l, displayed itself chiefly in
adroitly making use of the continental Powers. It is no exaggeration to
say that England's wars have been chiefly waged with continental armies.
This is not said in depreciation of England's military powers. Wherever
the English fleet and English armies have been seen on the field of
battle, the energy, endurance, and intrepidity of their officers,
sailors, and soldiers have ever been brilliantly noticeable. The
traditions of the English troops who, under the Black Prince and Henry
V., marched in days of yore victorious through France, were again
green in the wars in the eighteenth century against France and against
Napoleon. Yet infinitely greater than her own military record has been
England's success in persuading foreign countries to fight for her, and
in leading the troops of Austria, France, Germany, and Russia against
each other on the Continent. For the last two hundred years very few
wars have ever been waged without England's co-operation, and without
her reaping the advantage. These few exceptions were the wars of
Bismarck, waged for the advantage and for the glory of his own country,
by which he earned the hatred of every good Englishman. While the
continent of Europe was racked by internal wars, which English diplomacy
had incited, Great Britain acquired her vast colonial possessions.
England has implicated us too in wars which redounded to her sole
advantage. I need only refer to the bloody, exhausting war of 1877-8,
and to the disastrous peace of San Stefano, where England's intrigues
deprived us of the price of our victory over the Crescent. I refer,
further, to the Crimean War, in which a small English and a large French
army defeated us to the profit and advantage of England. That England,
and England alone, is again behind this attack upon us by Japan has been
dwelt upon by those who have already addressed you. Our enemies do not
see themselves called upon to depart in the slightest degree from a
policy that has so long stood them in such good stead, and it must,
therefore, be our policy to assure ourselves of the alliance, or at
least, where an alliance is unattainable, of the benevolent neutrality
of the other continental Powers in view of a war with England. To begin
with, as regards our ally, the French Republic, a satisfactory solution
of our task in this direction is already assured by the existing
treaties. Yet these treaties do not bind the French Government to
af