We must therefore try to make the international situation in this latter sense clear, so far as it concerns Germany's power and ambitions.
We see the European Great Powers divided into two great camps.
On the one side Germany, Austria, and Italy have concluded a defensive alliance, whose sole object is to guard against hostile aggression.

In this alliance the two first-named States form the solid, probably unbreakable, core, since by the nature of things they are intimately connected.

The geographical conditions force this result.

The two States combined form a compact series of territories from the Adriatic to the North Sea and the Baltic.

Their close union is due also to historical national and political conditions.