A final major element of instability on the international scene was the
relationship between Germany and Russia. In the eyes of key German leaders
such as Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, the ramshackle Russian
Empire, recently defeated in war by Japan and going through the trauma of
early industrialization, was nonetheless a growing threat. Humiliation in the
Far East turned Russian foreign policy planners toward gains in the Balkans.
Russia's new Duma (parliament), established after the Revolution of 1905,
brought public opinion into play over foreign affairs. Foreign policy makers
like Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov aimed at containing Austria-Hungary's
expansion in the Balkans. The Austrian annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in
1908 raised alarm among government circles and in public opinion. Nationalist
newspapers like Novoe Vremya as well as Duma deputies such as Count
Vladimir Bobrinsky of the Nationalist party soon pointed with alarm to
German ambitions in the Balkans. The rhetoric of Pan-Slavism, which called
for ethnic solidarity between Russia and its Slavic brethren in southeastern
Europe, also inflamed the atmosphere.4
Reforms in the Russian army, the very size of Russia's population and
natural resources—all these elements made it likely that Germany's vast
power would be increasingly overshadowed by a resurgent Russia. With
Russia allied to France, Germany's permanent foe since 1870, the authorities
in Berlin were doubly afraid of the Russian threat. A study by the
German general staff in the spring of 1914 predicted that Germany and
Austria-Hungary would have to face a Russian army, when it had fully
mobilized, of frightening dimensions: ninety-four infantry divisions, twelve
rifle brigades, and thirty-five cavalry divisions. 5 German prime minister
Bethmann Hollweg himself had returned from a trip to Russia in 1912
"deeply disturbed at his first-hand impressions of that empire's human and
material resources.