[Footnote 183:  Nothing has here been said, though much might be said, of the distortion of history and ethnology by German nationalism, or Pan-Germanism.  It is well known that the Pan-Germans regard England as Teutonic, and destined to be gathered into the German fold.  In these last few weeks we have been reproached as a people for being traitors to our ‘Teutonic’ blood.  Better be traitors to blood than to plain duty; but as a matter of fact our mixed blood has many other strains than the Teutonic.  On the aims of the Pan-Germanists readers may with profit consult a book by Paul Vergnet, La France en danger (Oct. 1913).]

[Footnote 184:  In fairness to Nietzsche it should be said that in his later years he revolted against the Prussian military system.]

[Footnote 185:  German professors have recently reproached England for being allied with ‘Muscovite barbarism’.  Is Russia so barbarous, whose sovereign convened the first Peace Conference?  Have not England and Russia striven together in peace (as they now strive together in war) for a great common cause?  The German White Book, which seeks to fasten on Russia the blame of the present war, is oblivious of all that has happened in these matters since 1898.  The reader may with advantage refer, on this subject, to a pamphlet by Professor Vinogradoff, Russia:  the Psychology of a Nation (Oxford, 1914).]

EPILOGUE

In conclusion something must be said of the process by which our understanding with France, still so elastic in 1912 and 1913, became the solid alliance which now, on sea and land alike, confronts the German forces.  England gave France no positive engagements until the eleventh hour; it may be argued that England gave them far too late, and that the war might never have occurred if England had been less obstinately and judicially pacific.  But the English case for the delay is clear.  We hesitated to throw in our lot with France, because France would not stand neutral while Germany made war on Russia.  We shrank from the incalculable entanglements which seemed to lie before us if we allied ourselves with a power which was so committed.  Why, we were asking ourselves, should we fight the battles of Russia in the Balkans?

We were perhaps too cautious in suspecting that France might contemplate this policy.  She could not define beforehand the limits which she would observe in defending Russia’s cause.  But she knew, as we now know, that a war with Russia meant, to German statesmen, only a pretext for a new attack on France, even more deadly in intention than that of 1870.  France could not do without the help of Russia.  How then could she afford to forfeit Russia’s friendship by declaring, at Germany’s command, that she would do nothing to help Russia?

This loyalty to the Dual Alliance left France during the last days before the war in a cruel dilemma.  Russia, however well disposed, could not help her ally in the first weeks of a war; and for France these were the critical weeks, the weeks upon which her own fate must depend.  She appealed urgently to England for support.