France was adding to her foreign possessions in Tunis, Madagascar, and
Tonkin, latterly in Morocco, while we were obtaining nothing. The
barbarous Russians were increasing constantly in numbers, and somewhat
perfecting their insufficient military machine without any
interference from us, grave as was the menace from them upon our
Eastern frontier.

"It was evident that such a state of things could not endure. A nation
so united and so immensely strong could not remain in a position of
artificial inferiority while lesser nations possessed advantages in no
way corresponding to their real strength. The whole equilibrium of
Europe was unstable through this contrast between what Germany might
be and what she was, and a struggle to make her what she might be
from what she was could not be avoided.

"Germany must, in fulfilment of a duty to herself, obtain colonial
possessions at the expense of France, obtain both colonial possessions
and sea-power at the expense of England, and put an end, by campaigns
perhaps defensive, but at any rate vigorous, to the menace of Slav
barbarism upon the East. She was potentially, by her strength and her
culture, the mistress of the modern world, the chief influence in it,
and the rightful determinant of its destinies. She must by war pass
from a potential position of this kind to an actual position of
domination."

Such was the German mood, such was the fatuous illusion which produced
this war. It had at its service, as we shall see later, _numbers_,
and, backed by this superiority of numbers, it counted on victory.