It was with this triumvirate, she believed, and not without reason,[370] that had originated at Berlin an idea, which, realised three years later, was to prove disastrous not to France alone, but to the peace of Europe. This idea was the French occupation of Tunis. The colonisation of Tunis had long been an Italian dream. To northern Africa Mazzini had directed the ambitions of his countrymen as early as 1838.[371] Probably British statesmen, by suggesting Tunis to France merely intended to give her something which should atone to her for the British occupation of Cyprus. But Bismarck had other designs: he wished above all things to distract French attention from the north-eastern frontier. As later he was to say to a French diplomatist: “Go to Morocco, it will help you to forget Alsace-Lorraine,” so now for the same reason he encouraged France to go to Tunis. But there is little doubt that when he gave this encouragement the wily fox at Varzin was entertaining a yet subtler design: already he had come to an understanding with Austria, and to the German-Austrian Entente he was eager to add Italy. By embroiling Italy with France he hoped to achieve this object, and he succeeded. The year after the French occupation of Tunis, Italy joined Germany and Austria; and on the 20th of May, 1882, the Triple Alliance was concluded. Its formation and its periodic renewal[372] rendered yet more imperative the conclusion of the Triple Entente. And it will generally be admitted that one of the causes of the present conflict lies in this unfortunate, though possibly inevitable, arrayal of the great European Powers in two hostile camps.