no place to which France could look for help or
sympathy.

The years that followed were those in which foreign affairs gave
Bismarck least anxiety or occupation. He even began to complain that he
was dull; after all these years of conflict and intrigue he found the
security which he now enjoyed uninteresting. Now and again the shadow of
war passed over Europe, but it was soon dispelled. The most serious was
in 1875.

It appears that the French reforms of the army and some movements of
French troops had caused alarm at Berlin; I say alarm, though it is
difficult to believe that any serious concern could have been felt.
There was, however, a party who believed that war must come sooner or
later, and it was better, they said, not to wait till France was again
powerful and had won allies; surely the wisest thing was while she was
still weak and friendless to take some excuse (and how easy would it be
to find the excuse!), fall upon her, and crush her--crush and destroy,
so that she could never again raise her head; treat her as she had in
old days treated Germany. How far this plan was deliberately adopted we
do not know, but in the spring of this year the signs became so alarming
that both the Russian and the English Governments were seriously
disturbed, and interfered. So sober a statesman as Lord Derby believed
that the danger was real. The Czar, who visited Berlin at the beginning
of April, dealt with the matter personally; the Queen of England wrote a
letter to the German Emperor, in which she said that the information she
had could leave no doubt that an aggressive war on France was meditated,
and used her personal influence with the sovereign to prevent it. The
Emperor himself had not sympathised with the idea of war, and it is said
did not even know of the approaching danger. It did not require the
intervention of other sovereigns to induce him to refuse his assent to a
wanton war, b