I do not pretend to know whether these elements of opinion actually
influenced the policy of the Government. But they certainly influenced
German fears, and without a knowledge of them it is impossible to
understand German policy. The reader must bear in mind this source of
friction along with the others when we come to consider that policy in
detail.



6. _Austria-Hungary_.


Turning now to Austria-Hungary, we find in her the Power to whom the
immediate occasion of the war was due, the Power, moreover, who contributed
in large measure to its remoter causes. Austria-Hungary is a State, but not
a nation. It has no natural bond to hold its populations together, and it
continues its political existence by force and fraud, by the connivance and
the self-interest of other States, rather than by any inherent principle of
vitality. It is in relation to the Balkan States that this instability has
been most marked and most dangerous. Since the kingdom of Serbia acquired
its independent existence it has been a centre drawing to itself the
discontent and the ambitions of the Slav populations under the Dual
Monarchy. The realization of those ambitions implies the disruption of the
Austro-Hungarian State. But behind the Southern Slavs stands Russia, and
any attempt to change the political status in the Balkans has thus meant,
for years past, acute risk of war between the two Empires that border them.
This political rivalry has accentuated the racial antagonism between German
and Slav, and was the immediate origin of the war which presents itself to
Englishmen as one primarily between Germany and the Western Powers.