THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY By G. Lowes Dickinson 1916 CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION Europe since the Fifteenth Century--Machiavellianism--Empire and the Balance of Power 2. THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE AND THE ENTENTE Belgian Dispatches of 1905-14. 3. GREAT BRITAIN The Policy of Great Britain--Essentially an Overseas Power 4. FRANCE The Policy of France since 1870--Peace and Imperialism--Conflicting Elements 5. RUSSIA The Policy of Russia--Especially towards Austria 6. AUSTRIA-HUNGARY The Policy of Austria-Hungary--Especially towards the Balkans 7. GERMANY The Policy of Germany--From 1866 to the Decade 1890-1900--A Change 8. OPINION IN GERMANY German "Romanticism"--New Ambitions. 9. OPINION ABOUT GERMANY Bourdon--Beyens--Cambon--Summary 10. GERMAN POLICY FROM THE DECADE 1890-1900 Relation to Great Britain--The Navy. 11. VAIN ATTEMPTS AT HARMONY Great Britain's Efforts for Arbitration--Mutual Suspicion 12. EUROPE SINCE THE DECADE 1890-1900 13. GERMANY AND TURKEY The Bagdad Railway 14. AUSTRIA AND THE BALKANS 15. MOROCCO 16. THE LAST YEARS Before the War--The Outbreak of War 17. THE RESPONSIBILITY AND THE MORAL The Pursuit of Power and Wealth 18. THE SETTLEMENT 19. THE CHANGE NEEDED Change of Outlook and Change of System--An International League--International Law and Control THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 1. _Introduction_. In the great and tragic history of Europe there is a turning-point that marks the defeat of the ideal of a world-order and the definite acceptance of international anarchy. That turning-point is the emergence of the sovereign State at the end of the fifteenth century. And it is symbolical of all that was to follow that at that point stands, looking down the vista of the centuries, the brilliant and sinister figure of Machiavelli. From that date onwards international policy has meant Machiavellianism. Sometimes the masters of the craft, like Catherine de Medici or Napoleon, have avowed it; sometimes, like Frederick the Great, they have disclaimed it. But always they have practised it. They could not, indeed, practise anything else. For it is as true of an aggregation of States as of an aggregation of individuals that, whatever moral sentiments may prevail, if there is no common law and no common force the best intentions will be defeated by lack of confidence and security. Mutual fear and mutual suspicion, aggression masquerading as defence and defence masquerading as aggression, will be the protagonists in the bloody drama; and there will be, what Hobbes truly asserted to be the essence of such a situation, a chronic state of war, open or veiled. For peace itself will be a latent war; and the more the States arm to prevent a conflict the more certainly will it be provoked, since to one or another it will always seem a better chance to have it now than to have it on worse conditions later. Some