The Russians in Copenhagen kept their eyes well on Germany; and it was evident that, while the position of France gave the Germans no uneasiness--they seemed to look on France with a certain contempt--any move of Russia was regarded as important. Prince Koudacheff, late the Russian Ambassador at Madrid, in 1907 Minister at Copenhagen, who seldom talked politics, again returned to the great question.
'My brother, who is in Washington, and an admirer of your country, says that you Americans believe that war is unthinkable. Is this your opinion?'
'Well, I will say that as soon as the bankers feel that there is enough money, there will be a war in Europe.'
'I wonder if your husband meant that?' I asked the Princess Koudacheff; it was well to have corroboration occasionally, and she was a sister-in-law of Iswolsky's; Iswolsky was a synonym for diplomatic knowledge.
'If he did not mean it he would not have said it. When he does not mean to say a thing he remains silent. As soon as there is money enough, there will be war. Germany will go into no war that will impoverish her,' she said. Her opinion was worth much; she was a woman who knew well the inside of European politics.
'And who will fight, the Slavs and Teutons?'
I knew a Russian who, while a nobleman, was not an official. In fact, he hated bureaucrats. He could endure no one in the Russian court circle except the Empress Dowager, Marie, because she was sympathetic, and the late Grand Duke Constantine, because he had translated Shakespeare.
'If Prince Valdemar of Denmark had been the son instead of the brother of the Dowager Empress, Russia would have a future. As it is, I will quote from Father Gapon for you. You know his _Life_?'
'Well, he has attempted to give the working-men in Russia a chance; he has tried to gain for them one-tenth of the place which working-men in your country have, and, in 1905, he was answered by the massacre of the Narva gate. The Tsar is a fool, with an imperialistic _hausfrau_ for a wife. If you will read the last words of Father Gapon's _Life_, you will find these words:
'"I may say, with certainty, that the struggle is quickly approaching its inevitable climax: that Nicholas II. is preparing for himself the fate which befell a certain English King and a certain French King long ago, and that such members of his dynasty as escape unhurt from the throes of the Revolution, will some day, in a not very distant future, find themselves exiles upon some Western shore." I may live to see this; but I hope that the Empress Marie may not. She knows where the policy of her daughter-in-law, who has all the stupidity of Marie Antoinette, without her charm, would lead; she says of her son,--"he was on the right road before he married that narrow-minded woman!"'