Excerpt from the book...The purpose of the pages which follow is, as I have said in thePrefatory Note, to explain the policy pursued toward Germany by GreatBritain through the eight years which immediately preceded the great warof 1914. It was a policy which had two branches, as inseparable as theywere distinct. The preservation of peace, by removing difficulties andgetting rid of misinterpretations, was the object of the first branch.The second branch was concerned with what might happen if we failed inour effort to avert war. Against any outbreak by which such failuremight be followed we had to insure. The form of the insurance had to beone which, in our circumstances, was practicable, and care had to betaken that it was not of a character that would frustrate the mainpurpose by provoking, and possibly accelerating, the very calamityagainst which it was designed to provide.