England annexed the Boer republics and is playing
with Russia for the Persian States.
France has taken Morocco; Italy, Tripoli; Austria-Hungary has formally
annexed Bosnia.
Even little Servia, who is praised just now as the most just and
God-fearing nation, has succeeded in wresting a large part of Macedonia,
inhabited by Bulgarians, from her Bulgarian allies.
The only conquest we went in for was an exchange of a strip of West
Africa, which we got from France as a kind of hush money, for her
Morocco policy, England, Italy, and Spain having taken their payment in
advance.
We have led no war of aggression for new territories, and we are held up
to moral contempt by all those nations who have taken their shares.
We went to war because we had to keep faith with Austria. We do not and
we did not approve of every step our ally has taken. But our idea of a
faithful alliance is not that you can chuck your partner whenever he has
made a mistake, but that you must stick to him through good and evil.
You may upbraid him privately if you dislike his methods; you may give
him a fair warning, but as long as your bargain exists you must stick to
it.
And our alliance with Austria is not a mere piece of political strategy,
not an unholy alliance like that of republican France with despotic
Russia or Anglo-Saxon England with Mongol Japan.
Our States have a common history.
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