These various considerations help us to understand why, during the twenty-five years which preceded the war, no diplomat of the Allies has been able to grasp the total Pangerman plan in its nature and in its extent, though possibly a few of them may have indicated in their reports now and then some local Pangerman act which aroused suspicion. These considerations explain also, at least in part, the failure of the diplomatic corps of the Entente in the Balkans. * * * * * To sum up, allied official diplomats are not personally inferior to German official diplomats, but the latter have an enormous advantage over their colleagues of the Entente in knowing the general plan of the Berlin policy, in knowing, each in his own post, in what direction to proceed and what must be done or prevented in order to attain the final end. During the last twenty-five years the Kaiser’s foreign policy has been constructive and framed on a definite plan, while the diplomats of the Allies, reflecting the policy of their Governments without concrete plans, have been hampered, because they believed obstinately in Peace, in a vague and stagnant defensive. On the other hand, the allied diplomacy, regarded as an instrument of observation, confined to old-fashioned methods, is like an ordinary magnifying glass which shows nothing but the largest objects. On the contrary, the German foreign policy, thanks to the new, busy and secret organs, by which the German diplomacy has been seconded, may be compared to a workshop provided with powerful microscopes by which facts can be studied not only in their general aspect, but also in their most minute details, details which often are not without their importance. Finally, the allied diplomacy, regarded as an instrument of action, still clinging to antiquated traditional methods, may be compared to an army which possesses only field guns, while the foreign diplomacy of Germany, in its totality, is comparable to an army equipped both with heavy and with field artillery. CHAPTER II. THE CAUSES OF THE WAR. I. Why the Treaty of Bukarest suddenly raised a formidable obstacle to the Pangerman plan. II. How it was that the internal state of Austria-Hungary drove Germany to let loose the dogs of war. III. General view of the causes of the war. Although the Pangerman plan is unquestionably the chief ultimate cause of the war, yet when William II. started it in August, 1914, he did so for nearer and for secondary reasons which we must examine carefully if we wish to have a clear view of events. I. Up to 1911, when Tannenberg published the programme of annexations, all previous great events had favoured William II.’s aims; but from 1912 onward events suddenly raised very serious and quite unexpected obstacles to the execution of the Pangerman plan.