Through most of the nineteenth century the English power in the East was
threatened, not by Germany, but by Russia. It was because of this threat
that England had always protected Turkey. Turkey and Constantinople were
her barrier against Russia. The literature of England in the last days
of the nineteenth century shows clearly her fear of Russian intrigues in
India. Kipling's Indian stories are full of it. But now that fear had
passed. It was no longer the imaginary danger which might come from the
great Slavic Empire, but a trade weapon in the grasp of the most
efficient military power ever developed that was threatening. Against
this threat England had been doing her best. Here and there near the
Persian Gulf she had been extending her influence. Here and there, as
German Consuls obtained concessions, they would find them later
withdrawn, because England had stepped in. Yet just before the war
England, anxious for peace, had come to an agreement with Germany
practically admitting the German plans to be carried out as far as
Bagdad.
It looked as though it were only a question of time, but when the Balkan
wars established Serbia as the greatest of the Balkan powers, and gave
Russia a preponderating influence among the Balkan nations, and when it
began to look as if some great Balkan state might be established which
should be friendly to Russia and consequently a hindrance to the German
scheme, then it was that it was necessary that war should come.
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