sted in human origins
may refer to an old Victorian writer of English, who, in the last and most
restrained of his historical essays, wrote of Frederick the Great, the
founder of this unchanging Prussian policy. After describing how Frederick
broke the guarantee he had signed on behalf of Maria Theresa, he then
describes how Frederick sought to put things straight by a promise that
was an insult. "If she would but let him have Silesia, he would, he said,
stand by her against any power which should try to deprive her of her other
dominions, as if he was not already bound to stand by her, or as if his new
promise could be of more value than the old one." That passage was written
by Macaulay, but so far as the mere contemporary facts are concerned it
might have been written by me.

Upon the immediate logical and legal origin of the English interest
there can be no rational debate. There are some things so simple that
one can almost prove them with plans and diagrams, as in Euclid. One
could make a kind of comic calendar of what would have happened to the
English diplomatist, if he had been silenced every time by Prussian
diplomacy. Suppose we arrange it in the form of a kind of diary:

July 24: Germany invades Belgium.

July 25: England declares war.

July 26: Germany promises not to annex Belgium.

July 27: England withdraws from the war.

July 28: Germany annexes Belgium, England declares war.

July 29: Germany promises not to annex France, England withdraws from the
war.

July 30: Germany annexes France, England declares war.

July 31: Germany promises not to annex England.

Aug. 1: England withdraws from the war. Germany invades England.

How long is anybody expected to go on with that sort of game; or keep peace
at that illimitable price? How long must we pursue a road in which promises
are all fetishes in front of us; and all fragments behind us? No; upon the
cold facts of the final negotiations, as told by any of the diplomatists in
any of the documents, there is no doubt about the story. And no doubt about
the villain of the story.

These are the last facts; the facts which involved England. It is equally
easy to state the first facts; the facts which involved Europe. The
prince who practically ruled Austria was shot by certain persons whom the
Austrian Government believed to be conspirators from Servia. The Austrian
Government piled up arms and armies, but said not a word either to Servia
their suspe