in the murder as no free nation could accept, and when Serbia had gone to the utmost limit of concession, and even Austria hesitated, Germany hastened to fasten her quarrel on Russia, the ultimate reserve of all Slavdom. Had Russia submitted, as in 1908, she would have gone into the question of the renewal of the Tariff Treaty with Germany in 1916 with no option but a surrender into economic slavery. All this is a familiar story, but it is necessary to keep it clearly in mind, if we are to appreciate the fact that the key to the resettlement is in the East, though the decisive fighting has been in the West.
How came it that Germany made the double mistake of invading France and of invading her through Belgium? Germany knew the weakness of Russia; there was no illusion of the 'steam roller' for her. Her choice of the more difficult offensive must have been on the assumption that the British democracy probably, and the American democracy certainly, were, from her point of view, asleep. She meant the German superman to rule the world, and she thought she saw a short cut to her end, in the place of the longer path through the Heartland, the command of which would fall to her inevitably, could she but deprive the Islanders
