DEFEATED ENTENTE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 272, 7 April 1911, Page 7

DEFEATED ENTENTE.

FRENCH ALARM. GERMANY AS THE RULER OF EL'ROPE. London, February 1. European politics are passing through a period of crisis which may be followed by incalculable changes in the international situation. It is due to the tremendous energy which is being directed to impartial affairs by Germany and Austria, and to the equally apparent indifference to activity which is being manifested by Great Britain, France and Russia. France is awakening to the seriousness of the case, and the Foreign Minister, M. Pichon, i.s to be asked if Franco-Russia military co-operation is »t an end. POLICY OF DRIFT. Paris, February 1. A question is to be put in the French Chamber which may possibly bring about the downfall of M. Pichon, the Foreign Minister. It is stated, What is France doing —and incidentally Great tsntain and Russia —to maintain the balance of power to Europe and to thwart the dominating activities of Germany and her ally Austria. The general conclusion is that nothing is being done, and that the triple entente is drifting rapidly towards an early extinction. ■ ■ ■ ' M. Dciahaye, deputy for the Maine-et-Loire Department, has given notice of the question in the French Chamber, and the effect of it is to ask whether the FiancoRussian alliance is at in end. Th:> personality of M. Delahaye is unimportant, but his question may prove to be the signal for a hitherto unexpected attack on M. Pichon. For some time past there has been widespread discontent in French political circles with M. Pichon's work at the Quai d'Orsay. This discontent was voiced pretty clearly in a leader in last night's Temps on the foreign policy of France. M. Briand, who is himself a very energetic man, has reproached the Foreign Minister on more than one occasion lately for his policy of inaction at the Quai | d'Orsay. The sentence quoted from the | Tempts last night: ''There are two kinds' / of .status quo of inaction," was used with some heat by M. Briand to M. Pichon: on a recent occasion, and not only M. Briand, but general opinion here is growing averse to the torpor which is paralysing France's foreign policy. GERMAN POWER. Berlin, February 1. Germany, by virtue of her magnificent army and mighty growing navy, and by the persistence of a sordid policy having ■a great Imperial aim, has become the predominant Power in Europe, Berlin has become the hub of the universe, and the Kaiser the greatest potentate on earth. That i.s the sentiment and opinion held by Germans in well-informed circles ' here. The advance to this proud position is quite recent. It lias been taking plaet during the last three or four years while Great Britain's Radical Government has been preaching disarmament and neglect- | ing the British Navy. Germany has attained this supremacy by creating efficient armaments. Her army is organised with the view of fighting, if necessary, any other two military Powers simultaneously. And thus Germany's military 'strength has made her indispensable as an ally to Austria-Hun-gary. The combined strength of Germany and Austria-Hungary, as revealed in relation to Bosnia and' Herzegovina, has made them both indispensable to Italy. Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy can mobilise an aggregate df 8,000,000 troops, and the weight of this colossal force causes Germnay's powe» to go on expanding all the time. Russia is Germany's latest moral conquest. The diplomatic steps which led to the Czar's recent visit to Potsdam provide an astonishing proof of Germany's ( preponderating influence over Russia. When the Czar went to South Germany to visit his brother-in-law, the Grand Duke of Hesse, near Darmstadt, lie expressed a vague desire to meet the Kaiser while on German soil. The Czar expected the Kaiser would visit him at Darmstadt, but a plain intimation was conveyed to him that the Kaiser could not visit him there, because etiquette required that the Czar should visit the Kaiser at Potsdam. The Czar then proposed to call at Potsdam to see the Kaiser on his way back to St. Petersburg. This proposition, also, was inacceptable to Germany, and the demand was put forward from Darmstadt to Potsdam, and then return from Potsdam to Darmstadt before proceeding to St. Petersburg. The Czar complied, and actually made this enormous detour instead of proceeding direct from Potsdam to St. Petersburg? One glance at the map shows that this way was almost a humiliating surrender of dignity. And it has been followed bv the RussoCerman agreement -whereby the Triple Entente of Britain, France and Russia has been effectually destroyed. Now Germany, for all practical purposes, leads a combination including Russia, AustriaHungary and Italy, to which Roumania and other weaker Powers are naturally attached, because it is to their interest to be in league with the strongest. Russia lias deserted Britain and France to swell the forces contributing to Germany's hegemony. This complete change in the European situation is .due largely to the perdominaiico of revolutionary Radicalism in England and France which, combined with the comparative neglect of armaments, has lessened their values as allies compared with Germany, which is persistently building up a greater army and navy. J _ The Czar and his advisers are watching the Lloyd-George regime and the ' many weaknesses of England's ruling party, with their dangerous symptoms ol revolutional socialism. Patriotic Germans- now predict with confidence the destruction of the Anglo-French entente as the logical sequence of events.