y's power
of defence must be destroyed. That done each of the sleeping partners
to the unsigned compact would get the share of the spoils, guarded by
armed German manhood, he coveted.

To Russia, the dismemberment of Austria-Hungary and the incorporation
of the Slav elements in part into her own vast empire, in part into a
vassal and subordinate Balkan Confederacy.

To France the restoration of Lorraine, with Metz, and of Alsace with
Strasburg and their 1,500,000 of German speaking Teutons to the French
Empire.

To England, the destruction of German sea-power and along with it the
permanent crippling of German competition in the markets of the world.

Incidentally German colonies would disappear along with German
shipping, and with both gone a German navy would become a useless
burden for a nation of philosophers to maintain, so that the future
status of maritime efficiency in Europe could be left to the power
that polices the seas to equitably fix for all mankind, as well as for
the defeated rival.

Such an outline was the altruistic scope of the unsigned agreement
entered into by the three parties of the _Triple Entente_; and it only
remained to get ready for the day when the matter could be brought
to issue. The murder of the Archduke Ferdinand furnished Russia with
the occasion, since she felt that her armies were ready, the sword
sharpened, and the Entente sure and binding.

The mobilization by Russia was all that France needed "to do that
which might be required of her by her interests." (Reply of the French
Government to the German Ambassador at Paris, August 1st, 1914.)

Had the neutrality of Belgium been respected as completely as the
neutrality of Holland, England would have joined her "friends" in the
assault on Germany, as Sir Edward Grey was forced to admit when the
German Ambassador in vain pressed him to state his own terms as the
price of English neutrality.

The hour had struck. Russia was sure of herself, and the rest followed
automatically since all had been provided for long before. The French
fleet was in the Mediterranean, as the result of the military compact
between France and England signed, sealed and delivered in November,
1912, and _withheld from the cognizance of the British Parliament
until after war had been declared_. The British fleet had been
mobilized early in July in anticipation of Russia's mobilization on
land--and here again it is Sir Edward Grey who incidentally supplies