d. Neither was bound to active
measures unless the other should be attacked by Russia, or any Power
which had Russian support. In 1882 the alliance of the two great German
Powers was joined by Italy--a surprising development which can only be
explained on the ground of Italy's feeling that she could not hope for
security at home, or for colonial expansion in the Mediterranean, so
long as she remained in isolation. The Triple Alliance so constituted
had a frail appearance, and it was hardly to be expected that Italy
would receive strong support from partners in comparison with whose
resources her own were insignificant. But the Triple Alliance has
endured to the present day, the most permanent feature of the diplomatic
system of the last thirty-two years. Whether the results have been
commensurate with the sacrifices of sentiment and ambition which Italy
has made, it is for Italy to judge. On the whole she has been a sleeping
partner in the Alliance; its prestige has served almost exclusively for
the promotion of Austrian and German aims; and one of its results has
been to make Austria a formidable rival of Italy in the Adriatic.

Meanwhile the remaining Great Powers of Europe had continued, as Prince
Bismarck hoped, to pursue their separate paths, though England was on
friendly terms with France and had, equally with Russia, laboured to
avert a second Franco-German War in 1875. After 1882 the English
occupation of Egypt constituted for some years a standing grievance in
the eyes of France. The persistent advance of Russia in Asia had in like
manner been a source of growing apprehension to England since 1868; and,
for a long time after the Treaty of Berlin, English statesmen were on
the watch to check the growth of Russian influence in the Balkans. But
common interests of very different kinds were tending to unite these
three Powers, not in any stable alliance, even for mutual defence, but
in a string of compacts concluded for particular objects.

One of these interests was connected with a feeling that the policy of
the principal partners in the Triple Alliance, particularly that of
Germany, had become incalculable and was only consistent in periodic
outbursts of self-assertiveness, behind which could be discerned a
steady determination to accumulate armaments which should be strong
enough to intimidate any possible competitor. The growth of this feeling
dates from the dismissal of Prince Bismarck by the present Kaiser.