So far as the outbreak of the war in 1914 is concerned, France stands with a clear conscience. She had nothing to do with the disputes between Austria and Serbia, or between Austria, Germany, and Russia. Once war proved inevitable France faithfully accepted the responsibilities of the Russian alliance. Against France, Germany was an open aggressor. Germany's strategic plans for the quick annihilation of France, before attacking Russia, are well known to the world. Everybody is aware how scrupulously France avoided every hostile measure, and, during the critical days preceding the war, withdrew all troops ten kilometres from the frontier to prevent a clash. The Germans were obliged, in order to justify their advance, to invent preposterous tales of bombs dropped by aeroplanes near Nuremberg or of the violation of Belgium neutrality by French officers in automobiles. France had no idea of invading Belgium. All the French strategic plans aimed at the protection of the direct frontier, and they were dislocated by the dishonest move of Germany through Belgium. In 1914 France was not even prepared for war. The pacification of Morocco immobilized thousands of her troops. Revelations in Parliament as late as July 13 showed, as mentioned above, great deficiencies in equipment. Public attention was taken up by the Caillaux trial and by political strife apparently reaching the proportions of national weakness. Since Agadir it is true that France, conscious of the constantly provocative attitude of Germany, had seen the folly of plans for disarmament. Love for the army had grown again, through realization of its necessity. But no nation ever looked forward with more horror and dread to military conflict than the French. They had been the last victims of a great European war, of which the memories were still alive. However much the loss of Alsace-Lorraine rankled in their hearts, they knew too well the madness of war to seek it again. A new generation had grown up reconciled to fate and willing to let bygones be bygones. But Germany would not. The new Empire, a _Bourgeois gentilhomme_ among nations, but without even the breeding of the _parvenu_, dreamed of world-supremacy. As the boor in society makes himself conspicuous, so it was one of the tenets of Pan-Germanism to let no international agreement take place without German interference.