Excerpt from A Short History of Europe: From the Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire to the Outbreak of the German War Actually, from May 10, 1871, when Germany made peace with France, to August 1, 1914, when she declared war upon Russia, her Empire did not break the peace of Europe. But she was the menacing force in five dangerous crises which threatened war in 1875 and 1887, when her recent enemy's quick recovery tempted her to bleed France white in 1905, when the Kaiser swooped down upon Tangier to intimidate France in 1908, when mutual interests placed him in shining armour by Austria's side in challenge of Russia; and in 1911, when Germany's brow-beating politik had its first rebuff at Agadir. For a generation before the German Empire drew sword in 1914, it pursued a calculated system of menace and provocation, shaking its mailed fist in the face of its neighbours, and exhibiting the bullying manners of its Prussian tutor. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.