Instead of uniting with Russia on the basis of the independence of the Sultan, whom the Russians also did not wish to drive out of Constantinople, and confining ourselves to economic interests in the East, while at the same time refraining from all military and political interference and being satisfied with a division of Asia Minor into spheres of interest, the goal of our political ambition was to dominate in the Bosporus. In Russia, therefore, the opinion arose that the way to Constantinople and to the Mediterranean lay through Berlin. Instead of encouraging a powerful development in the Balkan States, which were once free and are very different from the Russians, of which fact we have already had experience, we placed ourselves on the side of the Turkish and Magyar oppressors. The dire mistake of our Triple Alliance and our Eastern policies, which drove Russia--our natural friend and best neighbor--into the arms of France and England, and kept her from her policy of Asiatic expansion, was the more evident, as a Franco-Russian attack, the only hypothesis justifying a Triple Alliance policy, had to be eliminated from our calculations. As to the value of the alliance with Italy, one word only. Italy needs our money and our tourists after the war, with or without our alliance. That our alliance would go by the board in the event of war was to be foreseen. The alliance, consequently, was worthless. Austria, however, needed our protection both in war and peace, and had no other point d'appui. This dependence on us is based on political, national, and economic grounds, and is all the greater in proportion to the intimacy of our relations with Russia. This was proved in the Bosnian crisis. Since Count Beust, no Vienna Minister had been so self-conscious with us as Count Aehrenthal was during the last years of his life. Under the influence of a properly conducted German policy which would keep us in touch with Russia, Austria-Hungary is our vassal, and is tied to us even without an alliance and without reciprocal services; under the influence of a misguided policy, however, we are tied to Austria-Hungary. An alliance would therefore be purposeless. I know Austria far too well not to know that a return to the policy of Count Felix Schwarzenberg or to that of Count Moritz Esterhazy was unthinkable. Little as the Slavs living there love us, they wish just as little for a return to the German Kaiserdom, even with a Hapsburg-Lorraine at its head. They are striving for an internal Austrian federation on a national basis, a condition which is even less likely of realization within the German Empire than under the Double Eagle. Austro-Germans look on Berlin as the centre of German power and Kultur, and they know that Austria can never be a leading power. They desire as close a connection as possible with the empire, but not to the extent of an anti-German policy. BALKAN QUARRELS