[219] Personal Reminiscences of Prince Bismarck, by S. Whitman, p. 179.
[220] Sir M. Grant Duff, Notes from a Diary (1886-88), vol. ii. p. 139.
[221] For the recent developments of the Macedonian Question, see Turkey in Europe, by "Odysseus" (1900); the Middle Eastern Question, by V. Chirol, 18s. net (Murray); A Tour in Macedonia, by G.F. Abbot (1903); The Burden of the Balkans, by Miss Edith Durham (1904); The Balkans from Within, by R. Wyon (1904); The Balkan Question, edited by L. Villari (1904); Critical Times in Turkey, by G. King-Lewis (1904); Pro Macedonia, by V. Bérard (Paris, 1904); La Péninsule balkanique, by Capitaine Lamouche (Paris, 1899).
CHAPTER XI
NIHILISM AND ABSOLUTISM IN RUSSIA
THE HOUSE OF ROMANOFF
The Whig statesman, Charles James Fox, once made the profound though seemingly paradoxical assertion that the most dangerous part of a Revolution was the Restoration that ended it. In a similar way we may hazard the statement that the greatest danger brought about by war lies in the period of peace immediately following. Just as the strain involved by any physical effort is most felt when the muscles and nerves resume their normal action, so, too, the body politic is liable to depression when once the time of excitement is over and the artificial activities of war give place to the tiresome work of paying the bill. England after Waterloo, France and Germany after the war of 1870, afford examples of this truth; but never perhaps has it been more signally illustrated than in the Russia of 1878-82.