alliance been already settled. But if in March the indications of a coming German and Austrian alliance were hardly, if at all, outwardly perceptible, this was no longer the case in June, when the Emperor of Austria visited the Emperor of Germany at Gastein. The Norddeutche Allgemeine Zeitung observed "that the interview could only be taken to imply the strengthening of all the bonds of amity between Germany and Austria." At the same time, the Russian press, supposed to represent Prince Gortschakoff's views, was waging an exceedingly bitter controversy against the German press, supposed to be inspired by Prince Bismarck. Later in the year looking back Europe began to see that Russia already understood the shadow that coming events were casting before them. The St. Petersburg Gazette went so far as to advise the Russian Government to "leave the Bosphorus and the Danube for the present to their fate, and to tackle Prussia, the Imperial Chancellor having, in the matter of the Eastern Question, wholly leaned to the side of the Western Powers." The visit of the Emperor of Austria to the Emperor of Germany, was followed little more than a fortnight after by an interview at Gastein, between Prince Bismarck and Count Andrassy, but even then the famous September visit of Prince Bismarck to Vienna, if contemplated by the statesmen themselves at Gastein in August, was certainly not so out of doors, for it took the world more or less by surprise, and provoked a degree of attention probably unsurpassed by any event in the twelvemonth. Prince Bismarck arrived in Vienna on September 21, and, as all accounts agree, was received with all but regal honours. Etiquette forbade the presence of the Emperor of Austria, but the chief of the Austrian Government, Count Andrassy, awaited the arrival of his illustrious guest at the railway station, at the head of a crowd of distinguished and representative men. The Emperor, who had come up to Vienna expressly to meet the Prince, had even placed a royal palace at his disposal, an offer gratefully declined by the Prince, who modestly preferred an hotel, to which he drove slowly through the densely packed streets, amid continued roars of "Hoch Bismarck!" The reception by the Austrian people of the great author of Sadowa, but thirteen years after the event, is one of the most curious and interesting phenomena probably to be found in history. This reception is said to have made a profound impression upon the German Chancellor, and may be accepted by outsiders as the harbinger of a deeper and more durable alliance than one merely cemented between diplomatists. What was the precise nature of the understanding between Germany and Austria entered into by Prince Bismarck and Count Andrassy between September 21 and 25, is not known. But so much seems perfectly certain, namely, that Germany and Austria have finally come to the conclusion that their political interests are identical in every respect, and that their commercial interests ought to be more and more assimilated on a common footing of mutual advantage. To harmonise the German and Austrian tariffs is no doubt a task which will involve a great

many delicate points and difficulties which, in the absence of goodwill, might be insuperable. But where there is a will there is a way, and there is every reason to think that the adage will not be belied in this case. With regard to the political aspect of the understanding or treaty, we have been assured that it is intended in the interests of European peace, and we can well believe that neither Germany or Austria, separately or combined, meditate schemes of aggression, unless thrust upon them by their neighbours. Moreover the two central military Powers are naturally better able to maintain the peace of Europe, so far as this is possible, acting together, than acting against one another. But it is the unforeseen that happens, and although Russia and France have every imaginable reason for postponing any conflict with Germany as long as possible, the year 1879 closes with a rumbling in the air of coming storms, and the moaning of many political winds. The intense irritation and mortification displayed by Russia on the one hand, and the systematic reorganisation of France on the other, coupled with the stern language resorted to both by the German press and Prince Bismarck himself, have left a gloom over the closing year, deeper and more lurid than anything which has happened in European history since the close of the Franco-German war. The cordial welcome given to the new Austro-German alliance by the Government of this country in the person of Lord Salisbury, is, of course, another cardinal fact of the greatest possible import. It can hardly be doubted that Germany, singlehanded, is at the present moment able to cope both with Russia and with France simultaneously. And if so, there cannot be much exaggeration in the abstract proposition, that Germany, Austria, and England together could, if they agreed, govern the world for some two centuries to come, perhaps for ever.

If Prince Bismarck were commissioned to design a seal for the year of Grace, Iron and Blood, in the annals of the new German Empire-1879-perhaps the shield might be found to carry, as the motto most condensing the Imperial Chancellor's policy for that year, "Reculer pour mieux sauter."

From 1866 to 1877 the strongly, so-called, Liberal and almost Radical policy of Count Bismarck struck friend and foe alike with amazement. Looking at the swift transformation from the usual standard of German political locomotion, the great statesman's gigantic strides on the road of innovation and modern ideas fairly took the English Radical's breath away. The French Red pointed sulkily at German progress in the constitutional path, and shrugged his shoulders between envy and admiration; while the German Junker, furious at heart, but partly cowed, partly disarmed, by Prince Bismarck's Imperial achievements, devoured as best he might his dismay, as he surveyed the astonishing spectacle of what seemed to him every species of Radical intrusion upon the ground of his own divine rights. They little dreamt that the same iron hand, which between 1866 and 1877 had set the

helm of the German vessel steadily towards modern liberation, so long as he thought it necessary in the interests of his Imperial policy, would know, on the most favourable opportunity, how to swing the vessel round, and tack out of the gulf stream into waters of his own. In both cases Prince Bismarck has shown that he had accurately gauged his power at one time to drive the vessel of State through the waves against Conservative, Protectionist and Ultramontane, and at another to reverse the wheels when he deemed it prudent against the Liberal, Culture-man, Protestant, and Free Trader. Many hypotheses have been framed to account for Prince Bismarck's various changes of front-" Splendid abilities in one direction, and a limited intellect in another "-" Personal sympathies and antipathies" (this is always put in with placid complacency)" Approaching second-childhood casting its shadow before it in the shape of a return to his old despotic and Protectionist prejudices;" while an accomplished Correspondent of the Times, writing in February last, says, "All the Chancellor's present trouble, and all the remedies proposed, may be traced to one common source-the lack of cash."

Without waiting for history to decide, we may even now discern, with quite as much certainty as the future is likely to vouchsafe, that Prince Bismarck does not consider the final cause of Germany to be Conservative or Radical, Protectionist or Free Trading, Protestant or Catholic, Military or Commercial. To be Germany, using each, any, or all these and any other principles, alone or in combination, as, and according as, they may from time to time appear to be conducive to the welfare of Germany as a living and organic whole—that is Prince Bismarck's avowed policy. Germany's final cause is to be Germany. The impulse from 1866-1877 is on these grounds perfectly intelligible and perfectly consistent. Prince Bismarck appealed to the Liberalism of the Professorial and Middle Classes, and led them full cry, until on the breeze of military success the vast apparatus and by no means contemptible Conservative particularism of the small German Powers and Courts fell of themselves without bloodshed or revolution, and indeed with such a total absence of convulsion, that the result must ever remain little short of historically miraculous in the eyes of Dame Partington. But then Prince Bismarck, as a consummate engineer, had taken care to secure all the ropes of the inclined plane, so that he could at a moment's notice stay the consequences of the forward rush, and regain that Conservative ground for the united empire, which he had deliberately sacrificed in detail, until the empire should be united.

Probably no statesman in any age ever made a more haughty and uncompromising declaration of humble devotion to patriotism, than did Prince Bismarck, when in his magnificent speech of July 9, he passionately defended himself against any affection for Constitutional government, apart from the welfare of his country. "By no means, gentlemen," said Bismarck; “I am not the enemy

of Constitutional Government, it is true; but had I believed a dictatorship, an absolutism, would have better ensured German unity, I should without scruple have counselled my Sovereign to proclaim himself absolute." Clearly, Prince Bismarck holds that the duty of government is to govern, and not to be governed, and that the true end of a constitutional system is to enable an honest Government to govern more honestly, and more wisely, than it would or could without a representative system.

To follow, in the space allotted to us, the internal development of the German Empire in its thoroughness and detail would be impossible. But to the historical student three great features of internal consolidation and organisation must ever remain eminent: the introduction of a common Judicature Bill for the empire at large, the bestowal of an autonomous government on the newly acquired provinces of Alsace and Lorraine almost before the blood of the late Franco-German war had ceased to drip, and the first but irrevocable step of the German Government in the acquisition of the German Railways.

These three great facts are, in the progress of this new German Empire in 1879, if not sensational, none the less cardinal, in a historical point of view. Were it not known that the Bill granting Alsace and Lorraine autonomy under the governorship of Field-Marshal von Manteuffel was brought in by the German Government, and carried before the German Emperor's visit to that country, it might be believed that the measure was intended as a reward for the reception he met there-a reception concerning which the Emperor wrote that "it confirmed him in the belief that the intelligent efforts of the Government and the growing confidence of the population would soon join Alsace and Lorraine with Germany in indissoluble bonds." To say that the German sword and military organisation of a conquered country had nothing to do with such a result would be absurd; but the substantial truth of the German Emperor's letter will probably be established. Here again the German conquerors had shown the wisdom of their permanent axiom-when tightening the executive, to relax and pay out the legislative cable, and vice versa.

The promulgation of a universal Judicature Bill within three or four years of the constitution of the German Empire, out of the bewildering variety of some twenty-seven sovereign states and provinces (the number of which we have not before us), is one of those achievements which is more likely to impress solicitors and barristers of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, than any other body of men in the world. But even laymen are able to understand the import of the announcement for the year 1879, that the new German Empire had, within less than half-a-dozen years, given some twenty-seven formerly independent sovereign states, and a variety of legally independent provinces, a universal and compulsory Imperial Judicature Bill.

To the historian and philosopher it must be, in the present

state of Europe, a moot point and nice question which of the two events in German home policy-the actual introduction of a universal Judicature Bill, or the acquisition by the German State of the German Railways, is likely hereafter to have proved the more important.

CHAPTER II.

EASTERN EUROPE.

THE aspect of affairs in Eastern Europe at the beginning of the year was far from reassuring. Although six months had elapsed since the conclusion of the Treaty of Berlin, peace had not yet been signed between Russia and Turkey. The Russian and Turkish troops still stood face to face within a day's march of Constantinople; Bulgaria and Eastern Roumelia were administered by Russian governors and occupied by a Russian army; and although, thanks to the energetic representations of the French Government, commissioners had been appointed by the Porte to negotiate with Greece as to the proposed rectification of the Greek frontier, no satisfactory progress had been made towards a settlement of this delicate question. In Russia, the disappointment caused by the Berlin Treaty, which seemed to deprive her of the chief fruits of her victories, and by the refusal of the Government to grant liberal reforms, enabled the Nihilists to pursue their underground agitation with the tacit connivance of the people, thereby producing a state of affairs subversive of the authority of the Govern ment, and menacing to the general tranquillity of the Empire. Austria-Hungary, thanks to her Liberal constitution, was free from the danger of political conspiracy; but the antagonistic feelings of her nationalities had been fiercely excited by the incidents of the war, and a complete disorganisation of parties was the result, portending increased power to the Slavs of the monarchy and possible alterations of the Constitution in a reactionary sense. Thus the desperate struggle between the Russians and the Turks still cast its shadow over the East; the conquerors as well as the conquered had suffered terrible losses in men and money,' and the former, in addition to the horrors of war, were experiencing those of the plague; while the countries which, though they did not actually participate in the conflict, had a direct interest in its issue, were in a more unsettled state than ever.

The most important of the provisions of the Berlin Treaty, so According to a Russian paper, the Russkaya Pravda, the expenses incurred by the Russian Government in the war amounted to 2,000,000,000 roubles (200,000,000%)