"Either that challenge would be accepted, with the result of war, or Russia would give way, thereby obtaining for the German peoples a victory without bloodshed. And Austria would proceed to administrate the Servian Slavs and to control them—driving a wedge into the whole Slav power and rendering it innocuous for the future.
"In this struggle between Teuton and Slav France comes in as an accessory, having made an alliance with Russia long ago for her own ends, and having nothing to do with the quarrel between Teuton and Slav. The German-speaking peoples regret the interference of France, but are prepared to take on the burden of a French war rather than abandon the moment for restricting the growing power of the Slav.
"Now, in all this," (your experienced man with a wide view of Europe would add,) "England was not concerned. Her position was quite subsidiary in all this quarrel. She had far less to do with it even than France had, and it was in every Cabinet of Europe doubted whether England would come in at all. By the Prussian Government it was taken for granted that England would have no reason to come in. By the French it was feared in spite of the recent relations between the two countries that England would remain neutral. And, in general, the fact that England is at war at all is a fact on one side of the original quarrel and its original motives, though it is a fact that will profoundly affect the progress and the results of the war."
Such a statement would be no more than the plain truth as educated men know and see it in Europe today. The entry of England into the field of conflict was an entry from one side. It did not fall into line with the general motives of the people. It was, among all English statesmen, a matter of debate; it was decided by but a narrow majority of those responsible for so enormous a decision.
When we have clearly grasped these two fundamental facts—first, that the war is not on its mechanical side mainly a war between England and Germany, but mainly a war between two contrasting European and Continental ideals; secondly, the correlative fact that the entry of England into the war was not certain until the last hour, and was, when it was made, made only after doubtful consideration and after a division among the politicians, responsible for the conduct of her affairs, something almost accidental, as it were—we can proceed to consider the three causes which converging were sufficiently strong in their combination to produce that result, and when we know what those three causes were, their strength and the accidents of their convergence, at this moment we shall have answered the question, "Why is England at war with Germany?"
These three causes are:
1. The fixed cardinal point for English policy upon which no English patriot worthy of the name would hesitate for a moment, and which no historian with any sense of justice can condemn, to wit, that no one, if England can help it, shall have naval predominance over the British fleet, particularly in the narrow seas.
2. The effect of certain undertakings, a whole network of diplomatic actions, particularly in connection with France, engaged in by the English Foreign Office during the last ten years.
3. A certain vague attachment to the Western, or Latin, tradition of civilization with its routine of conventions in war and peace, and particularly of treaties as between first-class powers. This tradition was still sufficiently strong to act as a motive converging with the two others mentioned above to produce a sufficient moral stream in favor of war as, though sluggish, to help to turn the scale.
I say that these three things combined, upon the whole and doubtfully, discovered a sufficient strength between them to make the English politicians, after serious hesitation and close division, determine upon war.