d thus menace the short
sea-route and the land communications to India. We ought to spare no
sacrifices to secure this country as an ally for the eventuality of a
war with England or Russia. Turkey's interests are ours. It is also to
the obvious advantage of Italy that Turkey maintain her commanding
position on the Bosphorus and at the Dardanelles, that this important
key should not be transferred to the keeping of foreigners, and belong
to Russia or England.

If Russia gained the access to the Mediterranean, to which she has so
long aspired, she would soon become a prominent Power in its eastern
basin, and thus greatly damage the Italian projects in those waters.
Since the English interests, also, would be prejudiced by such a
development, the English fleet in the Mediterranean would certainly be
strengthened. Between England, France, and Russia it would be quite
impossible for Italy to attain an independent or commanding position,
while the opposition of Russia and Turkey leaves the field open to her.
From this view of the question, therefore, it is advisable to end the
Turco-Italian conflict, and to try and satisfy the justifiable wishes of
Italy at the cost of France, after the next war, it may be.

Spain alone of the remaining European Powers has any independent
importance. She has developed a certain antagonism to France by her
Morocco policy, and may, therefore, become eventually a factor in German
policy. The petty States, on the contrary, form no independent centres
of gravity, but may, in event of war, prove to possess a by no means
negligible importance: the small Balkan States for Austria and Turkey;
Denmark, Holland, Belgium, and Switzerland, and eventually Sweden, for
Germany.

Switzerland and Belgium count as neutral. The former was declared
neutral at the Congress of Vienna on November 20, 1815, under the
collective guarantee [C] of the signatory Powers; Belgium, in the
Treaties of London of November 15,1831, and of April 19,1839, on the
part of the five Great Powers, the Netherlands, and Belgium itself.

[Footnote C: By a collective guarantee is understood the _duty_ of the
contracting Powers to take steps to protect this neutrality when all
agree that it is menaced. Each individual Power has the _right_ to
interfere if it considers the neutrality menaced.]

If we look at these conditions as a whole, it appears that on the
continent of Europe the power of the Central European Triple Alliance
and t