"In matters of mind," as a recent English writer says in the _Saturday Review_, "the national sporting instinct does not exist.

The English public invariably backs the winner." And just as the English public invariably backs the winner, British policy invariably backs the anti-German, or supposedly anti-German side in all world issues.

"What 1912 seems to have effected is a vast aggrandizement of the Slavonic races in their secular struggle against the Teutonic races.

Even a local and temporary triumph of Austria over Servia cannot conceal the fact that henceforth the way south-east to the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea is barred to the Germans."[5] [Footnote 5: Mr.Frederick Harrison in the _English Review_, Jan., 1913.] That is the outstanding fact that British public opinion perceives with growing pleasure from the break up of Turkey.
No matter where the dispute or what the purpose of conflict may be, the supreme issue for England is "Where is Germany ?" Against that side the whole weight of Great Britain will, openly or covertly, be thrown.

German expansion in the Near East has gone by the board, and in its place the development of Greek naval strength in the Mediterranean, to take its stand by the Triple Entente, comes to be jauntily considered, while the solid wedge of a Slav Empire or Federation, commanding in the near future 2,000,000 of armed men is agreeably seen to be driven across South-eastern Europe between Austro-German efforts and the fallow lands of Asia Minor.