rmany, in conjunction with Austria, free to attack
France and Russia. It left the formidable Triple Alliance unimpaired.
But it tied the hands of Britain, who had no existing European
alliances, enforced neutrality upon her in such a war, and compelled
her to look on idly and wait her turn. In the present war, Germany
could have pleaded that she was bound to take part by the terms of her
alliance with Austria, who began it; but Britain would have been
compelled to stand aloof. A very convenient arrangement for Germany,
but not an arrangement that promised well for the peace of the world!
Even this rebuff did not dishearten Britain. Feeling that Germany might
have some reasonable ground of complaint in the fact that her share of
the extra-European world was so much less than that of France or of
Britain herself, Britain attempted to come to an agreement on this
head, such as would show that she had no desire to prevent the imperial
expansion of Germany. A treaty was proposed and discussed, and was
ready to be submitted to the proper authorities for confirmation in
June 1914. It has never been made public, because the war cancelled it
before it came into effect, and we do not know its terms. But we do
know that the German colonial enthusiast, Paul Rohrbach, who has seen
the draft treaty, has said that the concessions made by Britain were
astonishingly extensive, and met every reasonable German demand. This
sounds as if the proposals of the treaty, whatever they were, had been
recklessly generous. But this much is clear, that the government which
had this treaty in its possession when it forced on the war was not to
be easily satisfied. It did not want merely external possessions. It
wanted supremacy; it wanted world-dominion.
One last attempt the British government made in the frenzied days of
negotiation which preceded the war. Sir Edward Grey had begged the
German government to make ANY proposal which would make for peace, and
promised his support beforehand; he had received no reply. He had
undertaken that if Germany made any reasonable proposal, and France or
Russia objected, he would have nothing further to do with France or
Russia. Still there was no reply. Imagining that Germany might still be
haunted by what Bismarck called 'the nightmare of coalition,' and might
be rushing into war now because she feared a war in the future under
more unfavourable conditions, he had pledged himself, if Germany would
only say t
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