Russia's Friend in Need

Southland Times, Issue 19471, 26 November 1904, Page 2 (Supplement)

Russia's Friend in Need

(Percival Gibbon, in the Daily Mail). If Kussia is to find a friend in this the hour of her need, when her proutige ia in rags and disillusionment threatens her lik© a weapon, it is to Jer.muny she must look. Alone of the great lower© of Europe, Germany has interests wliich lie parallel to those of Russia. Things are changed since the Czar went to Paria to make vodka a fashionable liqueur, Russian bonds a fashionable investment, and'llussia the ally of France. I suppose the historian of o. (generation hence will mark the last three years as the period during which every international relationship in Europe was shaken by the intrusion of Britain into this alliance and that entente, till Lalf the Continent was a dazed adherent cf England, and the Triple Alliance, the one mainstay of Germany's position, was a mere rickety crutch, a pretentious name. King Edward's holidays abroad, those brilliant yachting trips broken by visits ;to kings and the .capture of national eentiment, left Germany isolated, a portentously armed maroon on a solitary island. Our chief and most admirable diplomatist commenced by an understanding with Portugal which leaves German statesmen doubtful to this day ;i an understanding which in some 'cute fashion seems to touch Germany's colonial projects in East Africa, where her deiendencies are bounded by Portuguese and British territories. It was a small thing, like putting forward a precautionary knight to bail up an adversary's bishop which the game develops. But at the next anovo the' Queen slid across the board. It was Italy and Austria— ltaly, our good sea-faring friend tin the Mediterranean ; Austria, which owes Germany nothing, and believes in a naval stend-by. These two are Germany's partners in the Triple Alliance, her duly booked ami catalogued partners in a world of potential troubles ; ami Kingi Edward (literally plundered the goodwill of both in less time than a Foreign Office clerk could draft a preamble. There was nothing on paper, nothing that could bo held to infringe or impair the validity of "the Alliance ; but Germany knew soon enough that hereafter, in all schemes directed against Britain, she would l.c n minority. There was no danger of any understanding between France and Oermany, but the Franco-Rußsian alliance was too much a question of francs and roubles t 0 be depended on. It was not a suinciently permanent iinenace- to Jennon frontiers :so on the heelß of the Queen's move, out came the deadly rook, the sledgehammer "of the set, and the world rang with that superb coup, the entente cordiale. No fear now of the flat-bot-tomed troop-boat 9 on the North Pt'a ; no fear of anything. Without an unfriendly word, without even a yacht less in the Solent, or at Kiel, the great menace of Europe was bridled, Germany was wallexJ in. The King may leave his name to posterity on the strength of this wor^ alone. Men ha^'e won itntmortality before now with a far less achievement. But now, from the East, where creation btgan, a new element comes to trouble the waters of international politics- Two European Powers, Uritain and Russia, have interests t o anfoguard there: Germany is anxious to acquire a siroilai stake. And finally Japan, new-born, newarmed, demands that here Western expansion shall cease, and there its pioueerc shall retreat, leaving her, too, a supreme power within her proper scope. It was quite natural that ulong the« lines there should sooner or Jater ensue a conflict, and it was likewise inevitable, for a hundred reasons, that the trouble should be with Russia. She was th« bano of both Britain and Japan, with her ruthless advance, her broken promises her steady gathering in of one fit province after another,, and the rwo naval powers joined' in an alliance that guaranteed to the lesser a fair field and nc favour when the fight came. It came, and as the tide of battle now runs, every blow struck leaves Britain and Japan stronger in the J'nst, China safer fronn partition, and Germany far ther than ever frara the influence, the interests, the supremacy she desires- There is only ono way out of it — to l.eat Britain and Japan combined, and that no ono is going to attempt. And meanwhile the value of Russia as an ally to counteract the weight of Britain depreciate-' as each defeat beats her back towards her own borders. Still, something jraay be saved from the general ruin, and Germany is on the side of peace. Her sympathies — or at least those of her statesmen— are with Russia, and if she could break the Dual Alliance and so reply to the entente cordiale, there is little she would De willing to leave undone. No one is willing to consider an alliance while Russia is at war, but if she could be fished out of the mess, short of sheer defeat, the thing would be worth thinking of, and official minds are already carefully prepared for it. Peace, then, is the manifest expedient, and it is to' be seen, now and egam, if one is on the spot, with that delicate care both aikes are putting out feelers, how tentatively each sounds the other with preliminary hints and suggestions. M. Witte had much to talk of In his recent visit to Berlin beaides the duty on dairy stuff ; Prinz. Htoinricb. ia something more th a n a niere Czarewich-worshipper at Peterhof. And yet it is still all ao diffuse and diplomatic, so much a matter of carefully-worded compliments and commonplaces with double meanings, that one can hardly put one's finger on any ono thing and Say : " Here is an alliance en herbe ; here is the future treaty sprout inij But as an atmosphere, it Is perceptible enough. And*, finally, there is no harm in it; Peace means — must mean— that «'apan will secure what she is fighting for, and besides, it is the most unlikely thing in the world that either Germany or Russia will succeed with their little scheme of compromise. We have seen the temper of .Japan, the bull-dog pertinacity, the fer-ret-like gameness of the little beggar, and it is scarcely the sort of thing to encourage anyono to try to take her bono away before she has done with It. Germany has her work cut out, nnd at the worst it is always interesting, and not a little illuminating, to walchi the Teutonic temperament apply Itself to diplomacy.