strengthened in their minds that particular current among the many that
were making for war? And must not similar suspicions have been active,
with similar results, on the side of France and Russia? The armaments
engender fear, the fear in turn engenders armaments, and in that vicious
circle turns the policy of Europe, till this or that Power precipitates the
conflict, much as a man hanging in terror over the edge of a cliff ends by
losing his nerve and throwing himself over. That is the real lesson of the
rivalry in armaments. That is certain. The rest remains conjecture.

[Footnote 1: "L'Allemagne avant la guerre," p. 75, and British White Paper,
No. 160.]

[Footnote 2: The account that follows is taken from the "Autobiography" of
Andrew D. White, the chairman of the American delegation. See vol. ii.,
chap. xiv. and following.]

[Footnote 3: Mr. Arthur Lee, late Civil Lord of the Admiralty, at
Eastleigh:--

"If war should unhappily break out under existing conditions the British
Navy would get its blow in first, before the other nation had time even to
read in the papers that war had been declared" (_The Times_, February 4,
1905).

"The British fleet is now prepared strategically for every possible
emergency, for we must assume that all foreign naval Powers are possible
enemies" (_The Times_, February 7, 1905).]

[Footnote 4: Sir Edwin Pears, "Forty Years in Constantinople," p.330.]