British relations with Gertnany during the years preceding the war are dealt with else where. (See GREAT BRETAIN AND TIM WORU) WAR). It only remains here to consider Eng land as a potential enemy of Germany— from the Gennan viewpoint as matters stood hi 1913-14. The British army was then a negligi ble quantity in a hypothetical struggle in which millions alone counted. The aerial branch of the British fighting forces had been neglected, and England did not possess a single airship that could carry more than two or three men. The only thing to be feared at worst was the British navy, and that could do little harm so long as the German fleet remained in harbor and the German coasts were well mined. That German shipping would temporarily disappear from •the seas was a foregone conclusion, but a violent offensive campaign zvoukl not last long; lightning tactics had not failed to win the day for Prussia in 1864, 1866 and 1870-71. There were other considerations that apparently precluded the probability of England joining in the fray. In addition to the Irish trouble, the smoldering animosity of Boer irreconcilables was expected to break into flames at the vision of reccrvering their independence, while the native populations of Egypt and India would probably rise in revolt and overthrow British rule. German naval expansion and the Pan4 German propaganda had opened the eyes of many far-seeing public men in the British Isles; some, indeed, had counseled preparedness for 15 years before the war. Germany, they held, had no need of a great navy to protect her commerce, as allm:e4 since no one threatened that commerce, which could ride the oceans as freely and safely as the trade of any other country, even into the ports of London, Liver pool and Cardiff. There were some extremists who proposed that England should demand ex planations and order Germany to limit her warship building program. Others, again, suggested that both powers should agree to a guava' holiday,g but the three offers actually made to this effect were met with a candid non possumus by Germany. Thus the race of piling up floating armaments continued with Unabated zeal and lavish e.xpenditnrey To each big German naval budget England feplied with a correspondingly bigger one. Writers on both sides of the North Sea frankly dis eussed the prospects of an Anglo-German war. Under the operation of such mental stimulants it is hardly surprising that, by degrees, the conviction gradually crystallized in the minds of the British and German peoples that a war between them was inevitable. The
Liberal Party in Parliament and the radical press clamored for reductions in both army and navy estimates, expressing a fear of ginitating Germany?' The other side (C,onservatives and Liberal Unionists) retorted that Germany eras not afraid of irritating Great Britain. The persistent efforts of Germany to secure the neutrality of England during 1912-14 gin any conflict that might ensue* presents stitnig evi dence that she neither intended nor perhaps expected England to participate in a war against her. Then came the Serajevo assassinations, which supplied the necessary spark to produce a conflagration. Much critiasm has been leveled against Gertnany in general and the ex-ICaiser m particular for provoking or forcing the war. Judging from our present lazowledge and es pecially the revelations of Prince Lichnowsky (q.v.), it is difficult to doubt that Germany desired the war; it is nin equally certain that the former emperor could have prevented it had he chosen to do so. It is not improbable that he was not entirely master of the situation, for circumstances may force the hand of the strong est ruler just as economic and geographical pres sure may drive a nation even against its own will. In a sense, Germany was in the position of a full-grown man compelled to wear the clothes of boyhood. All great nations through out history have been built up by war and antquest As history never stands still, those nations maintained their pre-eminence only so long as they were strong. enough to defend and hold what they had gained. The late tsar's peace manifesto of 1898 gave a powerful im petus: to international idealism throughout tht civilized world, especially in the United States and Great Britain. Well-meaning writers Rice the Russian banker Bloch (whose great work, (La Guerrel inspired the tsar), and Mr. Nor man Angell, in his book, (The Great Illusion,' have advanced many apparently cogent argu ments that war was no longer possible. Loolang back over the two decades 1898-1918 we en counter a series of great international conflicts, At the time the peace and disarinament mani festo was launched the Spanish-American War was in progress; Kitchener was reconquering the Sudan; the South African War broke out in the following year; the next year (1900) all the _great powers were rushing ships and troops to linina; in 1904-05 Russia and Japan were at war; since then there have been numerous revolutions, regicides, some Balkan wars and the greatest war of all.