It is unnecessary to remind Professor Usher, or anybody else, for that matter, that Pan-Germanism, if we go so far as to assume that such a thing actually exists, had certainly never been heard of in 1897, at which time Germany had not yet adopted her program for naval construction on a large scale, the same having been bruited for the first time in 1898. If, therefore, it is true that England, France, and the United States harbored the mutual designs imputed to them by Professor Usher, and entered into an alliance to accomplish them, it will scarcely do to attribute the conception of the idea and the stimulus to its consummation to so feeble a pretext as the rise of a Pan-Germanism.[4] Thus the ex-diplomat. This is truly amazing. A definite treaty of partition directed against Spain, Germany, etc., arranged even to minute details, was planned between Gauls and Anglo-Saxons, in a time of the profoundest peace, and concluded without the slightest twinge of conscience, in order to annihilate Germany and Austria and eliminate their competition from the world market! _Seventeen years_ before the beginning of the World War _this_ treaty was made by the united Anglo-Saxons and its goal was systematically envisaged throughout this entire period! Now one can understand the ease with which King Edward VII could pursue his policy of encirclement; for years the principal actors had been united and in readiness. When he christened the compact "Entente Cordiale," its appearance was for the world, especially for Germany, an unpleasant novelty, but in the countries on the other side it was merely the official acknowledgment of facts long known there. In view of this agreement, one can understand also the opposition of England in 1897 to an agreement with Germany regarding coaling stations, and the anger aroused because Germany managed, in agreement with Russia, to gain a firm foothold in China, concerning the exploitation of which land _without_ German participation a tripartite treaty had already been made. Usher talked out of school and conclusively proved _at whose door lies the guilt for the World War_. The treaty directed against Germany--sometimes called the "gentleman's agreement"--of the spring of 1897, is the basis, the point of departure, for this war, which was systematically developed by the Entente countries for seventeen years. When they had succeeded in winning over Russia and Japan likewise for their purposes, they struck the blow, after Serbia had staged the Sarajevo murder and had thus touched the match to the carefully filled powder barrel.