It is further suggested that the very nature of the operation of the Balance of Power policy sets up in practice a conflict of obligation: if our power is pledged to the support of one particular group, like the Franco-Russian group of 1914, it cannot also be pledged to the support, honestly and impartially, of a general principle of European law. We were drawn into the War, Mr Lloyd George tells us, to vindicate the integrity of Belgium. Very good. We know what happened in the negotiations. Germany wanted very much to know what would induce us to keep out of the War. Would we keep out of the War if Germany refrained from crossing the Belgian frontier? Such an assurance, giving Germany the strongest material reasons for not invading Belgium, converting a military reason (the only reason, we are told, that Germany would listen to) for that offence into an immensely powerful military reason against it, could not be given. In order to be able to maintain the Balance of Power against Germany we must 'keep our hands free.' It is not a question here of Germany's trustworthiness, but of using her sense of self-interest to secure our object of the protection of Belgium. The party in the German councils opposed to the invasion would say: 'If you invade Belgium you will have to meet the hostility of Great Britain. If you don't, you will escape that hostility.' To which the general staff was able to reply: 'Britain's Balance of Power policy means that you will have to meet the enmity of Britain in any case. In terms of expediency, it does not matter whether you go through Belgium or not.' The fact that the principle of the 'Balance' compelled us to support France, whether Germany respected the Treaty of 1839 or not, deprived our power of any value as a restraint upon German military designs against Belgium. There was, in fact, a conflict of obligations: the obligations to the Balance of Power rendered that to the support of the Treaty of no avail in terms of protection. If the object of force is to compel observance of law on the part of those who will not observe it otherwise, that object is defeated by the entanglements of the Balance of Power.