tary and official castes, and in the enterprising and acquisitive strata of society, in new money, that is, and big business; its chief critics in the educated poor, and its chief opponents in the peasantry and the labour masses. It accepts monarchy where it finds it, but it is not necessarily a monarchist movement. It does, however, need a foreign office of the traditional type for its full development. Its origin, which we have traced very carefully in this book of our history, makes this clear. Modern imperialism is the natural development of the Great Power system which arose, with the foreign office method of policy, out of the Machiavellian monarchies after the break-up of Christendom. It will only come to an end when the intercourse of nations and peoples through embassies and foreign offices is replaced by an assembly of elected representatives in direct touch with their peoples.
French imperialism during the period of the Armed Peace in Europe was naturally of a less confident type than the German. It called itself "nationalism" rather than imperialism, and it set itself, by appeals to patriotic pride, to thwart the efforts of those socialists and rationalists who sought to get into touch with liberal elements in German life. It brooded upon the Revanche, the return match with Prussia. But in spite of that pre-occupation, it set itself to the adventure of annexation and exploitation in the Far East and in Africa, narrowly escaping a war with Britain upon the Fashoda clash (1898), and it never relinquished a dream of acquisitions in Syria.[1] Italy too caught the imperialist fever; the blood letting of Adowa cooled her for a time, and then she resumed in 1911 with a war upon Turkey and the annexation of Tripoli.[2]
- ↑ Wilfred Scawen Blunt regards the English remaining in Egypt, when they had pledged themselves to go, as the greatest cause of the troubles that culminated in 1914. To pacify the French over Egypt, England connived at the French occupation of Morocco, which Germany had looked upon as her share of North Africa. Hence Germany's bristling attitude to France, and the revival in France of the revanche idea, which had died down. See Blunt's My Diaries, vol. i, September 30th, 1891.—A. C. W.
- ↑ It should not be forgotten that Italian action against Turkey was precipitated by the granting of a charter by the Sultan to an Austro-German company or syndicate for the "taking over" of the Tripolitaine: a process which could only have ended by the hoisting of the Imperial German flag on the southern shores of the Mediterranean, opposite Italy. Also, that through Morocco the Germans were attempting to undermine the French position in Algeria and Tunis by supplying the Moroccans with arms and money, and inducing them to attack French rule
