days in which it was practicable. The world had become too crowded and
too small to permit of any one Power asserting its right to jostle its
way where it pleased without regard to its neighbors. An affair of
police on a colossal scale had begun to look as if it would ensue, and
ensue it ultimately did. No doubt had we all been cleverer we might have
been able to explain to Germany whither she was heading. But we did not
understand her, least of all our chauvinists, nor did she understand us.
In the main what she really wanted was to develop herself by the
application of her talent for commerce and industry. To her success in
attaining this end we had no objection, provided her procedure was
decent and in order. But she chose a means to her end which was becoming
progressively more and more inadmissible. Tirpitz describes the
illegitimate _means_. Bethmann Hollweg describes the legitimate _end_.
Tirpitz thinks Bethmann Hollweg was a weakling because he would not back
up the means. Bethmann Hollweg, firm in his faith that the end was
legitimate and thinking of this alone, dwells on it with little
reference to what his colleague was about. His accusation against the
Entente Powers is that, at the instigation of Russia primarily, and in a
less degree of France, they set themselves to ring round and crush
Germany. It was really, he believes, a war of aggression, and England
was ultimately responsible for it. Without her co-operation it was
impossible, and altho she did not enter into any formal military
alliance for the purpose, she began in the time of Edward VII. a policy
of close friendship which enabled Russia and France in the end to reckon
on her as morally bound to help. It was easy for these Powers to
represent as a defensive war what was really a war of aggression. Such
was truly its nature, and England decided to join in it, actually
because she was jealous of Germany's growing success in the world, and
was desirous of setting a check to it.