Page:The guilt of William Hohenzollern.djvu/239

Rh the military but also the political and economic, and, above all, the moral strength and driving power of a nation.

German policy had set out to gain England's neutrality and Italy's co-operation in the decision by arms of the conflict of the Central Powers with Russia and France.

Both these ends were already questionable of attainment, but not yet decided when the war broke out. Sir Edward Grey had certainly warned Germany, but, on the other hand, he had not been able to hold out to France the absolutely certain prospect of his support, in spite of all his sympathies for the French case. He has been much blamed for this uncertainty, which some attribute to instability, and others to duplicity. His critics forget that he was a Minister in a parliamentary and democratic country, and was by no means sure of the approval of the people. Even if he found a majority in Parliament for a war against Germany, it would have been very doubtful if the mass of the working classes and of the bourgeois pacifists, who, it happens, are particularly numerous and influential in England, had not offered an energetic resistance to war. On the other hand, no one who knew the English to any extent could have the least doubt that the great majority of the nation would enthusiastically throw itself into the war as soon as Germany, with her powerful army and growing fleet, seized Belgium and thus directly threatened England.

Italy, however, was in the closest dependence on England. That she would take her place by the side of the Central Powers was no longer to be expected, at any rate, by the beginning of August.

On August 3rd Herr von Kleist, who had been sent