Page:The History of The Great European War Vol 1.pdf/39

 considered merely as instruments to support the main policy, and they have been pursued always with a view to that support. So long as peaceful penetration, intervention, alliance, nationalism, treaty, or even breach of treaty, is consonant with, or necessary, to, the progress towards the great end, so far have they been instruments in the hands of Great Britain and her Allies; so far as those instruments in the hands of our opponents have been directed towards the aggrandisement of dynasties, they have been opposed by us. Such is the position in brief. When the peoples of the German Empire and the Dual Monarchy have ceased to be merely the pawns of dynastic despots, then the world will be as free to them as to other peoples.