Note 36 — Chapter III · NATIONALITY, ECONOMICS, AND THE ASSERTION OF RIGHT

Times, March 8, 1915. ‘Our honour and interest must have compelled us to join France and Russia even if Germany had scrupulously respected the rights of her small neighbours and had sought to hack her way through the Eastern fortresses. The German Chancellor has insisted more than once upon this truth. He has fancied apparently that he was making an argumentative point against us by establishing it. That, like so much more, only shows his complete misunderstanding of our attitude and our character.... We reverted to our historical policy of the Balance of Power.’

The Times maintains the same position five years later (July 31st, 1920): ‘It needed more than two years of actual warfare to render the British people wholly conscious that they were fighting not a quixotic fight for Belgium and France, but a desperate battle for their own existence.’