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178 moreover, when the centre of gravity in East Europe was being shifted from Petrograd to Berlin, it was perhaps not unatural that contemporaries should fail to realise the subordinate character of the quarrels between the three autocracies, and the fundamental character of the war between Prussia and France.

The recent Great War arose in Europe from the revolt of the Slavs against the Germans. The events which led up to it began with the Austrian occupation of the Slav provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878, and the alliance of Russia with France in 1895. The Entente of 1904 between Britain and France was not an event of the same significance; our two countries had cooperated more often than not in the nineteenth century, but France had been the quicker to perceive that Berlin had supplanted Petrograd as the centre of danger in East Europe, and our two policies had, in consequence, been shaped from different angles for a few years. West Europe, both insular and peninsular, must necessarily be opposed to whatever Power attempts to organise the resources of East Europe and the Heartland. Viewed in the light of that conception, both British and French policy for a hundred years past takes on a large