c friendship with the Commander of the Faithful; and,
lastly, the suspicion of the Emperor's designs that arose in connexion
with the fortification of Flushing at a cost to Holland of some
L3,000,000. The Emperor was supposed to have insisted on the
fortification in order to prevent the use of the Netherlands by Great
Britain as a naval base against Germany. Like many another scare in
connexion with foreign policy, the supposition may be regarded only as
a product of intelligent journalistic "combination."

Finally, among subsidiary occurrences, should be mentioned the meeting
of the Emperor and the Czar in July, 1912, at Port Baltic in Finnish
waters, accompanied by their Foreign Ministers, with the official
announcement of the stereotyped "harmonious relations" between the two
monarchs that followed; and the premature prolongation, with the
object of showing solidarity regarding the Balkan situation, of the
Triple Alliance, which, entered into, as mentioned earlier, in the
year 1882, had already been renewed in 1891, 1896, and 1902. The next
renewal should be in 1925, unless in the meantime an international
agreement to which all Great Powers are signatories should render it
superfluous.

The war in the Balkans need only be referred to in these pages in so
far as it concerns Germany. The position of Germany in regard to it,
so far, appears simple; she will actively support Austria's larger
interests in order to keep faith with her chief ally of the Triplice,
and so long as Austria and Russia can agree regarding developments in
the Balkan situation, there is no danger of war among the Great
Powers. People smiled at the declaration of the Powers some little
time ago that the _status quo_ in the Balkans should be maintained;
but it should be remembered that the whole phrase is _status quo ante
bellum_, and that, once war has broken out, the _status_, the position
of affairs, is in a condition of solution, and that no new _status_
can arise until the war is over and its consequences determined by
treaties. The result of the present war, let it be hoped, will be to
confine Turkey to the Orient, where she belongs, and that the Balkan
States, possibly after a period of internecine feud, will take their
share in modern European progress and civilization.

The amount of declaration, asseveration, recrimination (chiefly
journalistic), rectification, intimidation, protestation,
pacification, and many other wordy processes tha