ABSTRACT
In the middle of June 1914, international questions seemed to be developing in a fairly leisurely manner. Some problems which had vexed politicians a few years earlier appeared to have been settled. The great phase of imperial aggrandisement was over. The European states appeared to have accepted each other's spheres of influence, and the colonial peoples themselves had scarcely commenced to stir. The fate of the Ottoman Empire in Europe and Africa seemed decided. The armaments race between Germany and Britain seemed a good deal less intense than it had done a few years earlier.
