r all, deeds are more important than
words, and by her deeds Germany has proved for forty-two years that
she is persistently pacific. Since 1870 Russia has made war against
Turkey and against Japan. England has made war against the Transvaal.
Italy has waged war against Turkey. France after Fashoda would have
declared war against England, and after Tangier would have declared
war against Germany, if France had been prepared. Of all the Great
Powers, Germany alone for nearly half a century has been determined to
keep the peace of the world.

The reply to this objection is very simple. I am not examining here
whether a state of affairs which has transformed Europe into an armed
camp of six million soldiers, and which absorbs for military
expenditure two-thirds of the revenue of European States, can be
appropriately called a state of peace. It is certainly not a _pax
romana_. It is most certainly not a _pax britannica_. It may be a _pax
teutonica_ or, rather, a _pax borussica_, but such as it is, ruinous
and demoralizing, it is also lamentably precarious and perilously
unstable. And if Germany has kept this _pax borussica_ for forty-two
years, it has not been the fault of the German Government. Rather has
it been kept because she has been prevented from declaring war by
outside interference; or because she has been able to carry out her
policy and to achieve her ambitions without going the length of
declaring war; or because a war would have been not only a heinous
crime, but a political blunder.

But the real reason why Germany for forty years has kept the peace is
because a war would have been both fatal and futile, injurious and
superfluous. It would have been injurious, for it would have arrested
the growing trade and the expanding industries of the empire. And,
above all, it would have been superfluous, for in time of peace
Germany reaped all the advantages which a successful war would have
given her. For twenty-five years the German Empire wielded an
unchallenged supremacy on the Continent of Europe. For twenty years
she directed the course of international events.

But since the opening of the twentieth century Germany has ceased to
be paramount; she has ceased to control European policy at her own
sweet will, and weaker States have ceased to be given over to her
tender mercies. To the Triple Alliance has been opposed the Triple
Entente. The balance of power has been re-established. The three
'hereditary enemies