foreign policy of the monarchy. Bismarck with remarkable perspicacity had refused to deprive Austria of her German provinces. He sought thus to realise, indirectly, but surely, the Pan-German plan, by gaining the whole of Austria-Hungary. He foresaw the time when the internal conditions of this Empire would force its two constituent nations to call in the help of Prussia, and throw themselves into her arms. To assure better the success of his plan, he directed the ambition of Austria towards the Balkans, by assigning her two new Yugo-Slav provinces, at the same time indicating to her the road to Salonika. Austria, with her Slav population ever increasing, and her internal situation still more unstable, decided to pursue at all costs her dynastic and imperialistic policy in order to save the German and Magyar character of the Dual Monarchy. Thus Vienna saw herself forced to accept the hegemony of Prussia—Austria willingly became the vanguard of the German Drang nach Osten, and her government prepared and let loose the present catastrophe.
This, in essence, is our history and the prelude to the gigantic struggle of to-day.
