Whether this is a complete account of the motives of the German Government in introducing the law of 1913 cannot be definitely established. But the motives suggested are adequate by themselves to account for the facts. On the other hand, a part of the cost of the new law was to be defrayed by a tax on capital. And those who believe that by this year Germany was definitely waiting an occasion to make war have a right to dwell upon that fact. I find, myself, nothing conclusive in these speculations. But what is certain, and to my mind much more important, is the fact that military preparations evoke counter-preparations, until at last the strain becomes unbearable. By 1913 it was already terrific. The Germans knew well that by January 1917 the French and Russian preparations would have reached their culminating point. But those preparations were themselves almost unendurable to the French. I may recall here the passage already cited from a dispatch of Baron Guillaume, Belgian Ambassador at Paris, written in June 1914 (p. 34). He suspected, as we saw, that the hand of Russia had imposed the three years' service upon France. What Baron Guillaume thought plausible must not the Germans have thought plausible? Must it not have confirmed their belief in the "inevitability" of a war--that belief which, by itself, has been enough to produce war after war, and, in particular, the war of 1870? Must there not have been strengthened in their minds that particular current among the many that were making for war? And must not similar suspicions have been active, with similar results, on the side of France and Russia? The armaments engender fear, the fear in turn engenders armaments, and in that vicious circle turns the policy of Europe, till this or that Power precipitates the conflict, much as a man hanging in terror over the edge of a cliff ends by losing his nerve and throwing himself over. That is the real lesson of the rivalry in armaments. That is certain. The rest remains conjecture. [Footnote 1: "L'Allemagne avant la guerre," p. 75, and British White Paper, No. 160.] [Footnote 2: The account that follows is taken from the "Autobiography" of Andrew D. White, the chairman of the American delegation. See vol. ii., chap. xiv. and following.] [Footnote 3: Mr. Arthur Lee, late Civil Lord of the Admiralty, at Eastleigh:-- "If war should unhappily break out under existing conditions the British Navy would get its blow in first, before the other nation had time even to read in the papers that war had been declared" (_The Times_, February 4, 1905). "The British fleet is now prepared strategically for every possible emergency, for we must assume that all foreign naval Powers are possible enemies" (_The Times_, February 7, 1905).] [Footnote 4: Sir Edwin Pears, "Forty Years in Constantinople," p.330.] 12. _Europe since the Decade 1890-1900_.