Like most of the vital processes in
history, the change was gradual and unobtrusive, and its significance
escaped the notice of politicians, journalists, and even historians. Men
went on repeating Castlereagh's phrases about the Balance of Power
without perceiving that the circumstances, which alone had given it
reality, had entirely altered. The individual independence and automatic
action of the Great Powers in checking the growing ambitions and
strength of particular States were impaired, if not destroyed, by
separate Alliances, which formed units into groups for the purposes of
war and foreign policy, and broke up the unity of the European system,
just as a similar tendency threatens to break up the League of Nations.
There was a good deal of shifting about in temporary alliances which
there is no need to recount; but the ultimate upshot was the severance
of Europe into the two great groups with which we are all familiar, the
Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria, and Italy on one side, and the
Triple Entente between Russia, France, and Great Britain on the other.
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