The "War Cloud."

New York Times 100 years ago today, December 5, 1912:
    The utterances of the German Chancellor and the German Foreign Minister in the Reichstag may fairly be taken as offsetting each other. If there be a difference, the speech of Herr Kiderlen-Waechter is the more significant and the more hopeful. Reduced to the ordinary language of the street, the Chancellor declared that Germany would fight in defense of one of her allies if that ally were attacked by a third power. That can only mean that Germany would stand by Austria-Hungary if attacked by Russia. But the Foreign Minister declared that throughout the Balkan crisis Great Britain and Germany had "worked together in the most loyal and confidential spirit" and with "gratifying intimacy." That can only mean that the German Government does not expect England to back Russia in an attack on Austria, and without such backing there will be no attack.
    This is in some sense a more significant utterance than that of the Chancellor, for it is evidence of a spirit in the relations between Germany and Great Britain, developed in trying and difficult conditions, that may be expected to have a direct influence on the long-standing and threatening misunderstanding between the two countries. Practically the basis of the present "intimacy" between the two Governments is the belief by both of them that the vexed questions of the Near East can best be settled by taking them all up together with a general understanding in view. The matters that have divided the sentiment and opinion of the two great nations for the last dozen years are certainly quite as fitted for this process of adjustment as those arising out of the Balkan war. If that prove to be feasible, the greatest menace to the peace of Europe will have been removed.
    So far as concerns the Balkan situation, in the light of these utterances, it is not worth while to attach too much importance to the difficulties that have arisen between the Allies. Indeed, in the long run these may tend to advance the final settlement, for had the Allies combined on the extreme terms which some of them now present, the intervention of the Powers would have been almost unavoidable.