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[Footnote 18: _Times_, July 22, 1911.] [Footnote 19: _Correspondence_, p. 57 (Enclosure 1 in No. 105). See Appendix II.] [Footnote 20: _Ibid_. p. 57 (Enclosure 2 in No. 105).] [Footnote 21: _Times_, April 12, 1904.] CHAPTER III THE DEVELOPMENT OF RUSSIAN POLICY Until the year 1890 Russia and Germany had been in close touch. Dynastic connexions united the two imperial houses; and the common policy of repression of Polish nationality--the fatal legacy of the days of Frederic the Great and Catharine II--united the two empires. National sentiment in Russia was, however, always anti-German; and as early as 1885 Balkan affairs began to draw the Russian Government away from Germany. In 1890 Bismarck fell; and under William II German policy left the Russian connexion, and in close touch with Austria embarked on Balkan adventures which ran counter to Russian aims, while Russia on her side turned to new allies. The new direction of Russian policy, which has brought the aims of the Russian Government into close accord with the desires of national Slav sentiment, was determined by Balkan conditions. Bismarck had cherished no Balkan ambitions: he had been content to play the part of an 'honest broker' at the Congress of Berlin, and he had spoken of the Bulgarian affair of 1885 as 'not worth the bones of a Pomeranian grenadier.' William II apparently thought otherwise. At any rate Germany seems to have conducted, for many years past, a policy of establishing her influence, along with that of Austria, through South-Eastern Europe. And it is this policy which is the _fons et origo_ of the present struggle; for it is a policy which is not and cannot be tolerated by Russia, so long as Russia is true to her own Slav blood and to the traditions of centuries. After Austria had finally lost Italy, as she did in 1866, she turned for compensation to the Balkans. If Venetia was lost, it seemed some recompense when in 1878 Austria occupied Bosnia and the Herzegovina. Hence she could expand southwards--ultimately perhaps to Salonica. Servia, which might have objected, was a vassal kingdom, the protege of Austria, under the dynasty of the Obrenovitch. As Austria might hope to follow the line to Salonica,[22] so Germany, before the end of the nineteenth century, seems to have conceived of a parallel line of penetration, which would carry her influence through Constantinople, through Konieh, to Bagdad. She has extended h
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