source of supply to Great Britain, Belgium , andFrance .
In our own case we sent more exports to Germany than to any other country in the world except India,and we bought more from her than from any othercountry in the world except the United States .
There was no European country except those westof Germany which did not do more than a quarter oftheir total trade with her; and in the case of Russia ,Austria-Hungary , and Holland the proportion wasfar greater.
Germany not only furnished these countries withtrade, but, in the case of some of them, supplied agreat part of the capital needed for their own develop-ment. Of Germany 's pre-war foreign investments,amounting in all to about £1250 million, not farshort of £500,000,000 was invested in Russia, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Roumania , and Turkey. And bythe system of "peaceful penetration" she gave thesecountries not only capital, but, what they neededhardly less, organisation. The whole of Europe eastof the Rhine thus fell into the German industrialorbit, and its economic life was adjusted accordingly.
But these internal factors would not have beensufficient to enable the population to support itselfwithout the co-operation of external factors also andof certain general dispositions common to the wholeof Europe . Many of the circumstances alreadytreated were true of Europe as a whole, and were not