The papers took different attitudes toward this article, but there were not wanting those who considered the warnings of the _Kölnische Zeitung_ justified. General Keim, in the _Tag_, declares that the German-Russian boundary is one huge camp, that the underlying thought of the whole armament is an offensive war against Germany, that France had proceeded in the same way just before 1870 and that the recent visit to St. Petersburg of President Poincaré and his chief of staff Joffre had not been merely a pleasure jaunt. Had not a French general, only last summer, declared in a treatise published anonymously that the tension between Russia and Austria was ground for a European war “perhaps in the near future”? And had not this French officer even gone so far as to spread the legend that in case of war Germany would disregard the neutrality of Belgium and Luxemburg in order to be able to envelop the French left wing? Several of the March newspapers bring the Russian hostility into connection with the commercial treaty that has only about two years more to run. Russia, by making a bold front, can gain from Germany better terms than she has had in the past. “Russia, with her military preparations,” writes the _Pester Lloyd_, “wishes to put Austria and Germany under military pressure in order to achieve diplomatic successes and harm her neighbors economically.” The idea that France is behind it all crops out repeatedly. The _Neue Preussische Zeitung_ speaks of the pressure “ever stronger, that the French need for revenge is exercising on the Russian ally and debtor.” The _Hannöverische Courier_ accuses the French press of having first caused the agitation of public opinion in Russia, on which it afterward comments as so remarkable. As far back as March 10th, 1913, the _Kölnische Zeitung_ had written: “Never was our relation to our western neighbor so strained as to-day, never has the idea of vengeance shown itself so openly and never has it been made so evident that in France the Russian alliance, the English friendship, are claimed only for the purpose of reconquering Alsace-Lorraine. In whatever corner of the world the flame starts up it is quite certain that we shall have to cross swords with France. When that will be, no one can tell.”