The Washington times., 1911-12-31
THE GREAT EURASIAN DlPLO-
MACY GAME.

1t is quite impossible to take seri-
ously the recent Oriental dispatches
forecasting that Mongolia and Eastern
Turkestan are to be pried away from
the Chinese empire and to become de.
tendencies of Russia, without protest
from any European power.
Yet, it would have been utterly i'm.
possible a year ago to believe that
Britain would permit, even encourage,
the recent Russian advances in Persia.
In both cases there seems but one ex.
PLANTATION, and that is that British di.
plomacy Is so obsessed with the Ger.
man nightmare, that it is willing to
concede anything whatever to any
body else, in order to avoid offense to
any possible ally of the Kaiser.
Britain's distraction over the Ger
man terror was put to good account by
the French in the Moroccan crisis. Eng
land, we now know, was ready to re-
peat her performance of the Napo-
leonic era; to put an army of 10000
on the Franco German frontier in CO.
operation with the French forces, and
to Use her whole naval power to drive
Germany from the sea. That demon
stration of purpose was enough to awe
Germany into retreat from Agadir.
But France, not England, got the real
benefits. ..-
Russia seized the moment of Brit
ish prcoccupation to advance her lines
in Persia. Rather than give the Rear
an excuse for making common cause
with Germany, Ensland's foreign Office
mas permitted the Russian program to
be pushed right ahead. Encouraged by
this evidence OF Eritish determination
to mass all weight against Germany
and Germany alone, the Russians have
bethought themselves of the possibility
of rehabilitating their fortunes and
prestige in eastern Asia rs well; of
grabbing something from China, now
that China is in the throes of reor-
ganization. Probably, it is not quite
true that Russia is prepared to take
over Mongolia and Turkestan; un-
doubtedly, Russia has for a long time
been fostering movements and condi-
tions in those great provinces which
have in view a more definite Russian
assumption whenever conditions make
it safe.
Thus British diplomacy, by getting
itself engrossed with the ghost dance
of the North sea, has at last come to
the unusual role of pullin others chest
nuts out of the fire. She saves France,
and then she opens the way for Rus
sia to profit in Persia and the farther
East.
The whole procedure of the British
foreign Office, reviewed in the light OF
British and imperial necessities, justi-
fies the conclusion that Downing street
has definitely made up its mind that
England has one huge task ahead. II
must get a quarrel with Germany, and
put an end to German naval expansion
1t must let nothing else interfere with
that pu-pose. Little affairs in Persia
and interior Asia can be taken up and
Strengthened out later; but the big
task of the moment is to end the Ger.
man naval menace, to drive expanding
German commerce off the seas, to re-
store England's pre-eminence in both
naval and commercial marine.
That is the conclusion forced by
fair consideration of Sir Edward
Gray's foreign policy ofathe last year
1t is not pleasant to believe that such
deliberate purpose of forcing wal
cap be entertained by a great nation
but is there other explanation of Brit
ish procedures