After about 1789, it became the common practice of the Sea Powers, Britain and France, the one a so called constitutional monarchy, the other either a republic or an empire, to threaten other powers, especially the Eastern European powers, with democratic revolution or ethnic unrest.
The Eastern powers likewise threatened each other and the Ottoman Empire with either democratic revolution or ethnic nationalism.
The Czars, most notably, went much further than threat, when they systematically expelled millions of poor, destitute, scorned, exiled Jews into Europe, America, and elsewhere.
The instability was hardly limited to hitlerite Germany and Austria, when one considers the firestorm of endless political instability symbolized by the Dreyfus Affair in France.
So, it was hardly a new, unethical, an uncommon thing, for a power to foment revolution, especially in time of war, as was the case when Germany sent Lenin into Russia.
"Hess (1853) replied (against Buol's policy (of siding with the Sea Powers), to the Emperor) that while everyone rightly condemned Russia for her present revolutionary policy, Britain's was worse and France's no better. Even if Russia tended to dominate, she had helped fight the revolution for forty years, while Britain protected and promoted it for selfish commercial reasons and France was the chief source and victim of revolutionary ideas."
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