politics.

When it will be possible to examine carefully the diplomatic documents
of the War, and time will allow us to judge them calmly, it will be
seen that Russia's attitude was the real and underlying cause of the
world-conflict. She alone promoted and kept alive the agitations
in Serbia and of the Slavs in Austria; she alone in Germany's eyes
represented the peril of the future. Germany has never believed in a
French danger. She knew very well that France, single handed, could
never have withstood Germany, numerically so much her superior. Russia
was the only danger that Germany saw, and the continual increase of
the Russian army was her gravest preoccupation. Before the War, when
Italy was Germany's ally, the leading German statesmen with whom I
had occasion to discuss the situation did nothing but allude to the
Russian peril. It was known (and subsequent facts have amply proved
it) that the Tsar was absolutely devoid of will power, that he was led
and carried away by conflicting currents, and that his advisers were
for the most part favourable to the War. After the Japanese defeat the
militarist party felt keenly the need for just such a great military
revival and a brilliant _revanche_ in Europe.

Possessing an enormous wealth of raw materials and an immense
territory, Russia represented Europe's great resource, her support for
the future.

If the three great empires had attained enviable prosperity and
development in 1914, when the War burst, the three great western
democracies, Great Britain, France and Italy, had likewise progressed
immensely.