German aggression consisted in committing herself to unlimited armaments, cherishing the irreconcilable determination to be the strongest European power.  According to her doctrine of might, everything can be attained by the mightiest.  British advances she answered with battleships, simultaneously provoking France and Russia by increasing her army corps.  The balance of power in Europe, Germany declares to be an out-of-date British fad, invented solely in the interests of these islands.

In secret Germany has long been an apostate to the balance-of-power theory; the war has caused her to drop the mask, and it was without doubt her resolve never to submit to the chains of the balance in Europe, which forced three other States to waive their differences and form the Triple Entente.  Simply stated this is cause and result.  But Professor Oncken maintains—­and in doing so he voices German national opinion—­that the entire entente policy was a huge scheme to bring about Germany’s downfall.

He goes further and proclaims that the Hague Conference (1907) was a British trick to place the guilt of armaments on Germany’s shoulders.  “England filled the world with disarmament projects so that afterwards, full of unction, she could denounce Germany as the disturber of the peace.  At that time the Imperial Chancellor answered justly:  ’Pressure cannot be brought to bear on Germany, not even moral pressure!’"[190] And in that sentence German obstinacy and sullen irreconcilability is most admirably expressed.

[Footnote 190:  “Deutschland und der Weltkrieg,” p. 495.]

Having seen that Professor Oncken has failed to recognize the prime causes which provoked the entente policy, it is not surprising to find him equally in error when discussing the diplomatic clashes between the rival camps.  The professor calls them Machtproben ("tests of power"); but how he can dare to state that these diplomatic trials of strength were engineered by Great Britain—­remains his own secret.

“King Edward’s meeting with the Czar at Reval in June, 1908, was followed by a far-reaching Macedonian reform programme, the commencement of the division of European Turkey.  What Britain had failed to induce Germany to help her in executing, was to be attained with the sword’s point directed against Germany.  And Britain proceeded in cold blood to conjure up an era of might-struggles, which, in the island language, is called preserving the balance of power."[191]

[Footnote 191:  Ibid., p. 297.]

The trials of strength recounted by Oncken are the Bosnian crisis, the Morocco question, and the Austro-Serbian quarrel which led to the present war.  It seems banal to have to point out that Bosnia was unlawfully annexed by Germany’s vassal—­Austria; that Germany, herself, brought Europe to the verge of war by sending the Panther to Agadir; and that the final catastrophic Machtprobe was likewise provoked by Germany’s eastern vassal.