r own, where their emigrants could still be kept under control, and
remain subject to the obligations of service. Germany, the state which
beyond all others measures its strength by its fighting man-power, was
most affected by this motive, which formed the chief theme of the
colonial school among her politicians and journalists, and continued to
be so even when the stream of her emigrants had dwindled to very small
proportions. In a less degree, Italy was influenced by the same motive.
In the second place, conquered subjects even of backward races might be
made useful for the purposes of war. This motive appealed most strongly
to France. Her home population was stationary. She lived in constant
dread of a new onslaught from her formidable neighbour; and she watched
with alarm the rapid increase of that neighbour's population, and the
incessant increases in the numbers of his armies. At a later date
Germany also began to be attracted by the possibility of drilling and
arming, among the negroes of Central Africa, or the Turks of Asia
Minor, forces which might aid her to dominate the world.

Thus the political situation in Europe had a very direct influence upon
the colonising activity of this period. The dominant fact of European
politics during this generation was the supreme prestige and influence
of Germany, who, not content with an unquestioned military superiority
to any other power, had buttressed herself by the formation (1879 and
1882) of the most formidable standing alliance that has ever existed in
European history, and completely dominated European politics. France,
having been hurled from the leadership of Europe in 1870, dreaded
nothing so much as the outbreak of a new European war, in which she
must be inevitably involved, and in which she might be utterly ruined.
She strove to find a compensation for her wounded pride in colonial
adventures, and therefore became, during the first part of the period,
the most active of the powers in this field. She was encouraged to
adopt this policy by Bismarck, partly in the hope that she might thus
forget Alsace, partly in order that she might be kept on bad terms with
Britain, whose interests seemed to be continually threatened by her
colonising activity. But she hesitated to take a very definite line in
regard to territories that lay close to Europe and might involve
European complications.

Bismarck himself took little interest in colonial questions, except in
so far