Only historic interest now attaches to the activities of German diplomacy which sought, by misplaced flattery, to prevent Italy from joining the Powers of the Entente in the Great War. Prince von Bülow for many months employed all his wiles to distract Italy from the pursuit of a hostile policy. He had some good cards in his hand, and, after the manner of all German diplomatists, he overestimated their strength, while he underrated the skill and enthusiasm of the players against him. The influences of German finance worked on his side, but characteristically he ignored the spiritual forces of the Italian national sentiment, on which bribes and blandishments could make no impression. Italy’s traditional hatred of Austria was only speciously held in check by the conventions of the old Triple Alliance. The perils which Austria invited by engaging in the present war were bound to set ancient memories fully aflame. It is a mangled unity of which Italy can boast so long as the Italian peoples of the Trentino and Dalmatia live under Austrian sway. The cry of the Trentino for release from a foreign servitude overcame all those predilections for peace, which some material considerations fostered in Italy in the early stages of the war. Von Bülow undertook a thankless task when he sought by pretty speeches to deafen Italian ears to the piercing appeals of Italy’s compatriots under alien sway. He may cherish the delusion that he scored a minor success by postponing for a season Italy’s declaration of war on Germany. For a short while Italy was content with her defiance of Austria alone, but even this small triumph on the prince’s part proved a phantasm. To-day all the prince’s diplomatic adventures are seen to be empty mockeries and snares. SIDNEY LEE. [Illustration] _The “Harmless” German_ We may pause to wonder whether Germany ever considers her relations with the weak neutral nations after the war. In the case of America, she preserves some show of explicit courtesy, while performing actions of implicit insult. Where it matters not, she conforms; where it does matter, she ignores; but she has no desire to quarrel openly with the United States and has long since found that she can do pretty much what she pleased without risking more than verbal remonstrances. In the case of Norway and Sweden, Denmark and Holland, she is not even at the pains to be civil; but treats them with her usual indifference to all things physically weak. Sometimes she will add insult to injury, as in the case of this cartoon, and needlessly pretend an innocence that would not deceive a child; more often, as in her pirate procedure against Holland, she cares nothing what the weak may have to say while her own strength is paramount.