IL Isvolsky, the former Russian Ambassador in Paris, has given
in the Temps some astonishing details concerning the secret anti- British treaty which the Kaiser induced the ex-Tsar to sign at Bjorkii in Finland in the summer of 1903. The draft of the treaty, a defensive alliance between Germany and Russia to which France was to be induced to adhere when she found herself in the presence of an accomplished fact, had boon made beforehand in Germany, and the Kaiser, with the hypnotic persuasiveness of a Svensali, caused the Tsar to affix his signature. The Russian Foreign Minister WAS not present, but the Kaiaer insisted on another signature. An old courtier, Admiral Bireleff, was called in to sign the treaty, and did so, but he could not read it as the Kaiser covered it with his hand. The Autocrat of All the Russian afterwards repented of his folly and disowned the treaty, but it is appalling to think of the hole-and-corner way in which this weak man, at the instance of the Imperial trickster, put his hand to an agreement that might have set the whole world in a blaze, had it become effective.
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