We ought at last to have broken with the fatal tradition of pursuing a Triple Alliance policy in the Near East also, and have recognised our mistake, which lay in identifying ourselves in the south with the Turks and in the north with the Austro-Magyars. For the continuance of this policy, upon which we had entered at the Berlin Congress, and which we had actively pursued ever since, was bound to lead in time to a conflict with Russia and to the world-war, more especially if the requisite cleverness were lacking in high places. Instead of coming to terms with Russia on a basis of the independence of the Sultan, whom even Petrograd did not wish to eject from Constantinople, and of confining ourselves to our economic interests in the Near East and to the partitioning of Asia Minor into spheres of influence while renouncing any intention of military or political interference, it was our political ambition to dominate on the Bosphorus. In Russia they began to think that the road to Constantinople and the Mediterranean lay via Berlin. Instead of supporting the active development of the Balkan States—which, once liberated, are anything rather than Russian, and with which our experiences had been very satisfactory—we took sides with the Turkish and Magyar oppressors.
The fatal mistake of our Triple Alliance and Near East policy—which had forced Russia, our natural best friend and neighbour, into the arms of France and England and away from its policy of Asiatic expansion—was the more apparent, as a Franco-Russian attack, which was the sole hypothesis that justified a Triple Alliance policy, could be left out of our calculations.
The value of the Italian alliance needs no further reference. Italy will want our money and our tourists even after the war, with or without an alliance. That this latter would fail us in case of war was patent beforehand. Hence the alliance had no value. Austria needs our protection in war, as in peace, and has no other support. Her dependence on us is based on political, national, and economic considerations, and is the greater the more intimate our relations with Russia are. The Bosnian crisis taught us this. Since the days of Count Beust no Vienna Minister has adopted such a self-confident attitude towards us as Count Aehrenthal during the later years of his life. If German policy is conducted on right lines, cultivating relations with Russia, Austria-Hungary is our vassal and dependent on us, even without an alliance or recompense; if it is wrongly conducted, then we are dependent on Austria. Hence there was no reason for the alliance.
I knew Austria too well not to be aware that a return to the policy of Prince Felix Schwarzenberg or Count Moritz Esterhazy was inconceivable there. Little as the Slavs there love us, just as little do they wish to return into a German Empire even with a Habsburg-Lorraine emperor at its head. They are striving for a federation in Austria on national lines, a state of things which would have even less chance of being realised within the German Empire than under the Double Eagle. The Germans of Austria, however, acknowledge Berlin as the centre of German Might and Culture, and are well aware that Austria can never again be the leading Power. They wish for as intimate a connection with the German Empire as possible, not for an anti-German policy.
Since the 'seventies the position has fundamentally changed in Austria, as in Bavaria. As, in the latter, a return to Great German separatism and old Bavarian policy is not to be feared, so with the former a resuscitation of the policy of Prince Kaunitz and Schwarzenberg was not to be expected. By a federation with Austria, however, which resembles a big Belgium, since its population, even without Galicia and Dalmatia, is only about half Germanic, our interests would suffer as much as if we subordinated our policy to the views of Vienna or Budapest—thus espousing Austria's quarrels ("d'épouser les querelles d'Autriche").
Hence we were not obliged to take any notice of the desires of our ally; they were not only unnecessary but also dangerous, as they would lead to a conflict with Russia if we looked at Oriental questions through Austrian spectacles.
The development of the alliance, from a union formed on a single hypothesis for a single specific purpose, into a general and unlimited association, a pooling of interests in all spheres, was the best way of producing that which diplomacy was designed to prevent—war. Such an "alliance policy" was also calculated to alienate from us the sympathies of the strong, young, rising communities in the Balkans, who were prepared to turn to us and to open their markets to us.
The difference between the power of a Ruling House and a National State, between dynastic and democratic ideas of government, had to be decided, and as usual we were on the wrong side.
King Carol told one of our representatives that he had entered into the alliance with us on the assumption that we retained the leadership; but if this passed to Austria, that would alter the foundations of the relationship, and under such circumstances he would not be able to go on with it.
Things were similar in Serbia, where, contrary to our own economic interests, we were supporting the Austrian policy of strangulation.