though the development of German maritime commerce was an excuse for
it, it was only an excuse. Indeed, the object of obtaining supremacy
at sea was put forward fairly clearly by the promoters of the whole
scheme. Great Britain was therefore constrained to transfer the weight
of her support to Russia and to France, and to count on the whole as a
force opposed, for the first time in hundreds of years, to North
Germany in the international politics of Europe. Similarity of
religion (which is a great bond) and a supposed identity (and partly
real similarity) of race were of no effect compared with this
sentiment of necessity.

Here it is important to note that the transference of British support
from one continental group to another neither produced aggression by
Great Britain nor pointed to any intention of aggression. It is a
plain matter of fact, which all future history will note, that the
very necessity in English eyes of English supremacy at sea, and the
knowledge that such a supremacy was inevitably a provocation to
others, led to the greatest discretion in the use of British naval
strength, and, in general, to a purely defensive and peaceful policy
upon the part of the chief maritime power. It would, indeed, have been
folly to have acted otherwise, for there was nothing to prevent the
great nations, our rivals, if they had been directly menaced by the
British superiority at sea, from beginning to build great fleets,
equal or superior to our own. Germany alone pursued this policy, with
no excuse save an obvious determination to undo the claim of the
British Fleet.

I have called this a blunder, and, from the point of view of the
German policy, it was a blunder. For if the Prussian dynasty set out,
as it did, to make itself the chief power in the world, its obvious