ANGLO-GERMAN RIVALRY BEFORE THE WORLD WAR.

This article focuses on the Anglo-German rivalry. The main factor in the international situation during the first decade of the twentieth century was Anglo-German rivalry. On the part of England it was a search for security, and this meant, as it had meant since the days of Cardinal Woolsey, a control of the balance of power described by Bishop Stubbs as the principle which gives unity to the political plot of modern European history. Naturally this growing controversy affected nearly every country on the face of the globe. It acted as a powerful ligature between England on the one side and the enemies of Germany on the other. It enabled certain Great Powers to exploit the situation to their own advantage. Furthermore, one of the oldest principles of French foreign policy was to prevent a unified state from growing up in Central Europe. The Franco-Prussian War was therefore an inevitable step in the unification of Germany. Prussia had done what Austria had failed to do, but French foreign policy was too deeply rooted to change with the achievement.