ABSTRACT
In 1895, the year of Churchill’s coming-of-age, of his entry into the 4th Hussars, of his father’s death—and Mrs Everest’s—and his own first sortie into a wider world of people and politics, the seeds of disaster had taken powerful root. In Russia a feeble but well-intentioned Tsar sat on the throne of Peter and Catherine, cushioned by a medieval aristocracy and protected by a savage secret police against the stirrings of an archaic serfdom. All the great epochs of history enriched and enlarged the human scene, and added new flourishes and new horizons. New concepts of morality and justice had followed in the wake of war and conquest. The balances of power in Europe, once skilfully adjusted by Bismarck, would have lost their validity even had he survived at the head of German foreign affairs. In spite of her aching wounds, France joined with Germany in colonial co-operation in Africa directed against Britain.
