. The reader may with advantage
refer, on this subject, to a pamphlet by Professor Vinogradoff, _Russia:
the Psychology of a Nation_ (Oxford, 1914).]

EPILOGUE

In conclusion something must be said of the process by which our
understanding with France, still so elastic in 1912 and 1913, became the
solid alliance which now, on sea and land alike, confronts the German
forces. England gave France no positive engagements until the eleventh
hour; it may be argued that England gave them far too late, and that the
war might never have occurred if England had been less obstinately and
judicially pacific. But the English case for the delay is clear. We
hesitated to throw in our lot with France, because France would not
stand neutral while Germany made war on Russia. We shrank from the
incalculable entanglements which seemed to lie before us if we allied
ourselves with a power which was so committed. Why, we were asking
ourselves, should we fight the battles of Russia in the Balkans?

We were perhaps too cautious in suspecting that France might contemplate
this policy. She could not define beforehand the limits which she would
observe in defending Russia's cause. But she knew, as we now know, that
a war with Russia meant, to German statesmen, only a pretext for a new
attack on France, even more deadly in intention than that of 1870.
France could not do without the help of Russia. How then could she
afford to forfeit Russia's friendship by declaring, at Germany's
command, that she would do nothing to help Russia?

This loyalty to the Dual Alliance left France during the last days
before the war in a cruel dilemma. Russia, however well disposed, could
not help her ally in the first weeks of a war; and for France these were
the critical weeks, the weeks upon which her own fate must depend. She
appealed urgently to England for support.

But, even on July 31st, the English Cabinet replied that it could make
no definite engagement. This answer, it is true, had been foreshadowed
in earlier communications. Sir Edward Grey had made it abundantly clear
that there could be no prospect of common action unless France were
exposed to 'an unprovoked attack', and no certainty of such action even
in that case. But France had staked everything upon the justice of her
cause. She had felt that her pacific intentions were clear to all the
world; and that England could not, with any self-respect, refuse
assistance. The French mobilization