Now, it was this condition, essential to the maintenance of
Castlereagh's Balance of Power, which completely broke down during the
course of the nineteenth century. 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.
The multiple Balance of Power was thus changed into a simple balance
between two vast aggregations of force, and nothing remained outside to
hold the balance, except the United States, which had apparently
forsworn by the Monroe Doctrine the function of keeping it even.
And yet men continued to speak of the Balance of Power as though there
had been no change, and as though Castlereagh's ideas were as applicable
to the novel situation as they had been to the old! That illustrates
the tyranny of phrases. Cynics have said that language is used to
conceal our thoughts. It is difficult to resist the conclusion that
phrases are used to save us the trouble of thinking. We are always
giving things labels in order to put them away in their appropriate
pigeon-holes, and then we talk about the labels without thinking about
them, and often forgetting (if we ever knew) the things for which they
stand. So we Pelmanised the Balance of Power, and continued to use the
phrase without in the least troubling to ask what it means. When I asked
at the Foreign Office whether diplomatists meant by the Balance of Power
the sort of simple balance between two great alliances like the Triple
Alliance and the Triple Entente, I was told "yes"; and there was some
surprise--since the tradition of Castlereagh is strong in the
service--when I pointed out that that was an entirely different balance
from that of which Castlereagh had approved as a guarantee of peace. You
remember the Cheshire cat in _Alice in Wonderland_--an excellent
text-book for students of politics--and how the cat gradually faded away
leaving only its grin behind it to perplex and puzzle the observer. So
the body and the substance of Castlereagh's Balance of Power passed
away, and still men talk of the grin and look to the phrase to save them
from war. Whether to call them visionaries or the blind, I do not know.