Our States have a common history. We are, as far as the Austrian Germans are concerned--about a third of the population of Austria--the same people. We have, and that is perhaps the most decisive point in the alliance, nearly the same position on the surface of the globe. We are both inland empires situated in the centre of Europe, surrounded by many different nations, all of whom may bear some grudge against us. As long as our joint frontiers are safe we can stand back to back and face calmly any unnatural confederation like the present one. We concluded the alliance with Austria because we wanted to safeguard ourselves against foreign attack; it has turned out the alliance has involved us in war. We might have avoided the war at present if we had broken faith with our ally. It would not have been difficult for us to find some legal quibbles, like those which Italy, following a policy of very sober national egotism, is now earnestly exclaiming to all the world. If we had done so we should have been knaves, but we should have been fools as well. For surely nobody can believe that the forces antagonistic to Germany would have ceased to act if we had left Austria in the lurch. Neither France nor Russia nor England would have changed their policy. They might, moreover, have tried to make Austria join in some future conspiracy against us. There are three main causes to which the war is due: 1. The French have never forgotten their defeat in 1870 and 1871. They have always been thirsting for revenge. 2. We are at war because Russia thinks she has a mission on behalf of the Slavic world; she feels that mission can only be fulfilled by smashing Germany, the bulwark of Western idea. 3. We are at war because England has returned to her old political ideals. She means to enforce anew the balance of power and she wants to cut down Germany to that normal dead-level which alone, she thinks, is consistent with her own security. As far as our antagonism to France is concerned, we have always looked upon it as a regrettable fact which time, perhaps, might do away with. We are just enough to understand that a country like France, with a glorious past, a gallant spirit and an undaunted courage, cannot forget the blow we dealt her forty-three years ago. We think we have been right in retaking from her Alsace-Lorraine, belonging originally to the German Empire. But we look with a kind of envy upon her who succeeded in denationalizing the people of those provinces to such a degree that we have not yet been able to make them Germans once more. We have always regretted that the two most civilized nations in Continental Europe should be rent asunder by an unforgotten past.