The peace idea would be the very best means of meeting the French idea of revenge. Although the French are not to be relied on as a nation, I am persuaded that the notion of a perpetual peace would nevertheless appear plausible to the propertied and intelligent mass of the population, even if the government conducted by M. Thiers should be supplanted by another; for the motto of the French is gagner pour jouir, and I believe that the mass of the population would prefer jouissance rather than gloire.
Even in Prussia the multitudinous lawsuits against persons who try to get rid of compulsory service show how many feel that it is a burden; and God forbid that the alleviation should ever proceed from below instead of from above.
The latest history of Russia is an edifying example of what the will of a noble, humane, and magnanimous monarch can do to benefit his people. So when two monarchs, related by race and friendship, clasp hands, may God aid them to make their union a blessing for their countries and for suffering mankind.
In my memorial to your emperor I said, “Only a fool or a knave can think of a state without an armed force”; and in my letter to M. Thiers I wrote, abolir la force armée serait une idée criminelle et insensée.
One cannot express one’s self more energetically on this point. In Prussia, to abolish a system to which it owes its historical position would be as imbecile as for Russia to think of holding the Poles in control and of protecting the tremendous frontier from the Black Sea to the Pacific Ocean against savage tribes, without an army. The question, therefore, is simply this: What numerical extension should one give to the principle of universal compulsory service, and in what proportion should the military budget stand to the other expenditures of the State?
In my humble opinion it should be thus regulated:
1. En principe abolish war between civilized nations and let the governments guarantee to each other the possession of their respective territories.
2. Settle questions at issue by an international commission of arbitration, after the example of England and America.
3. Determine the strength of armaments (die Stärke der bewaffneten Macht) by an international convention.
Even should the abolition of war be relegated by many to the domain of fairy tales, I nevertheless have the courage to believe that therein lies the only means of saving the Church, the monarchical principle, and society, and of curing the State of the cancerous evil which at the present time is preventing its perfection; and, on the other hand, through the reduction of the war budget, of procuring for the State the following means for its internal development and prosperity: (1) reduction of taxes; (2) improvement in education and promotion of science and art; (3) increase in salaries, especially of teachers and the clergy; (4) improvement in the condition of the laboring classes; (5) provision for beneficent objects.