The kaiser's speeches - 1903 Author:William Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: INTRODUCTORY Fraught with grave importance for Germany and her imperial house, the year 1888 set in portentously. For over a twelvemonth the political horizon... more » had been pregnant with sombre, threatening clouds. Apparently Germany was on the eve of a war which she would have to wage simultaneously against two mighty foes—Russia and France. Czar Alexander III. was completely under the domination of the Panslav- ists, and the latter again under the influence of the French Nationalists and Boulangists, who were urging on war with Germany. Forged documents had been played into the hands of the Czar, which necessarily convinced him that the old friendship existing between Russia and Germany since the Napoleonic era had been shamefully betrayed on the German side. In the very nick of time, Bismarck succeeded in convincing Alexander III. of the spurious character of these fabricated documents, and in furnishing convincing proof of the forgery. But the suspicious mood of Alexander III. towards Germany was not thereby materially changed. Russia energetically prepared for war, and concentrated such enormous masses of troops along the German and Austrian frontiers that it was only due to the former very friendly relations with Russia, and to the correct relations obtaining since1878, that the German government refrained from putting Russia squarely before an ultimatum. In February, 1888, mutual relations had become decidedly more strained. The Deutsche Reichsanzeiger1 had published, on the last day of 1887, these spurious documents, and had spoken in very good temper about the "misunderstanding" on the part of Russia. The desired effect in Russia, however, was not apparent. The tone of the Russian and French papers became increasingly threatening. On February 3d, the entire poli...« less