[Footnote 6: See above, p. 63.]

[Footnote 7: This view is reaffirmed by Baron Beyens in "L'Allemagne avant
la guerre," p. 29.]

[Footnote 8: See above, p. 79.]

[Footnote 9: Above, p. 111.]



16. _The Last Years_.


We have reached, then, the year 1913, and the end of the Balkan wars,
without discovering in German policy any clear signs of a determination
to produce a European war. We have found all the Powers, Germany included,
contending for territory and trade at the risk of the peace of Europe; we
have found Germany successfully developing her interests in Turkey; we have
found England annexing the South African republics, France Morocco, Italy
Tripoli; we have found all the Powers stealing in China, and in all these
transactions we have found them continually on the point of being at one
another's throats. Nevertheless, some last instinct of self-preservation
has enabled them, so far, to pull up in time. The crises had been overcome
without a war. Yet they had, of course, produced their effects. Some
statesmen probably, like Sir Edward Grey, had had their passion for
peace confirmed by the dangers encountered. In others, no doubt, an
opposite effect had been produced, and very likely by 1913 there were
prominent men in Europe convinced that war must come, and manoeuvring