And especially that if she could not prevent the existence in normal times of a very powerful, dangerous French fleet, rendering her anxious for one-half of those seas, at least the other half should be free from such anxiety.
In the midst of such a secular determination, successfully maintained, Germany began to build her new great modern fleet.
The German Empire had a most unquestioned right thus to challenge the power of Great Britain. It was indeed the most effective challenge which a nation jealous of Britain's commerce could deliver, but it is none the less true that the plain policy of self-preservation compelled Britain to take up that challenge.
For the first time in three hundred years Britain found herself beginning to support French trades, in the general policy of the world.
The French, for reasons which had nothing to do with England and with which the mass of the English governing classes in no way sympathized, had maintained for more than thirty years a determination to restore their own power at the expense of Prussia. Because modern Germany was building her fleet, modern Britain, in order to check that movement, began thus in novel fashion and against all the old English traditions to support the French.
The thing was done at the bottom with reluctance. All Englishmen felt the common bond of religion which united their country with that which governs modern Germany. Many Englishmen believed that there was some vague bond of race between the two countries. Not a few worthy, ignorant men, and even one or two men of great ability, attempted to direct negotiations whereby a fixed ratio should exist between the two fleets; in other words, whereby the German Empire should pledge itself to a permanent inferiority at sea.
That empire would indeed have been more foolish even than cowardly had it listened to any such proposals. The position, therefore, was one of inevitable and increasing friction. It was a matter of life and death to England that no other great Western fleet should exist besides the French, and it was a matter of national existence to Germany once she had undertaken a policy not to give up that policy at the dictation of any other power—for, among other things, modern Germany lived on prestige; her whole internal structure depended upon it, and for Prussia to lose faith before Europe would be the end of the Germany that Prussia had made.
There are those who say that a Germany conducted by some Richelieu, or even by a surviving Bismarck, would never have attempted the building of a great fleet until accounts had been finally settled with France. There are those who say that the elements of statesmanship required the German Empire first to settle herself politically upon the shores of the Straits of Dover and the Netherlands, first to destroy the danger of a great war in the west on land, then and then only to begin building that fleet which must inevitably challenge Great Britain. It is no part of this criticism to consider the statesmanship of another nation, but at any rate once the policy of building the fleet was begun conflict with England was in sight.
2. The second cause of England's joining in this war is the effect of a number of internal arrangements, some of them of minor importance, but all leading in one direction and ultimately placing the Government of Great Britain in a position from which it was difficult to retire. In general terms these arrangements were based upon the idea of joining the group of powers, French and Russian, which formed the counterpoise to the Germanic group in Europe, the German Empire and Austria. At the same time there was running through these arrangements the idea of detaching Italy, whose Government was firmly attached to Germany, but whose population was very doubtful, from the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria, and Italy, which had been the cardinal point in European affairs for a generation.
The various steps by which Great Britain approached this position are well known. In the first place, she came to an arrangement with France whereby she should have a free hand in Egypt and France should be supported by England in the occupation of Morocco. This was done behind the back of Germany to the manifest loss of Germany's colonial ambition and, what is more noticeable, England was openly paying a very high price for the new state of affairs she hoped to create, for she had pretty well a free hand in Egypt, already, while France's opportunity of going to Morocco and exploiting a very large area of valuable territory—something quite new and additional to her—depended upon England's withdrawing her opposition.