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 unequivocal and decided attitude, from which she has never departed in spite of all the urgings with which she has been harassed. Germany alone has accomplished the preservation of peace. The new grouping of the Powers, organized by the King of England, has measured its forces with the alliance of the Central European Powers, and has shown itself incapable of impairing the same. Hence the vexation which is manifested.

The last two sentences of the foregoing seem to show—putting it mildly—that the Belgian Minister did not suspect the German Government of any aggressive spirit. In the same dispatch, moreover, he remarks:

Again, at the time of the Balkan War in 1912, Germany had an excellent opportunity to gratify her military ambition, if she had any, at the expense of an "unsuspecting and unprepared Europe"; not as advantageous as in 1908 but more advantageous than in 1914. Serbia's provocations against Austria-Hungary had become so great that the Austrian Archduke (assassinated in 1914 at Sarajevo) told the German Emperor personally that they had reached the limit of endurance. [52]