THE NEW EUROPE
William II. towards Francis Joseph, kept her eyes shut, and became a loyal outpost of Germany in the Orient.
Of no less importance to Germany are Trieste and the Adriatic. The purpose of the Triple alliance was to protect Austria from Italy; but this fact, which was admitted by Bismarck himself, did not prevent Germany from cultivating direct relations with Italy and pursuing an effective economic policy in the peninsula.
It is quite natural that a certain tension should survive between Prussia and Austria: Vienna cannot forget her vanished glory and the position she once occupied in Germany: while Berlin is well aware of this sensitive side of impoverished but aristocratic Austria, and realizes that Vienna still looks upon Prussia as a parvenu. But Berlin needs Vienna, and Vienna needs Berlin. Great Germany can easily afford to tolerate Great Austria, as was clearly demonstrated by the personal friendship between Francis Ferdinand, the chief exponent of the Great Austrian idea, and William II., the leader of Great Germany. This war has completely atoned for the year 1866, and to-day Vienna can already tolerate Hindenburg as the supreme commander at her army—that army, which according to Austrian politicians, and Francis Joseph himself, was the very soul and essence of Austria's defence. In a speech in the German Reichstag in 1888 Bismarck explained the origin of the Triple Alliance and the value of Austria to Germany: "without Austria" he said, "Germany would be isolated and closed in between Russia and France . . . . We cannot even imagine Europe without Austria. . . . ."
V.
Today there cannot be the slightest doubt that the present war, alike in its origin and in its development, is purely Pangerman. Germany was from the first fully aware that she must defend Austria-Hungary in her own interest. There is a decisive document proving this assertion, namely, the Memorial submitted to the German Reichstag on August 3rd, 1914, in which Herr Von Bethmann-Hollweg expounded the true Pangerman theory concerning Austria, and treated the anti-Austrian manoeuvres of Serbia as a distinct menace to German interests. The Chancellor feared the extension
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