ABSTRACT
During the Forty Years' Peace after 1815 the Great Powers were afraid of revolution. During the Forty Years' Peace after 1871 they were afraid of one another. It is certainly optimistic to describe Europe in the period after 1890 as in a state of balance between the Triple Alliance and the FrancoRussian Alliance. The growth simultaneously of Pan-Germanism and Pan-Slavism was the necessary consequence of the collapse of the old Holy Alliance. Although Bismarck's Dual Alliance postponed the clash, it could not long disguise the fact that it existed. The Russians and the West both acted on the assumption that a redeemed Bulgaria would be pro-Russian, only to find by 1885 that it possessed a national will of its own. In 1878 the West nearly fought Russia in order to keep Bulgaria small; in 1886 and 1887 the West nearly fought Russia in order to let Bulgaria be big.
