fication and
Parliamentary Government, as also in an attitude of consistent
friendliness towards England and the United States of America.
Thus, to use a modern phrase, I was an avowed supporter of the
Western Policy. At the present moment, while we are standing as
mourners at the grave of our national hopes, I am more than ever
convinced, that had this policy been steadily pursued, we should
have been spared the catastrophe that has overtaken us.

On the other hand, I will not deny, that even the Oriental Policy
would have proved a feasible political scheme, if only we had decided
to pursue it in good time. Albeit, I am of opinion that even Bismarck
had already started us in the direction of the Western Policy, when
in 1879 he decided in favor of Austria-Hungary and not Russia.
Despite all that the careworn recluse of Friedrichsruhe may have
written against Caprivi's policy, which was decidedly Western in
tendency, he was himself the founder of the Triple Alliance, which,
without the good-will of England, could not have come into existence.
Had we pursued an Eastern Policy, though it would ultimately have
led to the sacrifice and partition of Austria-Hungary, it would not
have secured us those advantages in the Orient of which Marschall
speaks. Nevertheless, I have always regretted that we sent such a
first-rate man to Constantinople, for him ultimately to become the
able director of the false policy which we pursued there. There
is an Oriental proverb which says: "Never lay your load on a dead
camel's back."

If, as I always used to hope, we had resolved to adopt the Western
Policy, we should in any case have had to be prepared, in certain
circumstances, to venture with England's help upon a war against
Russia. And the experiences of the Five-Years War have taught us that
we should have won such a conflict with ease. I never wanted a war
with Russia, and was never an enemy of that country; but I believed
that our position among the nations of the world would compel us to
decide one way or the other, and I felt, just as Caprivi did, that
we should not very well be able to avoid war. Even if, in the event
of a war between the Triple Alliance and Russia and France, England
had only maintained an attitude of friendly neutrality, this would
have proved very much more favorable for us than the situation which
developed out of the Encirclement Policy (_Einkreisungspolitik_).
Furthermore, had we pursued the Western Policy,