Throughout the period of these pre-war letters Russia was the
ally of France. Unhappily we do not know what the Tsar answered to any of these letters. We hope that he sometimes returned a stinging reproach or rebuke, as loyalty to his ally required him to do. Very likely he did so ; but so far as we can judge from the letters, which are like hearing only one end of a conversation on the telephone, the Kaiser was supremely con- fident that-he-was dealing with a weaker mind than his own, and that his mischief-making reiterations had only to go on long enough to make their impression andto be acted upon. If the advice of the Kaiser to the effeet that Russia ought to make war on Japan stood alone; it would perhaps have been enough to bring about that Russo-Japanese War which had such disastrous results for- Ruieda.
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