From the day that Great Britain and her mighty fleet joined the
separated allies with their mighty armies, the bond between them and
the circle round Germany grew taut. From that day the counsels of
the allies and their new found "friend" thickened and quickened. The
immovable "menace across the Rhine" in one case had become the active
"menace across the North Sea" in the other case.

The sin of German militarism was at last out. It could take to the
water as kindly as to the land. As long as the war machine guaranteed
the inviolability of German territory it was no threat to European
peace, but when it assumed the task of safe-guarding German rights
at sea it became the enemy of civilization. These trading people not
content with an army that kept French "revanche" discreetly silent
and Slav "unity" a dream of the future presumed to have a sea-born
commerce that grew by leaps and bounds, and they dared to build a navy
to defend and even to extend it. _Delenda est Carthago!_ From that day
the doom of "German militarism" was sealed; and England, democratic
England, lay down with the Czar in the same bed to which the French
housewife had already transferred her republican counterpane.

The duration of peace became only a question of time, and the war of
to-day only a question of opportunity and pretext. Each of the parties
to the understanding had the same clear purpose to serve, and while
the aim to each was different the end was the same. Germany's power
of defence must be destroyed. That done each of the sleeping partners
to the unsigned compact would get the share of the spoils, guarded by
armed German manhood, he coveted.

To Russia, the dismemberment of Austria-Hungary and the incorporation
of the Slav elements in part into her own vast empire, in part into a