Did
the Prussians and Austrians reflect on the humiliation of an alliance
with the Muscovites, and on the superiority of the code civil when the
Russian Guard at Kulm stood like a rock against the desperate onslaughts
of Vandamme? Perhaps by this time the inhabitants of Berlin have
obliterated the bas-relief in the Alley of Victories, representing
Prince William of Prussia, the future victor of Sedan, seeking safety
within the square of the Kaluga regiment! Russian blood has flowed in
numberless battles in the cause of the Germans and Austrians. The
present Armageddon might perhaps have been avoided if Emperor Nicholas
I. had left the Hapsburg monarchy to its own resources in 1849, and had
not unwisely crushed the independence of Hungary. Within our memory, the
benevolent neutrality of Russia guarded Germany in 1870 from an attack
in the rear by its opponents of Sadowa. Are all such facts to be
explained away on the ground that the despised Muscovites may be
occasionally useful as "gun meat," but are guilty of sacrilege if they
take up a stand against German taskmasters in "shining armor"? The older
generations of Germany had not yet reached that comfortable conclusion.
The last recommendation which the founder of the German Empire made on
his deathbed to his grandson was to keep on good terms with that Russia
which is now proclaimed to be a debased mixture of Byzantine, Tartar,
and Muscovite abominations.
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