KoYAL IXSTITITION OF GlIEAT BlUTAIN. 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, January 30, 1914. 



Henry Edward Armstrong, Esq., Ph.D. LL.D. F.R.S., 

 Vice-President, in the Chair. 



H. WiCKHAM Steed, Esq., 



Author of " The Hapsburg Monarchy." 



The Foundations of Diplomacy. 



The title and the genesis of this discourse need some explanation. 

 In the autumn of 1912, soon after the outbreak of the war between 

 the Balkan Allies and Turkey, I received in Vienna a letter from 

 London that started the train of thought which I propose to-night to 

 lay before you. The Servians had decisively defeated the Turks and 

 were advancing through Northern Albania towards the Adriatic. The 

 Austro-Hungarian intimation that their advance should cease at 

 Prizrend had been ignored. The question arose whether Austria- 

 Hungary would use force to prevent the Servians from reaching 

 Durazzo or any other point on the Adriatic, and, if so, what the con- 

 sequences would be. Russia was strengthening her frontier garrisons. 

 Austria-Hungary was secretly mobilizing. Had the Cabinet of 

 Vienna listened to the warlike spirits who couuselled active interven- 

 tion against Servia, an Austro-Russian war would have been inevitable. 

 The dreaded European conflagration might then have been a question 

 of days or weeks. At this juncture an Englishman occupying an 

 influential position and closely in touch with currents of political 

 feehng, wrote to me : "I dread European complications over a sub- 

 ordinate Adriatic question. How are people in England, and still 

 more in the oversea Dominions, to be made to understand that we can 

 possibly have any interest in the destiny of this or that Albanian 

 village of whose very existence most of us were, until yesterday, 

 unaware ? We can only fight for clearly defined British Imperial 

 interests." 



I will only indicate the tenor of my reply. It was to the effect 

 that an Austro-Russian conflict would entail a Russo-German and 

 a Franco-German war, which latter might result, within ten days, in 

 the seizure of the Mouth of the Scheldt and even of Calais by a 

 German army, with a view to their conversion into anti-British 

 naval bases. Would these developments, I asked, affect no clearly 

 defined British Imperial interest ? 



It would be too much to say that every child on the Continent 

 Vol. XXI. (No. 108) b 



