on between the two countries.

"But why did Germany fear war? It must have been because she meant to make
it." So the English argue. But imagine the Germans saying to us, "Why do
you fear war? There will be no war unless you provoke it. We are quite
pacific. You need not be alarmed about us." Would such a promise have
induced us to relax our preparations for a moment? No! Under the armed
peace there can be no confidence. And that alone is sufficient to account
for the breakdown of the Anglo-German negotiations, without supposing on
either side a wish or an intention to make war. Each suspected, and was
bound to suspect, the purpose of the other. Let us take, for example, the
negotiations of 1912, and put them back in their setting.

The Triple Alliance was confronting the Triple Entente. On both sides
were fear and suspicion. Each believed in the possibility of the others
springing a war upon them. Each suspected the others of wanting to lull
them into a false security, and then take them unprepared. In that
atmosphere, what hope was there of successful negotiations? The essential
condition--mutual confidence--was lacking. What, accordingly, do we find?
The Germans offer to reduce their naval programme, first, if England will
promise an unconditional neutrality; secondly, when that was rejected, if
England will promise neutrality in a war which should be "forced upon"
Germany. Thereupon the British Foreign Office scents a snare. Germany
will get Austria to provoke a war, while making it appear that the war
was provoked by Russia, and she will then come in under the terms of her
alliance with Austria, smash France, and claim that England must look
on passively under the neutrality agreement! "No, thank you!" Sir Edward
Grey, accordingly, makes a counter-proposal. England will neither make
nor participate in an "unprovoked" attack upon Germany. This time it is
the German Chancellor's turn to hang back. "Unprovoked! Hm! What does
that mean? Russia, let us suppose, makes war upon Austria, while making
it appear that Austria is the aggressor. France comes in on the side of
Russia. And England? Will she admit that the war was 'unprovoked' and
remain neutral? Hardly, we think!" The Chancellor thereupon proposes the
addition: "England, of course, will remain neutral if war is forced upon
Germany? That follows, I presume?" "No!" from the British Foreign Office.
Reason as before. And the negotiations fall through. How should they