rance and
Great Britain, and it was one or other of these Powers, according to the
angle of vision, which was regarded as offering the menace of aggression.
If there has been a German plot against the peace of the world, it does
not date from before the decade 1890-1900. The close of that decade
marks, in fact, a new epoch in German policy. The years of peace had
been distinguished by the development of industry and trade and internal
organization. The population increased from forty millions in 1870 to over
sixty-five millions at the present date. Foreign trade increased more than
ten-fold. National pride and ambition grew with the growth of prosperity
and force, and sentiment as well as need impelled German policy to claim
a share of influence outside Europe in that greater world for the control
of which the other nations were struggling. Already Bismarck, though with
reluctance and scepticism, had acquired for his country by negotiation
large areas in Africa. But that did not satisfy the ambitions of the
colonial party. The new Kaiser put himself at the head of the new movement,
and announced that henceforth nothing must be done in any part of the world
without the cognizance and acquiescence of Germany.

Thus there entered a new competitor upon the stage of the world, and
his advent of necessity was disconcerting and annoying to the earlier
comers. But is there reason to suppose that, from that moment, German
policy was definitely aiming at empire, and was prepared to provoke war
to achieve it? Strictly, no answer can be given to this question. The
remoter intentions of statesmen are rarely avowed to others, and, perhaps,
rarely to themselves. Their policy is, indeed, less continuous, less
definite, and more at the mercy of events than observers or critics are
apt to suppose. It is not probable that Germany, any more than any other
country in Europe, was pursuing during those years a definite plan,
thought out and predetermined in every point.

In Germany, as elsewhere, both in home and foreign affairs, there was an
intense and unceasing conflict of competing forces and ideas. In Germany,
as elsewhere, policy must have adapted itself to circumstances, different
personalities must have given it different directions at different times.
We have not the information at our disposal which would enable us to trace
in detail the devious course of diplomacy in any of the countries of
Europe. What we know something about is t