[Footnote 7: Hertslet, _ut sup._, vol. iii, p. 1803. The High Contracting Powers were Great Britain, Austria, France, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Prussia, and Russia.] [Footnote 8: _Dispatch from His Majesty's Ambassador at Berlin respecting the rupture of diplomatic relations with the German Government_ (Cd. 7445), Miscellaneous, no. 8, 1914.] [Footnote 9: _Correspondence respecting the European Crisis_, p. 62, no. 116. July 31, 1914. See also _infra_ pp. 82 _et seqq_.] CHAPTER II THE GROWTH OF ALLIANCES AND THE RACE OF ARMAMENTS SINCE 1871 Even at the risk of being tedious it is essential that we should sketch in outline the events which have produced the present grouping of belligerent states, and the long-drawn-out preparations which have equipped them for conflict on this colossal scale. To understand why Austria-Hungary and Germany have thrown down the glove to France and Russia, why England has intervened not only as the protector of Belgium, but also as the friend of France, we must go back to the situation created by the Franco-German War. Starting from that point, we must notice in order the formation of the Triple Alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, of the Dual Alliance between France and Russia, of the Anglo-French and the Anglo-Russian understandings. The Triple Alliance has been the grand cause of the present situation; not because such a grouping of the Central European Powers was objectionable, but because it has inspired over-confidence in the two leading allies; because they have traded upon the prestige of their league to press their claims East and West with an intolerable disregard for the law of nations. Above all it was the threatening attitude of Germany towards her Western neighbours that drove England forward step by step in a policy of precautions which, she hoped, would avert a European conflagration, and which her rivals have attempted to represent as stages in a Machiavellian design to ruin Germany's well-being. These precautions, so obviously necessary that they were continued and expanded by the most pacific Government which England has seen since Mr. Gladstone's retirement, have taken two forms: that of diplomatic understandings, and that of naval preparations. Whichever form they have taken, they have been adopted in response to definite provocations, and to threats which it was impossible to overlook. They have been strictly and jealously measured by the magnitude of the peril immediately in view. In her diplomacy England has given no blank cheques; in her armaments she has cut down expenditure to the minimum that, with reasonable good fortune, might enable her to defend this country and English sea-borne trade against any probable combination of hostile Powers. Let us consider (1) the development of the diplomatic situation since 1870, (2) the so-called race of armaments since 1886.