vassal and subordinate Balkan Confederacy.

To France the restoration of Lorraine, with Metz, and of Alsace with
Strasburg and their 1,500,000 of German speaking Teutons to the French
Empire.

To England, the destruction of German sea-power and along with it the
permanent crippling of German competition in the markets of the world.

Incidentally German colonies would disappear along with German
shipping, and with both gone a German navy would become a useless
burden for a nation of philosophers to maintain, so that the future
status of maritime efficiency in Europe could be left to the power
that polices the seas to equitably fix for all mankind, as well as for
the defeated rival.

Such an outline was the altruistic scope of the unsigned agreement
entered into by the three parties of the _Triple Entente_; and it only
remained to get ready for the day when the matter could be brought
to issue. The murder of the Archduke Ferdinand furnished Russia with
the occasion, since she felt that her armies were ready, the sword
sharpened, and the Entente sure and binding.

The mobilization by Russia was all that France needed "to do that
which might be required of her by her interests." (Reply of the French
Government to the German Ambassador at Paris, August 1st, 1914.)

Had the neutrality of Belgium been respected as completely as the
neutrality of Holland, England would have joined her "friends" in the
assault on Germany, as Sir Edward Grey was forced to admit when the