us in an extremely difficult double position; herself a member of
the Triple Alliance, she is in a situation which compels her to make
overtures to the opponents of that alliance, so long as her own allies
can afford no trustworthy assistance to her policy of development. It is
our interest to reconcile Italy and Turkey so far as we can.

France and Russia have united in opposition to the Central European
Triple Alliance. France's European policy is overshadowed by the idea of
_revanche_. For that she makes the most painful sacrifices; for that she
has forgotten the hundred years' enmity against England and the
humiliation of Fashoda. She wishes first to take vengeance for the
defeats of 1870-71, which wounded her national pride to the quick; she
wishes to raise her political prestige by a victory over Germany, and,
if possible, to regain that former supremacy on the continent of Europe
which she so long and brilliantly maintained; she wishes, if fortune
smiles on her arms, to reconquer Alsace and Lorraine. But she feels too
weak for an attack on Germany. Her whole foreign policy, in spite of all
protestations of peace, follows the single aim of gaining allies for
this attack. Her alliance with Russia, her _entente_ with England, are
inspired with this spirit; her present intimate relations with this
latter nation are traceable to the fact that the French policy hoped,
and with good reason, for more active help from England's hostility to
Germany than from Russia.

The colonial policy of France pursues primarily the object of acquiring
a material, and, if possible, military superiority over Germany. The
establishment of a native African army, the contemplated introduction of
a modified system of conscription in Algeria, and the political
annexation of Morocco, which offers excellent raw material for soldiers,
so clearly exhibit this intention, that there can be no possible
illusion as to its extent and meaning.

Since France has succeeded in bringing her military strength to
approximately the same level as Germany, since she has acquired in her
North African Empire the possibility of considerably increasing that
strength, since she has completely outstripped Germany in the sphere of
colonial policy, and has not only kept up, but also revived, the French
sympathies of Alsace and Lorraine, the conclusion is obvious: France
will not abandon the paths of an anti-German policy, but will do her
best to excite hostility agai