the
peace. At that time the Imperial Chancellor answered justly: 'Pressure
cannot be brought to bear on Germany, not even moral pressure!'"[190]
And in that sentence German obstinacy and sullen irreconcilability is
most admirably expressed.

[Footnote 190: "Deutschland und der Weltkrieg," p. 495.]

Having seen that Professor Oncken has failed to recognize the prime
causes which provoked the _entente_ policy, it is not surprising to find
him equally in error when discussing the diplomatic clashes between the
rival camps. The professor calls them _Machtproben_ ("tests of power");
but how he can dare to state that these diplomatic trials of strength
were engineered by Great Britain--remains his own secret.

"King Edward's meeting with the Czar at Reval in June, 1908, was
followed by a far-reaching Macedonian reform programme, the commencement
of the division of European Turkey. What Britain had failed to induce
Germany to help her in executing, was to be attained with the sword's
point directed against Germany. And Britain proceeded in cold blood to
conjure up an era of might-struggles, which, in the island language, is
called preserving the balance of power."[191]

[Footnote 191: Ibid., p. 297.]

The trials of strength recounted by Oncken are the Bosnian crisis, the
Morocco question, and the Austro-Serbian quarrel which led to the
present war. It seems banal to have to point out that Bosnia was
unlawfully annexed by Germany's vassal--Austria; that Germany, herself,
brought Europe to the verge of war by sending the _Panther_ to Agadir;
and that the final catastrophic _Machtprobe_ was likewise provoked by
Germany's eastern vassal.

For good or evil Germany has been convinced for nearly two decades that
the balance of power in Europe was an obstacle to her world future.
Furthermore, she believed that the balance imposed fetters upon her
which only mighty armaments could break. All Germany's energies in the
domain of diplomacy have been set in motion to make the balance of power
a mere figment of the imagination.

In pursuing this end it has suited her purpose to declare all attempts
at maintaining the outward appearances of equality between the Powers of
Europe to be Machiavellian schemes against her existence; or to cite the
Kaiser's own words, "to deprive Germany of her place in the sun."

Britain's _entente_ policy was the only one calculated to preserve our
own existence, and to restrain Germany from establishin