Because of her fear of Germany France made
her alliance with Russian Czardom, her entente cordiale with Imperial
England, and the French people poured their money into Russian loans
as a life insurance against the German menace. French statesmen knew
that their diplomacy was supported by the majority of the people by
their ignorance as well as by their knowledge.
So it was in Germany. The spell-words of the German war lords
expressed the popular sentiment of the German people, which was
largely influenced by the fear of Russia in alliance with France, by
fear and envy of the British Empire and England's sea-power, and by
the faith that Germany must break through that hostile combination at
all costs in order to fulfil the high destiny which was marked out for
her, as she thought, by the genius and industry of her people. The
greed of the "bloated aristocrats" was only on a bigger scale than the
greed of the small shopkeepers. The desire to capture new markets
belonged not only to statesmen, but to commercial travelers.
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