with the Imperial commander, Prince Eugene.  From that time on, each of the principal wars was a European war in which France was fighting both by sea and land, her armies being engaged against continental foes, while Great Britain could devote her energies almost exclusively to her navy.  In the Seven Years’ War it was the Prussian army which won the victories on land, while small British forces were enabled by the help of the navy to win an Empire from France in Canada, and to lay the foundations of the British Empire in India.  In the war of American Independence, Great Britain for once stood alone, but this was the one conflict which contributed little or nothing towards establishing the ascendency of the British navy.  Great Britain failed of her object because that ascendency was incomplete.  Then came the wars of the French Revolution and Empire in which the British navy was the partner of the Austrian, Prussian, Russian, and Spanish armies.

These are the facts which we have to explain.  We have to find out how it was that so many continental nations, whether they liked it or not, found themselves, in fighting their own battles, helping to bring about the British predominance at sea.  It must be remembered that land warfare involves much heavier sacrifices of life than warfare at sea, and that though Great Britain no doubt spent great sums of money not merely in maintaining her navy but also in subsidising her allies, she could well afford to do so because the prosperity of her over-sea trade, due to her naval success, made her the richest country in Europe.  The other nations that were her allies might not unnaturally feel that they had toiled and that Great Britain had gathered the increase.  What is the explanation of a co-operation of which in the long run it might seem that one partner has had the principal benefit?

If two nations carry on a serious war on the same side, it may be assumed that each of them is fighting for some cause which it holds to be vital, and that some sort of common interest binds the allies together.  The most vital interest of any nation is its own independence, and while that is in question it conceives of its struggle as one of self-defence.  The explanation of Great Britain’s having had allies in the past may therefore be that the independence of Great Britain was threatened by the same danger which threatened the independence of other Powers.  This theory is made more probable by the fact that England’s great struggles—­that of Queen Elizabeth against Spain, that of William III. and Marlborough against Louis XIV., and of Pitt against Napoleon—­were, each one of them, against an adversary whose power was so great as to overshadow the Continent and to threaten it with an ascendency which, had it not been checked, might have developed into a universal monarchy.  It seems, therefore, that in the main England, in defending her own interests, was consciously or unconsciously the champion of the independence of nations against the predominance of any one of their number.  The effect of Great Britain’s self-defence was to facilitate the self-defence of other nations, and thus to preserve to Europe its character of a community of independent States as opposed to that which it might have acquired, if there had been no England, of a single Empire, governed from a single capital.