The Unending Task—Ruthless War—The Victorian Age—National Pride—National Accountability—The Franco-German Feud—Bismarck’s Apprehension—His Precautions and Alliances—The Bismarckian Period and System—The Young Emperor and Caprivi—The Franco-Russian Alliance, 1892—The Balance of Power—Anglo-German Ties—Anglo-German Estrangement—Germany and the South African War—The Beginnings of the German Navy—The Birth of a Challenge—The Anglo-Japanese Alliance—The Russo-Japanese War—Consequences—The Anglo-French Agreement of 1904—Lord Rosebery’s Comment—The Triple Entente—Degeneration in Turkey and Austria—The Long Descent—The Sinister Hypothesis. It was the custom in the palmy days of Queen Victoria for statesmen to expatiate upon the glories of the British Empire, and to rejoice in that protecting Providence which had preserved us through so many dangers and brought us at length into a secure and prosperous age. Little did they know that the worst perils had still to be encountered and that the greatest triumphs were yet to be won. Children were taught of the Great War against Napoleon as the culminating effort in the history of the British peoples, and they looked on Waterloo and Trafalgar as the supreme achievements of British arms by land and sea. These prodigious victories, eclipsing all that had gone before, seemed the fit and predestined ending to the long drama of our island race, which had advanced over a thousand years from small and weak beginnings to a foremost position in the world. Three separate times in three different centuries had the British people rescued Europe from a military domination. Thrice had the Low Countries been assailed; by Spain, by the French Monarchy, by the French Empire. Thrice had British war and policy, often maintained single-handed, overthrown the aggressor. Always at the outset the strength of the enemy had seemed overwhelming, always the struggle had been prolonged through many years and across awful hazards, always the victory had at last been won: and the last of all the victories had been the greatest of all, gained after the most ruinous struggle and over the most formidable foe. Surely that was the end of the tale as it was so often the end of the book. History showed the rise, culmination, splendour, transition and decline of States and Empires. It seemed inconceivable that the same series of tremendous events through which since the days of Queen Elizabeth we had three times made our way successfully, should be repeated a fourth time and on an immeasurably larger scale. Yet that is what has happened, and what we have lived to see. * * * * *