I know that in saying this I am disappointing a great many expectations raised in connection with today’s disclosures, but I am not of the opinion that we should go the road of Napoleon and try to be, if not the arbiter, at least the schoolmaster of Europe.

I have here a clipping given me today from the Allgemeine Zeitung, which contains a noteworthy article entitled “The Policy of Germany in the Decisive Hour.”  This article demands as necessary the admission of a third power to the alliance of England and Austria.  That means, we shall take part with England and Austria and deprive Russia of the credit of voluntarily making the concessions which she may be willing to grant in the interest of European peace.  I do not doubt that Russia will sacrifice for the sake of peace in Europe whatever her sense of nationality and her own interests and those of eighty million Russians permit.  It is really superfluous to say this.  And now please assume that we took the advice of the gentlemen who think that we should play the part of an arbiter—­I have here another article from a Berlin paper, called “Germany’s Part as Arbiter”—­and that we declared to Russia in some polite and amicable way:  “We have been friends, it is true, for hundreds of years, Russia has ever been true-blue to us when we were in difficulties, but now things are different.  In the interest of Europe, as the policemen of Europe, as a kind of a justice of the peace, we must do as we are requested, we can no longer resist the demands of Europe ...,” what would be the result?

There are considerable numbers of Russians who do not love Germany, and who fortunately are not at the helm now, but who would not be unhappy if they were called there.  What would they say to their compatriots, they and perhaps other statesmen who at present are not yet avowedly hostile to us?  They would say:  “With what sacrifices of blood and men and money have we not won the position which for centuries has been the ideal of Russian ambition!  We could have maintained it against those opponents who may have a real interest in combating it.  It was not Austria, with whom we have lived on moderately intimate terms for some time, it was not England, who possesses openly acknowledged counter-interests to ours—­no, it was our intimate friend Germany who drew, behind our back, not her sword but a dagger, although we might have expected from her services in return for services rendered, and although she has no interests in the Orient.”

Those approximately would be the phrases, and this the theme which we should hear in Russia.  This picture which I have drawn in exaggerated lines—­but the Russian orators also exaggerate—­corresponds with the truth.  We, however, shall never assume the responsibility of sacrificing the certain friendship of a great nation, tested through generations, to the momentary temptation of playing the judge in Europe.