[1] British public opinion in regard to that war was divided roughly according to party lines, the Conservatives favouring France on sentimental grounds, the Liberals favouring Germany as a highly-educated, peace-loving people who had been wantonly attacked.
In the foregoing pages an attempt has been made to consider the series of events which immediately preceded the recent outbreak of war. But the most complete account of moves and counter-moves, and of all the pretexts, arguments, demands, and appeals which were put forward by the various governments concerned, with the object of forcing on, justifying, circumscribing, or preventing the present struggle, can never give us the true explanation of why it occurred. For this we must look much further back than Midsummer last, and at other things besides the correspondence between Foreign Ministers and Ambassadors.
Nobody in his senses believes that Europe is at present in a convulsion because the heir-presumptive to the throne of Austria was murdered at Serajevo on the 28th of June. This event was tragic and deplorable, but it was merely a spark--one of that cloud of sparks which is always issuing from the chimney-stack of the European furnace. This one by ill-luck happened to fall upon a heap of combustibles, and set it in a blaze.
Great events, as the Greeks discovered several thousand years ago, do not spring from small causes, { 70} though more often than not they have some trivial beginning. How came it that so much inflammable material was lying ready to catch fire?
To answer this question truthfully we need more knowledge of men and things than is given in those books, of varying hue, which the Chancelleries of Europe have published to explain their causes of action. The official sources provide much valuable information; but they will never explain to us why public opinion in Germany, ever since the beginning of the present century, has been inflamed with hatred against this country. Nor will they ever give us any clear idea as to what extent, and where, the practical aims and policies of that nation and our own were in conflict.
According to the state papers, it would appear that Russia was drawn into this war because of Servia, and France because of Russia, and Belgium because of France, and we ourselves because of Belgium; but it may well be doubted if even the first of this row of ninepins would have been allowed to fall, had it not been for the feelings which the German people and their rulers entertained towards Britain.