Page:Paul Samuel Reinsch - Secret Diplomacy, How Far Can It Be Eliminated? - 1922.djvu/107

 Thus the chain of coöperation was completed, and England was effectively tied up with the situation in the Balkans, in which only Russia had a primary interest.

Meanwhile, the repeated denials previously set forth kept the British Parliament and public from all knowledge of the exceedingly important rela- tionships which were growing up between the Naval and Military establishments of Great Brit- ain and France.

How these relationships, though only partially known and suspected, were looked upon by out- siders is shown from expressions in the reports of Belgian diplomats. Count de Lalaing wrote from London in 1907: "England is quietly pursuing a policy opposed to Germany and aimed at her isolation." Baron Greindl wrote from Ber- lin in 1908: "Call it alliance or what you will, the grouping constitutes, none the less, a diminu- tion of Germany's security." Baron Guillaume wrote, in 1911, from Paris: "I have less faith in the desire of Great Britain for peace. She would not be sorry to see the others eat one another up." These expressions are not, of course, evidences of British policy, but simply of the impression which whatever leaked out concerning that pol- icy, made upon outside diplomats.