of Bismarck after Koeniggraetz, Austria willingly entered into a close compact with her former rival.  At least that was the feeling among the Germans and Magyars of the Dual Monarchy.  The Austro-German alliance, it may be predicted, will hold good while the Dual Monarchy exists in its present form; but even in that case fear of Russia is the one great binding force where so much else is centrifugal.  If ever the Empire of the Czar should lose its prestige, possibly the two Central Powers would drift apart.

Although there are signs of weakness in both alliances, they will doubtless remain standing as long as the need which called them into being remains.  Despite all the efforts made on both sides, the military and naval resources of the two great leagues are approximately equal.  In one respect, and in one alone, Europe has benefited from these well-matched efforts.  The uneasy truce that has been dignified by the name of peace since the year 1878 results ultimately from the fact that war will involve the conflict of enormous citizen armies of nearly equal strength.

So it has come to this, that in an age when the very conception of Christendom has vanished, and ideal principles have been well-nigh crushed out of life by the pressure of material needs, peace again depends on the once-derided principle of the balance of power.  That it should be so is distressing to all who looked to see mankind win its way to a higher level of thought on international affairs.  The level of thought in these matters could scarcely be lower than it has been since the Armenian massacres.  The collective conscience of Europe is as torpid as it was in the eighteenth century, when weak States were crushed or partitioned, and armed strength came to be the only guarantee of safety.

At the close of this volume we shall glance at some of the influences which the Tantalus toil of the European nations has exerted on the life of our age.  It is not for nothing that hundreds of millions of men are ever striving to provide the sinews of war, and that rulers keep those sinews in a state of tension.  The result is felt in all the other organs of the body politic.  Certainly the governing classes of the Continent must be suffering from atrophy of the humorous instinct if they fail to note the practical nullity of the efforts which they and their subjects have long put forth.  Perhaps some statistical satirist of the twentieth century will assess the economy of the process which requires nearly twelve millions of soldiers for the maintenance of peace in the most enlightened quarter of the globe.

NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION

In the Echo de Paris of July 3, 1905, the Comte de Nion published documents which further prove the importance of the services rendered by Great Britain to France at the time of the war scare of May 1875.  They confirm the account as given in this chapter, but add a few more details.  See, too, corroborative evidence in the Times for July 4, 1905.