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powers" was not directly affected by Balkan affairs.From 1912 France admitted that the casus foederis mustarise not merely in case of attack on the actual territoryof Russia, but also on those of her interests which sheconsidered vital; and there was now no doubt that sheso considered Serbia and the Straits.In fact, the situation had radically changed since thedays of Bismarck and the early years of the Franco-Russian alliance. Since Germany had committed herselfso deeply to Austria-Hungary, France could only dolikewise to Russia. She could not afford to stand asideand see Russia defeated by the superior combination ofthe central powers. In that case she would stand alopeexposed to Germany. Since the Balkans, not Franco-German or Anglo-German relations, were the immediateorigin of war, Russia in the last resort was the decidingpartner in the alliance. The issue in July 1914, extremelycomplicated in detail, was not in doubt once Russiadecided that her vital interests compelled her to fight.So must France.Great Britain followed suit, and once again as a hundredyears before, and now to-day, was joined with Russia incomradeship of arms to save themselves and the worldfrom dictation.In the intervening century England and Russia hadstood for different systems in the world and the interestsof the two empires had clashed in Asia and the Levant.Yet they had actually fought each other only once in thewhole course of their history, in the Crimean War.In the fifty years between then and 1907 the hostilityof the two countries was founded on the same basis asthat during the preceding half-century; but rivalry inthe Far East was added, and the Russian conquest ofCentral Asia brought ' the threat to India' into far greaterand more continuous prominence than previously.While during the first half of the nineteenth centurythe British had extended their dominion in India to theHimalayas and the Indus and beyond, the Russianshad been pegged down by the task of subjugating theCaucasian mountaineers (see pp. 293-294), the equivalentfor Russia of the Pathans and the North-West Frontier.434