The French policy was so successful that we shall have to reckon more than ever on the hostility of France in the future.

It must be regarded as a quite unthinkable proposition that an agreement between France and Germany can be negotiated before the question between them has been once more decided by arms.

Such an agreement is the less likely now that France sides with England, to whose interest it is to repress Germany but strengthen France.

Another picture meets our eyes if we turn to the East, where the giant Russian Empire towers above all others.
The Empire of the Czar, in consequence of its defeat in Manchuria, and of the revolution which was precipitated by the disastrous war, is following apparently a policy of recuperation.

It has tried to come to an understanding with Japan in the Far East, and with England in Central Asia; in the Balkans its policy aims at the maintenance of the _status quo_.