. Between the years 1856 and 1900 England waged no
less than thirty-four such wars, and by so doing acquired 4,000,000
square miles of land and 57,000,000 subjects. In Europe after the year
1815 England, for the most part, kept peace; the Crimean war, which
was a coalition war, constitutes an exception, and it was not
England's fault that Prussia, too, was not drawn into that war, which
concerned a specifically English interest. At that time English
threats were quite as numerous as they were in the year 1863, when The
Daily News declared King William I. an outlaw, and The Daily Mail
proclaimed for him the fate of Charles I. The cause of this, however,
was that in London it was looked upon as an interference with English
interests that Bismarck, by his attitude during the Polish
insurrection, had prevented the effectuation of a coalition directed
against Russia. During the war of 1864 over Schleswig-Holstein the
threats were renewed, and even then we began to hear the watchwords
with which public opinion in England for a decade has been mobilized
against us: A Germany organized on a military basis, and with a fleet
at its command besides, indicates that the goal of that State's
policy, even more than in the case of France, is world rule. At that
time, too, however, France and Russia were regarded by English war
makers as the country's real enemies, and this conviction, rather
than ideal considerations of any kind whatsoever, accounts for the
fact that in the years 1870 and 1871 English policy followed a neutral
course. England wished to see France weakened, had not foreseen
Germany's great success, and had reserved for future opportunities the
settlement of accounts with Russia, its very annoying rival in Asia.

In other respects, however, Bismarck was by no means satisfied with
the way in which England pursued its policy of "neutrality." He had
expected, at least, that the English would condemn the war, begun, as
it was, in such a criminal manner, and not that they would carry on
with France a flourishing trade in weapons. "It is a surprising fact,
pregnant with warning," he wrote in May, 1874, "that Mr. Gladstone
succeeded so easily in holding the country to an attitude directly
opposed to the traditional hostility of the English masses toward
France." He had all the more reason to expect a different attitude in
view of the fact that, as was well known in England, it had been out
of regard for England that Bismarck in