POSTSCRIPT 181 



upon Russia, and so came the Triple Alliance of Ger- 

 many, Russia and Austria immediately after the crea- 

 tion of the German Empire. German influence made 

 Russia accept defeat at the Berlin conference after the 

 war with Turkey and so the Treaty of San Stef ano was 

 cast aside and almost all that Russia had fought for 

 was denied her. It was German influence that forced 

 Count Witte to negotiate the famous German-Russian 

 Commercial Treaty that reduced Russian manufac- 

 turers to almost ruin and that brought no relief to the 

 Russian farmers. It was German threats that held 

 in Russia armies that should have been sent to Asia 

 to fight the Japanese and made the Czar Nicholas II. 

 accept at the Portsmouth peace conference a peace of 

 humiliation. It is not necessary to speak of more 

 sinister German work, in international politics. The 

 Russian Emperors, The Russian bureaucrats, more 

 properly called German-Russian bureaucrats, have 

 dominated for centuries the Russian government and 

 policies, not only without, but also within, the Empire. 

 The Army and the Navy have too often been used to 

 further plans of the German intriguers who came to 

 Russia with the German Princesses who became Em- 

 presses of Russia. All of these intriguers had to be 

 given places of power and wealth and of course high 

 standing at the Russian Imperial Court. So long as 

 British statesmen, bankers and merchants were blind 

 to the aggressions that they thought Russia made 

 upon British rights, they did not see that when the 

 Emperor Nicholas I., prior to the Crimean war, pro- 

 posed the division of Turkey between Russia, France, 



