atest advantage in small States like the Athens of
Pericles, the England of Elizabeth, or the Geneva of Rousseau; they are
stifled under the pyramidal mass of the Empire of the Czars; and as a
result there is seen a respectable mediocrity, equal only to the task of
organising street demonstrations and abortive mutinies. It may be that
in the future some commanding genius will arise, able to free himself
from the paralysing incubus, to fire the dull masses with hope, and to
turn the very vastness of the governmental machine into a means of
destruction. But, for that achievement, he will need the magnetism of a
Mirabeau, the savagery of a Marat, and the organising powers of a
Bonaparte.

CHAPTER XII

THE TRIPLE AND DUAL ALLIANCES

"International policy is a fluid element which, under certain
conditions, will solidify, but, on a change of atmosphere,
reverts to its original condition."--Bismarck's _Reflections
and Reminiscences._

It is one thing to build up a system of States: it is quite another
thing to guarantee their existence. As in the life of individuals, so in
that of nations, longevity is generally the result of a sound
constitution, a healthy environment, and prudent conduct. That the new
States of Europe possessed the first two of these requisites will be
obvious to all who remember that they are co-extensive with those great
limbs of Humanity, nations. Yet even so they needed protection from the
intrigues of jealous dynasties and of dispossessed princes or priests,
which have so often doomed promising experiments to failure. It is
therefore essential to our present study to observe the means which
endowed the European system with stability.

Here again the master-builder was Bismarck. As he had concentrated all
the powers of his mind on the completion of German unity (with its
natural counterpart in Italy), so, too, he kept them on the stretch for
its preservation. For two decades his policy bestrode the continent like
a Colossus. It rested on two supporting ideas. The one was the
maintenance of alliance with Russia, which had brought the events of the
years 1863-70 within the bounds of possibility; the other aim was the
isolation of France. Subsidiary notions now and again influenced him, as
in 1884 when he sought to make bad blood between Russia and England in
Central Asian affairs (see Chapter XIV.), or to busy all the Powers in
colonial undertakings: but these consideratio