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gium, Luxemburg, and Switzerland, the only perpetually neutralized states of Europe, was faithfully respected by all parties. In the course of generations, Europe has become accustomed to this artificial situation and has taken for granted that it would persist.

The general public has not appreciated the difference between ordinary neutrality and perpetual neutrality. In the present war the United States is a neutral in the ordinary sense, but may terminate that condition at any moment by declaring war and becoming a belligerent; or any other power may declare war upon the United States with the same effect. So also in the case of Holland, Germany or England may terminate Dutch neutrality by declaring war against her. Switzerland, Belgium, and Luxemburg, on the contrary, are placed under a special régime based on international agreements signed by the powers interested, according to the terms of which their territories must remain perpetually neutral, and this condition may not be modified to suit the convenience of any belligerent or of the perpetually neutral country itself. Such a condition is often spoken of as neutralization.

3. The Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente

The Franco-German War was the most important event of European history until overshadowed by the outbreak of the present war. Prussia emerged from it at the head of a united German nation. There was a serious dislocation of the old political relations which it took several years to adjust. England, for a time at least, needed not to fear the rivalry of France and devoted her attention to checking the ambitions of Russia. Bismarck made the center of his political conception a firm alliance with Austria. When Prussia defeated her in 1866, Bismarck held back the Prussians from making a triumphal entry into Vienna and was most considerate of Austrian susceptibilities. Later, at the Congress of Berlin in 1878, he succeeded in obtaining

for Austria the occupation, administration, and control of the Turkish provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Austria had also to recognize that German support would protect her from the extreme demands and nationalistic aspirations of the heterogeneous elements embraced in her territories. So she constructed her empire on the double basis of the German and the strongest non-German element, the Magyars, and looked for support to the German alliance to maintain the bond and the balance between these two; Germans and Magyars of Austria, united and backed by the support of Germany, could maintain German supremacy over the numerically superior Slav elements of the Austrian Empire.

The Dual Alliance between Austria and Germany, established in 1879, was joined by Italy in 1883, as a result of Italian pique at France's acquisition of Tunis. The Italians there much outnumbered the French, and Italy had been hoping for its acquisition. It appears that the permission to occupy Tunis was the price Bismarck paid France to make the Congress of Berlin a success by her participation. He probably realized that the jealousy of France it would arouse on the part of Italy and England would strengthen Germany's position.

The effect of the formation of the Triple Alliance was to draw France and Russia together. It is in the nature of things for any two states, separated by a third sufficiently strong to resist conquest and partition, to combine against the medial state, but this natural bond between France and Russia had been weakened by the mistrust of the Emperor Nicholas I of the radical governments of France.2

1 The text of the Dual Alliance between Austria and Germany was first published in 1888 to check Russia from any attempt at aggression. See Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed., vol. II, p. 889. For text see Documents, post, chap. XIII.

2 Another ground of difference resulted from France's adhering to her traditionally sympathetic attitude toward Polish independence, while Bismarck joined hands with Russia in stamping out Polish insurrections on either side the border by an exchange of Polish political refugees.

The Franco-Russian alliance was not merely political, but was further strengthened by financial ties between the parties. Russia found a market in which she could borrow to greater advantage and the thrifty French were glad of the opportunity of securing for their savings a high rate of interest from investments approved and supported by the Republic. It is estimated that as early as 1906, France had become Russia's creditor to the extent of some twelve billions of franes. The alliance was signed August, 1891, but it was not avowed till some time later, and its terms have never been disclosed.

4. Crises

The formation of the Dual Alliance at once reëstablished some semblance of a balance of power, based upon a bipartite division of continental Europe, in place of the older association of the relatively equal principal powers, which had formed the Concert of Powers since the Congress of Vienna. How perfect a balance existed could only be ascertained after testing it by diplomacy and the power of

arms.2

Although England had always been included in the Concert of European Powers, she had held somewhat aloof, and avoided in any way limiting her freedom of action. Her unique geographical position and unchallenged control of the sea gave her a peculiarly potent influence on the Continent whenever she chose to exert it. When Germany, Austria, France, and Russia, the four powers originally forming the European Concert, together with

1 Tardieu, France and the Alliance, p. 10.

* Von Bülow says of the Triple Alliance: "The three mid-European States are bound to each other by the firm resolve to maintain the existing balance of power in Europe, and should a forcible change be attempted, to prevent it if need be by force. The united strength of Middle Europe stands in the path of any revolution - any European policy which might elect to follow the courses pursued by Louis XIV or Napoleon I. This alliance is like a mighty fortification dividing the Continent in two." (Imperial Germany, p. 67, New York, 1914.)

Italy, admitted later on in recognition of her intervention in the Crimean conflict, grouped themselves in the manner indicated, it left England detached and enjoying still the same advantages she had possessed at the time of the formation of the European Concert. Even if the Dual Alliance of France and Russia, on the one hand, and the Triplice, on the other, effected a rough approximation to a balance of power, England, by throwing her weight to either side, could easily disturb it. She did not, however, immediately pursue such a course, but contented herself with her traditional policy of defending the smaller continental states from the aggression of their more powerful neighbors, and checking the free development of any state she feared might become so powerful as to dictate on the Continent.

Englishmen of that epoch predicted and prepared for a conflict with Russia. Russia, they said, was reaching out toward India. Russia it was who had never given up her ambition to secure Constantinople, who had waited an opportunity to seize Persia and acquire an outlet on the Persian Gulf, who was ever lying in wait for an opportunity to reach out an arm across Norway and Sweden to an ice-free port north of England, bathed by the warm Gulf Stream.

But trouble arose in another quarter, for shortly after the establishment of the new system of alliances, Europe passed though a series of violent crises.

5. Fashoda

The first of these crises nearly involved Great Britain and France in war. France had been vanquished repeatedly in her contest with Great Britain for control of the sea, and in 1815, it seemed that the century-long duel between the countries had been definitely concluded at the downfall of Napoleon, when France was crushed and suffered, together with a great loss of prestige, a curtailment like

wise of her European and colonial territory. But France's imagination had not been destroyed and French diplomacy remained as effective as ever. In the course of a few years she had acquired Algiers, and decade after decade she kept pace with Great Britain in the scramble for colonial possessions. France made one mistake in not joining England when in 1882 it was found necessary to intervene in Egyptian affairs. England soon acquired control of the Khedive's dominions and directed a joint Anglo-Egyptian expedition to subdue the troublesome tribes infesting the Upper Nile. As rapidly as possible, England pushed forward to secure the strategically important head-waters of the Nile. There had been indications that France hoped to stake out a claim on the Upper Nile by extending her explorations east from the Congo to Abyssinia. By so doing, France thought she might secure a land route across equatorial Africa, and so arrest England's expansion southward to connect the British possessions and prepare the way for the Cape to Cairo route. Such an intercepting cross-road of Africa in the hands of the French would also give them a land and sea route to India almost free from English control.

September 19, 1898, the English forces under General Kitchener, pushing their way up the Nile, found the French flag waving over the island of Fashoda, where a French exploration party under Captain Marchand had established itself. Long years of colonial rivalry had at last brought the two states into direct collision. The only possibility of avoiding the conflict was that one or the other should back down. War hung in the balance and preparations for war were rushed in both countries. France, however, preferred to yield rather than to risk the annihilation of her colonial empire in a one-sided conflict with Great Britain, and accordingly withdrew from Fashoda.

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