“At least Tsar Alexander III understood that the game now being played was for the highest stakes. When Giers asked him, ‘... what would we gain by helping the french destroy Germany?’ he replied: ‘what we would gain would be that Germany, as such, would disappear. It would break up into a number of small, weak states, the way it used to be’.”

“At least Tsar Alexander III understood that the game now being played was for the highest stakes. When Giers asked him, ‘... what would we gain by helping the french destroy Germany?’ he replied: ‘what we would gain would be that Germany, as such, would disappear. It would break up into a number of small, weak states, the way it used to be’.”

— Henry Kissinger