Our immediate and main negotiations are with Italy, not because Italy is the-more dangerous, but because she is both the strategic and political link between this country and Central Europe, where is the chief danger of war. The strategic link, because Italy's role, should war come, would be to embarrass the. exercise of our sea power, to deny military access to South-East Europe, and to face France, if she wishes to intervene, with the disagreeable alternatives of attacking a probably impregnable German frontier or invading Italy.
The political link is that Italy has a common interest with England and France in dissuading Germany from violence in the prosecution of her ambitions. Thus for us the problem of Austria and of the Mediterranean are closely connected. If we can solve the problem of the Mediterranean we have gone some way towards solving the problem of Austria; and if Germany is reasonable and moderate in Austria, she also contributes to peace in the Mediterranean. Italy and Germany seem made to serve each other's moderation, and to disserve ambitions that can only be realised by violence and war.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.