policy, and somewhat subsequent to the first creation of this mercantile marine, came the decision to build a great fleet. Now, it so happens that Great Britain alone among the Powers of Europe depends for her existence upon supremacy at sea, and particularly upon naval superiority in the Narrow Seas to the east and the south of the British islands.

Such a necessity is, of course, a challenge to the rest of the world, and it would be ridiculous to expect the rest of the world to accept that challenge without protest. But a necessity this naval policy of Great Britain remains none the less. The moment some rival or group of rivals can overcome her fleet, her mere physical livelihood is in peril. She cannot be certain of getting her food. She cannot be certain of getting those foreign materials the making up of which enables her to purchase her food. Further, her dominions are scattered oversea, and supremacy at sea is her only guarantee of retaining the various provinces of her dominion.

It is a case which has happened more than once before in the history of the world. Great commercial seafaring States have arisen; they have always had the same method of government by a small, wealthy class, the same ardent patriotism, the same scattered empire, and the same inexorable necessity of maintaining supremacy at sea. Only one Power had hitherto rendered this country anxious for the Narrow Seas: that Power was France, and it only controlled one-half of the two branches of the Narrow Seas, the North Sea and the Channel. It had been for generations a cardinal piece of English policy that the French Fleet should be watched, the English Fleet maintained overwhelmingly superior to it, and all opportunities for keeping France engaged with other rivals used to the advantage of this country. On this account English policy leant, on the whole, towards the German side, during all the generation of rivalry between France and Germany which followed the war of 1870.

But when the Germans began to build their fleet, things changed. The Germans had openly given Europe to understand that they regarded Holland and Belgium, and particularly the port of Antwerp, as ultimately destined to fall under their rule or into their system. Their fleet was specifically designed for meeting the British Fleet; it corresponded to no existing considerable colonial empire, and though the development of German maritime commerce was an excuse for it, it was only an excuse. Indeed, the object of obtaining supremacy at sea was put forward fairly clearly by the promoters of the whole scheme. Great Britain was therefore constrained to transfer the weight of her support to Russia and to France, and to count on the whole as a force opposed, for the first time in hundreds of years, to North Germany in the international politics of Europe. Similarity of religion (which is a great bond) and a supposed identity (and partly real similarity) of race were of no effect compared with this sentiment of necessity.

Here it is important to note that the transference of British support from one continental group to another neither produced aggression by Great Britain nor pointed to any intention of aggression. It is a plain matter of fact, which all future history will note, that the very necessity in English eyes of English supremacy at sea, and the knowledge that such a supremacy was inevitably a provocation to others, led to the greatest discretion in the use of British naval strength, and, in general, to a purely defensive and peaceful policy upon the part of the chief maritime power. It would, indeed, have been folly to have acted otherwise, for there was nothing to prevent the great nations, our rivals, if they had been directly menaced by the British superiority at sea, from beginning to build great fleets, equal or superior to our own. Germany alone pursued this policy, with no excuse save an obvious determination to undo the claim of the British Fleet.

I have called this a blunder, and, from the point of view of the German policy, it was a blunder. For if the Prussian dynasty set out, as it did, to make itself the chief power in the world, its obvious policy was to deal with its enemies in detail. It ought not, at any cost, to have quarrelled with Russia until it had finally disposed of France. If it was incapable, through lack of subtlety, to prevent the Franco-Russian group from forming, it should at least have made itself the master of that group before gratuitously provoking the rivalry of Great Britain. But "passion will have all now," and the supposedly cold and calculating nature of Prussian effort has about it something very crudely emotional, as the event has shown. From about ten years ago Prussian Germany had managed to array against itself not only the old Franco-Russian group but Great Britain as well.

This arrangement would not, however, have led to war. Equilibrium was still perfectly maintained, and the very strong feeling throughout all the great States of Europe that a disturbance of the peace would mean some terrible catastrophe, to be avoided at all costs, was as powerful as ever.

The true origin of disturbance, the first overt act upon which you can put your finger and say, "Here the chain of particular causes leading to the great war begins," was the revolution in Turkey. This revolution took place in the year 1908, and put more or less permanently into power at Constantinople a group of men based upon Masonic influence, largely Western in training, largely composed of Jewish elements, known as the "Young Turks."

The first result of this revolution, followed as it inevitably was by the temporary weakening in international power which accompanies all civil war at its outset, was the declaration by Austria that she would regard the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina—hitherto only administrated by her and nominally still Turkish—as her own territory.

It was but a formal act, but it proved of vast consequence. It was an open declaration by a Germanic Power that the hopes of the Servians, the main population of the district and a Slav nation closely bound to Russia in feeling, were at an end; that Servia must content herself with such free territory as she had, and give up all hope of a completely independent State uniting all Servians within its borders. It was as though Austria had said, "I intend in future to be the great European Power in the Balkans, Slav though the Balkans are, and I challenge Russia to prevent me." The Russian Government, thus challenged, would perhaps have taken the occasion to make war had not the French given it to be understood that they would not imperil European peace for such an object. The Prussian Government of the German Empire had, in all this crisis, acted perhaps as the leader, certainly as the protector and supporter of Austria; and when France thus refused to fight, and Russia in turn gave way, the whole thing was regarded, not only in Germany but throughout the world, as equivalent to an armed victory. Observers whose judgment and criticism are of weight, even in the eyes of trained international agents, proclaimed what had happened to be as much a Prussian success as though the Prussian and Austrian armies had met in the field and had defeated the Russian and the French forces.

The next step in this series was a challenge advanced by Germany against that arrangement whereby Morocco, joining as it did to French North Africa, should be abandoned to French influence, so far as England was concerned, in exchange for the French giving up certain rights of interference they had in the English administration of Egypt, and one or two other minor